the 48..or 51...hour race

So our mystery prop was a chalk easter egg (though i would have preferred the mullet). Since i was entirely unsure of how to get images off my scanner or put cell phone videos into final cut pro, i decided to use my digital camera. For whatever reason i just had this idea to pretend that the easter egg was my best friend. that rob and big theme stayed in my head; 'let me tell ya 'bout my best friend'. so going with that little ditty in my head i started to construct ways of things that me and my egg could do. basically, if i wanted, i feel i could pitch this to nick jr and it would be a hit. seriously tho...big. luckily we had beautiful weather, so on tuesday evening in the middle of writing a 6 page paper i headed to bubba's to take pictures.

if i could say the only thing different mentally when i was doing this project under the stress of a paper and other projects would be that i was incredibly happy. maybe it was because it was beautiful weather and i had been locked away in my room working on the paper. who knows. but i had a lot of fun being outside and acting like a big kid. also i found out that i'm really good with drawing hearts on sidewalks. if this is considered a talent...then i am talented. ultimatly it took probably about 30 mins to do my project; i guess because it was the fact that it was such an open idea with a specific beginning and end. editing was a different story.

i felt like i was back in intro to film production because i had all these still images to shuffle through. it was quite the task and hurt my head just a tad. the main problem on the time line was making sure the duration of each shot felt right and not too long or too short. i would say that final cut pro is a little easier to work with than imovie. but after all the images were where i wanted them audio was quick to put together because i already had an idea of what songs i wanted to use which worked really well and made my project...cute-er. going to andre's and watching the films in the backyard on a shower curtain was a lot of fun. i really like the raw-ness of the experience like having to stop a film because of a plane flying over head and the dog running around barking occasionally. i felt like everyone really got to bond. in a few hours i'm heading to mayfair for an early screening of iron man, and tho all the nerds will be together, i fear that the congregation will not be as welcoming as it was last nite in the backyard. i was also really impressed with the animation projects, which i never want to do because it seems very tedious.

overall, this class has been a blast. i liked getting to put down textbooks and just being creative. i sometimes feel that the film studies department stresses film study more than production so the fact that for 3 hrs one day a week i got to be creative or present my ideas and have them accepted was an awesome expereience. i will definatly encourage my minions (i have too many to name) to take this class. i'm joking about the minions. i have none. but i will tell people to look into this class because i personally have found a new appreciation for experimental films and realize that its not just about art. it's about having fun and becoming apart of this neat little society where ideas aren't just talked about, they're put into action.

the (found) foot(age) clan

found footage. boy howdy, what a lot of work. the videos we were shown in class seem as though it is a lazy man's way of being called a "filmmaker" but after i worked on my own project it is the furtherist from lazy. i went to archives.org and stared at the screen for about 10 mins. i still wasn't sure, as i sat there, as to what i wanted to search. finally, the first thing finally pops in my head is, of course, sex. so i find some old sex education videos. i had some problems in importing some videos into final cut because there was no audio. this was with mpeg, if i recall correctly. so i tried mpeg4 and those played fine. well after close to 2 hrs of trying to edit two sex videos together to something funny, i highlighted everything i had done and hit the delete key.

so it was on to my next idea and i began brainstorming. i would have to say that creating meaning out of found footage is much like dropping a 300 piece puzzle on the floor and trying to make a new puzzle with the pieces. it only pisses you off after a while. so i sat there and thought about leaving and then something just clicked. i am about to write an essay on night of the living dead so that popped in my head. i thought it would be funny to juxtapose audio from the sex ed videos with video from night of the living dead. don't know why, just popped in my head. so i found moments in the film i thought complimented the audio and turned the adventures of puberty for men into a violent, emotional, deadly period for boys, which, to some degree, it can be. finally i had found amongst the footage some meaning. so would i encourage this project for next fall's 6x1?

absolutly, this is what creativity is all about. it seriously drained my creative little noggin so much that i was just grumpy when i got back to my apartment. its awesome when everyone laughs while they watch, which is always my goal, but dear God, this took me way longer than what i was expecting. definatly keep this project for next fall, as this will challenge each student and teach them to appreciate found footage projects. sugesstions for next fall if i could make at least one would be perhaps editing to the beat of a song. i have tried this before and it is challenging to keep a mood on screen that reflects the song when you have to cut with the beat. the challenge comes in not knowing when to cut, but where to cut and why you cut. what will work best for the one minute narrative and drive the story foward when one is required to cut at certain points? some people may find this really easy, but again i tried this a few years ago and it was something that i never completed.

another suggestion i would make would be to do projects involving the scanner, cell phone, etc. which are, of course, all devices not using a video/film camera. i think this will be great exercise work to get prepped for the 48 hr film race because i personally want to try to some cool things like using the scanner but am sorta i guess you could say timid about using it, just because i don't want it not to work and then i've wasted time and end up pissed off. i just feel comfortable using everything we've used for projects now because we've completed these, but diving into a world with no film or video camera...kinda scary. but maybe everyone felt like this? who knows. but if i could leave my mark on the world of 6x1 i would definatly encourage editing the the beat of a song much like rhythmic editing. and i would also encourage projects using scanners and such so students can be more comfortable with expand their creative skills once it comes time for the 48 hr race. until next time...i'm out.

