project run ·
13 August 04

An ambitious and perhaps long project, Project: The Run came to me when I was standing on a tube train platform, waiting for the tube train to arrive.

It was a cold morning, the weather was quite bad, and I saw some grass which had change colour from green to brown, to a cream-like shade. This brought visions of a field to me. Following this, I saw some council flats around the area of the station, and it all sort of melded together into a melting pot of stupidity.

The plan is simple: to film one person being chased by a camera man across and inside council flats, on the streets and eventually through a forest, which would lead to a field.

At first I was too ambitious in hoping that it could be one continuous run, but this would either kill the camera man, the runner, both or someone else. So, I’ve come to the decision that, perhaps with some special effect, we could morph segments to make it look as though it’s one continuous run, it would not require perfection (amateur video rarely does!), and these bits would be “scene changes”.

Failing that, plan B would be to intersect scene changes with different forms of animation. For example, let’s take it that the first run is in a council flat downa flight of stairs. When the runner reaches a certain point and we want to scene change, we could stop the camera, or create a scene whereby the camera would fade to black, and the action continues in the form of animation. Perhaps the camera is followed into the back of the runners head, causing a blackness and reappearing in animated form for the completion of that segment. Once we have used the animation to reach the point where we need to (say for example, a field or perhaps a city) we can revert back to the “live footage” and continue from there on.

The person running would just continue to run in a panic, continually looking backwards at the camera in fear. The idea is, perhaps, that someone is chasing him to his death – or that death is catching up with him. Perhaps its age. I haven’t quite figured out what the final metaphor will be, but it may not be anything so philosophical. Perhaps its a dog, or maybe a big bowl of jelly chasing him? The reason for choosing a male instead of a female, as the video may end up being used for “inappropriate” reasons, and could very well be abused.

The animation would be a mix of hand animation, maybe stop motion (if we can do it with what we have, it may be rather comedic in effect and could very well work.), and perhaps other forms that to not come to mind right now. Flash maybe? Animated gif? A picture book that you flip or turn at a time, which would demonstrate the “journey”.