I started off with a bunch of ideas, and the ideas still keep coming as time goes by. At first I wanted to do something really big, and I was thinking of big scale art work--ofcourse only with numbers. Similar to what Neil from Art Attack does. Then ofcourse, being one women team I had to simplify my ideas. Here is a list of what I've come up with so far that could be doable.
1- Taking photos of a residential building over sunset and sunrise. Would have to film this a few times, maybe over a 4 day period. Much would have to do with the lighting. People coming home, turning their lights on + off. In the end, I'd photoshop the numbers within the building windows, as if it were naturally sequenced to show up as a number 3. 2- Paint rusting and pealing off naturally to form numbers. Could be done with paint, hair dryer, water and wood. 3- Human figures forming into numbers 4- Silhouette of hands forming into shapes and then numbers 5- Growing mold and fungus. I was very serious with this idea and began to research on how to go fungus. But one problem: you need time and patience because you can't control mold. When it appears, it appears, and usually in small quantities. 6- Growing lentils. This is a work in progess. I have my lentils planted and watered and I'm just waiting for stems to grow. I started Sunday and its been around three days. The lentils have become fat causing their outter skin rip apart..maybe thats where their stem will branch out from. 7 - I just thought of something today and it has to do with stitching numbers. Im thinking of videoing myself stitching numbers in a gradient manner. I think it'd be so neat!!
Once I see a little stem growing ill add more lentils around the numbers so they are not so obvious.
Note: the video posted above is the final version of the project. this critique occurred with a previous version (rough cut).
We like the gentle approach Justin took to this project in comparison to the first exercise he produced entitled "Death From Above". We have a strong appreciation for both, but the contrast was apparent immediately. We felt a calmness while watching this video based solely on the visuals. As it stands in his rough cut, Justin has yet to add audio, but we would hope that the audio adds to this feeling. By capturing it in still frames, and using the tiny toy robots, he succeeded in developing a quirkiness that speaks louder than an overall message. In short, character is the dominant element of this piece.
That is not to say that a message cannot be speculated. If we were to guess, we would assume that the idea behind this video is something concerned with love or life. There is nothing literally human within this piece, but the way Justin approached the subject matter (the tiny robots), he lent to them a sort of 'human quality'. They appeared friendly, warm, and happy beings in the natural environment. By use of interesting camera angles, Justin sparked a sense of curiosity from both the perspective of the viewer and the robots. The was a strong sense of exploration, being that it took place outdoors and there were many close-ups involved.
Concept development: Seemed to be well thought-out and constructed in terms of narrative, timing and framing. There appears to be no climax to the piece as of yet, but perhaps this is not part of the story structure. We would recommend perhaps trying to develop one.
Creativity: Use of the toy robots was interesting to establish a subject and narrative. There was a great amount of experimentation involved in terms of camera angles and focus.
Technical and Aesthetic Quality: The still images used in this video beautifully shot in terms of composition, focus, contrast, and colour. There is evidence of a high level of aesthetic understanding and technical skill.
We meet today and discussed over briefly what we intend on doing for our project. Its actually quite challenging since our sound is a blend of environmental and mechanical (unnatural) sounds put together. We are planning to portray everything by using abstract images, nothing to literal and obvious, butttt....at the same time we dont want to create something so abstract that has no connection to our whole theme. I dont know. I just hope at the end of the day people will be able to distinguish what we were going for. That's our whole goal right! I think that's one issue that allot of the groups will have to overcome, make sure their video relates back to the theme. Oh, we're also using illustrations, not too much... well maybe, we're still working on it!!!
