Jellyfishsaltwaterseasting

STORYBOARDS!!!!

2009-03-31T20:28:00.000-07:00

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsstoryboards001-1.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsstoryboards002-1.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsstoryboards003-1.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsstoryboards004.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsstoryboards005.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsstoryboards006.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsstoryboards007.jpg

Nina Paley

2009-03-04T19:28:00.000-08:00

I totally dig Nina Paley's animations, especially Pandorama, the worlds first cameraless IMAX film:

This animation, along with the stuff I got to do in 6X1, makes me want to explore cameraless animation further. I got really into it constructing out first assignment for 6X1.

I also like Paley's Sita Sings the Blues, and her awesome blog http://blog.ninapaley.com/

Peace out!

BLU

2009-02-28T16:43:00.000-08:00

I like this animation. If I weren't such a law-abiding citizen, I'd hijack some brick walls in downtown Wilmington and do something similar.

I'm working on a revision of the script (actually right now, I'm thinking more annihilation over revision). I just think that it's not as abstract as I like most of my work to be. Plus, it ties into a nice little bow in the end, which I tend to hate. Anyway, I'll keep you up to date.

Storyboards

2009-02-18T19:27:00.000-08:00

Ok! I'm totally throwing Jos under the bus, but she dropped me off later than expected. Here are my storyboards. I'll email you the script when it's done. I'm crossing my fingers for before midnight. But it will be emailed ASAP!!!

Don't mind the stick figures. I haven't figured out the way they should look yet. My storyboard characters have a tendency to go from this:

to this:

Here you go! You can click on these to make them bigger.

If you want to talk about days to meet up, Joselyn mentioned that she's coming over next friday (I hope that's right) to see Kai. That would be a great time for me, if you're ok with that. It would just be easy considering that I don't currently own a vehicle, I won't have to mess around with the crazy bus system. And I need to know what type of baked goods you would like so I can get over the guilt of being a lazy, bad student. It will get better once the visual stuff happens. I'm not a words person (that sentence proves my point).

Note Cards!

2009-02-15T21:51:00.000-08:00

I guess I hit my limit on the last post.

Direct links:

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsnotecards001.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsnotecards002.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsnotecards003.jpg

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/csting3/honorsnotecards004.jpg

Ahhhh!!!!

2009-02-15T20:47:00.000-08:00

So, I suck! I had half the story typed up when I went to bed last night, but thought it was crap and deleted it this morning. I always do this. It's part of my process.

Anyway, I have trouble with sitting at a computer and writing. I have to handwrite everything and then type it up. Big sheets of paper didn't work, so I switched to note cards. Around 5 p.m. writer's block hit me in the worst way. I tried a few things to get my brain back into it.

I took a short break, tried to give my brain a rest:

Didn't help.

I did some Tai Chi:

What people don't tell you about Tai Chi is that, yes it helps with stress, but only when you're doing it. All the stress comes back when you're done and you realize that your back may feel better, but you still don't know how to write an ending to your story.

I then tried cleaning my apartment:

The only people helped by this were my roommates. At least they're happy.

I then locked myself in my room, opened the windows, turned out the lights and laid on the floor for a while. That seemed to work some magic. (Note to self: When faced with writers block, lie on a floor and freeze yourself to the brink of death).

So, I haven't typed up the notes yet because that would involve dealing with details that I don't think I can take mentally right now. I found out quickly that I based this character on myself in too many ways which meant that I was questioning my life a little too much while I was writing. That might be the main reason for the writer's block.

Anyway, I scanned the cards to prove that I'm not a total slacker (and used pictures in my blog to distract you from the fact that I am a total slacker). I'll type them up in a more script-like form tomorrow after my class. I'll tell you right now, I'm up for the revisions. I'm not really married to the ending. You can click on them to read, but it's more of a look at the inner clusterfuck that is my mind.

Mayday!!!

