collage evaluation

This project was by far the most rewarding and frustrating project that we have done all semester. When we first got the assignment I had a little panic attack that I would have to put something together on Final Cut because I wasn't entirely comfortable using the program on my own. I was used to taking theory classes where Final Cut wasn't needed, so the thought of creating a project using it (even though it only had to be a minimum of one minute long) scared me. If you would have asked me two weeks ago what I thought of the project I would have said I hated it. So who would have guessed only a few weeks later that I put this project down as my favorite...I sure wouldn't have.

I had a tough time coming up with a concrete idea for my project. I'm not into political commentaries or a real analytical thinker, so I knew my project was going to end up more on the light hearted side. My original idea was to do something with Brides and how crazy wedding's make them act, because my sister is getting married in May and we often joke with her that she has some Bridezilla moments. I knew she wouldn't really appreciate the idea but I figured what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her : ) I never really developed that idea more (which I'm not sure why that was), but instead starting thinking of another idea that would involve clips of reality television shows. I was going to do a montage of the catch phrases of reality tv such as "You're fired." and "Please pack your knives and leave the kitchen." (Top Chef). I found a lot of great clips on YouTube and on the actual websites for each show but then was stuck with how to get those clips into Final Cut. I was given the suggestion to use Vixy, but since I'm not the most tech-savvy person in the world I decided to stick with using archive.org or google video footage that I knew how to get into Final Cut. That's when I decided to go back to my original idea and get some wedding footage.

My original idea had to be tweaked a bit once I realized all of the "good" footage was coming up as YouTube videos. I found some good wedding bloopers and funny wedding scenes that I was going to cut all together with wild animals, but once I came upon the Wedding Catfight clip my idea started to evolve. The clip was too good to be true, and once I found that I was relieved. The animal footage was all stock footage off of Google video or archive which wasn't too hard to find. The hardest part was finding footage and movements of animals that matched the movements of the girls fighting. Once all of my clips were found I just had to edit them together and I was halfway there.

I worked on the visual components first and then went back and added sound. Cutting together the girls and animals was easy, but getting a solid beginning and end was a bit tricky for me. The real clip was about 8 minutes, so I obviously had to cut out a lot to get the parts I needed. The beginning set the pace for the rest of the story so that wasn't terribly hard to decide on, but the ending really stumped me. I knew the conflict had to be resolved somehow, so I started looking for clips of animals reconciling (which is an odd phrase that didn't really give me anything to work with), so I searched for "animals playing" and the panda bear clip came up. The one part of that clip could be mistaken for a little rough so I used that intercut in the one fighting scene, but the panda bear then stops biting and lays his head down which ended up working well for the end of the fighting. Then I added the bride and groom standing at the alter (which actually happened before the fighting started in the clip I used) to the end and I was done with the visual story.

The sound was a bit tricky as well because I had to build my own soundtrack from scratch. I had Pachabel's Canon in D on cd so that was no problem adding that in, but everything else I made up myself. Most of the animal sounds I used were not sounds of the actual animals shown, but because I layered a bunch on top of each other you couldn't tell the difference. Most of the sounds for the animals were repeated during each animal fighting section with different levels being brought up in each section so it didn't seem like I was repeating a sound. The same goes for the girls fighting. I had a really hard time finding good fighting sounds for females. So once I found a few good ones I used them over and over again in different capacities. It helped to have the music as a track to pull it all together. Towards the end I started to overlap the animal sounds and human ones so that it all seemed a jumbled mess. The "Yes I do" sound clip was stolen from a conversation in "Wedding Crashers" because I couldn't find any wedding vowel clips on sounddogs.

Once I screened my project in class the first time I was given the suggestion of adding dissolves which ended up giving my project a whole new tone that I liked a lot more. The silliness of the girl fight footage seemed more real and believable and the clips of the animals and girls flowed more together giving it more of the jumbled, messy feel I was going for. Something that wasn't mentioned in class after we screened it a second time was the fact that there were dissolves missing in three cuts throughout the project. I kept the first and last cuts as they were, but Final Cut just wouldn't let me add dissolves over three cuts, and I don't know why. I think the clips were too short for the dissolve I wanted, but even by making the dissolve time less it wouldn't work either. I was stumped and didn't know what to do so I ended up just leaving it. No one mentioned it in class so I guess it went unnoticed. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it at all...haha.

