Project brainstorm

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!

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

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).

1. I can't make a decision- I don't know how I'll do this one yet. I just came up with it.
2. My overactive imagination- I would like to combine live action and animation to convey how little time I spend in reality.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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
6. 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

My head hurts and I'm hungry

I Turn My Camera On

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.