I’m working on a film project now that represents the entire world’s population - 1 pixel per person - in just under 10 and a half minutes.
To fill the time and make the pixels more interesting, I’m creating brief mini-features of facts on world population, growth, development, density and other things. It’s not as dull as it sounds…
Here’s a sample from the film. It compares ten seconds of the film (about 103 million people) to various groups. I was surprised at the facts I dug up. Did you know there are more AIDS orphans than there are Mexican citizens? That the number of coffee drinkers in America is equal to the number of people with Herpes worldwide?
Have a look for yourself. This is a draft version—the narration has a glaring error and will be re-recorded later. And the footage is still under review. Comments and suggestions welcome, but please be kind.
Ten Second Facts 7.5 MB 1’10” MP4
My net connections are too slow to even think about downloading the sample, but this sounds fun :)
Posted by: womble on May 25, 2005 05:02 PMKuri,
> ten seconds of the film (about 103 million people)…
you gotta explain more on the relation between the number of people and the pixel… like how many pixels per frame and how many frames in your movie of 10mins (or whatever it is)… that would make it easier for us ignorants to understand.
Then the facts are interesting in general but I would make subtle links between the facts… AIDS orphans and mexican citizens?… so what… AIDS orphans and cancer orphans… world’s AIDS orphans and Mexican and Bresilian parents… smth more gloomy rather than totally unrelated (therefore unlikely to make my heart miss a beat) I guess is what I was expecting.
Clock footage… can t really comment, it’s far from stricking at the moment; here or not, will not make a difference to the movie.
The image I have in mind is one of a knitted jumper you see in cartoons with one thread being pulled and the jumper dissapearing crichet by crochet… replacing the crochets by a pixel?
Anyway! Good luck with it! I am impatient to see the final piece!
Paul, thanks for your comments. This clip comes after the explanation about the pixel-to-person connection, frames, time, and all the math that puts it into context. That part’s not done yet, so you get these facts unconnected to everything else first.
I’ve been working on this for months, it will be a while before it’s complete. But I’m glad you’re anxious to see more.
Posted by: Kristen on May 25, 2005 06:12 PMI can’t wait to see it.. it is something that sounds like necessary viewing for all of us and especially for some in the western world who seem to forget that we are each but one pixel in a much larger interconnected graphic.
Posted by: T on May 25, 2005 06:17 PMPaul, I sorta understand what you are trying to say, but I for one would imagine that showing seemingly unrelated (but related by our humanity) facts give “the big picture” on a human level rather than on a political one of Left vs Right. Aids, orphans, Abortion.. too often these are used as political footballs in name only rather than “seeing” this from a human perspective.
But then Kristen, correct me if I am wrong… this film will mean different things to different people on many different levels.
Posted by: T on May 25, 2005 06:22 PMThe idea’s good, but will you have those floaty shape thingies in the background? They’re pleasing to the eye, but do they have a message?
You have the footage, the voice-over and the text information happening. I felt the floaty things might distract from those.
Posted by: Shy on June 4, 2005 07:23 AM