The planets must have been in alignment today because certain things had to be in place for my creative project to have gone down the way that it did.

As I drove into work today I thought I’d do an interview with a guy we call “The Van Man”.  A couple months ago my co-workers and I started seeing these painted vans parked all around the office.   Except that idea didn’t pan out and I was left not knowing what to do.

Then my co-worker Todd showed me a special something that he’d brought into the office.  It’s called the “Eye-Clops” and its a little SD microscope video camera.  Now here is where the serendipity comes into play.  Long before this blog, I had always wanted to do macro-photography of fluids and bacteria in a petrie dish.   The idea came along with the film “The Fountain”.  There is a section to that movie that takes place in an absolutely beautiful golden cosmos.  Instead of using CG visual effects they used a combination of greenscreen and macro-photography.  The fluids and bacteria was filmed by a professional in the industry by the name of Peter Parks.

 
To begin, I took the Eye-Clops and put plastic wrap over it.  Then I experimented with torn paper.   I realized that a torn shred of paper towel looks like the perfect representation of a grassy field.  I attempted to create a landscape but it was too small and It didn’t work out.   Then, I added some fine sand to the mix and poked at the plastic wrap with the exacto blade.  Then I added the honey.  That’s when the beauty of the imagery really started to kick in.  All I did was lean the Eye-Clops back and forth to get a nice slow movement from the honey.  Very nice.
 
Then I remembered something.   I had worked on a movie where I got to meet this guy Duff from a show called “Ace of Cakes” and he gave me this little vial of blue powder.   It’s called luster dust.   Anyways, I had told him about my interest in macro-photography and he showed me that when you mix the luster dust with alcohol then interesting things happen.  The alcohol sort of activates the blue powder.  So, I grabbed the blue vial of luster dust, which just so happened to still be in the center console of my car, and then I stopped by the liquor store for a mini-bottle of Smirnoffs.   That brought upon very beautiful, very organic imagery similar to what you might imagine the inside of your body looks like.  I used a binder clip to mix it up every so often to create a new configuration.
 
It all turned out pretty awesome.  Check out the video below to see some highlights from the recording.  These images are completely raw.   You can imagine how beautiful this material might look within a program like after effects. (Future project? wink)
 
I hope you enjoy.   The music in the video is my own song.  A patch I recorded from the modular.   It’s called “Early Morning” and it’s available for download from the monome haiti relief album.
 
By the way, keep an eye out for the creepy ghosties that also make they’re way into the video. Enjoy!