Recommendations...

After the tutorial I was recommended two things to watch; Robinson In Space which is about an impression of mundane everyday spaces and then some video footage of a Time lapse in space, sort of like a surveillance from space.

Robinson In Space by Patrick Keiller is a film about an unknown character talking about his excursions around England with his friend Robinson. Another film by Keiller is London (which I have included a clip of below). It includes the same two characters, was filmed before Robinson In Space and is based in London as the title suggests. All the film consists of is a narration by the unknown Character (voiced by Paul Scofield) talking about his reunion with his friend Robinson. The unknown character is the only one to talk in the film and you never see either of the characters. Robinson is supposedly giving the 'narrator' a tour of London and even expresses his opinions through the narrator. The footage relates to every part of the script but are never moving shots, just a camera set in a certain place relevant to each section and showing the people or objects moving about.

With the narrator and the still camera it's almost like being told a story form a book, with the film being the illustrations to help you imagine the tale. I like the idea that you never get to see the characters and how you never hear directly from Robinson, you just assume he exists because the storyteller is telling you so. Unlike my film Keiller includes the sounds taken with the footage, I feel this includes you in the image and the story, as though you're being taken on a tour around the same parts, whilst the narrator tells you the story of when he last visited there. With this soft and calming story that is personal to one person and includes their view points it bring up current opinions and issues for someone in London, for example Robinsons worry about the exploitation of the homeless, crime and expensive travel to make people long for and work for this supposedly free city life.

I have recorded audio of my living room whilst filming the trains go past the window but chose not to include it in the first showing of the film. I like how this disconnected the viewer from the film, but I like the idea of perhaps including audio still illustrate the film, showing what conversations were happening (if any) at certain times of the day and showing how life goes on around this constant image, the existence that occurs through it's duration. If I were to do this I would like to have the audio on headphones, so the piece could still be observed as silent but you could chose whether you wanted to hear the activity, almost as if you were joining in on a conversation. The intention for this would be to distract slightly from the image, you might still pay attention to it but you're focus would be on the context of the conversations, maybe to decipher if there was a connection to what was being shown. This distraction would be the same as mine in my daily life, you can day dream or have thoughts about other matters in your life (mine being going home for an example) but your day to day life activity distracts you from this, although the thought may still be in the back of your mind, like a passing train in you're window.

When searching for footage of 'time lapsing in space' I found these two films. Showing sped up films of the view from a space shuttle, there is no sound and all you can see moving on the Earth's surface, like in Grazia Toderi's La Benniale, is the twinkling of lights suggesting activity of the beings that live there. The footage is hypnotising and enticing with it colours and aesthetic appeal but also with the knowledge of where it has been shot and the fascination of seeing the world we live in from a place we are more than likely to never visit. Like in my film there is no sound, making the movement around the Earth smooth and calming, like it was suggested the silent trains in my video did. I could experiment with the idea of tempo in my footage, would speeding it up or slowing it down effect the mood or the message? would it take away too much attention or defeat the point of recording literal life in it's own time? or could it possibly add to the work?

Whilst searching for the above footage I came across this video of a lady taking a head and shoulders photo of herself everyday for four and a half years which you can view individually on her blogg. She created the film by quickly showing each photo one after the other in chronological order. Like a stop-motion film you can see the small changes on this woman's faces and appearance, that took over four years to happen, in less than a minute. This persons life flash before your eyes and although are always  still and in the same position, barely changing, the film seems to move and is animated. Her living out her daily life, changing he appearance, making choices, doing the same thing more than once are all shown in this short video. In just 41 seconds you see her living yet all you are shown is a simple portrait photo of the same person in the same way everyday. 

I can't help but notice the similarities between this and my own recording of my bedroom, living room and the new BIAD building everyday. Taking the shots from the same position and angle every time, just simple capturing the small changes that happen everyday. seeing them laid out you can see these changes, but if I were to make them into a film, perhaps you could physically see things appear and disappear, as though that space was alive.