Conversation: Editing of yellow-furr-fox
Viewer: The editing in yellow-furr-fox has a distinctive pace. Where in baby, dog, and Dog 1 (Online Version) was “like when someone was counting down from three to one, but never finished calling out “one””, yellow-furr-fox takes a longer-deep breath. Just like how people’s heart rate slows down in their sleep. I thought about a mythology or a dream - night scenes, a person chasing a fox, yellow graphic that seem like a trace of the fox, and terrifying situations. The pace of the editing works well with such surreal reality.
Editor: Could you tell me more about the relationship between this deep breath, dream, and mythology?
Viewer: Perhaps the word ‘mythology’ or ‘dream’ sounds like the theme of the work, but it’s actually not. The speed of the camera chasing the fox or the action of zooming in and out raises tension, yet, the slow pace in editing recalls a mysterious moment of a dream. Similarly to how you can feel your own presence in a dream even if it’s blurry and ungraspable. This atmosphere was created by editing.
Editor: The purpose of the person holding a camera might be to find a fox in the dark. However, it is quite obvious that this is not the case, as the transition of each scene is not dependent on the timing in which the camera spots the fox. Sometimes the foxes are replaced with computer graphics.
Viewer: Maybe the transition has got to do with the images that the footage is consisted of.
Editor: We talked about how the “actions” of the videographer are on a very fine line between filming a performance and a re-enactment of inappropriately scanning another person’s body in baby, dog, and Dog 2 (Online Version). I responded that the transition was more focused on the shift in the performer’s movement in the footage. Likewise, some footage capture failing to spot a fox, or aggressively running towards the fox, or just wandering around
in the dark. The transition or the order of footage has to do with the different speed of the camera, or the condition/duration of each footage.
Editor: The work opens with the scene where the person holding a camera slowly looks for a fox in the deserted car park. For the following scene, the artist uses footage that has different camera movements to create tension. The artist juggles around and positions the selected footage. For example, I would never use two 30 second footage after one another unless there is a clear reason behind the repetition. Maybe the yellow graphic was also used to create a certain flow.
Viewer: The resolution of the graphic compared to the night footage is very different. The footage has a poor resolution while the graphics are vivid and mechanical. This is disturbing throughout the whole duration of the work. I almost wished it wasn’t there. The camera is always directed at the fox whether the camera is looking down from a balcony, or whether it chases the fox on the streets. The movement of the person chasing the fox is clearly visible despite the poor resolution. Without the graphics, it would have been much easier to follow the camera’s movement.
Editor: The graphics could have been used to interact with the flow of the footage or they could have been part of the artists’ imagination while chasing the fox.
Viewer: Or maybe it was because it is impossible to control when or where the fox would appear in each footage.
Editor: Yes. Adding graphics may be much more simpler than actually finding a fox on the streets, or controlling where the fox appears in the footage. Nobody would even know whether the fox actually appeared in any of the scenes with such poor resolution.
Viewer: On another note, a great deal of time is invested in filming one episode of BBC Earth, but, the documentary shows a whole lifespan of an animal using a linear narrative. Along with the narrations, the audiences would eventually believe that the documentary represents the actual life of the animal, whilst this is heavily controlled by the production crew. If you think the graphics in yellow-furr-fox were an ‘imagination’ of the artist, does
this become a narrative?
Editor: On BBC Earth, there is a strong editing structure that raises tension and dynamic so that the audiences watch the documentary until the end. In this work, there is a fox and a person holding a camera who searches for a fox. If the artist had a specific visual in mind to show the appearance of a fox, a new aspect might have been necessary. But I don’t think such an attempt is creating a narrative. The graphics don’t seem to fulfill what is missing in the footage.
Viewer: Copy and pasting the cropped image of a fox, leaving a trace around the fox, and a yellow fur growing out of the objects seem to be a very different method. Is it an attempt to mock the object or is it leaving a mark of a fox? Maybe neither. Perhaps it is more about the ‘yellow furr’ as it hints in the title. The reasons behind a yellow fur growing out of random objects are unknown, but the speed of the appearance feels like a mockery or a mystery.
Editor: In our conversation about baby, dog, and Dog 1 (Online Version), we talked about the action of the editor; the desire of the editor being present in the work. If the ‘imagination’ of the editor intervenes, it almost become a fight to find the right place for the new aspect. Sometimes you can get lucky, but most of the time it’s a living hell. When should the graphics appear, how should the relationship between the vivid graphic and the dim footage with noise be set up. All these aspects are decisions. The outcome may seem like a mockery or a mystery, but I think it would have been more about how to make a condition or an environment for the two conflicting aspects.
Viewer: Then perhaps the appearance of the graphic fur does not create a disturbance, but rather creates tension between different textures of the graphic and the footage.
Editor: The last scene where the fox is at close distance with the camera is a long-take shot. What are your thoughts on this?
Viewer: I liked the last scene. The last scene had a completely different approach in duration compared to the previous scenes where the transitions were quite rapid. Different duration creates curiosity and draws the audience’s attention back into the work. It would be difficult for the audience to endure watching a video work if similar pace and rhythm were repeated. Even though the duration of the last scene takes up one- third of the entire video, I didn’t lose focus. A fox was digging through the trash looking for something to eat, and at that moment I finally had the chance to watch the fox for a longer time. The person holding a camera is very close to the fox, and the fox seems to be aware, but it doesn’t run away like it did before. After the long chase, there was a relationship built between the two. Or perhaps the fox was more urgent to find something to eat than to run away. The video ends with a fox running away from the sound of a motorcycle. The camera does not follow the fox anymore, and the fox disappears into the dark. The work doesn’t have a narrative but the last scene felt quite poignant and I could know that it was the ending scene. In that sense, using a long take shot to mark an end to the work felt like a precise decision. I was relieved to have encountered a video that I could watch until the end.
Editor: When the fox no longer feels hostile to the camera, an external factor, the motorcycle intervenes. The fox runs away, and the camera willingly gives up following the fox. This is a perfect way to finish the work. Not in a way that it concludes the previous scenes, but how a scene has an independent ending. In that way the ending is very clean. The only issue here with the editing would have been ‘how long this take should last for’. Nothing else would have been a problem.
Publication Credits
Editor: Shinhoo Yhi
Video Editor of baby, dog, and Dog (Online Version): Yi-ho Yan
Video Editor of yellow-furr-fox: Shinhoo Yhi
Editor in conversation: Yi-ho Yan
Viewer in conversation: Woojin Jeon
Translation: Sungwon Baek, Shinhoo Yhi
Layout Design: Seunghyun Kim
Release Date: 25 June, 2021