WALK SIX - Sensory

 




This week I walked with my eyes to the forest floor, paying attention to the softness of my footsteps on the flexible and giving bed of pine needles that has built up over decades, as the white pines stand matures. That led me to consider the contrast between what is soft and what is hard along my route. I chose two extremes as subjects of my sensory videos, the granite boulders and the bedded pine needles.

Initially, I was pretty baffled by this week's focus on the senses, but I started tuning in to what I was feeling early in the week and started imagining how I might depict it.  When I set out with my camera, I was clear about my subject, I spent my time in two particular locations and unlike last week I was able to really enjoy the place I was in and linger long enough to notice more. I felt elevated by that. That said, after capturing some of the video I wanted in one location, I quickly picked my things up and started to walk home. As I did, I thought, "the beaver swamp is in beautiful light right now and I should take a few minutes to sit and enjoy it."  So I turned around and did just that. Maybe next time I won't have to remind myself.

Once I had my video, I started thinking about how I could use the audio to reinforce the feeling I was after. For the first video, the soft one, the sound captured while recording was a good start, but I overlapped the same sound track several times at low levels so its just a bit more "white-noisy".

 

 
 
 


The sound mix for this video is similar to the first one, mostly relying on the sound recorded at the time of the video. I did add a few other sounds to make it richer in some spots. I wanted to create something at the end that exaggerated the sense of discomfort but that may or may not have worked.


 

For feedback, I would like to know if I captured the idea of soft and hard. Was there enough action to keep you interested? What other responses did you come away with?

Comments

  1. Laurie CorralOctober 19, 2020 at 9:57 AM

    Hi Carrie,
    These two videos are quite complimentary. The actions of piling materials laying your head on each one made a good connective thread and it made the contrast even more apparent for me. I grew up near a stand of pines and always liked to go there to sit and lay in the soft needles and smell their heady scent. I might even recall an owl lived in there. Wow, thanks for triggering that wonderful little memory!
    Your video editing skills are very effective and kept my attention throughout.
    Many thanks, Laurie

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    1. carrieOctober 20, 2020 at 3:25 PM

      Laurie, thanks for your comments. I have always loved entering white pine stands and experiencing the deadening of sound and the softness under foot. If I were an owl, I would live there.

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  2. Laurie CorralOctober 19, 2020 at 9:57 AM

    I forgot to say I really liked the tapping and scratching on the rocks!

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  3. studio forum discussionOctober 19, 2020 at 11:14 AM

    Carrie,
    I like that there were threads to connect both works visually. Your inability to make yourself comfortable in the second one emphasized the feeling of hardness as did the tapping. The first one I got the idea of softness immediately when you were digging with your hand in the pine needles before anything else happened. I felt the sensation very strongly with the timing of your movement. The editing in the first one also emphasized softness with the soft fades between images. I think that same technique may have worked against creating a feeling of hardness in the second one. The close cropping on your hands was a nice technique for focusing our attention on the points you were making as were the close shots of laying your head down.
    thanks! Lisa B

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    1. carrieOctober 20, 2020 at 3:18 PM

      I like your thought about making harder, maybe less comfortable fades between sections. Also with the audio. I will play around with that. Thanks Lisa.

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  4. Lisa GOctober 19, 2020 at 1:15 PM

    The first video definitely encapsulated soft throughout, the sound was entirely complementary to the visuals, in particular just easing your head onto a pillow of pine needles, then seeming to stare up lazily at the treetops evoked a very calm soft feeling.

    The second one did evoke hardness - in particular for me when you were scraping the rock on rock. I think for me that was because the sound and the visual both complemented each other, much like in the first video. And you certainly evoked a sense of discomfort by being unable to lay on the rock. I suppose the one thing that would make the second video as clear as the first for me is if the audio was somehow 'harder', along with the visuals. I'm not good with audio myself, so I'm not entirely sure what that would mean - maybe more jagged sounds like the scraping you made, or banging rocks together. That's why i thought the part where the rocks scraping together was the most powerful part, it definitely pushed 'hard' to the forefront of my mind.

    Laying down on the forest pillows was such a great idea, that really made me smile.

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  5. carrieOctober 20, 2020 at 3:22 PM

    Lisa, I think I will go back to the rock piece and play with it some more to get that sense you're talking about with the sound. I did try some sounds I had collected for a different project a few years ago but none of them were right. I might just have to go make new sounds with this specific piece in mind. Thanks!

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