Westcott DesignStudio 08

These video clips are just an approximation of what this exercise was meant to be and what it actually was. The intent was to create two pieces of media to be played in a two-surface installation in real space. As these two pieces of media played out together, the audience/viewer/visitor would be meant to get a mediated taste of what being in the Westcott House is like. In the installation, each piece looped through several times, though it was a requirement that the entire content play out within two minutes. Throughout this exercise, there was great emphasis on the experience of the person watching/listening/absorbing.

The results are these three fabulous, very different mediated interpretations of the house. I put them together here as side-by-side video, but they were viewed in the house both in a temporary set-up in the basement lab and later in the stairwell of the house for our final presentation and open house.

Kari and Anthony’s piece:

Dylan and Brian’s piece:

Abbie and Collin’s piece:

This was our final quickie exercise.  Each individual student was asked to choose a small collection of their favorite images or video clips of the house (10 -15). Then they went into the house and generated a list of words relating to their direct experience.  The assignment was to make a piece no longer than 30 seconds using this small set of images and 10 or 12 of the words in some way.  Sound was to be either ambient sound from video shot in the house or grounds - no added music or soundtrack - and/or a voice-over of the words.  No one chose the voice-over option, everyone chose to include the words as written text. 

Brian did an alternate project for this exercise.  He shot a sequence of stills he intended to make into a stop-action animation.  This was a very short exercise, a few hours of work, and we didn’t get to putting his full animation sequence together.  His sample is just a short selection of the total animation he shot.

Collin:

Anthony:

Dylan:

 
Abbie:

Kari:

Brian:

 

These are clips from our second exercise.  The assignment was to use some of the photos and video collected from a trip to downtown Springfield to create a short video segment which was abstract.  The definition of abstract was left relatively open and undiscussed until after we reviewed the pieces.  Three teams of two, each piece 30 seconds to 1 minute long.

Abbie and Kari:

 

Collin and Brian:

 

 
Dylan and Anthony:

 

These pieces are from the second day of the studio.  At that point we only had 4 students: Kari, Brian, Dylan and Collin.  They had spent most of a day or so wandering, photographing and really, really quickly learning the basics of video editing.  The assignment was to produce a 30 second to 1 minute piece showing unseen or unusual views of the Westcott House.

Kari and Brian made this:

 

Dylan and Collin made this: