49 hour race

Who knew 48ish hours could fly by so fast? Overall, my favorite project, the 49-hr film race proved to be the most fun and spawned some really cool videos. Going into this project last Monday, I was very anxious to find out what the mystery prop would be. I knew it would’ve had to be small and cheap because all of us were receiving one(or three in the end) but I also was thinking that it could’ve been a line of dialogue.
Before the race officially began, I was pretty set on using my digital still cam on video mode because I knew that it took pretty good quality when it was stabilized by tripod. I started thinking of ideas that could be good to use and came across some old PSAs on youtube. That’s when I decided that I wanted to go with an anti-drug PSA angle, but I also knew that the mystery prop could ruin all of that.
Then came 4pm last Monday, the big unveiling day, where I was surprised (and pleased) to see the alphabet blocks and not a line of dialogue. After that, I went home and wrote up a short script and shot list of what I needed to shoot. I was trying to think of cheesy, cliché PSA shots and dialogue, but figured I’d just improvise while shooting anyways.
Tuesday came along and I called around to see who might want to be a shady blockdealer in an alley. Jamie was available and pretty much in costume and character went we met up. We found the first shady alley and 40 minutes of improve later, I had the footage. Knowing I could make some trippy effects by plugging my camera into the TV and recording, I fooled around some and got some colorful shots to use for the block trip. The other shots were made by shining a laser pointer into an upside-down “caution wet floor” cone.
Editing was pretty simple. I already had the sound effects planned out and on a disc and I just inserted them with the videos. The hardest part of the edit was learning how to freeze frame and make titles appear separately. Other than that, it was pretty simple yet fun and I plan on making some more shorts using only a still cam on video mode.
Here’s the final product if you need a recap.

rhythm + editing

Going into the rhythmic edit, I didn’t really know what to expect. After viewing some of last year’s projects, I had a better idea but still had no idea what to film and how I was going to edit it all. Luckily, Colin is quite the skateboarder and mentioned that he wanted me to film him skating at various locations around town. What/where to film was not a problem anymore. We were able to meet up twice and get enough footage to edit and not be bored with using the same shots.
Editing this monstrosity was a completely different experience. I had never really broke clips down frame by frame, but, believe me, I got my share with this project. Using the footage I’d filmed along with some Super8 Colin already had, I broke down basically all the good movement shots into bins of 5, 10, and 15 frames(this was the most tedious part of the assignment). From there, I looked at the frame shots and tried to get some sort of pattern out of them. I ended up going with an old-to-new theme and used the Super8 shots first then the newer footage kinda creeped in. When the cycles started rolling, I realized that I should maybe repeat every cycle twice so people could soak in the images a little better without getting too bored. Once I had about a 30 sec. sequence, I realized that the shots got old with the repeats, so I applied some filters and speed effects to select shots, just to change it up.
When the sequence was finalized, I started thinking soundwise. I had made a song that had a mellow, skate-video feel to it and tried it out. With the fast editing pace though, it did not work so I tried another one that was more repetitive and masked the edits a little.
All in all, this was one of my favorite projects and I’m completely satisfied with the final product and hope Colin is too. Skate on, bro.

Yes to the Yes Men

After finally screening the Yes Men, in class of all places, I was ashamed that I hadn’t seen it or really even heard about it other than a poster in the library. It was under my radar and usually I know all about these types of films before they even get released. But in my defense, the film came out before I was in film school or even thinking about college majors.
The film (or what we viewed in class) was awesome, plain and simple. Much like Borat, the film is a documentary following two pranksters, as well as their friends whom help out, as they pose as the WTO. The premise itself is brilliant and reminds me of similar stuff I did in high school (mock speeches, etc.) but with more guts and cameras rolling the whole time. I really was into the actual speech performances and the lead-up to them as it added suspense, rather than the after-thoughts of what they had just done. The elaborate work put into the pranks is certainly commendable as they were able to pull off their pranks without people calling them out. The speech in Plattsburg(I believe?) in front of college students was especially awesome with their response. I notice in most classes, its tough to get a rise out of college-aged people, but the Yes Men executed their starvation speech(complete with McDonald’s for all!) perfectly to get kids throwing inflatable globes at them and walking out.
This film really gave me hope that hidden camera pranks can be more than TV, or Youtube nowadays, humor and actually be a great premise for a successful documentary. If I wouldn’t have seen Borat before this, I think I would’ve appreciated it more knowing that there was really no predecessor to this other than TV shows basically. In the future or even now, I want to see more films like these being made. Reality TV is only reality because the characters are actual people, when their goals/situations are not. (7 strangers living in a house with cameras, when does this happen in real life?) With cameras hidden, the viewer gets a better sense of reality and how people actually react when they don’t know that cameras are on them. Either way, The Yes Men was a sweet film and I’ve already recommended it to friends.

