I attended the Leeds Bonfire night last year and tried documenting it.
I was not happy with the outcome. While I was filming, I thought there were so many problems such as the location was too dark, it was very crowded hence very difficult for me to move myself and my view was constantly blocked by the crowd, the bonfire was too far away and so on.. By the end of the night I simply thought to myself that the Bonfire night was simply too awkward and too inconvenient to be filmed. Of course, as with hindsight I usually am, I was wrong.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/31702030″>Event Horizon</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/millerandmiller”>James Miller</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
While researching for more promotional style videos, I came across this video of another Bonfire Night in Cuckfield called Event Horizon. I was stunned by its absolutely beautiful visuals put over Shostakovich / Jazz Suite No.2 IV. Waltz I. Reversing the footage of the exploding fireworks and the bonfire in slow motion took it to another level. It turned something that was not novel or particularly fascinating(extremely common in fact) such as fireworks into something so beautiful and arresting. Of course, fireworks are beautiful by itself, but each individual flare or explosion begins and ends so quickly, watching them live is like sampling ice cream again and again and never actually having the pleasure of enjoying an entire scoopful. The technique used in the video was in my opinion absolutely genius, because it allows the viewer to really appreciate the charm and artistry of the fireworks, slowly and calmly, stretching it’s extremely short display of a second or less into 5 seconds or more. The classical track of orchestra music definitely played a big role as well into turning the sequence into something that was simply pleasant to watch.
I’m not sure how similar the Cuckfield Bonfire was to the Leeds Bonfire, but based on what I can see the Cuckfield Bonfire had lights installed around the location, which of course helped with illuminating the visitors, something that was absent in the Leeds version. But besides that, overall, it didn’t seem like a video that was very difficult to achieve, had I known the potential of such techniques.
zenkhyeooi 