12/05/2010

The second day of advent was held today. It was a night of angels and devils as both roamed the streets for young children to encounter. The fun part was watching all of these people dressed up as horrible creatures whose sole purpose that night was to frighten the wits out of children. The Angels were interesting too. They gave out candy to the children so they were “the good guys” I guess. All in all it was a very kid friendly and oriented event so the market looked like a pediatric drive-in with baby carriages lined up in rows, mothers and fathers beside them shivering in the winter cold.

So two little videos have evolved into two merely short videos with lots of edit time. I edited the video portion and Jennida did the sound.

Snow Globe-

The impetus for making this little video was to have a motion based descriptive image of the view outside my window of Cesky Krumlov during a light snow. After compulsively playing with all of the various footage I had collected over several days I began to craft a small piece entitled Snow Globe. It comes from thinking about the image as it is and how it almost looks like a miniature child's toy, a snow globe and how simplistic that function is. A snow globe contains a small scenic or landscape where when activated mimics the idea of a snow fall. I also was thinking about the role reversal in my situation, being behind glass looking out at a real snow fall over a real landscape. The simple allure of the snow globe is in the preciousness of the idea, a meditation on things far a way and foreign, or commemorates a trip or keepsake. Jennida composed the sound for the piece that I think combines very nicely, a sentimental mixture childhood innocence and adulthood complexitiey. She also put the finishing touches on the piece and produced two versions, LaLumier and Sombre. The two are fundamentally the same, but exude two slightly different feelings.

The Difference Between Reality-

I was walking outside one night during a light snow and I kept noticing the way the snow flakes entered the light field of the streetlights as I passed. I became so interested in the moment, or "drama of the scene" I felt compelled to capture the scene with my flip. These are the moments when we become attuned to phenomena and the simple beauty of motion and movement, but only if we are open to these occurrences. I ended up capturing the play between light, snow and the accumulation of water on my lens. The water drops produced and unexpected flaring within the image. To my imagination these aberrations of light must surely exist in nature much like a spirit or ghost. Knowing full well the phenomena in action, it still caused me to wonder about the idea of the real vs. the perceived. Does something truly exist if seen and experienced, and therefore by recording non-existing phenomena what about the experience was real? And then what if I manipulate the document of said "un-reality?" Jennida Chase again crafted the audio score to accompany the visual.