Monthly Archives: April 2016

Paul’s absence meant Robin came in to give us a rundown of lighting, lighting equipment, and its effectiveness. It became apparent that regardless of having access to preofessional equipment, lighting is evident in all pieces of film. And it requires attention and understanding in order to film something that looks nice. It’s all well and good to be able to comment on how something looks but Robin’s technical proficiency with filmmaking suggests you need to be able to reason with why it looks good. This class gave me a nice technical introductory lesson into the art of lighting and how to comment on it.

Manipulation is the main word that comes to mind when I think of lighting. Rather than there being a definitive right or wrong way to light, different methods produce various results for a filmmaker.

What we focused most of our time on was the difference between hard and soft light. To steal directly from Wikipedia:

• Soft light refers to light that tends to “wrap” around objects, casting diffuse shadows with soft edges.
• Hard light sources cast shadows whose appearance of the shadow depends on the lighting instrument. For example, fresnel lights can be focused such that their shadows can be “cut” with crisp shadows.

I do understand the general gist of these definitions, but getting my head fully around the art of lighting has been difficult, particularly when at first it seemed so simple. I think it is one of those things that will take a lot of time, effort and practice to achieve technically precise results. On the other hand though I know I can put it to use in my research and exploration. The imperfections that lighting can provide will aid and add to my experiments with abstract footage, colour, rhythm and sound.

– Gabe

Braille from Gabriel Strachan on Vimeo.

I whipped up the above video as some sort of starting point for my exploration/experimentation process. To put it together I first filmed a group of flashing lights in the distance. I liked how the colours merged together to form a flashing/blurred circle – this felt appropriate as a single cell in the Braille code. After duplicating, rescaling and transforming, I ended up with the six single cells allowing me to construct the alphabet. Unfortunately, the cells are too far apart, but the idea is pretty straightforward – besides the fact that blind people can’t actually see… I suppose what I’m going for is the idea that people who are visually impaired and not necessarily blind have this blurred perception of the world, and having an understanding of Braille helps them to navigate through it. Even for me (I am short sighted), things around me often look blurred without my glasses, particularly lights in the distance.

I want to keep building on this exploration by adding words relating to sight, vision, eyes, etc… For the 26 letters of the alphabet there will be a word beginning with each letter and a snippet of video relating to that word. This could be difficult finding shots to distinguish between similar words, but the challenge will inevitably be of good learning value.

– Gabe

I’ve been watching a lot of videos by Jane Eastlight recently. She works closely with musicians, often directing a few videos for them. I can see myself moving into that direction. As mentioned in a previous post, I want to work with the Potatoheadz guys, which will hopefully allow me to continue making. Having been exposed to their prolific musical production, I want to apply that same constant approach to the videos I create.

Eastlight’s videos are a combination of found footage and experimental design. Most of her videos interact less with the music than Oskar Fischinger’s An Optical Poem (see earlier post), but it’s easy to immerse yourself into her work. Here are a select few:

patten – Drift from Warp Records on Vimeo.

– Gabe

Since the beginning of the semester, I have been intrigued by the process of creating visuals to complement audio and vice versa. How one goes about deciding on what to present visually to do the audio justice is my general concept of exploration.

Over the last few weeks, I have been building up a bank of random shots, some static and some containing movement, most of which lie within the experimental realm. I have not been filming with the intention of creating a narrative, rather I have been capturing things that I find aesthetically pleasing.  I will continue to do this to add to my selection focusing on the elements of light, colour, rhythm and movement.

I was filming one night on a bridge over the Eastern Freeway and captured the lights from passing cars. Intentionally it was out of focus to create a bokeh effect. The result of this was a stream of colourful circles moving across the image against a black background. It was reminiscent of a video made by Oskar Fischinger – an attempt at reconstructing audio as visuals.

This idea of reconstructing audio as visuals has grasped my attention and I want to thoroughly investigate how visuals are influenced by audio, primarily in abstract music videos for electronic music. I believe that electronic music provides a grounded platform for experimentation; the director has the ability to take control and not be overly influenced by any lyrical content.

So without being too specific, I plan on using this aforementioned footage and edit it to a few snippets of music, resulting in a few separate artefacts/experiments/experimentation, with the ultimate goal of creating music video. I want to place emphasis on the word edit because I intend to get deep into the editing capabilities of Premiere pro and After Effects to see what I can come up with. 

I had originally planned to use just my own music, but I now want to work in conjunction with a group of friends who run a music label called Potatoheadz as well. This should give me a nice comparison between something created entirely by myself and something influenced by someone else’s music. 

For one of these experiments, I want to take the process used by Fischinger and explore the concept of recreating sight for people who are vision impaired. I have this idea to incorporate the use of braille and audio samples of the alphabet to construct a video relating to sight.

Another experiment I am considering is making a video relating to convolution reverb – a process in music that alters the spacial properties of a sample. My housemate (a member of Potatoheadz) introduced me to this and I want to take one of his exercises and add visuals to the audio component.

