Thomas Demand

Thomas Demand is known for making photographs of three-dimensional models that look like real images of rooms and other spaces. Demand began his career as a sculptor. In 1993, he began to use photography to record his elaborate, life-sized paper-and-cardboard constructions of environments and interior spaces, and soon started to create constructions for the sole purpose of photographing them. The photograph he takes of this model is the final stage of his work, and it is only this image that is exhibited, not the models. On the contrary, Demand destroys his “life-size environments" after he has photographed them. The subjects represented in Demand’s photographs often relate to pre-existing press images showing scenes of cultural or political relevance. Because he is working from models, the absence of people in his photographs is conspicuous and thematic.

I love the absence of people in Demands models, they look like the creation of film sets.

These sets and images are similar to the type of work that I am creating; empty haunting scenes where the viewing gets enticed into. I like how the viewer can create their own narrative by walking around the space of the scene through their own imaginary.

Split Screen

'In film and video production, split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several simultaneous images, rupturing the illusion that the screen's frame is a seamless view of reality, similar to that of the human eye. There may or may not be an explicit borderline.

Until the arrival of digital technology in the early 1990s, a split screen was accomplished by using an optical printer to combine two or more actions filmed separately by copying them onto the same negative, called the composite.'

Requiem for a Dream has been a constant influence throughout my research so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmBSgu-bMsk

24 is a show that uses split screens extensively :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ycUmavblmA

Carrie - split screen

One of the first films I ever watched which I always remember for its split screen is Carrie, I aways loved the end scene and like the different views that are used to show what she is looking at and what she is doing.

Final Cut Pro - Split Screen

To build up my technical competence I have started to experiment with final cut pro to try and build up a split screen narrative using the digitilised footage which I have been transfering from VHS.

VHS - DIGITAL

I have now started to analyse my CCTV footage and filter through to find the best scenes and anything that I find interesting or unusual looking characters. I have spent the week in the editing suite transferring my VHS tapes to digital so that I can then go into final cut pro and start to edit the footage and piece it together in a linear and non linear narrative. Thinking forwards to a project proposal I would like to continue to look at the spatial qualities of the fragmented narratives and also look at the narrative of the space around the screens that I want my film work shown on. The interpretation of how we interact with the film is what I find really interesting and I like the idea of a multi screen or/and multi narrative with the use of split screens.

Edited Stills

This is a stop motion I have made from different stills from the same CCTV camera to create a more linear motion film.

A HD version can be seen on my Vineo.

Actual footage

This is how the CCTV footage looks when played back.

Julian Rosefeldt - American Night

Julian Rosefeldt (b.1965) has made a name for himself with lavishly produced, moving image multi-screen installations. American Night is one of his most complex works to date – a five channel film installation. In it he uses the stylistic devices of the Western genre, to deconstruct the myth of the founding of America and relate it to the ambitions of recent US foreign policy.

After watching my time lapse footage I started to think back to the beginning of the term when we went to see American Night as a class, and how much I enjoyed the complex multiscreen narrative. Split screens is something that I have been looking at for a while and I am going to try and deconstruct the CCTV footage I have been analysing to try and create some linear and non linear stories, that I could play in a similar way

CCTV stills

These are some still images taken from the CCTV footage of my building. As it is filmed in time-lapse, it plays a different camera angle in each shot. There are several different angles so by the time it films from the same cctv camera again you loose a few seconds of footage. I am not going to try and get my VHS tapes turned into digital film so I can start to edit together some of the scenes, however I do quite like the disjointed feel of the different stories interlinking.

The Arc Show

Last week I went to see the arc show which is an Architecture, Retail and Commercial Lighting show at the Business Design Centre, held every year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDT0TtnSjHg&feature=player_embedded

I found this very useful as I got a chance to speak to some lighting experts about the use of Lighting with CCTV filming and also some information on sensors for future installation ideas.

Analysing CCTV footage

Above is a still image from the film Red Road, which shows Jackie who works as a CCTV operator. Each day she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze.

After seeing this film it made me want to start looking at cctv footage of my own to become a real voyeur and to give me the opportunity to start creating stories and characters in my head from what I see on screen. I managed to get hold of some old time lapse footage which is from the building which I live in. I have now started to analyse this footage to see if I notice anything out of the ordinary.

Below is a picture of the tapes that I found. Something strange that I noticed is that tape number 9 is missing as there are 1-10 but no number 9, as if there was some sort of incriminating footage that someone has gotten rid of.

Red Road

Over Christmas I watched an english film called Red Road set in glasgow which is about a CCTV security operator who observes through lots of different security monitors and follows people who live in the area. It is shot largely in a Dogme 95 style, using handheld cameras and natural light which is the style that I have been trying to capture with my own footage.