Cucalorus response 2: Nobody

For my second viewing, I checked out the film Nobody, another documentary though this one following around Jerry Bell, a drifter whom received an inflatable raft from smoking 20,000 cigarettes and rafted down the Mississippi to Memphis where he met up with 2 documentary filmmakers. Jerry became tired of his regular home-life after his wife left him and his mother died so he decided to convert to a life on the river, living off whatever he could find. The filmmakers, Lance Murphey and Alan Spearman, were originally newspaper photographers and just happened to find Jerry and decided to make their first film about his journey. Not knowing where they were going with the doc, they followed him around until one fateful day Jerry called home to find out that his son had committed suicide leaving Jerry in shambles, deciding to stay around Memphis for awhile.
I really dug the way the doc was shot, black-and-white and every shot seemed like a portrait (I guess the photographer thing came in handy). Meeting Jerry, Lance, and Alan also at Jengo’s one night made me interested in seeing the doc because I thought it’d be interesting but comical. When I saw it, I was surprised at the somber tone and the overall message it sends about life; you don’t need a home or car to be free. I was really surprised to see how professionally shot and narrated (by Jerry of course) the film was.
Afterwards, there was a Q&A with the three guys, who were happy to answer questions about how following Jerry around was. They also informed the audience (they had told me a few nights before) that Jerry was featured on Dr. Phil, where his daughter confronted him to tell him how much of a failure he was. This really shocked me because Jerry seemed so kind-hearted to me that I could never see him being a dead-beat dad. Almost every night, I ran into him and the filmmakers and we ended up talking for awhile about almost anything. It was actually refreshing to meet such an original person here in Wilmington and I was sad to see them all head back to Memphis.

Cucalorus response 1: Monster Camp

For my first Cucalorus screening, I attended Monster Camp, a documentary about the lives of Seattle NERO players, a real life version of Dungeons and Dragons basically. The whole community documented was a brand new deal for me as I really didn’t know (or want to know) that things like this actually exist, but it was very interesting to say the least. In a nutshell, the filmmaker, Cullen Hoback, followed around a few enthusiasts as they prepared themselves and their costumes for the big showdown of the real-life D&D’ers. The doc was very funny because of how serious the people took the game and how it had basically engulfed their lives. As a filmmaker, I really dug how professional the doc was made and how he let the players do the narration and not himself (see Michael Moore). I also liked the equal coverage of everyone and the balance of their real selves and game selves. The only thing I didn’t like was the fact that the guys seemed to get so much into the game that it had taken over their lives. It was almost sad, but I guess its good to have a hobby that one cares so much about.
There was a Q&A afterwards with Cullen, whom I had met a few nights before at Jengo’s, and he was glad to explain how he got the idea and also how the players were in their real lives. A question was asked about whether or not he was trying to exploit or poke fun at the players since the documentary was of a humorous nature. He explained that he was indeed not and it just turned out that way because it was a ridiculous concept to begin with. He also explained that the guys actually were pretty successful in their jobs (although one was a stay-at-home all-day gamer) and social lives and that one of the main guys was actually engaged. I had met Cullen at Jengo’s and somehow he got on an anti-film school rant (could’ve been the free alcohol) about how no one needs film school and that it actually hinders one’s chances in the film world due to the ego that comes out of a film degree. I was split on my feelings because I’ve learned a lot through this 6x1 class and in my other hands-on courses. But I do get what he’s saying because some of my more critical (i.e. paper-writing) courses haven’t taught me much other than the fact that I’d rather make movies than study and write about them. But who am I to judge, right?

Feeling Loopy

Happy Cucalorus week, blogland. Hope everyone has fun.

