A few weeks ago, I contacted a young artist of which I had seen a few expos and had been impressed by his originality and dynamism. I asked if I could write about him. He warmly accepted and sent me an email with his website's adress. After visiting his website, I found myself in front of a grand footage creator with a passion for sport video editing. That passion has led him to win the notorious Cold Rush re-cut RedBull video contest. I knew he was promising in the visual art field, painting, sculpting, etc. I never thought he was as good in the art of video editing.
Nicolas Guy-Caron is a young artist from Montreal. He found his passion through coincidence after being filmed by one of his friends while trial biking. From there it is only through personal interest, friend support and self-taught work that he has reached his present state. He started filming from school trips, people skiing to art expositions and has now found himself winning the RedBull contest.
Even though I find Nicolas a very pleasant person, we need to be professional about this and explain why his work interested me in an artistic perspective. In his videos, Nicolas Guy-Caron presents his creation in an interesting manner, positions himself well and takes precise shoots. Originality of construction is clearly present in his work. Though I am not a ski video expert and personally know more about painting than backflips, I am nevertheless able to recognize talent when I see it. Considering that he hasn't been doing this for a while, gives him even more credit for what he does. Going through his website allowed me to see the progression of Nicolas and convinced me of talent. Trust me or not, I still advise you to go through his website and have a look at his work.
First of all, it is the equilibrium of compostion between the image and the sound that appealed to me in Nicolas's work. A certain rythm is installed between the both of them, each of them complementing the other one, rendering the whole even stronger. Indeed, his choice of music and the way he films give the video a young, dynamic and exhilarating sense. We get carried by the video. We truly get involved in what we see, not passively, but excitedly. In the following video, we see how the artist plays with simple but effective elements in order to build a viewer-reactive video.
SNOWY BRO - Freeskiing from MOMENT PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.
Nonetheless, what impressed me the most about Nicolas Guy-Caron is his ability to collage elements, put things together and create a compelling whole. Collaging, or the act of putting things together, is not an easy one. It requires a lot of creativity and that spark that will give a character, a presence to the whole. It also needs a vision as the foundations on which everything will be built. What exemplifies best the artist's ability to collage is his winning-video for the RedBull Cold Rush re-cut contest. For those who, like me, don't know what it's about, it consisted in choosing and editing from 18 minutes of skiing and 8 minutes of interviews with the skiiers. Music was open for the competitior to choose. The only mandatory element was the RedBull logo. Clearly, in order to build a prize-winning video, you need, talent, originality and creativity to put together bits and pieces and build something outstanding. I believe Nicolas Guy-Caron has achieved this. Just as the painter James Rosenquist that put heterogeneous elements together in order to build his famous painting F-111, Nicolas gathered elements and through vision and creative sense, through good taste, specially for music, and talent was awarded a widely recognized prize. Vision is what really sets these two artists apart. Below are the Rosenquist's famous 25 meters long F-111 and Nicolas Guy-Caron's award-winning video. Seek for the similarity between the two, creativity is not far away.
Red Bull - Cold Rush Recut from MOMENT PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.
Seize the Moment is Nicolas's moto in a way. In an interview he explained to me that the reason behind this sentence is that it came to him from a friend, but later adopted it because it represented him well. Indeed, I see how Nicolas by chosing the elements, in order to build a whole, seizes the element he wants to transmit by expressing it in all possible levels. By mixing the music and the video he gives us a moment for us to seize and feel. That is why I believe Nicolas Guy-Caron sets himself apart from video editors to a real video artist. I thus invite you to visit his website by clicking on the article's title and seize as much emotion from his videos as humanly possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment