Video Art

When I saw the sample videos, I got the idea that any remotely unique approach to subject matter and camera technique could pass as art. This led me to use the Panasonic action camera I had gotten some time ago, which has a fisheye lens and a small scope-like head attached to a small camera body. Pondering how I might most uniquely handle this camera, I decided to use it within the capacity that it could perform, but beyond the intent of its designer(s). Using it like a snake, I dragged it around my yard, allowing it to 'slither' about and weave through the bushes. In reverse, this did have the essence of snake-like motion, but not quite the way I had anticipated.
Thanks to the input of my professor and a fellow student, I figured out how I could exploit the natural RGB split generated by the camera when its lighting was set for outdoors while filming indoors. I used this same effect to achieve a sort of 3-D look in both parts of the piece.
I have been waiting all semester to make an original audio piece, but I did not get much time for it since I had a documentary I was making at the same time, and both assignments are due in the same week.

Performance Piece

This video is 30 minutes and 45 seconds. Warning: Haptic feedback and shaky visuals. May cause nausea. View at your own risk!

Animation Mk II

As noted in a past post for a semesterly simultaneous class, I wanted to make a higher resolution compilation of my images. I started with importing slightly lower resolution versions of the pictures I took for the animation. What I didn't know was that the 'Animation' menu on Photoshop got removed a few years ago, and I can no longer alter the default duration of still images imported into the timeline. My solution was to compile clips of the animation one section at a time. This way, I am able to get more of the animation covered without going through 200+ pages all at once and resizing, cropping, and rotating each image, in addition to adjusting each clip's individual duration. This was a huge time saver, without sacrificing too much quality.

Drowsy Daze: a headful of hands

The idea here is to have hands going every which way, grasping a warped face, and even warping themselves to do so. I liked the patterns made by the cutouts, but I wish it came out less choppy. I didn't do much squeezing or stretching, only resizing, slicing and placing about.

Taking a second look at it, I can see how the subject's right cheek is darker than the left, but the skin tone otherwise seems to be consistent across the rest of the face. Finding a face at the right angle is much harder than I imagined, even when your only search criteria is 'man face straight forward.' I only now realize how seldom I have run across a quality image of a person facing straight ahead (with their head visible). The most challenging part of the blending process was actually when I decided to use the Burn tool as I had in previous projects. Apparently, it can reduce transparency and also bleach, which is not what it had done in the past for me. When I switched around between the Eraser, Burn, and Rubber Stamp tools, I began causing problems for myself in the area of transparency; some of the top layer was semitransparent but read as 100% opaque, so my Rubber Stamp would often remove opacity on areas where I was trying to reduce transparency. I didn't quit until it fit.

MorphX

The final product was smaller than I had anticipated. What is most interesting to me about the picture I found on the Internet was that it not only had my hair color, but it was parted in the same spot, and the subject's head is tilted at the EXACT same angle as mine, AND our shirts match almost perfectly (clearly, they are different sizes)! If only our facial expressions matched. At least the lighting was also similar between the two images.