Journal: Experimental Video Art
FINAL CUTS: FIRST BATCH
Today I saw the first batch of final projects from Jonathan, Traci and Tocarra. I had to skip class for Jonathan’s piece, but I heard from other students that it was a slightly better version than his rough cut the week before. Ecological in focus, his multi-channel piece focused on the overwhelming presence of litter in NYC, and how locals took this for granted. When I saw his rough cut, I felt that the shots of litter were simply too decorative, too beautiful to really highlight the damaging aspects of pollution, and community neglect of that facet of urban living. I heard that he removed the dialogue, and opted for a sound loop/collage of sorts that emphasized particular comments made by locals that Jon interviewed. I’m curious as to how these soundtrack elements were deployed, and I’ll reserve judgment until I see it in its entirety.
Traci presented a much more realized cut of (insert title here), a meditation on how human visual perception can evoke memories of the past. My issues with her rough cut had to do with the lack of symbiosis between the visual and audio elements (it didn’t help that she resorted to the clichÈ shots of a laptop that are a common trope in MS student work)…as I stated in my verbal comments, her piece is a half-baked idea. She either has to really evoke a connection between the eye P.O.V. shots (very clever on her part) and the recorded sounds of a cafÈ that play with them, or not. I think the concept is interesting, but I feel that she’s playing it safe. Perhaps if she manipulated the sound a bit better, or perhaps pick shots of other locations than Times Square (another common trope that needs to be abandoned), her ideas can really flourish.
Tocarra’s final project, “Organic Plasticity,” was probably the most daring piece I’ve seen during the semester (I missed the first part, but later saw a DVD copy in its entirety). Composed of close-up shots and long takes of her face, breasts, pubic hair, and a hand with menstrual blood of a female ‘subject,’ her piece was equally provocative, unnerving and irresistible to watch. Even though the reversed sped-up effect in the end (as well as some shaky tilt work) felt a bit hackneyed, it didn’t take away from the intense, affirmative depiction of ‘woman-ness’ that is rarely depicted in video and film. It was slightly disheartening, however, to hear the tense exchange between Tocarra and Laura regarding the (mis) appropriation of racial connotations in video art, the rejection of feminism in images depicting women, and the proper role of critique of such images. While it was refreshing to hear an intense dialogue on issues that are relevant and important, I thought it was getting too exclusive and too redundant between them…and full of miscommunication and misunderstanding. It’s one thing to engage in a critical dialogue, it’s another to take comments as a form of attack, and attack back. I wish we could have had exploited this energy to speak out, to engage with video art works earlier in the semester, but at least we had it at this juncture.
ROUGH CUTS and COURTNEY LOVE
Jonathan and Traci were the brave birds that showed their rough cuts today in class. I am frustrated that I wasn’t able to shoot my final project due to a laptop crash, and bad weather. I’m thinking of scaling the project back to something less ambitious and simple. Most importantly, I need a working PC that can run the webcam motion-detection program.
Jon’s piece was a reaction to what he argues is the rising amount of litter in New York City, and the city locals’ complacency in doing anything about it. The video was made up of three channels, two depicting close up shots of litter in selected areas of the city, and a larger bottom channel showing a low angle shot of people walking on a street. In the course of the short, there was rolling text of Twitter (‘micro-blogging’ social software) comments on the pollution in the city. To me, I felt that the placement of channels were overwhelming and distracting. From what I’ve learned and seen in the class, its difficult to effectively deploy several channels simultaneous in video. More channels doesn’t mean that you’re covering more ‘ideas.’ In many instances, it can do no more than serve as a cheap effect. I’m not saying that Jon did this, but I told him in my comments that he should go for a rougher, dirtier aesthetic, and perhaps cut back on the channels.
Traci’s video rough cut was an exploration of memory through images and sound. It was a simple two-channel piece with shots of a table, laptop, and close-ups of a coffee cup. Sounds from a cafÈ were heard in the background. I was trying to make sense of it, but the concept was beyond me.
