Day 100. I wish I posted this one last night because I had the chance to but instead opted for bed. Day 101 here has been hectic! I arrived at work this morning and had a TV spot to get out very quickly and then the internet went down! I started writing this post at 11am this morning and now it’s all ready 6pm! So, I’m really sorry to all of you who follow this blog. I especially didn’t want day 100 to be like this.
Anyways, the subject of todays post is extremely interesting to me and it’s been something that I’ve been wanting to achieve for a long time. I love the concept of time in art. Whether it’s extreme slow motion or really long exposures or time lapse photography, I just love seeing something on film that my eyes couldn’t otherwise see. Which is why when I first heard of the Slitscan technique I was hooked.
The idea is that time is represented in the image either horizontally or vertically. In each of the images above, what you’re actually seeing is 45 seconds worth of time. The image is divided into 1080 lines going from top to bottom. The top of each image is actually 45 seconds earlier than the bottom. I filmed the succulent and the monome slowly rotating on a lazy susan. The wavy edges you can see are due to the fact that the lazy susan couldn’t rotate very smoothly. I plan on modifying my telescopes tripod to do this because it has a very slow servo for rotation. It should create perfectly constant edges.
I have tried to accomplish this effect in After Effects before using an plugin called Time Displacement but unfortunately I could never get a good clean effect. I had some free time during the day since I had all my cuts awaiting feedback so I decided to go back into After Effects and do it the hard way. I knew what physically had to be done, I just had to do it. It’s almost like digital knitting. I did the monotonous task of creating 1080 solid layers each with a single pixel-height mask and continued that until I reached the bottom of the HD frame. Then I took those layers and sequenced them to start one frame after the layer above. It took a long time to finish but once I was done I had the makings of what could be a really cool Slitscan template project. All that you need to do now is choose a video clip that is long enough and then option-drag it over the solid layers and then you get to see what it looks like in slitscan form. Once I finish cleaning up the project and experimenting with it a bit more I will make it available for download.
I am currently rendering these images above in video form but the render times are extremely bad. (another reason why I don’t want to release this project yet). I am going to make a version with a two pixel height which should cut all render times in half as well as a 1280X720 in both single and double pixel heights.
And finally, thank you. Being that it’s Day 100 I want to say a big THANKS to all of you who have followed me on this blog and have left their words of encouragement. It means a lot to me to know that what I’m doing can inspire others. Sometimes it can feel like a chore but there are other times that it gives me a deep feeling of gratification. Sometimes I’m actually giddy after I post something I feel good about. On the smoking front, I am quitting this Saturday which also coincides with the first day of my week-long vacation. Jenny and the baby and I are taking a long drive up the coast to San Francisco and Berekely, stopping and staying at various places along the way. It should be the perfect thing to wash away the weight of all these all-nighters at the office and all the cigarettes I’ve smoked in the meantime. So for that, I thank you.
All the best,
Charlie
All right, I can’t wait. It’s still rendering but because I’m doing a tiff sequence I can upload a partial render while it continues.