For my AV studio project, I collaborated with textile artist Aino Riiho to create a music video documentary of the collaborative creation of a blanket at the Textile Craft Teachers Union 100-year anniversary meeting. In the planning of the shoot we knew that we would have some music by Aino’s classmate Tatu Metsätähti, which was a work in progress. He planned to incorporate sounds related to textile craft production, such as scissors, boxes of needles as percussive shakers, and sewing machines. Aino wanted the video to be a time-lapse montage of the creation of the blanket.
During the day of the meeting union members crocheted and embroidered 10cm squares while listening to talks and socializing with one another. As they completed squares, they pinned them to a board as a rough draft of the finished blanket. I could have filmed the board for the entire day, but I had an idea for a smoother time-lapse construction effect. Spoiler alert, read on for the simple production secret…
I waited until all of the squares were on the board, then filmed them taking the squares off. I had them start from the bottom, and after enough squares were removed I moved the camera for a tighter shot. I did this four times, and then in editing placed the shots in reverse order and set the speed to -5000%, giving the effect that they were putting the squares up. I also added a zooming effect to approximate the look of one smooth tracking shot. The cuts are not perfect, but I thought that they were fine for this playful production.
I came up with this reverse construction time-lapse technique for a video that I made with some friends 5 years ago: