Double Exposure Film Experiment

I became fascinated with the double exposure images and experimental photography of the dadaism and surrealism movements this semester. I decided to play around with some of those ideas in a short film I put together for my final project.

First I collected images on a Pinterest board to have some inspiration for the film. That can be found here: http://www.pinterest.com/nodgedafunk/dadaism-in-photography/

The images in the course reading material also inspired me, specifically works by Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray. But the image that gave me the inspiration to work off of as a basis for the concept in my film was this:



Landscape Specimen 004 (Havisu Falls) by Derek Johnston.
His image of Havisu Falls in a glass jug was where I decided to take the direction of my short film.

I began to collect short clips of anything I could find interesting and caught my eye, like roads, landscapes, wildlife, etc. Then I went to Michael's and The Dollar Store and found a bunch of glass bottles of various shapes and sizes. I also borrow some from my friend Jinx Vesco, who had many unusual glass jars. Then I used a black cloth, draped over a stool or chair, and set up some lights to get the effect of the glass on a field of black.

After that, I used After Effects to take out the color and up the contrast. This created a clean piece of glass I could place over the clip I wanted to show inside the glass bottle. Then I set the glass layer to hard light, making it show the layer beneath where there was white (or light sections) and no image where it was black. In a few cases I had to make a mask around the glass to get the effect as well.

I then rendered out each of those clips, and then pieced them together in Premiere into a two minute timeline. Then I found some music to suit my mood and rendered out the final cut.

Before I decided on the glass jars, I tried to play around with double exposures here.

As you can see, it gets a little confusing, and maybe that is alright, but I didn't like it.

This is my finished film:

As you can see, I tried to fit a lot into two minutes, and I believe I was successful in creating something interesting with the images I was able to capture.

Call to Arms

Before this project, I had only played around with some clay or sculpy. I had never taken on a sculpture of any kind or to this level.

How I started:

When I was reading about some of the 19th century sculptures, I was fascinated with "Call to Arms" by Auguste Rodin. The original piece was created between 1912-1918 out of bronze.

Then I collected as many images as I could at http://www.pinterest.com/nodgedafunk/call-to-arms/
The best ones I found of the front and back where from the Philadelphia Museum of Art website.

For my material, I thought I would try to use some pottery clay that I had sitting around in my art supplies, but it wasn't as stable or usable as I'd hoped.

Changing Materials:

I did some research online and had seen a wire frame base that looked like it would work well. So I decided to try that. I also say others using sculpting clay that is easier to work with.

Wire Frame:

I had some soft wire in my art supplies and was able to make a rough form for the skeletons of the two figures in the sculpture.

Plasticine:

Now that had the right material for the job, I started over.

Then I started with a base.

Next I began to apply the clay to the skeleton and piece by piece, they began to take shape.

It was exciting to see them grow up from the base to the wings.

Adding Details:

After I got the form complete, I took to adding details to the faces and wings.

Final Result:

This is what I was able to make on my own from some images I printed out as guides and I'm pretty happy with the results. I believe this project to have taken around 12-15 hours. I would have liked to add a little more detail, but I had too much going on this semester to dedicate more time to this one project.

It has been a wonderful experience and I found that I really like sculpting forms.  I have a greater appreciation for the process now and look forward to making more of my own creations.