Im Back!
That was a wild trip. So much happened and it was an incredibly inspiring thing to do. I have lots of ideas now that i’m back and i’m excited to keep moving forward with them through this project and many to come after. Just the act of displacing oneself can be such a mind altering experience and has brought me so many ideas. This project that I have been working on has also been doing a number on my brain and has shown me a whole new way of looking at things. Like the sketching exercises, following a shot list as I walked through the city helped me look much more closely at everything around me. Finding and framing content was a big part of this new kind of sightseeing experience and in doing so I feel that I really strengthened my ability to understand and capture my personal way of seeing the world. By pointing my camera at the parts of the world that capture my attention I can share (to some extent) my perspective. By structuring that information into a semi chance based story structure with intentional and consistent variable adjustments I am able to animate those bits of the world that caught my attention into a sort of story of feelings and implications where the viewer is taken from realm to realm, descending down a mountain from an unstable summit to a tranquil base. It is a simple concept and a simple video that doesn’t ask for much other than a set of open eyes and ears from the audience.
I’m going to finish out the shot list in olympia. This includes going back and filling any missed shots from along the way as well as filling in a large section of lost shots (there were about 120 shots that got lost while transferring files). Im not too worried about it at this point and I think that this will turn out to be an interesting project. I think it will work to have shots of olympia appearing seldomly dispersed among shots of barcelona early in the video, followed by a section of shots from olympia, returning to shots of barcelona, then again to shots of olympia for the end. The shots that were lost were of the alleyways. The doors, the shops, the graffiti, people, tourists. Its kind of a shame to lose all of that but that’s the way it goes when you’re working with bad computers. I’m editing what I have so far now so that I can see how it looks and figure out what I need to go back to shoot. There were about 150 shots that went into the first three minutes. The pace of the film slows in the later section though and 150 shots will be more like ten minutes.
I have started working with a singer to get one of the parts done and there are a few others that I am in communication with (fingers crossed). Some people are also interested in making a version of the song that could be performed live (something I am very interested in) but for now I’m mostly interested in getting a recording. I’m beginning work on rewriting the music so that it will be easier to read and a few mistakes will be corrected. This is the first time that I have tried writing music and though the organization came pretty quickly to me, I’m tripping up on some of the finer details. Luckily I have some good people around me showing me the right way to do things and helping me get this done. If you look at my last post you will see that the way that I wrote the music, though legible, is weird and doesn’t conform with alot of the basic rules, When some people look at it they immediately say “oh you did ____ wrong”. Basically I’m trying to polish it up.
As for now I’m focusing my attention on pulling something together for final presentations. I have video clips to show and will have audio recordings as well. Aside from the project that I have been posting about I have done some other things this quarter too. I made a birthday gift for my little sister in the form of a song a video that I am thinking about presenting. I also had so many great experiences and learned about so much while I was in Barcelona so I’m sure that I will be able to fill a lot of my time talking about that too. I’m really excited to see everyone’s projects and hear about everyones experiences!