This episode of The Slow TV Podcast is an interview with Australian Filmmaker Chris Lewis and English Composer David Lol Perry, who teamed-up to create ‘PURE Soundbath’, a new Slow TV film to calm lockdown nerves.The trailer and onward link can be found on Vimeo:
Chris' social media - Instagram and Twitter
David's social media - Twitter
The art film I couldn't remember the name of is called Wavelength (1967)
The film to which I liken the mood and style is Baraka
The group mentioned and cited as an influence is Dead Can Dance
The Britain by Balloon series (available until October 2024 in the UK) mentioned by David
(Geo-blocking may apply)
PURE Soundbath press release here
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Showing posts with label Others' Videos and Films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Others' Videos and Films. Show all posts
Thursday, 16 July 2020
Wednesday, 10 June 2020
PURE Soundbath - Slow TV for Lockdown
Press Release
PURE Soundbath from Chris Lewis on Vimeo.
A lockdown film made 9000 miles apart - "like going on holiday for three weeks".
Australian Filmmaker Chris Lewis and English Composer David Lol Perry teamed-up around the world to create ‘PURE Soundbath’, a new Slow TV film to calm lockdown nerves (but does make us want to travel again!).
David, best-known for his charting 2017 Warner Classics album ‘Three Wings’ featuring Winchester College’s Quirister boys, ‘met’ Geraldton, WA based Chris, a cameraman for broadcaster ABC, on Twitter. David was unable to continue his sell-out ‘Soundbaths’, gigs where guests lie down and drift-off, immersed in hi-res music. Chris wanted to make a ‘Slow TV’ film, that too, mesmerises.
The music was recorded in ‘3D’ or ‘Binaural’ sound to replicate the surround sound of the soundbaths. Chris’s sumptuous photography includes stunning underwater shots, even underneath waves as well as gorgeous drone panoramas. It was largely shot in Merimbula, New South Wales. The result is an engaging and extremely calming experience. The hour-long film is available to buy or rent on Vimeo.
End
The Slow TV Podcast recorded an interview with Chris Lewis and David Perry about their film, find it on THIS LINK.
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Monday, 8 February 2016
Can we help kick start Slow TV in New Zealand?
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| A Slow TV day exploring in Whatipu, New Zealand |
Maybe one could argue a case that Slow TV in New Zealand could be watching all three Hobbit films and the extended director's cut box set of The Lord of the Rings in one sitting for that immersive experience of Middle Earth. Maybe even an extended Haka before the All Blacks demolish their opponents.
Well, there's an opportunity to help start some Slow TV in New Zealand without Hobbitses and nasty stinking orcses. Or odd shaped balls.
Nicholas Dunning, who has a background in different visual media is looking to kickstart a project to produce NZ Slow TV long format videos - mainly needing to fund the storage media and power sources needed to record for so long.
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| Slow TV fishing from the rocks at Orua, New Zealand |
Like many of us, he is inspired by the Norwegian series of Slow TV and how well it captures travelling through Norway. The 'vicarious experience' of Slow TV is one reason that people like it. Nicholas comments,
"I felt that it allowed people to experience a trip like the train trip for those who can't afford to get there or don't have the ability or time.
I live in New Zealand and I feel too lucky sometimes, especially when I am overseas and I hear countless times that people would love to visit New Zealand if they ever had the chance. My aim is to bring New Zealand to these people and allow more people to explore this amazing country.
This project would be able to capture all of my true passions and for this I feel that I can do the project justice.
I've got a few videos planned already which are listed on the kickstarter page, they involve long tramps in the bush, days out in the islands fishing, dawn til dusk mountain, beach and forest scenes and much more.
I'm not doing this to make money, I just want to allow people to experience things in the world that they otherwise wouldn't be able to."
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| A Slow TV day at Marble Bay, New Zealand |
So what's needed to make it happen? According to the Slow TV travelling through New Zealand Kickstarter page,
"$1500 covers the cost of all the gear needed to produce high quality 1080p video with high definition sound. If the project reaches $3500, we will be able to produce the footage in 4k resolution with a better stabilising system and better lenses."
Nicholas adds,
Nicholas adds,
"Part of our funding goes towards a steadicam rig that is built into a backpack that holds all of our equipment except for the camera and lens. This way we can walk for 12 hours through the bush and have seamless, cinematic, flowing footage. We will be using proper audio equipment that will be tucked out of sight and out of the wind."Locations and subjects currently planned - subject to kickstarter success - are some of the best places that New Zealand has on offer.
- -an 8 hour day tramp along Cape Brett in the bay of islands
- -sunrise to sunset on the equinox filming Cathedral Cove
- -a day fishing at the Mokohinau Islands
- -a day out sailing on the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland
- -a day watching the rain fall on Kauri in the Puketi Forest
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| Hiking in the woods near Kerikeri Waterfalls, New Zealand |
So, if you're from New Zealand and really proud of your country's beauty and want to help show it to the world or if you would like to experience some of the landscapes and ambiences without forking out for long flights, help kickstart Slow TV in New Zealand.
We have until March 10th 2016 to help make this happen.
New to Kickstarter? See their FAQ.
New to Kickstarter? See their FAQ.
Images in this post courtesy N Dunning.
Slow Television - The Slow TV Blog
Thursday, 16 October 2014
Slow TV ? - Michael Snow's 'Wavelength'
If Andy Warhol's 'Sleep' is going to be mentioned in relation to Slow TV, this 1967 film ought to be too - even if they are both not actually Slow TV. I came across this 40 minute film - Wavelength - in the early stages of researching Slow TV and am surprised it has not to date been discussed in connection.
Wavelength is a 40 minute production consisting of a steady camera zoom moving in from 80 feet away to a picture on a wall. Almost imperceptible, there is continual movement as the zoom moves in. The picture quality goes through many changes in lightness and colour. Some may be itching to address the white balance but what we see is what the director wanted the viewer to see.
