theater

when i was told that we should bring orange food and blankets to class i seriously thought that we were going to put the food on the blankets and make some kind of weird experimental film. my backup thought was that we were going to make a screen outside and the blankets were to keep us warm. i definitly didnt think we were going to make a fort in class. thats was absolutely amazing. if all campers had access to 30 grip clips and a cstand i dont think anyone would ever have any problems.

watching the films inside the fort was really fun. it worked a lot better than i was expecting. everyones projects turned out so good and i was surprised that they were all so different!! i dont think that any two were alike. i really really liked jessicas. it was so freaking creepy. i was really impressed by all of them.

and most impressive of all- no orange soda got spilled!

48 hour race

ah. the 48 hour race. baby food, andre?? REALLY?

i thought the hardest part of this would be coming up with a solid idea in time to film and edit it. thats usually always the worst part. but the idea came to me pretty quickly becuase i linked baby food to baby toys and was able to create a whole town. my sister is a baby therapist so i had all kinds of kid shit at my disposal. i wanted to put something inside the baby food jars to imitate blood and guts but that wouldnt be so gross and gory. i baked rice (mixed with red food coloring and vinegar) and decided that would be their guts. then i had to wait. and wait. i had to shoot outside because i needed the sunlight and grass.

so the first day went all to the preparation- tieing strings to all the cars and people, baking the rice, planning the shots. the second day i actually went out and shot it on my sisters shitty digital camera. the hardest part was keeping my shadow out of the frame while pulling the cars. editing and sound came pretty easily and then i had my completed- somewhat warped- public transportation short.

Yes Men

The yes men was really funny. i wasnt expecting that at all when i saw we were watching a feature about found footage. i would like to see the rest of it since we didnt get to finish watching it in class. their idea is absolutely genius. it blows my mind and is actually a bit terrifying that these guys go to conferences with people who run the world and the business gurus have no idea whats going on. they sit there and nod and except everything they hear. people email their fake website and invite them to meetings and everything!!

i was thinking about doing something like this for my found footage project but i decided i would do something im more passionate about. i am straight edge (drug/alcohol free) and i want to compile a bunch of video/image/sound of people acting like fools when they are on drugs or drunk to kind of point out how stupid the whole thing is. i know it wont change anyones mind but at least its something that show the reality of it all.

3dzzz

when i found out that we were shooting 3d i really didnt know how it would turn out. i didnt really think it was going to work because the cameras didnt seem very secure. it would be interesting to see how the one turned out where we were running down the hallway and pushing the "dolly". probably didnt work at all...

but the ones that did turn out were pretty cool. the one with creepy backwards-head girl worked the best for me. it was weird because the action was focused on the ninjas but the girl was actually the part that seemed disconnected and more 3d than the rest. it would have been nice if those stupid creative writing assholes wouldn't have lingered in the frame..

i thought forever that 3d was some huge elaborate thing and i didn't know that we could do it ourselves. it wasn't too hard and i feel like i could do it again. and making the 3d glasses was really fun. i want to make a better planned 3d movie now!

long take blolbolbolbobl

I was surprised that we were able to block, shoot, develop, and screen/transfer to video all in four hours. It was nice not to have to wait 2 weeks to see how the film turned out. I feel very good about how mine turned out. Although it wasn't required, it managed to have a beginning/middle/end and tell a story in 56 seconds. The other groups played more with transitioning and turning people into other people. I would have liked to use some of those transitions as well but it was difficult in the time and space we were allowed to use (and still make sense in our weird pumpkin/scream love story).

I am looking foward to seeing how everyone incorporates sound into their films. Since we can't use music, i think the sound is going to be really really noticable. For me, when their is music i can hear it but i focus mostly on the image. Without music, i obviously focus on the image but its kind of distracting because everyone is so accustom to hearing music through popular television and films. I find myself thinking about how quiet the room is when i watch a completely silent film. Anyways... these projects will have sound but i still think it will be distracting depending on how people edit them. It could add to it or it could take away from it. Guess i wont know until i see them...

chion

Sound is definitely a really powerful tool in filmmaking. The way Chion talks about viewing Persona without sound and how it completely changes everything reminded me of taking an intro level class with Berliner and he showed us a clip from Psycho. Then he showed it to us again without the sound. It was absolutely ridiculous and boring. Someone slowly walking around has no meaning or no intensity AT ALL without sound. Even the famous shower scene was dull without the high pitched sound that most people associate with the stabbing motion (although the sound does not actually occur in sync with the stabbing).

I personally first learned the how critical the sound is during Intermediate Editing. I spent a lot of time gathering all my clips and stuff for my experimental film and then went to add a song and print to video and i all of a sudden slammed into a wall. I looked for hours and hours and hours for the type of song that i wanted for my film. I really had no idea how hard it was going to be to find a song that would give my editing project the right feel. I decided that next time i would start with the soundtrack and work backwards... building the experimental film off of the sound/speech/etc.

There is a huge difference between the films we watch in class with sound and without. I find the ones with sound way more interesting. I think its because through our entire lives we have watched films with some sort of sound. Even silent films have songs. So to watch a film with no sound at all is really uncomfortable for me. The cuts are so much more noticeable without the sound bridges and it feels incomplete.

wells

I can definitly see why the orthodox animation style is much more popular with mainstream society. I'd say that the majority of people who watch animation (cartoons for children/adult swim type of cartoons for adults) just want something that is easy to follow and dont take a lot of thinking on their part. They just want to be entertained. The audiences for experimental animation are much smaller. The complexities and unclear story/meaning are probably too much for average mass audiences.

The absence of the artist in orthodox animation is something that ive never noticed but is totally true. If you walked up to a random person on the street, they probably couldn't name one animator. This is because most mainstream cartoons and movies are all formed following a mold that people are used to seeing. Different animators have to comform to what everyone wants. However, when doing experimental animation, anything goes. An artist can create their own style and claim it in all their films.