Holy crap I just wrote a novel about my project. Sorry!! To sum it up in way less words, my frustration and anger towards the project all went away when I saw my finished product. Compared to the others in class it wasn't top notch, but for me it was the best I could do, and for that I am very proud. Of course it could improve in areas here and there, but overall I am very happy with what I did and I'm glad I was forced to overcome my fear of Final Cut!

rayogram evaluation

This project hit in the middle with me. It wasn't one of my favorites but it wasn't a least favorite either. I think I have mixed feelings for it because I wasn't involved in every part of the process, therefore I didn't really feel an ownership to the project as a whole.

I enjoyed the actual rayogram part of the assignment because it was a cool technique that I had never been exposed to (no pun intended). Since we got a few chances to print on the film strips we could really experiement with different shapes and textures to see what showed up well and what didn't. My group used a slinky on our film strip which gave a really neat effect. I also liked the beads of a necklace that we used. The shapes came out so clear which if part of why I liked using them.

The contact printing (hopefully I'm not getting the names of the techniques mixed up) wasn't as interesting for me because I felt we couldn't be as creative with the technique. It was a little repetitive to just hold the film strip against a blank one and contact print that. When we did that in class I was wondering how in the world we were going to be able to incorporate those random images into our finished prodcut but I realized later on that it was those images that allowed us to have our story.

Sarah and I did the ambient sound on the project. I had no idea what to expect as far as the project theme, mood, etc. Honestly I was a bit confused when we first watched it. It was almost a "this is it?" feeling that I got. It wasn't because I didn't think what they had put together was good or interesting, but I still wasn't seeing the big picture of how the story would come together. I just didn't really get it. We decided to stick with the sports theme and add in ambient tracks at opportune times when there wasn't a lot of other sound going on. We used a lot of crowd noises to fit along with the theme. There were a few spots that seemed scarce on sound when we watched it in class last week, but once all the sound was mixed it sounded a lot more put together. Once I thought of the project as more abstract I think I was OK with it.

I'm still not sure I really think that's the best finished product we could have put out, but I think that was due to so many people working on it at random times. Like we had discussed in class yesterday, I think it would be a more effective project if done in smaller groups. That way each person could be more hands on with their project and the finished product would yield more rewarding results.

ideas

So after thinking some more about potential ideas for the upcoming projects I have come to find that I don't really have as many as I thought. For some reason I just assumed ideas would come to me easily and that I wouldn't have any trouble coming up with a vision for my projects. Unfortunately I was counting my eggs before they hatched, and am currently drawing a huge blank in the ideas department. I am hoping that over the next few days I will see or hear something that sparks some creativity for an assignment. Since a watched pot never boils, ideas may come to me when I'm not trying so hard to find them. But anywho...here are some of the things I have come up with so far:

There are endless possibilities for where I could take the rhythmic editing assignment. Obivously I will be working with a scenario that my partner chooses, so that part isn't up to me. As for what I want to be doing when my partner films me is still up in the air. I have two jobs, and one is horribly un-entertaining while the other is really entertaining but it would be hard to capture the essence of it on video. So I started thinking of some of my hobbies...running- too monotonous, reading-super boring, shopping?- too lame. I am into photography so I was thinking I could play into that. PS- I would much rather be behind the camera than in front..so this should be interesting....

For the one shot assignment I am thinking my group wants to do something visually baisc (not boring, but basic), and then jazz it up with some cool sound effects and editing. I'm up for whatever. Since I am always more concerned with the visual aspects and aesthetics of projects, it might be cool to focus on some other ways to make a video great. Thank goodness four minds are better then one, because I'm sure once we all get together we will come up with something fabulous.

As for the animation footage. Yikes! I have no idea where to take that. Let's hope my mind starts pumping out good ideas in the next few days.

holy crap i'm overwhelmed

After yesterday's class I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with the amount of ongoing projects we have. I am the kind of person who likes to complete one thing before moving on to the next, so this should definitely be a challenge for me. I'm trying to keep all of the projects straight but this can be hard as well. I wish we had more class time or a longer semester so we could focus more time and energy on each project. I sure hope I don't get some sort of creative block during the next three weeks as that would surely slow down my rate of production. But enough whining from me...I'm sure it will all work out as it should.

