The Karass by Nick Knight.

This video is amazing. It is the perfect video that is exploring the thin line between still photography and the moving image. By shooting in a dark studio and covering parts of the model that he doesn't want the viewer to see he is able to light up the parts of the video which as much colour and he visions to create this beautiful imagery. The way he layers up the videos isn't something that I have seen before and hopefully I will have access to programs where I will be able to go into more depth of video editing and achieve something similar to this.

The lighting in the picture is stunning; the way he changes the colours and the levels to create slightly different ways of looking at the same model reminds us that there are three different depcitions of the imagery. As they are advertising jewellery in this video you can understand the reason behind all the points I have stated above.
It's almost as if he is capturing three different emotions through the three seperate depictions which is a very inetersting way to look at the video. Could this be something I could move into myself? Not only looking at the thin line between still and moving imagery but all looking at the small differences we can capture in emotion.

Rick Owens Portrait by Nick Knight.

Knight is one of my all time favourite fashion photographers and although I've always been such a huge fan I'd never been familiar with his fashion films until I came across this one. As I was surfing SHOWstudio I found this and I fell for it completely. This is exactly how I picture a moving portrait. It captures angles from all over and it just shows the figure is such a magical way. I love the way it's been shot in black and white because you can see all the detail in his face which has been exaggurated by the shadow. I love this video because it treads the line between still portraiture and the moving image which has worked so well in this and creates a fabulous end product.

As I have previously written, this whole concept of the moving image is very new to me but I feel like I'm working my way up to something exciting and new. With powerful inspiration from the artist Irwin Barbe I want to start playing with the footage to create breaks, jumps and an interesting final product. The way his work jumps and repeats makes his work so intriguing to watch and almost puts you into a trance. This is what I want to achieve within my own work. I want to create videos that make people question what they are watching, to create thought and interest.

The clip below is some of the footage that I have put together from shooting in Blackpool. I found this set of imagery much harder and more complicated to work with and put together because none of the work I have ever done has been particulary uplifting which is the emotion I wanted to portray in this video. With much more upbeat music and a lot more colour involved I decided to shoot in Blackpool where the tacky arcades and fish restaurants are endless. Blackpool is the type of place where the history of laughter and fun is slowly fading away through the bad paint jobs and terrible neon signs. Perfect. This location would have worked perfectly had I chosen to put together a melancholy piece but I need to explore many different types of video to decifer what kind of emotion I was going to choose to carry on into the final stages of my project.

I'm not overall happy with what I have put together so far from this footage. I feel like it's lacking something; that special something that makes you think 'wow I love this'. Although this is only the first part of this piece and I need to really work and work on it to be pleased with what I have done for this piece. I need to rework a lot of the footage and put it together differently, maybe by taking more obvious inspiration from Barbe and editting my footage in a much more jumpy fashion; just to add that little bit of an edge. At the end of the video from around 1:23/1:34 I feel like the inspiration I have taken from Barbe for this piece is much more obvious, therefore I feel this part is a much more powerful section of the piece.

When I have finished this video I'm going to move on quickly I need to decide what route I want to follow. Although the two videos I have done so far are so different they also have similar qualities: the hand held filming, the manual focusing and the simple focus on people and their emotions. Those three qualities are things that I definitely want to continue throughout this project but I need to decide which kind of emotion I want to follow through. With more practice and exploration I will hopefully end up in the perfect location with a web of ideas to dive into.

Here's a short clip from some footage I've put together over the past week. We went to Blackpool for a bit of a change and I decided that with this imagery, as it's not been shot in black and white and there's a lot of movement going on, that I would have it as a much more upbeat video. Therefore I fast forwarded most of the footage and had a bit of a play around. It's still in progress but this is what I have done with it so far. 

