ideas worth spreading

You know when you finally catch onto something and then you hear people refer to it several times that same week? I found Ted. Finally.

These are a few of my favourite's so far:

Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Al Gore: New thinking on the climate

And a couple more thanks to Kelvin:

Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo

James Nachtwey: TED Prize wish: Share a vital story with the world

like a rolling stone

Michel Gondry you're my hero.

I saw his clip for The Stones' Like a Rolling Stone again yesterday. It's not my favourite clip but one that's always intrigued me. When I started getting into film and editing a couple of years ago I was under the impression that it was created using two techniques:

- 'Bullet Time' from The Matrix; a series of still frames taken simulaneously, then played in sequence with a slower (generally) frame rate for film.
- Again, only still frames, morphed together.

When I watched it again yesterday, I realised I was only scraping the surface:

- The shots of the Stones, while confusingly constructed, appeared to have been manipulated frame by frame in Photoshop, using the smudge tool (I can't remember the name but the one where you can 'move' pixels as if stretching and pulling the image).

Anyway, I just found the answers to all of my questions :) http://www.director-file.com/gondry/promos.html

It's not just the incredible effects Gondry employs, its how perfect they are to communicate the story, an innovative, and genius. I actually feel disgusting, like I'm 'on the boat', when Patricia Arquette is walking home and the background can't quite keep up with her. I just really love Michel Gondry.

Watch it or buy it.

the screen/escape/gaze reversal idea

Something that's been lingering in my mind for a while now is the idea of shooting the viewer... reversing the roles. I shot this maybe a week ago in the very early hours of the morning and had given up on trying to sleep and decided to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It didn't really help in making me feel any saner. But I like the image. I think it was about a 10 second exposure and I haven't really edited it in post yet but its just a sample. I like the composition of the shit all over the room (for the image, not reality). I was expecting the light to be bluer. I tried a similar approach another time, I had two subjects on the couch and looking into the camera. I shone an ancient slide projector onto them and the background, as if the images from the TV were absorbing them, but the effect didn't work out as I'd hoped. I then just threw a primarily blue image into the projector and moved it back so it was less intense, and tried again. I need a better lighting arrangement for it to be effective. I really wanted a full-frontal approach, as if I was taking the photograph from inside the television and they were looking at me... but the image above has questioned my desire for that. I'll do some more experimenting and see what works. I like the idea of seeing a bit more of the surrounding environment. I just realised this is a bit similar to what Joanne's doing. She said she's doing portraits of her family, firstly her dad, surrounded in his escape; books. I guess it depends what theme I go with.

Another idea I had a while back took advantage of the animation software iStopMotion. The first trial (in this context), involved me using the inbuilt webcam in a MacBook. I think I had it set to take an exposure once every four seconds, possibly with a frame rate of 12 per second.... cant remember, and not motivated to do the math. Its a bit more lifelike at half-speed. The results were actually more interesting than I thought. It was just of me killing time on the net... I had it on mute and running in the background; I really did forget it was happening. It continued until the hard drive was full.

After that I had my friend watch the final two episodes of Buffy on the laptop and did it again. It was really great, and funny. I'll post it when I can find it. Maybe. I don't think i have the Quicktime file any more. Maybe when my sister comes down from WA in May I'll try it on her. She's extremely expressive. You can't take her to the movies, it's embarrassing. But I love it.

The software (if I can get the full license) will allow me to print a flipbook, which would be interesting. I'd like to give that a try.

So this is just intended as an intro to this idea... hopefully you will see further developments and discussion soon.

*Edited a week or so later to add (thanks, HandBrake):