Friday, March 15, 2013

Liquid Color

This is my proposal for the Multi-screen Video Project.


For my project there will be three screens; two side by side smaller screens and one large screen on the opposite side of the room. The smaller screens and the larger screen will be facing each other. Specifically two computer monitors and the large main projector in the computer lab.
The subject matter is diffusion, using food coloring in a glass of water. The diffusion represents how one single idea can spread into something bigger and when ideas of many different types come together, the assortment of possibility becomes abundant.

The first two screens will have the same three glasses of water in different angles. The glasses will be in a row with the colors being yellow, red, and blue. Computer one will drop in order, one by one, and when finished computer two will continue dropping color one by one, this will then be followed with computer one reversing the color starting with yellow and continue to loop through again. Meanwhile on the projector, there will be six glasses placed in a triangular style like bowling pins; three glasses, two behind them and one behind those two. Starting on the far left front glass, yellow will be dropped, then red in the second front glass. Orange will be dropped in the second row left glass which is behind yellow and red, which make orange. This will happen again with red, blue and purple, and again with yellow, blue and green. This series will loop, while in sync with the two computer monitors.


Behind the glasses will be a green screen. For the video, there will be a diffusion like effect with a white background and black liquid substance in each screen. However the effects will vary so as not to have the same exact background in each screen. The sound will be a mixture of underwater sounds.

Below is a brainstorming diagram.




The final result was altered slightly. Below is a video of the combination of the other videos in the project.

While shooting the footage, I found that it was difficult to drop the colors in a sequence because of the varying length that the color took to diffuse. As well as when I edited the footage in Final Cut, the green screen color looked more yellow over all and when I took the green from the video, all of the colors were affected. This happened in all of the footage takes. Therefore the colors became almost neon which lead me to the decision of changing one of the video's background to black and the other to white.

From here, the majority of the video was very different from my original approach. The effects that the videos had made them feel more as though they were an imagined environment. I changed the large screen video from rows of glasses to two large bowls inside of one another to add more flow.

If I were able to do the set up different with the new type of videos, it would have been within a smaller room and the videos would be projected equally sized, floor to ceiling, on three walls. The video that was described as "larger" in the original set up would be in the center, with the two "smaller" videos on each side of the "larger" video. This would create more of an immersion feel for the viewer as though they were standing within the environment.

I also added to the environment by adding a natural underwater sound which included whale sounds. This went well with the water like feel of the liquid colors and made it seem similar to an underwater like environment perhaps on an alien planet of sorts.

Overall, the video was not as it had been originally intended, however, I feel that the final product was a more successful installment than what the proposal piece would have created.



Liquid Color Compilation (2013)
Meghan O'Bryan
4:04.00
Multi-Channel Video Compilation

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