For some reason the quality looks horrible but you can still get the idea...
Monday, December 12, 2011
Experimental: Looking Back
Well, it was a crazy semester but I am still alive! This class was wonderful. I took this class purely for fun, and fun it was. Experimental helped me to break out of my shell as a filmmaker, I pushed myself to really go for it and try new styles of film. The self portrait project was definitely something I would not have done on my own, however, I am proud to the end results and I believe my message come through well. At the very least, it looked cool! Ha.
The music video was my favorite project of the semester. I LOVE LOVE LOVE shooting with film and I had never shot on Super 8 before so that aspect alone was just magical. Being the cinematographer, I was quite nervous, what if the exposure was off or the film did not load right and we were left with nothing?! (AHH!!) Thankfully, everything was fine. Even with very little time for preproduction Chris and I were able to come up with a very interesting plan. By using a bit of camera trickery, matting, and LOTS of planning we were able to execute a simple but awesome video (in my opinion).
I was also very happy with how the installation piece turned out. With so many things that could go wrong, everything went smooth. Visually the piece was beautiful and the message/ crowd interaction was great also. Since we were the first to go people were a little shy but I think it was a great icebreaker for the night! As I was watching what people were doing to our two "technology trance" actors, one of whom was my boyfriend and the other a great friend, I was thinking "oh gosh, I hope they knew what they were getting into by agreeing to be in the installation" and also a little worried that I might be single by the time it was done! HA! Just kidding. Kind of. Any who, I was very pleased about how it all turned out.
The soundscape project and even the sound and light observation exercised we did gave me a much greater understanding and appreciation of them. I though it was extremely interesting how much the emotions of the soundscapes changed once we add the photographs to them, weird. Gathering sounds for the sound library allowed me to be creative about creating sounds, which is something I had never done before. I am confident that I could accomplish it on my own in future projects too.
Overall, we had a great semester. I learned a lot about my classmates, some I knew but got to know better and some I had never met before. I always looked forward to seeing what everyone else had done with their projects. It was really cool how different everyones work was even though we had the same assignments. I created friendships, memories, and overall knowledge and experience with filmmaking that I will never forget. Thank you Shannon for another fabulous semester!
The music video was my favorite project of the semester. I LOVE LOVE LOVE shooting with film and I had never shot on Super 8 before so that aspect alone was just magical. Being the cinematographer, I was quite nervous, what if the exposure was off or the film did not load right and we were left with nothing?! (AHH!!) Thankfully, everything was fine. Even with very little time for preproduction Chris and I were able to come up with a very interesting plan. By using a bit of camera trickery, matting, and LOTS of planning we were able to execute a simple but awesome video (in my opinion).
I was also very happy with how the installation piece turned out. With so many things that could go wrong, everything went smooth. Visually the piece was beautiful and the message/ crowd interaction was great also. Since we were the first to go people were a little shy but I think it was a great icebreaker for the night! As I was watching what people were doing to our two "technology trance" actors, one of whom was my boyfriend and the other a great friend, I was thinking "oh gosh, I hope they knew what they were getting into by agreeing to be in the installation" and also a little worried that I might be single by the time it was done! HA! Just kidding. Kind of. Any who, I was very pleased about how it all turned out.
The soundscape project and even the sound and light observation exercised we did gave me a much greater understanding and appreciation of them. I though it was extremely interesting how much the emotions of the soundscapes changed once we add the photographs to them, weird. Gathering sounds for the sound library allowed me to be creative about creating sounds, which is something I had never done before. I am confident that I could accomplish it on my own in future projects too.
Overall, we had a great semester. I learned a lot about my classmates, some I knew but got to know better and some I had never met before. I always looked forward to seeing what everyone else had done with their projects. It was really cool how different everyones work was even though we had the same assignments. I created friendships, memories, and overall knowledge and experience with filmmaking that I will never forget. Thank you Shannon for another fabulous semester!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Installation Update
Our creative juices are flowing for the installation project! After getting feedback from last weeks class, as well as, brainstorming and planning more as a group, we have come up with some pretty cool stuff. We are still going with the clashing characteristics of the people with their eyes glued to the television and the dancers behind the screen. As long as our peoples pull through and everything works out like we hope, its going to break down like this...