Laura showed us a film titled “Big Sister, Little Sister,” a mish mash of interviews of Courtney Love’s mother, Love herself, and footage of Yoko Ono and John Lennon. The ‘narrative’ (or lack thereof) was complex and challenging, and there were instances where I genuinely believed that Courtney was really speaking. The video struck me as a response to how women like Courtney and Yoko have been unfairly stigmatized in the popular culture as parasites of rock royalty (Yoko broke up the Beatles, Courtney planned Kurt’s suicide, etc)…but whose contributions of that aspect of the culture are continuously omitted or ignored. It’s a strange little alien of a video, part documentary, part faux-documentary, part Courtney Love tribute. It actually made me listen to Hole’s “Live Through This,” an album that equals Nirvana’s “Nevermind.”
BLOOD and GUTS
Laura showed us some of exhibited work today. One was a two channel piece inspired by gangster films called THE ONLY ONES LEFT, and the other was an excerpt from BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL. Before the screening, Laura talked a bit about her experiences as a painting major, and initially working with traditional video art pieces that incorporated found footage....primarily from music videos and daytime talk shows like SALLY JESSE RAFAEL. She also described a fascinating project where she visited a go-go bar and gave Rorschach inkblot tests to male patrons. Laura expressed how she commonly experiments with narrative in her work, by having characters speak out of beat, move out of beat, and remove situations out of time. In THE ONLY ONES LEFT, a mafia-influenced 3 channel piece serves as a denouncement of the corporate world. CEOs literally become killing machines, set in and outside a mansion. BLOOD AND GUTS IN HIGH SCHOOL is a loose adaptation of a best selling novel by Kathy Acker. In a series of vinettes, a young woman is depicted selling cookies, having a brief conversation with another woman in a school gym, talking to a prison guard, and walking in a cold, deserted area. The dialogue is sparse, and the characterizations are purposefully off-beat, which draws more attention to whats going on in the film. The odd camera angles also foster a sense of disconnection and dislocation. I really enjoyed it.
PAPER MASKS and FOOTCHASES
We spent the first half of class watching the rest of Sadie Benning's FLAT IS BEAUTIFUL, a video short combining Super 8 and Pixel Vision to tell a sprawling coming-of-age story that commented on the construction and policing of gender, consumer culture, and an attitude of escapism that supplanted social interaction. We also talked about our final projects. Sarah wanted to continue on the themes of her earlier autobiographical piece on being 15 years old. Jonathan wants to do a piece of the presence of litter in NYC, using multi-channels and interviews with locals. Dara and Kristy want to create a kind of parody on the Verizon commercial slogan, "Can You Hear Me Now," by capturing traffic cam internet feeds and responding to the overt presence of surveillance on civil life. Bianca proposed a experimental short that focused on nature in the city, by using found and homemade footage video and audio. Traci was interesting in playing with her apartment space and document her roommates actions and reactions to a physical change of the space itself (putting bubble wrap, balloons, etc). Jenny wanted to explore the social idea of happiness through home video and archival footage, and Natalie wanted to provide a fashion show satire that explored notions of otherness and cultural exoticism. Carlos wanted to incorporate footage of CNN, graphics, and audio in a collage that commented on the scope of messages in our culture.
Laura showed us a chillingly good film by Deborah Stratman called IN ORDER NOT TO BE HERE, that opens with the pursuit of a fugitive on the run, and continues to a near silent montage of businesses, parking lots, and neighborhoods in a gated surbuban community, before culminating in a dramatic foot chase of a stranger trying to evade a helicopter. The experience of watching Stratman's piece is mostly jarring because she focuses on locations that are associated with human activity, and removes the presence of people. Apart from one found footage shot of a young girl sleeping in her bedroom, there is no evidence of human life in this community. It seems as though the film wants to response to the virtuality of cities and the absence of anything remotely real. The sound design was extremely effective in creating a sense of alarm and discomfort in the climatic chase, which if the viewer pays attention closer, is made to look as it were shot during the day instead of the night (the fugitive's shadows give the trick away). The structure and choice of camera angles really made me think of how Bianca and I explored space in our experimental short on Coney Island and made me interested in pursuing more of Stratman's work.