The cool thing about the upcoming projects is that we are moving towards video. I'm sad to see our hands on experience with different film stock manipulations go because I really enjoyed playing around with new techniques. It helped to broaden my range of creativity. The first projects and workshops we did were so different from anything that I have learned in my other classes here and that's why I think they stuck out to me so much. But don't get me wrong, I am excited to be working with video next. Obviously there is a lot of room for creativity and experimenting within the means we will be working. I still have to more thought into my vision for each of the projects. So I'll have to get back to you with my plans in a day or so...

Final cut. Yikes. After the tutorial I feel I had a better sense of the basics of the program, but I hope that will be able to get me through the rest of the semester. I have little experience with Final Cut (I guess that's all thanks to taking film theory classes), so I am a bit scared that I will mess things up. I guess it will just take some time, and a lot of practice, before I feel completely comfortable using it. While some see a creative "block" so to speak on the 5-15-5-10 frame project, I am actually a little relieved to be working with such restrictions. It helps me take some of the guess work out of the editing process and will allow me to focus more on the basics of how to edit my work.

Needless to say, the next few weeks should be busy and interesting!

link

Not that people can't find this on their own....but here's the link to the The Yes Men's website if anyone cares to take a look.

http://www.theyesmen.org/

culture jamming and the yes men

I don't think I really understood the idea behind culture jamming until we watched The Yes Men video in class and then I decided to do some of my own research on the Web about it. The whole concept of identity correction among huge, worldwide organizations just blows my mind. I am always quick to think of the logistics of things, and how in the world it's possible for them to pull of stunts like this without getting arrested. Apparently someone had the same question as me, because on the Yes Men website there is a FAQ section and one of the questions was about if they thought what they were doing was illegal and if so, why haven't they been arrested? Here is a part of the answer that I found most interesting:

"On the other hand, what we do might not be illegal. Lawyers don't seem to know; the ones we've asked can't point to such-and-such a law that means we're in trouble. But then the law is pretty irrelevant, as far as corporations are concerned—if they want you silenced, they just throw a totally bogus lawsuit at you, that invariably gets thrown out, and in the meantime ties you up in red tape. That's called a SLAPP suit, and it's the main way corporations silence community activists whose causes aren't sexy enough for the mainstream media to follow."

Everything about the Yes Men seems to fascinate me because I just can't grasp how they are able to keep fooling people and doing crazy presentations and what not without getting in serious trouble. I don't know if it's part of the whole freedom of speech thing we have going here, but you would think someone would draw the line and limit them from pretty much doing whatever they wanted.

I love the attitudes of the Yes Men too. They aren't malicious or pushy in their ideals. When they don't get the reaction they want from a crowd they don't try and force it out of them. I guess they just want to get the information out their so they can better inform the people of the sometimes harsh realities of what some corporations and organizations are doing on a regular basis.

Because the video sparked my interest to look on their website I also found some shocking information about what happened in Bhopal in 1984. As they go on to say on the website, a vast majority of Americans had no idea what had happened with Union Carbide and the Dow...I being one of them. It's people like the Yes Men that are able to make others aware of whats really going on around them, and that's a great service they are providing to those who either take the time to research what they are doing or happen upon their activities by chance.

As I'm sure you gathered from this entry, I have found a fascination for The Yes Men and what they are trying to do. I'm pretty sure that I will keep researching other culture jamming activists who are out there trying to make the people aware of what's going on around them. It still shocks me that people could get away with stuff like this, but I guess in today's day and age, anything's possible!

2.27 class

Since we got to see some of our work projected on the screen I was able to make some mental notes about what to do and what not to do in future projects. Let's start with the animtion footage. I was so, so excited to see how my group's would turn out because I thought we had a lot of great ideas and fun props to work with. However, once I saw the project, I realized that a lot of what we tried to do didn't show up well on screen. The lighting was very weak, causing the image to be grainy and dark. We did not have a lot of contrast in the objects we used so a lot of the images ran together once projected. Also, we lacked consistency in camera placement as the camera moved back and forth instead of staying static. This kind of hurt the fluid-like movement effect we were looking for. But not all was lost. There were a few parts that looked great! My favorite parts being the jellybean sequence where we moved them back and forth across the camera, and also the helicopter flying across the frame and then landing. I thought the movement looked continuous and not as choppy or dark as the some other parts did. Hopefully we will be able to salvage a good amount of the footage for our project. We included some shots of narrative inserts that we can include to make a story out of. Also, with slowing things down and lightening them up I'm sure we will be able to make something cool out of it all. I'm looking forward to see what we all come up with.

