Category — Photography

This past week I went home to the midwest and saw my beautiful niece. I decided that I would make a short film about her using photos and sound only, just like in the movie La Jetee. Granted it is no oscar winner, but it is just a short clip that takes in to account the use of sound and light to tell a short narrative story.

The background music shows Inner Orientation Functions of Sound.  I got the song from the all instrumental cd of 27 dresses.

The laughing voices does a great job of demonstrating Outer Orientation Functions of Sound.  Takes you to that moment and that space in time.

My voice will provide the Information Structure of Sound.  Giving you the dialogue of the the story.

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La Jetée is a 30 minute movie done all from photo stills. I had never heard of it until this weekend.  It can be found on YouTube in its entirety.

La Jetée is not conventional in the sense that it films a photographic novel.  As them narrator states it “is the story of a man haunted by an image of his childhood.”  When he flashes back all he focuses on is the face of this woman:

The man or the protagonist of the film saw her at the pier at Orly Airport.  This is just before Paris is destroyed by a nuclear war in what is known as World War III.  The man experimented on by his captors, the head of which is known as the mad scientist. He was selected because, “this man was selected only because he was glued to an image of his past.” The whispers of the mad scientist and those working with him were a bit unnerving to listen to.  The flashbacks would show him with a woman doing simple things like strolling through the streets or at the market shopping.  “They have no memories, no plans,” says the narrator. “Time builds painlessly around them.” Other photos would be of him in bed with a white eye mask on and tubes running in out.
One section we are shown eleven still images of the sleeping woman, but in the twelfth, her eyes open, (only part not done in stills) and she stares up at him with love. This is a pivotal moment in the film.  They have made this true connection from random visits in time.

“Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments. Only afterwards do they claim remembrance, on account of their scars.”

The tests have gone so well that the scientists take him into the future.  At first the people he meets there don’t want him, but finally decide that he his worthy and give him the option.  However the man has decided that he would rather go back in time again, to see the woman that he loves.  The climax of the film is marked by this decision.  This decision to live out the rest of his days with her, leads to his death on the pier where this all began.  A still picture of him running toward her before the nuclear war happens all over again.  His death is inevitable.

This film did completely out of still photos, show the impact of a photograph.  Susan Sontag said that photographs have the power to resonate with the viewer.  This film proves this statement to be true.  With the use of a few hundred photos and the narrator’s voice, you are taken through time in this story.  It is short and has all the elements of a good story.  It contained an antagonist and a protagonist, the steady rise to the climax moment in the film, leading to the inevitable fall to the conclusion.  It is only 30 minutes long so I see no reason why everyone shouldn’t take time out to view it.  As a media maker and consumer this was important to see.  In my own works I see how strong a photograph can be.  I will keep that thought in mind as I create my own short narrative this week.

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Open a color image in Photoshop. To get the best sketch image, high contrast images are preferable. If it’s needed, you can adjust the image’s contrast (Image>Adjust>Brightness/Contrast)

Desaturate the layer that contains the image. You can desaturate by clicking on Image>Adjust>Desaturate.

Duplicate the desaturated layer. On the layer palette, you can duplicate the layer by right clicking on the previous layer and selecting the option of duplicating that layer.

Select and invert the duplicate desaturated layer. You can invert an image by clicking on Image>Adjust>Invert.

Notice that now, with the inverted layer selected, change the blending mode to “color dodge.”

Set the Gaussian blur to this layer. You can do that by clicking on Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Then you can set the radius in between 4.0-9.0. Choose the one that creates a nice sketch effect.

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Step 1: Open your image. Duplicate the background layer and rename it.

Step 2: Make sure your new layer (not the background) is highlighted and run menu option Image » Adjustments » Threshold… The default value in the Threshold dialog box is 128. For this image I made it 75, press OK when you have it where you want it.

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Step 3: With the threshold layer highlighted, run menu option Filter » Stylize » Diffuse… Select Anisotropic mode and press OK.Step 4:Run menu option Select » Color Range… Use the eyedropper to sample the black portion of the image, then run the Fuzziness slider in the Color Range dialog box up to 200. Press OK. The black portion of the image should now be surrounded by marching ants.Step 5: Run menu option Select » Save Selection… Give the selection a name and press OK. Now deselect. We’ll reload the selection later.

Step 6: Make a new layer on top of the others. Select the Paint Bucket tool. Set the tool to fill with a patern rather than a color and fill the new layer. I used one of Photoshop’s built-in patterns.

Step 7: Make another new layer on top of the others and fill it with white. Add a layer mask to this layer by pressing the Add Layer Mask button on the Layers palette.

Step 8: Run menu option Select » Load Selection… Choose the selection you saved earlier from the dropdown menu in the Load Selection dialog box and press OK.

Step 9: Run menu option Edit » Fill… Fill the selection with black (which should correspond to your current background color if the mask layer is highlighted). Though you’ve filled the selection with black, you won’t see black in the image. What you should see is the pattern fill from the layer below showing through where the selected mask was filled. Deselect.

Step 10: With the mask layer still highlighted, select the Brush tool and choose a large, hard-edged brush. (I used the size 19 brush.) Painting on the mask with white as the foreground color, paint over those parts of the image you might not need, assuming you see extra stuff that doesn’t need to be there.

Step 11: Select the Text tool, get a font you like and add some text.

Step 12: Run menu option Select » Load Selection… The correct entry will already be selected by default in the dialog box, so just press OK. The text should now be surrounded by marching ants.

Step 13: Turn off visibility of the text layer. The text will disappear but the marching ants will be left behind. (Deselecting right now would be bad.)

Step 14: Highlight the mask layer and make sure the mask portion of the layer is selected. Run menu option Edit » Fill… Fill the selection with black (which should correspond to your current background color if the mask layer is highlighted, just like the last time we did this). Once again the pattern fill should show through the mask, making the text look just like the rest of the image. Deselect.

Step 15: Done!

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