CRITIQUE DAY: FOUND FOOTAGE
Today we saw our found footage videos. Jonathan used looped clips from a Popeye cartoon, war footage, and the song "Get a Grip" from Muse for his piece titled "Get." The piece attempts to blur the distinction between what's real and imagined in images of war. While entertaining as a satirical view of patriotism, I felt that the use of the Music song made Jon's work seem more like a music video than video art. The problem with using music of any kind is that it can overwhelm the image, particularly if the song is recognizable.
Dara's film, "Lost or Found" was a 'mashup' of KING KONG, METROPOLIS, and THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA. She described her work as 'ethnographic' fictive filmmaking, which made the exoticised King Kong synonymous with the objectified female in cinema. I felt that the images worked really well together, and disagreed with some of the comments that films other than KING KONG could have been used since it was extremely recognized. I think her ideas came across really well.
Carlos's video blended clips from Blade Runner, Panic Room, and was full of religious iconography. It seemed like a meditation on war and religion, but it was a bit too didactic to really understand. Traci's "Appropriated Play" was a perfect illustration of the term "appropriation." It began with a dizzying, speed up, and slowed down commercial of a microwavable Chinese dish (even though the characters were in Japanese), and ended with the actual commericial intact. What was most revealing about the video was how it terrifically displayed how cultural appropriation of a mass project can be morphed, changed, transformed and stripped of its cultural indexes. Her 'remix' of the commercial 'erased' its offensive and negative connotations. What emerged was something 'cool,' 'popular,' and culturally 'appropriate.' Anya's piece was a loop of a woman bouncing around a space, with the typical reel 'countdown' breaking the pattern. It was sensual, erotic, and reminiscent of Andy Warhol's BLOWJOB. Bianca's video incorporated images from early 90s music videos and resituated them into a vibrant montage with ecological themes.
PORNOGRAPHY AS VIDEO ART
Laura showed us some examples of experimental video art made up of found footage. One of the more moving ones was LET US KISS AND SAY GOODBYE, a very moving montage of scenes from pornographic gay films that served as a tribute to male amateur adult film actors who had died from AIDS. Laura told us that after its premiere in the famous Castro Theater in San Francisco, everyone in the audience fell into tears. Most of the actors were well known in the gay community, and the film provided a fitting memorial to their dignity and humanity. Another piece, Tony Cokes' Evil 13, incorporated an interview transcript with a U.S. diplomat on the Rwandan genocide with red and blue swipes while Nirvana songs played as a soundtrack. The music and striking visuals butressed the point about the lack of U.S. and UN involvement to halt the disasterous conflict between the Tutsi and Hutu communities in the African nation.
TELEVISION AS VIRUS: ACCONCI RESPONSE
After reading Vito Acconci's essay on television, it really reminded me of David Cronenberg's VIDEODROME. In the film, a programmer of sleazy late night cable programming comes across an illegal recorded broadcast of a show titled VIDEODROME that featured women and some men being bound, gagged, and abused. After seeing the footage, the protagonist, Max Renn, becomes 'infected' by the tape, and begins having a series of bizarre hallucinations. One of the clever aspects of Cronenberg's film is that it is not only a preciest critique of the simulcrum that makes up our mediated world today, but also purposely distorts the real from the imagined. The film's thesis is that television, as a device to expels mediated images, acts like a cancer, and leaves a trace, a decay. It got me thinking of making a video that would use some dialogue from the film into a broadcast with a droning voice that would subminally 'infect' its viewers with violent, sexual, and explicit imagery. I would argue that the internet does something akin to the television, but is arguably more invasive, because it entails more interactivity. You can turn a television on, you can leave it as a virtual 'babysitter' for children and adults alike, but the internet requires that we provide the input, the initiative, which is more likely to evoke a cyclical pattern that we can never let go of. I hope I can provide a response, or a 'virus' of some kind.
