Tag Archives: video art

VIDEO ART – Journal Prompt 6

LIGHTING – Lykke Li – Hard Rain

There’s a vast array of lighting sources in Lykke Li’s music video for the track Hard Rain. I’m going to analyse a few of them, as the clip features many beautifully lit scenes, thus I will have to narrow it down to      . Cinematic lighting in this clip is imperative to the narrative – a music video without a linear structure, character backgrounds or dialogue needs to communicate it’s message via visual cues only, and the use of lighting conveys this.

This opening shot sets the relationship between the lovers from the beginning. The mis-en-scene suggests that they are separated, distant but vying for a connection through the plastic border. The lighting favours Lykke Li. She remains illuminated whilst the light is refracted off the plastic and does not fall on the man. His only lighting source is the backlit window casting him into a gloomier side of the room, whilst Lykke remains emblazoned in a passionate red.
I think this would be achieved by lighting the room with either natural lighting in the back and using freestanding lights with red gels for the key lighting. The natural lighting could be generated by an outdoor light panel, however I think that’s a bit off brand for Lykke who often uses naturalistic sets.

This shot occurs after the first one, Lykke climbs the stairs and stares in her mirrors reflection. The upstairs area is flooded with natural light and it seems as through she has escaped the underground area where the plastic sheet was hung. Her face is lit with television standard off-lighting; where the light hits the side of her face furthest from the camera.This is intended to bring a depth to the shot, along with highlight cheekbones, lip lines and brows. The light is soft and I think this was achieved with the help of reflectors, natural lighting and highlights.

Finally, this shot is using wholly natural lighting and using reflectors to avoid the couple being a total silhouette. There also may be a small, diffused low light however I believe they used the light provided from the sunset. Though the screen-grabs suggest the couple are more than content together, the ending of the clip is a little more sinister. Thus, the man in the shots is always a little poorly lit compared to Lykke who is constantly highlighted throughout the video. UI believe lighting was useful in conveying this narrative arc.

VIDEO ART: Project 1 Planning

STORYBOARDING
I’m begging mapping out how to visually represent how the television can be an obtrusive frame that shows violence, and how his has little visible impact on us anymore. I keep returning to the dinner situation, which is where I first observed what    refers to as ” talk about it being an uninvited guest”. At first I was going to discuss violence towards women and how we allow graphic violence to seep into our homes via television, but again after watching TV, Married At First Sight particularly,  I’d also like to discuss how free to air television is a heterosexual landscape and that is a reason why myself or my girlfriend don’t watch it. We do watch television but we tend to look online for content that we find represents us, and interests us. I’ve also begun to storyboard how I can represent this visually through video medium.

excuse the Deli paper I had to draw on at work

SOUND
Sound is going to be an integral part of this piece. There is an importance on creating an overwhelming presence of the TV set. This is going to be dominated by sound rather than the visual size of the screen, as the screen will be comparative to that of a dinner guest. I want there to be an emphasis on the sounds from the television, but I also want it to be matched by the conversation and happy chatter to create a juxtaposition of emotions.
This bring me to discussing my source material for what’s on tv. I would love to attempt to film and record the sound for a convincing crime drama, however, it might not be graphic enough to send a convincing message. I am hoping to download some clips from TV shows that feature violence and chop them up so they’re unrecognisable, not only for a jarring effect but also to be able to dodge online copywright. I am planning on adding the soundtrack over the video in post, then editing to sound as if it were distant and spoken through the tv’s speakers.

EDITING
I’m not sure if it’s a video art convention to keep your shot static and uninterrupted by edits. I suppose this would align a video as classical forms of art such as a painting or photograph which moves through the medium of video.If I were to film a static shot I think it would compliment my ideas about the television as a frame, and the ‘frame within a frame’ concept would come across more clearly. I think I will try to make two cuts within the whole piece, as it’s more of a filmed performance rather than relying on editing conventions to make a statement. I am goint o film for a while, as the more comfortable my friends and I are on camera the more realistic it will be and hopefully I will get a genuine performance rather than something that feels staged.

COMPOSITION
I want the camera to be unobtrusive, like a fly on the wall, andI’ll place it behind the couch with the couch in frame, blocking it to appear as an observer rather than a party guest, which the TV will be. In the second shot I’m considering, the camera will remain in the same place, maybe tilted to the side to get a better shot of my girlfriend and I who will be streaming off our laptop while aggressively heterosexual content plays on TV.

VIDEO ART – Journal Prompt 5

 In anticipation for the upcoming season, I’ve recently revisited Westworld. This particular scene occurs twice within the season, and in each version, the stakes have changed. The scene depicts the outlaw Hector and his gang robbing the saloon – an integral narrative the characters repeat as an attraction for the visitors of Westworld. In the first robbery happening early in the season, the characters are premiering the robbery performance. In the second, the stakes have changed and the characters have become aware of the stakes, and this time the robbery is part of a ruse – their performance is trivial. I will analyse the way the use of diegetic and non diegetic sound in each clip illustrates this shift in narrative.

