Two more ideas...

I had a couple more ideas for my Time project. I came up with these while I was at school yesterday before class, but they were not developed enough to convey without dragging on.

The first one deals with the way two individuals make use of their time. Think of it as a cooking version of the old "Tortoise and the Hare" story. It starts with the two people living together and wanting to ease their hunger by making something to eat. The video would focus on the meals they make within that hour (probably something that takes about that long to make, like a burger or cake for example) and their contrasting cooking philosophies.

I wanted to reflect their personalities in the way they cook, and the clothes they wear. The patient guy that cooks his food with care would probably wear something muted, like greens and browns. The other that rushes through his cooking and ends up burning the food he makes would wear lighter, more streamlined clothes.
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The other idea I had was dealt what people do when they are forced to spend more time than they desire on a given task. You know how cross walk signals can take forever sometimes to change, and when they finally do, they change back way before you get to the other end of the street? I wanted to make a film that greatly exaggerates the way the cross walk changes, almost as if it was alive and really does not want the person to cross the street.

With some camera work, I could give the illusion traffic starting and stopping as soon as the cross walk changes from red to white. This could make for some interesting interaction between the person and the crosswalk itself, especially if the person in question has somewhere to be. For example, the person gets ready to give up, starts to walk away from it, to cross down at the one down the street, sees the crosswalk change to white, tries to run across the street. The signal all of a sudden turns white, but stops short as he or she is about to get hit by a car. At the end of the video, about an hour later one of his or her friends shows up and offers a ride.

I'm still working on developing these ideas, and the déjà vu idea from yesterday a bit more so I know for sure which one I want to do. Any thoughts on these two? I asked around to get multiple opinions and was told that both ideas would work fine, although the first one might be easier to do.

Quick Response: Meshes of the Afternoon

The number of ideas she is able to clearly convey through sound, action, and framing is impressive.  It is possible that my interpretation could be wrong, but from watching the film, I got the impression that the main character was at her wits end with the guy that she was close to, and was wrestling within herself on a way of dealing with her situation.  To me, it seemed like she felt killing herself was the best way to rid herself of the other guy.

From a technical standpoint, one of the most visually striking moments in the film was her trek across multiple environments to her destination.  The shots had a quick, yet distinct rhythm that gave the viewer the impression of a far distance traveled in a short amount of time. From reflective surfaces to transparent drapery, each element seemed to have its own meaning and was seen multiple times, in different ways.  One of the most interesting elements was the face of the stranger she followed.  Its face was highly reflective, like the knife she carried.

Elevator pitch: Idea one, idea two, and idea 3.

My first idea is about a guy or girl (have not decided yet) who has dreams of future events.  The only catch to these premonitions is that the person does not remember the dream once he or she wakes up, until it is about to happen.  To an extent, my movie asks "what happens when a person sees a tragic event about to occur, yet only has one hour or less, due to his or her memory, to prevent it from happening?"

My second idea is focuses more on the desire of an individual to make amends for a bad deed that he or she once did in the past.  I want to emphasize the idea of a person taking control of their own time to fix a horrible mistake or accident, instead of brooding over it.  It is somewhat like every movie where a guy or girl makes a mistake and thinks about fixing it, without the first hour and a half he or she spends feeling sorry for one's self.  To put it simply, "how quickly can one fix a major problem if they actually dedicate a solid hour of time to fix it?"

For my final idea, consider all the people in the world that take time out of their day to help someone else.  By helping someone else, you are lowering the amount of time you have in your day for your needs to, in a way, increase the amount of time for another person's duties.  I wanted to film a person spending an entire hour helping people non stop without rest and see, in the video, once it's cut, if the viewer can see a visual change in the person's body and mannerisms. Does one shorten one's lifespan when helping someone?

Time Documentation, Manipulation, and Expression: Three Ideas

Below are my 3 ideas for my film:

My first idea deals with the concept of deja vu. In doing my research on time, I started wondering about how people handle the displacement of time in relation to one's life. Time, for many of us is an ever changing variable, one that we ourselves determine. This first idea would reflect, some of my own personal ideas about deja vu; specifically if our time spent is pre-planned, or lived once before.

