6 bai....One : the Zequel

If i were to redesign the course, I am not sure i would really change too much :D basically, this was a nice change in subject matter that ended up being an enjoyable class where we essentially got to play around and experiment with a bunch of interesting and new techniques! this was the first amount of film i had ever shot, even if it was in the form of super 8mm, and for some reason it just felt so good to pull the trigger and feel the click of the shutter going at 18 fps! (thus i am looking forward to cinematography...) but alas, this is my last blogg, and looking back I noticed just how much stuff we actually covered. the scratching, the painting, the one take, the race, 3D!, the rhythmic! Id say the only thing i wasnt too excited about was the re-contextualization of found footage assignment. it seemed like weve done this in other classes (i guess the only one would be intro to editing), but I think that we couldve done something a little more exciting and experimental as we had been doing previously. I guess to me just simply editing stuff is so common now with youtube, and everybody is making personal mixes of footage theyve found and I dunno, I guess its become kinda boring. Maybe something else to replace it? Im sure there are some awesome things to try, though I cant seem to really think of any at the moment... but overall, id say this course is a heaven-sent for the film department, since its lack of production-friendly courses leave many of the students starving for more hands on and sick of papers... guh. so Thank you Dr. Dre for providing a spark of excitement that gives us films students more exposure (pun may or may not be intended :P) to alternative modes of film production. Thats what this world needs, creativity in can. One that can be cracked open as soon as possible. Gracias BLBOLBoblboboblbl.............................................................

Kookaloruss

My experience at cucalorus was an interesting one, brief and yet, still enjoyable. I had gone with a friend to go see the Australian film The Square at lumina theatre right on campus. I hadnt originally been that into going to any films but i figured what the hell why not eh? so we went and were sitting in ther theatre and there was an announcer who introduced the movie and such, but there was a technical delay so they decided to screen some interesting animated (mostly stop motion) shorts. They kept delaying and delaying then they just straight up canceled the screening because the film was wound on the two reels backwards!! that was pretty lame and it sort of killed my already low excitement for the evening. the next day I decided to give it another shot and went to go see Easier With Practice which did actually screen and was quite an interesting film. Oh there was this really cool animation that was drawn completely on postcards sent through the mail! each and every frame!!! it was pretty cool. SO the film was about this guy who was an author on a book tour with his brother. they are both about mid twenties. The main guy gets in this intesne phone sex/ quasi-relationship with a random girl named "Nicole", only to find out at the end that Nicole was actually a black guy creeping on men for years. It was kind of uncomfortable in the scene where the guy gets the first call in the hotel he is staying at because they decided to use a one take that lasted for like more than 5 minutes! and the guy was just facing camera masturbating... I saw a few people in the audience walk out at this point. Maybe looking back I shouldve goen to more films, but I had tons of school work to get done, maybe next year will be more relaxing??

My_ruFF?Theatre

I thoroughly enjoyed the creation of our super film screening fort of secrecy and adventure. it brought back billions of childhood memories or all the sheets and clothespins we used.... absolutely life changing id say. Rough theatre eh? I hadnt heard of that term until this class and the idea of it is intriguing. I remember hearing in a previous class that for some japanese films there would be a narrator who stood up in front and narrated silent films, and this goes for amaerica as well with pianos and other musical accompaniment. And why shouldnt film be an event? are films not just a captured play of sorts? and isnt the purpose of theatre the focus on performance and presentation??? i think weve become lazy in our digital age, seems just a video will do in a darkroom with a bunch of random people.... no talking! thats just silly. i think people should be more inventive with the way they show their films. and they should be motivated to! they spent a long time working on them, so why not get inventive? I want to show a movie in 3d and have people utilize squirt guns or some sort of 4th dimensional interactivities sort of like the muppet 3d experience. Tho, on the other hand i can see why the rough theatre may not be for everyone. I kno i have vowed never to go see the rocky horro picture show, and i guess because its just not the kinda scene for everyone. maybe some people do just enjoy sitting in a dark room, personally reflkecting with the film as it shows... comfortable, personal, nice.

