Project 6 Evaluation (an explanation of Dora)

This was a very fun project to do. It was difficult because I had final projects and exams all in the same 3-day period. I had to race in a film race while doing the rest of my work. I had not slept in over 24 hours when Dora was conceived. I starred at the blocks and I thought, “What can I do with these blocks? I figured I could count them. Then I figured, who could count better than me? The answer was Dora. I put it together and dubbed it to tape. The whole night I was scared to death because my project was so silly and dumb and I knew there would be projects that were very deep and looked like a lot of hard work had gone into them, and they would be playing together. When it played and people laughed I was relieved. It was something amazing to see how 15 people took 3 blocks and made 15 unique and wonderful films. It all goes back to the idea of film in the rough. All of them were made the better when you find out the criteria. I was blown away by the work my peers made. I wasn’t bored for a minute (granted it was only about 20 minutes). It was fun to see other people who weren’t in our class seeing an enjoying our projects. I’m glad we were able to participate in this event. I can’t wait to see what the next class churns out.

Project 5 Rhythmic Editing

Wow this was a hard project. When dealing with such a small fraction of time you start to appreciate how long a second truly is. I know I ran into the problem where I thought I'd be able to show a whole shot and realized it was like 15 seconds to long. I think my project is good though and I hope the class feels the same time. Gigi and I work really well together. We shot both projects back to back in her apartment (we both had problems being able to shoot at work). I shot a project on pigging out in front of the TV and she shot one that was about the frustration of writing a paper. We arranged our schedules and shot and edited in one day. It was a fun experience. Gigi is very new to final cut so I had to help her a lot. But once she got it, she got it. Each of us gave suggestion on each others project that really helped. I'm excited to see what the class thinks of each project.

Dora

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Summing up Rhythmic Editing

Wow this was a hard project. When dealing with such a small fraction of time you start to appreciate how long a second truly is. I know I ran into the problem where I thought I'd be able to show a whole shot and realized it was like 15 seconds to long. I think my project is good though and I hope the class feels the same time. Gigi and I work really well together. We shot both projects back to back in her apartment (we both had problems being able to shoot at work). I shot a project on pigging out in front of the TV and she shot one that was about the frustration of writing a paper. We arranged our schedules and shot and edited in one day. It was a fun experience. Gigi is very new to final cut so I had to help her a lot. But once she got it, she got it. Each of us gave suggestion on each others project that really helped. I'm excited to see what the class thinks of each project.

Eatin With Gigi shoot

Shooting Gigi

Film in the Rough

The article we read was pretty spot on I believe. I've actually read another book by the same author called "The Empty Space". I have a associates degree in theatre so comparing theatre and film is one of my favorite things. My favorite kind of theatre is done in found spaces. With limited sets and props. I love the idea that its up to the audience to participate, they are not handed everything. The article is about exactly that. In film, when you do experimental, there is a differnt expierance than in traditional. The audience is forced to particpate. Sometimes the stock is gritty, sometimes the message doesn't make sense, sometimes there is no message. I love rough films, they remind us that we're watching a performance. They remind us that film is an art not a window. I've not been experimental films biggest fan but I see its importance. Its also nice that anyone can make a movie. You don't need a Hollywood set and a million dollar budget. Film in the rough allows all of us to be filmmakers. As a piss poor filmmaker, thats exciting.

