Really upset. Well Kinda. This beer tastes awesome.

Can't believe UNCW is getting rid of 6x1 next semester. Thats an outrage... just sayin.

By the way... Rhythmic editing is a bitch... but it was my first real edit by myself and I think it turned out pretty good... I'm stoked. And I feel more prepared for my midterm in editing on Monday... gotta love how that works out.

LWR

Scratch Film Junkie all day long.

Last class we watched our second scratch film junkie’s short and have to give a response. So I kind of jumbled all of my notes together in single words and hoped to later develop them. This is my attempt. Be forewarned, none of this could make any sense, but hey, I’ll try.

Firstly, I felt more comfortable watching this one over the first one because I felt it was longer and had more variety of film manipulation but also I feel like I have a better understanding of what is going on and how they did certain things. Even though we have only done our first assignment so far, I feel much more familiar with this style of film and the techniques involved with manipulation. Now I am going to try and explain what I saw as I saw it on-screen. There were green fuzzy circles that to me looked like some type of weird superhero video game DNA strand. Then there were arrows that were transparent with an outline or completely white that moved around. I liked this part because I tried to do this for our elements project and it worked out pretty good except for the section that my printer missed. Of course the scratch film did it 10x better than I did but hey, one day, maybe. Then there was a man’s face with black circles on waves that had holes… it looked like more DNA strands. It was vertically based and horizontally based waves with random holes though and that looked really cool to do. I think the holes were just punched out but I am not sure how the waves were done. Interesting though. There was a section with something that looked like smoke. More circles with stars… scratch film junkies love their shapes. Then there were people dancing to the beat of the music and objects were masked with others. Also there was a variety of colors here that created some really cool frames.

One of my favorite parts was when there was old footage of a little boy shown and his body was distorted because half of it was on one frame and the other half on another but the frames were cut in half and then spliced together. It looked like the film was messed up or something was wrong but there wasn’t. The plane slowly moving toward the viewer and then taking off superimposed with other objects was awesome. I want to mess around more with film stock and scratch on that. I like having something going on in the background with the manipulation taking place in the foreground, it always creates something interesting to say the least. There were black and white lines toward the end that moved crazy on the frame, I think this was more scratching done. I loved the ending though with the man with the mask on, half buried in the sand, moving around like a tether ball on a pole. It shows the fun and good times in this whole short and it fits perfect because it is completely playful and entertaining but has no definite meaning, just like the rest of the film.

Well it’s the end of my blog, so I’ll wrap up with my thank you speech (the oscars did just occur, after all). Don’t worry it will be quick. I’d like to thank Thad Povey for his crazy mad creations and A Silva for letting us be exposed to this awesomeness and my parents for bringing me into this world. None of this could be possible with out you. Long live scratch film junkies.

LWR

Blogging on sound, Chion, and... HORROR!!

I know this blog is a few days late but I find it to be much more appropriate today then if I had written it the other day. In my Intro to Editing class we watched our cuts of Gunsmoke and discussed different aspects of different groups’ work. One of the main things we discussed was sound because of the poor quality from the footage we were given. Many times, the music and noise, or the anempathetic sound, was louder and over took the empathetic sound, or dialogue. The country western score was louder than the characters voices and it causes you to lose touch when them, similar to what Chion is trying to state in his article. Like Chion stated, “the ear analyzes, processes, and synthesizes faster than the eyes,” so if we hear music we have a certain feeling that we think will be evoked and when it isn’t it is misleading to the audience and can cause confusion.

In silent films, it was easy for them to work without sound because there wasn’t a disposition between time and space. Shot A always followed shot B, and the editing techniques were very minimal. The shot duration was much longer too so the audience could use their eyes to perceive everything in the shot, including the space and time. But because it takes longer for the eye to perceive all of this than the ear, that is why the shots were longer. With sound added, it created a new depth that could match different shots together, even if they weren’t in the same time and space, because of overlapping dialogue or music. If the silent film did have a score, it still did not have any voices in it and was there to just be a background or filler to the action. Most of the time the music was expressed through a piano or some other type of instrument and it was meant to help intensify the scene, whether it was suspenseful or comical. With the use of the audiovisual illusion, the illusion located first and foremost in the heart of the most important of relations between sound and image, it could allow for much faster movement and story development. Chion follows that definition with a question. He asks if the notion of cinema as art of the image is just an illusion, and I believe it purely is. Cinema used to be the art of just the camera and what was seen through the lens. It has evolved over time, just like everything else, and has many components that each seek their own attention to detail to create what nowadays is cinema. It is not only the camera; it is the actors and the emotion they display, it is the cinematographer getting the right angle for a essential shot, it is the editor slowly and masterfully piecing each part of the film together and it is the director, above all, to make the right decisions to get the movie where it needs to be. These elements of all work together to make cinema and many other aspects like sound editing or screenwriting that one might not see on the surface but cannot be left out in the process of producing a film.

I have not done background research on Chion but if I were to guess, I think he is a master in sound and editing. This article is a very elaborate and detailed analysis of sound and provides definitions and examples to help the reader understand what he is trying to explain. For example, the added value to sound is the expressive and informative value with which a sound enriches a given image so as to create the definite impression, in the immediate or remembered experience one has of it, that this information or expression “naturally” comes from what is seen, and is already contained in the image itself; I guess I knew what this was but never knew the right term. Even when Chion discussed horror films I found it interesting. It is almost the opposite of any other type of genre and how sound is made for the film. Instead of focusing on the dialogue and the emotions that are created through the text of the frame, it is the music and the noise that builds suspense and makes the scene tenser than one with lots of text. Hearing a girl running and screaming isn’t as scary as hearing the slow footsteps of the killer and their weapon dragging on the ground as they go after their prey. Sound can be used in many different ways but I thought this interpretation was unique because of how different it is used from any other genre. I just wonder if the “scream” that is always talked about still exists in films, you know, the one that is the universal sign for “this is a horror film?” I wouldn’t know though, because with the exception of a few, most horror movies these days have lost touch with what horror is all about. But that’s another topic, for another day. Until then.

