I was pretty happy with this project, mainly because I was very close to giving up on it, for something I was more comfortable with. I tend to try to be too cleaver with thing , but in this project I stripped it all back. It didn’t need any complicated ideas or fancy execution.

Although my initial idea was flawed and was cut back to just running the part of the idea that suggested just viewing feet would be interesting on a cognitive level as well as visually interesting was sound.

I also liked that the more I worked on this the greater emotional attachment I gained, my whole idea that me returning is study is about running. (running away or stopping me from running away ? not sure ). The initial concept was so that the viewer would think the people were running away or running towards depending on where they started watch from, and in this version instead of me trying to force that on them for a small amount of time, they are free to make and change their own mind.

Visually It works well the low camera angle is interesting the legs and feet contrast nicely with the surroundings, its cut tightly to keep motion the going throughout each shot. The audio adds a personal feeling to things as if you are there part of it rather than just a casual bystander watching someone run past.

I was possibly a bit lucky that the footage turned out ok, I need to be more conscious of not just the focus of what I want to shoot (in this case the feet) but also what is also going to be in shot. (other clothing etc). Also I should have looked at using other recording devices to avoid camera noise I think having it so close to the ground increased this problem.

As a loop it is engaging I find myself staring at in for longer than I should. I go to turn it off but find myself looking at it for “just a bit longer”.

The different speed versions most the most interesting thing to come out of this. Just how much our perception of time affects how we relate to things. I thought about being able to change speeds with this project but, I don’t think it needs it and I’ll leave that whole concept of playing with time to future project.

* Safari seems to struggle with this file it plays nicely in firefox etc.

I tried youtube and then embedding and adding a loop property to the video but it kept buffering even when fully loaded. So I have gone with a flv. As mentioned in earlier post the loss of quality here detracts substantially from the footage, if its going to be slow it needs to be high quality.

But when I cut the footage together I liked the on camera audio, you could hear breathing footfalls, even the occasional bird call.

There was unfortunately a bi of camera noise, that I mostly filtered out (not quite all unfortunately)  and my son making some odd squeaky noises that stamped a very obvious looping point but I moved some foot falls from another part of the video and replace that.

I even liked the slowed down version of the audio, although others though it a bit odd maybe menacing, I think it adds to the sense of impact when a foot hits and the slow audio gives it a slightly more unworldy feel, but it was possibly to loud In its original form if it was far quieter it would just add to the sense of things rather that over power it.

Finally I managed to get a very odd feed back loop today when testing a microphone, not sure if I could record it without something else to record on to but it made a great sound that could actually fit with this project. But as the project is due shortly I don’t think it will make the cut. (next time maybe)

But not quite morning came, the morning of the critique and I had to copy of the renders to take in to , I thought I would take a slow and a full speed one to show, but when viewed the slow motion version it didn’t seem to have the impact, the full sped one felt much stronger in comparison. Maybe its just my paranoia, I’ld wait and see how it went down.

Its actually fantastic for making a rough cut, I could easily see every piece of footage got a preview on mousing over. the dragged a selection of bits that where useful and dragged them straight to my project. In no time at all I had my long list of possible footage.

Maybe it was just procrastinating or maybe I actually had something I kept playing the footage then cutting out what didn’t work and re-ordered shot when they didn’t go together, but the more I cut the more time I spent watching the loop.

It already was working I found myself drawn to watching it over and over, then make a small adjustment and would get stuck watching it again.

I looked at going tighter cuts, with iMovie, it looks like you can do it but I would probably have to read some instructions or do a tute. No time for that I’m having fun cutting this so I export out for premiere so I can get on with it. (But I think I’ll be using iMovie for rough cuts next time)

So was that it was I running away from making something with a bit of raw footage where I couldn’t hide behind effects.

Running away from my running idea.
Right thats it the running project is going ahead, most of me going back to study is to stop myself from running away.

The are some good shots there, the whole running concept has suddenly become even more important, and the one figure running works the best for this.

Inspired again lets edit.

Quite happy with how things are going, so happy in fact that I even quite enjoy the footage while it rendering for ram preview, its in slow motion I can see dust and twigs bouncing after each foot fall, it looks great. (I had fun scrubbing foot falls back and forth when editing)

It looks so good I might run the whole thing slow.

I wasn’t even so sure about the idea, the meeting in the video was going to be a very obvious looping point. A possible problem with this is any one viewing will possibly watch it only a few times then feel they have seen it and move on, losing that never ending mesmerising effect that loop working well has.

Back to the footage.

All the initial footage was pretty well unusable, but after a while the kids seemed to relax their running style and I started to work out what worked. The big issue is that although I considered footwear I didn’t consider the rest of the kids costume, my daughter was wearing baggy grey tracksuit pants that not only blended in with the bush setting it also just flopped around when she ran , giving no definition to her legs and looking very uninteresting. To make matters worse she injured her arm and its in a sling (requiring rest so re-shooting would be difficult).

The up side is there is some nice footage of Ned running, maybe enough to get something to work.

So mostly sow with a few hints of silk, maybe not enough for a full purse but enough to start weaving.

Wardrobe wise they will both be wearing similar style sand shoes, and I ensured my daughter was wearing matching laces do I could flip the shots. There are no brand names to worry about and as I’m not shooting faces then flipping the footage shouldn’t cause to many problems.

I found a location very rural away from traffic and city noise, it took a while shooting before the kids relaxed with their running and I managed to find angles that worked. The best looking shots required the camera to be practically on the ground. I hoped that holding the camera on the ground would reduce camera shake.