Finnish Summer By Marco Menestrina On ExposureRoom

Short shot during my vacation in Tampere, Finland during end of June and beginning of July 2008. More in my blog: http://exposureroom.com/members/MarcoMenestrina.aspx/blogs/post/261

Music is "The Sounds of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkle

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Updated: 1 months ago

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Marco,

I love this video. There are so many great shots in here. You're right about the evening light, it's got an incredible golden glow. The setting sun time lapse shot @ 0:56 went well with the music.

You probably did this intentionally...The music picks up a but and the words go like, "In the naked light I saw, 10,000 people maybe more..." you switch to people in a park, and then, "People talking without speaking..." you cut to that group of women looking either at the camera or in that direction, laughing. I thought that was pretty cool.

I was hoping to more of your friends and others.

My favorite shot is probably the time lapse @1:37, probably because of the angle and colors of that building and the angle at which the traffic is passing by. Another favorite of mine is the one @2:40, I love how the shadows move across the ground while the clouds move across the sky.

You've done a good job.

Hey Shiv,

Thank you for your feedback: it's always prompt, very detailed and sincere. Yes, those edit choices were done intentionally: as it happened while I was shooting "Scooters For Hooters" with "Playground Love", I had "The Sounds Of Silence" often stuck in my head while I was filming so, subconsciously, I already had some kind of rough edit in my mind.

As you may or may not know, Finland is very very little populated: only about five million people live on its 130.000 square miles! For this reason I opted to stay more on wide, silent landscapes rather than crowds of people or traffic.

Hey, when are you going to upload some new video? Too busy with the site maintenance?

Marco,

I think your choice of focal length was just right. That 16mm lens is awesome.

I uploaded a tutorial video soon after I read your reply :). Yes, I've been busy getting ExposureRoom off the ground. We're getting a Contests module ready so we can have our first contest, so stay tuned for that. But you're correct; I should take time out to do some shooting!

What is this Title window for? I´ll just have to wait and see...

Saludos! Marco Araña.

Hope it´s all well and all.

I like your style. I can pretty much say that except for a few things I´d do different, you did a great job. I repeat: things I would do different. It´s absolutely subjective.

In general, for example, I´d add a narrative. What am I watching? I ask myself all the time. This shot´s are beatiful, but what is the relationship between them? That they´re all shot by Mamenes or should I make a connection on my own. Perhaps you do this only as an exercise to show pretty shots and what possibilites are at hand; but if you´re already taking the time to do that… I´d take a little time to check the entire footage, make a connection between the shots –not necessarily a story-, and stay with the idea on mind(while editing) of the narration or description. Just some connection that could be conveyed so that the parts marry the whole properly in content and form. But I will repeat: absolutely subjective.

On the time-lapse shot I would have yelled at the person who goes sits on the bench. It looks more like a mistake than a cool thing. The guy´s moving to fast and leaves the frame too fast. Unless it is a Hitchcock cameo… then I would have not allowed that to happen. The framing and what is going on is too pretty to be disturbed. A little pre-pro wouldn´t hurt.

There´s a silhouette shot of a house. That shot is ugly: honest point of view. And from now on I´ve excused what I´ve said: not anymore because you understand we all need feedback. Why is that shot ugly? It is extremely blue and there´s an extreme contrast between the outside and the inside. I understand that it´s cold in Finland… but there are subtler ways to express that. I would have replaced this shot with a few. Maybe going from the cold, blue sky and going back to have a silhouette of a moving tree, then from there have the camera only pointing at the cabin, exposing for the cabin and not the sky or what´s between them. It´s a pretty dark shot and the composition is a slap in the face compared to your other shots.

On the camp-fire. The slow motion shots are amazing by the way. The only thing I would not do is have that really fast motion first and then pass to the fire, it establishes the shot, I agree; but at the same time it could have been established another way. I know you can come up with something. I would have only shot the sky… establishing some smoke is coming up, not from a factory this time. Then cut to the shot where you´re behind the people, and then the reactions shots, after that… really come close to the fire. I´d like that slow going to the warmness. I just thought of a quote, not to be taken seriously… but it´s funny: “Treat your audience as a woman you wanna turn on. Get it a little warm first...” –And excuse me, women of the world, if I´ve offended you. It is a form of communication, nothing more. I like to go slow, besides, so don´t you girls worry.

Then you go from fire to an electric thing on the frame… I was like: “What?” In particular, the shot is beautiful, but what does it have to do with the whole? It´s like John Merrick… good on the inside, strange on the outside.

Keep it going, me brother.
Maxi-cazzo.

Oscar,

Thank you for leaving such a detailed and elaborated feedback. Nevertheless, I disagree to most of your points :)

So, to start off, I believe that the message/idea behind Finnish Summer is pretty clear: I'm telling the story about a country that is geographically beautiful, with wide, silent empty landscapes, the few million people that populate it hold tight on their traditions and sunlight like I haven't seen anywhere else.
On top of that (and this is also about many other points that you touched) I edited the footage paying very attention to the song structure and lyrics, so I treated it as four different portions: 1)nature stuff 2)city stuff 3)midsummer stuff 4)field and other stuff. I chose what to put where listening to the lyrics (silence like a cancer grows...as the bonfire was roars and such).

The two people on the bench: i agree that it would have looked better without them but I don't consider it a mistake. It was all shot documentary style and I wanted to be as invisible as possible while shooting not to interfere with what was going on in front of the camera. That's how it happened, if I asked them not to go and sit there I would have broken the truth of the shot. All the pre pro I want to do for this kind of works is about my shooting, not about people. I often plan and see where the sun sets or what happens where/when (of course this happens only if I have time to do it) or think about people's "walking paths" but I don't want to talk anyone into doing/not doing stuff.

The house shot: I like it very much. I wanted to have the atmosphere dark (since it's night), the sky extremely blue and the window extremely orange to suggest the coziness of the cabin. To achieve that I set the white balance lower than 3k (don't remember the exact value) and I got exactly the sky that I wanted but the window slightly less orange than I thought at first: so I added some orange to it in post. I really like that contrast (I had in mind some scenes on "The Conformist" and "Eyes Wide Shut" when I was thinking of that shot.

I also like the fire time lapse. I understand that there's a big contrast between that and the slow motion shots but I think that the subject is strong enough to bound them together nicely. Also I put it right after two other time lapses so that the pacing would not be broken.

The electric thing is there as a transition shot to the last portion of the song (and the footage) and it's there to show that, although time passes, most things stay still and don't change.

Really man, thank you for taking the time to write all that stuff, I really appreciate it. Of course I will do the same when you'll finally upload something other that your avatar! Ahah...

Take care and enjoy the rest of your permanence in swampland,
Marco

Great imagery!

This is an awesome video Marco. All of the visuals were vivid and good choice of Color Correction on the shots.

Finnish Summer

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