2009-02-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

I’m running writer’s block blog right now! Sorry for the delay! I’m hoping some good old-fashioned valentine's day drinking/Buffy season 4 watching will help get the creative juices flowing. I'm a little over half way there so I'm hoping I can post later tonight; tomorrow for sure.

Quick question: Can I just create the animated version of the BVS episode Hush? I know it sounds highly illegal, but it's gaurentees greatness! Plus, I can promise some live action storyboards.

I hope you and Andre and Kai have/are having a fantastic V-day!!

Combo

2009-02-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

So basically when combining the 3 stories, I come up with a girl who lives in a world where everything is the same. She is extremely bored, especially at work where she spends her time daydreaming in her cubical. When she comes home, all she does is watch TV, where she daydreams about living in the fictional television world, then go to sleep, where she... drumroll please... dreams.

At this point, the dreams are confined to when she is alone, or if she's in public, she only acts them out in her head. The dreams will start to bleed into her reality when she is around other people. She starts acting them out around people.

I haven't quite figured everything out (like the end), but I think when I start writing the script it will all fall into place. I can kind of see where I want to go. I know for my ending that I don't want her to OD on pills. I'm already writing a tragedy for screenwriting and it's kinda bringing me down. Plus, I've been in a good mood the past few days and I want to take advantage of it. I also don't know which technique(s) I want to use, but again, I think it will come to me when finish writing the story and see how it goes.

Animation Project Ideas

2009-02-06T19:24:00.000-08:00

Idea #1:
Concept:
I had a small virus about a week ago and had to drink Nyquil by the gallon in order to get to sleep at night. Not only did the medicine help me regain the ability to breathe through my nose, it also gave me some very vivid and f’ed up dreams, which is always fun. This gave me some inspiration for a possible animation project as well. The story would be set around the idea of living in dreams versus living in reality. Can we get too caught up in our dreams to notice what is actually going on around us? If this is an autobiographical animation, then the answer is yes.

The basic story that I have right now is about a girl who believes that her life is boring. She spends most of her time sleeping because she enjoys her exciting dreams. She sleeps so much that she begins to have trouble getting to sleep at all. She starts to take sleeping pills to get back to sleep and her dreams. The entire time this is going on she is ignoring what is going on in reality. Right now, the only way I can see it ending is that she over doses on the sleeping pills. It seems sad to me, but that’s probably because the character is based off me minus the drugs. “Hugs not Drugs” has always been my motto… That’s a lie. I don’t like to be touched.

Moving on to possible techniques:
I’ve always thought that stop animation seemed very dream-like. I think that it could really enhance the story. I was thinking that two different formats of stop animation could be used for this, one for the reality sequences and another for the dreams.

I kind of want the animations for the reality sequence to take place in reality, a lot like Pan With Us. I am still in love with the glass pane animation part of that animation. I don’t know if glass would be the best thing to use for this. I think it’s something that I’ll have to experiment with for awhile. I just know that I want images of the real world going on around the characters real world.

For the dream sequences I think that claymation or puppet animation (Like Aria) might be the best technique to use. It always makes me think of dreams.

Idea #2
Concept:
This idea I blogged about over Christmas break and it’s still stuck in my head. It’s the whole idea about putting pressure on yourself to fit in with everyone else. I want it to play with the idea that we’re all not supposed to do the same things and live the same kind of life. As opposed to my previous idea, I want this one to be a little more comical.

Basically my character lives in a box (a metaphorical one- but the house is also box shaped and she works in a cubical). The characters actions each day are always the same as the previous day’s and also the same as the people around her. The street that she lives on has similar looking houses. Everyone wears the same clothes and drives the same car. Very boring stuff to say the least. One day something happens to the girl (I haven’t decided what yet) and she starts to act different from everyone else. By the end she discovers the importance of being different than everyone else.

