48 hour film race

6x1 Part 2: Return of the Dre

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Cucalorus

So I didn’t make it down to the festival for two events, but I did go to one. I went to see the film The Toe Tactic. I have to say for all the great screenings that I wanted to check out, I really had trouble finding the time between school and work. That and I felt like absolute shat last week because of this head cold.
I can’t even say I really had interest in seeing the film I watched, more that it was the most convenient block for me to get to. Anyway, I guess I’ll give a brief summary and review of the film…

The Toe Tactic

The film takes place in New York and it is presumably modern day. The film’s main character, Mona Peek, is a girl who is between jobs, and lost in the wake of her father’s untimely death. The film uses animation to convey a story of the perfectly abnormal cause and effect scenarios that we, in the real world, wish could explain everything that happens to us: good or bad.

This was Emily Hubley’s, the animator, feature film debut. I have no real connection to her work and I don’t know if I’ve seen it in the past, but it was pretty interesting. It has that kind of third-grade kid doodling on notebook paper look to it.

In the animated realm a game was occurring between some dogs. It was basically a card matching game and once they had a match they could interact with Mona’s world, which effects the outcome of each event that happens in the film. Sometimes the dogs helped in her journey towards reconciliation with the memory of her father, sometimes they didn’t; in one scene a dog possesses (yes they are able to possess people when they get a card match) a homeless man and tries to mug Mona in order to get a bone from her. The bone is actually a surviving fragment from when they cremated her father… Pretty odd thing to carry around.

The story seemed a bit bipolar on if it was going to take a positive route or a negative one, and it basically ended right in the middle. Each character was a bit too complacent to offer up any sort of existential sentence they could. A couple of the dog scenes were particularly annoying, because they seemed to talk in circles around the audience (or maybe it was just me.) Some of it just seemed like hosh-posh nonsense for the sake of sounding smart and contemplative. Nawmean?

I’m not saying it was horrible, it just didn’t make much sense to me. The acting was mediocre and a bit strange or random at times, but again I think the film was reaching for something beyond my personal scope of enjoyment. In the end, Mona had to basically explain the plot in a dialogue, for me to get it; apparently she was forgetting what her dad was like when he was alive. We get a gushy crying scene as she admits this to her mom, the dogs say “good game” and the bird, who hosted the entire game, possesses an old man and waves to Mona as her and her mother drive off into the future.

This is completely off that topic, but I caught the Yes Men on CNN (I think it was CNN) this past weekend. It seems that they completely fabricated a false edition of the New York Times and it’s headline read “Iraq War Ends.” I forget exactly how many copies are in circulation, but I would love to get my hands on one and read some of the gag articles. Some linkage http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117995917.html?categoryId=2526&cs=1

the new jam session

Freestyle Time
I hope I can reach 600 words because this is not the time of day I’d prefer to be doing this. Right now I’d be much happier eating something hot in front of the TV. The urge is tenfold what it normally is because of this shitty little cold I picked up recently. So here goes nothing...

We have to do a visual essay in my ENG 306: Essay Writing class. It doesn’t really matter what approach we take; it can be an argument, instructional, informative, it’s just that whatever it is, it has to be primarily visual rather than textual. The professor is trying to get us thinking like writer’s while applying that knowledge to a different medium for the same cause.
I feel like I have an unusual advantage over this particular project due to the fact that we just got done with our Found Footage culture jams in 6x1; I can’t think of a better way to make an argument using the visual medium of film(aside from a documentary).

My culture jam for 6x1, which is posted below, was arguing that the benefits of drugs usually don’t outweigh the risks, especially if we consider that the risk is 9 out of 10 times is heart failure: which may cause death. There is nothing more satisfying than taking something out of context and turning it in on its own head.

I’m thinking about comparing our current war with Vietnam. That’s been discussed many times before and even I‘m sick of hearing that comparison, but I‘m going to take a new approach to it.
I’m going to show how, in one respect, these to wars are very different. Particularly, how they are different at home.

I’m talking about the media coverage now and the media coverage then. What do they show us? What don’t they show us? What impact does that have on our national/global community?
Because the media is not allowed to show pictures of wartime hard-truths, such as bodies returning to the United States from Iraq, the idea of war has not resonated as strongly as it did during the Vietnam War. I believe we, as citizens, brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, sons, daughters, etc., should have access to these truths. There is no need to pull the proverbial wool over our eyes since, in one way or another, we are all involved in this nation‘s decisions.