We plan to have hopefully three (but we will settle for two if need be) people sitting in chairs facing a television that with be hooked up to a camera that is pointed directly at the people sitting. So basically the people sitting will be staring at themselves on the television, who are sitting and staring at themselves. They will NOT break eye contact with the television and will be as still as possible. They will show no emotions except for the completely numb looks with lethargic and glassed over eyes. They will remain like this during the entire installation.
While the couch potatoes (people staring at the tv) are sitting and staring, we will have three silk screens surrounding them. One will be behind the television and the other two will be on either side of it making a 3 sided cube or possibly more of a fan shape depending on how much space we have (we need enough space for the audience to easily walk through). Each screen will be set up and secured with C-stands. Directly behind each screen (on the outside of the installation- not where the audience will be walking) will be a person. There will be one light from an Arri kit behind each person silhouetting them and transferring their shadow onto the silk screen that will be visible to the audience. The person in the middle will (hopefully) be a guitarist who will be playing low key, mellow chords on the guitar. The movement of the guitarists hands and body will be visible, however, his face and identity will not. The other two screens, that will be on either side of the guitarist, will be female dancers. The dancers will be calmly moving their body to the smooth tunes with complete fluidity.
Though we have most of the installation worked out, we are still trying to figure out ways to really get the audience involved. I think it would still be pretty darn cool without any audience involvement besides them simply walking through, however, it would make it MUCH better if there was some way to connect everyone.
Overall, our message is to represent how the growth of technology and the media has completely taken over the younger generations lives. It is my hope that the juxtaposition of the mindless people starting at the television against the creativity of music and dance will illustrate that representation. If anyone has any suggestions or comments, I am ALL ears! I can't wait to see how everyones installation turns out!
We plan to have hopefully three (but we will settle for two if need be) people sitting in chairs facing a television that with be hooked up to a camera that is pointed directly at the people sitting. So basically the people sitting will be staring at themselves on the television, who are sitting and staring at themselves. They will NOT break eye contact with the television and will be as still as possible. They will show no emotions except for the completely numb looks with lethargic and glassed over eyes. They will remain like this during the entire installation.
While the couch potatoes (people staring at the tv) are sitting and staring, we will have three silk screens surrounding them. One will be behind the television and the other two will be on either side of it making a 3 sided cube or possibly more of a fan shape depending on how much space we have (we need enough space for the audience to easily walk through). Each screen will be set up and secured with C-stands. Directly behind each screen (on the outside of the installation- not where the audience will be walking) will be a person. There will be one light from an Arri kit behind each person silhouetting them and transferring their shadow onto the silk screen that will be visible to the audience. The person in the middle will (hopefully) be a guitarist who will be playing low key, mellow chords on the guitar. The movement of the guitarists hands and body will be visible, however, his face and identity will not. The other two screens, that will be on either side of the guitarist, will be female dancers. The dancers will be calmly moving their body to the smooth tunes with complete fluidity.
Though we have most of the installation worked out, we are still trying to figure out ways to really get the audience involved. I think it would still be pretty darn cool without any audience involvement besides them simply walking through, however, it would make it MUCH better if there was some way to connect everyone.
Overall, our message is to represent how the growth of technology and the media has completely taken over the younger generations lives. It is my hope that the juxtaposition of the mindless people starting at the television against the creativity of music and dance will illustrate that representation. If anyone has any suggestions or comments, I am ALL ears! I can't wait to see how everyones installation turns out!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Installation Idea
Everyone, especially myself, were very intrigued with Bill Viola's interactive style of Video Art Installation. Personally, I really liked how a lot of his installations are pieces where the audience walks into it, separating it from everything else. Since there will be a lot going on in the Playground the night of the installation projects, the idea of having a project that is separated from everything else will really be a nice touch!
We are still brainstorming and working out the kinks but as of now we are going to take these four shadow boards (they are the same idea as a paint canvas but instead of a thick canvas fabric they are silk - the ones from The Calico Room) and put them into a square with one side that people can walk into. On the outside we are going to have lights (probably with gels in front of them) and people and/ or shapes that will be creating the shadows onto the outside of the shadow board while the audience is inside of the 4 boards all with different images projected onto them. We will also probably have some audio, whether its music, recorded sounds, etc., that will accompany our overall theme of the installation!
