You Tube Project Revised

You-Tube Project

When first seeing this video there are many questions that come up.  Is this shot with live footage? Or are this small clay people?  What type of film is this?  Is it stop shot? And how are the people so tiny? 

Well this is in fact real footage from Australia in 2008.  The films method of movement is portrayed through stop-shot footage.  This is where a bunch of pictures are cut down and strung together to make all the images look like it is in fact film, put together to make a movie.  I think that this is an interesting way to do this because the images are brought to life through a tiny motion.  This stop-motion technique also gives the viewer a feeling that this video that they are watching a fake feel.  But I think in this video that it is mostly due to how the camera methods were used.

In “Bathtub IV”, Keith Loutit’s uses the method of tilt-shift time-lapse; also known as “fake miniature”.  This provides a sense of fake imagery and that all the footage was shot in a controlled screen using clay figures.  He uses time and focus to scale down replications of buildings and scenery and then speeds it up to create this false reality.  In this false reality any thing can happen, like that man falling into the water while fishing.  What would normally be a frightening thing to watch becomes a scene of interest and intrigue.  By having filmed in this method of tilt-shift and time-lapse, makes the man in the water feel fake and what would normally take a couple hour rescue was cut down in about 1 minute. 

This video is very intriguing because of all the objects that make up each shot.  The shot duration from each picture is most likely about ½ of a second.  Which means that there has to be a couple thousand pictures in this entire film.  Another method of his that I found interesting was the use of blur.  He blurred out everything in his image except the center focal points, or the main subject.  This aided the viewer in many different ways.  Considering all images in this video are extreme long shots to long shots made up of vibrant colors and intriguing objects, the use of blur makes it easier for the viewer to focus on what the director wants you to see. 

I think that this was a very appealing video but there was something missing.  It would have been amusing, if there were not a sound track of music, but sound affects like the sounds of the ocean or the sounds of the helicopter.  I think this element of sound was needed to stimulate more senses and to bring a sense of life to the film.  In a lot of the comments on the video, the viewers had a hard time figuring out if this was in fact real footage or clay people molded for each shot with stop action.  But overall I thought that this clip was very intriguing considering I have done a few stop-action films myself and I know that it takes a lot harder work than just regular film because you are dealing with so many images that you have to time perfectly and cut so short.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkrtYRxGyuo