The end?!

Here are my final blurbs.



So, to wrap up the class, here are my favorite projects rated(this is hard!!)
6-found footage
5- rhythmic edit- I think the main part of this project that was really fun was hanging out with Leanne and making Sushi! I learned a lot but I'm not really an editor (yet) so it was incredibly tedious.
4- 48 hour video race- I would rate this in the upper 1 2 or 3 except it's hard to compete with developing your own film and manipulating it. I'm really pleased with how this one turned out.
3-Long Take- The bolex is amazing! So is hanging out with the rest of the class and then watching your film develop right before your eyes!
2-Cameraless film- It says what words cannot, in forms of lyrical chaos.
1-Stop Motion Animation- Playtime! I love animating with stop motion. It's tedious, but I really get into it. My only complaint is that I wanted to do more when class ended, and I will...next semester!



GOODBYE 6X1!!!  IT'S BEEN A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH ALL OF YOU.

The 6X1 experimental experience

Wow! Our fort building skills have really evolved since back in the day. I was ready to start stacking chairs on top of the tables until Barrett suggested the Butterfly kit. Oh. Yeah, that worked too.... :)
Well done class!
It was really great learning about how to shoot in 3D, especially with all the 3D movies coming out like Piranha 2 in 3D being shot here Wilmington (and now they've got nothing on us).  I liked that
Anyways, as far as the screening in our fort, I was very surprised to see what everyone had came up with and what their "secrets" were. I always get nervous before screenings because I'm always hoping that nothing goes wrong with the sound/image or anything of that sort. I was really glad that I got some good feedback on mine, and I thought everyone did an excellent job. Hearing about the race at first was a bit confusing. We were all thinking it would be really tricky but it turns out that everyone had great unique ideas of their own and ran with them. When you have a story that you want to tell (whether is is narrative or lyrical) there is always an outlet and a medium for it. If you are doing a documentary where you don't have the time or access to the equipment you need, but you are going "underground" to get more footage, you're going to want to use what you have to show what you need to show. And it may be more appropriate for the content (of a secret) to come from a cell phone camera or to create something from your imagination using Maya.
Limitations really brought our creativity to life and helped us make some really original short films. Film is an art that is always expanding and changing, and I think that it is wonderful to see "cameras" in the forms of cell phones, computers, scanners, or any other new gadget that will be introduced in the future. As technology evolves, these gadgets become more accessible and affordable. Filmmaking is about picking up what you have available to you and capturing your surroundings to make a statement and spread the word, or just to have fun!

The Rough Theater

"I know why the caged bird sings." -Maya Angelou

I think that this is a well written article that is attempting to capture the spirit of the theater. The theater isn't a physical place. It is a small gathering of people who share a common interest and coming together in whatever conditions are available. Who would appreciate cinema more than a group of prisoners like the ones mentioned in this story? In times and places where the conditions are/were terrible, cinema is something that has the magical ability to get people involved, whether it be making their own films or enjoying those at a traveling theater. In times of censorship it serves as a weapon, a way around the oppression to symbolically insert symbols and visual images that show what is really going on behind the scenes.
Watching a film in a small gathering with others is the same concept as listening to a beautiful piece of music, reading a book, or playing a game. These are the things that set us free. Always have, always will. It's the reason we're here, because without these things, why else? 

It's about people opening their minds to a new world and sharing an experience together.
We are fortunate enough to have quite a few rough theaters here in Wilmington. The Brown Coat Pub and theater is a tiny building with a particular charm because the entire room is pretty much the stage. The lively actors reach out to an audience who have everything they need: each other, theater, and of course, a bar.
James Kruel always does his screenings at the opera room Monday nights at 9:00pm right when our 6x1 class ends, and I've had many good conversations with the film enthusiasts there. That place has also been the birthplace of some of my own personal ideas for projects.
I cannot wait to see the wonderful things my classmates have done with this 48 hour video race!

