Silk Skin is a non-linear narrative about the liminal spaces of the body that are often overlooked. The film consists of shots from the body through a microscopic lens. Silk Skin is a play on words because skin seems so ‘silky’ smooth but when you get up close and personal with the natural curves and crevices of the body, it is revealed that skin is actually quite rough (and dry in the winter). The goal was to disrupt the usual linearity of the body (head to toe) giving the audience agency in their ability to explore the detailed body space in a path of their choosing.
Why did we want to explore this?
The body is a space that is used, objectified, politicized and appreciated daily – but what is often over looked are the beautiful the curves and patterns that emerge from the skin. We wanted to disorient the viewer so that the focus was on the patterns in the skin instead of placing that image on someones body.
Our original idea was: to explore the body as a space. We find this topic to be particularly intriguing, as the body is an important space that is often politicized, objectified, and oppressed. With this we hope to explore the body through a different lens using the vine/instagram/korsokov softwares. Our short videos will focus on multiple and distinct edges of the body. These videos will be manipulated in a manner where the location of each specific body space will be difficult to determine. Furthermore, we will aim to play with the different positions of the korsokov boxes in order to create an interesting aesthetic to a non-linear narrative that challenges previous notions of ‘body space’.
Katie and I ended up redefining our topic due to what clips worked and didn’t work. We ended up not focusing on the edges of the body but the edges and crevices created with the body’s skin. We shot three different people for the clips to explore different bodies, however, once up close it is hard to tell which body was which. In the end we could have done the project on one person because each clip was unidentifiable. We used an Olloclip macro lens to shoot the clips. There were three different lenses so we used tested all three to figure out which one produced the best results. We ended up going with the middle macro lens because it had a nice balance between what was in focus and not and also was the easiest one to use.
Once we had all of our clips, we made reverse or flipped videos so that we could play around with the idea of mirrors. We wanted to create an appealing interface for each original video. Once we had all of those we took the sounds out of the clips. We recorded room tone so we wanted that to play over the entire film instead of choppy looping sound.
In the editing process, we wanted to have all of the SNUs to have infinite lives so that the viewer was able to appreciate the SNU more than once. There weren’t a lot of issues that we ran into other than actually filming the clips. I was extremely frustrated that I couldn’t shoot in square from the camera function on my phone. Having to do it through Vine added a lot of steps and time to the shooting process. We didn’t really have any issues with Korsakow because we made sure that we had all of the correct file formats first before starting the file. Having done that made the process of creating SNUs and interfaces really easy. I am very happy with how the film turned out. I think that Katie and I’s goal was achieved – bringing the liminal curves and crevices of the body to the spotlight.
A5 pt.1 korsakow film
Silk Skin
Watch Silk Skin here.
Silk Skin is a non-linear narrative about the liminal spaces of the body that are often overlooked. The film consists of shots from the body through a microscopic lens. Silk Skin is a play on words because skin seems so ‘silky’ smooth but when you get up close and personal with the natural curves and crevices of the body, it is revealed that skin is actually quite rough (and dry in the winter). The goal was to disrupt the usual linearity of the body (head to toe) giving the audience agency in their ability to explore the detailed body space in a path of their choosing.
Why did we want to explore this?
The body is a space that is used, objectified, politicized and appreciated daily – but what is often over looked are the beautiful the curves and patterns that emerge from the skin. We wanted to disorient the viewer so that the focus was on the patterns in the skin instead of placing that image on someones body.
Our original idea was: to explore the body as a space. We find this topic to be particularly intriguing, as the body is an important space that is often politicized, objectified, and oppressed. With this we hope to explore the body through a different lens using the vine/instagram/korsokov softwares. Our short videos will focus on multiple and distinct edges of the body. These videos will be manipulated in a manner where the location of each specific body space will be difficult to determine. Furthermore, we will aim to play with the different positions of the korsokov boxes in order to create an interesting aesthetic to a non-linear narrative that challenges previous notions of ‘body space’.
Katie and I ended up redefining our topic due to what clips worked and didn’t work. We ended up not focusing on the edges of the body but the edges and crevices created with the body’s skin. We shot three different people for the clips to explore different bodies, however, once up close it is hard to tell which body was which. In the end we could have done the project on one person because each clip was unidentifiable. We used an Olloclip macro lens to shoot the clips. There were three different lenses so we used tested all three to figure out which one produced the best results. We ended up going with the middle macro lens because it had a nice balance between what was in focus and not and also was the easiest one to use.
Once we had all of our clips, we made reverse or flipped videos so that we could play around with the idea of mirrors. We wanted to create an appealing interface for each original video. Once we had all of those we took the sounds out of the clips. We recorded room tone so we wanted that to play over the entire film instead of choppy looping sound.
In the editing process, we wanted to have all of the SNUs to have infinite lives so that the viewer was able to appreciate the SNU more than once. There weren’t a lot of issues that we ran into other than actually filming the clips. I was extremely frustrated that I couldn’t shoot in square from the camera function on my phone. Having to do it through Vine added a lot of steps and time to the shooting process. We didn’t really have any issues with Korsakow because we made sure that we had all of the correct file formats first before starting the file. Having done that made the process of creating SNUs and interfaces really easy. I am very happy with how the film turned out. I think that Katie and I’s goal was achieved – bringing the liminal curves and crevices of the body to the spotlight.
Watch my test film here.