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?