Last week’s class brought the first ever Make-the-Biggest-Film-Loop contest to Leutze Hall and sadly, the Ambitious Chinchillas(a kickass name BTW) lost to the other guys. It was definitely a contest of creativity as well as logistics. Our team started out with a good amount of film to kick it off with a bang, and we begin looking for things that could be used to loop it on the ceiling, walls, and even the floor, though not too close. I forget who it was but one intelligent member of the ACs discovered that using the key clips (whatever they are called) worked extremely well for moving film through, so we gathered the three or four our group had and went to work. We set up these clips in a triangle shape over the ceiling and walls and they seemed to work a little too good. I could see the look of jealous on that rival group’s faces as one of our first huge loops went through without problems, not to brag or anything. Finally, our key clips ran out and our loop tragically touched the ground, leaving us in defeat as well as shock. The experiment as a whole was a lot of fun and interesting. Congrats to the other team.

On another note, the works-in-progress looked and sounded cool. It’s really neat to see how much sound adds to the rayograms that are pretty much seemingly random. I really dug the speed techniques used, as in slowing down or speeding up the footage. Originally, they seemed almost too quick when we first viewed them after processing. But with the works-in-progress, they seemed to make a lot more sense and the sound added immensely. Can’t wait to see the final products and the one-shots.

Another week bites the dust.

Another week down and November is upon us. Last week’s class was another “low key” one but still interesting as always as we got to see the other animations completed as well as some cool screenings.

I thought the animations were cool. The Adventures of Noodleman reminded me of a claymation video game, Frogger meets Clayfighter kinda. The music was cool, nice selection of Rage Against The Garden’s (or Audioslave as their known by most) only decent song. The colors looked a lot better after some post-production. I remember it looking darker when first shown to the class but the colors looked crisp in the final product.

The fishtank animation (I forget the name) was cool as well. I thought the sound added a lot to it, especially when we were inside the tank and the “radio” noise was cut out completely. Narratively, I think it could’ve been editing more storylike, but it did have a Tarantino-type order to it. I really enjoyed the “room” setup with the Larry Bird baseball card being used as a poster, very creative.

As far as last week’s class screenings, I really enjoyed One Nation Under Tommy. When I was a kid, I always liked playing telephone in class because the outcome would always be nothing like the original saying. Of course, I was the prankster that always blatantly changed words around to ensure that it was never the same as the beginning. I’d never thought of how to translate that game into film though but ONUT was a great example of doing exactly that. I felt like maybe the first couple filmmakers/writers ruined the whole thing but that really made it all better and funnier in the end. The variations of the national anthem were great and somehow it made its way into all of them, I’m pretty sure. I think my favorite interpretation was the last one that was put together basically of some rough sketches to say the least. If I would’ve originally known I was remaking a Tommy Hilfigur commercial (which none of them did), I would’ve easily just drawn some crude drawings and say ‘To Hell with this!” Maybe in a film class, a project like this would be fun to do throughout the semester.

With this newly assigned rhythmic editing project on our hands, I’m excited about it. I’m really hoping to incorporate some type of self-made music or at least a beat so the editing rhythm will definitely be seen and heard. I haven’t discussed too much with my partner about what aspect of our lives we want to film of each other but I have some ideas for myself. As for tomorrow, I’m ready to see some works in-progress of the rayograms and am hoping for some cool stuff.

Happy Halloween.

Week 11... already?

Greetings, internet. As we move into week 11 (it feels like the semester just started, doesn't it?), I'm already looking forward to our next assignment, the rhythmic editing. Not really knowing what all it is, it sounds fun on paper. All that really comes to mind is some of the rhythmic sequences in Requiem for a Dream or the "Cool beans" sequence in Hot Rod, for those of you who got a chance to see that gem in theatres.
I've also been thinking about the 48-hour race and what I'm going to do, what I will film with, and who I may want to use as actors. I really don’t want to go too far in pre-production because the mystery prop may not fit in with what I want to do. My plan is to wait it out for about another month before I start to focus solely on that project. The challenge is going to be fun though, I can sense it.
In Experimental film, we also have an Installation piece due that final night and, from what we've discussed so far, our group should definitely rock the place and/or cause some very confused/sensory overloaded brain cells. Just so everyone's prepared...

