Gregory Barsamian’s “Feral Fount”

Feral Fount sculpture with its pieces becoming moving images in a dark room under a strobe light is something that must be experienced to the naked eye. This is one way of explaining this fascinating piece. On our visit to the Museum of Moving Images, we were guided to a room that had the exhibits of some early moving images and were able to see the original zoetrope that were discussed in the lectures. I was able to see and experience the Bird in Cage thaumatrope, and see the optical illusions that the piece conveyed. The bird is not in a cage, there is a picture of a bird on one side and a cage on the other, when you make it spin, it creates an optical illusion of the bird inside the cage.

            I also got to see a zoetrope and was able to make it spin and experience its function. Seeing the men, through the slits of the zoetrope, running, but in actuality the men are not running. There are painted pictures of men doing different motions, and when you spin the zoetrope the optical illusion shows the men running.

            Then the guide told us to go and check out what is in the room around the corner. I walked in and saw something that is still mesmerizing to me. It was the Feral Fount exhibit, which spins in a dark room with a strobe light flashing. I couldn’t understand at first what I was seeing. How was this sculpture alive? It was turning in a circle with all different kinds of gizmos attached to the piece. Some of the gizmos are a person’s hand, a green rocket, and what looked like white paper.

            As the Feral Fount went around in circles, the images that it was creating were the green rockets melting through the hands and turning into a plastic liquid. If you can picture what plastic looks like when it is melting, well this is what the optical allusion was creating.

            After a minute or so, the lights would turn on in the room, to show you how the piece is constructed. The elaboration of this piece in a spiral form with hands, rockets, papers, and other gizmos, the illusion created each of the different things melting into each other when in motion.

            In relation to our lectures and media in general, it is interesting to see how our eyes play with us, and how in the media industry there is so much work that goes into a certain shot to convey to the audience what the director or film maker wants the audience to see.

Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands (Car Theft Scene), by Nicholas Winding Refn

 What is interesting in the Pusher car theft scene is the rapid movement of the tracking shot as the camera follows the car thieves into the car dealership. We first see a medium above headshot, when the character is breaking into the dealership. Once he broke into the dealership the camera uses an unsteady motion, almost as if the cameraman is holding the camera on his/her shoulder and running with the characters, the camera moves quickly, using pivot moves from left to right and up and down. Through out the whole scene the camera moves rapidly and gives a feeling of nausea. We also get a direct point of view shot of the characters with the flashlight, as they are running to their next obstacle. Each camera angle coincides with what each character is about to do and gives their perspective point of view. I also think that the way the music was brought into the scene, right after the burglar alarm went off, was to give the audience a sense of suspense.

When the characters are changing the plates on the vehicles, the camera starts to track in on each character as he is changing the license plates, of the vehicles. As each of them change the license plates there are a lot of cuts and snips in the editing, going from one character to the other. The camera also focuses on the person who is changing the plates and the actual license plate, using the technique of a track in shot with secondary object in the foreground. There is also a very fast pan shot at about 0.52 sec which shows the inside of the dealership and the characters running from left to right. A few seconds after the pan shot, when one of the characters runs up to the big glass door to allow the other characters to drive the cars out, we are able to see a fast medium shot to a fast close up shot of the character in the ski mask, as he begins to open up the big glass door.

The scene of the crash is an extreme long shot of the two cars crashing into each other, and when the camera swings to the character’s masked face, it is a close up of the man’s masked face. Even though we, the audience, are not able to see the characters facial expressions, we can somehow understand what they would be. The director shows this, by going from an extreme long shot of the crash to an abruptly fast close up shot of the man’s shoulders and head.

After the crash one of the characters jumps in a vehicle and takes off. We are able to see a lot of his point of view through the camera work, and we are able to see an angle shot from the passenger side seat, where the camera is shooting. The camera continues to go from a point of view to a close up of the characters face who is driving. As the cars are driving and beginning to drive into the containers where the stolen vehicles are going to be stored, we are able to see a two shot of the cars. Then again characters point of view of the container and ending with a close up shot of the characters face.  

The music is used to evoke an eerie feeling that something is going wrong. Lighting is used very sporadically in the beginning of the scene and the rest of the scene, the lighting is tailored to the environment. In the dealership, there is minimal lighting, and on the street it is dark, because the break in happens at night. 

            The rules of continuity through out the scene are being followed, each character is following a rhythm within the scene, they continue to wear the same clothing, and cars follow the same pattern and are inline with the beginning of the scene.

            The choice of colors the director chose for this scene go well with the gritty soundtrack and the dull lighting. Instead of choosing a dealership with bright colors, we only see white, black and green colors. This is also true for the color of cars chosen for this scene; there are not red or yellow cars, but only white, grey and black cars.

            The darkness of this scene, the fast moving camera shots, the high and low angle shots of the characters and, specifically, the camera shots in the vehicles, brings the audience a feeling of suspense.

My Musical Interview