Beet stretch........................................... it's exactly what it sounds like

I listened to the first hour of the first track. It was really quiet at first and I thought, "where's the music? Why don't I hear it?" But slowly and surely I heard the note creeping in. It is really good ambiance to meditate to. As I was listening I was thinking hard (probably too hard) about what images it produced in my head. It felt as if I were going on an epic journey... but not necessarily a journey of my own. I thought of mountains, forming, growing, being worn down again. I think that I thought of this because the mountains are my place of origin and it tends to be where I do the best reflecting...but also the music comes in waves, making me automatically think of the contours and elevations of a landscape. The notes were suspenseful, but not in a way that caused anxiety... it was more of a humble acceptance. The long drawn out note made me feel as if I was waiting for something. It took awhile not to be impatient and wait for what was next but just to enjoy following the stretch. When I reached that point of acceptance, it was much more satisfying...and waiting out the moments of silence became more exciting than frustrating.

Like other forms of classical music, the songs are incredibly long. I am interested to hear more, I listened to the second track a bit as well. That track sounds more a little more mellow for some reason. It is unbelievable how long these notes can be held, and how slightly the notes vary during transitions. It seems like an organic thing, living, breathing, and changing. I cannot even fathom the amount of patience it took to create this. All I can say is that the composer must have been really lost in the zen. I wondered how someone might dance to this music...flowing slowly but freely--stretching in ways that seem physically impossible. Is also wondered what kind of film that this music may be attached to. Probably something fantastical, a mystical battle between good and evil, a journey in and out of black and white, stretching through the gray areas and being lifted toward the light. The motions that went along with this piece: stretching, floating, ascending. Never really falling, never really reaching a climax, but always coming incredibly close.

When I am free for a few hours and ever feel like working on my patience, I will attempt to listen to more beet stretch. I have never heard anything like it.

Lost Things

Lost Things by A Fine Frenzy

^I thought that this stop motion was sort of related to the article because of the surrealists looking at everyday objects in different ways. Plus, it looks cool. 

Molotov man and Ecstasy (the articles)

http://silvacine.com/classreadings/molotov.pdf

Wow, this man travelled a long way. Today, images, news and art travel faster than ever before. Everything is copied and pasted and forwarded. Things will be recycled a million times and reinterpreted over and over until they mean nothing similar to their original context. I believe that it is wrong to plagiarize—taking someone else’s idea and naming it as your own is unethical. But I also think that suing someone for thousands of dollars because another artist is tinkering with your idea is pretty ridiculous. If they give you credit, then it should be enough. If they take it and make money on it… then they probably beat you to it. It’s unfortunate, but it happens all the time. If you have one good idea or one good piece of work, then you’ll come up with another. People are cheated out of their own good ideas all the time, and those interested in money will try to bank on someone else’s work. There’s no reason for artists to be at war with one another. As the author of this article condones, it is mandatory to try to remember the original context of a photograph, especially in this case of the historical events in Nicaragua. If and when someone takes something and completely negates its historical text (for example: starting an evil cult that practices human sacrifice), that is a time that someone should take other measures if necessary.

We’re all in this together, and it is most important to maintain respect for others. If anything, there’s lessons to be learned from the rendition, whether it be a more expressionistic approach or a contrasting viewpoint.

 http://silvacine.com/classreadings/influenceletham.pdf

Everything comes from somewhere. The human experience is universal, and certain themes are timeless. I hadn’t even realized all of the references mentioned in here… such as the Disney references, south park, Simpsons, etc. The John Donne quote about all of mankind being one author is very appropriate for this discussion. Art and literature is a process, and quite a long one at that. As Donne mentioned, it is all a translation, retranslated over and over again. I think that creating a collage of different works is very different than plagiarism. Mixing and matching, comparing and contrasting in order to convey a new perspective has proven to be very creative and effective. It is very important to investigate literature and art closely, and then revisit it again throughout the years. Taking something old and turning it into something new is entertaining and enlightening. We discussed this in my creative writing class as well, and I think that the rule is that after an author has been dead a certain number of years then their work becomes a part of history and public domain. That is why someone could write the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies…which is exciting, and relevant (somehow).

This article summed up their point perfectly by saying that the primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors but to “promote the progress of Science and useful arts.” What is the point of creating something if you aren’t willing to share?

