Paper Flower centrepieces

A quick post and inspiring thought for the day! Do you love colourful flowers and can't find a supplier for those botanical Helleborus Orientalis?! I spied this playful paper sculpture and thought it would make a great table centrepiece - graphic images carefully displayed on pins and low enough for your guests to see over.

This year I have three close friends getting married; all with tons of creative flair, (you know those arty types). Every time we meet up, they are burbling with ideas ranging from how to walk across fields in high heels to incorporating peacock feathers into their headpieces. Bring it on - it's going to be a memorable summer and I hope to share some snapshots of their weddings on the blog too.

I'm quite tempted to try out a project inspired by this - would anyone like to help me?

The delightful floral sculptures are by Anne Ten Donkelaar.

I'm a flower girl at heart. You can read lots of other posts about flowers from my archives.

Tim and Amy "A wedding in reverse"

Tim and Amy // A Wedding in Reverse from V E L A R E on Vimeo.

This short wedding film is just beautiful. It's just three minutes and seventeen seconds long but it captures the most unique moments and emotions. It's filmed in reverse and in slow motion. When I heard that Wes Anderson was an inspiration for this piece, it made complete sense. The Darjeeling Ltd is one of my favourite movies, with it's quirky yet dreamy slow motion scenes. Slowing things down makes you notice all the precious expressions and emotions of this beautiful wedding.

The film is the work of Velare Imaginarium - Steve and Tim bring their photography and cinematography skills together to amazing effect. Below Tim Twinem talks about his inspiration for this film.

"When Tim and Amy approached me about shooting their wedding, I was so pumped! I’ve known Tim since middle school, and was honored to be a part of their special day. Something that really was on my mind leading up to their wedding is that for a couple who’s lives are based around art (Tim is in a great band, CHURCHILL, and Amy is a fantastic artist), a normal “wedding highlight video” wasn’t going to cut it. The more time I spent searching the internet for wedding films that were doing something different, the more I came up short. So I started to put my brain power attempting to come up with something that would fit their personality, and not fit the norm. I’m a huge Wes Anderson fan, and his films have turned me into a sucker for great slow motion (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, just to name a few, all with fantastic slow motion sequences). So I decided to shoot their whole wedding at 60fps (slow motion). I think there’s powerful story telling when you pair great slow motion with great music. Then, setting my sights at something I wasn’t sure was a good idea or not, but at least was something I hadn’t seen, was doing the entire thing in reverse. Being newly married myself, I like the idea of always coming back to the love you had on your wedding day and thought doing the video in reverse would be a great way to visualize that idea. Thanks again Tim and Amy for giving me a little creative freedom to explore something new!!"

Steve and Tim - your films have such a peaceful, meditative feel to them - I think I'm going to be a lifelong fan! Thanks to Marie from Finer Details for tweeting this earlier!

See more wonderful films by Velare on Vimeo.

You might also enjoy my previous posts -

• "I do" an animated stop-frame short film by Manasi Kashyap
• Photo-booth animation by White Tea Photography

"I do" animated short film

Ok - I think you're going to lurrrve this! I spied it over on the fab 'Inspired by this' website and it certainly inspired me. In fact, it made me smile a lot. I'm a sucker for magic - more the magic carpet ride style than the rabbit in the hat variety...and this film has lots of floating magic as you'll see...

This quirky short features Jade and Raymond. The film is directed by Manasi Kashyap, who is an Indian photographer, living in London.


I Do. Short film by Manasi Kashyap. from Manasi Kashyap on Vimeo.

Below, I asked Manasi to tell us a bit about the inspiration and process behind this style of animated film.

"I always give people I work with much latitude to talk about their ideas & if they fit into the overall artistic vision - use them. Often, the personal stories I get have to be greatly abstracted in a way for them to work for both the movie & the people in them. Sometimes, though, an idea looks better in our heads than in motion & might have to be edited out.

If I'm able to visualize a story well from the input I've received, I'm able to story-board it over a week or two & discuss it with the people in it.

Stop-motion story shoots work differently from photography as they are largely pre-determined & require significant direction and co-operation from the people being photographed (especially if there's a specific story line). One of the prime reasons I love stop-motion is that it gives you lots of opportunity to work in beautiful magic using simple props. Stop-motion will also work if you just shoot things as they happen, but then it's not as easy to incorporate magical elements into it."

The number of shots I take is often dictated by the music I choose to tell the story with, the beat of the track, when the beat changes & when the song changes mood. There is a lot of math involved because the frames I shoot a scene with have to work with a certain frame rate (it can't be too slow & it can't be too fast)."

Thanks Manasi for telling us a bit about your creative process. Please let me know when you have made your next film!

You can see more of Manasi's photography over on her website. Also check out the Inspired by This blog for tons of bridal inspiration.