Now, onto the 100 frame animation project. I don't want to see negative in saying this, but I was diasppointed in the turnout of this project as well. I made the mistake of drawing my images wayyyyyyyy to big, and therefore a lot of the deatil of them was cut off when projected. I also think that when we contact printed my sprocket holes weren't lined up perfectly so the images were showing up half and half. So put both of those together, and you can see why the animation wasn't recognizable at all. It was kind of disappointing because I spent so much time with the fine detail to not have it show up : ( Oh well....now I know what to do better next time! I would pick simpler shapes and draw them a lot smaller, and then I think I would be ok!

The good thing about these projects is that I'm learning what works and what doesn't. I only wish I was getting better results!

the molotov man

This is by far the most interesting article I have read this semester. I am fascinated by Latin American culture and the structured chaos that they live in daily. Because I am also a Spanish major, I have taken many classes in Spanish-American Civilization where we have discussed the Sandanistas Revolution in Nicaragua. So this article was of great interest to me.

I like the structure of the article itself and that we got to see both sides of the story. Both ladies brought up great points about the art of context and who ultimately had "the rights" to an image. Here are some of the points that stuck out most to me:

• This has nothing to do with the Molotov Man directly, but I thought it was interesting that Joy saves the most promising images on her desktop for awhile before choosing which ones to work with. Seeing as how the images are very emotional and thought provoking I can imagine it would be hard to separate a personal attachment from the aesthetics of it all.
• What happened with the resurgence of the Molotov Man's image after Joy had worked with it was pretty amazing. It seems that anyone and everyone was jumping on the bandwagon and catering the image to their marketing needs. What started out as a simple documentation of a pivitol moment in history turned out to be a highly recognized image more known then the story behind it.
• The stand out quote for me for this article was "Who owns the rights to this man's struggle?" That one line summarizes a gray area that many artists find themselves in everyday. Obviously there is no easy answer to the question. And quite frankly, I'm not sure what end of the spectrum I find myself on. After reading both Joy and Susan's thoughts on the "ownership" of an image, I'm still uncertain what to think.
• The information Susan gave about the context and background of the Molotov Man really helped to put things in perspective. In a way it's kind of sad that Pablo's intentions and context really were being washed away with all of the replications and usage of his image. I don't necessarily agree that it was a betrayal of him, as Susan put it. We are blessed to live in a land where we have freedom of speech and expression, so it's hard to draw a line to stop people from going "too far."

After reading this article I am definately interested in researching the topic and phenomena of the Molotov Man some more.

my afternoon in the darkroom

Today's class was pretty relaxed and very experimental so I definitely enjoyed myself. My group worked with some cool objects that made for nice rayograms. My favorite object that we had was the slinky. We tried a few different ways to impose it's image onto the strip. I think it worked best when we stuck the film strip inside the slinky because it gave it some depth and allowed for some shadows. I also liked the beaded necklace and the tiny people we used for the animation project too. I wish we had some more reflective objects that would have cast some cool light on the film strip. If I was to do this project again I would make sure to include something like that. Although the objects seem small, I know when they are projected they will go by so fast. Thank god for Final Cut and being able to slow the film down.

I liked our results better when we flickered on the light instead of using the cell phone. We got more crisp, solid images that way. When we used the cell phone method we got some blurring of the objects and weird shadows because of the movement of the light.

I am going to stick with my previous comment about not being a fan of the contact printing. It just doesn't seem as fun to me as the rayograms. We had a great result with clean images, but there was nothing special about our print because it was merely a copy of something that was already created. But, since we will be intercutting those images into some of the things we created I think the end result will be pretty neat. We have a lot of good prints to work with.

