Naturelnology

the final fusion between the installation group worked out great. although i did not see it because i was dancing. the setup looked cool and the fog machine added to the mysterious feeling of the setup. i liked that the audience was crammed into a smaller space as it closed the gap between stage and audience somewhat. every group members part in the performance and the prerecorded videos playing on the televisions were a good representation of each person. I also liked the mix of a variety of art forms, music, video, dance, poetry, and set design.

I could tell that the first groups installation was heavily influenced by the installation artist whos video we saw in class in which a person was projected on large panels around the room. The projection was very nicely matched up with the location and the timing of the actor to enter in was perfect. however, the acting of the girl tied to the chair was not the best. I wish she would have either been very scared (like someone would be if they were tied to a chair in that shed) or very subdued.

The painting while Vjing or looking at the VJ interface was interesting. I like the concept of it, however i think that with a bit more fine tuning, it could work out better. like if the projector was actually in the air projecting straight down on a while canvas on the ground. then the people could gather around it without blocking larger portions of the projection with their bodies. spray paint and large markers would have been good to use as well because they are quick drying.
It was very nice of michael to let us use his projector for everything.

Music video completed

great job to the class completing music videos. They turned out good. for ours, it was nice to that people liked it and was able to draw out some meaning from it... even though it may be deeper than we planned. Super 8 looks cool. I may do some contrast adjustments, but i dont think it would be a good idea to color correct...or at least not a good idea for me to do that because once i correct one clip, I'll end up doing every single one and then i feel like it looses some of the original feeling because I've tampered with it so much. Its a problem i have that costs me a lot of time.

The slice of love video was good. however, just looking at their footage, i thought that they were going to do something a little bit more magical or tricky with the editing... like sort of make it seem as though the backgrounds were changing all around him..which they were in the final cut but i was thinking it would be more magical. I also would have liked to see some more shot variations.

The shark man video had a lot of energy expressed through the band as well as the tension between characters. Very good job of incorporating the band into the video. and James' use of true slow motion was cool to see. I wish i had played with that because it does look different than digital slow motion.

I am very excited about the installation project. I know i wasnt too excited before but after wayne, angie and i talked at the location, we defined more of what it would look like and created a theme. it will be a fun performance and good close to the class.

Assassinate!

as i begin to edit the music video footage I remembered a music video i made for my band The Assassins several years ago. I don't think we can follow our original story too much because some crucial scenes did not make it. too dark. but it will be fun trying to piece something together.

here is Assassinate

Vision

Visions was a good set of films at Cucalorus. Thanks to the people who put it on, and thanks for the goodies in the bags. It was nice to see some of the other students works. Also inspiring to submit a film to cucalorus.

Shooting Super 8

When clicking on single frames its easier. like filming stop animation or something. When shooting at 18 fps, the rapid jitter of the shutter opening and closing mixed with the film speeding out of the reel make me nervous. It is unlike shooting video in that what you shoot, you cannot shoot over. you're permanently imprinting that image on the film. When holding down the trigger, that noise leads me to think that I am shooting much more footage than I actually am. Shooting too much footage is a nervous feeling in itself when film is limited.

this is somewhat how i felt on our music video shoots. I didn't want to waste film by getting the beginning and tail ends of the actions. The ever present feeling that one i got a shot, i got it also haunted me a little. I became more comfortable with the noise and the notion the last day of our shoot. It also helped that we had some film left over. I think the more i shoot with film, the more comfortable I will become with the sounds of the camera telling me to rush and conserve.

A Dance Two 20

my self portrait. and a little bit more that was cut off in class ( the sides)

James 4:2

You do not have, because you do not ask.

Golf

we went over to Lexi's mother's house to look at the golf course and cart for our music video.

the cart is a very nice blue. The course is nice as well, however we will have to shoot after six so we must get everything ready before hand and be ready right at six pm.

these are some shots of the golf course and the back of her mother's house where we could film the lemonade scene.






Steve, you should call the owner soon to make sure it is ok to film there.

self portrait

I just finished my self portrait video. I think it came out ok...a little different than i imagined in my head. It was fun video to do.i got to play with some effects ive been tinkering with.

