The making of The Ginger Jar
This video was essentially created in Photoshop.
I discovered an old photo of my family and in the background I noticed the Ginger Jar.
The Ginger Jar had sat in my family’s dining-room for about as long as I could remember, though I don’t think anyone ever stored ginger in it. About the only use it ever got was me hiding things in it when I was a kid. After my mother’s death I inherited the jar where it now sits in my kitchen on top of the fridge.
As I looked at the photo I suddenly realized that everyone in it had died. Only I and the ginger jar remained. I started pondering the impermanence of people and the relative permanence of the things we own and pass down to others. I began to wonder if there was a video in this idea. I started to think on a technical level how it would be interesting to make each person in the photo disappear. I was seized by my creative muse and got to work!
I took a picture of the photo and uploaded it to my computer which I then opened in Photoshop. I liked the old look of the photo so didn’t do any retouching of it to improve the contrast. It was only a matter of about an hour to create a series of five images with a person removed from each one. This was done primarily with the cloning and smudge tool. The process was made much easier because the photo was old and the resolution low to begin with so I didn’t have to worry about being too precise.
I removed my mother first since she was in a darker area that would be relatively easy to clone.
My father was next, and so on. The hardest was my uncle in the chair since most of the chair was blocked and there was very little to clone. The end result is not great and you’ll notice the shape of the back of the chair changes dramatically but since the images go quickly and the viewer’s eye will be drawn to each person as they disappear, I wasn’t too concerned about getting it perfect.
Once I had all the photos it was a simple matter of dissolving them together in Final Cut Pro. I went with fairly long dissolves which I thought gave the piece a nice feel.
I wanted to show the Ginger Jar as it was today and so I set up a scene that resembled the photo as closely as possible so that when I dissolved to it it wouldn’t be too disorienting for the viewer.
This entire video from conception to completion, upload to YouTube and a couple of cups of tea, took about three hours. A couple of weeks later as I watch it I realize I’d like to change the music and make it a little less sentimental, but that will be for another day!