Ray, when someone asks if you're a god you say YES!

Ghostbusters might be my favorite comedy. I always begin blogs with a random line. Sometimes it can be a fact. Like the one just typed. Anyways, the 48 hour film festival is coming our way the 28th and ideas are being bounced around like a beachball at a nickelback concert (courtesy of 'hot rod'). If a filmmaker can't use film to make a film than what does the filmmaker use? Asked the woodchuck. Cell phones have cameras on them so that could be one source. I would imagine that using a camera phone might work best if you are trying to capture a "spontaneous" event. Like your friend is drunk and dancing like an idiot. I would digress from making a drama using the camera phone. Another possible way of creating a film without a camera would be a using stop motion with a digital camera. I really like when filmmakers use this for asthetic purposes because sometimes it can leave more to a persons imagination as to what the sounds are, what a person sounds like, its an almost haunting way of portaying people because they're characters that every person may develop differently in their heads. Time lapse can also play well when used appropriatly. Another way of creating a film without a film camera is with a scanner. This is the approach I would like to try. After watching Andre's short with him messing aruond with a scanner I thought that would be a challenge to create and get the look you want "printed" correctly. Webcams are another option. I personally don't use one, but I know a lot of people use them to communicate with family and friends if they are away. I have a few cousins that have them on their HP laptops so I guess they are built in now. That would be another option that would be fun because the computer would be the camera..meaning that if you wanted to turn the "camera" you would have to have the whole laptop to hold and turn so if you filmed a chase scene you would have to hold the laptop and run with it. That actually sounds pretty fun. haha.

Ecstasy.

of Inluence. So I was supposed to have read this one last week and Rough Theater this week. But I sort of did the opposite. I appologize, but maybe my blog will be a little different from everyone elses. Copyright. What does it mean? It means that the "creator" can say yay or nay to other people using his or her "creation". In Jonathan Lethem's article he discusses this idea of plagarism. I would agree with Lethem in that all artists are inspired from other creations by other artists. For example, would the Simpsons ever exist had the Flinstones never made it to television? For me personally, comedy is my forte. If comedy was banned from film, I would become a weatherman. As a child, I grew up watching Jim Carrey. Teen years were spent watching Ben Stiller, Will Ferrel, and Mike Myers. I still think Bill Murray is the funniest of them all. So when I conceieve some humorous idea in my head that I think would be funny then it is important to know where my humor is rooted. The same goes with any medium in art. One man's junk is another man's treasure. We (artists) are all influenced from different films, books, songs, poems, etc. that we somehow incorporate into our art, unconsciously or not. I believe the point that Lethem is making is that, for the starving artist, it is important and hard to know what lines you can cross and which ones you can't.

Currently in class it is coming down to the final projects. I'd have to say that I've been more than pleased with how the class's projects have turned out. My brain stimulates in ways it never had before. Bubba and I just finished up our rhythmic editing project. I think we both have some cool projects. His is about nightmares and he has an awesome rhythm and tone to it. Mine is about being drunk and the rhythm is very frantic, but I wanted it that way because I want the viewer to feel drunk as they watch. A viewer already made this comment earlier tonite. Goal successful. As for the found footage project I have yet to really sit down to google ideas that may be fun. Its hard to come up with an original idea because the last thing you want to do is steal someone elses idea, right? I mean you wouldn't steal a car would you?

molotov man and a rough theater

where to begin...well i'll start with the rough theater. after the initial reading i was a little confused as to what the hell was being discussed. theater. got it. i read it again and it clicked and i found the article humorous because it is honest. theaters can be formed from anything. whether in the backyard of a neighbor's house or in a carmike, the sources for entertainment can be found anywhere, but often times it is the creative ideas the spark our imaginations that make for the best entertainment. for example, i thought back to when i was a kid and i would make videos with my cousin and we would use all sorts of household items and pretend that they were something else. the audience (our parents) would always enjoy our films because of what we came up with, what our imaginations could produce. i couldn't help but think back to this time while reading 'the rough theater'. i think as we grow up our imagination becomes grounded and we look at such ideas as silly and pointless. in this light we lose the fruits of our childhood and we become little machines who walk through life with glazed eyes going to see the same predictable films over and over. it almost seems like films today grab our imaginations by the balls and they take it away from you.