Technique:
For this story I imagine it going to the same sort of direction as a Don Hertzfeldt animation. The boring world the character lives in should be very minimal without a lot of color. The easiest way to do this, I believe, would be with cel animation with just black ink on white paper. But I think that the texture in the paper might add some dimension to the world that I don’t really want in the beginning of the story. As the story progresses, I would like to incorporate more and more color and detail to the world. Perhaps the best technique to use would be flash or after effects to ensure that the world stays flat.

Idea #3
Concept and Technique:
I pulled this idea from one of my self portrait ideas. It’s the one about nonexistent relationships. When I first came up with the idea, I thought that it would be best to do a series of still images with me narrating over them. Well when I was thinking up new idea for this project it dawned on me that that is basically stop motion but instead of still images that create a real jumpy effect, I would just have to take more photos to fill in the movements from one thing to another.

The idea came to me for my self portrait because at the time I was thinking about someone I had just met. I often create these whole scenarios of how my relationships with people will go. They never of course work out this way, but my imagination always beats reality. I originally thought of just focusing on romantic relationships and how those NEVER turn out the way I imagined. I think that it would create a nice link from one to the other. It would be really easy, and probably therapeutic, to go from my first crush to my most recent nonexistent affair.
Each story would follow the same path: initial encounter into the imaginary stuff then rewind and go through what actually happened.

For this one, I’d want to use real people in real places. I just need to find people who are not ADD and can stand still for a while.

The Animation Show!

2009-01-16T19:43:00.000-08:00

I tried to sit down and write some great 3-5 page essay about what animated shorts I really enjoyed but it just wasn't happening. So I'll try just writing how I feel about the films without over thinking it and see what comes out. BTW, in my world Friday ends when the sun comes up on Saturday so I'm sorry that this is getting in at the wee hours of Saturday but I'm running on weekend time.

First, if I made Pan With Us, I could die happy. If I could pinpoint the type of animations that I want to make, that would be it. I thought that the interpretation of the poem was fantastic and beautifully done. I like the fact that David Russo took a concept like stop motion and changed it up just by bringing it outside is wonderful. I also like the use of different mediums. My background in art is in painting and ceramics (and sculpture) and I found the use of both techniques to make an animation incredible to watch. The use of painted glass to create shadows on the sidewalk was interesting to me and I wondered if you would be able to do it in color; if you could get the paint thin enough to get color on the sidewalk? I don't know. It's defiantly something to experiment with.

I could go on and on about what I liked about this film, but that wasn't really my assignment was it? So onto the link between concept and technique: Russo uses a poem by Robert Frost as his narration. I must say that the first time that I watched it, I didn't really listen to the words because I was basically hypnotized by the images. But even though the words didn't register, I thought that the poem complemented the images. There seemed to be a rhythm to the whole piece and it is really hammered home with the use of the poem. The combination of the editing and the cadence of the poem were probably what sent me in a trance.

It is important that the film is about the Greek god Pan and Russo makes it a point to tell us that Pan is where the word panic comes from. If you are watching the main animated image, the film seems very fluid and smooth, but outside the smaller image, all this shit is going on. It's chaotic. It's like the world around the image hit the panic button and the image just moves through the middle of it without caring what the hell is going on (my mother would probably say that I am the series of images in the center of the chaos).

Second on my list was Aria. This one was another stop motion (I got one more before I sign off). I was amazed at how fluid the movements of the doll were especially the hair (what the hell is up with the hair? It's crazy!). Pjotr Sapegin started with the idea of a puppet stripping itself all the way down to its skeleton. From there he decided to go with a story about suicide (as opposed to a striptease). By using Madame Butterfly, Sapegin already has a tragic story, but seeing the doll rip itself apart and then unscrew itself is very heartbreaking to watch. Even the story Sapegin tells in the booklet that comes with the DVD set about the only thing left being a couple of screws in a box is upsetting. When the doll killed herself, she did it for real. That’s sad! The use of dolls really helps bring the story to life, a lot like the acting in an opera. I always get frustrated with people who complain about not knowing what is going on in an opera because, a lot of the time, the songs are in a foreign language. PAY ATTENTION PEOPLE!! Most of life's communication is nonverbal anyway!