I really liked the No Logo thing we watched at the end of the class today. The lady in the video made some really valid points about marketing and our culture that I never really thought about before. There is a lot more thought put into advertisements and marketing plans then just what will look good. The idea of businesses and corporations selling more then their product is so true, and to the average consumer it's over looked. My favorite part was the towards the end when she started talking about Celebration, Florida. I was not familiar with that community but now I'm pretty fascinated by it. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the video will bring.

the ecstasy of influence

Out of all of the articles we have read for class so far, this one was by far my least favorite. Maybe it went right over my head or something, but I found a lot of what Lethem was saying to be jibberish. He made a few interesting points which I will note in a second, but overall, I felt he rambled on and on about things that were not transitioned and connected very well. I thought it was hard to read and focus in on because it was all over the place. I didn't like his writing style so therefore the article didn't really hit home with me. I didn't take a look at the date it was written before I started reading, so my initial thoughts were that it was written awhile back. But then he mentions something about Tex-Mex and YouTube and I was like...waiiit hold on a second. This is recent! But anyway...after I commented on him rambling, here I am rambling. So, on to the few things that caught my attention.

• I liked the section towards the beginning pages of the article where he talked about cartoons and The Simpsons producer said, "Animation is built on plagiarism!" It then goes on to point out that "If you take away the right to steal ideas, where are they going to come from!" It seems that cartoons could not survive without inspiration from previous works. I never really thought about it, but I guess he is right.
• The next thing that stuck out to me was the line "Most artists are converted to art by art itself." For me, that kind of goes along with the old saying "Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery." or however that goes. People are inspired by things they enjoy and things that get their attention.
• The idea that "second comers might do a much better job than the originator with the original idea" also caught my attention. While I'm sure the majority of the original inventors/creators of something don't appreciate this thought, it is a very real possibility. Someone who is removed from the project can bring a new light/view to it. And that could make all the difference in the end product.
• I also really liked the Velveteen Rabbit tie-in. I thought it fit well with the point that some see things as vandalism while other see them as marks of loving use.

I feel that Lethem summed up his article best when he said "But the truth is that with artists pulling on one side and corporations pulling on the other, the loser is the collective public's imagination."

rayograms and contact printing

I was really impressed at the turnout of yesterday's demos, especially the rayograms. I didn't think that the objects would appear that "crisp" on the film stock (and some of them didn't). My favorite effect was from the iridescent marbles. Because the light only reflected down through some parts of the marble it made a swirly almost tie-dye effect which was awesome. The Aquafina label looked pretty cool too.

I'm trying to think of what kinds of objects I would like to bring. I think I am going to crush up some uncooked pasta into little pieces and bring that in, or perhaps some sand or salt spread out in a pattern might look interesting. Since I liked the look of the marbles I want to try and bring something kind of like them. I was thinking of some smaller, dangly earrings that I have might work. I have some other earrings in interesting shapes that could work as well. I was also thinking of cutting up some pieces of straw and standing them up to make some sort of circular pattern. Who knows..the options are endless!

I wasn't as big of a fan of the contact printing. It just didn't grab my attention as a technique that I would be real interested in using. Perhaps next week once we work with the technique some more I will get a better feel for what I could do with it. Copying film images from one strip to another just doesn't seem as "creative" to me. Maybe I misunderstood the capabilities of the technique, so we'll have to see what happens next class.

earth, wind, fire, water

I'm not going to lie...I was a tad disappointed at my air part of the project once I saw it projected on the screen. I had a hard time coming up with a solid idea in the first place, so I'm not all surprised that there really wasn't a strong feeling of "air" coming from the strip. I had used a silver sharpie that ended up looking black on the screen, so that didn't really go along with my light and airy feel that I wanted. The magazine transfer of white to silver to light blue to dark blue didn't really stand out either. The colors weren't as vibrant as I would have liked.

However, not all was lost with the project, because I am really happy with how the water turned out. I would like to slow it down in Final Cut just to emphasize the details of the fish I placed throughout that strip. I thought the nail polish looked great. The colors were vibrant and you could see the texture I added pretty well. I'm glad you could catch the waves I put in too. It took me awhile to cut them out because they were so small, so it's a good thing you could see them!

I think I'm finally catching on to just how fast the strip goes through the projector. So hopefully in upcoming projects I can have some better results.

attempt number 18 at this animation project

In a nutshell, here is the progression of shapes I have been working with for our film strip animation project. I was given the eye ball shape and I chose the wave-like shapes. At first glance you would think I would never be able to morph these shapes into one another (and sometimes when I practice them I can't haha), but in a weird way I make it work. I have been practicing my shapes alot but I'm still not sold that the transitions will look good projected. I guess it's just something I will have to try and hope for the best!

as always, i'm excited...

