The Lost Empire (1983 film)

For a Minute There I Lost Myself

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• published: 30 Apr 2010
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Shot with the Panasonic GH1, this is a video about Hong Kong, the disorientating sensory overload it gives you and the dehumanising affect of extreme capitalism. Hong Kong is the centre of global trade - capitalism pushing the limits, monstrous financial establishments have their base here and then there's also the full force of China behind it. You can feel the over-population combined with weirdly photogenic cityscapes. It's a strange city post-British empire and I wanted to capture all of this, with a sense of dread and dystopia. The music is Radiohead's Karma Police, about disaffection with capitalism, the stress of living in an environment with hostile people and the experience of working in a large company. It's a very paranoid song, it's an anti-work, anti-boss song. I think it helps my images say what they want to say. The video was shot with anamorphic widescreen in mind and the song right from the start, but not always with an anamorphic lens. I used some tricks - first, a very slow shutter to boost low light performance with the anamorphic lens, which could only perform at F4 or smaller apertures. There are also shots from a c-mount lens in there, I have always been a fan of how these small lenses look. The video is a mixture of true anamorphic footage and cropped standard 16:9 footage. It seems to meld together pretty well. More at the blog here http://www.eoshd.com/content/162/for-a-minute-then-i-lost-myself Want to make a similar video? The video was shot using an anamorphic lens, find out how to with the EOSHD Anamorphic Shooter's Guide http://www.eoshd.com/anamorphic-guide