ROOTS OF VIDEO ART
Over the course of the past couple of weeks, I've been exposed to a series of interesting and challenging works of video art. Momoyo Tiramitsu is sculptor and video artist, and one of his works focuses on three solary men (Japanese businessmen robots) that endlessly crawl around an offices, hallways, and escalators in a corporate building as a round table of employees mock and chased them through video feed. The speeded up P.O.V. shots are immediate, comedic, and slightly disturbing. The film posits the idea that capitalists are evil, virilic, and are a species of beings that will always exist.
Another piece from the Damascus Archives features a close up shot of a man who speaks about his Syrian heritage ("I'm Syrian, lucky me!" is his mantra) and how his country has 'colonized the world' and 'invaded America." He argues that the 'entire globe is the Syrian world.' The video is a play on religious extremism, fundamentalism, and treats cultural hegemony as a sick joke. Syria was considered by the Bush administration as part of an imagined 'axis of evil,' and its obvious what motivated Suna Kubra's humorous response. All that hegemony produces, as a fictitious construct, is a sameness. It shouldn't take one long to figure out how Syria could easily be replaced by any powerful post-industrial country with military and geopolitical might in this video and still relay the same critique.
Christian Lucas' CABLE XCESS and HOST equally mocks and celebrates analog techology through a mixture of video game graphics, recorded video, and low-tech images. CABLE XCESS is best described as a preventative health care ad that warns about the toxic effects of television. The overwhelming video and sound collage depicts a somewhat schizophrenetic experience with a subject that claims at the end that she is 'no longer sick.' HOST is a P.O.V. shot from an ATM machine with a subject that claims to be losing the ability to communication, and 'wanting things to slow down.' Her tone of speech and delivery is akin to that of a person making a confession to a priest. Except in this context, the 'priest' is no longer human, but an depersonalized machine.
it has taken twenty five years for me to enjoy my first winter, my first true winter in new york city. all that time in los angeles, haven for the sunburned and bloodburnt, doesn't really count. and it was a few nights ago as i braved a four block walk to the union square subway station, and i happily pressed my boots against dirty, muddied snow, that i realized i was complicit in the slow, tortuous murder of a woman i've never met, but i knew too, too well. and not only was i partially responsible for her death, but the five people shuffling beside me on the street, the nearly hundred and three people sleeping and snuggling in the A train to Brooklyn, the magicians of commerce in wall street, my three roommates, their roommates' roommates, their social networking roommates, and their families' families.
and so on, and so on. i was mentally attempting to index a homicide of massive, unimaginable proportions that centered on the dissection, strangulation, disembowelment, and defecation on a drawn and quartered forty year old white woman from texas, born vicky lynn hogan. stranger still is how autopsies will find no cause of death, detectives will emerge with no motive, and no wanted posters will hang in barbershops or laundromats. my hands felt cold, my fingers felt colder, colder than a tired climber's frostbitten thigh as i put the guilt, the uneasy feeling that i, like the millions, would get away with it. i told myself that as a service to anna, and her dead son, i would remind my accomplices to own up to what they have done, to point fingers at them, and tell them what they will never forget. you are a murderer. you are a murderer. you are a murderer.
denial is an escape for the feeble and weak. and yet you, like myself, can't help it as you begin to sort out, arrange, and come to terms with the notion that we are now in the business of killing people, human beings like anna in a daily ritual of gossip, judgments, laughter, and curiosity. shit, we still discriminate. we can't help but prefer blondes. this is what norma jean left us. as a tireless worker, as a commodity for thousands of women, men, and children who desperately wanted to make contact with her monroe-ness, her legacy still haunts us. even now, her mimics and doppelgangers cannot surgically or biologically replicate her quaint voice, her dizzying wardrobe, her heart-throbbing catwalk.