For the other article, 'Molotov Man' this article was relatable in the fashion that copyright shit always tries to get in the way of creation. i personally love parody films (not epic movie, more like Blazing Saddles) and its something that i hope to create one day (again not epic movie). But if i made a parody film with no rights i would get sued like whoa! which sucks because despite how creative your idea may be you have nitpick around these little things that could get in your way. Another aspect of the article that i liked was how we tend to decontextualize pictures and other forms of art. we don't consider what was happening at the exact time, only that it represents something bigger. people loved this image of the man but no one really asked what was happening. we do that with films, as well. for example, i recently watched the documentary on wattstax. i personally hated the film. but given the context in which it was set, i had to appreciate what they were trying to do. so in that since i understand how we can decontextulize art/media.

Doot Doot by Freur

What a band. So after watching another film scratch junkies film I'm still a bit dumbfounded by how busy their film St. Louise is. It's like looking at a chemical equation and balancing everything out. I know how to do, but looking at it all at once confuses the shit out of me. I use the chemical equation as an example because CO2 is flashed in this film. Ok, having some knowledge of this medium now, I am able to possibly find the makings of this project. Well the film strips are painted with what i'm thinking is mixed with magazine transfer. One aspect of this film is how they use phrases horizontally, not vertically. What i mean here is that you can read what it says left to right/right to left so it appears that words are moving in and out of the frame. This seems challenging and something I would like to try in the future to see if i could keep that sort of flow like film scratch junkies does so suave.

There is one piece of this puzzle that i can quite put my thumb on. That piece is the animation done with white lines. The only guess i could make would be...yea i can't think of anything. My only guess would be drawing with a white and black marker? Perhaps? Might ask about that tomorrow cause it is bothering me. At one point there is a truck and a boat that move back and forth across screen. My only guess to that is that they are stickers? I'm so bad at trying to figure this stuff out. This stuff still blows my mind. Even in class watching other projects I was fascinated by what i was watching. I myself just guess on what things will look like, and guessing how other people's films were made is like shooting in the dark. This is all still challenging for me to figure out what one form of film manipulation will look like versus another. It is manipulating my mind as well.

You made me promises, promises

That song has been stuck in my head all weekend. Alrighty, so mine and bubba's first project is done. we screened it with andy warhol and he shit his pants. It's that amazing...i hope. This project was, for me, a relaxing process. Nothing high strung like omg is the lighting right, is the sound going to work? It was just a chance to chill and be as creative was one can exceed their limits to. Now that this project is complete it is time to look to the future because what matters is what hasn't been.

But backtrack a bit...last monday. That was tons of fun. My group and i kept a very linear narrative with a shocking twist (just when you thought it was safe for the children to watch). We had some camera difficulties and ultimatly had to switch to another camera. We tried our best to match everything has far as camera work goes so that there is continuity when we edit, which is sort of important. I really enjoyed working with the super 8 and i now aspire to be the first filmmaker to shoot a 3 hr epic on 8mm...and let my parents watch it because i don't think anyone else will. We'll see if i can't build up a fanbase first. One particle in this atom that is a stop-motion animated film that i'm looking foward to working with is sound. I'm hoping that we'll get to record our own sounds for the project versus hunting down sounds on the internet like its fresh meat in the middle of winter when i'm starving. Yea i roll deep with my similies. I'm also drinking an energy drink right now, so bare with me.

Lighting for the animation went smoothly and overall, again, this project was relaxing. Coming into this class i was really skeptical, but now i look foward to this class on mondays just because its an awesome way to start off the week, because it goes to shit by hump day. I really am learning a lot about experimental film and just creating in general. I think i can speak for both bubba and myself in saying that our confidence in experimenting has risen for the better. We both just sort of shrug and give each other the "we'll hope for the best" look when wondering about an approach for expressionism and i think that has helped the process more enjoyable. What's experimental about knowing how your finished product is going to look like? Yea...it's not. Until next time, this is Lucas Boger signing off.

back off man...i'm a scientist

the title has no relevance to what i'm about to discuss. so bubba and i are about to get dirrty (notice the 2 r's) this week and finish our first project. We have the water part of our project complete which i am curious to discover how it will appear because its often hard to continue drawing the same damn thing every 24 frames and moving to the next motion. hours of work for a few seconds...thanks film. the fire portion of our project is halfway complete and should be radical on the "big" screen with orange and red c-c-comin at ya. we've finally concured with each other for how we wish to express the earth through 16mm film which will involve some rayogram work so we'll have to get this completed. one aspect of our project we have yet to complete is the painting with oils and bleach, but i think we'll have something phenominal planned for it once we sit and think. so i would continue in sharing our other ideas, but then what's the point of wrapping the presents?

