Another Look - Archive.org remix


Abstract:
New film available.

Body:
My final project for Lost & Found Film (also known as "orphaned films") is called "Another Look." I've finally gotten around to putting it on the Internet, so you can watch it here.

All of the content was taken from films freely available on Internet Archive. I then gave it back.

Here's some commentary on the film that you don't have to read:
The audio for the first part (everything before the bottles) was created by cutting together six different songs from the various films.

The mouth in the upper right corner is a loop and superimposed over the background with an oval mask. The film in the lower right is sped up, and the black background of the set is keyed out. The films on the right are sped up as well (one at 1,000% and one at 2,000) and were chosen simply because they look cool sped up (lots of landscapes and motion).

The segment with the kids and the fence plays with motion and composition. The fact that both clips contain children wasn't intentional, but it works with the music.

The slowmo and freeze frames of the following three characters are an inside joke. They appear in "A Date With Your Family," which became a favorite of the film class. I wanted to bring them back for one last cameo. The same is true with the clip of the bike riders. It's hard to tell in this shot, but everyone in my class knew that it was people wearing monkey masks — one of the oddest sights we came across during the semester. I just had to give it "another look."

The stuttering of the audio and video at the end of the song is intentional, and I used it both as a way to transition to the next piece and also to represent the idea that this is the last time these images are being seen, as the film deteriorates and the projector has trouble with it.

The idea of deterioration continues into the next segment, as the sound is created by looping and manipulating a small segment of audio from "The ABC of Walking Wisely" in which the audio becomes distorted and makes a weird buzz. The visual of the bottles is another loop that I created, and starts off with a strobe effect before its speed is changed to match the layering of the buzz sound, which is also played at different speeds. The blip that you hear at about one second intervals is actually part of the loop and not created intentionally. I decided not to cut it out, and used each blip to show one frame that I found interesting. For some of the shots, I cropped them into a different composition than the original shot.

The image of the car rising up through the smoke is from an amazing film from GM called "A Touch of Magic." The synthesizer sound is from a military film about relocating to Germany. I manipulated and layered it quite a bit. Once the image becomes blurred, the rest of the segment entertains the idea of abstract art and tries to illustrate the fact that the content or meaning of the film isn't always important, and it can be just as satisfying to simply enjoy the way an image looks. The actual images are distorted and composited animations from the various films.

The final shot of the girl in the water is another inside joke. My professor is convinced that it is a very sad image, and I think he likes it because it's sad. I tried in one of my films to put it in a happy context, but failed. I figured I'd let him have one more look. The audio is static from one of the films. I looped it at various speeds and layered it. The brightness increases and the contrast decreases as the static becomes more intense. Again, this is about deterioration. That's all, folks.

Despite how complex this sounds, the final timeline was actually pretty simple, although some of the items are nested. Take a look.

Posted: Monday - May 23, 2005 at 02:07 PM          

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