Hi Edward, Thanks for the comments. I like your description so much that I'm going to try not to ruin it by explaining *everything*. That being said, no, the scenes you describe were not done that way on purpose. The whole thing was done with automated processes that I've developed over the past few years. So, although I usually have a pretty good idea of what everything is going to look like, I don't apply specific effects to specific scenes or images.
But the idea is to achieve a sort of "painterly" quality and in this case it has certain implications. Historically we tend to attach ideas of "monumentality" to that which is painted or sculpted more so than photographs or film. We see this for instance in the tendencies of countries, towns, corporations etc. to have their leaders or prominent figures cast in a "traditional" artistic medium whether it's oil color, stone, metal or marble. And like the video, these are soundless monuments where the handling of the medium is meant to say all that needs to be said. I'm glad you like it. I like it too. I was very pleasantly surprised by the outcome. best r. Pall On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Edward Picot <[email protected]> wrote: > Pall - > > I've just watched this all the way through, and I think it's fantastic. It > ought to be put on permanent display somewhere. It's got such a sense of > history to it - not just the history of America and American politics, but > the history of American art too - that really painterly quality which you've > managed to catch. There are times when you can almost feel the pigment being > pushed around with a pallette-knife, and the colours - those reddish browns, > blacks and blues - have got a tremendous richness to them. The slowness of > the action seems to bring out the patrician, studies aspect of the ceremony. > From this side of the Atlantic, it seems to capture a real sense of the > complexity of American politics: the intensely aspirational quality, the > feeling that individuals can make a difference, that the human spirit is > inherently noble, and that the world can be made a better place if we just > make a sufficient effort - along with the intense theatricality, the > self-regard, the sense that these gestures are being made with the whole > world for an audience, and that if you can just get the gestures right it > almost doesn't matter what you actually do. > > Two passages in particular struck me, and made me wonder how much you'd > readjusted your original to emphasise certain aspects. The whole Aretha > Franklin passage is wonderful, but it seems to me that there's a contrast > between her black face and the whiteness of the Capitol which is really > symbolic of something or other. And at about the forty-minute mark we get a > glimpse of George W, and instead of being reddish-brown like all the others > his face is grey, the colour of lead. Did you do that on purpose or did it > just come out that way? > > - Edward Picot > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > -- ***************************** Pall Thayer artist http://www.this.is/pallit ***************************** _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
