Light Writing is an emerging form of stop motionanimation wherein still images captured using the technique known as Light painting or light drawing are put in sequence thereby creating the optical illusion of movement for the viewer.
A still from a recent example of light writing
Technique
By sequencing stills taken with 4-30 second exposure as lights are moved in and through the frame this effect creates the optical illusion that the light is moving. Zooms, pans, tilts, and most other motion camera techniques can be applied with standard stop motion approaches. The most common technique is to capture multiple second exposures of light moving from one point to another in the frame. As the sequence is built the beginning and ending points of the lights motion can be moved along a given path. When the pictures are put in sequence the light seems to move with classic stop motion jitter. Most commonly, all of the work is done in camera at practical (real world, not a studio) locations.
A still from a recent example of light writing with a human subject in frame.
Recent history
Though the technique was employed almost one hundred years ago by Pablo Picasso it has only recently been used for main stream advertisements. Awareness of light writing was raised when Sprint Nextel unveiled an ad campaign featuring the effect in the summer of 2007.
Effect on the viewer
This form of stop motionanimation causes the modern viewer to be perplexed. With the abundance of computer generated special effects and motion graphics this practical approach to stop motion using light sources moving in the frame delights and perhaps confounds the techno-savvy modern viewer.
See also
Persistence of vision, a phenomenon which produces an effect in the brain that makes light writing "work".
It had to happen..Here's a short film competition where budding editors compete to produce the definitive cut of a short film from over 160Gb of rushes. Shot on the RED 1 camera so nice quality material. Go fer it...
"OpenCut is a completely open-source film competition designed to encourage people to take professionally shot material and edit it in their own way. As there is no "one way" to tell a story, so too can stories benefit from being re-edited and re-told from many different vantage points and perspectives.
The winner of OpenCut 1.0 will receive a brand new AJA IO HD from Silverado. They will also be recognized as the "editor-of-record" at IMDB and will have their cut submitted to multiple film festivals."
It takes two to make a mix... the Powerhouse Museum Sydney joins The US Library of Congress in releasing image collections with no known copyright restrictions onto Flickr.
While the maximum resolution on offer is 1024 pixels wide at the moment, it is great to see more institutions taking advantage of new forms of distribution and opening up their collections.
So the war's over... apparently. Those of you working with HD have probably read all the announcements about the studios jumping ship but what could be more interesting news is that the HD DVD authoring geeks are moving into the BD-J developer communities.
What's BD-J? A Java development environment for Blu-Ray which means that you can create far more sophisticated games and interactivity for a Blu-Ray film title. Not to say that all (or even most) of the kinks have been ironed out yet. A few weeks ago, the 'scandal' of non-compliant Blu-Ray players emerged (if you bought early, you lose) and getting the BD-J interactivity to work on the earliest Blu-Ray titles (like Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) was a matter of potluck.
But I feel a lot more comfortable now making the prediction that BD-J powered entertainment is going to explode in the next couple of years. We're at the beginning of a new medium. Sony DADC (one of the original members of the Blu-Ray consortium that control the specification) has to-date completed 150 titles and is aiming for a monthly capacity of 40 new titles. Once this tech filters out from the big studios to the independent film and A/V sectors, that's when things start to get interesting.
This article in the NY times discusses the vastly increasing costs of storing digital film assets over the old process - chuck your film negatives, annotated scripts, photographs in a cold storage vault. The point being of course that no-one wants to throw away material and the volumes being produced through digital processes are increasing rapidly.
All the more material for re-mixing and re-versioning. Who knows, perhaps Hollywood will eventually twig to the idea of letting the fans help with the archiving.
Creative Commons Australia has launched a project to apply the lessons learned from music and video remixing to literature.
Remix My Lit will host quality literature that not only writers, but any creator - poet, musician, filmmaker, graphic novelist, visual artist - can share, remix and reuse legally.
The launch of Google's OpenSocial API may prove to be a milestone in the development of the Web. With the notable exception of Facebook, social networks are lining up to express their support for an "open" (will reserve judgment on this) mechanism for linking communities together.
Myspace has just announced that they are going to adopt this which begs the question - what about the rest of the networks out there? Facebook? The Yahoo family of companies, like Flickr, Jumpcut? Multiply? Certainly this sounds like a golden opportunity for film-makers to link up their audiences and spread them remixable bits around.
Microsoft has made it official. Like with a CC license, content from MS games can be used legally in your re-mixes. Specifically intended to support the machinima community, this should open up some interesting work.
FILMOBILE is a project which aims to create a dialogue between the industry, filmmakers and artists working with mobile devices through a variety of on and off line events.
In order to kick-start its activities, FILMOBILE is organising a networking event in the Centre for Excellence at the University of Westminster on the 29th June. The program includes presentations by leading industry practioners, artist, photographers and filmmakers. The talk is followed by an open discussion and wine reception.