The media guides us to believe that the Iraq war is under control. I’m excited that we have a new president and all, but the situation is far from over. During the 60’s and 70’s major anti-war protests took place, I believe that we can attribute some of this to the reality that was broadcasted into America’s living rooms. War is as decaying and ugly, as a Newsroom is lavish and shinny. Bells and whistles, charts and numbers, feature stories about Brittany Spears: it is all content with no context. I hope to make this argument within the editing and restructuring of coverage from both of these controversial wars.

Log Jammin'

dun dun DUNNNNNNNN...THE MAFIA(W) blog

I plan on using the technique, which we learned a while back, of using a template with clear film and a jet ink printer. Since I have no idea what the mystery prop will be, I haven’t really thought of a scenario yet. I’ll be using my digital SLR to shoot the project, so every image will be a still shot, but I’m going to use pixilation to animate people and objects. I’m probably going to play around with a lot of Photoshop brushes and filters to give the film a painted on look.

It’s going to be tricky indeed to pull all this off in 48 hours. To edit 1440 images wont be an easy feat to undertake in that amount of time, its gonna take a lot of coffee and a new pair of contacts.
I’m probably going to create a couple of filter templates within the next couple of weeks, that way all I’ll have to do, once the trigger is pulled, is shoot the pictures and throw these filters onto the whole batch. I still haven’t figured out the most efficient way of doing that, but it’ll come to once the pressure is on. If anyone has played around with that sort of thing, and you are reading this blog, please feel free to give some advice.

Once all that is done, I’m going to transfer it to mini-dv, take it into Final Cut, and make whatever adjustments might compliment the initial structure of the film.

Also, I might try using film stock with a soundtrack. The different pulsating rhythms created by the dots in the example we looked at really added a neat dimension to the film.

I really don’t know much more than that at this point, which I think is the interesting part of the assignment. I would like my concept to reflect whatever the mystery prop might be, so it’s all basically a mystery to me until the mystery prop is revealed.

I realize I’m a few words short here so… I’m going to go ahead and say that my film is going to change the entire industry, as well as the viewing experience as a whole. That may be a lot to take in, but it’s true. It’s going to rattle the heads of world leaders and create an indiscriminant peace for all of mankind. That is, of course, if the mystery prop is more of a mystery budget than it is an actual prop. Think about it. Just make a mystery (blank) check out to me and I will accomplish all of this in the name of Andre “Dr. Dre” Silva the great.

Yes Men

Yeah man, the Yes Men are funny. I was a little thrown off at first, I would never claim to be an expert on the happenings of the WTO, but I definitely got the picture, or at least the commentary made by the Yes Men, by the end of the film.

I think its important that there are people out there combating corporate monsters such as the WTO. If it weren’t for like-minded individuals making this king of stand, these big money organizations would spiral even more out of control.

It’s pretty clever that these guys can infiltrate this corrupt system of bureaucratic nonsense by simply acting the part of business men with perverse moral/ethical grounding: they fit right in.
Watching it as a documentary, and in essence being in on the gag, is really an eye-opening experience. You have to ask questions like: Where was security to escort this man (in a gold leisure suit with a phallus) out of this conference? Why didn’t people from a television network catch onto a false representative of the WTO before allowing him to be on air?

It really is a statement of the amount of absurdities corporate interests can get away with.

I took a little pride in the fact that the college students saw past the smooth talk and that they weren’t actually sold on the idea of literally selling shit to third world McDonald patrons. If there was a single agreeable individual in that audience, may he/she burn in hell (in my opinion).
I would have like to have seen how that presentation would have gone at the scheduled conference it was intended for, with a more money-washed audience, but it didn‘t work out that way. Hopefully, for humanity’s sake, the reaction would have remained the same, but we’ll never know.

In the last gag, the Yes Men declared that they, the assumed WTO, were disbanding and reassembling as an organization geared towards the betterment of mankind and not big business. It was pretty cool to see all the positive reactions from the press members present at this conference. It was as if some of the people giving reactions to the camera were slapped by the idea that the World Trade Organization would truly be concerned with the interests of the people. It just goes to show you how accepting a lot of us have become towards these organization’s, such as the WTO, roles as merciless and unbeatable villains. It kind of makes me want to stand up and boycott a local McDonald’s or something, but honestly I’d probably just order a number ten once discouraged.

Film is definitely a strong vessel of awareness and opinion. The Yes Men was a great example of film as action in that it promoted joining or supporting their cause at the end of the movie.

