Saturday long-take: 16mm

I really enjoyed the shoot this past weekend. I have never filmed on 16mm, so this was a new experience to me. Working in the medium of a classic 16mm camera made me appreciate the fine details one must understand in order to produce an actual image on the film reel. Exposing the film to any light when "arming" the camera could ruin the entire project. So this alone gave me the feeling like I was dealing with some form of nitroglycerin. Once we successfully got the film in the camera with he limited red light we had, Denny and I were ready to shoot. We understood what the image produced by the 16mm camera would look like; vintage, grainy, and perhaps black and white? So when brainstorming our idea for the shoot, we really wanted to think about an idea that would highlight the vintage film look. We eventually decided to go with the idea of a lone reader sitting on a bench, who is then approached by emotionless beings walking almost like robots. When our main character gets up to leave, the robotic like people follow her (Eliza) in unison. We wanted to use the 16mm to create something out of a classic Twilight Zone episode from the 1950's. Who are these strange beings approaching Eliza? Are they human? Are they robotic? Hark! Welcome to The Twilight Zone.

Orthodox vs Abstract Animation

I can remember watching animations when I was a kid. During this time, I knew animations as cartoons. It wasn't until I got older that I actually understood and appreciated the amount of work involved in creating an animated character. Looking back, a few of my favorite  animated cartoon shows were Hey Arnold and Ren and Stimpy. It's funny to watch a cartoon like Ren and Stimpy these days; since i'm older, I pick up on the adult humor and overall trippyness of the cartoon.

When I was a kid, I liked orthodox animations with a storyline to follow. Nowadays, I prefer to watch far more abstract animations. Studying film as an art, I can appreciate the inner meanings of abstract animation work.  Stan Brakhage - Black Ice

Whether or not Stan Brakhage had a conceptual idea before creating this film or not, one thing is definitely for sure: the final product clearly resembles black ice, and surely gives an ice cold feeling when watching.

Alas, it is so true, that somebody who doesn't appreciate film art, nor understands how to contextualize such film work, will merely regard Black Ice as trash and having no meaning. This, I believe, is the beauty behind abstract animating and film making.

You see, only those with an open artistic eye, can read, comprehend, and interpret films like these.

Yayyy!! We're Special!!!

Mindz Alike

A Social Concept of Cooperation

Crowd Sourcing!!

I can dig the idea.....and those who don't, may not understand the extreme benefits of crowd sourcing.

Great minds think alike.....

Many minds make work light....

So like-minded people....UNITE!!

This is what makes crowd sourcing effective; the ability to network with a group of people (probably over the internet) to solve a problem. I see the internet as a gigantic information pool, in which you have the entire world of knowledge pretty much at your fingertips. I could read about any topic I wish to read about. With this huge pool of information, it only makes sense to have people network together to create more information, or to help legitimize the information (prove it's credibility or truthfulness). This is where the ingenious mind of Jimmy Whales and his website WikiPedia comes in.

Wikipedia: Created for the people....by the people!

Wikipedia defines crowd sourcing to me. It is a collection of information in which millions of people from around the world help to produce, edit, and promote. The beauty of wikipedia is that each user has essentially the same rank as every other user; there is no hierarchical system in place, and everybody has the ability to write or edit an article.

So how is wikipedia not an internet cesspool of vandalism and viral-ness?

The real struggle is not between the right and the left. It’s between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks, and no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on either of those qualities.” (Jimmy Wales)

Regarding the success of wikipedia, can see that the thoughtful users surely way out the jerks!

Acoustic Ecology

Acoustic Ecology: The study of the sound environment. I believe that it is one thing to study sound as a science, but it is another to actually listen and be aware of it fully. Personally, the science of sound bewilders me, so I like to stick to what sound is to me...and that is noise which my brain dissects and interprets. Sound is everywhere...it is impossible to scape sound. What does one who is deaf hear? Is the absence of sound, still noise?

Anyways, away from that stream of thought and back to the ecology of sound, let me now go into how I believe we as humans have learned and evolved to sense sound in our environment. The Bosavi people of Papua New Guinea experience the sounds of the rainforest that is their home. Sounds tell the time of day, season of the year, conditions of the trails. Noise reflects all these interlocking sound clocks; they are maps of the forest. In hunting, music, ceremony, and language, nature’s voice makes its mark on human culture. Sound is how humans developed language, as well. Over the course of thousands and thousands of years, our brains adapted to what sounds mean and how we can listen to them.

So people! We must appreciate the value of sound and surely be more conscious of it's presence, whether it be physical or mental.

Synesthesia: A blending of senses

Synesthesia is a highly interesting subject, especially when linking the sense of sound with sight. To me, sound is heard directly in one way: through the ears and into the brain where it is examined and interpreted. Sight, on the other hand, comes in two forms. There is actual sight, where one may have their eyes wide open, thus the brain interpreting an image from what the physical eye see. Yet, there is also a major additional sense of sight that we can see through as human beings, even though the majority of us are completely unaware of this. This is the eye which sees what I call Third Eye Vision. It is the Inner Mindz Eye. Unlocking this third eye is something that not everybody can do, but sometimes just understanding the presence of this level of consciousness is enough to have an synesthetic vision. So I guess where I am going at with this is that by taking a film, and meshing it with sound, one can alter the senses of the viewer and create synesthesia. I believe Jimi Hendrix had synesthetic visions, (likely influenced from LSD and other psychedelics), which helped him create his music. Yes, his music is just sound, but it's more than that. Its sonic layers of guitar mastery, that one has to pick apart and dissect to determine it's exact rhythm. It was not just ears that created this music, it was the blending of senses: sound, and those of the third eye. boom!  

Begone Dull Care

Begone Dull Care response 

Well, the first aspect of the film which I drew attention to immediatly was the sound, and how it was synched with the film image. I understand that this film was not edited digitally, nor was a major editing console used, either. So how was the filmmaker Norman Something-orother able to synch audio? Im pondering this for a moment. Perhaps the filmmaker knew the song he had in mind, and was playing it in the studio while making accurate cuts and edits to the film in timing with the sound? Seems like quite a difficult task, figuring out where exactly the sound would be located on the film strip. The screen would go black, at times, and the music would abruptly stop, only moments later to reappear again in perfect timing. How was this perfect synch made? 

Something else which I was thinking about when watching this film was the frame rate. I assume the frame rate to be around 24fps.....which means that this film took A LONG ASS time to make, because it's over 5 minutes long. This guy had to be in his film studio for hours on end, making edits, painting on film, creating abrasions, smoking, and making cool patterns with strange chemicals. I am very intrigued by the use of color pallet, as my mood swings to the tempo of the music and change in colors. This film has me feeling pretty good, not a bad way to start off the semester. random stream of consciousness is now telling me that I'm not sure where to go from here.....what would the music look like if it were painted?