HLP Day Nine :: Bowden Creative Space

(posting this on Sunday night because it has taken me all my available time this weekend to make sense of the footage from Friday..)

Today we had the crew set up the additional 2 cameras on the array (thanks Carradean & Taryn!), as well as 2 cameras designated to shoot video (thanks Sara & Cleland)..It took quite a while to get the array warmed up and working - although we had spent the day on thursday ironing out the creases, there was still a continual stream of issues for Mik (in particular) to deal with. I have to admit that I see the issues appearing peripherally but just don't get involved. At this stage I am trying to juggle the ideas about what we are about to shoot with making sure everyone on 'set' is happy and has enough coffee! Luckily Mira was on set to make detailed notes about the issues and their patches, so I got on with creating a test grid on the stage and tweaking the lighting, with the help this time of Des Berwick (who stuck around to manage the camera array and get cameras back online when they either ran out of juice or some other mysterious issue). Peter gave us a draft version of his new triggering system to work with, and although it was great we noticed a few shots with a slight lag in their timing. He reverted the system to it's original configuration for the second part of the shoot. I don't have any pics of the team for Day 9 because I set up my camera on a tripod to shoot timelapse and couldn't shift it between takes. I'm hoping Des will send me some of his infrared 'behind the scenes' shots.

OK, so to summarise the day we aimed to shoot Victorian Horse (renamed to be true to the period Muybridge was working in) and explore the array to capture each jump, as well as any other opportune moments in the movement. We also shot video on either end of the array to find out how it might blend with the 'bullet time' capture sequences. I thought about putting a video in the centre of the array but was talked out of it - in retrospect I should have done so because the edge perspective is not satisfying compositionally and doesn't blend well with the centred timelapse capture. As a result the quick edit I have done has had the video footage taken out. I tried including the 'signature' in video, which might have worked other than the perspective. Rather, I have used the timelapse version of the entire piece with the array sequences blended and reversed.

A few issues to highlight:

• The actual moment of the array capture is often awkward because I was struggling with having to autofocus the array to 'wake up' the cameras so that they would fire at the same time (even though we are manually focusing the cameras) - this took me all afternoon to get comfortable with, with mostly off-suspension, awkward jumps
• I think the dynamic between the morphing character's position could be a lot more interesting (again, my timing has to be more accurate)
• We left a ladder in shot for an entire stage of the metamorphosis - I just couldn't bring myself to include it in this edit, even though its just a quick stitch without finesse. This stage would have offered me more diversity in the 'leaping' stage I guess
• The signature is too fast in 'real' time (that is, 1 frame a second) - I think I need to slow it down in post to maybe 75%?
• The light changed mid shoot, so the background density varies, which makes the array blends a bit hard. Looking at the forecast it's looking dodgy for our shoot days (variable lighting across the day because of intermittent cloud cover. I will need to consider a more reliable and functional set for the second development!
• The array sequence filenaming was off, despite the many hours the team spent the day before trying to ensure that the filename for camera 1 was named accordingly. This made my editing a NIGHTMARE!! For every array shot (except for 3) I had to figure out the camera position and rename each one. 
• Sometimes only 5 cameras in the array were delivering files - no idea why
• One of the cameras in particular was a bit skew
• The gap between cameras in the array is too large for a fluid movement

I like the signature, as well as the 'waiting' elements - I think they do add variety and depth to the sequence. I am excited about what these might add to how the vignettes can be viewed and experienced. The clarity of their meaning is still murky, but as with much of this development I am happy to just ride the waves of ideas that emerge without too many questions, so that I can evaluate the work as a whole and think about how it can be formed into a more coherent and significant work in the second stage.

I thought I'd show the reference image here..

PART 2

We worked briefly on Tennis Marilyn at the end of the day - I wanted to see how the checkerboard would work in the frame to see if I could get away with the few boards I have - but I do think I need to populate the grid more if I can. I also wanted to see how the array would work with this vignette's movement. We also staggered the captures with a few miliseconds between frames, but I can't really notice it I have to say. Perhaps the movement itself is just too slow in this piece to try that technique. This is something I really need to figure out as I'd like to pitch the array at the right kind of movement, as well as use it to the best effect not just in terms of an interesting moment, but also in terms of what the array can 'reveal'. This is something we have talked a lot about, but haven't really had a chance to explore yet. It may not be until we have a bigger array that we can fully understand how it can be used. I suspect I may need to be a little less ambitious with what we can achieve with the array on Wednesday. Anyway, here is a quick edit of some array shots in the tennis player (partA).

I'd like to edit in some of the video footage to catch some of the nuances that are missed by the array and timelapse techniques. Still lots to do..

Here is a reference image sequence we are working from..(Muybridge)

Lawn Tennis