At some point in 2001 I bought my first super-8 camera. I can’t really remember the exact reason, but I imagine it was for the same one the younger me did most things - to be a bit different. I was at university in Stirling, Scotland, at the time. I was studying film and had read umpteen interviews with directors about their humble super-8 beginnings, so I guess it made sense. In hindsight it all seems a bit stupid, cause I was poor and at £12 for a three minute film it was pretty expensive. But, at least back then Kodak were still producing stock commercially and processing was included. Those days are now long gone. The last time I used super-8 for a music video it ended up costing close to £100 per three minute reel.
Anyway, I bought a cheap camera on ebay, as well as a projector and off I went. My friend Bart became my first star/victim. The most exciting thing about my camera was that it had three frame rates, 12, 18 and 24 frames per second. With my projector running at 18fps it meant that I could capture things in slow-motion, as well as speed them up. I’ve always been fascinated by slo-mo, so this possibility was particularly exciting.
We didn’t really have any plan and were mainly just testing the camera, so we did the things we figured slo-mo would look good in. Jumping, running, that kind of thing. We did some nonsensical ‘shot/reverse shot’ of Bart looking at a clock, looking at hos watch, spitting on the ground, looking at the spit and so on. All extremely exciting footage.
This particular reel of film has been in a box for the better part of thirteen years. I have watched it a few times, for no other reason than to get out the projector. There is something special about setting it all up and watching the flickery, jerky nonsense I’ve stored up over the year.
It had been a long time, however, and I’d more or less forgotten about it when Bart sent me some songs for his band’s new single. Part of WIAIWYA’s seven-inch club, the b-side was called ‘Life We Knew’ and it just seemed to me that no matter what the song sounded like, it should have a video of Bart jumping and running in slow-motion. So, that’s what I did.
Now, if you’ve watched the video above you’ll know that it’s extremely blurry, jerky and choppy. Basically, the original film footage was shot in 24fps. It was then projected at 18fps onto a wall. My Digital camera captured the projected image in 50fps and then finally I slowed it all down to 10% in Final Cut Pro. I kind of like the end result and how the software is struggling with the lack of frames, resulting in weird pulsating images. It’s like a battle between analog and digital in a way.
Anyway, this was a very long-winded way of saying that you should check out Eagleowl. They’re awesome.
http://www.eagleowlattack.co.uk
http://wiaiwya-7777777.blogspot.com
jbbartram-illu
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
blakekathryn
