Category: Blog

2022.03.08 Quick video: Seoul loop

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Today’s quick video – a looping clip of driving along a highway in Seoul. My PhD supervisor Stephen Gage calls this type of thing a ‘finger exercise’, I assume because it’s like practicing scales on a piano – it’s one of many playful, small things that helps you work out ideas for larger projects.

I took this video on the way from the airport to my accommodation in Seoul in 2016. I was messing around with a camera I’d loaned (A Canon C100, if I recall). The footage isn’t remarkable, but you do get to see part of the city looming in the distance and the huge river. I just wanted to make it loop, nothing special – just to play with video a little, and make a quick accompanying sound bed.

The original shot looks like this:


link to original

The longest loop I could make is just short of the original clips’ length, 33 seconds and 9 frames, with the looping part coming from the van that overtakes. The hue of the video shifts throughout, from pinks and reds through to purples and blues and back. It also has a 12-bar sound bed I made quickly:


link to original

The 12-bar bed meant that I could cleanly cut the video in thirds. Here’s a version that’s 22 seconds and 6 frames, in blue, pink and purple:


link to original

And finally a version in 11 seconds and 3 frames, one third of the original length, in a yellow palette reminiscent of the Blade Runner 2049 desert scenes:


link to original

Scam

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I finally received the art scam email! I know a few people who’ve received this in the past, but it looks like “Grayson Benjamin from Washington DC” contacted me with exactly the same message that “Vincent Harris from Hoboken, New Jersey” contacted someone else I know at about the same time. The scammer sent their emails to the addresses on our website. I guess they’re just scraping artist websites.

I’m only sharing the message because I think the more times it comes up on search engines that this is a scam, the better protected we as artists will be.

The contents of the emails received reads:

Subject: ART product enquiry

My name is {Grayson Benjamin/Vincent Harris} from {Washington DC/Hoboken, New Jersey}. I have been on the lookout for some artworks lately in regards to I and my wife’s anniversary which is just around the corner. I stormed on some of your works which i found quite impressive and intriguing. I must admit your doing quite an impressive job. You are undoubtedly good at what you do.

With that being said, I would like to purchase some of your works as a surprise gift to my wife in honor of our upcoming wedding anniversary. It would be of help if you could send some pictures of your piece of works, with their respective prices and sizes, which are ready for immediate (or close to immediate) sales. My budget for this is within the price range of $1000 to $6000.

I look forward to reading from you in a view to knowing more about your pieces of inventory. As a matter of importance, I would also like to know if you accept check as a means of payment.

Best regards,

Benjamin.

If you get the email, delete it. There are several signs that this is fake (wanting to pay by cheque, no specifics about my work, a price range that’s tempting for an artist but not ludicrous).

2022.02.22 Quick video: Walking to Delftse Poort

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This is my quick video for the day, shot whilst walking from Rotterdam Centraal station to Delftsepoort (an office building). The subject is fairly mundane, but there are a few layers of square video on top of each other, and another clapping soundtrack made quickly.

I actually made two versions of this video, one with a regular offset:

And one that uses a 2-frame offset per layer to recreate a ‘wavy’ special effect from the 70s. I remember seeing this sort of effect in old music videos as a kid, back when I was glued to music television:

One thing I like about the original video is the way that it’s abstracted a completely mundane journey, yet maintains the rhythm of my walking. The stills of the escalator are perhaps my favourite part:

abstract image of an escalator abstract image of an escalator abstract image of an escalator

But then again, the flooring, which seems to be particular to Dutch train stations, also looks more dramatic than usual:

abstract image of pavement abstract image of pavement abstract image of pavement

As does the utterly mundane pavement found on all streets near here:

abstract image of pavement abstract image of pavement abstract image of pavement abstract image of pavement

2022.01.12 Quick video: Foggy day

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This is a video I made a while but forgot to put online! An extremely foggy day, under a bridge near my house. Looking back at it now, it’s a bit more stress-inducing than I think it needs to be, mostly because I was trying to do the opposite of the slowness that I felt the video wanted to be edited into. I guess I should have gone the other way. Still, it’s nice to have the perspective of hindsight sometimes.

Link to video

2022.02.22 Quick video: shadow chasing, redux

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This is a quick doodle-video to play around with composition and looping. The source video was shot on Tottenham Court Road on a sunny day in 2014 (see here); this version tries to lean into the strange and playful composition of the original, adding a clappy/clicky soundtrack and the idea that walking on the street is a form of game.

Link to video

2022.02.21 Quick video: flying over northern Canada

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A very quick video edit today, compiled from some footage I shot a few years ago whilst flying over northern Canada. Not a great video, but I wanted to play with the stark textures of the snow and rocks, creating a slow-moving wallpaper. There are a few things I’d like to fix (that crack on the right hand side for starters), but the aim of this task is to make something quickly and post it, rather than aiming for perfection, so here we go.

2022.02.18 Quick video: Chicago L train

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Maintaining my streak of making quick videos on a near-daily basis, here are two videos of impossible journeys on the Chicago L-train. Shot in 2016, now spliced into infinite (and impossible) loops in 2022.

The first features ‘transition moments’ from one place to another:

Link to video

The second features several buildings with typical early skyscraper façades:

Link to video

2022.02.17 Quick video: Wires

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This is the quick film I should have made yesterday – very quick and simple, a looping set of wires – but instead spent too long fiddling around with layers and composition, etc. Shot on the same journey, it’s just slowed down, inverted, layered footage of the wires going past.

I set students the task of making short, daily films all the time, but I rarely post my own. Hoping to do more from now on.

2022.02.16 Quick video: train journey

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This was a quick attempt at a video which is obviously an artificially constructed image, but that holds together if you watch it for a while.

I set myself the challenge of shooting and editing a video on a 25-minute train journey. I failed my challenge as I got too into the editing and had to shut my laptop quickly in the station, but finished it over lunch. The film is composed of segments of the same shot spliced together, looped, and overlaid, alongside a very quick soundtrack in GarageBand (so quickly edited that the noises that come on with the white fence only do it the first time).

In retrospect, this is based on a work I saw when I was 18, about a train journey, that has stuck with me ever since. It was in a gallery in Melbourne, and featured still shots of a train which updated vertical slice by vertical slice, each about 50 pixels wide, from the left to right on the screen, to make a composite film. Funny how those formative moments stick with you – what was one item in a gallery has become something I come back to time and again.

Anyway, hoping to do more small challenges like this in the future.

ABC

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A while ago I made a simple website to help teach my daughter to read the alphabet and numbers. It’s very basic, because it had to be intuitive enough for a 2-year-old to click through on a tablet or old mobile phone.

Screenshot of the website abc.olliepalmer.com. A single lowercase 'a' in the middle of a light red page.

It doesn’t do a lot – just presents and reads aloud each letter of the alphabet in order. You can switch between uppercase and lowercase by clicking on the letters, and toggle auto-playing the alphabet. The colour changes with each letter thanks to randomColor by David Merfield, and the font is Manrope by Mikhail Sharanda. The source code is available on Github. I’m sure anyone with a little coding knowledge could improve it.

The audio on the site is the stock Mac voice Fiona, who has a Scottish accent. My daughter now copies Fiona’s pronounciation whenever she reads the alphabet from the website (despite having a fairly English accent the rest of the time).

If there is a small person in your life, here is a site you can safely leave them with. Just go to abc.olliepalmer.com, put your phone/tablet in locked mode, and let them click away.