I’d recommend watching this on Vimeo seeing as they don’t allow HD embedding on their basic plan.
But whatever, maybe you’re really into pixellated video.
So here’s some of the footage I captured during my first (more official) shoot for my research project. The edit is somewhat irrelevant and I mainly just wanted to upload my favourite shots – the music is just to keep things interesting. I was really happy with the footage I was able to collect during this shoot, and many of the shots have given me some great ideas regarding how I could use them to construct something more meaningful and interesting.
In one of my test shoots, I collected various shots which experimented with ‘bokeh’ effects – that is, the glowing discs of light that appear when light sources are filmed deliberately out of focus. These initial shots were ok, but I felt that something was missing and that the compositions were lacking visual interest, this led me to realise that these effects don’t look as dynamic when they are simply put against a black background. This lead me to further experiment with bokeh in my recent shoot, and I looked for ways to create more unique shots.
I found that by shooting the light sources behind things like bushes and chain-link fences I was able to create more interesting bokeh effects – with the discs of light creating small silhouettes of whatever was directly in-front of them. A few of these shots can be seen in the video above and I think that this provides a solution to boring bokeh shots. I’d like to make use of these kind of shots in a short video and I have a few ideas that I’d like to try out soon (more on that in another post).
During my test shoots it became clear to me that when trying to film at night, street lights are basically your best friend. With the right lens, I’ve found myself being able to film (relatively) noise-free footage most of the time, simply by maximising my use of the available light emitted from street lights. From using street lights to just light certain shots I began to experiment shooting the lights themselves, and I’ve got to say – I really like how some of these shots turned out. Two of my favourite shots from my recent shoot are: the low-angle shot of the orange street lights and the shot of a single car driving from frame-left to frame-right. I think for my next shoot I’d like to focus on finding interesting ways to film these street lights AND for ways to integrate these shots into some sort of ‘end’ product.