“Life Happens in the Blink of an Eye”: A Proposal

Statement of Project Parameters:

Content:

To utilize primary as well as found footage to construct a narrative about life and the events in it that happen during the duration of the blink of an eye.  This will be a motion piece that uses slow motion video clips that I have shot along with some found footage to tell the story of a life.  It will have text listing scientific facts over the video.  These facts will not address the narrative that lies within the footage.  Each clip will build chronologically through a life, showing the important and the mundane that occur within the timeframe of 100 to 400 milliseconds, the duration of a blink.  The video piece will end with a call to action, inviting viewers to remember the importance of life.

Audience:

Anyone caught up in the hurried pace of a busy life.

Goals:

To remind the audience of the importance of the minutiae of life as well as how fast life can slip away.  This film will work on multiple levels.  First, it will provide a narrative of a life, from the beginning to the end, through the chronological relation of clips from one to the next.  Secondly, it will explain scientific details about things that happen within the 100 - 400 millisecond timeframe.  Finally, it will serve as a reminder to the audience about the preciousness of life.

Research:

Resources:

The internet, scholarly journals, and visual evidence will be used in the collection of data to build the pieces of the narrative as well as the scientific facts listed in the piece.  A full bibliographical citation will be compiled as research is completed for this project.

Technical issues:

This piece will be compile in a video format utilizing Adobe Premier Pro, After Effects, and the After Effects plugin, Twixtor.  I will attempt to shoot as much footage as possible myself with a GoPro Hero 3+ camera running at 120fps which will be slowed in production.  For footage that is outside of my ability to achieve both in time and budget, I will also utilize found footage that is properly credited within the film.

What is a Designer?

     In the article by Alvin Lustig, he indicates that market research does not produce innovation.  While this is certainly true in many examples, I would argue that it is due to poor research rather than to research alone.  Successful market research delves deeper than discovering what someone wants.  People want many things that are superfluous or counterproductive to their ultimate goals.  Designing based upon want will produce results that are shallow and short lived.  True design must be based upon the needs of the consumer.  This can only be achieved either through careful research into the root causes of the problems in people's lives, something achieved by thorough and competent market research, or through the fortune of lucky guesses.  It is only by assessing need rather than want that ultimate success can be achieved in design.  Innovation occurs when designers can provide new solutions to effectively alleviate the problems of the consumer.  This sometimes occurs without the consumer ever realizing the need existed prior.  Intuition may point the designer toward a solution, but intuition will not systematically produce successful innovation.

To me, design is the systematic solving of need through careful consideration, research, and reasoning.