My visual assignment for Design Studio was based around the process of layering images and film over my previous soundscape assignment. The soundscape was designed as an auditory representation of an auto-mechanics which was refurbished as a trendy, hipster bar. When it came to creating a visual layer to accompany my soundscape, I decided to focus more on imagery that could evoke emotion, than merely what represented individual sounds featured in the audio. My video sources came from film which I had captured myself on a Canon IXUS 750 digital camera, as well as material from the ABC Pool website, licensed in the public domain. The production for the film was done in Final Cut Pro. The video was digitally posted in several relevant groups and areas around the internet, and some subtle forms of promotion were made, mainly through the medium of Facebook.
My main source of creative inspiration for the filming and production of my visualscape came from a video titled “Flightpath Tegel” which was an audio/visual collaboration between musician and graphic designer, Dennis Leigh (better known to the public as John Foxx), and film director Ian Emes. The visuals of the piece depict driving through a cold, dystopian Birmingham, set to a soundtrack composed by Leigh. The soundtrack consists of driving, staccato rhythms layered with vintage analogue electronic synthesizers. The driving sensation offered by the rhythms is well depicted in the visuals which accompany it to create a strong sense of motion. Despite the fact that my audio track is not musical in nature, I wanted to maintain the strength of this relationship between the audio and the visuals. This piece was itself inspired from the writings of British science fiction author, J.G. Ballard, and the cold imagery he depicted of tomorrow’s world. My main production reference from “Flightpath Tegel” was the act of drive by shooting. A great proportion of my visualscape involves footage which I filmed out the passenger side window of my parent’s automobile. I also felt that this footage was artistically relevant due to the subject matter of my soundscape. “Flightpath Tegel” also utilizes a lot of production effects in order to warp and distort the visuals on the screen to create a kaleidoscopic effect and add a greater sense of inter-dimensional travel. Whilst I did not specifically use kaleidoscopic effects, I did bear Emes’ prolific use of effects in mind when applying my own visual manipulations to the footage. Dennis Leigh and Ian Emes also utilise their cultural backgrounds (in this case, Britain) in the filming of the video. I also wanted to apply this cultural reference; however in my case I wanted to visuals to appear subtly Australian. My aim was to make the culture recognizable, but not stereotypical, as Emes has done. For this, the drive by footage was filmed of Beach Road, which is an unobvious representation of Victoria, but would easily be recognized by its inhabitants.
For my video, I wanted to keep the number of filmed footage sources to a minimum. I did this to force myself to keep the visuals slow moving and minimalistic, to keep the attention of the viewer on the background audio track, with the film acting only as an accompaniment. The final product uses only four pieces of footage, two of which I sourced from the ABC Pool website. The footage comes from a video entitled “Re-Picture Australia”, by Pool user, Rossco. I was attracted to his footage by two things; the fact that a large sum of the subject matter involved broken down cars from the 1950’s, along with the fact that his video was licensed in the public domain, which would allow me to use and manipulate his footage without prior permission or restrictions. The beautiful imagery which was provided in the film was also appropriate in that it represented an Australia which was now lost in time. It was through these images, and the notion provided by lost places, that I hoped to explore where these lost places had ended up. Whether that they still existed in some physical location, or simply as memories. The “Re-Picture Australia” project was designed to take old Australian photography, and manipulate them through modern production techniques into a re-imagined works of art. The idea of taking something old and turning it into something new held a great appeal to me and heavily aided my creative process in making my video. Because of this, I can say that not only did I use these images to fill criterion in my assignment, but they also held a strong meaning to the creation of the final product.
At some points in my film, I also made use of simply having a blank screen. I did this because I believe that in some cases, absence can provide a stronger impact on the viewer than anything else. The moment I chose to do this was 48 seconds into the piece. At this point, the audio track reaches a dynamic peak before plunging into silence. For the viewer this can create a sense that the film is over, but then I slowly faded the film back in to act as an epilogue before fading back out and giving the viewer a final sensation of satisfaction.