anna tried really hard to bring norma jean back to my time, my generation. she really tried. but the odds would increasingly be against her as wrinkles emerged from her face, as fatty tissue mutated with each synthetically processed salad she ate, and as that persistent video-photographic gaze that followed her, trailed her, watched her, caught her, and humiliated her multiplied into a cycloptic, slimy, web-footed creature from a roger corman production. we demanded more, i demanded more. anna brought us into her home, her relationships, her culinary choices, her garbage, and we dismissed her like the stern, strict godparents we are. we disapproved her marriage to an old millionaire because we thought he was too vain and decrepit to please her in bed. we dismissed her intelligence because she had the habit of slurring her pleas of help from a badly written cue card. we wanted her thin, and she bought the best cholesterol vacuum cleaner any sears shopper could ever find. we wanted her to bear children, and dammit, she found several virile men willing to do it for free. we wanted front page magazine covers, entertainment tonight and access hollywood lead stories, recalled perfumes made from the finest of laboratory animals, spinoffs of cancelled cable broadcast diaries, recently uncovered viewmaster reels, and she unashamedly complied.
but it wasn't enough. clickers were frustratingly pressed for more entertaining seconds. periodical subscriptions were cancelled for mother vogue. conversations at historic parks and beaches shifted to the new thing, thang, thing-thing. we, and myself, directed our eyes to the fresher, glossier, rawer copies sliding through the assembly line. we had enough. it wasn't difficult to orchestrate live, uncensored snuff. its taken more than a hundred years since the innovations of daguerre, edison, and lumière to inform our mastery of the killing arts, and we passed the clinical examinations, the battery of multiple-choice tests, the oral presentations, the physiological exercises, and the psychoanalytical sessions. over time, people like you and myself have transformed into the other, covert military of captain america. we've waged wars, battles, and sieges for decades without losing eye sockets to compressed gunpower. our victories have been graphically documented and archived at the museum of television and radio.
anna was too easy. she didn't care about rewriting her will after the death of her son. she didn't even bother to pick her daughter's freshly packaged father from the dozens of bodyguards, lawyers, photojournalists and stalkers who dated her throughout the years. all she requested was immortality, infamy, docudrama, biography, sainthood. and it was granted.
i turn back to that winter night in the train, seeing people read their new york posts, romance novels, clutching their lovers, daughters, cousins, forgetting the act that was brilliantly concocted and has become a nagging habit for you, and for me. see, bald britney tattooed jean hasn't played nice either, and her time is running out. but i myself have grown tired of this sadistic musical. i want to whistleblow, but i cannot whistle. i never learn, nor want to try. and it doesn't make sense to cut the lifeline, the very thing that has become integral to our survival as a violently integrated nation-hood anyway. but don't forget that you are a murderer. you are a murderer. you are all murderers.
Think of ROCKY BALBOA as Chris Nolan's BATMAN BEGINS, a slight re-imagining of the character in a present context, ignoring all of the overblown, nonsensical sequels that followed it. It's as if Stallone came to realize how much of a punchline his character had become as a symbol of the U.S. American underdog defying all odds. What emerges in ROCKY BALBOA is an inspirational film that its moving in its simple characterizations and plotting. The fight scenes are well shot and brilliantly choreographed (save for some excessive ESPN-ish cuts), but the film isn't about boxing at all. In fact, the only sequence that left me less enthralled was its predictable conclusion as Rocky prepared himself for the culminating exhibition bout with Mason "The Line" Dixon (former light heavyweight champion Antonio Carver). It is the "buildup" to this match that is the heart of ROCKY, as Stallone pulls out arguably his finest acting work (no surprise since its a character he owns, but better than COP LAND) and a sharp, nuanced script to depict boxing as a metaphor for his uneven, underwhelming career as an actor. It's also a fine comment on ageism (who says you can't box at fifty? George Foreman came back from retirement and won the WBA heavyweight title at 45), and how generational strife is increasingly afflicting families in contemporary American culture.
