Dance for Camera – “a second third”

We are working with dance in a new medium in freshman seminar – film – and with that comes the freedom of creating works that cannot be performed on a regular stage in real time. In my dance film, a second third, I played with tempo and speed of movement to create an illusion of dancer Hazel Black moving at a normal speed while her background has seemed to be moving at extreme speed.

The process of creating my film: gathering footage, editing, and creating music seemed to be a culmination of previous skills I have learned in this course along with new ones. I had gained experience in creating movement to be seen with a camera for our Moving Space project, and I learned how to create music in GarageBand when creating beats and soundscapes. After being introduced to the basics of Final Cut Pro, I became very comfortable, it being very similar to Photoshop.

I believe that that the hardest part of this whole process was getting started and finding the subject of my film. All of the footage used in my film was captured during my third shooting session and my third change of ideas, hence the title of my film. I found that finding film was very hard for me, however, partly because I was not able to manifest many of the ideas I had due to my poor filmmaking skills. Yet, through my two failed attempts, I became introduced to idea of the use of speed for my dance film.