6x1 part deux

I wish there was a 6x1 part 2 because I would sign up for it without a doubt as soon as I could and then maybe audit it every year after that. I think that if you had a follow up class then it would only strengthen my skills and knowledge of making fantastic experimental films and cameraless films. That would be great, to get a better understand and practice, learn more about, hand painting on film, animating straight onto the film and understand what the outcome of each stroke would be and each move, color, how it would look with it's projected. And the rhythmic edit was probably my favorite and even though I know I could do that on my own in my own time to make movies but when I have to do it for class it's more motivating and creatively stimulating. The super 8 animation is probably also at the top of my list as being the most awesome and I would really like to do that again in a class room setting, with you there to make sure that what we are filming is actually going to come out.  I tried to do a stop animation for my 48-hr vid race but it didn't come out as well, the lighting was way off and so was the focus and everything who knows.  I think that it is helpful to learn these techniques of stop animation and camera less film making when you have the tools and supplies accessible to you. The last two film projects that I've worked on haven't turned out what I thought at all and i know that if I was in class or had someone one around with much more knowledge and confidence than it probably would have come out better.  

I'm really stoked that 6x1 is going to continue to reign the experimental production side of film studies, and i wish that I could be here when you do expand to follow up 6x1 class, I know that you are full of ideas and techniques to teach us it just depends on if the school has the budget and if there were enough students interested, it's hard to believe but it's true. 

Yes Men

The yes men were totally awesome for what they do in the world of the media and crooked politics! They make it look so easy to scam a bunch of intellectuals that are suppose to be hearing speeches by scholarly politicians! They totally joke on everyone that "believes" in our government, and it's international relations.  

Their documentary relates to this found footage project because they are using other people's identities or work as their own credit to achieve pranks and scandals.  A lot of culture jamming filmmakers use clips from news and media, politics and celebrities to make them look stupid, which they usually are. I found in my project that it really wasn't very hard to achieve that, usually new anchors will just say stupid stuff like they are asking you to cut it up and make a culture jamming short film mocking them.  It's insane, the way the way that our media and government works, and to think that the yes men can get away with everything they do and lie about, it shows that with the internet you never really know how true your resources are. 

I think that this kind of filmmaking and activism in the media/film community is super important to reflecting on how we perceive all the media that streams in daily.  

I enjoy watching really good edits to found footage and culture jamming projects, I think they are funny and witty, and aaron valdez is amazing! I think that it is kind of a joke for intellectuals that cuts back at deceiving and melodramatic news shows, and reality shows, and anything really that is going on in entertainment.  It's hard to relate to those people that get sucked in to the mindless and trivial world of entertainment, I'd much rather see it piece together, getting a straight point across and bashing on the media news crews at the same time. 

It was hard for me to get started on this project because I couldn't grasp a solid concept or theme for what i wanted to do.  I don't keep up with the media/entertainment either so it was hard to relate something that is recent and interesting. It didn't take long though once I got on youtube and just checked out popular videos in recent news and i got an idea and easily reached one minute...I think i achieved it well. It just came so fast, and I feel like I got alot of extra footage that i could have made at least a 3 min cut, it probably would've gotten boring by that point though, who knows.  

about that Molotov man

I think that art should be shared and celebrated without the involvement of money sucking lawyers. I mean really, why is everyone always trying to make a buck, pick a fight, and gains rights to some shit that should be welcomed and respected! The painting is a representation of the photograph by Susan and I feel that she should be credited, but just as Susan can sell prints of her photograph I think that Joy should be able to legally sell her artwork prints. I think that it is really ridiculous the amount of greed in this world today and it really does detract from the purity and expressiveness that is art.  I feel like artists should work together to create pieces and movements that can show their conceptualization of a subject in all ways possible.  A photograph says one thing, and a painting can create another emotion. One person can see it one way and another something totally different.  We are all unique and we should work to coexist and accept each others artistic style and ways of expressing that.  I like to look at other art work to gain inspiration for myself, often times copying something to look exactly like another work of art.  I don't sell it but I still celebrate it as my own.  It is my own interpretation of what the original piece was.  I feel like if we were all forced away from using other people work as an example to work from or gain inspiration than it would restrict the amount of people and personalities that could have come together over it. I feel like they dealt with the situation well, and it probably was just the lawyer that wanted to pick a fight and make some money because that's all this world is about.  

This is completely relevant to the project that we are working on right now, the found footage edit, and I am having a lot of trouble trying to develop a concept that I feel good about and will come across well and clean, and I just don't know.  I don't feel like I keep up enough with the media to really get a good topic to make my film on. I could see myself completely copying something that someone has already done like Valdez or PEZ and not even knowing because I'm not in the loop.  Anyways though I feel like whatever I would create, whether the footage is archived or already been worked into some culture jamming collage, it would still be unique to me.  That's pretty much my moral is that everything that I create even if it is a recreation is unique to me and my style. It's up to me to interpret and express art in my own way whether is is similar to someone elses or not.  People should look for the differences and try to understand them and just recognize that they are there before assuming that two things are copies of one another therefore they have the same meaning. Art is always evolving in it's content and it's meaning.  there is no clear, universal definition of art that everyone can agree on, the human element is what determines their our meaning of the word art, along with what works and what doesn't. so don't worry about it!

ideas for video race

With this project I really want to be overly creative and revolutionary but I think that all i'm going to come up with is the same as everyone elses! I'll probably honestly try to incorporate multiple techniques so it's more of a collage effect, I'll use digital stills for sure, I really liked the way the continuous shots in jos and my rhythmic edit turned out so I'll try to use that, and then definitely some animation and I have this old polaroid that I really want to use but the film is way expensive so I'm not sure if I should make that investment or not, we'll see! 

