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Seedling

it's a video made to the Poppy Ackroyd music.
it's representing a process of nature waking up, beginning with a seed, that then slowly transforms itself into a seedling.
We begin with a frozen environment that encapsulates the seed – it seems trapped and immobilised by the icy world. Then gradually it starts to warm up and defrost, fighting with the power that has been holding it frozen.

Filmed in timelapse with an infrared camera. Playing with exposure time created footage with a very narrow light spectrum, close to the infrared frequency. The images are further projected and manipulated, after being mapped into a sphere.

  • Jola Kudela
    Director
  • Poppy Ackroyd
    Composer
  • Project Type:
    Music Video
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 8 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 31, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    3,000 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • High Tatras Film & Video Festival

    Slovakia
    September 27, 2021
    BEST EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC VIDEO AWARD
  • Munich Music Video Awards
    Munich
    Germany
    August 27, 2021
    best music video nominated
Distribution Information
  • One Little Independent Records
    Country: United Kingdom
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Jola Kudela

Jola Kudela was born in Poland and now travels between Paris, London and Warsaw for various projects. Kudela graduated from the Lodz Film School (Masters in Animation and Visual Effects) and completed her training at the department of animated film at CFT Gobelins in Paris. She currently works as director, animation director and visual supervisor.

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Director Statement

I was trying to imagine the process of nature waking up, beginning with a seed, that then slowly transforms itself into a seedling. So, we begin with a frozen environment that encapsulates the seed – it seems trapped and immobilised by the icy world. Then gradually it starts to warm up and defrost, fighting with the power that has been holding it frozen.

I collected small pieces of plants and leaves, submerged them in water and put them in my freezer. Then I observed the process of defrosting, filming it in timelapse. The technical approach has turned into a form of meditation and confrontation with time. Time-lapse by its nature involves recording long periods of time and changes that happen within the period wouldn’t be normally visible to the naked eye. So in a way it transforms the standard perception of time. You need to sit tight and wait, almost meditating for hours in order to see your final shot.

The second part of the video when the music grows was filmed in timelapse with the infrared camera. By using Infrared I wanted to push the idea of a seed perceiving the world around it even further: IR light isn’t visible to our eyes. The IR filter had cut out most of the visible light (400-700nm) and I was left with a fraction of it (720nm), visible only by extending the exposure time to 2 min per frame. As a result I was able to see a very narrow spectrum of light which is close to the infra-red frequency: a different aspect of electromagnetic radiation that surrounds us.

The post-production process was made on Autodesk Flame and I used a shader to project and manipulate images mapped inside a sphere. It completed my idea of simulating a point of view of a little seed