'Pathways'

Pathways from Robert Harrison on Vimeo.

The process for my text project started on my walk back to my car after the lecture on automatic writing. I came across an alleyway that I found quite interesting; it had a real grungy feel to it and a lot of character. I came back the next day to the alleyway and found a spot and began my automatic writing. The words that first came into my head seemed very dark and somewhat disturbing in a way they seemed to simulate the feeling of the location. This is a list of words that came from the writing session.

stressed, lifeless, boring, worry, uncertainty, fear, rejection, dirt, angst, depression suppress, insecure, dreary, fail, failure, pressure, lonely, death, sadness, loneliness, decision, escapism, anguish, negative, desperation, escape, solitude, hate, cloudy, no dreams, office bitch, no freedom, graffiti, random, lost, dark, anxiety, chance, desire, filth, dreamer,

 

I found it quite interesting how the words I wrote in a way replicated my emotions to a particular location so later that afternoon on my way to the car I sat on a bench in Franklin square and began another session in automatic writing. The words this time were quite positive compared to the alleyway.

 

Sunny, hope, laugh, pathway, dreams, excited, happy, aspirations, goal, achieve, laughter, hungry, birth, joy, forgiveness, acceptance, positive, love, bright, future, independence, knowledge, power, together, freedom, blissful, right, relaxed

 

After comparing both sessions of automatic writing, I had the idea to join both the sessions together in a narrative. After looking at the words of each session I found that the words could actually be related to the pathways people choose in life. Whether you start going down the wrong pathway in life it is never to late to change. It can only take a word to simply change the direction you are travelling to get you back on track.

This is the story ‘Pathways’ tells, it starts with a man who seems to be spiralling into an unknown place, which is symbolised by him walking down the stairs. The further he gets into the story the more things seem to be on his mind and the accumulation of text seems to be dragging him down. The text becomes more and more dominant in the frame as the shots progress until the man finds another pathway and suddenly his stress and worries are eliminated. The man arrives at a place where everything seems to be blissful where his world is finally worth living for.

I choose to film in the same locations I wrote both pieces of automatic writing because I wanted to try emulate the same thoughts and feelings I originally had for both of these places on the screen.

Storyboard

 

 

The Editing Process

‘Pathways’ was initially captured and edited in Final Cut Pro and was graded in Magic Bullet then imported into After Effects to add all the layers of text. Each piece of text in ‘Pathways’ is an individual moving 3D layer and was adjusted using X, Y and Z co-ordinates and key framed individually. There was over 350 key framed layers in ‘Pathways’, and it was difficult initially to make the text to look three dimensional on a single video layer without the use of a green screen. To avoid this problem of not being able to have text behind the character I created individual cameras for some pieces of text to create depth of field as well as using lens blurs on some of the text. Once the text was all composited into After Effects and key framed I then exported it into Final Cut Pro for a fine cut and a final grading in Magic Bullet.       

 

Reflection

In Reflection I think that my short film ‘Pathways’ was effective in creating a unique text project. I managed to create the look and feel I originally set out to achieve, and I learnt new techniques in After Effects in the process. From the critique I made a few small changes, which I thought were very valid comments and this helped create the feel I wanted in the production. I found the filming of this a little difficult as I was using a handheld camera with no manual controls, so for various shots I had to trick the camera into focus by getting the camera to focus on my hand, I also had the same problem with the exposure. If I was to do this production again I would shoot it on a different camera with manual settings, though the images came out good it would have made the initial shoot a lot easier. Overall I think ‘Pathways’ was successful in many aspects and there would not be many things I would change about it.