motion|sound

Take On Me — A-ha
This was always one of my favourite songs/videos, even before we watched it in class. I love the combination of rotoscoped imagery and video. I found that it does a really great job of establishing eyeline, keeping continuity and breaking the axis from time to time.  In the shots where the man and woman are string at each other in the coffee shop (through the comic book), their eyes are always lined up when the camera switches between them. Also during the mirror scene, the guy is always on the right, whereas the girl is on the left, and eventhough the camera does move around them, it stays on the same side of the 180º axis. During the chase sequence, the runners all travel from the right side of the screen to the left, keeping the motion fluid. As well, as the woman is running home she keeps a constant speed and runs from the right side to the left side of the screen, thereby making the transition between running out of the coffee shop to running into her bedroom hardly noticeable. Considering how much planning went into everyshot, it still comes across as effortless and fun, and that makes me appreciate the video even more.

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Meshes of the Afternoon — Maya Deren
I really liked how the film played with the idea of a loop, but something changed each time. I planned to do something like this with my loop, where i’d be walking down a hallway and something would change each time. Using layering, i would be able to walk down the hallway with many instances of myself to add more dimension to the basic loop.

Although originally a silent film, the sound added to the emotion of the film and did not distract, or take away from what was happening on screen.
For many nights after i watched this, i kept dreaming about Mirror-Face

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The Girl from Moush — Garine Torossien
I felt the use of layering and looping worked really well in this piece to convey a sense of emotion. The soundtrack also worked well. The fluidity and colours were reminiscient of dancing which is of great importance in the Middle East. Being from the Middle East myself, a lot of the imagery and sound effects (especially about 1 minute in) brought back a lot of memories. The rich blues and purples that Garine used conflict with the traditional imagery of what one associates with that part of the world, but i think that helps to remove some of the familiarity of the scenes and instead focus on experiencing what is happening on screen with a sense of wonderment.

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She Puppet — Awesh
I didn’t really deel like this film was so effective as the narration consisted of many different voices, so instead of tying the voice to “Lara Croft”, it just seemed like outside narration. Also, i think our generation, having grown up on video games, was more concerned with the actual game footage than trying to link it to what was happening in the narration.

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♥ md