Stills to Video – A lot of potential…unrealized..

This is a video done by Ewen Spencer, a brilliant young British photographer.

A lot of still photographers are moving into video with a mixed range of success and failure. Mostly failure.

I found this video on The British Journal of Photography, which apparently has been around since the mid 19th Century, but you can now read it on line.

This particular issue dealt with ‘from stills to motion’, or what happens when a great still photographer gets his hands on a video camera.

The results, as you can see above, are decidedly a mixed bag, but showing lots of potential.

There is no question that Spencer has two things going for him – a great eye and great access.

His images, his use of light, his intimacy with the camera are all powerful. What he lacks is any sense of how to tell a story, particuarly a story in video.  He loves stills. He loves them so much that because video inherently involves motion, for much of the video he pretty much instructs his subjects to ‘stand still’. If the frame is gonna move then the subject won’t. He’s gonna create stills if it kills him.

This is too bad, because it would be better if he embraced what the medium captures so well and that is motion.  (This is not be confused with moving the camera!)

The second failing here is that Spencer, a product of music videos, clearly has almost no sense of how to tell a story – which again is tragic because there is clearly a story here (sort of), but he has structured this in a way that basically says to the viewer – ‘here are some cool shots and some cool music – you figure it out’. The next time Spencer goes to the movies he should try watching it with the sound turned off and see how much of the film he can figure out on his own – and how much he misses.

The medium he has migrated to – taking his considerable visual skills, is about more than just visuals.  He brings a lot to the party, but he has a lot to learn to really take control of the medium.

He may opt never to do that.

He may find himself content with just stringing together a bunch of interesting images and calling it a day. (I was a bit disappointed to find out that he had hired an editor to assemble this for him. First lesson here Spencer, take control of your own work and edit your own work. Get your hands dirty. It’s the only way to really grapple with the medium.)

Like I said, it’s interesting an worth a look, but watchin it I could not help but think that this was someone I could do a lot with if he were interested in pushing the envelope.