48 Hours

So, we’re going to do a 48 hour video race…without cameras. I would be worried about this project if we couldn’t use still cameras. My background in still photography will hopefully come in handy during the video race. How I will use my camera to tell a story is still up in the air, but I do think that I can come up with some inventive ways to utilize my skills with a still camera to produce a unique and interesting video. The hardest aspect for me will be making the best use of the limited time we have to both shoot and edit the project all together. Even having a week or two to finish a project sometimes seems strained on time, but 48 is very quick. Given this limited time, I’ll have to work quicker overall, filming and editing in a manner that strives for completion as much as it does quality. I will have a tough time keeping my tendency to try to make everything perfect at bay in order to let my more creative, spontaneous ideas play out. I hope to be surprised by, and possibly happy with, my finished product. It may not be exactly like I will want it, but it will be, in some ways, much more pure in style. I do think things lose that sense of purity and realism when you over-analyze or over-edit something to the point that it is so exact, it has no soul anymore. It reminds me of the rough theatre article we read, discussing the lack of tonality in the notes reproduced electronically. Even though I strive to make things perfect and right all the time, I do practice just easing up a bit and letting things fall where they may.
I must say that, considering my artistic history, many of my best photos or writings have largely been spontaneous or quickly produced, or both. I have began to think about various places that I could shoot at, not limiting myself to one particular place or scene. I have a feeling that something great will come out of a more hastily decided plan, rather than try to plan it out to the last detail. I am trying to keep my brainstorming and ideas general for the moment, for fear of getting latched on to one particular idea and not wanting to back off it even when it proves to be not useful with the mystery prop. Keeping ideas flowing without zeroing in on one will hopefully help me in finishing a project that will have some sense of realism and adventure. Having everything but the prop planned out is tempting, but quite frankly I’m hoping to have fun with this project and would rather think quick on my feet and see where my imagination takes me instead of being constrained by a plan. After all, that has sort of been the theme of this class: Experimentation and Rough Theater. I would feel like I had really put what I’ve learned in this class to the test if I make an adventure out of the 48 hour video race.