Our project - LOMO GRAZ
Our task was to produce a short commercial film dealing with the city of Graz at the peak of its cultural importance in Europe ; within our commercial , we were to depict the city of Graz as a special and unique place to be , while cultural highlights and the city's typical character merge into an irresistible incentive to drop by and see Graz 2003.
While rather unseriously discussing various plots , Mr Lechner came up with the idea of embedding Lomography (which he had been into quite for a while before) into our commercial. It'd provide an unique and good looking visual effect and the whole idea was indeed very original.
So what the heck is Lomography ?
For those of you who happen to be unfamiliar with this term , here's a brief explanation: Back in the time of the Soviet Union , the Soviet citizen used to take his/her photographs using a popular camera - the so called 'Lomo'. Unlike Western capitalist hi-tech and hi-cost cameras , the Lomo was cheap. Absolutely cheap and god knows how primitive , to be more precise. You could've used a camera built from a shoebox to have a technical (less cost) equivalent to the Lomo. But despite all these downsides , photos out of a Lomo owned a unique character ; indeed , they lacked of any professionality and technical quality and seemed more like some fun-photos or photos shot out of the hip. But that was exactly what rendered them interesting , yet fascinating , and - in some kind of way - they looked also cool , Lomo-style , that is.
So over the years Lomography had become the synonymous expression for fun-photography ; today Lomo enthusiasts worldwide form a community and yet Lomography has become a science of its own. Today's newest version of the Lomo was our object of interest:
As you can see , the Lomo boasts four lenses on its frontside. What the hell'd I need four lenses for? The answer is pretty simple - with the trigger pressed , the Lomo sequentially takes a picture with every lens within 2 seconds , thus "captures" a motion , so that you'll have four different pictures on your photo in the end. The result looks pretty cool and thus even the most uniteresting things can develop their own fascination on a LomoPhoto. Also , Lomographs capture things "as they are" , on normal photos everything often looks rather artifical and lifeless.
So you're talking about some kind of photo camera , how could you ever combine photography and film ?
We thought it'd look great if we just imitated the Lomo's technique , but instead of rigid pictures we'd show extremely short motion sequences , four times half a second , that is. The screen'd be divided into four columns , the first 0,5sec sequence flashes in on the left side , then it freezes , right beside it the second one flashes in , freezes , the same with the third and the fourth one. Thus we'd show a quick sequence of about 5 to 7 different Lomographic movie clips dealing with the city of Graz. The next thing was to invent a story to fit that sequence in...
So here's our actual "plot":
Some guy sits beneath a tree in the Stadtpark , reading some paper or book , having a visible Lomo lying beside him. All of a sudden the guy takes a peek on his watch , finds out that he's late for something and quickly gets on his feet and leaves the scenery. Unfortunately , the guy has forgotten to take his Lomo with him and it's lying still under that tree, as suddenly another guy enters the scenery. This very guy noticeably appears as a tourist ; not that kind of tourist you'd encounter in Mallorca , but a Backpacker , an Interrailer , a person travelling the world in search for fun , adventure and also relaxation. He walks in holding some kind of city map and permanently searching it , which should indicate that he finds himself in a rather clueless position. As he lowers his map , he makes out the Lomo , grabs it and walks on. Provided with some fast drum'n bass music now the Lomographs flash in , suggesting that the Backpacker guy experiences the city ; the Lomographs he takes capture things that happen to him during that very day - ranging from the Uhrturm over rafting action in the Mur to celebration in some club he experiences all sort of cool things in Graz. The next day he awakes lying somewhere beside beer bottles and his posessions in the Stadtpark ; although tired from the past day , he gets on his feet again as a cute girl passes by and follows her , without taking the Lomo with him. Now the viewer can see the guy that lost the Lomo walking through the park , he makes out the Lomo and grabs it with a big grin on his face. That's it. (Originally we planned another scene showing that guy taking the film cartridge to development , but discarded this idea , for everyone can imagine that that's the first thing he does when he finds out that he has no pics left on the Lomo film.)
Having almost finished cutting the ad described above , we found out that it just didn't fit to a Lomo spot as we planned it , for the 'story' around our Lomo Style pictures kind of differed completely from the rest of the scenes ; it already seemed to much "home-video" style and lacked in both professionality respectively coolness that Lomography is known for. On the peak of our sorrows , some (still) unkown fool also moved our LOMOGRAZ folder around our cutting PC's HDD , so that we decided to completely abandon any kind of story and do our commercial the 'LomoWay' - less conventional , but more spectacular. We now planned to set it up completely using our Lomo shots but now including some cool textual messages corresponding with the respective shots and the Graz'03 topic. Looking back it sure was the right decision since now the commercial looks really awesome , as we think. But see for yourself....