Some Final Strategies

When approaching my final project, I was inclined to think ‘less is more’ in regard to the execution of my video. I have always maintained that in the design of a knitted project, one should not attempt to knit a ‘people-shaped tea cosy’. By this, I mean that one should not throw every trick and design feature into one garment, at the cost of the overall impact of the piece.
It is really a question of avoiding the ‘over-egging’ of the cake. How many times have we seen an artist attempt to use one piece as a shop window merely for a display and affirmation of his skill and ingenuity only to fail lamentably as the piece appears overworked – over designed – and hopelessly mired in technique that subverts and detracts from the underlying concept.

Currently the timing of video sequences seems to have two agendas.
I think there has recently been a trend to divide clips into short sharp sequences of duration…. into lengths that last for seconds, or even frames.
One agenda seems to be heavily influenced by advertisements and has consequently overflowed into Hollywood-type actions sequences where the film consists of short rapid scenes/views/cuts from one sequence or part of clip to another.
Here the time line can be dictated by either:
1. The need to inject a dynamic into the narrative and build up the tension
or
2. The advertisers need to convey the information in the shortest possible time to create the necessary impact.
To be explicit: this technique is influenced by the imperative to introduce a dynamic element of action into the current run of action Movies and Computer Games. It is also a result of the advertising clips seen on TV and in the Movies. If the one of the primary constraints influencing the advertiser; that is, he must pay for his advert according to the time it takes to play it, then one can understand the compelling reason to impart as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time.
This technique can be seen to be employed in opposition move to the more lyrical movies of someone like “Where Is My Friend’s House “ by Abbas Kiarostami and, more recently, “Lemming” .by Dominik Moll, where atmosphere, not action is pivotal to the plot. The sequences seem, at times, to be painfully slow, underlined by a the sound track that is also slow, melodic, moody and mellifluous. At the end of the film, the conclusion / final outcome was very powerful, hauntingly beautiful and had an eyrie significance.
I am now thinking that the ebb and flow of a slower, more lyrical sequence of footage would be more appropriate to my subject matter which really concerns the gradual evolution of the knitted substrate and it’s subsequent folding and un-folding.

Another approach might be:
By developing the time line starting with the Audio track, which is often based on modern pop music with an overbearing ‘beat’, this leads to this kind of rapid cutting of the images, which are triggered, or married to this rapid insistent beat.