Although Stallone is one of the most popular, recognizable actors in the world, he has never garnered the recognition like his peers (Arnold is a worst actor, but has gotten the bigger paychecks and political muscle), and I have a good feeling that this film was his attempt to draw his detractors to the passion and respect that he has for the creating process and acting. Rocky Balboa isn't an intellectual, or a great boxer (just look at his poor defense a-la Mike Tyson), but what is moving about the character is his wisdom and wit, appreciating the small victories of the day. As a restaurant owner, he treats his employees (I like how Stallone gave Philly a truly multicultural feel in its shooting locations and supporting characters) and customers with the same amount of humility. As a local "hero," Rocky tries his best to encourage a single mother and son to keep fighting for their happiness. As a father, Rocky lets his son choose his own path, but reminds him to not forget that the world isn't all "sunshine and rainbows," and that life is more about how we deal with failure, disappointment, and loss than victories, successes, and joys. It's a treasure to hear such moving, simple moral messages in a boxing film. While the "boxing as metaphor for life" movie has been beaten to death, ROCKY BALBOA refreshingly gives a positive, affirmative message that is achingly missing in U.S. American drama. It's not perfect by any means (Burt Young's over the top performance caused me to wince more than give praise), but its a fine example of how a director's untarnished vision can successfully translate to film. I got the strong feeling that Sylvester Stallone had a lot of fun giving his baby one more title shot. There's a lot of young, raw talent in the business, but often they are too preoccupied with showing off their technical skills than depicting the simply joy of making a movie. Fortunately for us, Stallone didn't forget this in his long and struggling career as an actor and filmmaker. Earth to Hollywood: Give Sly better scripts and better work!
BABYFACE, a 1933 pre-code film featuring Barbara Stanwyck (DOUBLE INDEMNITY), deals with the "coming of age" of a young speakeasy bartender who is pimped by her father until he fatally dies from a fire. Leaving with her father's former African American servant (and close friend) Chico, Lily leaves for the big city, guided by a bar regular's advice to approach life through Nietzsche's eyes ("to seize power at any cost"). Lily discards men as mere pawns to her corporate rise in a major bank until she meets her match in its president, who sees her beyond her manipulative, sexual prowess, and genuinely loves her. I don't need to advance the synopsis further for you to know where this is headed, but BABYFACE provides many surprises in its portrayal of a woman who has endured through many things too soon, but yet maintains her dignity in the face of a misogynistic world. Stanwyck's performance sizzles, and it was interesting to see an interracial friendship (Lily and Chico) that for the most part, seemed authentic (until she's ditched). The ending falls into melodramatic hogwash (Lily doesn't need a man to be happy, but pre-code Hollywood still had to push this belief), but it doesn't take away from the film's strong womanist theme.
ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL, by the German wunderkind Rainer Fassbinder (whom my friend told me completed 29 films by the age of 30), is a stirring love story set in the most unlikeliest of circumstances between the unlikeliest of people. Emmi, a middle aged house cleaner, decides to stop by a bar, and befriends Ali, a Moroccan guest worker. Both are lonely, struggling with their respective life crises (Emmi wants to reclaim the joy of living, and Ali wants a better life in a heavily prejudiced town), and out of their friendship forges an unselfish romance. They become married, but several forces attempt to pull them apart. In one of "Ali's" most crushing scenes, the couple are alone in a cafe, with the workers looking at them in disgust and discomfort. Emmi begins to cry, telling Ali that she wants to live in another world, another place where they do not have to deal with the hatred that threatens to deplete their marriage and humanity. Ali intently listens and offers his support. While Emmi and Ali are happy, Fassbinder isn't fazed to hold back a relationship that is simultaneous complicated by the prejudice towards Arabs in contemporary Germany, and the prejudice towards older women seeking romance and companionship. But the lovers are flawed too: Emmi still retains a slight, naive exoticised perspective towards her husband's "otherness," and Ali, dealing with some sexual frustration, cheats on his wife. Inspired by Douglas Sirk's ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS , Fassbinder layers his remake with biting commentary on racism, masculinity, self-hatred, and a growing diasporic world in ways that many directors rarely touch today.