As always, I'm excited for us to project our earth, wind, fire, water projects on Tuesday. Between my partner and I we came up with some pretty cool techniques and ideas, and I will be interested in seeing how they flow together (if they flow together at all). I used some nailpolish on the water strip I did and I am not quite sure how opaque the colors will turn out. In my mind it seemed like a pretty cool idea but who knows how it will look on the screen. I am still trying to adjust and prepare better for the rapid-ness (which probably isn't even a word), of the film going through the projector. My ideas are always a little less cool on screen because I forget to take into account how fast they will move.

As for the film strip animation project...I am a little nervous to actually start drawing on my film stock. Sharpies are permanent...so if I mess up (which is quite likely because my drawings are a bit intricate) then I'm screwed! Yikes... Sometimes I wish I wasn't a perfectionist : )

We seem to be flying through the projects pretty quickly. The next one seems just as creative and innovative as the others have been. I used to take photography classes and this project reminds me a lot of a few things I have done in the past. I am happy to be getting back into the nuts and bolts of photography, exposure, opacity, etc.

and I'm officially sore...

After spending four hours in the crouched position animating paper clips and jelly beans, my knees and back are tiii-red. But I'm really excited about what my group came up with, so in the end it was all worth it!

Thanks to Sarah we had about every object imaginable to work with! We all agreed on making a jungle scene with real branches, leaves and pine straw (which turned out to be quite messy). We incorporated some mini people, paper clip alligators, giant mice and some ant-like jelly beans. Once we had our ideas down we all got into a rhythm where Sarah and I would do the animating and the boys would work the camera. We had the Super 8 with the whole "pin in the side" so it took a little extra work to get the job done. After what seemed like a trillion frames, we realized we only had about 100, and we would need at least 1100 to get a full minute of film. That is a discouraging discovery.

It was hard to put things in perspective and think of the big picture when we were animating. What seems like an action that was very repetitive will actually go by super fast on screen, and that was hard to keep in mind. I'm a perfectionist so it was a bit difficult for me to not worry about all the tiny details and just know that everything will happen so fast that our imperfections may not even matter.

I really liked working with the three planes because the depth we could achieve with them looked really cool through the camera. Sarah and I did a little series of jelly beans inching their way across the frame, and then overlapping and what not. I got to operate the camera for that part so I could see it all happen, and it looked great! I only hope we took enough frames so that it will be more then a second in time for that part in particular.

Although it seems like we snapped a million frames, I am wondering just how many seconds of footage we actually got. As always, I can't wait to see our stuff projected on the screen. It's always a nice surprise to see what we actually did!

filmstrip animation

So I've been testing out some ideas for the filmstrip animation project and have come up with a few possible shape combinations that I would like to use. At times I feel I am being a bit overambitious with my drawing capabilities. I keep picking these intricate shapes to use and then I have trouble morphing the shapes into each other. So after trying out a bunch of shapes I have come up with my final progression.

I have been given the starting point of an eyeball with an iris which I am going to make the iris disappear and then make the eyeball shut. That gives me a straight, horizontal eye to work with. The line will then break into two dashes which will rotate clockwise once and then will re-attach to from two half moons. From the half moons I will create a pair of lips, which will, oddly enough, morph into a fish. The fish will become the outline of an oval which will flatten out to make a straight, horizontal line again. Lastly, the line will end up in the 3 wave formation that I chose for the master template.

I'm not really sure how accurately I will be able to draw all of these shapes or how consistent they will be. In my mind it is going to look pretty cool but there is a chance it won't turn out as planned. I will just have to practice my shapes some more and then give it a whirl. I figure that it will go by so quickly that if I mess up a little you may not be able to tell too much. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one **

alternatives in animation production

Well I managed to read all 29 pages of our assignment and here are my thoughts:

