collaboration work - s.hunt p.thompson

Susie comes round today so we can edit the footage we'd shot on the beach, for our collaborative video we're going to submit to Aberdeen artists 2007.

We'd shot about 40 mins of footage, only to whittle it down to 6 mins.
It's amazing what our first video "sketch" (what we thought was a final cut) had done for us. We could understand what new shots we needed. When we started looking at the individual shots (14 takes of various angles etc) we could refer back to the original, knowing what worked and what didn't. We had 4 types of shot, the leaves advancing to the camera, panning shots (left to right), leaves heading away from the camera and some static shots with leaves heading from left to right. We had discussed the order of shots, and with an idea of "rush hour" (working title) we had a plan to show 1/2 of the video with all the footage heading to the camera, mid way, we had some transitional shots linking the final "away" section with panning shots...

It was a very easy, harmonious way of working. Susie would direct me when using premier, I would also offer suggestions, even disagree with certain shot choices, we'd discuss the merits and the failures of a shot. All in all a great, free way of working. Susie's vision and my technical / aesthetic filming created an accomplished video work.

The concept behind the work, and this is Susie's baby, is to invoke a sense of reminiscences, a wistful recollection of memories of walks, on a beach (physically), a sense of daydream. The video has no reference of humans in it, other than a jeep track in the sands, this denotes a sense of journey. The idea of leaves on the beach in itself is disjointed, it's the clash of two "environments" that creates this sense of travel, where have these leaves come from? Where are they going? We indeed become the leaves, our minds lock onto them, we imagine the journey they take, the interactions they have with their "fellow leaves", the pointlessness of their journey, the finality of nature stopping them in their tracks...the metaphors for the leaves and human interactions are very strong.

several points of interest in the video are:
the varying light conditions
the interaction / path of the leaves
the framing of the shots
the title (april 3rd 2007 : 11.42 - 12.56)

the titles traps this event, it's passed, it will never happen again. What were you doing on that day, at that time? Not as memorable as remembering where you were on 9/11, or when they set foot on the moon, but it's certainly important to remember every hour of our lives, to know that our lives are fleeting, so making the most of this life is so important...