6 x Fun

Who knew having class on Saturday could be so much fun? This past week's classes were fun to say the very least as we got to see some final animations and also complete a one-day shoot with a Bolex. Though we only got to watch two of the four animations(one which was our group's), I liked how they turned out. For the Army vs. Bear animation, the metal soundtrack worked well with the violent, warlike images presented onscreen. With the music, the bear looked like he was in the middle of a mosh pit, wiping people out with his feathers of fire. That was a good call on whoever’s part by choosing to use orange, yellow, and red feathers to simulate a huge flame. It looked really cool in the animation.

Going into Saturday’s one shot, our group really didn’t have a solid idea written on paper, but rather a few ideas that could or could not work. After viewing some of last year’s one shots, we knew we had to come up with something better. John mentioned that he had a doorway dolly to use and of course Angie and I have some interesting props/costumes of our own. The shooting went well once we had an idea to go with. Our location wasn’t far but since we used mostly trees, its almost hard to tell that we used UNCW campus. Our plot was simple: a tracking shot of a musical dance fest complete with a crazy full-grown leprechaun man dancing and clicking his heels around. Though it may not the most narrative piece, the visuals looked really unique and the exposure was nice. A lot more will come together with sound and editing.

I was also impressed with the other groups projects too and even got to participate in two more shots. The collaboration between groups was amazing and everyone seemed interested in helping each other out, both production wise and creatively. Colin, Matt, Martin, and Skip’s shot was something straight out of a Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry video. Definitely cannot wait to see the final product. School on a Saturday has never been so fun.

Animation completed

On Friday, Angie and I completed the sound portion of our animation assignment. Using only our stop motion footage and some of Andre's cooler footage, we were able to get a good video that didn't make much narrative sense but seems to match up well. For our soundtrack, we used a track that I made using my dm2. Although I made it without even thinking about our animation, it seems to match the theme and action of our sequence almost too well. We went with a space theme mainly because of the Star Trek action figures used and also the randomness occurring that would only occur in space (if anywhere).


Watch it here or wait til Thursday.

Reaction to Assignment 6

In response to our newly assigned 48 hour film race, I'm nothing but excited about the whole experience. I like the whole idea of limiting what we can/can’t use to film footage on. Now it’s time to see who’s creative and not who has the best equipment/access to equipment. Also I like the idea of a mystery prop to endure no one will get too far ahead of everyone else. I also liked being put under a time limit because its only under pressure that my brain starts to get kicking.
After just completing a self portrait project where I used footage taken from my digital still camera, I'm pretty confident that my camera will work more than fine to film my subjects with. That's a good thing too because my cell phone camera is pretty horrible. Being the only camera I really have, my Kodak has taken some great shots and some okay video, so this won’t be an exception.
Also, I’m looking forward to the final viewing of everyone’s projects. It’ll be the end of the semester and everyone will in a good mood, having a good time. Last year’s end-of-semester 201 project viewing was a lot of fun and I didn’t really know a lot of people then. This year, I’ve met a lot of new and cool people and think my film and editing skills have definitely improved enough to produce a good quality video, even if the film’s quality itself is somewhat lacking.

Thoughts On, Week Off

Even though last week's class was (in Andre's words) "low key", I had a good time with the viewings and thought they were really interesting. Starting with Monster Road, I really was inspired by Bruce Bickford's claymation creations. Its amazing to see an older fellow with a childlike imagination and also fascination with his creatures. After seeing our group animation, it was hard for me to imagine the planning and time consumed making an animation as elaborate as Bickford's. What really struck me was the fact he stated that he didn't plan them out, instead just made up the plot as he went along. I admit, during the animation project we did the same thing, it just wasn't as elaborate and polished.
The second viewing, Fridays at the Farm, was also extremely cool as it was all still photos and had to do with self-farming. I thought Hoffmann's whole still documentary was very inspiring, both film-wise and nutritionally. As a vegetarian myself, I really dug the whole veggie farm and how it was run naturally. The techniques used in the community farm were very cool and it was good to see his children growing up healthy in modern day America. Cinematicly, It was almost hard to believe that the entire project was completely stills, around twenty thousand to be exact. At times, it seemed like the stills were creating movement and that must've been hard to accomplish. Taking 201 at UNCW made me really appreciate anyone who can accomplish movement with nothing but still photos. I also thought that the still photography was appropriate for the film because it gave it a very scrapbook feel to it with dialogue included. Many of the photos were perfect and in ultra high quality which definitely helped. The use of timelapse several times also demonstrated the time and effort both the project and the farm must've took to make a good final product.

