Time

Inspiration 

Andy Warhol,  Empire,  1964

The shot is fixed to one single composition of the empire state building which is shot in black and white. Researching into the intentions of the Empire film, I found that Warhol's intentions were to "see time go by" which is difficult to really see with this film as the slowed down footage of light to dark merely shows little changes. I think showing time go by in this way is a more realistic approach to showing the idea of time. I wanted to reverse this idea of realism and with my 1 minute parameter this meant that showing only a minute of footage wouldn't get this point across as much as I would like.

I liked the idea of showing a passage of time but instead of slowing it down, I would speed it up, by 5000 times the natural speed. I decided to shoot near enough to dusk as I liked the subtle blues changing and set my composition so that the street lamp and tree framed the sky. I set my composition this way as I didn't want the entire focus of the film to be about the street lamp. I wanted to include the street lamp as I wanted to highlight man's attempt of adapting with the change of time and show that no matter how much we manipulate our environment, we still cannot stop the inevitable. I liked this idea of us having some control over our environment and thought about how I could emphasis this idea of control and the idea of the sound of a light switch would greatly enhance this idea and to highlight the changes in time.

We follow with the current of time but go against it by manipulating it. 

Warhol, Andy   Empire,   1964     https://www.moma.org/collection/works/89507