Molotov Man Response

When Joy said “all of my paintings are based on photographs,” I instantly knew what trouble lie ahead. I also paint from photographs, but I’ve never actually done it for anything other than my own enjoyment. I’ve never tried to publish or display any of these paintings, so I’ve never been involved in this kind of conflict. I do agree with Joy, that the distinctions between her painting and the photograph are obvious. Just the change in medium creates a unique, appropriate context. Her choice of framing completely changes the image, as she mentions in the article. Which is also to say that I think the image does work with Garnett’s conceptual riot series. The photographer, Susan Meiselas feels as though her subjects “context is being stripped away.”

The photographer of the original image, Susan Meiselas, seems less interested in the artistic potential of her image as she is the truth and movement beyond the photographs frame. Her portion of the article has a great focus on the circumstantial history behind the Molotov Man. For instance she tells us his name, Pablo Arauz, and that he was, at the time, a Nicaraguan rebel fighting the regime in power. She knows the image has been used in many ways: political, religious, but it has primarily remained an image of Nicaraguan pride. She obviously finds Joy Garnett’s reasons for recreating this image a little less worthy due to its abstractness.

I can take both sides here. I think it would have been smart for Joy to contact Susan and let her know of her intentions for the Molotov man. I’m aware that there would be a fraction of the art in the world if every artist had to seek permission to do what they do, but I do think it should be a common practice from one artist to another when undertaking a translation in or between mediums. I don’t think Joy meant to impose on the images importance to Susan, but you just never know what type of person you might be dealing with. Susan seems very straightforward in her belief that Arauz belongs in his original context.

roughin it

Back in the Community College days, some friends and I discovered the world of pinhole cameras. Its pretty cool because you can build one using anything with a hollow interior. Our designs ranged from shoe boxes to more elaborate wooden models.
The idea was to have your camera light tight and to make the hole as small as possible; its just easier to control exposure that way. Of course light tight isn’t always an exact science and the holes could range in size, but the imperfections they left behind, to me, were all part of the appeal.

The photos these cameras would produce was always a surprise. In simpler models you could skip film completely and just use photo paper. Personally, this made it easier for me to develop the pictures at home since I lacked equipment such as an enlarger.
It was also nice to use paper because each camera, depending on its shape and size, would bend the paper therefore distorting the image. Cans, or other rounded objects, achieved images like a fish-eye lens, while inserting the paper diagonally along a rectangular film plane gave images a certain view camera aesthetic.

I knew one guy that used a pinhole camera to do a documentary on the homeless of Raleigh. That to me is one of those situations where the tools used to produce the art reflect that art that is produced. I have to give him a lot of credit for choosing to do his project that way. It definitely added an appropriate style to his images and their subject matter.

Anyways, it reminded me of the article on the Rough Theater because no one needs a camera with all the bells, whistles, and digital displays to make a photograph. Having to guess your composition, and printing results that are basically a mystery to you, always has a great payoff in the end. Sure an LCD screen is handy, but anyone can point and shoot. Pinholes actually present a bit of a challenge.

I think another way in which I’ve experienced this idea of ‘rough art’ is in intro to production here at UNCW. Each film we made required a good amount of improvisation, just as 6x1 does. Problem solving doesn’t come in the form of a big budget for us college students, so its only natural that we compensate with creativity. Using a rolling chair as a dolly is something that most film students have experienced, and it is just one of many ways that our films look differently, but work the same as big money productions.

I personally like the idea of using ones mind rather than ones wallet.

Rhythmic Editing

Webb Response

I’m pretty excited about this animation thing. Pretty nervous as well. I’m not one for patience; hopefully this exercise will make me appreciate it more. The Wells article had some very interesting points. I never thought of the spectrum of animation that is, and will always be available.

These days, I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I believe we expect progression in animation; primarily through technology. Even though the article might have popped the proverbial bubble on cell style animation, it in itself is becoming a rare commodity. CGI seems to be the route that all big animation names have been taking, for at least the past 10 years (it seems somewhat force fed these days). I can’t remember the last non-CGI Disney movie that was released.

This trend has even infected my child hood love, Ninja Turtles. I can respect Well’s point, but I have to say, even cell animation seems to have a certain vintage to it now.

That, however, is not his point. I really saw a lot of sense in the ‘theory of animation’ table. It separates art from commercial product. Its important, to me, to be reminded that film isn’t all about reaping the benefits of landing that Hollywood career; that it is also a community of artists. There’s nothing wrong with making that dolla dolla bill, but at the same time, film has a fragile existence as an art (amongst its more ancient predecessors) and I think its important to preserve, if not improve that state.