It would be an extension of my own experiences with deja vu. As crazy as it may seem, there have been times where I feel as though I experience dreams i have had before, almost as if my dreams acted as a glimpse into the future. Strangely enough, I forget them as soon as i wake up, only remembering them again right before they happen. Being the stubborn individual that I am, I would try to alter the course of things that happened in my dream. I would test and see if things went the way they "should" go, or if I can change what happens entirely.

Again... I do not know if this happens for real, mainly because altering the course of events does not prove the legitimacy of any of these events happening. They are all feelings.

Still, I would like to maybe use this idea, documenting an individual attempting to change the fate of those around him, playing with his own perception of time to affect others.

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My second idea involves the concept of trying to replace time once lost. Every now and then, we all make mistakes. Sometimes we make mistakes that we want to desperately fix. My second film would document someone spending an hour trying to fix that which he or she "believes" to be unfixable. The concept, much like my older one involves the manipulation of one's personal time, but extends out to the time of other individuals as well, depending on the situation I use. A definite situation has not been decided yet, but I do like entertaining the idea of heart felt apologies.

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My last project idea relates to something I call the "ever-shifting balance of time..." and what happens when one spends time out of his or her day to help others. When this happens, an individual is subtracting time out of one's own duties to extend the amount of time another individual has to do other things.

In the film, the individual would indeed spend his or her entire time helping others, dedicating no time to oneself. Is this more taxing on the body? Does the individual tire quicker? Become restless? When the video is cut, one will be able to get the sense of time passing through the actions and mannerisms of the individual recorded.

This idea is more of an experiment that the others, yet I find the idea of "giving one's time" to someone else having a direct effect on one's physical and mental state an interesting idea to try.

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critique exercise

Material Choices:

• web-camera, quicktime pro for minor edits.  
  
• Bag, bread, etc for film's subject matter.
  
• Clear plastic cover to protect camera lens. (shot with jelly)

Conceptual Process:

• Shooting from the perspective of inanimate objects.
  
• Considering the viewing angle of the object in question (its eyes)
  
• Would they always look in the same direction (from slice of bread to sandwich)
  
• How to simulate that which has never been seen my my own eyes, i.e. breadvision?  (Think like bread?)
  

What do I want to communicate?

• Making and eating of a sandwich from loaf to table, then table to mouth  (Life and death of a sandwich?) specifically from the sandwich's perspective.
  

Result of first try, or other attempts made?

• Project was first try at concept, but shot same actions multiple times before it looked the way i wanted to convey my idea.
  

Are those attempts present in final work, or erased?

• (Yes) Final work appears seamless, with actions flowing into each other via the cuts to black.  On personal note, fits my original storyboard made for project as well.

Quiz # 1

#1  Short description of mise-en-scene:  All the elements that are put in a scene, including but not limited to, characters, props, clothing, the lighting the setting, the space between each element, and even the performance of the characters.  The elements of mise-en-scene are manipulated to add significance to a scene.

#2 Difference between scene and shot?  A scene includes a sequences of images taking place in a single time and place.  A shot is referred to a single, unedited sequence of images taken by the camera.  One scene, can have multiple shots if all shots are taken within the same time and place within the movie.

#3 EDITING: Refers to the joining of clips of film into a single filmstrip or timeline, either to create transitions, alter the pacing of a movie, or add effects to a movie beyond what was originally shot to place emphasis on a given action or scene.  Editing transitions include Jump Cuts, Cut In Cut Away, and Wipe.

By Any Means Necessary: "Breadvision" Writeup

I used my short video as an opportunity to experiment with the first idea I wanted to try in this class, filming from the perspective of an inanimate object.  The sentence I made in class last Thursday focused on one's appreciation of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  It spoke of their ease to make by anyone.   As strange as it may be, this got me to wondering about the life expectancy of the sandwich in question, from being pulled out the bag to being eaten, if it had eyes of its own.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to hypothesize what life may appear like to a slice of bread before it is eaten. From there, I started planning my video of a sandwich being created then eaten from the sandwich's perspective.

