Never stop. Ever.

“I’m not running away, I’m moving on.”
― Irvine Welsh

The birth of the idea. The importance of the process.

The beginning is always tightened. As an artist, you often don`t know what you’re doing and why. What will eventually come out of it. The right way is only one — to move on. Trying. Experiment. Hold on to your choice.

This video is at once an example and the result of such movement. It all starts with nothing. Night walks and sense of freedom. Curiosity. Interest. You’re just going to see something new. Anything that could satisfy your hungry brain. In the history of literature and philosophy, there is a definition that type of personality — “flaneur”.

“To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home;
To see the world, to be at the center of the world,
And yet to remain hidden from the world — impartial nature.
The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.
The lover of life makes the whole world his family.”
Charles Baudelaire

The changing Paris and its architecture, its rhythm created a special class of people. People with a special look. The outsiders, who are inside, but always on the side of their impartial view. The term has lost its essence with the industrialization of cities. However, by my opinion, it is not. I was in Chongqing, probably the most industrialized city that exists now. Have you watched “Blade Runner”? Chongqing would fit perfectly as the location for the second part. This is how people imagined the future in the past. Nearly.

Ignorance of the language, a new experience after the small peripheral Russian cities, prepared mind. It is all have played a role. All of this paved the thousands of new roads through the city that tightened me. I continued to shoot. I still continue to shoot without stopping, realizing that this work will require a lot of work to process and systematize the material. However, this was a fan at the same time. The process gives the feeling that difficult to refuse. He draws you like a drug on and on. But we must move on. And often the only one option for this, just try. When you’re on the street, you cannot predict what will happen and where, what and who you will meet today. You can shoot a hundred shots in a couple of hours or do not take even a single one during the week. The case comes into play. Then you are left to chance even more power. You start to experiment. With the new technology, with more complex situations. With your feelings. And something new can be rise here.

The movement further.

The new project. In the case of art, projects may emerge from rational things and interest (documentary, commercial art) or they show up in the process (when you try to trust more to your feeling than logic). You do not have the task, “to shoot the calendar for the administration,” or “to explore the lives of people,” all that you have is only the feelings that guide you. It took three years to get it working, till it turned into something more. A major role in this was played by the Chinese company XiaoMi released the Yi action camera. She helps me to let aside the logic and trust to the my feelings even more. The inability to see at a glance what you took (For me, this is one of the most important principles. Yes, it is convenient to see what happened and to make adjustments, but then you lose time and lose those feelings that lead you.) Night walks continued, sometimes they turned in the night ride. Everything could happen.

The process is continued. After seeing photos of the first experiments, I had the feeling that I was able to convey my feelings at the moment when I was not caring about it at all. The experiment continues. The new cameras, new music, mood changes, new cities, the diversity. But it was all on the second scene. All secondary.

The second birth.

This project got its second birth recently. The project “Flaneur” was launched as a practical work for my thesis. This is the first experiment in which I try to use new methods of communication between the viewer and the movie. How can we transform the monologue of the author’s into something more, how can we maintain the dialogue. We must experiment with new methods more. The experiment creates the new ways, we cannot create anything new without any risk, without denying old dogmas.

But at the start there is always a huge challenge — to attract audiences. The experiment will fail if no one will take part in it. The problem remains. However, I try to use the most possible ways to solve it. So the idea was creating a video, which can be an example, to show people how it can be interesting and varied. What it is to get away from a literal understanding of the topic. Initially, the video had to be created from photos. It was boring.

• How to make the video more interesting? All what I have are atmospheric pictures and a boring video footage.
• What to do with music? The any material resources at this stage was not provided. To use classical music that allows by copyright — was also not the best choice in this situation. The question remained open.

The source.

Did you know that when you have an idea and purpose, the resources that you need will be coming to you by themselves? As it happens here. I accidentally came across an article on the Medium which was mentioned JukeDeck. After several attempts, I got exactly what I wanted. What matched my mood and fit the rhythm perfectly. There was a second problem — how making it look not like a slide show. I had a few options:

• To use a different frame rate to give a dynamic to the video. (I will write the article about rhythm and dynamic in the video soon)
• To use video footage for a change. But how to do it perfectly?

The answer came by himself. First, I look in the direction of how to process an existing footage to make it look more photographic than cinematic. Then, I stumbled upon an interview with Christopher Doyle and immediately remembered the movie “Chungking Express” where they used an interesting technique for freezing time. Within a couple of days of experiments using the different settings and lenses I shoot the footage that I was needed.

Literally, it took a few days, while it took years of preparation.

The issue has been resolved. Again, experimentally. It remains the case for small. The process of the edition, which usually takes most of the time. I tried to forget about logic and surrender to feelings in this case. Also, there was a desire to participate in the Vimeo Weekend Challenge, anyway the video fit the topic. At the same time, it can be a good platform to attract the audience. Finally, you can see what came of it by yourself. It’s pretty weird, but it works. Literally, it took a few days, while it took years of preparation in the subconscious, broad-mindedness, openness to experiment.

What’s next? Just move on.

The next step I think will continue to work on this project and the preparation for the exhibition. There will be new challenges and new experiments. There I will have more opportunities for interaction between the viewer and at the same time, there are more questions how to use it correctly. But this is going to happen.

You just have to keep moving and experimenting. Experiment to find the answers, experiment to improve what we have, experiment to give birth to new ideas and methods. Experiment to move on. Let’s see where it leads :)

Join us if you like to experiment, if you cannot sit still and enjoy discovering something new for themselves. Every day is unique, each new day — a new life.