Sky Arts #1

For my first Sky Arts potential submission I created a light painting based upon my research. Which can be found here.

Light Night - client ident 1 from Leigh Harrison on Vimeo.

This idea originally came from my research for club night visuals. I was inspired by the lighting effects used in the footage I was watching and decided I wanted to reflect this in my client work in some form. During my research I came across long exposure shots which created 'light paintings'. Through various experiments I found that I could achieve this effect using a timed flash and 7second exposure time on my camera. I originally intended to use a separate flash which was controlled however due to money I couldn't use that. To compromise I ended up using the flash on my phone which when set to an interval worked really well and allowed me to get the desired images. I would have liked to have experimented with a proper flash but as I didn't, I can't compare the results. The backdrop of the logo came from my location research - when I decided on the light painting I needed an area which was well lit in low light, wouldn’t be too busy as I would be taking long exposures and need there to be little interference and as I had to bring the home made light boxes with me the location needed to be easily accessible by foot. I considered the Arboretum and various places in the city centre but ultimately decided on the steps of Newton building as the lighting worked really well and allowed me to get the result I wanted. I took the background image on a long exposure then attempted to use the light boxes to create the logo, however when I was using them outdoors I just couldn't get the same effect as my initial experiments. To rectify this I decided to retake the logo shots at home and digitally composite the logo moving in after effects. I used Photoshop and after effects to initially help the logo to look as if it was part of the original image, and then to animate the letters to be inconsistent and have a DIY aesthetic. Overall I'm pleased with the final outcome, it would have been more satisfying to use all original images rather than have to composite but I've wanted to get more familiar with After Effects and this forced me to experiment and get used to the program.