If you are familiar with Mr. Lynch's work (ERASERHEAD, BLUE VELVET, LOST HIGHWAY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE), you can expect mindfucks, but not as twisted, bizarre, horrifying, and stunningly beautiful as his latest, and arguably, finest work. What's it really all about? What do we make of the scenes depicting a family of rabbits speaking monotonically to canned laughter? The eerie Polish man who speaks in high pitched gibberish? And why has a woman been stabbed with a screwdriver to her belly?
I spent some time talking about what it meant with a friend of mine, and I think his interpretation makes a lot of sense. Lynch has managed to weave together four (or five) divergent stories, converging them until they collapse on each other. One deals with a successful Hollywood actress (Laura Dern) who decides to take a role on a remake of a unfinished film based on a Polish folk tale, later finding out that the leads in the original were murdered. Another "story" deals with a Polish prostitute who murders her lovers' mistress. The third deals with the Hollywood actress beginning to take on the persona of another woman traumatized by her Polish husband (a circus performer) who ditches her after he finds out that she is pregnant. The fourth deals with a working class Polish woman watching a hokey Hollywood melodrama in tears, fearing the collapse of her marriage. Things get murkier as characters, plots, and settings begin to fall on each other. Actors and personas take on each other's "worlds," specific lines and cuts are purposely repeated, and a mysterious man mumbles something about the "inland empire." But somehow, someway, Lynch, and the monumental multi-character performance of Laura Dern (every aspiring actor, or fan of the movies should watch this film for her alone) anchor INLAND EMPIRE, pushing it to a surrealistic, moving happy ending.
What I most enjoyed about INLANE EMPIRE is the little nuggets of gold that are spread throughout about the creative process, the art (or absurdity) of acting, the banal Hollywood industry, Los Angeles, fidelity, and the film medium itself. Given complete creative and distributive freedom, Lynch looks like he had a lot of fun making this movie, and every frame, disembodied sound effect, and performance feels right..and yet not so right. If you see it, and absolutely give up on what it "really means," don't worry. Keep watching and appreciate naked and unfiltered movie magic. Nothing got me smiling more than the final credits featuring dancers lip-synching to Nina Simone's "Sinner Man."
benchmarking analysis
I was really involved in web design in high school, and through community college, but its been a long time since I’ve put anything together. I’d like to put together something that demonstrates my current media work, and informs my friends/self about my crazy state of mind. The following sites have given me ideas for my web site:
1. DVD IN MY PANTS: http://www.dvdinmypants.com/
Being a film buff, I enjoy reading reviews and information on upcoming DVDs, and DVD IN MY PANTS fulfills my needs. Each section is clear and easy to navigate. The fonts are big and bold, effective for catching any visitor’s attention. I really like how the site incorporate images from famous and obscure films into icons and splash pages. The content is primarily text and images, and its much better than being bombarded by flash animations or embedded video that slow one’s navigation.
2. SUPERFUTURE: http://www.superfuture.com/city/home/
I learned about SUPERFUTURE through one of my hipster friends who told me that it was an excellent site that provides reviews on restaurants, and clothing and shoe stores in major metropolitan cities around the world. The “map” concept is unique, allowing users to “travel” through the various shopping sites in districts/neighborhoods, and find more about where they want to shop. It loads fairly quickly, and has a simple, clean look that takes advantage of Flash’s button capabilities.
3. CAVEH ZAHEDI: http://www.cavehzahedi.com/index.html
Like Jean-Luc Godard, Caveh Zahedi is a phenomenal philosopher and filmmaker who is best known for making a brief cameo in Richard Linklater’s WAKING LIFE. Even though he doesn’t update his blog anymore, its still a nice little “primer” to learn about the works, words, and musings of this fascinating individual. The font and color scheme is pleasing to the eye, and every section is nicely organized and quickly accessible (unlike the man himself).
