Our lecturer – the film-maker Dan Paolantonio – encouraged us to try our own experimental film challenge. It was our task to create a film which explored our immediate environment. We should also consider textures, patterns and movement.
After watching inspirational short films that Dan created, we discussed possible obstructions for our own short film. The class agreed on a maximum duration of one minute, moreover we wanted to include people in the frame and use additional music while editing.
I was in a small group with five other students. After exploring the campus for a while, we decided to set up our phone (we shot our film with a smartphone camera because we did not have enough time to borrow equipment from the Media Hub) in the Roland Levinsky Building. We quickly agreed to film some abstract shoots of our feet, while we danced and walked past the camera. In the end we came up with a lot of different footage that we edited with an application on the phone.
We edited our film with a smartphone application
I really enjoyed doing this experiment, even though I would have wished for a little bit more time. I found it challenging to follow obstructions but they made me think outside the box and work way more experimental than I was used to. The group discussion and feedback after showing our result was very helpful. We spoke about ways to improve our work, recapped the production process and compared our research findings.
Documentation of MEDI512 "Experiment" 