Sooooo....Last in my stop motion obsession is Fireworks by Pes. There are 3 very important things to take into consideration when watching this. 1. Candy Corn does indeed look like fire. 2. Candy is delicious. That is a FACT! 3. Peeps are awesome and their heads coming of are even more awesome!

Moving away from Stop motion, the other kind of animation that really stuck out to me was more cel type animation. My issue with cel animation is that it is that we grow up with it so in order for me to really enjoy it, I have to have a great story that I can attach myself to. I'm usually not blown away with the technique as much as I am for stop motion or claymation. That being said, I thought that Hello and Don Hertzfeldt's stuff were great and unique in their art and for opposing reasons.

Hello has a great story that is relatable. Jonathan Nix uses unique characters to convey his message of love and communication. As much as I liked the technique of Pan With Us, that is how much I enjoyed the concept of Hello. The story was really simple and has been done before (but almost everything has) but I thought the characters served the story well. I thought that the way it was drawn was great as well. It was very detailed and the "lighting" was great. I don't know if you would refer to it as "lighting" since it is just the way that it is drawn, but I thought it was nice that it wasn't very bright. It created a nice mood.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Hertzfeldt's stuff is bright and the details are very minimal. A majority of it is just black line on white paper. The minimalism of it plays nicely with the comedy of his work. If there were too much going on then it wouldn't be as funny. It would seem like it were reaching for the joke. It doesn't take too much to be funny. If you try too hard, your audience misses whatever is supposed to be the punch line. Plus, the when something is added that doesn't fit in with the black and white imagery, it makes it that much more funny, like a green sucker, or ink dripping from a characters head. The best one, I have to say, was Intermission in the 3rd Dimension. "It's like I can touch you." Great Stuff! It's is interesting how he incorporates color and texture as well as certain objects in the film. Even when it is just the two characters talking, you can still see the texture in the white paper change. It makes something that seems simple look more complex.

Project brainstorm

2008-12-03T10:22:00.000-08:00

So, I wanted to wait until after Thanksgiving to post some of my ideas for this honors project. I thought that my family might give me some inspiration, but they failed miserably. So here is some of the better stuff that I have (I'm sure I'll come up with crazier things if I go through a manic moment):

First, I really want to try to incorporate several different forms of animation (roto, stop, clay, cel, etc.) as well as different film making techniques (like hand painting) in the film. Basically, I want to try as many things as possible to make the story (whatever that may be) visually interesting. As long as, of course, what I do enhances the story. I'm not going to through claymation in there just because I want to.

Now, I found out over the break that I am a lot better off when I am given a general concept for a story than when I have to come up with one off the top of my head. I spent a great deal of time staring into space wondering what I was going to do this on, as opposed to actually coming up with ideas. I thought of recycling the ideas for my self portrait but when I looked back over them, I remembered that I wanted to do some of them on film or with still images. The only one that I think I could play with is the one about not being able to sleep and how I think it's making me crazy. SO, I had to come up with new stuff.

Idea #1:

My original idea for my animation final was to turn Brad into a marionette(I don't know if you've noticed, but the boy is all limb). I wanted to take stills of him in front of a green screen and use after effects to move his arms and legs like a string puppet and put him in some kind of dark underworld. I don't really know what he would be doing there though. Probably something sinister and strange.

Idea #2

Lately, I've been thinking of how different my life would be right now if I hadn't decided to move to Wilmington to pursue film. I was practically half way to Raleigh to go into NC State's pre-med program when I decided that I would rather be a poor, but happy, filmmaker than a rich chemist or doctor or whatever the hell I wanted to do with my life back then. I hear a lot of students talk about how their parents are pushing them to get their graduate degree in something that, down the road, might have a better future, like law or education. Although, thankfully, my parents have never done that to me (I think they were more worried about me when I wanted to go to med school) it makes me think of how people confine themselves to a certain idea about how your life should be, and how these ideas are usually pushed on us by other people.