SITEMAP :http://www.cavehzahedi.com/
home
1.1 still photo and site sections (films, bio, articles, news, orders, blog)
films
2.1 features
2.2. shorts
biography
3.1 still photo, biography and filmography
articles
4.1 A Cinema of Poverty
4.2 “Je est un autre”
4.3 Success hurts
4.4 Show Me Love
4.5 Metaphysician, Heal Thyself!
4.6 Tripping with Caveh Zahedi
4.7 Shaman of the New American Cinema
4.8 Gambling with Movie-Making
News
5.1 I AM A SEX ADDICT opening dates
5.2 News updates
Orders
6.1 List of films available for purchase on DVD
Blogs
7.1 Recent Entries
7.2 Categories
7.3 Archives
7.4 Keyword Search
Contact
8.1. Link to Caveh’s email address
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SITEMAP: http://www.chicoflystudios.com/
home
1.1 still photo and site sections
about me
2.1 short and extended bio
2.2 c.v. (in text and pdf format)
2.3 mi familia (photos and dedications)
2.4 movie database (film, director, year, personal comments/observations, imdb link)
2.5 book database (title, author, year, personal
comment/observations, amazon link)
words
3.1 poetry
3.2 short stories
3.3 cutups
video
4.1 media design class (youtube, google video, etc)
4.2 homemade Z0rN
4.3 animation (flash, gif, etc)
photo
5.1 mascara: personal
5.2 shutter: assignments
5.3 journeys: travels
contact
6.1 email
6.2 myspace, vox
The Lamp
(source: http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?3&TheLamp)
A LAMP, soaked with too much oil and flaring brightly, boasted
that it gave more light than the sun. Then a sudden puff of wind
arose, and the Lamp was immediately extinguished. Its owner lit
it again, and said: "Boast no more, but henceforth be content to
give thy light in silence. Know that not even the stars need to
be relit"
I wish I could convert swf files in a better way, but it would cost $$$ for a converter program, and Flash 8 doesn't compress well.
It is done. Enjoy!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-N_2POZ9zY
I didn't have time to load these images into iMovie, but I put this little film together with a simple video editing program. I also uploaded a list of sound fx that will accompany "The Hand."
space (location/environment): I went outside and recorded wall street on a friday morning.
situation: I found these online. A creaky door slowly opening, a running faucet, and a "death" scream.
mood: I chose a piece from the soundtrack to John Carpenter's "The Thing." It's perfect for my narrative.
figure/ground: Strange noises from my heater.
sound perspective: I found this online. I think its a good sfx for "the hand."
I wasn't too happy with my original set of images to make a "narrative"...but one picture inspired me enough to create a mini horror story. I'm a big fan of horror movies, and interestingly enough, I was watching "The Fly" when thinking about the narrative exercise. I put my mind to work, got props, and played around with points-of-view. I wanted to leave an open ended conclusion...even though my "protagonist" perishes, there is still the eerie feeling that he will re-emerge into something more monstrous...then again, it looks like my protagonist was attacked by a giant Elmo...
THE HAND
Setting: A dimly lite room. An obsessive horror film fanatic watches AMC's Horrorfest on the tube.
Characters: Chico, a mysterious woman...or is she?
Precipitating Event: Strange noises are coming from the bathroom door. Chico lives alone, and wonders why the light
is on. He also hears water running from a faucet. The door slowly opens, and a mysterious woman crawls in front with a mutating hand. Chico is bewildered.
Rising Action: The mutating hand grows larger and larger. The woman disintegrates. The "hand" takes a life of its own.
Climax: The "hand" jumps at Chico, and tears his face apart. He is helpless, shouting for mercy.
Resolution (Denouement): The "hand" has consumed Chico's body, and his hand clutching the remote undergoes another mutation...what will be next, another television addict?
I just bought this over the weekend. I like how we can decorate the c.d. That's fun. I am looking... read more
on The Information