LWR

Wells... on a Theory of Animation

Wells article was very intuitive. I have never really put a lot of thought into animation but after reading this article I feel it’s kind of a common sense thing, but it gives more details to one who doesn’t know much about animation. The article starts off talking about cel animation and how it has the most production value because of how it can be easily made and mass produced. Like most Disney movies in the past all of their animated films were made by cel animation, whether it was hand pencil-tested or computerized. Nowadays though animation has gone to a whole new level, especially with companies like Disney who team up with Pixar to make three-dimensional films. I will go into this later on.

Well first distinguishes the types of animation as either orthodox or experimental and how they are processed down the developmental line of animation. Orthodox animation has configuration, specific continuity, narrative form, evolution of content, unity of style, absence of the artist, and dynamics of the dialogue. There are distinguishable “figures”, such as people or animals that one can identify with. They have to succeed at a task or build off of their failures to capture the audience and reel them in. This creates sympathy for the character and hope that they will succeed. The music, sound effects, and score all help with the drawings, especially in chase scenes or scenes of conflict. Orthodox animation helps develop the character and establish moments, some comical, that the audience can relate to or feel some type of emotion. The style has to stay consistent. If it’s cel animated and two-dimensional, then it has to stay that way throughout. The use of close ups, medium shots, establishing shots, left to right pans, and moving up and down in the environment help with the narrative structure and style to create this type of animation. Also color, design, and editing techniques have to be consistent. Style is most important and so the artist has to stay out of the work unless it’s something like Duck Amuck which is a type of auteurist animation. Dialogue is key as well and it helps distinguish different characters. Daffy always lisps when he talks and says things like “that’s despicable”, Bugs is always superior with his speech and frequently says “what’s up doc?” while others like Elmer Fudd can be identified by his speech pronunciation like when he says “wabbits” instead of “rabbits.” There is also the difference between symphonic and carophonic. Disney uses symphonic which is poetic and operatic. Warner Bros typically uses carophonic which is urban and explosive.

The other type of animation is experimental. It redefines the body and rhythm and movement are in their own right. It doesn’t have figures but instead just various shapes and forms. It has its own conditions and languages and isn’t continuous. It’s also non narrative, displayed through abstract forms in motion, ambiguity, and it’s metaphorical. Different colors, shapes, textures evoke different moods and ideas. For example a dot changes into a circle. There is no style, everything comes together as one with a variety of different techniques through new effects and different modes. The artist usually is present too and they do this so they can make their animation personal and have individuality. It’s almost like a dream-state. Instead of dialogue, experimental animation relies on music to define the shapes, rhythm, speed, use of colors and language. It can often be poetic and sometimes silence is used to evoke a type of emotion.

Although I like the orthodox style and it is most frequent, I can’t wait until tonight so I can make some experimental animation in 6x1 to blow peoples minds and in the process learn how to make my own animation.. Fa sho.

LWR

Cameraless Filmmaking... thus far.

Cameraless filmmaking thus far… well with the cancelation of one class due to the birth of little Silva and then the following week missing class because of going out of town, I feel a little out of the loop, but I will base this blog off of what I have experienced so far, although it may not be as much as others in class.

On the first day of class I didn’t really know what to expect, other than the 48 hour projects I saw at the screening last semester and one of my friends telling me to take the class. The first Scratch Film we watched was impressive in its own sense but I still wasn’t sure how it was made other than using paints and such on film strips. I wasn’t sure how it was all put together though and made into a five minute or so piece. Then we began our own filmmaking by first learning how to splice film and then scratch on it with sharpies, markers, push pins, hole punches and other cool tools to use. I felt like I was entering the arts and crafts of filmmaking and it reminded me of my days in kindergarten, which is nice in this time of my life when everything seems to be so serious and “it has to be done this way.” I know film gives one the opportunity to explore and try new things, but when taking classes you are only taught one way, the way the professors see fit to best educate you, but this class breaks those boundaries. You are open to try anything and everything, like Brakhage stated, to find ways to make camerless filmmaking.

The next week was even better as we got to cut out pieces of magazines and transfer them to our clear leader film strips and also got to use inks and oils to paint on. I found this really cool and loved every bit of it. I feel like these methods are much more sufficient to use when trying to work on our first assignment instead of just using markers like we did the first week. I am now more excited about using these methods to create what my partner and I feel represents “earth, wind, fire, and water” on the film strip. Although I missed last class and the workshop on rayograms, I am glad we will spend more time on it this week so I can get caught up to speed. I do feel, however, that the Brakhage article helped me understand rayograms and the process even though I haven’t done it yet.

So now comes the point of no return, moving into the future, and beginning our own work on our assignment after learning some cool techniques. We haven’t started on our project but I imagine over the next week we will get together and knock it out. I am still thinking of ideas of how to represent these elements and I think after tonight’s class I will have a better idea. I have loved every minute of this experience so far though and I am glad we have such a cool class/ professor because everyone seems excited to learn and partake in this experience. Until next time.

LWR