Have a Nice Life – Bloodhail from Jed Smith on Vimeo.

A collection of timelapses shot over the last year by myself, using my modest photographic equipment: a Canon 350d (Rebel XT), a Canon EF 35-105mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens, and a Sigma EF-S 10-20mm f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens. Most were shot in Raw, and especially the cloud sequences have extensive post color correction.

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The music is Buralta by Fedaden, off of his new LP Broader (Beatport.com is the only place that has it in lossless, and it costs a ridiculous $25).

I shot my first timelapse a little more than a year ago. Above is a compilation of the best ones that I’ve created. I have learned a few things about timelapse:

1). Shutter angle in timelapses is very important. In stop motion animation, the strobing look of objects moving without motion blur is part of its visual aesthetic (except when counteracted by techniques such as Go Motion). In timelapse, since the subjects move by themselves, very filmic results can be achieved. The trick is to think about shutter angle, and to adjust your camera’s settings accordingly. Tyler Ginter wrote a more in-depth post about the technical and aesthetic considerations of Shutter Angle, but my description of it in application to timelapse follows.

Most films are shot with what is called a 180º shutter angle of a rotary shutter. This means for every frame, the exposure time is about half of the frame interval. Traditional film runs at 24 frames per second, so the time interval between each frame for both capture and display is 1/24th of a second. At a 180º shutter angle, each frame of film is exposed for 1/2 that time, or 1/48th of a second. This produces a level of motion blur that we as an audience are familiar with and are quite aware of as an innate aspect of our viewing experience, even if we don’t understand what we are seeing technically. The blurring of moving objects mimics the way our eyes see (just try flailing your hand around in front of your face), and helps the space between frames disappear, producing a pleasant illusion of movement. If you are shooting a timelapse of some clouds, and your frame interval is 2 seconds, your exposure time should then be about 1/2 of that, or 1 second.

Of course increasing or reducing your shutter angle has dramatic perceptual effect, which should be fully understood, and used carefully. Two dramatic examples of this are Saving Private Ryan and Apocalypto. Saving Private Ryan used a “narrow” shutter angle of 90º or even 45º for some combat shots, for a shorter exposure time and less motion blur on each frame, to produce a dramatic strobing effect, which accentuates the violence and physical proximity of the images. ( This effect is quite apparent in the final battle scene from the film ). Using a very short exposure duration interrupts a natural viewing experience.

If you take exposure too far on the other side of a “normal” shutter angle, strange results can occur. Many people who saw Apocalypto in the theater were confused about how some scenes looked like they were “shot on video”. They had a very fluid and “lifelike” motion aesthetic, which evoked “soap opera” or “news footage”. In addition to media being shot at higher framerates like 30i (NTSC DV), or 60p (capable by some HD cameras), this perceptual effect can occur at 24 frames per second if the shutter angle is set to be 360 degrees. Normally this setting would be impossible in a conventional film camera, but the shutter mechanisms of digital cinema cameras such as the Panavision Genesis easily allow the shutter duration to equal the frame interval. Some other movies that are afflicted with this problem are 2012 (shot by Dean Semler, the same DoP as Apocalypto), as well as Public Enemies (360º shutter is clearly visible at 00:58 in Trailer 1).

2). Make your shot look good as a compelling still photograph should before turning it into a timelapse. Composition counts doubly as much in Timelapse than in still photography. This should probably be pretty obvious, but it took me a while to realize, and even longer to implement properly. If you shoot a still photograph with bad or uninteresting composition, you can always stop looking at it, or move on to the next photo you shot. Viewing timelapse, you will be looking at a static composition for the duration of the shot, unless you have a motorized tripod head, or a motion-controlled dolly system. Make a conscious effort to take test shots and make sure your composition is spot-on, before you start shooting frames. Once you start shooting, the best plan is to walk away from your camera until the quantity of time you have calculated will be sufficient to get as many frames as you need. 15 seconds, or 360 frames is probably the minimum duration desirable for a single shot, depending on what you are shooting for.

3). Preplanning is just as important in timelapse as in animation. It is distinctly valuable to analyze the motion of the subject you are shooting, and determine what the best choices for achieving the result you want. Adjust your frame capture interval based on what you are shooting, and adjust your shutter speed accordingly in order to achieve the amount of motion blur you want. Try to imagine what the final timelapse will look like before you shoot anything, and think about how you could make it better.

4). Have fun, because timelapse is awesome, and can visualize movement in a completely novel way compared to our normative perceptions.

Most of these little projects are primarily technical experiments, which provided me with some much needed experience. They are significantly lacking in any sort of conceptual and creative capacities, which are so essential to good work. However, competency applies much more than creativity in a junior level rotoscoping job. Don’t worry though, I feel a boiling of creative output gearing up to burst forth sometime in the next 1-5 years.