Chion Reading Thoughts

Preparing for last week's class, I read over the Chion article; however, we ran out of class time to discuss it. So I decided to look over it once more and use it blogwise.

First of all, one of the first things I learned in Intro to Film was the fact that it was sound that makes shots flow seemingly invisibly, and if it wasn’t for sound, editing would be much more blatant. My professor that year put on a clip from the film, Seven, and we watched it on mute, only paying attention to shots. The first thing I noticed was the number of cuts that I hadn’t really paid attention to before. I even began to count cuts and realized how much more edits there really were. Then, we watched the same clip, only with sound, and it was a whole different experience. In the Chion reading, this is the first concept he discusses.

Next, I really liked the factors of temporalization that Chion discussed, specifically how predicable a sound can/can’t be to create different effects. In Experimental Film, we just created soundtracks that were anything but predictable and then had to place images to synch with the sounds. The effect all the final products had was almost completely disorienting at times and also made the sounds and pictures seem as if they were meant to be. This just goes to show that the relationship of the two can be used to modify or oppose one another.

Since the sound experience early on in my film studies to the experimental project recently completed, I’ve questioned why films are still sometimes referred to as motion pictures and movies, when sound is the glue that holds the moving images together. Without it, we’d be lost and focused to much on the different shots, rather than the story itself.

Thoughts on last week's class

Thursday, I had a lot of fun with the in-class developing and learning more about processing film without taking it to a One Hour Photo place. The funnest part for me was taking completely random objects (a laser pointer, my HS graduation tassel, several spare iPod docks, etc.) from every nook and cranny of my apartment and placing them onto unprocessed film to see how it all came out. It was hard to tell if the laser pointer really had much of an effect since it was red, but after a few filmstrips, I saw a certain effect. It seemed to lighten the film strip a bit on the areas we really concentrated it on. The craziest effect we were able to produce was the yellow areas from where we put lip balm onto the film. It seemed to make the film untouchable and came out in very off white tones (also had a minty smell to it).
In class, we also got to view the film manipulation that Colin and I did. I was impressed with how it looked projected, although it seemed a lot shorter when viewing it. I think our animation turned out pretty sweet and I liked how the different manipulations we did turned out. While working with some of the found footage stock, I tried my best to figure out what exactly it was that I was manipulating. It looked like plasma or some sort of blood cells. It wasn't until it was projected on screen that I realized it was a pumping heart and muscle (so I was close). It looked really crazy with the blue ink that I had drawn in. I just kinda wish I would've known it was a heart but that's really the beauty of film manipulation: not knowing what you're going to get. Before I sound to much more like Forrest Gump, I think I'll call it a blog. Until next time.

Manipulating the Elements

Another fun project down, and certainly more to come I'm sure. This past week, Colin and I were able to meet up and get this film manipulation project in the books and had a lot of fun doing so. Not knowing really where to begin, we looked at the assignment sheet and realized that the hardest part would probably be the 100 frame animation, so we got on that first. We counted off the frames and were really amazed how small 100 frames really is. We thought it would turn out a lot longer which is also why we thought it would take the longest. By the end of the animation we (hopefully) have the earth spinning and disappearing, a fire sparking, and some waves crashing. We shall see how it turns out.

The Workstation

From there, we basically just looked at what all we had to work with from bleach to salts to oils. we tried to incorporate everything pretty evenly. I didn't get to work with the oil on the in class sample so that was one of the first things I messed around with. We both liked how the watercolor and oil looked on the filmstrip when mixed. Colin worked more with the bleach, employing it onto one of the several found footage film rolls we received. We dug the way the bleach brings out this neon green and hopefully it will turn out well when projected.
Another technique I used was film scratching with a thumbtack. I had a found footage roll of what looked like a straight country road, and I scratched out opposite sides of the road every other frame (if that makes sense). On top of that, I went and colored the sky red and green on respective frames and left one untouched in between, hoping to get a strobe light effect or any effect really.
The only problem we encountered was the magazine transferring and getting them to stick and stay on the film strip. I believe Colin ended up drawing with the metallic marker and it seemed to stick better with that. Other than that though, there was no real trouble. In a basically "anything goes" project like this, I don't think that any mishaps could ruin the whole thing, and there really are no bad mistakes. We both had a lot of fun and not a lot of trouble, as well as got a great experience out of the whole thing.