The main things i focused on was finding a way to portray what a sandwich would see, no matter how cramped, or tight the space was.  This video required utilizing the web camera in different situations to imply the bread actually exists, thus creating the bread character itself.  It took a lot of planning and story-boarding to give the impression of "breadvision."

One of the things I am now wondering about is where the eyes of different inanimate objects would be.  For future projects exploring this idea, I will always have to consider how i can make the vision of the object in question believable for the duration of the film.

One thing i wonder about in my video is the sound.  I prefer it without sound, but I do not know if removing the sound from the video is absolutely necessary.  I noticed that the cuts in my video are apparent with sound, and it breaks up the action, no longer making the bread's movement from loaf to table then table to mouth seamless. Is this necessarily a bad thing?  I am not so sure, but I would like some input on it from others.

"Breadvision" With sound....

"Breadvision" Without sound.

FW1 extra post

• manipulate
• sandwich
• retro
• perspective

As retro as it may be, consider that I love the peanut butter and jelly sandwich for its simplicity; that from my perspective it is easy to make, so easy that I made it myself, manipulating it with these two hands.

Free Write 1: 1/22

• I thought more about filming from distinct perspectives.  Like the perspectives of food.  Sometimes maybe even furniture. I would like to maybe shoot some footage of a meal being eaten from the meal's perspective. Being able to simulate those acts through visual imagery could work... it's an idea at least.
• For some reason, big red gum does not appeal to me the way it has in the past. It used to be really spicy, and had a distinctly fresh kick to its flavor. Now it's just... bland.  Maybe i've eaten so much of it that my taste buds have become desensitized to it. Oh well.
• Ham Sandwich. Awesome.
• Sometimes i wonder how many documentaries have been done in the world.  There's so much crap to investigate that there must be a lot of things that have not been painstakingly documented yet.
• It's cold... and hot at the same time... yet i'm not sick.. weird.
• Black and white films and pictures look really nice, yet I am wondering how i could produce work in that color scheme without feeling entirely retro, or dated.  I could do it by subject matter, maybe the way i manipulate the space within each work.

First Blog Post: Inauguration and Video Ideas

One thing that I can not deny about the Inauguration of President Obama its standing as a momentous occasion. It is held in high spirits by many people for many different reasons. Some find it exciting for its racial merits. Others are excited for the sole fact that Bush is out of office. Many more are excited for different reasons that I could not fathom.

*as a mental note, why not film people who are not actors on the excitement they feel about the day? Are we limited only to 3 second shots of people cheering, taking photos, crying and whatnot?*

Personally, I was and still am enjoying the entire ceremony as i watch it now. For me, I am happy that I am old enough to fully understand how much something like the inauguration of a president effects everyone. There is the potential for the way America is run to radically change to the extent that our way of life can shift between prosperity and social oneness to misery and solitude. I was shocked at how many people were outside listening to his speech earlier today during his inauguration. In the far distance you could see people waving flags in salute to the new Commander in Cheif. It was one of those moments where, as cheesy as it may sound, you felt that you were definitely part of a larger society, one that cares deeply about its salvation.

Not to be funny, but you can tell an event of this magnitude is special when absolutely no one gets arrested or acts upon any negative impulses.

The last time an inauguration took place, I was in middle school. Now that I am older I can appreciate these events for what they really are.

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For the record, I know absolutely nothing about film making going into this class. I choose to take the class expecting to learn a whole lot about digital video production.

Here is a list, in no specific order, of things I have been thinking about or want to expand my knowledge of.

• 3-point lighting and other lighting techniques.
• the rule of thirds and how it pertains specifically to film making.
• basic dos and don'ts pertaining to video production and common mistakes novices make. ....This is probably something I'll learn the more I work on my techniques and ideas.
• My filming ideas are not fully developed yet, but sometime during the semester I would like to film a sequence in the first person perspective of a individual object. Although i cannot find a video that shows what exactly I am speaking of, for expieremental purposes, I think it would be interesting to film the world from the "perspective" of inanimate objects, and their interaction with the world around them.