The Lux Quartet

What started as a simple one-film project has turned into something more. I’ve found sometimes that light is something stationary and utilitarian. With this quartet, I gave it the leading role.

 

 

This was intended to be one-and-done. It was simply keying out the night sky and compiling the footage into one piece while putting it to music. After featuring it in some school exhibitions as well as here, I felt like there was more that could be done.

 

 

While the light in Pacem in Lucem was originally stationary in real life (streetlamps on an Ohio road), I wanted something more spontaneous. By using fireworks, I found that the light had no set direction other than “up”. Even then, some go in different directions, uncertain of where to go.

 

 

Here, I find that when you slow things down, the medium becomes more meditative. The music in question is nothing more than a string sample and a keyboard sample slowed down several times. The lights like to dance to the music. Instead of the usual techno-heavy spectacle from the original footage, I give them time to shine before their big finale.

 

 

I figured that the best way to finish the series would be to combine efforts. I found that Norman McClaren did the same thing and made a third film out of Horizontal and Vertical. Unfortunately, the file size was far too large for me to upload so the overall piece is shorter than the original form by a minute. If I do get the resources to do so, then it’ll happen.

The color is removed from the light so as to keep it pure. At the same time, I did not want music for this piece. I took a cue from Stan Brakhage and omitted sound entirely. I realize that when I submit this particular film that I need to add a note requesting that there should be no music when it is screened.

Presently, I’m prepping for senior project as well as some other small experiments with fractal noise, color correction, and lighting. I would like to some of these screened at other festivals, in part or as a whole. This means I have to look outside northeastern Indiana.

Visio in Utero (Visions in the Womb)

Ultrasounds help to some extent to let us see what’s inside the womb. Frankly, I can’t tell what I’m looking at in the original form though I suppose I don’t have any recollection from my days in utero.

Originally, this was supposed to be one minute long but due to size of the original file (2.2 GB), I had to trim it down to this as well as some major compression. It was essentially the same thing as this but each clip was time-stretched to fit one minute. The original video will be shown at school when the time comes and maybe on Vimeo if I upgrade.

Save Face

Just a little something I made over the weekend as part of our school’s 24 Hour Art Fest. I was given the theme of “man vs. society” and went from there.

I typed the story/script in less than an hour after receiving the theme. It was roughly a 3-4 hour shoot. Afterwards, I slept some and woke up at 6. From then until noon was straight editing. It’s by no means a perfect film but rather something I could crank out in less than a day.

Now, there are some subtleties in the editing and composition that will be missed in the first viewing. Watch it first, just to see it. Then I would look at the design of the masks, the contour of the table, the costumes, as well as specific phrases said in correspondence to the figure on screen.

Even though the idea of “man vs. society” can be experienced by everyone at some point in their lives, I made this partially autobiographical, especially now that I’m in college and exploring my identity as a person on the autistic spectrum. I am fully aware that once I am done with school that I will need to follow specific behaviors. However, there are some things I do that deviate from the “norm”. It is those characteristics that will make me stand out and draw unwanted attention to myself. It’s one of the reasons why I consciously chose the word “function” to be part of the dialogue of both characters. Bear in mind that I don’t see the world like this ALL the time. This is only a representation that comes in my mind every now and then.

I might explore this idea further, depending on schoolwork and all that.

A Bad Case of Labin Fever

There was a bad snowstorm last night and I had to stay over in the animation lab. It’s not the first time it’s happened nor will it be the last. I’ve spent as many as two or three nights without going far from the lab. It can drive someone crazy.

It’s an unscripted look into what I call and others reference as “labin fever.” At this point, there may be some more storms; in that case, more entries. There’s no real narrative other than glimpses of one snowy night in the lab.

Pacem in Lucem (Peace in Light)

I made the music myself by slowing down music samples in Soundtrack Pro and repeated them until I felt satisfied. The lights are somewhere in Ohio. I filmed them in the backseat on the way home from a family trip. I keyed out the black and superimposed them as well as mirrored them.

I plan on doing a second one with a similar theme. I’ll need to shoot some more lights as I’ve exhausted my footage. Road trip!