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.