I could make an animation around this idea that people box themselves into a certain life (school, job, marriage, kids, retirement) and rush into these things without thinking about who they are or what would make them really happy. I thought of making a little city that is very boxed in and everything kind of looks the same. People dress the same, live in similar looking homes, drive the same kind of car, work in cubicles and do the same thing everyday. And it could revolve around a character who doesn't really fit in but really tries her best to fit in. Over the course of the story, she'll become more in tune and comfortable with who she is and realize that, ultimately, she decides how her life should play out.

I wonder if you can tell which one of these ideas I am currently leaning towards? If I come up with more, I'll post it.

Light it Up!

2008-10-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

My job for the project is co-gaffer/grip, so my plan for the video is to just light the shit out of it!

The group met the other day to bounce around ideas and come up with a shooting schedule. As soon as we decided on a band, Sci-fi, the ideas just started flowing. We decided to go with something really stylized, which is great for me because it means that we can use different lighting techniques and filters and we can play with color. I was a little worried about lighting when we decided to shoot at night, but we are going to shoot at the Juggling Gypsy which has an excellent outdoor stage and a good amount of lights. We are also going to bring some lights with us just to make sure we have enough. I also put in a request for a marantz recorder and a shotgun mic just in case we want to record any extra sounds or something (I doubt we will, but it's better to have it and not use it then wish we had it).

I'm excited to get to work with lighting. It is probably the thing I know the least about but I'm a fast learner and I work well under pressure. Plus, if anything goes wrong, I can blame Dylan.

Self-Portrait Ideas

2008-10-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

I've come up with a few ideas for my self-portrait. Every time I write one down, another one pops in my head. I haven't decided on one idea yet. I think if I develop these a little more, I'll be able to decide on one. Actually, I'll probably come up with more ideas and I'll never be able to make a decision (which just gave me another idea for the project).

I can't make a decision- I don't know how I'll do this one yet. I just came up with it.
My overactive imagination- I would like to combine live action and animation to convey how little time I spend in reality.
Not being able to get to sleep before 2 am and how I believe it is making me crazy- This would fall under the imagination idea since it is usually the ideas in my head that keep me up at night. Instead of animation I would probably use a lot of still images.
My best non-existent relationships- again would fall under my imagination. I want to use slow cuts of still images with narration. I'm afraid it might become too narrative though.
Being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at 20- This would most likely be a mix of live action of me and culture jamming with RA medication commercials
Being extremely narcissistic despite myself- This would be about my love of me in spite of how society believes I should see myself. I'm afraid this one would turn into a documentary.

I had a few more ideas, but I believe these are my best. Hopefully I can decide which one to do soon. If I can't I'll post a poll on here and the 4 people who read this can decide.

Edit:

another idea

I hate to wear shoes even in public places or outside. I don't know where I would go with that. Just a thought. I really hate shoes.

Response to assignment 1

2008-10-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

My head hurts and I'm hungry

I Turn My Camera On

2008-09-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

Project 1c was a lot of fun. Kristian and Jordan were great. We all came together and pulled our own weight. We wanted to do half of our pictures at night and half the next morning, but we had a nice rhythm going and decided to take them all at night. This turned out to be a great decision, even though we weren't done until 2 am, because the next day was very overcast. And we got to see Jamie dancing at soapbox.

It was hard to find areas with enough light to be able to take each of the 3 images (a lot of the things we wanted to shoot came out at an f-stop of 2, so we couldn't take the shot going down one f-stop). But I think we found some unique areas.

I really enjoyed learning how to use the manual camera and the light meter. I love taking pictures with cameras that use actual film as opposed to digital. I don't know what it is, probably just the texture that you get with 35mm or 120. It's very addicting.

