15 Minute Performance

This video, albeit long, is something I'm actually rather proud of. The more I watch it, the more I find to like about it. The third and final project (after a live in-class performance that was not recorded) for my Digital Cinema Theory class, this 15 minute piece is made up of videos from other projects, as well as videos that I simply felt fit the music. The music is a combination of three songs by an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros. The First song is Untitled 4 off the album (), the second song is called Avalon, and the third song is called Untitled 3 also off the album, (). Please watch the video, then read my synopsis below.





The idea behind this video was to overcome my previous inability to get a message across by honing my skills and making images more clear. While there are a lot of muddled images where it's difficult to tell what's going on, when that happens that's kind of the point. The ones you see clearly, are the ones I want you to see clearly. Given the fact that this is constructed of three different songs, there are three distinct movements to the piece, and there is also a bit of storytelling as the work goes on. The first movement has music that is happy, but careful, and by the end turns downright wistful and sad. We are carried through the second movement by a more somber and dangerous sounding track and we get to a part where the video shows us war, bombs exploding, and a president making a speech. Without being too much of an overt political statement (I never show the actual face of the man in the foreground) the viwer can infer that something is going desperately wrong with the happiness that occurred in the first act. The second act ends with shots of a space shuttle flying away, presumably to another planet or another place -- the act matters little, it's the metaphor of escape and departure from the previous movement that is the most important. The third and final act of the piece returns to a happy state and employs much of the same imagery of the first act while still remaining unique.

Feel free to comment.


:-)