Tag: retail

This is an idea I keep coming back to, although I remain sceptical that it will lead me anywhere. The methodology of capturing a sequence of video and selecting screen grabs to make something else appeals – there is also something that resonates with some of the reading I have been doing for CS concerning consumerism and how retailers try to gain our attention in an environment that is saturated with visual information. (Debord’s Society of the Spectacle for instance.)

This second experiment is again something quickly made. I took 2 minutes of video using my iPhone (this time set to the highest quality), imported into Premiere Pro and used the image capture function at various points which had potentially interesting visual information in them – I am particularly interested in window displays, store signage and imagery and brand logos. I then quickly cropped in Lightroom and put together as a collage. Again I am not sure if this is something worth pursuing or worth the time that would be needed to make something. In order to really work a lot of images would be required – perhaps I need to have a go at this in order to really understand if this is an idea that could go somewhere.

Thoughts:

• I have searched for different ways to take screen shots from video and there are many different approaches of varying complexity. Using Premiere Pro as I have here is a very quick and easy technique – I may be able to get better quality using another method but I am not sure if it would be worth the extra effort.
• The different aspect ratios, sizes and positioning of the images work well I think, although there are potentially other ways I could overlap them. The same things, but from different angles could also be something to work on, such as the apple logo in this example.
• How to present these is something to think about. Physically they could work as large, poster sized prints or as introductory pieces at the beginning/end of a book or zine. Digitally they could lend themselves to being animated somehow – perhaps as a continuous loop of changing/overlapping images.
• Although I have shot this video on the highest (4k) setting my phone allows, once the individual frames have been captured and cropped, they take on a more lo-fi aesthetic which appeals to me. This could be something that could be pushed further to bring this to the fore, for example, increased saturation (or destauration), contrast and emphasis on grain and movement/blur.