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The constraint of “no cuts longer than 4 seconds” led me to explore a style of jump-cutting 1 subject with so little change in the jump as to produce the illusion of movement between frames. This in itself is a type of animation, if less manual of a process than creating each frame independently, as is traditional to animation techniques.

The red substance oozing from the mouth of the subject is Oobleck, a non-Newtonian solid.

Consider this a placeholder for just such an exceedingly extensive and detailed post about the process of creation of “Transference Simulation“, mostly regarding my post-production workflow choices and process, evolution of the conceptual content, and some explanations for my choices. And including, of course, a web-compressed video file of the final final cut. First, I will actually finish that tunnel of wires, and finish my eval, then I will write this post of gloriousness. You will see.

Here is an MPEG4 AVC encode of Transference Simulation, for your repeated viewing pleasure.

Transference Simulation is my final project for the Mediaworks program at the Evergreen State College. It is an animated music video recursively examining the representation of gender and sexuality in popular media. By accentuating morbidity, and asserting the vapid portrayal of the human body as a sexual object, this project attempts to bring light to the superficiality and delusional distraction of pop-culture media, such as the pop music video. Affected reflexively by this blight, the diegesis is allowed to play out and descend necrotically into the metaphorical consequents of this infection. Specific meaning is intended to be created in a willful dialectic between the viewer and his or her experience of the work.

This project was submitted to the Platform Animation Festival, and I ambivalently awaited word as to my acceptance or rejectance for quite some time. I had a feeling that it was likely to get rejected because of its lack of conceptual cogency, and overall stylistic roughness, and my inclinations were correct.

communicating in most forms online, such as bulletin board systems like blogs and forums, instant messaging, and personal profile pages such as myspace and facebook, are unique in that they allow or even encourage premeditated mediation of content. This is to say that one can think about what one is saying while one is saying it, and edit the result. This is not possible as much in real-time vocal conversations.

The portrayal of self online allows for very intentional representation in a manner which has the distinct possibility to be disingenuous. We were certainly interested in the implications of this possibly malicious capability.

We were also interested in the voyeuristic attributes of sites such as myspace, and suicidegirls.

Graham knew a girl named Ana who qualified perfectly for interrogating a number of these issues, and she graciously agreed to donate some of her precious time to talk to us. We ended up with an hour of interview footage, which discussed a great variety of issues and her personal experiences online. We then had to extract what we interpreted to be key phrases, telling of the issues we wanted to address, and cut it down to less than 5 minutes. This was a difficult task, and it resulted in the absolute butchering of what Ana said. We literaly cut sentences in half, pasted them together, and rearranged their order.

Possibly because of the moral ambiguity of this, we decided to employ the tactic of emphasizing our manipulative role in the creation of the video by beginning and ending with a deluge of jump-cuts. This worked very well to illuminate the constructed nature of many interview situations, which many people (myself most of all) are probably unaware of.

Watch the video.

Speaking of the subject matter, my creative process for this project was characteristically excruciating. I usual when working alone, I was able to engage in obsessive overanalysis and anxiety filled self-critique. As usual in my process, I started with a stylistic approach to guide my conceptual ideas. I realize this is quite opposite a normal approach to media creation, but I think attention to the visual and aesthetic components of a work is an essential part of success. I wanted to use footage of caves I had gathered from my home in Southeast Alaska during the summer months of 2005, in order to accentuate the themes of fear, anxiety, social isolation, and emotional introversion that I planned to address in the voiceover component of the video.

As is also characteristic of my process, many of the subtleties and nuances were not planned, but added intuitively during the process of creation. This is true of the childlike voice accent in the primary voiceover, the addition of the whispered sub-voiceover, and the entire ending, which I will get to in a moment.

I had no consideration for those “readerly” people when I created this video; the complexities are so great and the ambiguities so abundant that the majority of meanings and interpretations gleaned will likely originate with the viewer. This does not bother me, in fact I would prefer it this way, in particular with this genre of autobiographical self-portrayal, with which I am very much less than comfortable with, especially with myself as subject.
[See post to watch Flash video]

That said, here is the complete text to the whispered vocal track. Note that this probably says more about me than the greatly pre-cognated and somewhat more understandable baby-voice track.The artists fought on in martial law, only their feet touching each other, their love reinforced with every stick, broken and crackling underfoot like malignant tumor growths, infuriating with metastasis. My hand raised to scratch an eyebrow, and all of the dolls were suddenly still, like deflated balloon animals. The snarling and clawing incessantly pounded through my head, … why wouldn’t they stop fighting? Poor wretches bathing in sunlight, they will soon die of banjo tumors. Plucking away at their heart-cockles, the lifespan pointer goes round and round. Fire and light, fire and fright. Seesaw of horatio goesleft and right like the sauce on your relationship with your mastication.