Which brings me to what I though was the most interesting point: the idea of an absent artist. It never really occurred to me that I can’t name a Disney animator, but I guess that’s Well’s point. It’s not so much that Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons are generic, but more that they are veiled by an established tradition and little tolerance to venture beyond.

I like the fact that by doing these animations we are in essence creative interpreters. Like the Pes example we saw in class. He didn’t simply draw an explosion (though its probably not that simple to draw an explosion); he used common household items to stand in for them. These items lent irony and an underlying message to the work KaBoom. Now, that name will stick with me because of unique stylistic choices and artistic signature.

6x1: Enter The Squircle

So, 6x1 thus far. I’ve really enjoyed it. Who would of thought that painting on film would be so …therapeutic? I was reading some of the other blogs for ideas on how to make this last more than two sentences. Stephen’s got a good thing going on with the listing. So I’m gonna go with that…

Scratching: Alone, I don’t find scratching that eye-catching or intriguing . I think it works really well when supplemented with other techniques; such as painting. It was pretty surprising when we got that first strip, how fast those strategically placed lines whizzed by and looked like absolutely nothing. Definitely learned something about frame speed that day. I mean, I knew…but I didn’t know. Why does twenty-four frames per second have to be so literal man? It was also kind of neat to mess up the soundtrack and here that weird demonic groan. Extra creepy when the image is a baby in a crib and you load the film upside down…

Painting: Yeah, painting on film should be offered as an after school therapy. I’m not any good at it, but its good to me. The oil making the inks blot up is a nice effect. I got a little carried away with it today and managed to cake on about half an inch of ink and oil onto the film. I think at some point I was about five centimeters away from putting my nose in the stuff. I kind of slipped into some transcendental state and starting watching small ink blots pulling each other in to make one big ink blot. Trippy. Deciding it would never dry by the end of class, I wiped it clean. No good.

Animation: I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I kind of attempted it with the first scratching exercise, but if you’ve read above, you know it wasn’t a success. I can really see how intricate one can make these animations by the examples we‘ve seen in class. I want to get into, but I’m very skeptical of my own patience. The technique Andre showed us (finding mid points on the film strip to create a slow transition) makes a lot of sense and now I also believe in squircles. I’m really looking forward to trying the printing technique that was covered today. That looks like the animation I could get into. A.D.D. approved sir.

Magazine transfers: This I want to play around with some more. If coupled with some animation technique I think it would produce a really cool result. I was pretty surprised at how simple it was. Alas, like the scratching, I was pretty disappointed I didn’t create at least twenty-four frames with a theme or color scheme, so I could at least recognize what I had done once projected.

Rayograms: It was good to have that old familiar Dektol smell back in my life for an afternoon. I have a two year degree in photography and that smell alone brought back the memories. We got to do this on paper, but it produced a completely different quality on the film. Really neat stuff. I liked the textures shaped by the crystals a lot. The noodles looked pretty groovy as well. I look forward to playing around with rayograms.

a motion picture giving and taking blog

Andre, you were right, Brakhage is...a bit loopy, but I jive with the guy well enough. I found it mostly easy to follow what he was saying (no matter how many statements were in parenthesis).

It was definitely good review material and the humor made it less drone to read. After seeing some of his films, I thought we would be reading some sort of defense for experimental films. I was worried Brakhage would go into some longwinded essay about how scratching emulsion off of film is the purest form of art known to man. It was kind of a relief that it wasn't that type of thing. Not that I don't appreciate this type of art, but I find it much easier to engage in a reading about a practice whilst engaged in that practice myself.

I was actually surprised when Brakhage started with film scratching and inking as an introductory method for learning the tools of the film medium. I'm one of those people that needs to take something apart in order to fully understand it. So I found that to be an interesting way of looking at why we're doing this.

You must know the rules before you break them. This is what I've always been taught, no matter what art class I was taking. I always kind of hated that, but I can see why it is necessary. Everytime I saw an experimental film I would think "these are the film guys breaking the film rules." This article made me look at that statement under a new light.

Scratch Film Junkies

It was interesting. Jumbled and scratched images chaotically dancing, sometimes seeming synchronized to the soundtrack. At certain points it seemed as if it was only punctures, paints, and other distortions, but occasionally images and human subjects would appear. These images were also manipulated, but in a more controlled way. For example, The scratches, and such, would frame the human subjects from time to time.
In the mean time, I'm interested in learning what separates film artists, like Scratch Film Junkies, from an amateur that went to town on some old film with a tooth pick. Or... are they amateurs that just went to town on a piece of film with a tooth pick? Either way, I'm sure I'll see the light by the end of the semester.