Culminating Project - Don't Blink or You'll miss it

Ephemeral Drops.
 

For our culminating assignment, we were told to choose a word from a list, and from there interpret its meaning, example, ‘Ephemeral.’ “Short lived, or lasting only a short while.

From here we were told to write down words and draw or research images relating to this meaning. I thought of many things, such as snow, the dragonfly, a cicada, possible emotions, yet in the end I went with an idea that had been dangling in front of me the entire time… water droplets, and ice cubes. 

A water droplet lasts only a short while, in the sense that it needs to be seen with a very sensitive camera in order to be viewed properly. An ice cube, on the other hand, lasts a fair amount longer than a single drop of water and in some instances needs to be sped up on video for an interesting experience.

For the video portion of the project, we had been restricted to a 30 second limit and a selection of a small portion of any video clip off of the internet, and our own original video and still image. I had found two clips of slow motion water drops falling, and had used an effect to blend them for the introduction to the video. Near the end, I used one clip of a single ice cube melting in a faster speed, and then many ice cubes attached to strings melting at a normal speed in a slightly heated environment. As for my own footage, I had filled up a bucket and placed it into the sink. I then turned the tap on just slightly, enough to allow some of the liquid to escape into a steady stream. From there, I filmed up close and far away, and different angles of the sink itself. I also took many shots of the water in the bucket from up close, as I liked the effect of the ripples and different colours which seemed to appear.

As for audio, I had searched on YouTube and found a very calming, slow song, by the name of “Ephemeral.” I also kept the original audio from the video clips I had, and layered them all in a way that was not too overbearing and had a purpose to the video.

Over all, I am fairly content with the outcome of this piece, and there is not much I would change.