Ready for the splicer

Can't wait for the debut tomorrow. See yas then.

In-class Developing

Greetings. Thursdays class was yet another interesting one as we learned how to develop film on our own. This was definitely all brand new to me so I was pretty lost when Andre was explaining all of the substances needed to develop the film. It started to make more sense after the full demo though. I really dug the class's experiment and how the film strip came out. I think next week's class will be even better as we split up and get to create our own masterpieces. I've been searching my apartment for small items to create cool textures and outcomes on the film strip. Also, I've been thinking about what kind of concept/theme we would want this film to have, and its tough to have a theme when we have to basically just make it out of shapes and items, especially never having done anything like this sort of thing before. It should be another learning experience to say the very least.
Another thing about Thursday's class that I dug was seeing some of the film manipulations and seeing some of the class members's different interpretations of the elements. There were a few sequences that really had me thinking "Now how did they do that??" I can't wait for this weeks class to see more interpretations and also debut my own manipulated filmstrip.
Catch ya then.

Positive about Negatives

Another exciting week in the books and tomorrow should not disappoint as we workshop the first assignment: Earth, wind, fire, and water, film manipulations. I'm interested to see the class groups’ different interpretations of nature’s key elements and how they turn out on manipulated film stock. Unfortunately, due to unavoidable circumstances, Colin and I will not be able to present until next class but we will come prepared to impress.
Also, as far as class goes tomorrow, I'm looking forward to processing film stock for the first time as it sounds interesting. Being strictly a digital guy and never having used a dark room/red light method, I hope to finally see how it all works and what all the hype is about. This next assignment sounds cool as we’ll be laying items on unexposed film and shining lights on them. It’s like we get to be the camera and that’s a very cool concept.

Ocean of Stop Motion

Three words: Stop Motion (is) Awesome. Time consuming, yes, but it was all worth it in the end. Or so I hope. And not to say it's a bad sort of time consuming, but more of a fun sort. And the time is also needed if you want to make a polished animation that actually simulates unquestionable motion to the human eye.
Not knowing really what to expect out of the project, before class I searched my apartment for items and anything really that I thought would be cool to bring to life. Unfortunately, everything that came to mind was way too big for what we were working with, so I ended up with basically just a blanket and a Rubik's Cube. Luckily, my group came prepared.
I think we definitely took the abstract root, using the most random things we could find and a Bolivian blanket(moving at some points) for our backdrop. Some of our characters included Star Trek figures, a troll, a gang of bugs, and an origami swan. We even used some ketchup to add the special effect of blood. Needless to say, it got messy real quick. I'd say our main theme was deep space massacres as we had characters eaten alive... several times. But we also had a few dance sequences and weird formations to add to the class's collection. I hope to see a few of them used in the next couple of weeks.
Due to time constraints and our camera acting up, my group had to end early, but I had nothing better to do so I decided to stick around to assist. It was cool working on two totally different projects with different goals because I got to see different techniques used to create motion and also different environments being made with creative items. There are definitely some creative minds in this class and it's a great thing to see.
This week's class definitely inspired me to start making my own animations, no matter how long they take. With a simple digital still camera, a tripod, and various apartmenthold items, I think I can create something worthwhile and worth watching. I've always been inspired by Trey Parker, the creator of South Park, due mainly to his creative mind but also his use of stop motion to create the pilot episode. From what I've heard, they just used construction paper cutouts and animated/edited in Flash, and it took them about three months to make. But that's three months that spawned their careers so cheers to Trey Parker for sticking with stop motion (although I believe they use Maya nowadays).

Thoughts for the week.

As classes resume this week, I look forward to learning some stop motion techniques as well as expanding my newfound knowledge of Final Cut Pro. I also need to catch up with the rest of the class as I missed out on the magazine transfers last week. Should be an eventful tomorrow. In my Experimental Film class today, we learned how to import and edit sound which is actually not as hard as I thought it'd be. Never having worked with FCP before, I was very surprised to see that it's almost like iMovie... except they got it right. It seems very user friendly and reminds me a little of Avid, which I'd used in the past. We also got to experimenting with the audio effects (which I had no idea existed in a video editing program) and plan on applying them to our project.
As far as the reading for this week, I thought it went well. Its very interesting to think about the cartoons I grew up watching and the wide variety there are on television and the internet nowadays. Its good to see animation begin to evolve much like film is at the same time. It really makes you think of what kinds of animation there will be in ten years and also what computer programs will have to offer in assisting the animation process. With the new age of the touchscreen coming upon us, I can only imagine the ease of editing video by simple "cutting" with your fingertips and animating objects drawn right onto the screen the same way.