Great success!

If I must say so myself, today couldn't have went more smoothly. We did everything as CAREFULLY as possible, because we really wanted this one not to have any technical setbacks, seeing that we have had at least one technical problem on each of our projects it seems... but today definitely lifted my spirits again. I really feel like we all pitched in to help each other and worked as a team amazingly well. We arrived on time, set up the camera and projector, gathered our things and got to it. We helped Gabby's group first. Participating in their long take was a fun experience. Everyone was laughing and just having a good time. There was no pressure, and they knew what they were doing. Their idea of following the bee was excellent! I picked up the regular 8 camera and followed Barrett following the bee :) That little camera is so neat!! People laughed at me because I was so excited about it. I hope that the footage of that comes out looking okay! Anyways--Our two projects sort of went together because for our long take we decided to film a picnic. They also briefly had a picnic in theirs as well. They finished with a little bit of extra time, giving us time to walk to our area on a bridge over a pond near the International building and greenhouse. We sat up our intricate little picnic, which was lovely. Our idea stemmed from the Andy Goldsworthy documentary, because Amy and Emma had recently watched it in one of their classes, and I had also seen it. We originally wanted to create something in nature, but then we decided  to incorporate a picnic. We decorated the area with different colored flower pedals that we found walking on the way there. I sat out a teaset, and we sort of just timed out how we wanted to do our picnic. We also plan to play it backwards, so we did everything in reverse. This also saved time because we could set up while Gabby's group was processing, then just pack it all up in the 1 min that we filmed. Amy threw a pinecone into the pond so that it will look as if it leaps out of the water and lands in her hand when we play it in reverse. Emma was very good about writing down how we should time it. One setback of the day: Emma had her phone sitting on the banister of the bridge, and not mentioning any names but someone... (Andy) bumped it with his elbow and PLOP. It landed in the pond. We couldn't help it, we had to laugh. Later, Emma borrowed my rainboots and found it, believe it or not. We are wondering if it will work again after it dries out....

The footage looked great, there's a glamorous shot of me taking an enormous bite of a sandwich. HAH
Processing the film was a great experience. I learned so much! Leanne and I also were able to capture our  1st project (Dragon Sneeze) which we were really happy with! We are planning to submit it to the Reel Teel film fest. Everyone else seemed to have a great experience. It started raining the moment I pulled out of the parking lot. Talk about excellent timing!! We were a bit disappointed our teacher wasn't able to come and experience the day with us, but we really got it figured out together. Looking forward to seeing everyone's long takes!

ohhh boy oh boy

I'm excited about this one! Thinking on the feet. I can thank my mom for teaching me thrifty alternatives for pretty much all aspects of life. (Thanks mom!) Since this one is the project we're doing all by ourselves it will be really educational to see the different approaches (or similar approaches) that everyone in our class will take when doing this project. I love working in groups but I also enjoy getting lost in smaller projects to complete an idea of my own. I love having limitations and boundaries... it is helpful to give myself these because I constantly have to tell myself to think SMALLER and work within my means.
Since my film career had humble beginnings as a kid doing puppet shows for my family, I want to play with paper dolls and cutouts on my scanner at home. It'll be like old school cell animation with cutouts, drawings, paints, manipulated film strips, or even smaller 3D objects I have around the house. Can we use fragments from magazines or newspapers? Not entire images--but just to layer for some background images?  I want to make a giant moving collage. Actually... nevermind I can create my own word documents for that and then SNIP SNIP...
I could scan my hands or feet, or press my face against the scanner (because that will never get old). 
I'll probably take a conceptual narrative route. Something abstract, a little surreal. Perhaps with geometrical shapes influenced by cubism, and probably some Dali homage.
To create more layers in these images I scan, I'll need to find those clear overhead sheets of paper like the teachers used to write on with the vis-a-vis markers back in middle school. I enjoy working with my hands so I think that cutting and pasting and painting and drawing will be my main techniques I will use. Although I would like a good mixture between hand drawn and photo shopping. I'll mix in some "paint documents" and see what crazy effects I can find in photoshop that could refine (but not conceal) the raw aspects of the crafting.
Now that we've learned about how important sound is, I suppose I should think of a good way to record some original sounds. How can I record my own sounds without using a camera? Maybe there is a recorder on my phone....The sounds I'd like to record are the actual sounds that my scanner and printer makes. I'll record sounds as I make the video. It will draw attention to the process of HOW I made the animation. Maybe even the beeps or sounds the recorder's cues. I love the sounds that the scanner makes. I wish I could imitate it with words... EEEEEEE.... EEEEEEE. WHEEEEEEEE WHEEEE EEEE WHEEEE EHHH WEH EH WEH EH WEH EH.... hmm... am I close? Maybe the noise could be turned into some sort of abstract poem. Or maybe it is already. *shrugs*