• The first thing that stuck out to me was the line that said "traditional/industrial forms tend to be dominated by marketing, while experimental forms are dominated by aesthetic." I found that interesting because it seems that experimentalist have less restrictions becauase they aren't worried about distribution but instead conveying their emotions, thoughts, etc
• After reading more in depthly about the different approaches and techniques I did not realize just how much thought goes into selecting mediums and techniques. You have to think about texture, color and translucent qualities, just to name a few. It really comes down to what you are trying to convey and what materials and techniques will best help you represent that.
• I thought it was pretty cool that McLaren took his "Lines Vertical" piece and flipped it, named it "Lines Horizontal" and gave it a new soundtrack and came up with a completely different viewing experience. Then by taking them both and running them together through the same projector he came up with his third film of the set called "Mosiac." That's some pretty cool stuff.
• I found that I was most interested in reading about the collage-ing, so to speak. I love taking already exsiting materials and placing them together in new ways to create totally different meanings and objects. I hope we get to do more work with this technique in class.
• Lastly I would like to comment on the part of the article about silhouette cutting. Now, I'm not an extreme feminist or anything, but I was shocked to read that silhouette cutting was considered a "kind of feminist validation of women's folk art" and that this skill was commonly taught to women because they did not have access to other art training. All I will say about that is...it's a good thing times have changed : )

animation and such

Back when I took Intro to Film Studies with Dr Kreul we learned a bit about avant-garde and experimental filmmaking. In class we watched McLaren's "Begone Dull Care" among others, and to be honest with you, I was just not impressed by what I saw. I found it quite boring and monotonous, and just did not understand what the big deal was. Ironically enough, when we watched the same short in class yesterday I had a new found respect for what I saw. I don't know if it's just my maturity in the program or the fact that I understand more about just how hard it is to create something like that, but I really enjoyed "Begone Dull Care" this time around. It got me thinking about the techniques he used to make it and just how hard it must have been to get the timing of the objects down with the music. I happily retract my previous statements about it's lack of creativity and monotony.

My favorite piece that we watched was the one with the two clay figures at the table. I was amazed at how smoothly the figures flowed into each other and how intricate the detailing must have been. I think I could have watched those figures morph into one another all day-that's how fascinated I was. I can't imagine the steps he took to make those figures intertwine. I would be interested in finding more out about the making of that.

Watching all of the short pieces in class helped me to put our next assignment in perspective. I have no previous experience with this type of animation so I look forward to seeing what my group comes up with.

water and air

I would like to think of this as my semi-inspiration for the water portion of the elements project. I want to try doing some more magazine transfers in a wave like effect and then have that lead into an abstract representation of the deep sea. I plan on using "cool" colors, such as purple, green, blue and perhaps some pink. I also want to incorporate some sort of fish on my film strip as well. I might cut out fish from a magazine or just do some orange to represent them. Not sure yet. As for my other element, air, I plan on keeping the film strip "light" as in colors and amount of material on the strip itself. I want there to be something continous about the strip so I have included some swirls in silver and blue sharpie that I have magazine transfered over top of. I am a big "less is more person" and like simplicity over adornment, so I plan on keeping things creative and interesting but without using 12 different techniques and 85 colors. To me, air is clean and crisp and I want to convey that in my film strip.

brakhage

Even though I found this article to be very wordy and technical at times, I enjoyed his writing style and the humor he included every so often. Here are a few things that stuck out to me as I was reading:

• The begninning pages served as a good refresher because he went over film leader types, emulsion and base sides, how a projector and viewer works and what the differences are, and later on in the article he went over f-stops and other important facets of photography and the camera.
• I thought it was interesting that in his side story about Melies and Pathe (couldn't figure out how to include accent marks on those names), that Pathe commented that "moving pictures were not for entertainment but for serious scientific purposes and to be used only as a recording device." I can't imagine someone thinking that about moving pictures seeing as how prominent they are in the entertainment world.
• In the part on splicing I found his method of "roughening-up" the film to be pretty interesting. When we spliced with tape in class it seemed so easy, and then to hear him talk about all of the problems and technicalities of splicing made me think twice on the process.
• Another line in the text that stuck out to me was him saying "synchronism is synonymous with aesthetic perfection." I never really thought about it but that holds very true to these types of works.
• My final point of interest was in his discussion of daylight and tungsten films. While I was semi-familiar with them from previous classes, reading about how colors will transform onto the different kinds of films was neat. For example, the fact that manufacturer's put the "sky" or blue color into Tungsten film so that without you adding a filter the colors will render more naturally.