Alfie Dennen - mobloguk Daniel Florêncio - filmmaker Davide Scalenghe - Current TV Dennis Morrison - Zzizzl films Romain Forquy - photographer Max Schleser - FILMOBILE
FILMOBILE NETWORKING EVENT
Date: 29th June 2007, 5pm - 7pm. Venue: CEPLW (Centre for Excellence) University of Westminster 35 Marylebone Road London NW1 5LS
RSVP: info@filmobile.net
Marylebone campus is directly opposite Baker Street underground station (Bakerloo, Circle, Hammersmith & City, Jubilee and Metropolitan lines). Buses run past on Marylebone Road and Baker Street with only a few stops to Euston, King's Cross and Paddington mainline stations. Car parking is available to those with special needs.
FILMOBILE is supported by the University of Westminster, the Higher Education Innovation Fund, the CREAM Research Centre, CEPLW, London Gallery West and London Westside.
Would you believe it.. yet another re-mixable sci-fi called Sanctuary.. Webisode 1 of a Canadian production, made by some of the people behind Stargate, has been launched. Nice to see people taking this re-mix concept thing to heart. I wonder when they'll acknowledge that the MOD Films network exists! {;-)
The story universe behind this Sanctuary is completely different from mine *phew* but a good kick up the arse anyhow for our post schedule. Welcome other Sanctuary folks if you're reading this! Expect more splicing and dicing of re-mixable sci-fi for some time to come...
They're selling each episode for a couple of dollars but Ep1 is already available on YouTube and torrent sites. As for re-mix material, I downloaded an HD res greenscreen clip a while back but the official "Media Browser" area of the site seems deserted.
David Perry, founder of Shiny Entertainment which produced the Matrix console games, is to produce a massively multiplayer online game built by, and for, games players.
Acclaim Games will publish the PC title, currently dubbed Top Secret,
after Perry has chosen the player who has made the most significant
contribution to the development process - and awarded him or her a 'videogame industry directorship'.
Sci Fi channel has released a library of video and audio clips for budding promo makers to assemble their own space epic masterpiece. Check the terms and conditions before you do anything with your work though (e.g. no YouTube posting) and a competition to have the best four minute submission on-air alongside the show is only open to US citizens. Frack!
This isn't strictly about remixable films but more about Internet TV. http://www.getdemocracy.com/ The idea is to help people create and watch their own channels. It includes bit torrent support.
I've recently put a media PC in our living room and Internet TV has become a reality. Watching Mashups, archive footage, conspiracy theory,youtube,streamed comedy from the past.
Interesting to see how its going to come together.
Although TV is still basically a passive medium for most people. The strongest government drug of the lot. Right kids. .
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Or can you?
Hallo, The fact is that this email cycling interview with vjtheory.net made me finally put down, above my usual my itanglish, what is behiond the idea of cinema solubile, so i think it might be on topic here and be interesting.
Early stages but you can grab a news feed to any title (new or existing) and track the availability of MODs and source material for it. You can add info on your titles and relate these to any other title quickly.
Looking to build up a nice semantic web of who's sampling what across the Net that can help power re-mixable films, and more convenient access to original assets lost in the mists of time.
If you're remotely technical, you can track bug reports, feature requests here (login: anonymous, password: anonymous if you're not in Team Sanctuary). http://trac.modfilms.com:7861/trac/sanctuary
Check out the website for OddJobJack, an animated comedy series on The Comedy Network (in Canada) where the entire asset library for each episode is posted on BitTorrent after broadcast transmission as part of the "FreeJack" initiative. Don't worry, this has nothing to do with the rather rubbish Mick Jagger sci-fi from the early 90's. Instead, you get all the tools of production required to re-mix your own episodes. The site has a cute little Flash widget that shows you what is inside each torrent before you download it as well.
Now here's a fairly unusual and rather innovative collaboration between cult Artist/Designer Community DeviantArt and Indie Film Distribution supremos Miramax to launch the new French Animated Sci-fi EVERYONE is talking about - Renaissance
Well in their infinite wisdom the folks behind both sites have decided to hold a Competition to:
* Design a Movie Poster using the still images supplied by Miramax from the film, (directly or
as inspiration) * Use the setting of the Movie as the backdrop to create an original Short Story, or alternatively spin-off from the storyline and add to it. * Create your own Digital Comic Strip that tells a story
using the Renaissance style, backdrops and theme.
Now I know what you're gonna say - While they're covering all the bases, why didn't they have a Film Remix Contest as well? Well the thing is.. DeviantArt is NOT a MOD'ers Site!! But if there had been a MOD'ers site Online at the time of the film's release, you can bet your sweet bootleg copy of Final Cut Pro that Miramax would have been all over it!! *Know wha' I mean .M.!?*
Here's a DJMag Interview with ubiquitous Brit VJ duo Addictive TV who recently made history by being the first VJ's to produce an Audiovisual Remix for Hollywood. Look I realize that the article's a bit old, but given that nothing much has happened in here lately, (plus the fact that some of you probably missed it), I figured I would go ahead and post it anyway.
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