RetrOspectiOn

Well, first of all it was my fault that ours didn’t work in the projector because I didn’t splice carefully enough. I don’t know what I was thinking! It was disappointing because we were really looking forward to seeing it projected. Lesson learned though. But anyways—from the few that I saw, I was really impressed! The tiny beads of paint and oil looked really intricate. In the ones I saw someone had animated an amoeba like structure which I thought was really appropriate for the assignment. Someone else animated a tiny worm inching its way across the frames. While creating ours we were sort of thinking about molecules and molecular structure of elements. Thinking of life on a microscopic scale is something that I would like to study more in depth.  Visualizations of mitosis and other natural phenomenon are fascinating… .suddenly I miss my biology classes.  Stan Brakhage does some amazing things through his lyrical images of origins of life on a broad scale all the way down to the fundamentals like in his Dog Star Man series. Moving images are the perfect way to integrate concepts such as these and dive deeper into making connections with these tiny objects that we cannot see on a regular basis, and then with a little imagination or animation we can see or experience their significance without just systematically studying terminology.

On a sort of related note: it’s like that show I watched when I was a kid called the Magic School bus, where the students could get into the bus and it would shrink to the size of a microbe in order to enter inside of someone’s throat and into their digestive system—or through their nose and into their brain. I love the idea of seeing things invisible to the naked eye, and when manipulating film there are still even smaller surprises that reveal themselves when projected on a larger scale.

http://www.thadpovey.com/sfj_index.html

The excerpts on this site were interesting. The St Louise one was fun to watch because of the vivid colors but I wasn’t particularly fond of the soundtrack. I really enjoyed the Elegy for Seven Falling Objects. The description of  it as a “film for lost explorers” pulled me in, and I liked the geometrical shapes. I’m trying to think of what would make a film manipulation really stand apart from the others. I think if someone who wasn’t familiar with this type of filmmaking might think that they all looked very similar…

My views on this type of filmmaking have changed because after learning the process it is much more engaging to look at for a longer period of time. I remember watching some of Brakhage’s films in other classes and thinking “wow this is kind of too long” but now after watching the ones in class I was wishing that they were longer. Looking forward to trying some more techniques.

Sound is important!

Projections of Sound on Image

I knew that sound was important, but this article explained more in depth than any other that I have  read. It taught about the senses and how they work, most specifically that ears work faster than the eye. Wow, I guess I never really thought about it because the added value is so involuntary. The visuals in cinema takes all the credit for what the sound helps direct the eyes to… according to the definite impression. I had never heard the words “vococentric” or “verbocentric,” so now I know that we are used to focusing on the verbal sounds of communication in our everyday lives. Sometimes we neglect to recognize the sounds of our natural surroundings because we are caught up in our own thoughts or small talk. I always knew that dialogue could sound cheesy in movies sometimes—I  think that in student films it would be much more helpful to focus less on dialogue and more on sound design. Not only because it takes a lot of practice to write natural sounding dialogue, but because sound has a huge impact on the way we process and remember what we see on the screen.