THe Historic Nature of Bloodshed

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The Shorts at the fest

I went and saw the Flank Shorts on Thursday. They were well made. There was one film in particular I found myself loving and hating at the same time. It was a German film called "Exploding Buds". It was really experimental and proved my theory that all German people are insane. They created a fake forest with triangular pieces of paper as leaves. There was some stop motion as well, which was really cool. I can't begin to describe the plot (there is one but its indescribable). But the stop motion has black ink crawl up one of the characters bodies. Then a girl holds his hand and it crawls up her body as well. Having done some stop motion now I really liked it. The end is insane. You've been in this wild pretend world where there is nothing natural, where everything is wrong from the looks to the actions of the characters. In the end the two "protagonists"(if you could call them that) are ripped from that world and left naked in a real forest. The juxtaposition literally makes your head spin, you realize how detailed nature really is and how much more beautiful it is that anything we could ever create (wow that sounded alot corny than I meant it to). The experiance of watching a series of shorts is pretty cool. I like the idea of 5 films with nothing in common being shown back to back. The films ranged from the weird german one to a sweet story of a father and daughter, to a strange out of time western, and finally to a break up story. Each had unique visual styles and I'm glad I checked em out. I also went and saw the hottest state. It was preceded by an one minute short. This short was really kinda cool. It was hand manipulated film. Animation drawn on the film (I think). Having worked with that I thought it was great. The sound effects were spot on, I found myself laughing at parts and there wasn't even a joke (what is wrong with me?). I'm gonna try to check out more but I might not get the chance. Hopefully though. Great festival. worth the out of state tuition. (Maybe).

2nd Try

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A Work in Progress

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Confessions with Skippy

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Vlog on the film scratch junkies

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Vlog

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Developing Film

This week we worked with exposing film to light. This was really fun. We put salt, marbles, and all sorts of little things on film in order to create a negative. We then developed the film by ourselves in two methods. The first was traditional developer. I felt like I was really an experimental filmmaker. I was making something and seeing it through from creation to developement. The second was just plain cool. We used coffee and vitamin C to develope film. It worked alright but for sheer creativety, i think it was the cooler way to develpe the film. I have to say that this class is really pushing me creatively. Even though this isn't narrative I am finding ways to create the image I want. I can't go anywhere now without looking at things and thinking "what would it be like if I put this on film?" or "what could I do with this?". This week I've brought alot of stuff I think will created interesting effects on film. I tried my hardest to find something translucent that would create something interesting, I couldn't find much. I was shopping and found stencils, which I think will be really cool because actual shapes will appear on the film. I bought some fake plume feathers which I also think will be intersting because the spaces between the strands of feather will make an image appear very clear (I may be wrong but this class is all about finding what works and what doesn't). Hopefully my group has brought some other things that will make this a truly unique project.

Assignment 3

I'm really excited about our next project. I've never developed film before so this is going to be completely new for me. I've already begun trying to think of weird and interesting things to put on the film. I'm still a little confused about contact printing but I'm sure that will be explained this week. I can actually see this type of experimental film making its way into narrative (which is what I want to do). In the movie The Fountain they used things like this for backgrounds in the space scenes and it was beautiful. I can't wait to get started.

Stop Motion Fun

This week was a long class, five plus hours, but it was really fun. I brought a ton of stuff to play around with and I was lucky enough to have an extremely creative and talented group. We utilized clay, little plastic soldiers, a rubber crocidle, a model bear, feathers, pipe cleaners, and construction paper. It was time consuming, only being able to move things a fraction of an inch. I was inspired by the pez videos and came up with an idea to make the bear breath fire. I had three differnt colored feathers in its mouth and moved the colors every 2 frames so it would appear to change colors and hopefully invoke the look of fire. I'm so excited to see all the crazy stuff we shot, I really hope it came out well.

Project 1 Update

Gigi and I completed project 1 this week. It was a real learning experiance. Scratching 9 feet of film is time consuming, and when you are trying to convey an element with it its even harder. We decided to color the film ontop of the scratching so that the elements were more obvious. We also found that vegetable oil never dries. It took forever, but I think it'll look really cool when its projected. Our biggest issue was with the air element. How do you convey something that is invisible? Gigi had this silver powder that barely showed up on the film but was still there, it worked perfect and should look great when projected. We got a little crazy and combined our found footage and magazine transfer (which will hopefully not come back to haunt us). I had a great time working on the project and I hope the class enjoys it.