MYSTERY???? werksh@pe reSPOONse

and now may I present to you a world, no different from our own. allowing ourselves to be placed in a realm of not one, not two, but THREE DIMENSIONS wooeooeoeoe~~~~ so this was probably one of the most exciting things Ive done in class since ive been at school. I had heard about being able to do 3d stuff here and there but i never figured we could actually do it. but then thinking about it DUh we have access to multiple cameras so why wouldnt we be able to??? it is such a simple yet ingeinous idea to replicate the way our own eyes work and filming it in the exact same way! next time i try this i want to creat some sort o frig that will be able to accurately hold the cameras in the position they need to be locked down so no movement will mess the image up. There has to be some sort of mathematical equation that you could plug in certain variables like lens mm and f stop and stuff to maximize the success of the 3D look. I noticed when we were looking at the footage, there was a point when the subject was too close to the lenses of the cameras so that the images were way to distorted to create the proper look and this made me wonder exactly what you need to do to make it PERFECT? it is interesting to think about seeing depth in a moving image and how amazing that really is!! it makes me wonder why dont people try to make everything in 3d? and what does the future of film making actually hold if they decide to explore this simple technique or possible even expand on it to bring us into a 4th dimension 0_0. i looked up one of the first films used in the 50's to represent 3d anaglyph photography and although the quality wasn't amazing, i bet audiences back then were stunned into seeing images pop out of something projected onto a wall. god its mind blowing to even think about... I shall have to pursue this further and see what we can do now. maybe try it with the JVC 200's? hmmmmm......

the YES!

oh wow, i would have to say this was quite an impressive display to see two men completely fool big corporation type meetings and yet they receive little to no negative response, continuing what they are doing till who knows when?! I dont know how they do it! it was a different from assignment 6 --- the re contextualization--- in that it was more of a re-routing of context to a different source, which then tweaked it to pretty much say the same thing, but in a way that they were trying to prove a point. these big corporations use meetings and conferences to share their new ideas, but it would seem that the presentations are just a formality. This is shown by the difference in the responses of the two groups they YES men presented to. The first was the actual business people, stiff in there suits waiting for the coffee break. they sat and calmly listened while the men presented their "findings" from their "research" . they didnt even care! it wasnt until the one guy stripped off his clothes that they got a reaction out of them. true, it may be out of shock that the mature business audience may have been embarrassed to a state of silence. But there was a complete switch when they presented to the students something of a different matter. They talked about McDonalds and hit on poverty in 3rd world countries, commenting on the fact that they recieve our leftovers anyways, so whats so bad about sending them our crap? The students were outraged!! I bet they didnt think it was real at first, but still they actively engaged in a brutal debate asking tons of questions, tryin to tear apart the WTO "representaion". I found it interesting the way it is fake and yet real at the same time. Its almost tricking the public for a genuine response as some sort of giant social commentary....fabulous.

Molotov &/or Ecstasy

It was interesting to see today the topic of copyright infringement and the endless possibilities we as filmmakers really do have this day and age. it seems so overwhelming in fact that starting from scratch could seem easier than scrubbing thru hours and hour of footage picking and choosing the little building blocks you want to assemble into your image. with the readings, i saw how the specific case of the molotov man and his rendition of a photograph in paint calls into question what is defined under the laws of owning rights to ideas and art. personally, i think it would be ridiculous for a photographer to try and win a legal battle with a painter for the direct inspiration of an image she herself captured or possibly even "stole from the world" as it were. it is true that all things especially pertaining to art and creativity is influenced in one form or another. this fact can make some artists seem silly for locking their fresh and shiny work in a cage or legal protection instead of allowing to it pass openly from one person to the next, feeding into the mass pool of thought and creativity all people draw from. in response to this stingy attitude towards art, we have the capability of nibbling at any resource we can find. in a way, it is an understood commune all artists share. sure, many people may become sore upon seeing their inspiration uncredited but in a way they should use that as a motivation to excel further into new ideas, trying to explore, in contrast to those who dwell on old recyclables. however, i can see the desire and feelings present as we try and protect our movies some may even see as important as hiding a child from the world. there seems to be a sense of offense and possibly even paranoia surrounding how we handle media. that somehow if its mass produced the value isnt present, no matter the quality or amount of work gone into the production. but in a sense there are many people who take things too far when they should be honored that something they made has influence and been processed to create something new. each person sees things differently in their styles and techniques, reflected in the vast variety of art seen all over the world. in this way i think people need to lighten up and really step back and visualize the scope of media available for inpiration. thinking about it further, the whole copyright thing simply comes down to money or any kind of profitable experience one can achieve thru their work. if art was always practiced as a creative outlet with no real material gains or advantages, none of this would be an issue.