FIRST ROBBERY

In this robbery, we open with a cover of Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones as the menacing gang ride in to the town. The foley artists would have had a field day with this show, the gunshots along with the clinking of cowboy boots along wooden floors brings me back to The Foley Man video we watched in class. As the song builds, there in an incredible moment where Hector shoots the sheriff in the head – this action drastically changes the music and vision. The gunshot is both diegetic and non diegetic; its unsure to say whether the clash is an echo of the shot or a deep bass drum when the music begins its crescendo. The vision slows and we enter a slow motion unfurling of the mechanics of the heist. This slow motion breaks when Armistice begins firing rounds at the townspeople, nearly matching the beat of the song. Paint It Black creates a fearsome and calculated performance perfectly interwoven with action and diegetic sound.

SECOND ROBBERY

In this clip the stakes have changed as the characters are now to perform their same heist but under new circumstances. This clip is intended to make the performative duties of the park’s hosts appear trivial to the viewer at home. Thus we hear a new, less fearsome ballad – Carmen Habanera – Georges Bizet, 1875. The build of this song brings a much lighter, even comedic sense to the robbery. The producers are showing us the same scene again, but far less fearsome than the original. The action as a far slower pace, completely a slow mo, and offers more focus on the park directors. This is intended to show that the hosts are manipulating the directors right under their noses.

The use of diegetic and non diegetic sound in these two clips produce two incredible examples of how sound creates tone, even in the most similar of circumstance.

Journal Prompt #3 – Annotations on Editing


This video released by the musician and visual artist SOPHIE is a music video for her new track “Faceshopping”. The video accompanies the track, discussing the falsity of authenticity gained by artists whose images are prominent in the media. SOPHIE had released music from a point of anonymity for years, and this video is our first glimpse of the artist’s face.

The video features rapid and rhythmic cuts, interchanging the cut to black with a cut to white, giving the video a strobe effect. The artist uses graphic textures in between these cuts, such as images of raw meat, blood, gore. These elements push the video further into the genre of body horror, whilst still utilising the aesthetic use of strobing to fit the genre of music.
The duration of the cuts vary from frequent to long drawn out, especially in the introduction of the song. There is a four second duration peak between cuts in the beginning of the video, and watching this without sound gives no indication of the video continuing. Directed by SOPHIE and Aaron Chan, This video combines compositional and aesthetic shots transitioned by hard cuts and little effect. Text is used to illustrate the lyrics to this video, however what differentiates this clip between your usual lyric video is the inclusion of words that aren’t heard in the original track. Words flash  onscreen to the beat, such as “artificial bloom”, “chemical release”. The inclusion of graphic phrases such as these again adds to the distorted reality of the video.

VIDEO ART: Journal Prompt 2

For this weeks video journal we were asked to actively watch television, and analyse any formal conventions at work. I decided to watch TV from my TV set rather than on my laptop. The physical aspect of a television is less of a ‘box’ to me, but more of a frame holding a moving image. I’ve wondered what would happen if you used a tv as a digital photo frame that never changes it’s image; would the image degenerate after burning through the LCD? Isn’t that what screensavers are for? Screensavers are also an interesting result of the constant stream that is television, as they didn’t exist until DVD. Even static is moving.

The TV sits in the corner of the living room in my sharehouse, covered in dust. We had a brief slew of watching the tennis earlier this year, but it’s main function is for background noise when my family comes to visit. Something about being in a living room with them without the tv in the background is awkward. What I focused on in my analysis was the adbreaks, more so the construction of an adbreak. I was watching channel seven at primetime when I noticed all of the adbreaks were bookended by a promotion for a network series. The sound during an adbreak was so engaging, as ads are intended to reengage the viewer who has momentarily broken their attention. I noticed that these breaks cater to our short attention spans and I wondered how many stories or how much information can we fit into a two minute adbreak? When does it become overwhelming?

Ads for me are so visceral, and the result is a huge wave of nostaliga for adbreaks from when I was a kid and actively participated in watching tv, which I no longer do. This adbreak from 2002, when I was seven, is an amazing example of the connection to tv I fondly remember but no longer experience. The ad with the butchers dancing at the end brought back a bunch of memories; the Persian carpet in our lounge room, the bulky television monitor. The same bookending conventions are at play even in the adbreak from 16 years ago.

Can we feel empathy with a television set? I think I get that feeling of when you finish a book and hold it to your chest. The book hold stories about characters you love. Do we feel the same about a television set? Holding the memories of our childhood? Are we the last generation to feel akin to a TV? Probably!