Thoughts on the Blue Murder Rushes

For exercise # 2, we were asked to divide into groups of three and were given sixteen minutes of rough footage from the television show Blue Murder.  The show is a police drama, which from the rushes, looked like it had poor acting. Don't get me wrong, the show seemed interesting and I'm not bashing it - most police dramas all look the same anyways.

Our task was to cut out and edit the rushes into a one minute video clip.  After going through the sixteen minutes of footage, we decided we would aim for a movie trailer titled "Robotic Cop 2". We wanted to try to create something with a bit of humour in it since the scenes we were given were fairly serious - including gun fights, cops, etc. 

Since we were not allowed to use any pre-existing synched audio from the rough footage, Dorothy, Dan and myself decided on using audio effects from my sound effects library.  We found it difficult to decide on which effects to use at which time, and it was quite difficult matching up sounds to suit the video.  We also included a "movie trailer voice", and several voiceovers of the police officer, which were recorded using GarageBand, exported as MP3s, and finally imported. 

After cropping out the time-code from all the clips we were going to use, we pieced them together using Final Cut Express.  This also proved to be a difficult task as decisions needed to be made as to how we were going to transition between the clips.  We decided on using cut-aways which proved to be successful. 

The one-minute movie trailer had to accompanied by two other criteria. The first was to address one item from Robert Bresson's "Notes on Sound" article, and also had to meet two other categories.  Bresson states in his article that "image and sound must not support each other, but must work each in turn through a sort of relay".  His statement relates to our group's movie trailer as sound is helping the viewer identify with what is happening on screen. There are many scenes were the police officer is out of frame - so the audience depends on the sound to know what is going on.  We also have several sounds of guns being fired which aren't visible to the audience, but hearing sound makes the audience know that a gun is being fired. 

Finally, our movie trailer reveals a character, and demonstrates a point of view.  Sargent Patterson is essentially a cop that cannot be killed - and this is revealed near the end of the trailer when he is shot, but says "I'm fine its only a flesh wound".  The title of the movie also gives this away, as "Robotic Cop 2" hints at the cop being some sort of robot and un-human. The one-minute trailer also demonstrates a point of view.  The trailer is partly shown through the eyes of Sargent Patterson, making the audience see what he sees, thus demonstrating the officer's point of view. 

The finished video can be found here: http://www.vimeo.com/2982289

Response to Stephen Arthur's "Tran Scan"

The first thing that came to my mind as I watched this was "what an extremely unique video". Tran Scan is a five thousand photograph journey across Canada following the Trans-Canada Highway. The video makes use of a relatively new technique of telescopic, traveling time-lapse photography.  This allows the audience to travel 5,700 kilometers in approximately eight minutes. 

The production quality that went behind the making of Tran Scan is astonishing.  No motion picture or video camera was used at any time, yet the video seems extremely smooth to the eye. According to Create Space, the frame-by-frame video piece took eighteen months and $100,000 to create.  Another interesting note is that the sound used in the piece was composed from scratch with sound effects that were created by movement. 

It is easy for me to say that the $100,000 was worth it. Tran Scan is not only impressive and eye catching, it also has an educational element. For people like myself who have never driven across the country before, this video teaches the viewer a lot about Canada.  I didn't really know what the Prairies or the Maritimes exactly looked like before watching the video. 

My only dislikes of Tran Scan aren't even really dislikes at all. After focusing on the video for a few minutes I began to feel very nauseated and dizzy, making me look away from the screen for a few seconds and miss parts of the video.  I realize that this is probably unavoidable, or might have even been Arthur's intentions.  Secondly, it would be been beneficial for the viewer to know the location they are in as they are watching the video.  Since road signs fly by you at an unreadable pace, you have no idea of what you are looking at.  This was occasionally counterbalanced by being able to identify landmarks or the city skyline, but even this was extremely difficult at times.

Traveling across Canada in eight minutes is pretty cool. You have to admit it. 

A preview of Tran Scan can be found here: http://www.transcanfilm.com/TranScanAlberta.mov

Response to Stan Brakhage's "Mothlight"

Stan Brakhage was an American experimental filmmaker who passed away in 2003. He is considered among many to be an important person in the world of experimental and "non-narrative" film. 

