Short Film One: Squash Music

This assignment was handed to us during the lecture on Friday November 11th and it’s due in on 2nd December. That gives us three weeks to record a couple of short movies; this week I spent researching and shooting a few ideas.

During this Friday’s lecture I was able to show both my short films to the class (As I’m working on my own, this provided some valuable feedback). I first showed the footage of my film from the woods in Chorlton water park which garnered a favorable reaction amongst the group and also gave me a few ideas to take the project on further.

I then showed the second film I’d shot of a game of squash I’d had the previous weekend. During the game I’d positioned my handheld device (Ipod Nano) at various points around the court; I found the best position to be under the foul line directly in front of the players. After showing the video Helen suggested watching this video called Kasabian Football hero:

The premise of the video is that some talented footballers try to play guitar hero using giant screens and a ball. After not that many attempts, the group manage to play the song correctly. This sparked an idea; I could ‘borrow’ this premise and use it on a squash court by creating a simple tune that was triggered by a squash player hitting shots against some musical signs on the back wall of the court (See Flickr stream).

That afternoon I set about making a simple dance tune that contained a kick drum, snare, hi hats, clap and bass. I composed the track using Ableton live and various synth plug-ins:

I then started to prepare my signs for the game I had booked the following morning. I asked my housemate a simple question ‘Do you have any felt tip pens?’. She proceeded to unleash a creative arsenal of pens, books, and stencils. A couple of hours later I’d put together a range of signs that looked really good. Here are a couple of examples (All pictures were taken using the Hipstamatic app for Iphone).

I also tried a few shots under different lights (This one came out really well as the light gives it a neon feel, and it’s a lightly blurry replicating the jolt you get from a kick drum):

Saturday morning arrived and I set up the court for the filming session by putting up each sign along the back wall in order (Kick, snare, hi hat, clap and bass). My squash partner was a willing accomplice and so I filmed him hitting a few shots (All filming was done with my trusty Ipod nano). I then filmed some sequences from the balls view. I filmed the ball flying up to, and hitting, each individual sign. I then filmed a few shots from some different perspectives around the court, and got some more action shots of the squash player.

The whole filming process was very quick, taking around 10-15 minutes.

I then started to edit the movie together using the ten or so films I’d shot (Edited on Adobe premiere pro CS5). I am still a relative newcomer to video editing software (I’d hadn’t seen any video editing software until 6 weeks ago) and wanted to try out some new techniques (split screen video etc) on this film. Luckily for me there are hundreds of helpful tutorials on our old friend, the internet.

The basic premise of the film is this: The squash player hits the ball against the various signs on the wall which trigger a musical response. The first shot hits the kick drum which activates that sound, the second hits the snare drum which activates that sound and so forth. Eventually all the sounds are playing together and the various signs are flashing in time with the music.

The second half of the video has a very disco feel with the various signs flashing onto screen in unison with the music. This was the first time I’d used a split screen technique with the video and couldn’t quite believe how quick and easy it is to achieve. I’m really enjoying using Adobe CS5 and find it very intuitive (It feels very much like a digital audio workstation).

I had quite a definite idea of how I wanted the video to look before I started the edit and managed to stay true to that. As the film plays the only signs that are flashing are the kick and snare signs, I had an idea that as the other signs were triggered (hi hat, clap, bass) that they would flash on-screen too. It became quite apparent whilst editing that this idea wouldn’t work as the screen became very cluttered and quite disorienting.

Overall I’m pretty pleased with the outcome: I deliberately wanted to constrain myself to a one minute limit for my short films (This one is 1:09 but has a long outgoing title) as I feel that with this medium it is important to grab the viewer immediately and leave them wanting more. It’s also possible to tell your story in under a minute.

I’ve really enjoyed this process, in little over a week I have shot five or six different videos and plan to shot more in the next week too (I think I will have to abandon my idea of attaching my Ipod to a dog as Stan (Doberman) is not really cooperating (unless someone wants to buy me this?). I think it’s the speed of the process that I have enjoyed the most, having the initial idea in Friday’s (18th) lecture, shooting the video on Saturday (19th) and editing on Saturday night and Sunday (20th). In little over three days the video is finished (Obviously there is room for changes after feedback from my classmates).

Here’s the video to have a look at:

Flickr Group: Squash music

Youtube Channel

Wiki Page