There aren't enough words to describe the extreme importance and influence of David Bowie on my life. The countless words that have been written about his life, music, acting, and art are better left to those authors and not for me to add upon. (At least not at this time.)
What I will write upon, be it ever so briefly, is the experimental filmmaking project that centers around David Bowie's Low album. Low was released at a time in Bowie's career where he was leaving behind the excesses of America, not only sonically but narcotically. Venturing back to Europe with the influence of electronic music in mind, Bowie would collaborate with Brian Eno in making three albums that would challenge and alienate fans, record execs and radio DJ's. The album composed of instrumental soundscapes, and at times schizophrenic instrumentation accompanying cryptic lyrics, was not only ground breaking then, but even today seems as livelier than ever.
The first track of the album is an instrumental titled; Speed Of Life. A roughly 3 minute song that seems to be introducing the new direction in which Bowie would be taking for the rest of the album. The music is a blend of the conventional rock instrumentation and synthesized sounds.
The challenge of representing visually this piece of music is the matter of approach that one can take. The use of 16mm black film leader and scratching the emulsion off of the film is not only time consuming but creating an intentional image for each frame that is scratched. Each line or circle is representative of the sonic motif within the music. The intention of the imagery, in combination of with the music, is to create a synesthetic experience while also showing the impermanence of the images. The frames flicker and flash at varying rates to represent the passing of time, to show the speed of life. The song fades in and fades out with no clear beginning or end but the images arrive then cease. One final freeze frame, a kind of marker of time that has passed.
The use of 16mm film, and the analog process of non-camera filmmaking, is coupled with the digital process of filmmaking. The film footage is transferred using a projector and HD camera. The transfer creates its own flicker effect and digital scan lines. The mixture of mediums is in the spirit of the Low album and the creative process Eno and Bowie approached to making music. The construction of the images to the music was done using Final Cut Pro. The final seconds of Speed of Life combine imagery as a type of climax to a song that does not have a climax. The mixture of lines and shapes are a confluence of the experience that is in the brief passage of time.
Speed Of Life