Fluff pouts of grandeur shower the doused spectacle of hairy toes in rotten grass. Gritty personalities squish with the rhythm of monstrosity and subjective horror pain. Morning lives in on molestation end forgiveness end. Tired like jangacalla on the eve of death’s burial. Flinch and pull out your guts. but then fear not, flowers bloomed there in the carnage, and great feasts were had by hummingbirds humming in the air like the tears of opera singers gone with the winding of music boxes in a candy store, sitting shyly in a corner, your erection growing inexorably without your control.

fire at your friends with the will of suppressed nations. Social and kinesthetic retardation backspace to remove the mark of unintended consequences on the forehead of your doom. UP is the cleft in subtlety, down is the hatred of burning of impermeable kinder boxes. burning man falling from the straw hat of an obfuscated peasant looking at the grey overcast sky and wondering just what the purpose is to life after death if death ends before life even begins. Even looking at the ceiling doesn’t bring comfort or solitude.

Chocolate seamonkeys whirl in a vortex of gregarious emotional substitution. The junk blown home surrounds quickly and smothers intellect with mud on the carpet drapes bellow. I can see the alcohol seeping away from your skin, like talcum from a chamber pot. Subtle choices of grandeur adorn even mundane objects of rapture and excitement … on Cunnilingus Island.

Lampshades of poison infect the dermis-parts of even joking weekly whales of men; grandparents who squint and buy only larger glasses, but not thicker because they don’t understand the true point behind apology and efficaciousness.

Did you see what just happened now? Mercy on the face of mitropia. Soft choirs of alarm sounding out across the peasant country is the will of the testament swinging on the beziere curve of Gonzo. your future slipping under your skin, ready to peel off the one worn since those days of incessant cares. these are not my edges, they are the scars which I cannot see, graduated to another plane of thought, the old tread underfoot (this line written by Yazmin Shaw).

The wasteland after the hurt of buggering by seldome seen bunnies: I am strong enough to see, I am strong enough to grip the aids virus nerve between two fingers and pushing my way through the crowd into a great hall of specter quality, where the picture of night sat with softness and revelry.

Where does the toffee go when it searches for innocence? Gangrene at 24 frames per second.

Those last words and the ending footage seem to me to be very confusing. I’m still not sure exactly what it means. Here is a quote from my notes made during the process of creation (regarding the ending):
This will be significant of your own struggle with the auto-representational nature of the project you’re doing, and hopefully make apparent the fact that you are a subject and are represented, not true/authentic; there is no authentic in media portrayal. is there an authentic self represented in social interaction any more than in movies/films? both are an act of representation. I slit the throat of the me in the film, and raise my arms to the fetid green of the projection screen, mirrored by it and afraid, but laughing.

A word on the technical aspects of Solus in Tenebrarum.
It was created in the midst of a convoluted workflow between Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 and After Effects 7.0. The primary editing of the background video footage and sound was done in Premiere, and then imported into After Effects, where all compositing, video effects, titling, and final composition of footage occurred. All rendered files were output to HuffYUV, an excellent fast lossless Win32 video codec, as the artifacts that DV introduced to the footage was unacceptable. The beginning title was rendered in 3D in Blender 3D, an excellent piece of free open source software. The title was then displacement mapped to give it the moving texture of the water in the layer underneath it, then duplicated and blurred, and then alpha track-matted, to the blurred layer, and blended with classic difference mode to the water layer. All footage was also converted to 24p from 30i in After Effects using the Reelvision Twixtor plugin. I then rendered the entire video with a 3:2 pulldown and authored to a 16:9 DVD for presentation, as the DVCAM decks in our screening room will not output 16:9 video footage with the correct aspect ratio, which is also unacceptable.

The process of creation of this video is somewhat interesting to note. All footage was ‘collected’ completely independant of this ‘production’. The story was actually created and sequentially evolved out of the seed ideas of the contents of the footage I had previously shot. For example, the idea of the “Omnipotent Artificial Consciousness” / Brain-in-a-Chamber-Pot was concieved and added into the script after the footage was shot, which was when I was about halfway completed with it.

Looking back on The Bees, there are some technical elements which I could certainly do better (notably, sound design and mixing!), however I am quite enamored with the amount of nuance and obfuscation in the story. I also love the stylistic approach of synchronizing audio and video, in both cuts and motion within the frame. This is evident throughout The Bees in the cutting, and to a more obvious degree in the fly breakdance scene. Note that this represents an imperfect initial exploration of this technique, and that I have honed and perfected my approach and skillls in later projects, such as the music video I did for edIT‘s track “Laundry.”

The editing was accomplished in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, and various video effects were done in Adobe After Effects 6.5, with sound capturing and processing done in Sony Sound Forge 8.0.

Cinematography, sound and video editing, voice talent, video effects: Jed Smith
Music by Autechre, µZiq, End, Aphex Twin, Aix Em Klemm, and John Dowland.

Note: This video will require the most recent version of the Adobe Flash Player to work.