i am super stoked for tomorrows class in doing animation. the PES clips were awesome and i've watched a few more earlier today. i like the rooftop sex film. i could really relate to it because who doesn't compare themselves to dirty chairs while having sex? i've got some playdough for tomorrow, so watch out world...so that + film = good times!! this class has easily become one of my favorites thus far and i really am building a (soild) foundation for appreciating this medium. Can't wait for what's next. Til next time. Stay classy.

Experiencing the Experimental

Three or four weeks in and i already know more about experimental film than i do about women. I am really enjoying monday mornings where I'm chillin and actually feeling productive. Perhaps this is what i've been lacking in my film studies. I'm finally getting my hands dirty and learning through the process (yes i wash my hands before lunch). So what am i enjoying the most, you ask? Hmm. I would have to take every variable in to account because i love the idea of creating (which i feel every film major should love). So i dig everything i'm learning because its allowing me to express an idea through a different medium. It is one thing, for example, to read about how to do film processing and it's another to actually do it, which i did, and fucked up. haha. But now that I've learned from my mistake i know what not to do next time.

Though I am learning techniques such as magazine print on film and painting and scratching, I'm also able to express an idea through other forms of narration. Bubba and I have started on our film manipulation and i am confident with the creation of our forms for expressing earth, wind, water, and FIRE; though we still have much to finish. I find it funny that when class starts and Andre is explaining what we're doing how i immediatly shut down because it all seems over my head, but as soon as i start doing what he was explaining than it makes sense. For example, when explaining film processing i was completly lost (should probably wake up earlier than 25 mins before class), i didn't understand what it would do to the film other than "expose" it, which i really didn't understand whatthat exactly did. Then 2 hrs and 45 minutes later, i completly understood what processing did, how you did it, and how to manipulate the film this way. Keanu Reeves to Kung Fu is Lucas Boger to film processing. Whoa.

giving and taking book

Wow. There was a ton of information in the reading. First off, I am a projectionist working with 35mm, so a lot of information such as splicing, all the different leaders, single/double sprocket, base and emulsion, and gate are terms I am very much aware of. So I found all this to be a little bit of a waste of a read. However, coming into the second half of the reading I was a little blown away. By blown away I mean terms and ideas Brakhage was sharing were not so much foreign to me, but rather, hard to visualize. A lot of things that he shares, like the section on lighting and using a flashlight, etc., I feel are experiments that I need to try for myself. What I do enjoy is how he reaches the reader on a personal level by even admiting that "[he], too, [is] tired of these mechanical limitations" right after discussing that lengthy confusing-yet-shouldn't-be talk about Daylight and Tungsten film.

I also feel that the reading is for someone who either studies experimenal film or has made efforts in that field of entertainment. For me, the only studying I have really done was watching the experimental film in class and the only attempt at making something experimental was in class. So some technical terms I understand from previous classes, but had I not had that then I would totally be loss by Brakhage's directions, or should I say helpful enlightenments. Overall, I would have to say that Brakhage knows his stuff haha. It sometimes feels as though he is writing just to amuse himself; getting carried away on tangents like the section where he goes on about "sensing." I would love to read this article again come mid-March when I've worked on a few projects and am still learning new ways of trying express an emotion or just to make something quirky on 16mm film.

Dancin' to the beat

To get things started off I want to clarify that experimental films have never been my cup of pepsi, but sometimes after you learn about the medium and how it works then appreciation will sprout from an ignorant mind. The first film watched was To the Beat. As far as images go there was nothing really there that blew me away, just shapes shifting and colors changing to the beat of the music. It wasn't until there were a couple of images with a mother and her children that this film appealed to me. I found the image where all three are sitting on a picnic blanket (?) and these black splotches are crawling over the image to be really haunting. It reminded me of Ghost and who doesn't want to be reminded of a good ol' Swayze pic. Another image was of the little girl who was inside a fence because I found it to speak of childhood and how we can only observe now and not have our childhood back. One problem I had and its a common thing in our culture in general is wanting to find a narrative in every film. The end of this film pretty much told me "hey this is just a series of random images juxtaposed together with nothing of importance to it." So though I couldn't find much appreciation with the images I feel its because I was searching for story and meaning (ooohhh so emo). As the semester goes along I know these posts will become more intelligent, but right now this is all I can give.