Acoustic Ecology

It’s so nice to read an article that isn’t written in film theory or critique! It is so important to be knowledgeable of all different subjects when filmmaking. I appreciated the scientific nature of this article. Reading about re-training our ears reminded me of my experience as a camp counselor this past summer. We all participated in exercises that helped the kids learn to listen to their surroundings in nature. When I closed my eyes and listened with them, I was somewhat surprised by the sounds I noticed. Even though we were out in the wilderness and next to a river, I was incredibly distracted by the sound of an airplane flying above us. Even though it was far away, it was really difficult to tune out. The way humans listen has definitely changed over the years/centuries. The kids noticed a lot of different sounds though, like leaves rustling, the dogs barking, the donkey neighing (it was on a farm). It’s great that we have programs like this that help people become reacquainted with things like this.

This article reminded me of another memory I have as well: One day I was walking downtown when I heard a bird… this particular bird was making the EXACT same sound as a siren or car alarm. I was amazed that it did such a specific pattern of annoying whirling noises, speeding up and slowing down. It definitely made me laugh. This probably affected his success with his mating call... as mentioned in the article.

Welles animation theory

I’m not sure if Welles is arguing that orthodox animation is boring, but I think he is mainly just drawing a comparison.I think that the younger generation is ready to see experimental brought into the “mainstream.” A good way to initiate this is through experimental animation. I think that experimental animation is a great way to cultivate an interest in film. I think that kids appreciate experimental techniques more than adults do, because they think in terms of abstract imagination. This is especially true in recent Internet generations where young people have the world at their fingertips. By exposing kids or an audience to animations that are self aware, their understanding of shapes, colors, rhythm, sound, music and movement is being cultivated in a uniquely entertaining way. Drawing attention to the process can provoke a curiosity that will lead to countless new and exciting techniques.  Narrative cel animation can be appreciated for what it is, but just like with the Hollywood formula, newer audiences may begin to crave something more involved and less predictable. Disney is distinct for its narrative of a realistic fantasy, and Warner Brothers is distinct for its specific humor based on character conventions. Duck Amuck was an important crossover that played around with the idea that there is a person controlling the fate of Daffy Duck. I always thought this was clever, even if they just did it for a laugh. I think it’s great for the audience to feel included and people to walk away from a short film or animation feeling inspired, looking at everyday objects in different ways. I think it’s great when the viewer can experience the film along with the filmmaker. The animation that Welles talks about can transcend conventions and stand on its own.

film manipulation thus far

 

It is very liberating to know that imperfections can make a film strip aesthetically pleasing. Spilling and splattering oils liquids inks and paint all happen to be part of something I am pretty good at: making a huge mess. Only in this case, it involves doing something productive! How wonderful. Gathering little knick nacks for rayograms was really neat. I tried little nails, staples, a comb, ribbon, paperclips, beads, glitter, sugar, bobby pins, toothpicks, safety pins, clothes pins, rocks, bolts, hair clips, etc. After exposing and developing the film strips in the dark room I noticed that the smaller and thinner objects like the staples, nails, and glitter all turned out looking the best because the closer the object is to the film the more distinct the shape. The paperclips were noticeable as well. I think my favorite things were the staples that I used were the staples though, because you can arrange them in rectangular patterns that sort of give an impression of square shaped pixels. The sugar I used turned out looking interesting as well, it was sugar in the raw so the grains were bigger and more see through. I wonder what it would look like to use little tiny magnifying glasses on the film. I'm interested to see how the last batch with the sprocket holes turned out.

I'm thinking that the manipulation I work on will end up being pretty abstract, since it is our first time doing this. Making an animation like the one we watched on the first day must have taken forever! Something like that must be very tedious so I admire anyone who has the patience to do such a thing. Who knows, it could be like a meditation, drawing and scratching so many similar shapes over and over again. I look forward to trying to create a method to the madness. I’m going to take all the information I learned from an art teacher I had about a year ago. She was the one who taught us to really work on a painting by working the layers over and over again because it is the only way to make some really interesting colors and effects. So to start off we plan to use paint on our clear strip and show some gradual changes in colors. Once we have an interesting back drop we are going to start scratching, chipping, and bleaching, using the method of subtraction. I love that we won’t be able to see it until after we finish everything. Hands on contact with film is so intimate! Happy Vday to us.