Long live Pes

I loved the pes videos. I actually went around to my friends suggesting them. I watched them again on the computer and really liked it. I thought Kaboom was brilliant. I watched it four times. These are the kind of expiermental films I really enjoy. It is an interesting look at ourselves, like the comment about the ribbon. It also makes you wonder how interrelated sound and image are, because you hear a cannon, a clown becomes muzzle smoke. I would love to work on a film like this. Every since, I've been looking around at everything wondering what I could make out of it. I'm really glad we watched this film.

The Brother's Quay

The Brother's Quay is a stop motion film that looks like what a Tim Burton film if he was actually depressed. I was thoroughly freaked out. I liked it but it was very out there. I was trying to figure out how on earth they did some of the amazing things, particularly with the reflections. I didn't understand the allusion to communism but I don't think that would have changed my impression. I hate dolls, they freak me out and there was something even more freaksome about a doll being disemboweled by other dolls and being turned into a monster. I'd like to see a behind the scenes to see how they accomplished this strange work of art.

Getting the job done

Gigi and I have been working on our project and I'm getting pretty excited. We met and discussed the format (if experimental film has one). We broke it down and have decided to do a candy cane like format. Switching between each element every 100 frames (enough time to actually notice something). There is alot of work to be done, but now that we have a plan I think it will be really interesting and an awesome learning experiance.

Response to Toward a Theory of Animation

I have never reallly thought about the production of a disney film. I'm not gonna lie, I know the words to "A whole new world". I like a good disney classic. This article made me feel like it was a cold industrial process. I felt like they were making animated films like a factory would make a car. To an extent that's very true. Because there are so many people working on the animation there is no animator, no artist. Though some of these films are very well made, they were well made by so many hands thus elimanating the personal touch of a single artist. I've mentioned it before but I've never truly enjoyed experimental cartoons (maybe I just haven't seen any really good ones). I have a new respect for the experimental animators. As a lone artist they are creating something uniques, without the constructs that a orthodox animated film does. These films don't have a narrative form. I think the more I see the more I'll enjoy them, this article has encouraged me to do just that.

Last Class Review

I'm really excited about this class. The magazine printing excercise was really interesting. Seeing everyones put together (though the jammed projector sucked, I pray I'm not the one who made my strips too wide) was awesome. Utitilizing this newly acquired skill will definitly make this next project something exciting. I noticed how I tried to use little symbols in my strips and realized when projected that they were on screen for a frame, sometimes less. I used the superman symbol twice but never saw it as it was projected. I wonder how many other people in the class did the same thing. You don't seem to recognize individual images, rather just patterns. I'm going to try really hard to incorporate this realization in my project. Most fun I've had in a three hour class in a long time.

Skip Vs. Brakhage

I'm not gonna beat around the bush: I'm not the worlds biggest brakhage fan. I find it hard to make it through mothlight or Dark Tower. I think they're pretty, but there isn't much else. I enjoy his less (if it can be called that) experimental film work. Though I hate to watch it, I can't help but really respect and admire "Window Water Baby Moving". The cinematography, the home movie feel, while simultaneously creating a universal moment in its audience is breath taking. Having said this, this guy writes alot. 32 pages of him calling me Maker. The technical parts of the article where interesting. I'm excited about making my own experimental films using some of these techinques. I think all experimental filmmakers are very self indulgent and I don't think I'm going to be an exception to the rule. Some of these films that seem to have an audience of one, find a place in the hearts of a wide audience. Hopefully our class will find something in everyone's piece that we can take with us. Even though I hate him with a firey passion, I know I'll take something from Brakhage's work and I'm excited to take something from the rest of the class.

The Blog Begins!

Hey guys,

My name is Skip. I am a film student at UNCW. I'm taking this class (6x1 variations on the one minute film). I want to play with many forms of film and so I'm stepping out of my normal thing and trying this class. I've never been a huge fan of experimental film, I always thought it was very self indulgent and that it was the easy way out. Over my first year at UNCW I've started to realize that's not necessarily the case. I want to experiance more of it and one of the best ways to understand something is to see how its made and actually do it yourself as well. I've tried Narrative and Documentary and I'm pretty excited to add this class to my résumé.

Skip