In order to create an online presence for my video on the web, I took several different avenues of viral promotion. The simplest forms of promotion I undertook involved posting the video to be shared in relevant groups on both the Vimeo and ABC Pool websites. This would allow my video to be easily shared and available to users of these sites who may have had the same creative interests that I was depicting in the video. The Vimeo groups which I added my video to were called “Car Vids”, “Drive by Shooting” and “Final Cut Pro”. “Car Vids” was simply a group for people to upload car related material for sharing. This was the broadest group which I joined, and felt it was relevant in that my video paid homage to an auto-repair workshop. “Drive by Shooting” was more a filming specific group, and required the footage to be filmed from inside the car. Fortunately a great deal of my assignment features footage filmed in this way, and it made my video highly appropriate in the group context. The last group, “Final Cut Pro” simply accepted videos which were produced in Apple’s Final Cut Pro software, which mine was. The ABC Pool groups consisted of more subject specific groups than the Vimeo ones. They are “Australian Visual Arts”, “Lost Places” and “RMIT_Music_Industry_DesignStudio2010”. I felt that “Australian Visual Arts” was a very appropriate group because of the patriotic, Australiana appeal that I had injected into my assignment. “Lost Places” was fitting, in that it was one of the original guidelines upon which I had to create my pieces. By adding my video to this group I could place it in an easily accessible to place for other people undertaking the project. The final group, “RMIT_Music_Industry_DesignStudio2010” was chosen so that other people in the course could easily access my video, allowing them to compare and contrast it to their own. The act of adding these videos to appropriate groups allows a greater chance for the creative users of these internet sites to access my video, and perhaps draw inspiration into their own work.
As well as adding my video to the subject specific groups mentioned, I also branched into social networking to promote my video. In order to do this, I created a cryptic event page on the popular social networking site Facebook in an attempt to lure curious website members into visiting my blog page and Vimeo upload. I made the event page public, making it viewable to any Facebook user and creating the largest opportunity freely available to people accessing the page. The page prompts the viewer with an inviting title, and a mysterious rhyme in the description, followed by two links to my Vimeo and Word Press page respectively. The only clue I offered as to the motive behind the event page lies in the accompanying image, which is the RMIT logo. This allows viewers to make the relationship between the page’s existence and university course work. Initially, I only invited Facebook members who are enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts Music Industry at RMIT, however because I had made the page publically available, a Canadian friend of mine was made aware of it. She kindly aided in expanding my target market by inviting a large number of her Canadian friends to the event, thus granting me promotion of my video in countries outside of Australia and allowing for a broader reach. Whilst branching into social networking sites, I also made use of the micro-blogging site Twitter to promote my video. I initially tweeted a link to my Vimeo web page, but soon realized that this would only be available to my eleven followers. I then added some hash tags to my tweets which were listed as being popular at the time. Although they weren’t appropriate to the video content, there were no restrictions to me doing this. The hash tags were #bestpickuplines and #yycvotes, which was in regards to an election in Calgary, Canada. Using these hash tags in my posts would give access to other people tweeting with these particular tags easier access to my links, irrespective of whether they were searching for it or not. I attempted to widen my reach my requesting Stephen Fry to retweet my video link. I chose Stephen Fry because he is one of the most followed tweeters in the world. However, at the time of writing this, he has not retweeted my link. Nevertheless I do not feel that my failed attempt at this exposure was in vain though, as it put me at no financial or emotional loss.
I feel very pleased with the creative outcome of this assessment. I have managed to fulfil all of the personal criteria that I set for myself before I started making the film. I initially thought that it was an impossible task for me to set appropriate visuals to a track which I had made to purely exhibit sound, however by the end I had proved myself wrong. The success I had in finding suitable supplementary material on the ABC Pool website allowed me easier access to crafting the project into a more personal work. Through this assignment I have also been made aware of the power which can be derived from the use of creative and social networking sites to their full potential. I believe that the visual elements which I have put together for this assignment act as a respectable addition to the original soundscape, and will sustain the memory of the Lost Place that it originally represented.
Bibliographical:
Netzley, P 2000, Encyclopaedia of Movie Special Effects, The Oryx Express, Phoenix, Arizona
Beaver, F 2009, Dictionary of Film Terms – the Aesthetic Companion to Film Art, 4th edn, Peter Long Publishing, New York
Dearling, R, Dearling, C & Rust, B 1984, The Guinness Book of Recorded Sound, 1st edn, Guinness Superlatives Ltd, Middlesex
Daley, K 1980, Basic Film Technique, Thomson Litho Ltd, East Kilbride, Scotland
Brenneis, L 2002, Final Cut Pro 3 for Macintosh, Peachpit Press, Berkley, California
Moore, C 2004, ‘A Picture is Worth 1000 CDs: Can the Music Industry Survive as a Stand-alone Business?’, American Music, Spring 2004
Knowles, J 2007, A Survey of Web 2.0 Music Trend and Some Implications for Tertiary Music Communities, J. Knowles for NACTMUS, Brisbane
Pool, 2010, Re-Picture Australia, ABC, viewed 4 October 2010 <http://www.pool.org.au/video/rossco/re_picture_australia>
YouTube, 2007, Flightpath Tegel, JohnFoxxMetamatic, viewed 10 October 2010 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_nx__3d0-A>
YouTube, 1971, French Windows, Ian Emes, viewed 12 October 2010 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_an94CevKTY>
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