Digital Cinema portfolio

Visiting Artist: Mitra Abbaspour

Soooo I did go to the lecture, and I'm forcing myself to write this review, because I really didn't enjoy it at all. Mitra is a curator at MoMa, and she talked about the history of photography in the Middle East, but I never got into it. She started with something I found very interesting: photos of Middle Eastern women holding what seemed to be portraits of someone, but she never was clear about what these photos meant. After that, I was lost. I didn't understand where she was taking the lecture and when she jumped from one thing to the next I couldn't figure out how they connected with each other. It really sounded like she was reading off a paper, and I realized later in the lecture that she was. I understand if she had a lot of information that she didn't want to forget, and it helped her stay organized, but she didn't show much personality in the way she presented her lecture. It may have just been an off day or something, I'm not really sure, but I didn't like it.

Final Project Idea (Revised)

I'm still sticking to the modern day story of Sisyphus, but I've narrowed down the chores to just dirty dishes. The dishes in this case is the boulder Sisyphus has to roll up the mountain. I chose dishes because it's one of the most tedious chores to do. I've decided to start the film right off with the main character washing dishes. When she gets to her last dish, she rinses it places it in the strainer, and immediately reaches for the next set of dishes that have appeared, and the strainer is empty. She isn't shocked by this, as Sisyphus isn't shocked that the boulder always rolls back down before he can get it to the top of the mountain.

Visiting Artist: Kim Dorland

Kim Dorland visited MCA this past Thursday to share his work, and I actually left the lecture pretty happy that I stayed for it. He's a Canadian painter whose work is sponsored in three different galleries: Mark Moore Gallery in Santa Monica, California, Angell Gallery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Mike Weiss Gallery in New York, New York.  The very first thing I noticed from his work was the vivid and neon-like colors. The projector really didn't do a good job of displaying his work though, so I went back later and saw images on his website, and videos on YouTube, and I saw how much texture there was. He mentioned in the lecture that he goes through a lot of paint, and that he'll purchase about $4,000 worth of paint and it would be gone in a little over a month or so.

He grew up poor in rural Alberta, and a lot of the work he presented during the lecture were paintings inspired from his childhood experiences. He said although a lot of his paintings are of his childhood, he did not have the best family and he rarely goes back to visit them because he doesn't get along with them. In the image below, he said it represents his grandpa, who was actually the town drunk.

And this photo, I believe is called "Train Bridge," portrays an actual place (as most his works do) where kids (mostly teenagers) would go to hang out.

Dorland also mentioned that he has been with only one woman for twenty-one years. They started dating as teenagers and later married.He has painted her in what he calls her portraits, which are a little different than the traditional portraits I'm used to seeing. During the lecture he jokingly confirmed that despite what we may think of the paintings and how he depicts her in the image he does love his wife (see what he means below).

Dorland says he likes to mix different paints in his work, and sometimes there is so much paint on one composition that it takes a few people to set it up, and the paint even melts. One of his favorite painters he mentioned was Edward Hopper.

If you want to check out his website click here.
Also, here's a short video I found on Vimeo:
Kim Dorland at Angell Gallery

FINAL PROJECT IDEA!!!

So after many, many, many, many attempts to come up with an idea for my final project I think I finally came up with one. I am pretty excited about it so I hope you will be too! I'm wanting to do an experimental film, and I main idea is to have the actress (my sister) walk into a filthy kitchen (sink and counter full of dirty dishes, messy floor and counter tops, messy table, etc) and she'll start cleaning it. She'll clean until she's finished, or so she thinks, and she'll turn in the opposite direction of where she was cleaning only to find another mess that "magically" appeared. She'll go and clean this mess, only to turn around and find another one. This will continue throughout the entire film. She'll be apathetic at first, and as the film progresses, her frustration with the never ending mess will accumulate.

I was inspired by the Greek myth of Sisyphus for this and also by the fact that my dad stresses SOOO much over a messy kitchen that sometimes my family and I honestly think he'll drive himself to a heart attack over it one of this days. So I do hope for it to be humorous. I want the chores in this case to represent life's worries/trials. The character (Sissy Fuss haha) will obsess over getting these chores done, but worrying over life's small troubles so obsessively can keep you from actually living life and enjoying it. I don't know. I still need feedback tomorrow, but this is what I have.