Im excited to see the rest of the classes' videos and how they interpreted the self portrait assignment.

I wonder if people will think that my video is a representation of my self.

It is rendering now and hopefully will get printed to tape tonight.

MUSIC VIDEO

alright, i listened to Leslie (the band Wayne posted) sounds good. If they agree, I will be into that. Or if anyone else knows of anything cool.

I was just thinking of some ideas for the music video.
- perhaps burying people in sand might be cool. like several people in a row, or just one, or burying objects like a chair and lamp.

- shoes. film a lot of shoes, walking, dancing, skootering, and maybe recreate the walking motion with the camera. and maybe do some sort of natural transition so that they all look continuous.

- maybe do sharp camera movements at the end of shots and cut them next to the corresponding movement.

I'll keep thinking about ideas...and if any music comes to mind.

Reflections of Sound & Light

In Order:

I was happy with the way our groups sound scape came out, and the classes sound scapes were good too. I like the one that Lexi and I got for our photo project..."Between the Devil and the deep blue Sea." There was a lot of variety to work with.

Shooting the stills was a lot of fun. Im glad to have learned how to use the pentax and that Friday at the surplus sale was able to pick up the same Pentax K1000 35mm camera for $10. My girlfriend got one too so we are going to take photos in the Smokey mountains this weekend. anyway, Wayne had some good locations in mind and they turned out great. We tested out some double exposing and one with trees and clouds on the ground look very nice.

Because of tight schedules and determination, Lexi and I went into the editing lab on sunday early morning to finish the project in one day. It was a little tough finding a way to manipulate the photos but I think our finished product is pretty good. I wonder if any other groups used techniques like we did. After 5 and 1/2 hours, we were done and printed to tape...thankfully with no computer troubles.

Im excited to see all the finished products and am glad to be done with the project. I am also excited about the self portrait project but am a little nervous about time because of fall break...then family visits, time is going to be squeezed. Also, looking at the syllabus, there seems to be a lot more due in the upcoming weeks...yikes.

Redo Light Notes

Clock Tower 6:15 pm
the Elongated shadows cast by the setting sun on the brick buildings and pine trees fall long across the hilly lawn that has taken on the tint of gold where the sun hits it and shadows do not hide. The Magnolia tree's plasticy leaves reflect the sun light while the thin pine needles absorb the golden rays and the insides bear a dark colour where the sun is not shining. So much depth and detail is added by the light, especially in this time of day and intensity of the sun. the way the shadows fall seems as though the sun is choosing to highlight things and patches on the lawn.

Grassy knoll 5:10 pm

Again the sun was in it's golden state casting long shadows, but I looked to a smaller portion, a small patch of long grass behind campus woods. while sitting on the ground I noticed how many ants the campus/Wilmington has. I got lower sort of like the ant's view and looked at the light on the grass. on the surface the tops the of the blades looked golden yellow, but towards the centers of each cluster, there was dark brown. Each blade cast shadows on the other in line behind them from the sun. The thicker blades cast thicker shadows and added to the nice contrast. Light is so crucial in seeing detail.

Light in the pool 2:30 pm

I sat under an umbrella and noticed the way the sun light was spreading across the pool area. On the water, the light made it possible to see that the water was moving due to the jets. Without the light, I may have never known that the water was in motion. the light formed figure 8 type designs on the surface and some light poured in deep to illuminate the bottom.

One of my favorite things about the sun on in late afternoon is the long, unidirectional shadows it casts. shadows of the palm trees, fence, umbrella, and chairs were being cast onto the ground. another thing that happens in late afternoon is that objects have a light and shadowed side. the part not in direct path has a much darker, less colorful look. As I looked at the fence pillars, I could see the definite line where the sun could not reach and the objects took on darker colors.

The umbrella I was under filtered/diffused the light so that there was a shadow but not as harsh a shadow as opaque objects.

Metallic or hard plastic had lines of reflections. On round objects, the very point of the curve where light reflects back.

