Editing in Progress

The filming on Saturday went very well I feel, Piotr's editing the footage now. I should hopefully be able to see how it's going at some point today.

Being the 'Creative' or 'Artistic' director of a project is not something I'm used to. It feels distinctly strange not getting my hands dirty (metaphorically speaking) for once.

It's definitely been a learning curve over the course of this project. I've found myself for the first time ever doubting myself a lot more than usual, and thus spending a lot of time researching and not much time making which feels quite wrong. I've definitely learned that it's best to just run with ideas than to worry as much as I have.

I've also learned that when you make a video at this level of standard that there is a LOT involved. I'm used to being able to jump in head first, pursuing a chaotic method of creation. This means I could rely on myself, be in charge at pretty much every step of the way. Relying on and organising such a large group of people never even crossed my mind before. Fortunately Piotr is very experienced in this field and already had contact with the people we needed.

It's a very strange sensation to come up with a central idea and then, with exception of being involved with the fabrication of some of the project and providing feedback or input, completely letting go of the project to other, more experienced hands. Obviously it's necessary, but it takes a hell of a lot of getting used to.

Making the ferrofluid took a lot of hard work and research, but except for that I have to give my thanks largely to the team I was working with - who were all absolutely amazing people. I'll have the full list to upload here soon.

Ferrofluid Test 7

I couldn't be bothered with the text overlays on this one, as they are all just quick tests

Ferrofluid is easily cleaned up with a dab of white spirit.

Ferrofluid still reacts from quite a distance

The mirror works as a surface but is perhaps not suitable because of the 'infinity screen' effect it produces.

Test 6

Test 5

Test 4

Test 3

Test 2

More testing:

Ferrofluid tests 1

EUREKA!

It's alive:

Shoot Date

I'm going into Six tomorrow to give my final pitch to the guys to make sure it's possib;e to secure the right equipment etc.

I should also be taking a look at Piotr's storyboards tomorrow too.

Discussions are also being undertook at the moment to procure a model for the shoot, we're thinking of maybe asking for a girl that I helped film a couple of weeks back, at least then we'll know it'll be quite east to work with her.

Every thing's looking pretty good right now, although I've had to order in a few large permanent magnets, as the electromagnets I have been making need a stronger power source than I currently have, and I don't really want to use my tesla coil one on it.

I think it's important due to the element of analogue tech in this brief that I get my hands quite dirty on the technology side.

Not sure if the hot ice will go ahead yet - piotr doesn't want to shoot more than one film on the same day (understandably), and I'm not sure I'll have enought time to shoot before or after that date. The question is if I push for it, can I get it delivered to a high enough standard...

Ferrofluid

So the oil and printer toner particles was a no-go. The picture that was posted up earlier represents the lacklustre result.

My mother (Zoe Gaffen) has been an absolute star helping me with this bit. She studied bio-chemistry and has access to a laboratory, and helped clear me for access to conduct some experiments under her supervision.

Firstly, what was going wrong with the toner/oil solution;

To understand this, first a base understanding of the chemistry of ferrofluid must be known. Now mine is hardly stellar, but it should be able to provide a mildly adequate description:

• Ferrofluid is a combination of three parts, the ferrous particles, a surfactant and a carrier. The ferrous particles are the 'tiny magnets' that cause the fluid to behave the way it does. The surfactant is used to dissolve the particles into a liquid (the carrier). The 'liquid-like' behaviour works because the particles are dispersed evenly through the liquid, causing it to take on magnetic properties.

The oil didn't work because although vegetable oil has a little oleic acid in it (one form of surfactant) it needs to be mixed with the ferrous particulate before the carrier is added. My mother seems to think that a 5% particulate, 10% surfactant and an 85% carrier mixture will work best.

Some photo's of the different mixtures to come and a quick description of what does/doesn't work about each one.

Material.TV

Just a quick update to say that it is not completely certain when the Material site launch will happen yet - somewhere in June is likely, and the Sams will be discussing it with Andreas and the other guys tomorrow. At the moment I've just been told soon. More to follow as it comes.

Slightly dissatisfied but quietly confident

So,

I've decided that if I continued with the plan set out yesterday I was going to wind up losing my sanity. These projects may well all continue to go ahead, however only one will be focused on for the end of year show. I'm aware that submitting one where I stipulated three may well damage my final mark, but I'm not sure the original intention is possible at this late stage. I blame this on Diesel.

In any case, here's a quick sketch of the 'bath' for the MATERIAL 'Hot Ice' ident:

It's been quite some time since I've worked with 3D software and I'm quite new to Google SketchUp, so apologies for the poor quality.

The idea is that the outer tray is filled with the water, the inner logo with the 'ice'. The red lines are tubes - I didn't want to make a stencil. the construction of the inner tray will be thin, transparent perspex or acrylic - I want to give the impression that the water has automatically frozen into that shape.