For my video, I was inspired by the Lava Lamp and the psychedelic era of the 60s. My
video is titled “Trance”. I chose to name it this because of the trance-like state that psychedelic drugs, such as those popular during the 1960s, are associated with. I decided to use a lava lamp as the subject matter because of the popularity of it during the time and the psychedelic qualities the lamp itself has and symbolizes. The inventor of the lava lamp said “If you buy my lamp you won't need to buy drugs,” showing the main audience he geared the lamp towards and also comparing it to having the same effects as popular drugs at the time.
I wanted the video to feel like the viewer is in this weird psychedelic and trance-like state-of-mind. I felt the lamp would be interesting and abstract enough that I could almost blur the lines of reality with it. Using only the focus on the camera, I decided to shift the lamp in and out of focus, to give a similar feeling of drifting in and out of consciousness. I also decided to get up close to the subject and tilt the orientation of the camera so that I filmed the lamp vertically, but would play back horizontally in order to help abstract the lamp more and confuse reality. I chose to keep the audio as minimal as possible, but still have a little bit of white noise to make the viewer feel like they’re lost in their own head space and empty thoughts. Similar to when a person can still hear, but are too lost in thought to actually listen making everything feel muted, muffled, and quiet. I also chose not to use a tripod because I felt the slight movement from my hand made the video have a tiny sense of vertigo and made the room feel like it was spinning as the viewer tries to focus on the abstract form in the lamp.
video is titled “Trance”. I chose to name it this because of the trance-like state that psychedelic drugs, such as those popular during the 1960s, are associated with. I decided to use a lava lamp as the subject matter because of the popularity of it during the time and the psychedelic qualities the lamp itself has and symbolizes. The inventor of the lava lamp said “If you buy my lamp you won't need to buy drugs,” showing the main audience he geared the lamp towards and also comparing it to having the same effects as popular drugs at the time.
I wanted the video to feel like the viewer is in this weird psychedelic and trance-like state-of-mind. I felt the lamp would be interesting and abstract enough that I could almost blur the lines of reality with it. Using only the focus on the camera, I decided to shift the lamp in and out of focus, to give a similar feeling of drifting in and out of consciousness. I also decided to get up close to the subject and tilt the orientation of the camera so that I filmed the lamp vertically, but would play back horizontally in order to help abstract the lamp more and confuse reality. I chose to keep the audio as minimal as possible, but still have a little bit of white noise to make the viewer feel like they’re lost in their own head space and empty thoughts. Similar to when a person can still hear, but are too lost in thought to actually listen making everything feel muted, muffled, and quiet. I also chose not to use a tripod because I felt the slight movement from my hand made the video have a tiny sense of vertigo and made the room feel like it was spinning as the viewer tries to focus on the abstract form in the lamp.