HLP Day Eight :: Bowden Creative Space

Wow - day eight. Today was the first day of setting up the array. We had our array team on set to start figuring out the best workflow for streamlining and setting up the cameras. With only 4 Canon 5D Mark IIs to play with you'd think it was a simple job - but we did have a perplexed array of faces for a few hours today when we just couldn't get the files recording in a filename sequence we could actually work with!

Mira, Mik & Cleland looking perplexedI'm pleased to say that the team figured it out (after digging into an obscure help menu detail that apparently should be a simple drop-down menu in the software). After a day of playing with the array I think we are ready to start shooting a couple of test sequences tomorrow.

In terms of the creative development (as opposed to the technical development) Lisa, Carol and I had a rare few minutes to talk about the creative pathway of the project. We discussed a few key things that made me feel more confident about having enough time to clarify the characters we have created and consider new strategies for making sense of them. We talked in particular about the Isadora piece and how it lacks any element of surprise or innovation. She has walked straight off the pages of our reference material for Muybridge's work and not into the 21st century. She is graceful but not interesting. Where the other 'vignettes' have a sense of play, drama or curiosity, she is rather simple. We are still working on how to develop her piece. The other focus was the signature piece that each character shares. Lisa talked about the emotional tone of each piece being something worth clarifying, and I agree. So if the individual quality of each piece is it's 'tone', then we figured the signature they all share is the fact of being scrutinised, measured, and required to perform on an anthropometric stage. So Carol and Lisa worked on a very different style of movement for the signature, and we drew up a grid on the upper platform for the movement to be measured to.

When the array was being set up the array team stuck numbers to masking tape to help identify the frames for each camera. I was interested in the suspension of the numbers in the foreground, and wonder if this might offer a first step to some consideration of foreground mapping to add depth to the images, and of course cross reference the multiple frame organisation that in turn references both Muybridge's camera array and his anthropometric scales.

rehearsal shot from in front of the arrayI think I like the grid numbers on the platform. The ruler on the stool is what the array is being aligned to. I Still need to consider the set as a context for what we are seeing the characters do.

Cleland Jones started to look at ways of possibly using the results of the anthropometric scanning day. He wasn't keen at all on the unresolved quality of the images and found the grid to be too intrusive. If he keyed out the blue background and grid the figure lost even more density. But we did look at bringing the 3D character onto the stage to perform with Lisa. Just a bit of play. Here are some shots of what we were seeing him play with on the screen:

The anthropometric shadowanthropometric charcoal drawing

Here is a quick look at a section - the 3D figure is a bit dodgy but we will be able to work with the University to output files that might offer better results - the plan is to figure out what scans we may want to use, and then arrange for output of the AVI files at exactly the right angle / perspective (we can rotate around the subject on any plane from any angle). Not sure - it's a bit tech looking but like everything on this project it's an experiment..