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!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
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*
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*
Monday, March 7, 2011
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.
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.
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