Accompanying the zoom is a soundtrack which has two components. One is the sound of four events happening around the camera, not all are seen. The other is a sine wave sound starting at 50 hertz, finishing at 12,000 hertz. Like the zoom, this increments almost imperceptibly through the film. (Note: in the version available online the sine wave jumps in around 8 minutes - I do not perceive any slow incrementation before this).
It demonstrates continued visual, audio and mental focus on one large picture which is essentially the same but continually changing in minute detail all the while, even if you can't perceive it.
Filmed over a week it obviously is not real time but demonstrates the slowness in that the recordings edited together take 40 minutes to be related. No timelapses, no jumps, no editing out parts. In some ways one could liken that aspect of it to NRK's Nordlandsbanen in 4 seasons - putting the whole journey together in real time but comprised of segments given in real time.
In terms of aesthetic engagement, Wavelength does allow the viewer to ask questions of image, of the visual small stories in the details, of the audible unseen stories. The sine wave becomes uncomfortable to listen to at certain higher frequencies, inaudible in others (all of which will depend on the viewer, age and other factors).
Most certainly not Slow TV, Wavelength gives ideas of three elements of Slow TV. 1) Real time (or at least perceived that way) 2) Making the viewer look for stories in the production instead of obvious served up narratives and 3) Holding an image for a long time which is constant in its subject but many things within it which are not constant.
Wavelength is very much about concepts and aspects of intellectual reflection. It "...opens into the paradoxes of time-space in the quantum physics of the 1960s: is each moment defined by new lines of time or space, into parallel worlds? ...Snow's zoom is a kind of test drive of human experience, opening to the cool fact that each choice both implies and eliminates alternatives. In Wavelength, the range of events that lie outside the human incidents (including the little jumps caused by splices, adjustments to focal length, shifts between film stock, interposed flares of light and passages of solid colour) are immediately grasped as gestures communicating choice, made against whatever philosophical or theoretical ground and, at the same time, materially independent of theory or precedent - at least relatively so".
Legge, E (2009). Michael Snow Wavelength. London: Afterall Books. 30.
Entry on IMDB here
So, if you have 40 minutes to spare, here is Wavelength.
Slow Television -The Slow TV Blog
Slow Television - Musings and Happenings in Slow TV and Ambient TV
Wavelength is a 40 minute production consisting of a steady camera zoom moving in from 80 feet away to a picture on a wall. Almost imperceptible, there is continual movement as the zoom moves in. The picture quality goes through many changes in lightness and colour. Some may be itching to address the white balance but what we see is what the director wanted the viewer to see.
Accompanying the zoom is a soundtrack which has two components. One is the sound of four events happening around the camera, not all are seen. The other is a sine wave sound starting at 50 hertz, finishing at 12,000 hertz. Like the zoom, this increments almost imperceptibly through the film. (Note: in the version available online the sine wave jumps in around 8 minutes - I do not perceive any slow incrementation before this).
It demonstrates continued visual, audio and mental focus on one large picture which is essentially the same but continually changing in minute detail all the while, even if you can't perceive it.
Filmed over a week it obviously is not real time but demonstrates the slowness in that the recordings edited together take 40 minutes to be related. No timelapses, no jumps, no editing out parts. In some ways one could liken that aspect of it to NRK's Nordlandsbanen in 4 seasons - putting the whole journey together in real time but comprised of segments given in real time.
In terms of aesthetic engagement, Wavelength does allow the viewer to ask questions of image, of the visual small stories in the details, of the audible unseen stories. The sine wave becomes uncomfortable to listen to at certain higher frequencies, inaudible in others (all of which will depend on the viewer, age and other factors).
Most certainly not Slow TV, Wavelength gives ideas of three elements of Slow TV. 1) Real time (or at least perceived that way) 2) Making the viewer look for stories in the production instead of obvious served up narratives and 3) Holding an image for a long time which is constant in its subject but many things within it which are not constant.
Wavelength is very much about concepts and aspects of intellectual reflection. It "...opens into the paradoxes of time-space in the quantum physics of the 1960s: is each moment defined by new lines of time or space, into parallel worlds? ...Snow's zoom is a kind of test drive of human experience, opening to the cool fact that each choice both implies and eliminates alternatives. In Wavelength, the range of events that lie outside the human incidents (including the little jumps caused by splices, adjustments to focal length, shifts between film stock, interposed flares of light and passages of solid colour) are immediately grasped as gestures communicating choice, made against whatever philosophical or theoretical ground and, at the same time, materially independent of theory or precedent - at least relatively so".
Legge, E (2009). Michael Snow Wavelength. London: Afterall Books. 30.
Entry on IMDB here
So, if you have 40 minutes to spare, here is Wavelength.
Slow Television -The Slow TV Blog
Slow Television - Musings and Happenings in Slow TV and Ambient TV
Tuesday, 14 October 2014
Are landscape videos Slow TV?
Decidedly different than the Slow TV developed by NRK, there are many videos online which are labelled Slow TV. Beautiful landscapes, long duration shots, slow transitions - but usually single camera and not continuous real time. The below video is a lovely production - is it Slow TV or Ambient TV? The availability of an alternative version with ambient music does lend itself to that idea.
If one is to define the NRK Minutt for Minutt Slow TV template as Slow TV, that would mean anything else being called Slow TV then needs to be recategorised. Something to think upon. In the meantime, give this video a try.
Slow Television -The Slow TV Blog
If one is to define the NRK Minutt for Minutt Slow TV template as Slow TV, that would mean anything else being called Slow TV then needs to be recategorised. Something to think upon. In the meantime, give this video a try.
Slow Television -The Slow TV Blog
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