ideas for 48 our film rayce

so ive been thinking about any possible other techniques i could combine to create a truly unique and still "cameraless" composition by combining a few techniques. i think im going to take still shots of the environments and whatever subjects are necessary for the idea i will think about (that comes later) but until then ive figured i can do a 2d image projection with after effects. this technique basically uses a 3d camera and 3d light in aftereffects and "projects the 2 dimensional image onto a set up 3d plane layout which simulates 3d perspective when you actually do a camera move. it has the illusion of depth and movement, but in actuality its just relative to how the camera and light are placed in the scene. in this way, the movie will resemble a cutout of sorts like a diorama. I was also just thinking about ways to somehow transer images from one medium to another and see what kind of interesting effect that give the final image. when someone mentioned silly putty i got to really thinking, how do we capture images??? i bet that stumped people for hundreds of years, and now e have myspace and facebook with people posting millions of images from all over the place... seems unfair. i will basically just play around until i come out with something i think works, and its almost torture not knowing what the mystery item is !! but i guess thats part of the fun eh? i was a bit confused when it was mentioned to bring orange food items in as well as a blanket.... im not sure what is being schemed but it should be a good time.

2nd Scratch Film Juhnkees

ok ok, I will admit, the second time around i felt a lot more comfortable about what the scratch film junkies are actually trying to do with their films because of all the experience we've had with our own scratch films. It was a lot easier to point out and separate different styles such as the ink, paint, scratching, bleach, magazine tranfer, and the desktop printing. Another thing I realized was we sort of haphazardly assembled these techniques in an unorganized manner in a structure resembling nothing more than an example reel for film manipulation. however, the junkies organized theirs in a methodical, purposeful and stylized manner, using full advantage of the techniques previously mentioned. it was so hard to figure out the timing of the frames, just for our short animation. animation in and of itself is so difficult to do because of the inner sense of timing that is required to do it properly. i dont know how they can see what it looks like before they scratch it out of the emulsion! its ridiculous. but with the knowledge of the techniques learned in class, I found i could better appreciated the style, a lot more than the first time. this usually goes for most things i suppose; the more you know about it the better you can potentially connect with it. another thing i noticed this time the music wasnt distracting and it definitely bridged across the visuals, giving the overall poise of the film a boost in its "structural integrity". Good Form!

Wells Reading Response

I think that there is an interesting separation pointed out between orthodox animation and other forms. i know that when i think of "orthodox" i think controlled, understandable, basic, and possibly even considered more "boring" than other animations, althought growing up i definitely preferred a cartoon over any form of live action. Old disney films would most likely be the most relatable for me. Tho, as time progressed my tastes in the maturity of the animation progressed, especially when thinking about japanese anime. Im not much of a nerd in the department but Ive seen how they take the traditional cel animation and hyper realism discussed in the readings and made some of the most beautiful imagery I have ever seen. especially with the film the Animatrix. in the later years I started thinking that "hey i guess animation doesnt need to be just like regular films" then i realized there was that entire other side : EXPERIMENTAL. the chart in the text clearly illustrates the distinction i had never even thought about before. the narrative aspect sort of threw me off conidering i for some reason never thought you can make ANYTHING occur in the frame in an animation, which poses an interesting question: why do so many animated films hold the specific structure that non animated films have? why dont they all take advantage of the chance to make impossible things happen?? thats what my 495 is hopefully going to do a little bit...