We are still brainstorming and working out the kinks but as of now we are going to take these four shadow boards (they are the same idea as a paint canvas but instead of a thick canvas fabric they are silk - the ones from The Calico Room) and put them into a square with one side that people can walk into. On the outside we are going to have lights (probably with gels in front of them) and people and/ or shapes that will be creating the shadows onto the outside of the shadow board while the audience is inside of the 4 boards all with different images projected onto them. We will also probably have some audio, whether its music, recorded sounds, etc., that will accompany our overall theme of the installation!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Cucalorus!
This weekend has been one of the most exciting weekend, and one of the most exhausting weekends of my life! I loved every second of this crazy weekend but boy am I starting out the week tired. The Cucalorus event started for me on Tuesday when Norwood Cheek spoke in our class. It was very awesome meeting such a cool filmmaker and I really enjoyed seeing his music videos, especially since we had just turned in our film for the music video shot on Super 8mm. Norwood was a super nice guy whom I became pretty good friends with during the festival! I really liked this part of his presentation where he said, “when in doubt, dissolve” what he means by this is yeah a dissolve is an easy way out, but if you “have to” dissolve, something just isn’t working for ya!
I started the festival off with a work-in-progress documentary, which was very interesting since I had never been to a work-in-progress. The filmmakers, whom were two beautiful women, would show a 15-minute or so clip that we would then discuss as a group after. I was very interested in this documentary because it was discussing the need for industrial hemp to be legalized and the issues that surround that topic. Afterwards, I spoke more with the filmmakers one on one and they offered me an internship with them! I quickly whipped out my card and made plans to meet up with them after Thanksgiving to talk more, the festival was off to a great start!
I went to numerous screenings, most were feature length documentaries and narratives but a few shorts blocks as well. Some of my favorite films that I saw were; Tyrannosaur, King of Devils Island, Happy Happy, Kumare, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Boy and Fresh Swkeezed. This years line up was quit dark. Pretty much every film was violent or depressing (or both) and I believe that is because of where the world is right now. Times are hard for everyone and that is absolutely coming out in the films that are being made.
The shorts in this year’s festival were defiantly on the longer side! Most were 20-30 minutes. The two shorts that really stood out to me where Boy and Fresh Skweezed. Boy was a cinematically beautiful film about a young boy in the transformation into a young adult. I did really like Fresh Skweezed but I felt like it was a little too long. If they had shaved five minutes off of it, it would have made it a stronger film. Overall, I really enjoyed the film Fresh Skweezed, the main actress was absolutely amazing, I met the directors that night and they were so nice and very cool people!
The final screening of the festival was Norwood Cheek's 10x10, which was 10 bands and 10 filmmakers who raced to make a video over the weekend. They turned out great! Kruel's video however, was by far the best. Describing it will not at all do the film justice but in a nut shell it was Kruel dancing and playing the game instruments (guitar from guitar hero, ect) in the most amazing costumes. This block was a lot of fun, everyone was in a great mood, cheering and laughing a lot, having one last hoorah of the weekend. So, I started off Cucalorus with Norwood, and finished up with Norwood!
I met some of the most amazing people this weekend. There were filmmakers from all over the world, from all different backgrounds and ages, but EVERYONE was so kind. We all had a wonderful time with one another and experiencing the festival in general. Cucalorus was extremely special for me not only because I was so honored to get a pass and see all the wonderful films, but also it was so refreshing to be reminded of how rewarding filmmaking is. I have been so wrapped up in school lately that sometimes I forget what I am striving for, and Cucalorus defiantly brought that back to me. Overall, I had an absolutely amazing weekend. I am very sad that it is over but I sure am tired!
Monday, November 7, 2011
Project 3 (Music Video) Film Shoot
Our third project for Experimental was to shoot a music video of a song that we could secure the rights for and using Super 8mm film to shoot on. This was my first time using Super 8 so it was pretty exciting! We did a video for the song "Radar" by the local band Apollo on Fire. My position in the shoot was DP so Chirs (the director) and I worked together to come up with a great idea for the video and create a storyboard and overheads.