Street light night light

There is no need for a night light in my room. there is no need for a desk lamp. My desk is near the window and the window lets in light. Yes during the day...but also during the night. It is not like sunlight's yellow bright light, this light is an electrical orange you might see around the vicinity of a prison. About ten feet away from my window on the second floor stands a massive street light. It comes on around 6:30 and doesn't shut off until mid morning. this street light would serve as a great nightlight if i ever needed one. It does work as a good desk lamp though. when I close my venetian blinds, the light is cut it slits that line my wall. the blinds look whitish orange as they absorb a small portion of the light.

anything in its path is illuminated by the strips of light. the object's shadow is then printed on anything behind it in such sharp lines.

As the lines of light move their way into my room they bend over my desk, being sure not to break itself. sometimes the lines look blurred on other surfaces, the light is a sharp orange illumination. light gleems off of anything metallic or smooth plastic... my phone, a picture frame, plastic bag, tin can, surf board, and door knob.

small lights from electronics also stand out in the orange stripped room. red numbers on the digital clock, blue dots of the hard drives, yellow from the amplifier. my computer screen also holds off the orange strips but when the screen saver comes on, it gives into the piercing lines and over the dark screen orange flows.

light comes through the cracks around the door from the hallway, but it is still dimmed due to the orange.

you may wonder "is it possible to sleep in this?" It is not...naturally. I have constructed a heavy dark curtain to shield the light rays of this midnight sun.

Mary Lea

This is my grandmother. she is a wonderful photographer. I don't know the author of this photo however, I like the composition and the fact that she is holding her beloved hasselblad. the things she captured and places she went with that camera are inspiring.

she is publishing a book of her stories and photography... it should be a nice book to look at.

mother

this is another one of my grandmother's photographs of my mother in her hippie prime playing guitar in front of what looks like a riot...I think it was another image of a Vietnam Protest.

Horse in the Sky

this is my grandmother's best selling photograph as well as her personal favorite. An abreviated version of the story is that her love for horses drove her to photograph them, so she took some shots of riders riding at dusk. In her dark room she discovered an image in the clouds behind a rider that is strikingly similar to the horse in the photo. this photo has not been doctored in any way as it was taken in 1966. I put her name on it in this online version because she is scared of loosing it on the internet.

This is one of my favorite photographs of all time and inspires me to look into the clouds.

NY skyline

this is a composite photograph that my grandmother put together using a photo of the New York skyline that my mother took on her 6th grade field trip, and some clouds that my grandmother photographed. Its dreamlike look and skillful dodging attests to my Grandmother's great darkroom capabilities before computers could achieve unreal things.

Eugenio Recuenco

This photo is by Eugenio Recuenco a quote from his website "is a spanish photographer who is a pain in the ass because he always insists on doing whatever he wants." His work is very beautiful and inspiring.

The Assignment

Part A

Running around looking for things that may make some strange, or necessary sounds to add to the bank was exciting. working with the nice mic was also a pleasure as the sounds we captured were much clearer than we could have done with just the camera mic..
The sound blog listening excercises were a bit different for me. In the blog excersises, I was able to sit for 10 minutes, close my eyes and truely listen to my surroundings. however, in the sound scavenger hunt with our groups, i found that I was not as aware of the surrounding sounds, and because of the equipment load and other group members, i also feel as though the equipment load and other people around were stressants prohibiting me to tap into the surrounding sounds.

Never the less, we captured some cool sounds and we were all very excited about showing them to the class.... since the assignment called for 10 min exact, we thought we would edit all of our sounds down to 10 min becasue we had taken multiple takes of some sounds. So into the computer it went and like cancer it spread, creating files in other classes folders. FCP would recognize the file, so Imovie was our last resort. cut the clips, and made it tight into 10 min. We exported to tape... but not really. Exporting wouldnt work.

Over the next couple days we would spend over 5 hours tinkering around with the file trying to export it to tape. the final plan was to get my little miniDV camera and print to tape that way. it worked thankfuly.

Part B

As I sit in Bear hall waiting for my tape to capture, I am going over sounds and ideas in me head and trying to relate them somewhat to our given title "a house divided against itself cannot stand". so far the computer is going great, and i hope it will stay that way.
The main idea running through my brain is that we have some sort of harmoneous sounds going along, then some shreik, then a time of pause mayvbe with some ticking (my group got a clock sound) and then chaos comes. loud sounds are sometimes broken by remains of the harmonious sounds but they are again overloaded by the loud sounds.

the image in my head is that its a nice house at the begining, then something happens and then the waiting time is it splitting (ahh maybe use some zipper sounds) then all hell breaks loose and peace tries to come back but a house divided against itself cannot stand.

easy in thoughts, i wonder how it will be with sounds... so many sounds to chooose from.

