Video Piece - 'Inside Veins'

A screencap from 'P.T.' showing my favourite camera angle and lighting

 My inspiration for the video piece stems from a combination of literature, music, ambient sound, video games and art. The above is a screenshot from 2014 game 'P.T.', an interactive teaser for 'Silent Hills', a new survival horror game title by Guillermo del Toro and Hideo Kojima that was since cancelled after Konami pulled out of the project. The game uses ambient sound to create a rich, disturbing atmosphere and also uses repeated visual motifs in a unique way that gets a huge emotional reaction from the player. Weather is used for pathetic fallacy, lighting is used to create tension, and ambient noise makes use of minor sound distortions like TV static and radio interference to create a textured sound-scape. There is often the sound of rain against the windows, a lamp creaking, distorted groaning, a fly getting electrocuted by a naked light-bulb - all these ways of using sound to build atmosphere are incredibly inspiring for this video piece.

Likewise, indie horror game 'The Path' uses ambient sound in engaging ways, usually to foreshadow future events. The game has a different repertoire of noises such as swings in a child's play-park, birdsong, trees rustling in the wind and moaning vocalizations that sound either from pain or pleasure. 'The Path' is produced by small Belgian company Tale of Tales, led by Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn, and explores Gothic motifs reminiscent of 19th Century art in their re-envisioning of the Brothers Grimm fairytale 'The Grandmother's House.' There are recurring visual symbols used in the game and a way of editing cutscenes that gives a surrealist effect, inspiring me for this piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnp4-RoRxSo

The above link features the opening credits sequence to Naughty Dog's 2013 title 'The Last of Us', which features monochrome time-lapse footage of fungi spreading. I've been using the clip as a visual touchstone for the palette of our own piece, as the high contrast and monochromatic filter would create a brilliant tonal contrast. We want to create images of a heart attack occurring, and also display the way that the organ shuts down and eventually withers, and perhaps by taking some vegetable or plants and allowing them to decompose will create a similar effect. If we take photographs of the decomposing matter each day and string these images together to they give the illusion of a time-lapse video we may be able to achieve a similar effect. I hope to use photographs in a stop-frame animation way during this piece as it will add visual texture to the video.

A selection of screenshots from the opening sequence, to showcase the visuals that have been inspiring me

I created a short piece of video experimenting with colour filters, cuts and sound so that I've got a distinct idea of the kind of feel, sound and type of cuts I might want to use in our final video. This was made quickly and spontaneously so that I will have an idea of the tone and atmosphere I want to use. Audio clips are from the internet for the sake of time and creative freedom but in our actual video we will devise ways of creating sound beds ourselves.

A photograph taken before shooting the short video

The above is another short piece of film, this time using only text and sound. I wanted to use fragmented poetry to convey a narrative behind our concept, perhaps even to illustrate the character of the person who is having a heart attack and create a motive and personality for them. I used my camera and filmed myself typing, as I felt this was more nostalgic and interesting than merely typing into iMovie, and it also meant I provided typing noises that felt calming and relaxing. Over these, I sourced rain sound from youtube and layered the sounds to create something soothing. This video is deliberately simple, relying on the observer's ability to use their imagination to create images.

A screencap of the original piece of poetry

We used footage of bubbles in a sink of running water and various filter effects in iMovie to achieve this look of blood rushing through an artery.

The above video is another finished segment of the project - this particular section is made primarily of close-ups and detailing the process of a heart attack. The audio is sourced from online.

  

Unedited clips that we used for our movement section of the video.

This video is our texture section of the piece, whereby we used our own images of blood cells and textures we thought were appropriate and combined them into a slideshow of images.

 

 The video above is a stop-motion piece of animation representing the flow of blood around the body and the processes occurring in the body before a heart attack. In the final few frames, the camera zooms in on the heart to represent entering its cells, which links to the textures in the next part of the video.

We collectively brainstormed ideas and edited together. I wrote, shot and edited the text and close-up section, the ink section focused on movement was Abbey's concept and driven by her, and we all participated in making the footage. Katie edited the pieces of film and put them together, and she also had the idea for the stop-frame animation section, which she directed. Abbey and Katie also used their own photographs of cells and edited each photo before we put them together into a slide-show. We chose sound clips and music collectively and most of our efforts were as a group, not as individuals. Our concept behind the video was on portraying the process of a heart attack, and in particular the journey the body and the emotions go through prior and during the heart attack. We were also inspired by the idea that a person will know when they are about to have a heart attack, and that they will have an impending sense of doom. Perhaps the video takes place in the moments before a heart attack occurs and shows an internal perspective, both physically and psychologically, on the process.