We executed the preproduction of the film wonderfully so the production when extremely smooth. Chris had calculated the length of each shot (plus a few extra seconds to be safe) and figured out that we had enough film to shoot everything we wanted plus extra takes (room for mistakes and just other options). Our group worked as a team to get the set design laid out the way we wanted, lights set up, camera and focus ready and practiced the camera movement before out actor (the lead singer of Apollo on Fire) arrived. The group collaborated on everything, from the best way to accomplish the needed shots down to what equipment needed to be check out, who would pick it up and return, what props we needed to acquire, etcetera. We worked diligently and professionally to accomplish our desired shots. The editing of the project will really be the cherry on top and truly create this fantastic video.
As the DP for the project I was a little nervous about being responsible for shooting the Super 8mm film. What if the film was not loaded correctly and none of the film turned out (AHH!!)? What if the focus was not perfect? Or if the exposure was a little bit off? Thats the more nerve racking thing about shooting on film instead of digital. However, I have to just trust myself and my knowledge of film and know that it will all be okay! :) We will see!
We executed the preproduction of the film wonderfully so the production when extremely smooth. Chris had calculated the length of each shot (plus a few extra seconds to be safe) and figured out that we had enough film to shoot everything we wanted plus extra takes (room for mistakes and just other options). Our group worked as a team to get the set design laid out the way we wanted, lights set up, camera and focus ready and practiced the camera movement before out actor (the lead singer of Apollo on Fire) arrived. The group collaborated on everything, from the best way to accomplish the needed shots down to what equipment needed to be check out, who would pick it up and return, what props we needed to acquire, etcetera. We worked diligently and professionally to accomplish our desired shots. The editing of the project will really be the cherry on top and truly create this fantastic video.
As the DP for the project I was a little nervous about being responsible for shooting the Super 8mm film. What if the film was not loaded correctly and none of the film turned out (AHH!!)? What if the focus was not perfect? Or if the exposure was a little bit off? Thats the more nerve racking thing about shooting on film instead of digital. However, I have to just trust myself and my knowledge of film and know that it will all be okay! :) We will see!
Monday, October 31, 2011
A Night at the Movies: From Art House to "Microcinema"
This article by Rebecca M. Alvin was very interesting but had a underlying sense of nostalgia. Alvin starts off by explaining that most of the art houses closed by the mid- 90's as a result of videotapes and the ease of watching films in the comfort of one's own living room. However, certain films that were harder to attain, like foreign and independent films, remained in the few art houses that were still open. Alvin then talks about the difficulty of defining what is and is not considered labeled an "independent film." Some major factors in the disappearing of art house cinemas are due to the financial issues that makes programming independent films risky, the grown of home entertainment systems, and the final is the intertwining of mainstream and art-house audiences.
Although a majority of microcinemas have disappeared, there are still "makeshift" theaters in many communities. Some are in cafes, basements, bars, or like the Aurora Picture Show, in churches! Even in Wilmington we have a few small microcinemas. Thalian Hall puts on "Cinematique" which has a older audience so it tends to be more "mainstream independent" films. However, James Kreul shows more rare independent films every Monday night in the second floor of a local bar in downtown Wilmington called The Opera Room. Not only is it not in a historic theater like Cinematique is, but it a makeshift theater where they simple put up a screen and close heavy curtains to block the sound from the bar downstairs. No matter where the independent art house films are being shown, the environment of watching and discussing them is what creates the full experience!
Although a majority of microcinemas have disappeared, there are still "makeshift" theaters in many communities. Some are in cafes, basements, bars, or like the Aurora Picture Show, in churches! Even in Wilmington we have a few small microcinemas. Thalian Hall puts on "Cinematique" which has a older audience so it tends to be more "mainstream independent" films. However, James Kreul shows more rare independent films every Monday night in the second floor of a local bar in downtown Wilmington called The Opera Room. Not only is it not in a historic theater like Cinematique is, but it a makeshift theater where they simple put up a screen and close heavy curtains to block the sound from the bar downstairs. No matter where the independent art house films are being shown, the environment of watching and discussing them is what creates the full experience!
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