diary / june
Not enough hands.
28/06/2005A shadow appears over the birch tree as someone comes into shot. The birch stops moving and the focus shifts from the tree to the person in the foreground. The person raises their spray-stick.
This has been quite difficult to film, getting everything framed how I want it, not getting my hands in shot, and getting the timing right.
Sprayers.
28/06/2005I am using photocopied photographs of people in their spraying clothes.
I have stuck straws down the back so they can stand in the compost, and I am using pins to make their limbs movable.
Fight for the straw.
24/06/2005I began filming the fight for the straw between the birch tree and the cotton grass.
I personified the plants through movement and through using the grasses of the cotton grass for arms, and the head for a head.
I'm not sure whether or not to give them voices.
Today I have decided to discard everything so far.
20/06/2005By expanding the story, to put it into context, and by including documentations of the destruction and transformation of materials into models, I think I have just made the narrative very confusing.
I've got loads of ideas as I have been experimenting with different ways of filming, but because I have been trying things as I go along I've messed up the continuity.
I will go back to the original narrative and simplify it down to it's main points.
Inside the house.
16/06/2005I only intend to have the grey part in shot, but I was thinking the brown cardboard looks like wooden panels.
Blinking.
13/06/2005I made a larger head of the guy in the window so I could get closer to the face. This is one idea I had for the blinking, paper eyelids on thread, but his neck being on wire is making it very difficult to control the movement. I think I will discard this and try giving the camera the eyelids.
Scrub management
11/06/2005The cotton grass cannot grow whilst the birch and the willow are taking all the water. The scrub needs to be managed to allow the bog to develop.
Scrub management
11/06/2005The cotton grass cannot grow whilst the birch and the willow are taking all the water. The scrub needs to be managed to allow the bog to develop.
I stuck a piece of birch in some clay and they filmed it as a still shot.
10/06/2005Between each shot I cut off bits of the tree. The idea was to play it backwards and the tree should look like it was growing, but it didn't work.
Switching the lights on.
10/06/2005I cannot move the person in the window, have the lights on inside and keep it all still, so I have made another window front and am filming from above.
My original storyboard has expanded.
08/06/2005I wanted to put people in the picture as English Nature receives it's funding for the benefit of people primarily. I decided I could place a house on the set.
As I had documented the making of the cotton grass, I decided to film the building of the house, and the placing of the house onto the set.
The cotton grass and some bog oak.
07/06/2005I have used photocopies of photographs to make up the background and a bag of non peat based compost. I think if I film from the right angles the real compost should look like it is on a slight hill, so the peat in the background will just look like it's in the distance.
Using Teddy's fur, wire, fabric and clay to make some cotton grass.
06/06/2005I decided to document this process of destruction and transformation, as this is similar to the themes I am working on with the video pieces.
Rough sketch of my first set.
03/06/2005The fight for water between the birch tree and the cotton grass. I've decided to use a glass of water as I want to personify the plants. I tried to film some of this scene out on the moors today, but it was raining so hard that I couldn't keep my cameras dry, so I am constructing a set in the garage to use whilst it rains.