This is a basic outline if where I am at with my thought process at the moment. There’s definitely room for these ideas to develop and probably even regress so that I can establish a clearer outcome. But at the moment I feel comfortable enough in my processes and although my research continues to pull me in different directions I am confident in my ability to explore and come up with methods of creating.

– Gabe

After punching in a couple of key words, I came across this video that mildly relates to the concept I want to work with.

Obviously I don’t have access to this technology, but I am amazed by the way it works, reconstructing mental images into graphic visuals. It is something to think about…

– Gabe

Coming from a musical background, I have had my head firmly entrenched in the world of sound for quite some time. To be perfectly honest though, when it comes to writing and recording, I pay very little attention to the quality of the sound. For me, it really is as simple as plugging in a couple of 1/4 inch cables and making sure the sound doesn’t creep too high into the red zone on the interface. And for the most part, this works. I have an m-audio fast track c600 which clearly identifies anything that is peaking.

But recording sound with the intention of synching it up to video appears to be much more of a challenge. There’s boom-poles and cables and mixers and in’s and out’s and buttons, and on top of that, the camera needs to be operated as well. I understand how the principles of recording music and recording sound for film is the same, but it is the added equipment and tools that amounts to a daunting task. Like all things to do with filmmaking though, practice will be what helps to make recording audio a simpler task.

Two points that I took out of the class were to do with the use of the clapperboard and recording wild lines. I’m not sure how the use of the clapperboard has gone over my head for so many years, but it makes perfect sense to me now. Besides the obvious visual reference of scene and shot numbers, the peak that a clapperboard produces in an audio waveform can easily matched to the peak captured on the cameras ‘shitty audio recording system’. This makes it a hell of a lot easier for editors. And, recording the audio of the whole scene with the lens cap on frees up the filmmakers options when it comes to editing a scene in post production.

– Gabe

Yesterday in class we had a go at replicating a Mad Men scene. I think the intention was to film and then edit, hence the use of three cameras, but what felt most important to me was getting to know camera angles. I didn’t realise how much a small change in direction impacted the picture and scene.

The monitors that we had access to really helped emphasise this point and gave me a better understanding of how to frame and shoot a scene with multiple cameras. For over the shoulder shots of two people in conversation, matching or accentuating height is all about positioning the camera to form a clear pathway for eyesight. If the angles don’t meet along the path then the shots can easily turn sour because of the confusing and unmatched visuals.

Shooting with a single camera makes the task even more difficult, but the experience using a multi-camera setup is a good point of reference. Being on a budget and a low income, it is worthwhile to consider how a scene would look if I had access to multiple cameras and external monitors.

– Gabe

My work is slowly gravitating towards an investigation of the relationship between the following elements: 

• Lights and lighting
• Music
• Movement
• Genre

At the moment, it is a bit experimental and mumbo jumbo though because I keep getting pulled in different directions to try new things. This can only be good experience though right?

I have been obsessed with cars travelling along the Eastern Freeway as documented in a previous blog post. I did another shoot there a couple of nights ago and fiddled around with the shutter speed which brought about some cool results – that I will post soon.The joltiness of the lights had a particular rhythm that would be nice to add music to. This time I used a tripod and I think I prefer the steadiness of it to the shake that comes with using a handheld camera.

– Gabe

My approach leading up to the week 7 assessment has been different to past assignments. At the moment I am exploring as many different avenues as possible in the hope that my ideas will gradually evolve, become more refined and concise. 

I feel like I am using my time well by continually filming different ideas on various devices. It’s been helpful having access to these four cameras capable of capturing video: 

• Sony Alpha a65
• Sony PMW-EX3
• Sony PXW-X200
• Panasonic NV-DS65

I discussed in a previous blog post the use of handheld camera techniques and the reason for their use. My DSLR (the alpha a65) does a pretty good job of capturing video. At times the movement looks a bit dodgy, but when it is still, it IS beautiful. The portability of it and the fact that it doubles as a quality camera means I am using it often. This is the slight downfall of the cameras at uni – they are bulky and difficult to transport. That being said, the videos they produce, particularly during hand-held recording are better than mine. The control of focus and lighting makes for really nice footage, but I do like the instant nature of my DSLR. 

I inherited the panasonic camcorder from my girlfriends dad. It’s just a bit of fun at the moment – something different to filming in HD. I haven’t been able to edit any of this footage yet as I don’t have the cable, but it will be interesting to see how it looks. 

I’ve been using the cameras more often than not without a tripod, purely due to conveniences sake. It’s difficult to lug around the camera and the tripod by yourself… Probably need to hire the equipment and work with a group. 

– Gabe

I’ve been back at uni for one month now and have certainly noticed a shift in the way that I approach Premiere Pro. Before the semester began, my projects were extremely messy and difficult to navigate through. Having organised folders has made it easier to create, and less laborious. The time that I once spent locating files is now spent solely on making… The more I use the program, the more I pick up on little hints, tips and shortcuts. I don’t expect to learn them all at once, but a gradual approach is starting to pay dividends.

Being in a designated studio suite has reduced the amount of distractions that surround me. Living with 7 other people, there is a constant buzz of noise, but the option to come in to uni to work has been helpful. I don’t know why I only found out about the suites this year.

– Gabe