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!

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! 

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!