This video is Part 2 in a series - this is the black and white version. The first part of this series is here: "The Conversation" http://vimeo.com/14891218 The color version of "The Conversation Part II" is here: http://vimeo.com/15150029
Video and Editing by Victoria Taylor-Gore
Music - "Queen of the Wind" by Roger Subirana Mata Purchased music license from Jamendo.com
This is my second video in a series using vintage 1940's - 1950's Marx toy figures and dollhouses. My approach is based on a combination of Surrealist film and Film Noir (as far as lighting and 1940's - 1950's imagery). Like most surreal works, my goal is to imply a story...not to provide a literal narrative. New meanings and interpretations are provided by the viewer - strange juxtapositions of images evoke different stories...
This black and white version is consistent with the first in the series - with a Film Noir look and the symbolism of dark vs light...pushed the blacks to create a more tense emotional effect. I did the color version of this video just because the footage had such rich color, and it's fun to compare the different atmosphere of black and white vs. color.
Shot with a Canon 7D, Tokina 100mm f2.8 macro lens, Kessler Crane Pocket Dolly, edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, used Digieffects Aged Film effects for old black and white movie effect (plus some post manipulation of value in Premiere Pro). And last but not least, my Zacuto Z-Finder Pro-3x which I find essential with macro shots.
This video had lots of dark shots that were too "noisy" so I used Neat Video - http://www.neatvideo.com/ - to clean up the unwanted noise and artifacts, and then I used Digieffects Aged Film to add back an overall aged film grain (the way I wanted it!).
This is my new project using vintage 1940's - 1950's Marx toy figures and dollhouses. I'm not sure if this short film is finished...I have more scenes in mind, but may just do some more short films in a series. It just seemed to be enough, and the music has been a great inspiration...Roger Subirana Mata is a wonderful composer, and I love the way the track "The Dark Symphony" changes from optimism to suspense to mystery. My approach is based on a combination of Surrealist film and Film Noir (as far as lighting and 1940's - 1950's imagery). Like most surreal works, my goal is to imply a story...not to provide a literal narrative. New meanings and interpretations are provided by the viewer - strange juxtapositions of images evoke different stories...
Shot with a Canon 7D, Tokina 100mm f2.8 macro lens, Kessler Crane Pocket Dolly, edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, used Digieffects Aged Film effects for old black and white movie effect (plus some post maniuplation of value in Premiere Pro). And last but not least, my Zacuto Z-Finder Pro-3x which I find essential with macro shots.
Twitter never fails to be a great source of inspiration.I found out about the Plastic Bullet contest (http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/social/plastic-bullet-ipad/) last week from Philip Bloom's tweets (@PhilipBloom on Twitter) and decided to give it a try - grand prize is an iPad.I've had the Plastic Bullet application on my iPhone for awhile, and it's a great photo application - gives your photos a wonderful old"toy camera" look.
So I got serious this weekend, and shot several hundred photos of some vintage 1950's Marx "Campus Cuties" plastic dolls that I had for another ongoing project with miniature toys and dollhouses.I set up the shots of the dolls with minimal backgrounds...some have a Marx miniature 1950's pinball toy game in them.All of the photos were taken with my Canon 7D, Tokina 100mm f2.8 macro lens, and then were imported into my iPhone to apply Plastic Bullet effects.I played with some simple directional and reflected light, and Plastic Bullets created interesting and unique lighting changes in each one. It's amazing that I only used two of the dolls that I have, but varying the light seemed to change the dolls into different looking characters.
The monochromatic shots seemed to be more evocative. Some exposures work better with Plastic Bullet than others, so I experimented with different settings to enhance the images. As a typically surrealist artist, I really like the element of chance by not being able to control what Plastic Bullet will do to an image - you have to grab an image as you see it because you can't save, manipulate, or reproduce that effect again.See more explanation of Plastic Bullet here - http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/plastic-bullet/
The Plastic Bullet contest suddenly became less important and the project itself became my priority (the competition for the Plastic Bullet contest is pretty stiff anyway, and I can't decide which one to submit...but who wouldn't like to win an iPad?). What was important was the inspiration I get from things occurring all over the world through Twitter, Facebook, and now Flickr - connecting with other professionals in video, art, and photography - learning from them and finding out about events, new technology, new ways to express myself as an artist. I never would have done this series if I hadn't checked out Twitter the other day - pretty cool.
As far as theme goes, these are part of a larger project using vintage toy miniatures in surreal environments and using composition, placement, and light (and color in other images) to create an implied dialogue.The "Doll Series I" has a fifties film noir look due to the monochromatic and aged frame look created by Plastic Bullet.The only challenge will be to print them...my iPhone 3G output for Plastic Bullet isn't very large, so don't know how I'll handle that other than printing them on a small scale, but larger prints would be more dramatic.If anyone has any suggestions for that, let me know.
As a fine artist working primarily in pastels, my beloved Canon 7D is taking me into unknown territory - video and photography.I try to apply what I know about composition, lighting, color and texture to photography and video.But I'm still playing catch up with the technology of photography and video...it's an incredible learning experience for me.
"The Conversation: New Ongoing Series of Photographs by Victoria Taylor-Gore"
I bought my Canon 7D to make videos.But something is happening.With this magic image maker in my hands...I am falling in love with photography too.
When I watched Vincent Laforet's wonderful three day CreativeLive workshop a few months ago, I realized the importance of planning...storyboarding...how to get a story across. His ideas really impressed me - so much that I created my own template for storyboard sheets.But this pre-planning can be a problem for a surrealist like me - you see, often surrealists only imply a story - provide clues that have to be solved and interpreted by the viewer, and the conclusions are never the same.So I have decided to make surrealist thumbnails - hints of a story with photographs - not necessarily in any logical order, and no apparent end in sight...just the workings of the imagination linked together in a sequence of possibly related images.
Don't ask me what these images mean - I'm not sure.They are intuitive juxtapositions of objects (true surrealist form).Yes, they are characters - plastic toy miniatures, but I'm placing them together with a visual impulse, not a logical one.So the story evolves as I go, and I see things later that I didn't plan.
My own interpretations will differ from yours, and I hope my thoughts don't color your impression.But I see strong commanding male forces contrasting the gentle beauty of the female form.The reclining woman for me is a symbol of the feminine, the earth, the intuitive, mother nature.The strong male characters (WWII generals and presidents Truman and Eisenhower) symbolize the power of the masculine, discipline, order.I try to make symbols of ordinary objects - get beyond the personal and make something small and plastic like a toy evoke greater principles and suggest implied relationships.
Tech notes: Most of these photographs are right out of my Canon 7D (but of course I optimized them for the web).A few photographs have some levels manipulation and cropping, but I tried to create the color and atmosphere with set lighting and camera settings alone.I used a Tokina 100mm f2.8 macro lens...all shots are handheld.The background images are created from a 1950's Marx tin litho dollhouse and images from a flat screen TV (set on the Turner Classic Movies Channel).
This project is not complete - more to explore and I'll be posting additional photographs in this series.As we speak, I am starting a video with these characters and this theme, so check back for the video of "The Conversation."
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