Blog #8: Animation

I viewed an animation by Norman McLaren titled “A Phantasy”. One of the definitions of phantasy that I found is “imagination unrestricted by reality” and the pretty much sums up this piece for me.

This film is nearly 60 years old and seems old-fashioned in comparison to what we see today. I’m not sure it would hold the interest of young viewers as it takes its time to unfold and doesn’t really seem to ‘go’ anywhere. It is composed of additive and subtractive animation and has a very simple soundtrack that utilizes a saxophone and some sound effects. The music helps set a light, whimsical tone that is in contrast to the dark and moody images.

This composition appears to be more an artistic expression than any kind of discernable narrative, at least to my eyes. I found it reminiscent of a Salvador Dali painting come to life. The entire frame is well used and the color palate is rich but muted and there are no characters per se. It opens onto a landscape dotted with some large rock-like objects in the foreground. Action is introduced via shapes that enter from the sides. These shapes continuously morph and supply all the action, sometimes producing recognizable objects; a bird, a clock, or a butterfly. The middle portion is devoted to circular objects that fluidly move in and out of formations in space, not unlike a Busby Berklee or Rockette routine. Ultimately these shapes settle back into the landscape below to complete this surreal piece.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjl0i_p_pow

Blog #7: From concept to screen - A Hellish Production

Being a complete novice to every aspect of filmmaking I felt daunted by this project from the outset but determined to try and have some fun with it. I was successful maybe 40% of the time.

Coming up with a concept that would be easy enough to complete was more difficult that I initially thought, but we eventually settled on a simple computer date gone awry, told in a straightforward narrative style. Inna and I met at a coffee shop one Saturday afternoon to determine how best to turn our idea into a short video. First we proceeded to sketch out a short storyboard. While it certainly won’t win any artistic awards, it was a valuable tool in helping to visualize what we wanted. However, I also went through the shooting process in my head later and decided to write out a shot list, specific to each location; something to use during the actual shooting process in the hopes it would keep us from missing or forgetting anything necessary since we wouldn’t have the opportunity for any reshoots. It was helpful but it didn’t alleviate that problem entirely as we would later learn.

As it turned out Inna had a much steadier hand on the camera than me. If I had to do this again it would be beneficial to have a tripod. Lighting also falls into the category of wants/needs but was impossible considering the constraints of this project. We deliberately decided against any dialogue, using a music track instead. This also worked in our favor as no real script had to be written.

The hell for me began in the editing process. As it turned out there wasn’t enough space for our .mov files. I feel this was a foreseeable problem that should have been addressed in the syllabus. As I couldn’t afford a new external drive I ultimately prevailed in borrowing one from a friend, but we lost precious editing time to this oversight. I kept hearing the word ‘intuitive’ bandied about concerning Final Cut Express. For me it was anything but. Watching editing examples in the lecture a couple of times and reading was not nearly enough for me to comprehend the intricacies of this program. I spent hours editing and screwing things up and having no idea how or why something happened and had to rebuild my section from scratch at least 15 times and while the project is now completed I still don’t feel conversant in the program. The audio was made somewhat easier because it has some things in common with Garageband which I’ve used in the past.

Even with our preproduction efforts we found shots that didn’t work well because of bad angles or lighting, continuity problems, shaky camera work or simply things we didn’t see while shooting. We ultimately had to make lemonade from lemons. I now understand the value of thinking through, as much as possible, every eventuality and having enough material to fill in those “gaps” we encountered. While I can’t say I’m particularly pleased with the video I think we did the best that we could under the circumstances.

Blog #6: Editing Analysis….For The Birds

I viewed the 2001 Academy Award winning Pixar animated short  “For The Birds”. It tells an amusing story of a bird that is ostracized for being different.

 

If you’re familiar with Pixar you’ll note that the animation is typical of their style, crisply drawn and colorful. The title sequence begins with a tracking shot that follows the up and down arc of telephone wires as the title treatment rises and falls as it clears each pole. We’re introduced to the first bird as it flies into the frame and lands on the wire using a match cut. The rest of the flock supplies the motion as they fly into a static frame until the camera eventually pulls back to reveal the complete group. A medium crosscut is then used to identify a single, bigger newcomer followed by a medium reverse shot back to the group. Inductive reasoning is effectively employed in this film. Using lots of interestingly framed close-ups they build the bird’s personalities, their dislike of the interloper and their strategy and furious attempts to get rid of him. The shot sequences are built on action and logical reaction, with the final shot prior to the catapult being held just long enough to create a little fun tension.

 

The soundtrack boasts both diegetic and non-diegetic audio.   Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” adds just the right amount of whimsy, complementing the ‘dialogue’ and sound effects perfectly.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omk6TAxJYOg 

Blog #5: The Web & Me

Five years ago this month I made a call to Time Warner Cable to terminate my television service. This was partially a financial consideration but also a desire to repurpose untold hours of my life. Little did I realize that I would end up reinvesting many of those hours on the World Wide Web.