I need to keep my mind open to different styles of lens based media and so happily I decided to go back into my comfort zone for a mooch when this cover caught my eye. Fashion photographer David Sims who works for the likes of Vogue Hommes Japan etc. has done the most recent set of covers for AnOther Magazine, the special ten year anniversary special. THESE COVERS ARE STUNNING. That's not the only reason I've decided to include them in this unit of work though; there is movement in the images. When you have a closer look at all four images you can see that there is a slight amount of movement in the images, whether Sims caught this whilst shooting or whether he added it in with his editing skills, that movement is what has made these four images so beautiful. If I'm going to dabble in my obsession for still fashion photography these are the kind of images I need to create. The deep powerful colours of the background and the pale features of the women are such a fantastic contrast that you can tell every part of these images have been organised and thought through until they look absolutely perfect. Amazing.

Barbe has a very strong relationship with the use of powerful music in his work. The music itself helps to bring the imagery to life even if there isn't much going on in the video. It can create emotion, passion, vulnerability and in this case it brings out certain feelings in you where you can almost understand and feel close to the person in the footage you are watching. 

Personally I don't think this is one of Barbe's best pieces but I still find the head shots of the actress/model beautiful. Every shot he makes could be a still photograph in itself which makes his work so interesting. This is something that I want to be able to achieve myself. By pulling together all the skills I have learnt from being an avid and skilled photographer I want to make sure that every shot I make could stand alone as one singular image and still maintain the overall effect I am going for.

IRWIN BARBE - I have started to become a huge fan of Barbe's work. He mainly does videos to accompany music tracks with addictive beats. The featured music in this video is a track names Shyness by Thieves Like Us. The way Barbe puts his footage together is amazing. The footage itself is not the kind of imagery you would find in a blockbuster Hollywood movie but this is what makes his work so appealing to me. The frames of the footage jump around in time to the music and you can see how the beats and the meaning of the song is reflected in the way the video as a whole moves. All of the frames are repeated at least twice shortly after each other which I think works very well and that's what I love so much about this video. 

First attempt at putting footage together.

As I have never even attempted to create a film before or even use a video camera I was a little bit puzzled when the guy with the pony tail in the media block was like "Nah you're not trained up, you can't have one". How hard could it be? So the eagle came to the rescue and informed me that the new Canon D500 in the art block had a video recording feature. This worked out amazing for me because I know every inch of an DSLR and knew how easy it would be to manually use all the features instead of having it on an auto setting which is what I would have resorted to for my first try with a huge media thingy. 

I took Sam out with me to the woods behind his house to try out the camera and see what the visual was. It was around six o'clock which meant the sun had started to dim and the clouds had an almost grey marble effect going on. THE CAMERA IS AMAZING. It shoots beautifully and is the perfect tool to use as I'm so used to handling DSLRs. I didn't even know where to start because I hadn't planned any of the footage or the scenes, I just ventured out with my model and my camera. I had some kind of idea that I wanted it to be more dark and mysterious than jolly and obvious so I decided to shoot in black and white. I knew this would be much better for me to start editing because I wouldn't have to worry too much about the saturation and the levels, I could just play around with the ISO on the camera to get my contrast and darken my atmosphere.

I had no script because I don't want the characters to seem fake and staged, instead I want to create atmosphere with the music that I choose. As neither of us knew what I wanted I started filming without Sam even knowing, so I could get a much more realistic vision from my footage. It worked pretty well and I got much more relaxed, natural movement which flowed really nicely in the finished piece. I had watched pieces of film that the media students had created and they just came across as really fake due to the script and the way they had to have a reason behind everything before they did it. No offence to the students because they ticked all the boxes for the media tutors but at this point I'm so thankful to be an art and design foundation student as the video is my vision. 

