GMU:Things that organize themselves/Follow Birds

Follow Birds

IDEA

Follow Birds is a Video-clip inspired by the observation of Flocks of Starlings and a short piece of music titled „Follow Birds“. The core element of the clip will be observational documentary shots, but throughout the clip there shall be a subtle transition from live-action footage to 3d animated flocks of starlings. This switch-over from documentary to animation, from plausible to fantastic, from real to surreal...

Whilst the research and some techniques behind this project are going to be a bottom up approach, the final clip will clearly be top down product, or even further - deliberately manipulated against the existing rules of flocking behaviour. This apparent unnatural behaviour can be seen as an ironic comment on the typical layman’s view on flocking or emergence in general. The assumption the swarm must be centrally coordinated, or even acting upon a greater plan...

In this case it is me shaping the greater plan to an extent where the flock reacts to the sound and forms geometrical shapes acting as a form of Visual Music.

3 PHASES

The clip can roughly be divided into three phases:

• 1. Documentary Phase (only pure documentary shots, slow editing, no link to music)
• 2. Transition Phase ( the edit corresponds to the music, subtle relations between flock and music can occur, partly swarm animation will replace real footage and be slightly music reactive)
• 3. Fantastic Phase (the flocking will clearly be music reactive, shaping waveforms or geometrical patterns)

DIAGRAM

LINKS/REFERENCES

• my last clip: Lord Cry Cry - Blind Lightnin' Floor
• the song: Robot Koch - Follow Birds