Truth Doesn't Make a Noise

2008-09-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

The following is a list of problems that occurred during the soundscape project:

1. Will and I had extremely conflicting schedules. Because of this we only ended up in the editing lab together for the final cut. But we were still able to find ways to work together. We decided early that we wanted to go for a more natural, outdoorsy sound as opposed to taking the creepy route. And we decided that we wanted to start out slow and build to an explosive ending. After this, I went to the editing lab and laid down a basic composition. Then, Will came in and added to the composition and we finally met up and came up with the final product which we were both very pleased with. We were able to accomplish the goals we set out in the beginning.

2. Trying to recreate a specific sound from other sounds=8 hours in lab and 1 minute complete. The basic parts of the soundscape (background noises) were easy to come up with, but Will and I wanted to recreate a certain sound of something that we both thought of as soon as we got the phrase "Dazed with Light and Sulfur" (I don't want to say what that is in case the people who are doing the visuals read this and are influenced in anyway). It took a long time and was very frustrating to come up with the final sound which you hear tons of times at the end. I ended up learning a lot about final cut and audio filters through this.

3. The editing lab hates me. You say it looks fat in those jeans ONE time and all the sudden you can't print to video. Will laid down the smooth talk though.

it leans on me, like a rootless tree

2008-09-23T17:06:00.001-07:00

9/22 7:08 p.m. Chancellor’s Walk
· It’s sunset and I am walking toward campus. Behind me, a dark blue sky with pick clouds. Ahead, bright baby blue with strands of clouds that are golden and the bottom and fade to gray towards the top.
· The lights are on going down the walkway, but they don’t do much. There is just enough sunlight to see everything clearly. It’s almost like my eyes have a filter on them, very similar to wearing sunglasses during the day (that subtle brown tone to everything).
· Trees are more black than green. The most unusual looking trees at this time are the pines because they are black in the center closest to the branches. The needles gradually become greener and greener with white tips where the light catches it the most.
· The older lights on campus glow orange. The ones to my left (closest to Fischer’s) blend in perfectly with the sunset, which, in the time that I have been walking, is now golden orange.
· The fountains are still going in the ponds. The light catches the water at the crest of the ripple making a white line the quickly fades to black at the trough of the ripple. The white lines slowly move farther and farther away from the slashing fountain until they hit the edge of the pond.

11:00 p.m. Chancellor’s walk Same night
· I walk by the clock tower, a big, round light beams from the face. The sky is so black that the rest of the tower just blends into it. On more than one occasion, particularly late at night when I am exhausted from working in the lab or I have just watched a boring movie in Lumina, I have mistaken the clock face for the moon.
· I love the look of trees at night that are unnaturally lit. The bright white spot at the source that slowly fades in a circular pattern into darker and darker green until finally black. I especially love them on windy nights, when the wind moves individual leaves in and out of the light. I find it comforting. When it gets colder out, and the leaves fall off these trees, they will be more creepy than comforting.
· The buildings are lit from underneath with horrible orange light. It makes the buildings look gigantic and just creepy enough to make me check behind me every time I pass one to make sure I’m not being stalked by a serial killer.

B&W

2008-09-20T17:19:00.001-07:00

When your day is done and you wanna run...

2008-09-09T17:25:00.000-07:00

My experience with sound recording began on a hot Sunday morning when, instead of sleeping off my hangover, I had to walk to the library with the sun screaming at me to learn that we had no camera. Cut to Tuesday afternoon in a hot shed behind Jordan’s house, camera, mic, cantaloupe and hatchet in hand.

Most of our recordings took place in the shed since there was nothing in there that would create any buzz or hum. Other sounds were recorded in Jordan’s house and garage. The experience was an educational one indeed. Not only did I get to learn how to handle the mics properly and how to read and adjust the levels, I also learned that snorting pepper in order to sneeze doesn’t work and leaves you with a headache and burning sinuses. Also, for those who didn’t know this already, I learned that gargling Bud Light is as horrible as it sounds. But it was all in the name of art.

