Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Oily Sheen

Some of the video shots which I make with the "point-n-shoot in my pocket" just demand to have music added to them.  This is one of those.

It was a rainy day in Pasadena.  I was walking along Lake Avenue where I encountered a large puddle at the entrance to a super market parking lot.  The puddle had formed because of a stopped-up drain.  On the water's surface there was a little oil from which light reflected.

As I filmed,  a car passed through the puddle and then someone walked right in front of my camera.  The car created waves which are what the piece is really about, I guess.  I edited the person's legs out completely.


Oily Sheen © 2011 David Ocker - 139 seconds

One of my previous video pieces was filmed on the same block, across the street. Here's that one as well:


(Sometimes I Feel Like A) Newspaper In Traffic © 2010 David Ocker - 99 seconds (click the title to see the original post)


Another Mixed Meters "oil and water" reference is my "piano" piece entitled Oil and Water Mix. No video there, just music.  That piece is 666 seconds long.

Oily Tags: . . . . . .

5 comments :

Elaine Fine said...

The Newspaper in Traffic reminds me of "The Red Balloon." Bravo.

Alex Shapiro said...

1. An homage to Charlie? BP? Baywatch?

Beautiful effects and truth (heck, I'm a water-oriented gal so it appeals to my core nature).

2. Brilliant! Riveting. I wept. I've never felt such an affinity for an ad insert before, and damn if you don't have the power to elicit raw, unbridled emotion for $1.99 hair gel and toothpaste. Bravo!!

Seriously: thank you. More!

David Ocker said...

Thank you, Elaine & Alex, for your positive comments.

To answer Alex's questions:
1)
Charlie? No
BP? No
Baywatch? No

This is water in a Ralph's parking lot. The oil, presumably, dripped from cars passing through. I found the reflections from the oil rather beautiful.

2) What? I'm afraid you've lost me here. On my system AdSense must be blocking whatever ads you're talking about. If that is what you're talking about.

Several other of my videos deal with water:
Flap!
Rain Random
Water With Ducks

Alex Shapiro said...

Ah, you were in a serious mood tonight and took all I wrote literally. I'm too silly to be taken literally. Probably too illiterate, as well. Allow me to demystify:

Look closely at your newspaper, blowin' in the wind. It is what I believe is called in the biz an "ad insert" that colorfully touts lots of local supermarket or drugstore coupons and sales prices.

I was not referring to any wayward Google AdSense nonsense having crashed your blog party. No worries!

Following up on Elaine's comment about "The Red Balloon," your video also evoked a memory of a wistful scene from "American Beauty" that features a hapless plastic bag blown about by random gusts on a city sidewalk.

You're inspiring the rest of us to further explore the power of mating our music with video of our making. Excellent!

David Ocker said...

Okay, Alex, got it. Sorry. I did explore the notion that you were mining a humor vein, but that didn't make any more sense to me than the serious route.

Yes, the newspaper in question is advertising: a handout from the Ralphs on that street. There's a pile of them for shoppers as they enter the store touting the current savings on things you don't really need. Most of what you can read in the video are big red price numbers.

Doing my own video was, of course, akin to opening a very large can of worms. Most of my video subjects so far have been found objects. I'm nowhere near ready to intentionally create scenes. And, I try hard to keep the images serving the music - since I'm a neophyte image guy and a supposedly experienced music guy. It's something for people to watch as they don't pay much attention to the music. (The last sentence is not really a joke, sigh.)

And finally - watch out for a 10+ minute video-music piece of mine entitled Solstice Lights. It's my tribute to Art Jarvinen and the longest video I've ever attempted. It's done, I just need to create the upload version.