I decided against all the media style style shots that were obviously staged and repeated time and time again to get the perfect footage and just simply asked Sam to pretend I didn't have a camera and that we had just gone for a walk. I had to push and prod him into the correct place for the shot at times but most of the time I was capturing natural movement by following him with the camera and not asking him to do anything. I am really pleased with the way the movement turned out. My whole project is titled 'The Illusion of the Image', which means I want to tread on the boarder line of still photography and the video photography. To get people asking the question, 'Is this image moving?'. After all, a photography lover will stop in a gallery and stare at an image for however long they please to try and understand the emotion and concept of why the photographer has chosen than single piece of work. So to challenge this I want to create similar experiences with the moving image. 

By using the slow motion effect throughout all the footage and rewinding some of the footage you get an odd feel. It jumps back and forward through the same set of footage to make sure the experience stays the same. It is still the same model and the same location, you're just getting more of the emotion and atmosphere than in one image. That longing and wanting to share the experience with the photographer that I've been getting for years has finally come to life. This kind of photography is very new and different to me but I want to be able to make it special by involving my passion for the still portraiture and mixing it with something new and much more exciting for myself and the people on my course.

Music that will/should inspire me.

Vultures Like Lovers - Wild Nothing.

Live in Dreams - Wild Nothing.

People Can Do The Most Amazing Things - Kisses

Daydream - Beach Fossils

Dum Dum Girls - Rest of Our Lives

Dum Dum Girls - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (Smiths cover)

Connan Mockasin - Forever Dolphin Love
I have included two videos from Connan Mockasin, the first being his own video for the music and the second being the track.

As I am still stuck on what pathway to go down, I don't know wether to go for all still images put together which music to create a moving image, to stick purely to video footage or whether to mix the two. I need to start looking into what kind of emotion and what kind of themes I can have running through my videos. So far the videos I have found that are made up of a small amount of stills and mostly video footage seem to have a dark theme which melancholy music which is a pathway I could travel down. Or I could mix everything up and do a very contrasting piece. I need to look at the type of music that will inspire mt to create the perfect atmosphere. 

I love love love love this video. Collections by Joost Vandebrug is an amazing example of time and effort to create something amazing. Hundreds of stills were taken to create a moving image which I have previously looked at in the MM6 Maison Martin Margiela x Opening Ceremony. This time I feel this footage has much more quirkiness due to the fact you can see the models face. They play around with not only clothes but letters and objects that aren't really relevant to the clothes but more for advertising the brand names. By slowing down the video you can see how the stills have been organised and put together which is how I will need to plan my own video if I decide to move into something simliar to this.

Perfume Genius - Lookout Lookout by Patrick Sher.
This music video was created for the band Perfume Genius but at the same time has a beautiful artistic feel to the video. Almost along the lines of the new fashion style film campaigns that are everywhere at the moment. As I have been researching so far I have come across a lot of videos that are not mainstream and therefore can do whatever they please. I had never heard of Perfume Genius and when I came across this video on the Wonderland tv blog I immediately saw the distinct emotion running through not only the music but the footage they have shot and chosen for the video. The image itself is very dark which I think matches the mood of the music very well. The artist in the shot doesn't look straight at the camera which you find in music videos. This very small technique has a huge impact on the emotion you can feel coming through the artist. He appears lost and melancholy which, if you listen to the lyrics, he is. I am a huge fan of the way the camera lens focuses in and out, again it feels as if the camera is reflecting what the music means; you know you are missing something. I love this impact and beauty of this video due to the melancholy theme that runs throughout. IT has made me realise how important and effective the right music can be in a piece of footage.

GENERATION Y by Joost Vandebrug - This video portrays a male model talking about his life. His voice is very soft and the way he speaks is neither optimistic or pessimistic althought the music played in the background is a very melancholy piano which makes the video seem very serious. They layer shots up and reduce the opacity of the top layer to create a strange collage of footage which works quite well. Contrasting movement and stillness. In the footage where the model is still the lighting thye have used makes it look like a perfect still photograph, all that is moving is his mouth which creates a beautiful peaceful atmosphere. I want to include either stills or almost still footage in my work to create an illusion.