  

Elevator Line: 

For my final project I will be filming a day in the life of Sissy Fuss, a young woman who obsesses over keeping her kitchen clean. When she thinks she has finished, more chores "magically" appear, and her work is never truly completed.

Explanation of theme: 

The question my film will ask is "Will it ever end?" with "it" being trials (or chores in this case) that we are faced with daily in life.

Central point: There will always be some kind of mess to fret over, so why fret? Life is full of trials, but also joy. Being constantly consumed by the trials of life will cause you to miss out on the joys of life (this could also be the premise).

Central goal: 

To take the ancient myth of Sisyphus and modernize it, but with a different twist; Sisyphus was subjected to his boulder as punishment. I don't want my film to be about being subjected to punishment. The goal is to comically illustrate how fretting over "chores" can consume your life to the point where you miss out on life.

Why should we care? 

Because points in your life still await many trials. Even when you overcome one, another will come.

What is your project about?

Life and its never-ending list of "chores."

Location: 

My house (kitchen)

Time:

Several points in the day. I'm thinking about documenting the day from morning when she wakes up to nightfall when she gets in bed.

Character: 

Sissy Fuss

Tone:

Solemn, a sense of loneliness, joyful at short times, hopeful/hopeless. 

I'm REALLY open to feedback. I need all that I can get.

Internship Interviews

I asked around the school to find out who has had internships and found three people, two of which got back with me and answered a few questions I had for them; they were Lexie Shaunak (Illustration major) and Angelique Gonzalez (Digital Media major). Lexie is currently interning at Baker & Hill, a graphic design firm, and Angelique interned at Varsity Brands. I didn't know what to expect from the interviews at first, meaning I didn't know what I would learn. After the interviews, though, I began to feel much better about possibly applying for an internship. Before interviewing these two people I was very scared of internships, because I didn't think I could do what would be asked of me. Both girls told me they really enjoyed, or in Lexie's current position, are enjoying their internship, and they believe that it is a great way to gain experience. I asked them how they obtained those internships, and Lexie said she had already known the owner of the company, while Angelique had help from the school's Career Services and the internship was recommended to her. Either way, both of these students found their internships through contacts. Lexie, through someone she already knew, and Angelique, through the school.

I actually have a possible internship lined up for this summer with an organization called Lil Blessings Consignment, and the position was offered to me by the web coordinator. I've known her for about four years now, and she knows that my main interest is web/graphic design, so she offered me the position for the summer. If approved by the school, I'll be redesigning their website, and helping them with advertising.

Visiting Artist: Invisible Children

I remember walking out of one of my classes at Memphis College of Art and seeing a poster titled "KONY 2012" telling me to come to the lecture on Tuesday March 6th. I've seen it around campus a couple times and every time I kept thinking "Kony. Kony... Where have I heard that before." This time around I decided to take a closer look at the poster and in smaller print I read "INVISIBLE CHILDREN" and thought "DUHHH!!"

I remember watching the first one-hour documentary of Invisible Children in 2007. I believe the video had been out five years prior to that. It was a friend of mine that referred me to IC, and eventually I browsed through their site and ran across the video, and I had become a supporter of Invisible Children.

Little did I know that they had been working on a new campaign, which was what this lecture was for. I was so impressed and captivated by their thirty-minute video. Even more, I was touched seeing how grown up Jacob was. I remember seeing him for the first time in their first documentary video. What was not mentioned in the thirty-minute video about Jacob, the part where he broke into tears about his brother, is that it was the first time Jacob cried since he could remember, because children in the LRA were not allowed to cry (many who did were severely beaten and even killed).

I am extremely interested in learning about digital film and editing specifically to create videos like these, where people can be informed on what is happening around the world. This is one organization working on one specific case at the moment, but there are other Joseph Konys out there involved in enslaving children to do other horrible things. There are people who are extremely oppressed in many different ways, and I'm still searching, as an individual, where my focus will be, and what I truly want to expose. But even more, I'm extremely impressed with the use of social networking that truly helped push the campaign. I believe that the video received more the 40,000,000 hits in a 48-hour period.

If you haven't seen it, here it is (Note that the war has been over for a few years now. This is no longer happening in Uganda):