We watched one of his short films titled "Mothlight", a short, three minute piece from 1963. As much as it did appear to be a bunch of nonsense, it was actually quite fascinating. It did help that we watched it as it was meant to be watched - on a 16mm projector. Not that Brakhage intended for the piece to be viewed only on 16mm, but the projector did add an effect to the overall viewing experience. 

To begin, the 1963 film is silent. Hearing the film move through the projectors different components added this nostalgic feel, sound and look to the overall picture. If this would of been viewed on DVD or on an online video sharing service like YouTube, this nostalgic feel probably wouldn't have been noticeable, or even present.

According to Prof. Duran, Mothlight was created by placing objects, such as moth's wings, blades of grass, and other small items onto perforated tape that was obviously cut to the same width as 16mm film. This means that dust particles and other small objects would make their way onto the tape and eventually onto the film. This causes the film to appear rather grainy at times - but I'm not sure if that was because of the projector or wear and tear on the old film. Yet I'm fairly certain that the dust particles were intended by Brakhage. 

At first look you may think the filmmaker was on some sort of hallucinating drug at the time, as the film has that "acid trip" look to it. On top of that, the image begins to be hard to look at as the objects are flying by at a fast rate, making it feel as if you might go blind. 

Yet it is important to note that I did enjoy the film. Yes, it is experimental and rather odd, but the film's image is very unique and original and conveys what I believe to be Brakhage's personal expression of his feelings and emotions. 

The film can be found on YouTube here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaGh0D2NXCA

Camera Use 101

Yesterday's lecture consisted of a trouble-shooting exercise involving three Sony Cameras: the PD170,  the PDX10, and the HDR HC7. Unfortunetely, I ended up being stuck with the HDR HC7, which is a consumer-grade camera but has the ability to shoot in High-Definition (HD) formats. Although the other cameras cannot shoot in HD, they are professional-grade cameras and are known as workhorses in the film and video industry. 

We were asked to explore the camera given to us. Among other things, we needed to find the camera's manual and automatic focus settings, white balance settings, exposure settings, auto exposure (AE) settings, as well as digital effects. 

Each group was given a camera function which needed to be demonstrated by shooting some footage.  Our group was given the Digital Effects function. Essentially, this function adds an artistic or technical effect to recording or previously recorded footage.  Among the D. Effects (Digital Effects) were:

• Cinema Effect: We could not figure out exactly what this function did. We did however realize that it was only available during recording and not during playback.
• Still: This effect allowed degrees of transparency to be applied to a still image which would later be superimposed under a movie clip. This may become useful later on.
• Flash: This effect allowed the time between frame-by-frame recording or playback to be increased or decreased. In other words, this option controls the frame rate. 
• Trail: According to the manual, this digital effect allowed for the fade time of the image to be changed. Essentially, this allowed for the footage to look like the "Blair Witch Project", which could be useful for conveying fear. 
• Slow Shutter: This slowed down the shutter speed into speeds of either 1/30, 1/5, 1/8, or 1/4. 
• Old Movie: The old movie feature allows for the footage to be taped in a sepia tone. This allows the footage to appear "older", but we could not find any practical use for this except for turning the footage into another colour. 

The camera also allowed for Picture Effects, or P. Effects to be applied to the footage as well. These effects included:

• Skintone: This makes skin textures look smoother and according to the manual, more "appealing" 
• Neg. Art (Negative Art): This allows for the colour and brightness to be reversed. What looks black looks white, and vice versa. 
• B & W (Black and White): This picture effect changed the colour image to a black and white image. 
• Solarize: This effect places high contrast on the image.
• Pastel: This was probably my favorite thing the camera could do. This allowed the footage to appear as a pastel drawing. The finished product looked like an animation...very cool.
• Mosaic: This picture effect turned the image into a mosaic pattern. It didn't seem that useful. 

Overall, I enjoyed this in class exercise. I would of preferred to work with the PD170 or the PDX10 but I know there will be plenty of chances to do so in the near future. For what its worth, the Sony HDR HC7 is a great camera. Its small, compact, and allows to High Definition shooting. Although it doesn't have as much manual buttons or functions as the other two cameras, it is great for light camera work or a smaller project.