Week 8 Review

This week has been a lot of work, typography really made me think outside the box. I could have gone with my first instinct which was to paint the fonts onto someone's body and do a nude shoot, but then I started thinking about what the word FRAGILE actually meant (it was my favourite) and how it related to the world around me. I thought about what things in my world were fragile and fleeting, the words and the way they sounded reminded me onomatopoeically of the way ice looks and feels when it melts, and how it almost seems sad, the way it slips away. I wanted to portray that but also give a sense of mystery so I reversed it.

I didn't realise at first what I'd got myself into, trying to do a good time-lapse shoot. I had to set myself up a background on my desk with paper, sort of like an infinity curve, and put the mirror onto it so the ice could reflect (just a bit more interesting). Then I had to set up my lighting which took an hour at least, doing about 200 test shots with ice cubes until I got it right. In the end I used two desk lamps, one lighting it from the front-left with a greaseproof-paper diffuser to, well, diffuse the harsh bulb-light; the other lit the cubes from the back-right, I used a paper snoot to direct the light through the cubes to make them stand out. I then set up my tripod, and connected the camera (Canon 550D with polarising filter to reduce glare from the mirror) to my laptop and set it to photograph every 5 seconds. The test shoot I used a remote shutter but it produced way too many photos (I was shooting in RAW so iMovie and Quicktime couldn't handle it!). I then did the same for the titles.

Basically, I didn't realise how much work it would be. It still isn't really perfect, for some reason I forgot to set the white-balance off auto so it changes every other shot! It's very annoying that the exposure isn't the same throughout, but that's something I'll know for next time. I really loved the precision involved in making the movie and will definitely go out and do more time-lapse photography, it's good to try something new I guess!

Fashion-wise, I've always loved making clothes, and have been since a young age, though I've never really designed clothes myself before, or worked on a mannequin, so that was completely new. I can't imagine myself ever really wanting to go into fashion as a career, but I'll always love making clothes from patterns etc. and will definitely keep it as a hobby.

I discovered that film director Michel Gondry's preferred medium is time-lapse, I'm going to dig some more to find other great time-lapse artists.

I also must buy a Neutral Density Filter and one of these little beauties...