Below is a film my friend at VCU did using stop motion. He completed it last year and said it took him a good week for the 30 seconds. Enjoy!

The Melephants

Back from LA

Sights set on Hollywood

Aloha everyone. It'd be a stretch to say it's good to be back east, but it's definitely nice to be back in non-100+ degree weather. Also, nice to be able to get from one side of town to another in under 30 minutes. Other than the gridlocked traffic, LA is a fantastic place to be; great weather, plenty of things to do nightly, and countless film studios/prop houses.

Mad Props

While I was out there, I was able to assist with the prop department on a film, The Business (starring Donnell Rawlings, the Chappelle's Show "I'm rich, beeyotch" guy). Since I was working in the prop dept., I got the chance to go onto the Paramount Studios lot and enter their huge prop house. Imagine a small Home Depot with organized aisles of props for just about anything. I saw everything from the dinosaur eggs from Jurassic Park, Steve Carrell congress photos from Evan Almighty, and even a baseketball from the film with the same title. The above picture was taken at the prop house on the guns/weapons aisle, and that was easily the biggest gun they had at the time.
After the Paramount Studios stop, we ventured to Sunland, CA to the Independent Studio Services building to search for more props. Here, the employees seemed less busy and were more helpful, and the prop house itself was more organized than Paramount's. We were able to get the TV New camera and DC license plates we were looking for, without too much trouble (even got some free beer out of it too, but that's a different blog).

Movie Land

Heading back to set, we passed by the Warner Brothers studios shown in the photo above. For those of you who've seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure, you may recognize that gate. Once we arrived back at set, it was almost wrap time and I helped remove some heavy furniture from the house they'd been using all week, all while meeting and chatting with several crew members.
All in all, my trip to Los Angeles was well worth it and I can't wait to visit or relocate there sometime shortly.

One Week Down & LA Bound

Quite a sunny moon last night.

Greetings fellow bloggers and a happy Wednesday. I don't know if any of you took advantage of the full moon last night, but if you didn't, there's what you missed. Fun times with that 64 second shutter.
I just got done with this week's reading, which provided a good review of film terms from the first class as well as introduced me to some new terminology and ideas. For one, I didn't know they referred to 24 fps as "sound speed". On the set for the movie I worked on over the summer, they'd always yell, "Quiet! Rolling! Sound speed!" and now that makes a bit more sense to me. Secondly, being a digital guy, all this talk about dark rooms and actual film is starting to make me jealous that I've never developed my own film before or been in a dark room. Everything I've learned (outside of classes)about f-stops and exposure/shutter speeds has been a result of me experimenting with my digital camera. Not to be mistaken, I still love the digital world, but I don't think getting my hands on some film and a non-digital camera would hurt me.
As for this week's class, I'm going to have to take my one freebie absence as I am headed for Los Angeles at 8am tomorrow. I'm visiting a friend of mine, a production designer in town, whose out there working on a film. I'll be working on set with him Friday so expect a blog(s) with some pictures and perhaps even a vlog...
See you all next week.

First Class Thoughts

Very rarely does one get to experience a lot on the first day of a class other than a syllabus overview. However, this was one of few classes I've had where we jumped into the learning fun on day one (I'm a poet and I don't realize it). Having never dealt with film other than disposable cameras, I was really surprised to actually get my hands on actually film... and then get to scratch, color, and alter it Brakhage-style. My film had what looked like a still picture of a landscape, complete with a few bare trees and a hay barrel. What I didn't realize at the time was that the picture was slowly moving as if the camera was a car traveling down a country road. I also didn't realize how many frames you have to scratch to see a visible change for only a few seconds. After scratching out the same tree for a good 20 frames or so, I thought for sure, there'd be no tree left; however, I was proved wrong when I was able to view it via projection and the tree was only gone for maybe 2 seconds at most. Still a great learning process though that made me appreciate the work of Stan Brakhage even more than I already did. I think if he used some of the improv music like the Scratch Film Junkies, it'd add another level to his work, but its still pretty inspiring to me regardless.