Video Experiment

When I first started thinking about how I wanted to present the video, my initial thought was looking at the names, the logos cars have on them as some form of personality for each individual engine and body shell. A way of personalising them and when I thought about it, it's how people refer to cars, rarely do they just say, 'I have an Audi', they'll simply say they have an 'A5' for example.

The shoot went fairly well, however some of the images required straightening or could be framed better but as I probably looked like I was car numberplate stealing or breaking in I tried to take them fairly quickly. The only other problem I encountered was getting my own reflection in the shot, that I couldn't avoid on the modern cars but since I plan to only quickly flash up the images, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Here are some of the stills I took for it in a contact sheet and several of them larger..


The idea was to show the car as being more than just a car and somehow incorporate images of the ruined cars and the scrap yard cars I came across. But as I started making the video (having taken the photos the previous day) it started to change slightly.

I began thinking of pace, how flashing up the car names and logos really quickly could disorientate the viewer, make them less visible and change the way you saw them (as well as reflecting the pace of fast travel and a journey). I started mixing in the photos of ruined cars in black and white for contrast and to dramatise the change, only one image and more quickly at first. But as the video progresses the icons and names become less of the feature and the scrap yard/wrecked cars get more frequent and stay on screen longer.

What I wanted to achieve with this piece originally gradually changed during the editing, and now I hope that when someone views it, they get across the pace of a journey and that a car is ultimately just a part of our journey, only theirs tend to an end sooner. But I'd further like to explore this idea as currently the video has no sound, and I feel it could use some.

Perhaps next I can get more names and colours for variety and then build on the concept, adding in sound and playing with the tempo perhaps. However, as an experimental piece this came out better than I originally planned, so I'm happy with it. (View it below)