April 2017

Video Installation: SPA CES

Shoot Process / Behind The Scenes

password: spaces

Like every shoot, there were many problems faced from the beginning, the first of which being an issue with the location. We could not get the house that we wanted at the last minute, and had to relocate the entire shoot literally the night before the shoot. Thankfully, Duane’s house was available and we settled there. However, this brought about another issue. The look of the new house no longer matched what we had in mind. I had planned a shot list and mood board for the layout of a house we would no longer get.

As you can tell, the film was shot b&w in camera. That was a decision made after a long and tiring process of trying to work around the very richly saturated colours of the house that we had, which was not the mood we were going for. In the end, I decided to just shoot b&w in camera, and Duane came through with the harsh film noir lighting that was perfect for the new look.

Edit Process

The editing process for this three – screen installation was inevitably a tedious one. As seen in the photo above, the first cut was done off three monitors. It was the day right after we wrapped for our first shoot, and Duane was nice enough to let me stay over another day at his house to rush the edit. It was a weird experience editing off three screens at first. After multiple tries, I begin to get the hang of it and everything slowly fell into place.

The complicated part came when I tried doing the sound design. With three separate tracks, I honestly did not know where to begin! In the end, I exported each screen individually and combined them in one complete sequence. Working off a single sequence for sound design was pretty crucial and it worked.

An interesting issue to get around while doing the sound design was: which screen do I give the attention to? As there were literally three scenes going on at the same time, it would be very overwhelming to “give life” to every single screen through sound. I learnt that the hard way, and it’s safe to say my first few cuts for sound were horrendous (no T no shade hahaha). Thankfully, after many very painful but much needed constructive criticism from friends, I hope I managed to tone down the sound to something workable.

In my sound design, I took inspiration from Eija – Liisa Ahtila’s The Wind. However, as the context of these two films are different, I wanted the sound design to be more muted and minimal instead of the loud howling wind that was used in her work.

Installation Day

We stayed up the night before the presentation to set up the room. We blocked out the windows to prevent light leaking in, and set up the projectors and speakers for a test run.

It was very important that we did that, because the projectors were not calibrated properly and the images were showing up too dark. I had to colour correct the clips on the spot and adjust the clips specifically for projection. It took a lot of work to get the three separate projectors to play with the same look.

I had to adjust the sound on the spot as well, as the room’s speakers had very good bass, which my computer / headphones did not. I ran the sound a on the room’s speakers multiple times before I got it right.

When everything was set, we stuck up the film posters around the room for added interest, while still keeping the space minimal to let the film speak for itself.

Here are the posters:

Reflections

As with every shoot, this shoot was one filled with many hiccups along the way which were thankfully all solved with together with my great team. Many of the issues we faced were blessings in disguise as it resulted in a better product than we would have had before. The process was even more tedious than that of a normal single screen film and it was a good experience trying to shoot, edit and do sound for a three screen installation.

Overall, this was my favourite project so far and I loved the entire process of making this film with my team. All of us worked really well together and overcame all the obstacles while still producing something that we can all proudly put our names on. I hope to continue making films that I am proud of for the next three years of my ADM life.

Future World Exhibition : Sketch Aquarium

In this installation visitors are given crayons and paper to draw their own sea creatures which would be scanned in and projected on screen, coming alive and animated. I was immediately drawn to the exhibit when I realised that my drawings could be projected on the big screen. I was interested to see how it would come to life. After scanning in my image, I was so excited to see it swim around along with the other drawings. I was even more shook when I found out that I could physically interact with the drawings through waving my hands in front of the screen, affecting the movement of the animated drawings as they swum around the large projected aquarium.

I chose this as one of my favourite exhibits as it was the one that got me the most excited. I love that it is interactive and allows visitors to have a hand in creating the world that is seen in front of them.

Future World Exhibition: A Table Where Little People Live

In this installation, an entire world consisting of tiny people is projected onto a single table. When left alone, the world functions on it’s own, with the little people going about their usual routine. Upon closer inspection, when you place an object on the table, the tiny people will interact with the object that is placed there, moving around it or playing with it. The tiny characters respond to both the projected and physical environment that they are in, and visitors can directly affect change in their environment.

I chose this as another one of my favourite installations due to it’s interactive quality. Just like the aquarium one, it looked normal from afar, but only when you go up close do you realise that there is more to it. It was entertaining watching the little people interact with the objects I placed on the table and I enjoyed being able to play with it.

Reflections

Overall, I enjoyed the trip of the Art Science Museum. Having only previously been to the Biennale, this was my second time going to an art exhibition this year. One major difference in the installations at the Art Science Museum as compared to the ones at the Biennale was that here, the exhibitions are mostly interactive and invite the viewer to play with the objects in the installation. This gives the exhibitions an added quality of interest. I also love the consistent theme of light in this exhibit.

A similarity I have noticed in the installations that I am drawn to are their interactive qualities. Before this, I had never given video installations much thought. It was a really enriching experience witnessing the variety of video installations here and It was my first time witnessing such projection technology. Moving forward, it would be in interesting thing to think about when creating installations in the future.