Also, the more sounds we created, the more creative we got with what was around Jordan’s place. For instance, after we shattered some glass, Russ asked if Jordan had any spray paint around. He made a blow touch with it which sounded really cool with the headphones on (kind of like how it sounds when you’re in your car and it’s getting sprayed with water). Unfortunately, the sound was really short, so we had to cut it from the final mix. We also shook a grass skirt, which kind of sounded like heavy rain or waves.

All in all, it was a positive experience, even with the frustration of not having a camera. We had a lot of fun once we were able to start.

Sound Recording class

2008-09-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, 8:30 a.m., King 104, Sound Recording Class:

Someone is scratching their leg, erratic and soft. My professor is speaking… loudly; it makes it hard to drown him out. The door to the room is shut but that doesn’t prevent the sounds of the hallway from seeping in. The front doors to the hall squeak open and snap shut unexpectedly. It’s loud, even through the door. The air conditioner in the hallway is low but the constant buzz is still there. The guy next to me is scraping his pen across his paper. The sound is not soft and rhythmical, but quick and sharp. I don’t believe he is taking notes, or if he is, he is scratching something out, but most likely he is drawing. The sound of a girl speaking comes through the speakers piercingly. I try to drown out the sound, but it is almost impossible. I can, however, hear my heart in my ears. She mumbles and stutters, annoyingly speaking through her nose that she is standing 2 feet from a shot gun mic. It is me. I want to vomit. My pen clicks with each letter I write. My professor’s voice comes in:

Mic perspective- the closer you are to the microphone, the warmer and richer the sound. The further away you are, the thinner the sound.

I should be listening more clearly to the professor considering that I have to record with my group today.

Sounds from my apartment complex

2008-09-02T07:50:00.000-07:00

Friday night, 10:30 p.m. Outside my apartment building:
The sound of three bugs clicking and chirping rhythmically call back to each other. The first one clicks quickly 5 times. Then the second, a cricket, calls back with 3 successive high pitched chirps. The third bug emits a low vibrating buzz one at a time with pauses in between just long enough for the other two bugs to chime in. An air conditioning unit clicks loudly and emits a buzz, loud at first, then soft and steady. A car comes out from behind the building. The tires scratch against the pavement; breaks shriek as it comes to a stop. The motor purrs and as the car turns and drives down the street, the rumble of the motor softens until it is gone completely. There is a loud hiss followed by a sharp click, the air conditioner is off. This allows me to hear a high pitched, but faint hum. I guess it is the light. A bug falls to the ground with a loud thud. It sounds big. Its wings scratch and scrape the sidewalk, then nothing. A stereo comes in soft and gradually becomes louder. The bass from the horrible rap song makes the windows tremble. The high pitch shudder contrasts the low bass rumble. Relief comes when the car turns the corner and drives down the road. A door opens, CLICK, and closes, THUD, click. Keys jingle and the cackle of two girls comes in high and fades away. Suddenly, I realize it’s a Friday night, and I am listening to sounds in my sweats. I have no life.

The Almighty Manifesto

2008-08-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

I grew up with a strong art and music background. My dad was a guitarist who, after he discovered that I had no talent with instruments, strongly encouraged me to take art classes. My mother is a film and theater buff who I can barely have a conversation with without it relating, in some way, to some movie we've seen. It is through the combination of these passions they shared with me, music, art and film, that I became interested in experimental film. Through this class I hope to learn how to combine these passions and also discover a new approach to filmmaking.

One of my main interests is how sound and music relate to a scene or a film as a whole. I am excited for the opportunity to make a music video where I will be able to see firsthand how to create a film that works with a piece of music. I am also looking forward to being able to be as creative as I want with a film without worrying too much about story and continuity or even if people can understand it.