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.