 

My relationship with the media today is enacted almost exclusively on-line. My magazine and newspaper subscriptions have long since lapsed. The only time I buy a hard copy now is when I will not have access to my computer, perhaps a day at the beach or a vacation, and as comforting as it is to curl up with a good book or newspaper I’ve definitely become addicted to the immediacy of the web.

 

Without TV the NY Times website becomes my first source of news each day. Next I generally hit Weather.com so I’ll know how to properly dress. I also regularly view the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle owing to personal connections to those cities and being a rabid tennis fan I must read Tennis.com and ATPWorldTour.com daily.

 

I find that my web habits thus far have proven rather passive. While I appreciate user-generated content I find most of my time is simply spent reading. I’ve been on Facebook for over a year but have never posted a status and only occasionally do I comment on a conversational thread. At this juncture I’m hesitant to put something out into the ether that I might later regret. 

            

Blog #4: Reflections…..

I don’t think my general impression of the media has altered tremendously as a result of my taking Digital Media 150. What I would say though, is that my level of appreciation of it is proportionate to what I have learned.

 

Being bombarded by the media 24-7, it can easily be taken for granted. One can choose, as I have, to limit your exposure. In my case that means no television (at the significant (?) cost of falling out of the cultural loop), but being surrounded in an ever-growing array of formats it is impossible to escape its effects entirely. What this class has taught, or at least reminded me of, is the complexity involved in even the most mundane aspects of making media. Who knew that so much time, money and thought, in fact, entire careers went into something as mundane as font type? My limited exposure to the applications we’ve begun to explore has given me a better understanding of the work that goes into perfecting print images via Photoshop. Our initial attempts at  3-point lighting have given me an appreciation of that overlooked but ever-present aspect that touches everything we do in the media. And our foray into the world of the blog has made me aware of and personally responsible for the content one is creating. And finally, this class has reinforced that producing media, regardless of the format, is most often a collaborative process.

 

Here’s looking forward to Digital Media 2.

 

Blog #3: “Design I Like: JAWS Vs. WSS”

Two movie posters that I think work particularly well are from West Side Story and Jaws. Fourteen years separated these films (1961/1975) and the posters reflect that stylistically.

 

This West Side Story poster was released after the film won 10 Academy Awards. It is very busy graphically but I think it is arranged in a cogent manner considering the amount of information they put forth. My eyes were first drawn to the red text, which made particular lines and words ‘pop’, most notably the word best (sell that film!). Red also symbolizes the film’s themes of passionate love within a fiery Latino community. The bold and gritty title graphic stands up well to the red and cleverly utilizes the lovers dancing on a fire escape, echoing the New York locale of Spanish Harlem. All the text is logically connected, sized and grouped. The addition of photographs, placed on a diagonal as they are, have the effect of giving the illusion of depth to the poster, the z axis at work. I’ve also included a Japanese poster that I liked for the simple linear perspective it employs.

 

The Jaws poster achieves its intent in a very simple but effective way. It creates and plays on our fear of what’s lurking beneath the surface? This poster answers that question with a ridiculously oversized image of a shark, mouth agape, with rows of razor sharp teeth making it’s way toward an oblivious swimming woman. There really is no need for text, aside from the bold, blood red title that dwarfs the swimmer. The actors credit placement mimics the upward thrust of the shark and terrifying appears twice in 2 short lines of copy.

Blog #2: "What I See: Half Nelson"

I viewed the 2006 low budget ($700,000) but critically acclaimed independent film “Half Nelson”. It was the directorial debut of Ryan Fleck and featured Ryan Gosling. It is set in a seedy, non-gentrified area of Brooklyn and involves the relationship between a drug-addicted junior high school history teacher and a 13-year-old African-American girl on the basketball team that he coaches.

 

The director and cinematographer create a particular mood with their technical choices. The use of extreme close-ups, jerky hand-held camera movement and off-centered framing, coupled with low light and grainy washed-out imagery, helped create a sense of a hazy, drug centered life; disoriented, bleak, claustrophobic and colorless. This is perfectly executed in a scene where the teacher is smoking crack in a bathroom stall in the girl’s gym after a game. The close-up focus on his face goes from sharp to blurry as he inhales and exhales, mirroring what’s happening in his brain and vision. When one of the girls comes in to use the stall next to his he has to hide. The oppressively tight camera angles created a perfect sense of being trapped as you hold your breath with him. The use of rack focus is illustrated when she opens the stall door and focus goes from his face to his hands holding the pipe, following her discovery. Moody music, used almost exclusively when he’s high, contributes to the feeling of his isolation from the world.

Half Nelson is a wrestling hold almost impossible to break free from and an apt title.