Fire Concept

As a class, we are participating in the Winter Arts Projection in Dandenong.
Only a few of us have been chosen to do the installation for this projection, but it is also an assignment for us to make a video relating to the theme 'fire'.

For my video, the idea I had for it came to me while I was in my backyard smoking a cigarette.
I was bored, so I took the long bbq lighter that was sitting on the outside table and set the cigarette buts in the ashtray on fire.
I enjoyed watching the copious amounts of smoke coming from the ashtray, and so I thought to use it in my video. It's a very simple idea, and it's pretty much directly relating to fire, as opposed to some other ideas which are related to fire, but very loosely.

As I began to think more about it, I decided to strengthen the idea of cigarettes and fire. It came to mind as a 'Silent fire'. Because, if you think about it, when you smoke a cigarette, you are essentially inhaling fire. It's a silent fire, that destroys you from the inside.
This train of thought also produced a dialogue that could possibly be read over the video, or even be typed and put as wording at the bottom, top, going across the screen ect.

                                                                        Dialouge

"I was sitting in my backyard, having a cigarette. I noticed that the ashtray on the table was quite full of cigarette butts, both from my cigarettes and my dad’s rollies.
So I took the lighter that was sitting on the table, it was a stove lighter with a long neck, and I lit the contents of the ashtray on fire. I held the flame from the tip of the lighter in the middle of the ashtray. The fire didn’t seem to take to the cigarette butts, but there was smoke rising from the centre.
I held the lighter there for a good minute or two. There was no flame in the ashtray, but the butts were still burning. There was a copious amount of smoke rising from the ashtray, the smell wasn’t appealing, but the sight was. The smoke was curling and turning into many different shapes, twisting and rising, the wind blowing the smoke in different directions, constantly rising.

I looked at the ashtray, and all the cigarette butts were on fire. Once again, there was no flame, but the edges of each were glowing a bright red. I could see the tiny fire eating away at the paper and filter of each butt until there was nothing but ash left"


It is also a very simple video to shoot, there's no set up needed, all I need is a half filled ashtray.