I'm really excited about it coming at the end of the cheese sandwich festival because between making a film for that, putting the festival together, and then having our 6x1 project it's going to wrap up to a good night and I'll be relieved when it's over for a little while. 

with this project it's kind of hard to plan any idea because I don't know what the prop is going to be! I really loved some of the ones from last night, like Dustins that was made from his mac camera and was a good idea....I don't think I want to sit in front of my computer and take millions of still photos though, the mirror effects was really sick though. Also I thought that russ's and dylans were pretty killer, russ is just crazy creative and for some reason had a ton of random electronics laying around, but dylans was a little more close to home with me with some construction paper animation. AFter our super 8 footage came out so awesome I've really been inspired to work with some kind of animation, it was a lot of work but it was definitely worth it! and the actual shooting time was done in less that 48 hrs so that will definitely be an option for me. i hate this anxiety of waiting for it, i'm ready to get the prop on monday and do it and it be genius and rock and it was like a creative spurt that you can't recreate or plan for. 

st. scratch junkies

sick. the way they use the entire frame makes it look like they had way more room than 16mm, or what we used, I mean granite they are probably way more professional and experienced but I really liked the opening with the makes center used to make horizontal spaces where they then add texts, it's really stimulated and confusing to me. one day i'll get it maybe. I'm not yet confident with the animation process, by that i mean i don't really understand the relation of what i draw on the frame and then how it become a progress image...and which way I draw it, how it moves etc. I know you'll answer all that for me when I take modes of animation in the future. I think i prefer the freedom of hand painting and not really having much restriction other than the actual frame, but the fact of not knowing what it's going to look like at first makes it a little more carefree to me. 

I really like their manipulation with the print stock. it looked like india ink over all but the face of the one guy, it was very neat. also I was impressed by the way they created texture in one sequence...it looked like green germs where floating through the film, under a microscope kind of. it was really cool. there was also a sequence of lines that were dark brown and had a cool abstract form and texture that was very visually pleasing, it looked like maybe a bunch on skinny strings that were lightly tied together at the ends to that the space between made them looser and fuller, who knows if that's what they did but that would be an interesting technique the next time i try a rayogram. 

The masking stuff was super too with the criss cross pattern and the small circles with the hand painted in the background. I really like the use of depth on the flat surface of a film strip. It's hard to achieve but I think that they've practiced enough and it shows, i really love their work it is like art and if i had a projector in my house I would just project that onto the walls for my centerpiece. 

it seemed like a slower frame rate too at some points which help to mentally caputre everything, with 24 or 18 fps images just whiz by and you can't fully see or take in everything that's in the picture, i'll be glad when I get the video rec of our elements project and I can twerk it and hold it in some places, it'll be nice. 

sounds like

Chion is so right about the way that sound creates mood and an possibly an entire different meaning when paired when an image on screen. of course everyone in hollywood wants to make it seem as real as possible even though it is entirely made up in post production, i like the idea of putting sound to things that don't necessarily make that noise.  But the way that sound moves me when I watch a movie is a big impact on the way that i interpret the film. like scary movies for instance, i dont' really like watching them, they scare me! I jump in the movie theater and I cover my eyes when gross things happen on screen but when that doesn't work i just walk out...like i had to in one of the late saw movies because even after covering my eyes the sound of him crushing his ankle with the back of the toilet i couldn't take it...and i have to leave. and usually when i jump in scary movies, everyone always says it's because someone jumps out at you but really its the sudden loud banging noise or screeching or just really the sudden burst of sound that legitimately frightens me...and makes me jump. I liked the idea of when he was talking about how the sound can be indifferent to the image and that creates an intensified perception rather than an apathetic one, it really makes the viewer more aware of what is happening on screen because the music doesn't allude to anything in particular. even though i am aware of the ways that sound can affect the way a movie is perceived i'm still not sure how to capture that, or make that happen for my films. in the rhythmic edit that we are getting ready to turn in i want to create my own soundtrack that in itself has a rhythm too but i'm not very good with garage band and i'm not very musicly inclined with any instruments (except the tamborine) but who knows, hopefully i'll be able to create something that aides in the excitement of joselyn's actions on screen. 

so far

I think my favorite form of cameraless filmmaking has been the magazine transfers.  Even though i couldn't really spot mine out of the reel i just like the way that the pixelations look projected and I think i have a better idea on how to make a more prominent pattern that is more distinguishable.  It was also super easy which i like too, i know that me and joselyn are going to use that technique in our elements projects somewhere.  I really like doing the rayograms, they were really unique and just interesting, and helpful in understanding the process of developing film but the only thing that i didn't really like about it was that i had no idea what i was doing! haha i didnt' know at all what it was going to look like after the process and i was kind of bummed that some of the objects that i brought didn't make as cool of patterns as i thought they would.  I suppose i just need more practice like anything else, but i'm not sure how i feel about messing with those chemicals on my own...a little sketchy.  I've decided after taking this class that it is imperative for me to invest in a projector, i mean it would be so awesome to keep messing with film and then being able to project it and notice what exactly i've done and what i need to do, i guess i'll be looking on ebay for one soon. I liked painting on the film with the oil it created great speccales that i loved and in the other application it created great flowing mixs of the colors and was just beautiful, i really loved it! Joselyn had some india ink that we got into a little bit but i wasn't able to see exactly what it looked like because it hadn't dried in class yet, i think that it will look great though with our fire section of the elements project, hopefully it will look like ash or soemthing. The bleaching was pretty awesome too, she put it on print stock that we had and it really just wiped it out and then it looked like she painted green and yellow on it, but that could just be the way that it turns out...super sweet.  I'm pretty stoked about the stop animation and workign with the super 8 bc that will be another new experience for me and i think it will be a lot of fun. We are going to try the blind folded process around campus too and that should be pretty interesting...we'll see.