"Obscura" - a weird short film I've just put together...

**MinionZombie** · 04-Jul-2012

This is an experimental mood-piece about someone who may, or may not be, a Crime Scene Photographer. It was inspired not only by Antonioni's "Blow-Up", but also "Another Way of Telling" by John Berger and Jean Mohr, in which they wrote about, and illustrated, the idea that there is a friction between the photographed moment, and the memory of the moment itself, which the photograph resembles.

I decided to put this little short together after I dug out from a drawer an old camera that used to belong to my Uncle (it's a Zeiss Ikon Contina I from the 1950s).

It was pieced together from a disparate range of various photographs and footage that I have gathered over the years (specifically, in this case, between 1999 and the present day). Enjoy, it's even less than 3 minutes long.

http://deadshed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/...hort-film.html

**AcesandEights** · 04-Jul-2012

Well done! Loved the music choice.

What were you focusing on while filming your eyes dilating?

**clanglee** · 05-Jul-2012

Very cool MZ!! Very Dali or Lynch. Good stuff. I liked the comparison of the eye/pupil to the camera/shutter. Good stuff.

**MinionZombie** · 05-Jul-2012

Originally Posted by AcesandEights

Well done! Loved the music choice.

What were you focusing on while filming your eyes dilating?

Originally Posted by clanglee

Very cool MZ!! Very Dali or Lynch. Good stuff. I liked the comparison of the eye/pupil to the camera/shutter. Good stuff.

Thanks gents, glad you enjoyed it.

Aces - I was focusing my eyes between the opposite end of the room and a part of the videocamera that was quite close to my face (as close as the focus would allow). Also a good long blink helped now and then, some shots of which I used - I had a rather bright light shining quite nearby in a room with no other light, so it was quite easy to get the effect of the pupil dilating.

As for the music, it was actually the very first test version of the music used in "Skinner" (which I made in 2009, see below), which I then reversed before applying some reverb and 'echo chamber' effects to it:

Youtube Video

Clang - indeed, it fed in to the whole idea that I mentioned above about the photograph versus the memory of the moment (e.g. also having fragments of the photos before revealing more of it - you remember parts of the overall image). I wasn't particularly thinking of Lynch's work when I was cutting it together, but I had very recently watched both Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive again, so perhaps it fed in subconsciously. The direct influence was the film Blow-Up, and the book Another Way of Telling.

Just a little film to play around with - it was an idea I had floating about in my head for a few weeks, and as you say, the whole eye/lens comparison etc.