Chion Readings

when sound is applied to image, fireworks occur! it truly is a special relationship that audio has to an image that it did not have before. some sort of added presence that evokes emotion. i know that when i see a film on TV but the volume is on mute i feel somewhat disconnected from the visual source; it does not have me truly consumed in its clutches. but when headphones or some sort of louder audio source is introduced, somehow the music makes the magic happen. i liked how in the reading he talks about sound being the first thing our brain processes, and that its not something we really actually recognize right away. it is a completely different medium, absorbed by a completely separate realm of sensory perception, and it seems the combination of these two by our brains creates something new, as different ingredients when cooked make a tasty recipe. this also kind of reminds me of that film we watched in class where the image going thru the projector was actually causing the optical soundtrack to provide "music" simply because of how the film was scratched in that area. In this case, the sound is a biproduct of the image, and yet it adds so much to the film. There is a rhythm of sound that matches the image, that being the first thing we register upon our first viewing. another connection i thought of was the rhythmic editing examples by the previous class. There were some with sound and some without, and the ones lacking felt longer and more arduous to watch then the others. It is almost like a catalyst that causes the chemical reaction of FILM to occur. It is truly fabulous and mysterious... o.0

Synesthesia

synesthesisa is an interesting condition i think we all have a small amount of, tho not to a point at which one could be declared mentally cockeyed. we recieve all of everything that we know to be our own reality through one of 5 physical senses, and it would make sense that sometimes they can crossover and connect differently. In a way, something as simple as smelling cookies can make us feel physical sense of coziness that can actually translate to the muscles in our bodies. So in a way, we can relate to those with this condition on various levels, especially in the films we watched in class. in a way, completely different elements of different things all can relate. take the color red for example. we can relate that one color to numerous other ideas such as warm, spicy, love, pain, anger, intensity. All of these abstract ideas stem from one single color because of millions of subtle connections among them. it would be ridiculous to say that at anytime we are only utilizing one single sense alone form the others (unless of course the case of deafness, blindness or other disabilities), and in this way we can look at the color pink and almost catch the faint hint of roses borne on the breeze, simply by the powerful association we cant control.

Response Dos_ Camera-less Filmmaking

cameraless moovie makin is probably the most fun Ive had making something that looks cool when projected everrrr. up until this point i had never used or even touched film and already we've made some awesome looking products with little effort! whoever thought of using magazine transfer for film is brilliant and should win an award! the scratching and painting on film was ok, not my fave, but I just love the way tape looks with the ink on it; it reminds me of comic books or that intro to all of Marvel's films. I can definitely see myself using some of these techniques in combination with my compositing and visual effects to create some really unique and stunning graphics and transitions. I think the reason making a movie without using camera to capture light on a layer of film emulsion really almost can define itself as "true film MAKING" in the sense that you arent just using a piece of technology to essentially copy images from the real world to be viewed later, but you are personally making and designing art that will be put into motion at "X" frames per second, and I think it's special. Film as a medium is really starting to finally create a root inside my thoughts about how best to share whatever creative or artistic images I can muster, and I am excited to learn more, especially hand processing.

Scratch Film Juwnkees - Response 1

honestly, coming into an experimental class after seeing films of Stan Brakhage and other such kinds in other classes, i am sort of sick of it. there seems to be some sort of temporary excitement that the random manipulation of film and filmmaking that has gone away, leaving bitter resentment almost for anyone proclaiming to do these kinds of films. harsh, i know. but seriously, it seems so superficial in a way. drawing on film? scratching it? putting down a strange soundtrack behind this "art" form seems overdone, drawn out, overused, and almost fake! yeah yeah, i can understand the principles and ideas behind it. thinking out of the box. It's fun! as long as people dont keep it simply at that level, i can get over the musings of other peoples adventures in experimental filmmaking. I guess from seeing the junkies' film, I didnt mean to attack it like i am... i guess what im really trying to relay is i love the practice, not the praise necessarily. I love to see more and more of this genre!!!! and i am sure others have done many different kinds, so i end by remaining open and excited to see more! thus far, i really do enjoy this class, i have been trying to get into it for a few semesters now and im stoked to do this stuff!!!