Bear

sitting in Bear Hall's editing lab. It sounds like this.

airconditioner+monitor buzz+mouse clicks+typing+foot shuffle+chair squeeks +hands on desk+Lexi humming+ticking clock+door opening+miniDV case opening+backpack zipper+books slam+flip flops filp flopping+locker opening+door closing+cough+rolling chair = bear 202

Fremantle Doctor

An overcast day at the beach yielded a sounds smothered by wind and waves. Sitting in the sand with your head close to the earth, you may hear more than the overpowering sounds of the wind and waves. A low, sort of muted through transfer hum can be heard from the ground. The earth emits a rumble as the waves crash on it's shore.

standing on the beach, the wind passed over my ears and created a hoosh sound that was constant. As i turned the position of my body, I could hear it less or more. It reminded me of sailing with my mother and how she taught me to know exactly what direction the wind is coming from by feeling and hearing it evenly on each ear.

The occasional bird squawk or person's yell were audible over the wind and waves but not much else.


(picture is of my girlfriend's ear and the overcast sky)

Trask Sounds

As I sat up in the highest level seats in Trask Coliseum as five members of the basketball team practiced with a coach, I closed my eyes, this is what I could hear:

the first and most catching of all sounds were the squeaks the shoes made on the floor. As the five of them danced around tossing the ball, their squeaks became almost like music in itself.

The next most catching sound was of clapping, they were almost continuously clapping during the entire practice. As i saw when i opened my eyes later, they clap for almost everything, to say "im open" or when someone makes a shot. the coach, who was acting as a defender was clapping to simulate defense pressure. Rythmic claps even took place when someone made a free throw. or other planned plays.

The yelling of the players was also one of the loudest sounds. most words were indistinguishable because of the other sounds and my distance, but i could make out some dominate words from their game.

"alright"
"oh yeah" or "yeah"
"i feel you"
"heal" (usual repeated several times)
"three"

Going back to the shoes, i could not hear them running or walking besides the squeaks. But I did hear faintly the tap as they landed from jumping.

the deep sounds from bouncing the ball also fit into the music of the claps squeaks and the occasional swoosh of the net.


As i listened closer, and tuned those other sounds out, I could hear more from my surrounds...from the actual establishment... Trask. I must have been sitting near an AC vent because it was very cold and the constant sound of air blasting in in large amounts came from over my shoulder.

The buzz of the gigantic Halogen lights was also constant and electric.

In the distance i could hear a deep roar. perhaps of the Air conditioning unit just outside.

Also in the distance, heavy doors were opening and closing. and as i was getting ready to leave, a vent just over my head let out a rattle then began blowing air. as if another unit had switched on.

Artist

From the time I could sit up at a table until my late childhood, I sat in on my mother's art classes she taught in our basement. It was there that I developed at an early age some skills that would prove more valuable than many learned in school. My mother, a painter/sketch artist/ retired hippie and my father, a carpenter/ sculptor/ dancer moved our family around a lot as kids going from Arlington, VA to Maui Hawaii, Tokyo Japan, Beijing China, and back to Arlington. Not to mention several moves within each city. Art has always been a very important expressant in our family. In highschool, I became interested in film.

My art inspiration and aspirations: distinct colors, lights, and vivid costumes are what inspire me. I watched David Lynch's BLUE VELVET last night... that was inspiring. And also filmed in Wilmington. As far as experimental film goes, I was a little annoyed at first viewing. "whats the point" "whats the story" "what am I seeing". I was looking to find something that just wasnt there. I could not apply my narative film critique on these films. with another class came another view of expirimental film and as I embrassed it, I was inspired to to manipulate the film medium in unique ways and satisfy myself.

Im excited about the things that will be done in this class. Im excited to do art with others and share art with others.

This is a blog
into it I log
words in precise order
like a news reporter