First Film - Time

Still from eight a.m.

To create my first experimental film, we were given the theme of time to base our ideas around. When I first thought of time I was interested in making a video based around living a day over and over, like groundhog day. As I had limited ways to film as my phone had no memory space and I was unable to get a camera, I ended up having to film with my webcam. As I was on my laptop I thought it would be interesting the use the Bug Eye feature on the webcam for a few scenes. However I decided I really liked the look of this and decided to film the whole film with the feature: this matched with my blue hair made me look very alien-esque. I then decided to make the film about the spaced out feeling after you just wake up, as I looked very tired through out. I brought the camera round with me as I did certain things I would usually do in the morning, like washing my face, getting ready, etc. I used a very harsh exposure and blue tone to give the impression of your eyes adjusting to the morning sun. I also named the film 'eight a.m.' as that is the time I usually wake up, on a normal day. Unfortunately during editing I realised that the video didn't have much of a flow and I decided not to carry on as the deadline was soon. However I am planning to finish the film asap.

 

My second idea was to use archive videos to create my film. I used my own videos that I've made in the past as they were easy for me to find. My first idea was to montage through my first (very amateur) videos to my more recent films and to edit the video as if they were all VHS home movies. Although, I thought this was a simple, boring idea and I thought focusing on re-editing one video could be more appealing. I am quite interested in dreams and different kinds of dreams, so I thought I would play with colour and edit my music video for my college final project based around the idea of lucid dreaming. I used this video because I made it based around the fantasy genre and the forest scenes are intensely colourful. I ended up making the narrative as the girl falls asleep and in the dream she is having a normal day which I decided to show with a fade in and using blue/cool tones. The girl walks up the road and cross fades into a forest with warm tones, which symbolises the lucid part of the dream. I was inspired by Maya Deren in this scene as she often using this change in geography technique to represent time or subconscious. The cross fade signifies the realisation that she is in a dream. I liked this idea of dreams as dreams are never remembered complete, so your memory thinks of the dream in different parts, almost as if it is skipping. The use of jump cuts, montage, fades, and speed distortion are effective editing techniques to show changes in time. I also created a new soundtrack for the video as there was no sound in the original. I wanted the soundtrack to be surreal so I found an instrumental that I liked and distorted it by reversing the song, adding a beat, making the pitch higher and changing the order.