The film below is a documentational piece showing the surrounding landscape covered in snow. The camera work by myself and Shane Davies is progressional for my work, with the synchronization of the footage being the main aim of the final edit. The actual final film that I showed to a small handful of people to be critiqued was on two monitors. This separated the footage further, with a slight echo created across the monitors' sound. The DVD players the two discs were played in had to be synchronized from the start. Luckily the M.A.P area in Cardiff School of Art and Design had multiple DVD players that are alike, and it is the same with a few of the television monitors. Clearly the amount of monitors and DVD players that are alike are limited. With the formulation of a five screen piece idea slowly transgressing to be an aim for my work at the moment, I am unsure whether all the monitors will be alike, as well as the DVD players (if they were different would they sync together successfully if the all of the discs were looped?)
Scout #2 from Lucy Thompson on Vimeo.
The awareness of the placement of the camera has been an aspect of film work that has continuously intrigued me. From watching Hollywood blockbusters to the so aptly named 'art films' that are less widely advertised, the camerawork can be a feature that many do not obviously notice, with the alternate reality that is depicted in many of these moving images sucking at our attention in a most lazy fashion. To understand the construction of a scene and it's play through for the camera is a challenge for me to pay even closer attention to all that is portrayed in the moving image. It can, sometimes, add intrigue when there is a lack of enjoyment. To view the world through a camera lens is to highlight all the everyday actions and objects that may get overlooked in their reality. The use of two cameras in Scout #2 was to create a sense of place; to follow the simple experience of a walk in this beautiful landscape through the lens of a camera and capture the history, actions of the people, and events that shape it's everyday existence.
It is here that PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY rears it's head once again and attempts to dive into my film work.
Photos of a white Brecon Beacon's landscape...
The area has many manmade reservoirs like the one seen in the distance here.
(This particular reservoir holds a particularly nasty story of a boy drowning in an undercurrent whilst swimming here.)
(This particular reservoir holds a particularly nasty story of a boy drowning in an undercurrent whilst swimming here.)
The top of Corn Du was covered by white cloud that continuously drifted across the mountain and highlighted the potential for the act of getting lost just as Tommy Jones once did on the hillside.
The increasing amount of dark cloud cover that appeared during the scout gave the view of the mountains a rather sinister feel, with a stronger wind whipping up around us and the icy cold filling our lungs.
With many thanks to Shane Davies for helping with this piece. Shane was brought up in Merthyr Tydfil but had never been given the chance to climb Corn Du. For him the experience was like no other, with the clean, fresh and open air clearing his mind and freeing his senses to the view of the Beacon's snowy spectacle.
(See Shane Davies' blog at shanecdavies.blogspot.com)
The depth of the snow was unlike I have ever set foot in. The white blanket that covered these hills completely altered their appearance for me, having walked this path many times before. To capture it as a moving image the experience of a snowy Brecon Beacons will forever be a reminder of how a sense of place can be altered simply by the weather.
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