Spaces, Movement

Undulation

Inside Out

Timespan (Rough Cut 01)

Production Strategy

I will be recording both sound and video in a woods environment, in the afternoon, so the light is lower and makes more interesting and longer shadows. My sound capturing strategy will be to really do a lot of playing around with the left and right channels, and also doing a lot of close to the ground takes. My video strategy will be to do mostly long takes, and also try to do some interesting things with framing.

Ten Questions

1. Where does nature end and man's influence begin?
2. How does the camera handle drastic lighting changes?
3. Does wind have to be detrimental to sound recording?
4. Can a long take be edited rhythmically?
5. What types of objects can be used for graphic matches?
6. What type of camera movements can be used for graphic matches?
7. Where can I get a good mix of natural and man-made sounds?
8. What constraints are there in camera placement?
9. Can the sound of walking be used to make the viewer aware of the creator's hand?
10. Can channel pans for sound be used to immerse the viewer in the images?

Trek Assessment #04 (Experience)

My favorite experience from any of the treks had to be the aforementioned log and plane experience from Trek 01. Sitting on the log and just letting nature (and technology, I suppose, as the plane is passing overhead) happen around me was very serene.

Trek Assessment #3 (Situations)

1. Trek 01: I went into the forest expecting to gather some generic wind blowing or bird chirping sounds, but I was pleasantly surprised to find almost immediately after I began there was a much richer variety of sounds that were only really noticeable to me with my headphones on and the volume turned up. One of the surprises was, in an otherwise undistinguished area, the sound of crickets became overwhelming. I looked around for where exactly this large number of crickets was hiding, but couldn't find them anywhere. When I left the chirping stopped.

2. Trek 01: Another interesting discovery during Trek 01 was the sound of the highway. I had thought that I was distant enough from the road to get undiluted sounds of nature, but I was wrong as I distinctly heard a police siren and semi trucks passing every few minutes.

3. Trek 02: While I was filming from a low perspective, a curious squirrel jumped in front of the camera. As I had been focusing firmly on the tiny LCD screen, this sudden intrusion upon my subject matter made me fall backwards in shock and hit my head on a tree. True story.

Trek Assessment #2 (Serenity)

1. During Trek 01 I had stopped to sit on a log. A plane passed overhead, and I followed it with my microphones (left then right, to simulate movement). For some reason the birds chirping, mixed with the distant and steady hum of the airplane broadcast through my headphones, distancing me from the real world, felt very serene.


2. Trek 02 had me capturing light from a low angle, so I got to see things from a much different angle than I usually do. Seeing tree roots close up with the leaves whirling around them in the breeze was refreshing and very interesting.

Trek Assessment #1 (Grievances)

1. I recorded my sounds for Trek 01 on a very still day, or so I thought. About an hour into the trek clouds overtook the sky (unfortunately, not the interesting type with lightning, thunder, or even rain- it just made it overcast and dreary), and the wind started to blow. I'm glad I had gotten a lot of good sounds that first hour, because after that my wind screens were very ineffectual in blocking that bothersome wind noise, and I only got a few good minutes of sound in the subsequent time.

2. Trek 02 went relatively smooth, until of course I decided to focus using the "Super Macro" setting on a leaf. It wasn't the camera's fault, but again the wind which made this very, very difficult. The wind kept blowing the leaf out of focus before the camera could catch it, and this was aggravating to no end.