Hashtag, latest obsession.

No, that’s a lie. Sort of. I’ve been thinking about this for the past year now. “This” refers to camera movement in relation to a character’s movement. Take David Moore’s dance videos below as an example. He moves the camera and edits in a way which highlights or compliments the dancers’ movement, emotion and change in music. The camera has turned from a passive voyeuristic tool into an active participating dancer.

I’m not interested in contemporary dance.

Modern dance and its choreography videos are usually led by sound. Their movements are based on the beats and story of the song. (Generally, or at least back then, movement in Asian traditional performing arts are created concurrently with its music. I would love to film it one day. Oh but I digress.)

I’m interested in being led by camera movement – the performance quality of the camera itself. I want to explore how camera movement can enhance the lyrical value of a human, organic action.

The film “Departures” (2008) by Yojiro Takita gave me a direction: rituals. They are actions which are both performative and “natural”. Varied movements also give the camera more room to play with. Below is the opening scene of the movie.

Thus I have been inspired. What activity then should I film? Let’s try to make the bed. Why? Like the couch, the bed is both an object and a venue. It also has relationships with other objects in the room. On the other hand, it has bigger space which allows both big and small movements by humans, accompanied with different objects. This allows the camera more space to dance too.