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.