Eiffel Tower: POV original photo

Eiffel Tower: POV

Eiffel Tower Parasitic Structure


Film: Static POV shot
Runs for approx: 120 seconds
Location: Top of the Eiffel Tower, lying on viewing platform looking down
POV: You are the person waiting for the bullet


*BEGIN*
Black (or white) screen: Possibly uses extremely out-of-focus film/image from top of tower.


Sound of the wind fades in: Actual sound recorded from top of Tower, possibly including background noise like car horns, sirens, [very very faint] but no voices. Also possibly very faint sound of breathing. Just a few seconds.


Screen slowly focuses: You see that there is ground far below, out of focus, extremely faint, possible tiny movements? Small parts of Tower structure? Probably filmed from the Tower if we could get an acceptable angle. This is a shot I can visualise but find hard to explain…


Focus settles on a space not far in front of you, where there is the top of a ‘tube’: Again I can visualise but find hard to explain…


This carries on for *?* seconds, with the blurry ground, the tube directly in front, and the faint sound of the wind.


*AFTER 60 SECONDS*
There is a loud sound, a click, a buzzer, a siren: Not sure what would fit here. It means that the gun has been fired. Now you are really waiting…


*?? SECONDS AFTER THE SOUND*
The bullet (suddenly?) grows large in the frame as it emerges from the top of the tube and stops a few centimetres from your face: Has to be very close, but not so close you can’t focus on it. Perhaps there is the faint sound of an intake of breath, or holding breath – depends if this is part of the sound at all.


The bullet slowly turns: It is a small cone-shaped projectile and you see it stop fleetingly, pivot and fall away again.


Screen focus switches back to the top of the tube: The bullet is falling back to the ‘collection point’. Again we are waiting, looking at the tube and listening to the wind.


*?? SECONDS AFTER THE BULLET STOPPED*
There is another sound, a click, a buzzer, a siren, different to the first one: It means that the bullet has landed back on the ground.


Abrupt end: The screen goes black (or white) and the sound stops.


*END*

Shutter showdown

We've been pretty bad at keeping the blog up-to-date with what we're doing... so the next few posts are going to be a bit of a catchup. First off is High Noon or The Shutter Showdown (thanks Laura for the name): during our first prototyping session, we made the cardboard prototypes of camera stands (tripods) and guns (shutter release triggers), we tried them out and got photos like these:


[see the photo above full size - Matt the sure shooter!]


Since then we've done a drawing:



and Jimmy has started to work on version 2:



I guess the main question it's raised for me is; how do we contextualise this as an object or experience? The answer to the question doesn't need to be singular, we can develop multiple different contexts and objects, but trying to work out it's place will help us understand in what way we're designing it. For example, the object could be a full-blown toy - something for the kids, akin to a dance mat or a nerf game for the cinematically conscious. Or it could be a more along the line of high-end, niche camera equiptment (as I talked about in this blog post) - functionally and aesthetically like this gear from Zacuto - see their 'Western' themed review and their objects are all a bit gun-like:



I guess the important drivers are: The experience, it's a lot of fun. The image, you get to look very cool. The competition, everyone wants to be the fastest gun in the west.

Balloon architectures at the speed of sound

Outside - looking worried.

Inside - ready to become a hero.

eyeful eiffel rifle tower

two hours on

eiffel tower construction

Balloon fictions

Jimmy and I had an afternoon messing around with balloons. We wanted to take the 'explosive' element of our fictional bomb and extend it into an immersive structure - an architecture at the speed of sound. Obviously we didn't attempt a detention, we wanted to see the structure and test the feeling of being surrounded in balloons. It had an amazing acoustic effect and was really quite scary, as you can see from Jimmy's face:


The idea here, is to velcro the balloons together and have individual detonators on each balloon - the control of the explosion will be handled by a computer. Jimmy suggested anthrax in each balloon, i think it maybe going too far!

Borges gets the Reiffel Tower

This was sent by a student who emailed Laura - absolutely brilliant. The Secret Miracle by Jorge Luis Borges (1944) …

The squad formed and stood at attention. Hladik, standing against the barracks wall, waited for the volley. Someone pointed out that the wall was going to be stained with blood; the victim was ordered to step forward a few paces. Incongruously, this reminded Hladik of the fumbling preparations of photographers. A big drop of rain struck one of Hladik's temples and rolled slowly down his cheek; the sergeant shouted the final order.

The physical universe came to a halt. The guns converged on Hladik, but the men who were to kill him stood motionless. The sergeant's arm eternized an unfinished gesture. On a paving stone of the courtyard a bee cast an unchanging shadow. The wind had ceased, as in a picture

Architecture at the speed of sound

If we make deconstructing green=boom architecture, we should capture it like this:

I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

or like this

More Bird houses

Hmmmm.... more CCTV birdhouses, i think we need to re-think this one:

re lig ion

same derivation

as ligament


meaning sticking or bringing together..

my Latin is a little rusty but that's pretty much it.
Plugging in is next to
Godliness.

The competition

I'm not sure how i feel about this:

Thanks be to Matt