Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Rachel's Favorite Video Blog (Vlog)

Photographer/Filmmaker Daniel Liss keeps a videoblog at pouringdown.tv

Some of my favorite videos are:

Neighbors



In this short clip, Daniel structures the piece with a personal voice over. The content is very emotional (death, AIDS, and the way people interact with each other) and he chooses a very definite stylistic construction. He uses seemingly simple visual elements to tell this story - shots and sounds of the rains. He uses extreme close-ups of water droplets hitting the windowsill in a sad dance, the sound of the rain droplets, emotion evoking music, and color that seems painted on the frame (using soft focus). He holds each shot for a time, seemingly slow, but the pacing perfectly matched to the eloquence of the piece. He thought about leaving flowers but didn't, instead, he leaves this post.


Theory/Practice - an entry about the theory and practice of this videoblogger's craft.



His visual style is moving. He opens with the fog resting on the outside of a building. He uses music to get us from cut to cut. He tells the narrative (taking his sleeping baby to the botanical gardens), but says "I don't point the camera and explain...". Instead, he shows us visually (he calls it "tangentially").

He varies the framing - revealing both the landscape and the details of his world. He makes a simple shot - of a pencil scratching notes on paper - so beautiful. He explains his vlog stylistically: I add music, I play with the image. Does this stop being a vlog? This is my world - this is how I see it, how I think it - I vlog it for you...

2 comments:

Daniel said...

[thank you]

vicstr said...

I get a little nervous about creating something that has some depth and only having six weeks to make that happen. Yikes. The examples shown here are really beautiful, intelligent and moving. I'm not sure that I'm that deep...
My first idea was to make a Minnesota version of something - greatest love scenes, etc., but that doesn't seem very helpful. I'll see some more movies and, hopefully, get some more inspiration.
Thanks.