APD wk2 Play & Time

In response to this week’s theme. I want to look into how a collections of videos can create a narrative and sense of time.

Method:
record clips through out different times of day
edit video clips
set up a webpage with a digital clock
use videos as background
set up for different videos will play according to the currant time

Context
The concept of time is abstract. It’s been utilized in a million ways as a great element in storytelling, in games, animations and films. For this project, I want to explore the relationship between time, behaviors and narrative. As a graphic designer, I’ve often worked with still images/ graphics. I want to get out of my comfort zone and play with motion pictures and sound. I collected and worked with clips from my daily routine.
This project sits in the fields of (storytelling based on different time period of a day) and web design. I was trying to create a narrative with only picture and time. The concept is to present the behaviors of a person in different time frames through out a day with a real-time clock (Melbourne local time) as a connection between the viewer in front of the screen. I set up a webpage with full-screen video background and the digital clock hover it. The full-screen picture enhance the experience of engaging the narrative. I set up three loop videos for three different periods of time. When viewer visit the webpage, there are currant time and a video clip that indicates activities happened during that time.
Similar full-screen video technic can be seen on commercial web design, such as Arts and Culture with Google, The Poco people and Phantom Hire

Response
In this work, I look at the relationship between time and human behaviors. It is interesting to observe the different behaviors that different people would have through out different time of a day. The locations, events and objects in the videos provides informations about the person. When the pieces of the behaviors are put together, it’s like putting puzzles together. While looking at the video loop, the real-time clock gives it a sense of connection between on and off screen. It’s a fairly simple concept, however I was very surprised that I had a such difficult time to execute it. The obstacle is mainly dealing with timer and conditions for playing the video. I had to turn to my housemate for help correcting the condition codes. The long loading time for videos on webpage is also tricky and I haven’t thought of a solution for fixing it.  The outcome is still quite interesting. To see the videos being played and creating a narrative at  different times of day as a semi-live project.

Project outcome: Narrative played in time