Context
Responding to the theme of Play and Nature I created a video, in which the plants, as a band, play DreamWorks intro.
My project this week is a plant-clips montage, which is narrated by the music. I was inspired by the work of Miles Colubriale, Ornithology and Nick Flnders-Farmer’s work, Leaves. Ornithology is a “mockumentary, ” where the birds are interviewed about their neighborhood. Leaves focuses on the structures and relationship of a variety of leaves. I wanted to observe the plants grow around where I live. I also wanted to explore the plants growing pattern, the movements in the wind and the relationship with music notes.
Method
I started out recording the plants outside of the the apartment I live in. I was also brainstorming the music that I would have for the video while I was recording. I was not sure what kind of footage of the plant movement I would require for the piece of music. I collected around 25 clips (average 1-min-long each) through out different times in two days.
I set my phone on a tripod to capture the plants in the wind. While recording, I also observed the figure and moments and tried to brainstorm the sound of possible instrument that could be represented by the plants.
While brainstorming for the music, I discovered it was quite difficult to pin down each plant clip with a specific instrument. I decided to go with more iconic theme or intro tune, such as streaming platform logo tune or film company opening intro.
To make the video more complex, I shape-cropped some of the clips. I also adjusted the sizes of the clips according to the rhythm, trying to match the beats of the music.
Project outcome: https://youtu.be/PBLmtIEtCmQ
The experiment did not go well. While I reviewed the clips I have recorded, I discovered it was difficult to match their natural movements in the wind to match the rhythm of the music. Some of the plants grow around where I live also didn’t quite fit with the DreamWorks intro tune. I had to look up some stock videos to add into the montage.
The most interesting part of this experiment was trying to match the instrument sound with the plant and its movement. It was like picturing if the plants could do A capella, what would it look like.
Reflection
The initial idea was to use different plant and its movement in the wind to represent individual instrument playing; and then put together different clips of plant to play a piece of classical music. I soon discovered the it was difficult to match the plant movement with any of the instrument tune while I was reviewing the clips I recorded.
I decided to pick out the music piece first. I look into opening intro of streaming platform or film company/ studio is usually short and with simple composition. Using a popular/ an iconic tune helps building the connection between the picture and the music. I landed on DreamWorks intro tune. I roughly counted that there were four different instruments in the piece.
Even in the end, I still found both the clips I recorded and the stock videos I got were hard to match up the rhythms, I tried to modify the clips into different shapes and with different size to match the beats. Through this process, I explored the relationship between motion picture and the music tempo.
I was struggling with the theme this week. I was suspired to learn that I got so little knowledge of nature and environment around me that I could comfortably work with. I would like to explore further with nature and its relationship with music.
References
Miles Colubriale's response to Play and Nature: http://magistudio.net/work/apd-10-play-and-nature-ornithology
Nick Flnders-Farmer’s response to Play and Nature: http://magistudio.net/work/apd-week-10-play-and-nature-2
About This Work
By Gin Lin
Email Gin Lin
Published On: 18/05/2022