This film is an experimental collage of slow motion tracking shots set to the music of Radiohead. All shots are taken from what appears to be a moving vehicle. The frames are placed on screen in bands of similarly shot tiles. Each tile is made up of either similar footage shot from slightly different angles or identical footage manipulated in post-production. Tiles with identical footage have their color, brightness, or focus changed. The shots are all wide and at a low angle, many are tilted slightly sideways. Shot durations vary between a few seconds to more than a minute.
The first “scene” consists of three horizontal bands of three repeating frames. The shots are all wide tracking shots. Each frame in the band is played at a time slightly offset from the others. Certain frames are manipulated to bring attention to a certain frame. Transitions are mostly jump cuts with dissolves between larger transitions.
Another group of shots switches between horizontal bands on only the top and bottom, and a band solely in the middle. Again, the shots are wide and tracking from a moving vehicle. As in the first scene, the footage is all from a beach and surrounding city.
The final group of shots is a single horizontal band where a portion of each frame is mirrored on the top and bottom. Only one frame at a time is in focus. The other frames are muted and out of focus. As the music builds, all of the shots speed up and begin to blur together. By the time the music ends, all the frames have melded to one single fast moving blur.
It is difficult to find much variety in individual shots, as they are all shot the same way. Despite this, I find the whole film very effective. The piece is reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s canvases. The images repeat, but there is enough differentiation to make things interesting and keep the viewers eye moving. The slow motion shots are also very smoothly done and seem to capture a moment in time even while moving. Also, there is no noticeable shaking or unintentional blur which makes me wonder how it was shot so smoothly from a car.
The one thing I would change in the piece is at the very end. When the music builds, the footage begins to speed up and change with it. However, when the music goes back to the slower tempo, the footage stays fast and blurred until the end. I would have abruptly changed the shots back in time with the music rather than continuing at a high speed. It would have fit more with everything that came before it.
No comments:
Post a Comment