Where I’m at for now:
- testing out new ways to melt things
- colour manipulation, mirroring, masking etc to fit the 8:1 aspect ratio
- experimenting with pixel sorting in After Effects
ICE + SALT + FOOD COLOURING
I found a science experiment on Pinterest, where salt was sprinkled over blocks of ice and made the ice melt in a cool way — it reminded me of the uneven shapes of glaciers. So I grabbed food colouring and froze some blocks of ice to recreate the experiment. I took timelapses of these formations with a 3 sec interval.
RESULTS
I tried small blocks of ice first, and shot from top down because I liked the changing colours of the food colouring that came about as the ice melted.
I used a bigger ice block so I could get a clearer shot of the food colouring trickling down. This looked pretty cool hehe
Another shot of the big ice block, where I went a lil crazy on the food colouring.
INCORPORATING INTO 3840 X 480
I played around with mirroring the footage and masking some clips to combine them together, so I could work around the 8:1 aspect ratio. I’ll work on creating new visuals based on the current batch of clips I have (i.e. shift the position of the clip so it shows other parts that are hidden because of the dimensions of the wall).
PIXEL SORTING
I wanted to incorporate some glitching into my film, and decided to try out pixel sorting because I feel like it kinda gives a computerised melting effect. This clips are from my initial experimentation, and I’ll keep working on it. (Ina likes the pixel sorting effect!)
CHALLENGES
By far, the biggest challenge has been filming these melting timelapses. Logistically, it takes some work to put everything together, and the medium I’m working with is quite unpredictable. I’m also quite impatient, and I get antsy about the timelapses and wonder if anything’s changing. Because of that, I’ve stopped timelapses short and missed out on potentially good shots. You never really know until you render the image sequence in Premiere, so it takes some experimenting (and a whole lot of waiting).
Another challenge is packaging the clips into a cohesive film. Since it is an experimental film, it’s probably going to look pretty ambiguous and abstract to the audience, so it’s important to maintain an underlying theme so it doesn’t look like I just threw a bunch of random clips together. I have some ideas for the flow of the film:
- Colours — light colours at the beginning, progressing to darker hues
- Movement — slow, calm visuals to fast and quick transitions
- Form — organic melting to computerised, mechanical melting
~much more editing on the horizon~
