MOVIE IMPROV

As an Art Director, I often have to swipe through endless stock image and footage libraries from which I download material to create mockups for client presentations. Searching through numerous video clips of random scenes can become tedious after a few pages, I usually start scrolling faster to save time. I just stare at a focal point on the screen and watch the images switch from one to the other in an animated fashion by pressing the arrow button on my keyboard. During this process, I enjoy seeing these random shots interact freely with each other in a strange and somewhat poetic way. Some shots look staged or too commercial, some candid and others are simply archives of forgotten footage. This random carousel of eye candy invited me to experiment stitching scenes together to give them a sense of expression. By editing and adding sound, it finally became alive. Unlike a regular movie, it’s impossible to have the same actors throughout the film, since I rely only on what I stumble upon. Storytelling is inspired from spontaneous found clips, each containing different actors and objects producing a patchwork of scenes, At the end, an organically streamlined movie is created. Like a painting, the viewer makes his/her own interpretation of it. Stock libraries place branded watermarks over their material for copyright and commercial usage. But leaving these on each of the clips actually added to the concept, by showing that everything that we’re seeing is commercially for sell, it interestingly counteracted with the film. Sound was also taken from stock libraries such as SoundDogs and Pond5. Keeping the redundant watermark voice overs to remind you that this content is also owned and for sell, it contributed greatly and created an eerie and hypnotic soundtrack. In advertising, we use stock with watermarks to present in front of clients and groups of people in an office or agency to help convey and sell a concept or design. If the client wants to move forward with the proposition and commercialize it, then we must buy the rights to the stock and we get access to the original high definition material without the watermarks. This filmic piece has basically the same structure, where a concept is presented to viewers with an artistic intent. The difference at the end, is that it stays in presentation mode, viewed internally in an art show, gallery or museum, without going out into the mainstream with a commercial intent. The main reason why the watermarks stay all the way through the movie. It just stays eternally in watermark mode, waiting to be purchased. The paradox is where the art piece becomes an ad for these Stock libraries. If someone were to buy this piece, then they’d have to pay for all of the stock material that was used to create it.