Installation

Sooooo to be completely honest... installations kind of scare me. I'm not really an experimental kid, and I certainly don't pretend to be. I'm glad I'm in Royce's group, because he is the most experimental kid... ever, in more ways than one. Our group met tonight to go over ideas, and I'm starting to feel a little better about this. Royce has a pretty cool idea about a guy that hires contractors to build him a new planet because he hates all of the other planets and wants to spend the rest of his life alone. Then he finds another person that hired the same group to build a new planet for her, but the contractors were just building one planet and were hoping that they'd never find each other. They fight.. and then they both jump into a volcano... I guess. I wish they didn't have to do that, but it shows our director's personality at least.

I then suggested that we not show found footage of construction workers on a boring sheet, but a more interesting surface. We then came up with the idea of projecting our footage onto a giant ball that has four different textures on it of earth, water, and two others of that sort to kind of represent a planet, that would rotate throughout the installation. This is the part I am excited about because a big arts and crafts project is much more comfortable to me that the whole projector/actor part. I am glad to have found an aspect of this that I can really contribute to and understand, and hopefully I'll learn a lot more about the other aspects of this as we go.

Music Video Shoot

I'm actually pretty happy with how our music video is going. We got off to a bit of a rocky start with our planned song not working out, and then not being able to find a song at all until the day before filming. When I showed up on the first day having never heard the song were making a video for, and only being told to bring different pairs of shoes, I'll admit I was a little concerned. But as it turned out, being crunched for time forced us to think simply and efficiently, and our song ended up being about a weary traveler, and so we decided to shoot people walking in a ton of different shoes, on different textures and surfaces, and from different angles. We even did a cool stop motion animation of shoes walking down a path with no body attached, and if that doesn't come out too unexposed, I think that will be awesome. Breaking it down to a simple concept has created millions of really neat editing options that everyone is really excited about. Being new to directing, Kristina had to deal with a few pitfalls that caused some irritation all around, but we all worked it out together and it actually turned out to be a pretty fun experience.

Art House reading

I really liked this article, and I felt like I could relate to the message a lot. I definitely agree that there is a different feeling, a different connection to a film and to those around you when you see a film in a microcinema or any unconventional setting than in a big theater. Cassandra and I went to Luna Fest last year at Browncoat, and we absolutely loved that there were just little uncomfortable wooden chairs set up next to the bar, and that the dvd player worked...most of the time. I was reminded of that when the article talked about how the unpredictability of this type of cinema viewing adds to the experience. Also that the most unconventional of locations can also add a thrill to the experience that a theater simply cannot accomplish. When I read that I thought of taking 6x1, and Andre having us all bring in blankets and sheets and taping them together with gaffer tape and projecting our video race projects under a precarious tent that we made. Having the projection sheet slightly crumpled and blowing in the projector fan made each project look a lot more hand made and raw.

Every summer my town hosts a summer film series where they play movies at the beach at Ontario Lake for free. Families, friends, senior citizens, and little kids all crowd in for the free entertainment. I would always get there late, and be stuck halfway behind a tree or on a weird rock. But it was fun, it was exciting to rush to get a seat in a different area each time, and hearing the waves lapping in the background added almost another layer to the soundtrack that obviously wouldn't otherwise be there.

I also really related to the relationship between people at screenings such as this. In traditional movie theaters, it is rude to talk during a movie, and it is not normal to stay around and talk to strangers about a movie afterwards. But in small settings full of people that love to talk about film, there is much more of a participatory feeling created among viewers and the film. There have been plenty of times that I have come out of a film totally pissed off, and have had no one to talk to about it that cares. I love going to microcinemas because everyone cares, and everyone would be pissed off together.

super 8 video

I found the incredibly boring video talking about the film stock that we are using for the music videos, so if any of you (Barrett) are still freaking out about it, feel free to take a look.

Music Video

Our group hasn't picked a definite song yet, so I don't have any definite ideas, but we do have an option that I think would be cool for super 8 film. Kristina found a song that involves human imperfections and women wanting to be different from the way they are expected to be. I think that song lends itself to a lot of creativity with shots of the body and movement, as well as contrast with different objects. I think that using super 8 will connect to this well seeing as super 8 doesn't look perfect, and is unique when compared to the traditional video that is mainly used now. I think it would be cool to use lighting to add to visual contrast to make lines harder and sharper rather than the soft lighting and focus that women are usually portrayed in.

We have some shooting dates set up, and are working on adding one more day hopefully.

yay for music videos!

soo I don't know what any of you guys did growing up, but I watched music videos. enjoy.

I don't really listen to coldplay, but I had a film teacher in High School that was OBSESSED, so I see these things, and this one is pretty cool


If any of you have ever heard any of Bjork's stuff... this wont surprise you. Shes out of her mind.


The White Stripes? of course.

self portrait idea

sooo here is what I'm thinking for my self portrait. I don't want to talk about my whole life in 3 minutes, because that is way too much and way too vague. I have had an awesome life so far, so would just be too much to say about 21 great years. So what I'm going to do is narrow it down to my experience with leaving for college. This was a lotttt more difficult for me than for pretty much anyone I know because I am a huge homebody, and for some reason I decided to not only leave NY state, but to actually venture south of the mason dixon line, to sunny NC. So I would like to portray my feelings about not only leaving behind my friends, family, and home, but also the experience and emotions of starting a four year long distance relationship, which was quite daunting at the time. I have gathered a bit of home movie footage that I may or may not use, but if I do it would only be in the very beginning. Other techniques I'd like to do to visualize this is a very basic animation, voice over narration, and found footage. I would like to represent my emotions through metaphors in nature (through found footage), because the environment is very important to me. The music will be a single guitar recorded specifically for this project. This will be a self portrait of an emotional experience and growth, rather than of my physical growth over the years. I am a little nervous because it is a really personal subject, and I have a really hard time talking about feelings and stuff... but I am going to try. My boyfriend was a little perplexed when I told him I was going to record him singing "you are my sunshine" for a school project, but he is being a good sport about it, not that he has much of a choice.