Reflection on all projects

1) My most favorite project was the rhythmic edit. I did not expect to enjoy the editing process as much as I did since I am generally not an editor; however, I am most proud of how this project turned out.
2) The film manipulation project was really fun because I have always been the kind of person that likes to do things with my hands and this project is one of the few times I have actually been able to use film stock.
3)The stop-motion animation project was interesting to have to work with so many people and mediums of film making. I have never done animation so this was definitely one of my favorites.
4) The crowd sourcing project was interesting since we had to do the frame marathon in which we had people constantly making frames for our film as a collective group. I am really proud of how this project turned out and genuinely enjoy watching it.
5) The 360 degree film was fun and new, however the editing process was not in my wheel house and caused me some of confusion.
6) My least favorite project was the video letter. The premise of a video letter I love and think there were some really good videos made in this mode. My personal experience was very rushed with it being during final times.

Overall I enjoyed the projects and am proud how they turned out. I think each of these are interesting modes of film making and definitely embody the name of the class.

360 video shoot

I missed the day that the class filmed using the 360 degree camera causing my experience with the project to be much different. I had to check out the camera and design a scene by myself so I thought it would be interesting to be sitting in a room of people talking and interacting as people do everyday. I chose the scene I did to embody this idea, letting the camera become a person in the film and interact with me and my friends as I normally would on a daily basis. The editing of the virtual reality footage was a completely different experience than any editing I have ever done. I am not good at editing, but this project pushed my knowledge and helped me expand my comprehension.

Rough Theater

I really enjoyed the article about "Rough Theater." The way the author writes how theater encompasses all the handmade theater venues as well as the sparkling chandeliers as well is very interesting. I can relate this article very easily to experimental film making. Experimental filmmakers are the rough theater of the film making world. They use techniques that are not conventional and sometimes even deemed as bad film making practices. However, to an artist, non conventional practices create the best art, as the article argues as well. I also loved the quote "If we find that dung is a good fertilizer, it is no use being squeamish." This quote really speaks to me as a struggling filmmaker. It is essentially saying, if you know what you need to do, then why would you not do it. If you know what it takes to become a successful in whatever you are doing, there is no point in shying away from it.

16mm Film Manipulation Project Experience

The film manipulation project was a very unexpected gem in my experience. I had no idea that this project would be so enlightening and fun in the end. To begin with I was not very excited to be drawing and painting on a tiny 16mm frame of film. However, by the time I actually sat down and got to drawing and painting, I realized I was actually having a lot of fun. At the time I did not expect my film to come out and look as good as it did either. I enjoyed learning how to load actual film and seeing it projected with the iconic rattling of the projector in the background was very exciting. Overall I loved this project and would love to do more work with actual film in the future.

The Importance of Sound

Sound, while being extremely important to film as well as everyday life, gets very easily overlooked. Its easier to drown out a noise than it is to sit and dissect and analyze every sound you are capable of hearing at any given moment. There is sound and noise around us all the time that we choose to drown out and these videos and readings brought attention to the things that most of us tend not to appreciate.

I often sit and listen to the things around me when I am alone and its very interesting to hear the things you can pick up on whether you are in the middle of nature, the beach, or in a busy restaurant. I am an avid hunter and often enjoy the time that I get to sit and listen to nature as it is uninterrupted by society. There is a great deal of peace in the rustling leaves and chirping birds that create the cacophony of nature.

As far as film goes it is important to think about the sounds that you hear every time you are in a place. A film may sound clean with merely room tone and lines of dialogue, but it is not realistic and believable. I believe that sound design is where a great deal of low budget and student films fall short. Instead of creating the atmosphere with the sound that is in the place, many people go after what they believe is important. Where the more simple "background" sounds will give the film depth and an interesting new dimension of reality.

Crowdsourcing

Crowd sourcing:
The article of crowdsourcing was very interesting because I did not know there were that many different ways to do crowdsourcing. I had been involved with Kickstarter which is a type of crowdsourced website which I thought was a really interesting idea. I also knew you could do crowdsourcing like we are doing it in class by getting different products by different people and combining them together.

The birth of Wikipedia:
This TED Talk was interesting. I did not know that wikipedia was a completely nonprofit organization. I love the idea of using the internet and the crowd sourcing idea to collaborate ideas to create the largest encyclopedia in the world.

Aaron Koblin:
Aaron Koblin's TED Talk was amazing! I loved the all the media he displayed in his talk. I loved the Johnny Cash video that he crowd sourced and the ability to view each of the drawings that were submitted. I tried the wilderness downtown video and I thought it was amazing. I actually got very homesick from watching the guy in the video running down my road and in my hometown.

Synesthesia/cymatics

Synesthesia and cymatics has always been something that interested me a great deal. I never really knew what to call it, or if there really was a study of it, but visual sound has always caught my attention. It is amazing that there is such a long history of people studying it. Being a musician as well as a filmmaker, I had always wanted to find a way to visualize the sound of my favorite songs. Ernst Chladni’s experiment with metal plates and sand was really interesting to me. I would love to learn more about how that works and how that could be applied to a visual medium like film. I think Evan Grant put it well when he was suggesting that sound could have had something to do with creation itself. The thought that creation itself is just the form of a sound is a remarkable idea. Daniel Tammet’s TED talk was also interesting as he discussed the way in which he perceives things. The idea that the way we learn and know anything is based on our perception of things I believe is very true. Daniel Tammet sees things in a very different way than anyone else and uses that to create art and even further his research. I believe this could be a new and inventive way to look at filmmaking. I would love to bring some of the ideas of these two speakers into account on my experimental project. 

Response #1: First day Film Screening

The wavy lines looked almost like vibrating guitar strings, and when synced to the sound of the guitar or violin, it seemed like it gave the viewer a feeling of how music would actually look like. It was almost like each instrument had their own shape when it was being played. The film in whole had a happy and joyful mood with its combination of colors and upbeat music.