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):

More Scouting...

I also took photos of the interior of that house we're working on. Soon the carpet will be ripped and replaced with wood floor. I'm not sure if we could use this window in the wall as a bar or not if we were to place something larger to make more table space, and then set up small tables in the back to make it look more like a bar.

Scouting for Group JACCT

I thought of a neighborhood to use for the beginning and ending scenes of the short film my group is working on and decided to use the street our family is moving into pretty soon. The exterior hasn't been decorated at all, the lawn hasn't been mowed, and I thought it would be perfect to use as a "foreclosed" home. It's the house with the silver Kia Rio that I thought to use.

Visiting Artist: Alan Boniface

My very first impression of Alan Boniface was that he had great presentation skills. He was very articulate in his lecture, keeping consistent eye contact with the audience, and was very charismatic and humorous. Alan Boniface works at an architecture firm called DIALOG as a managing partner. He has contributed his work in places like Beijing, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and, of course, Vancouver, where he is from.

He talked a lot about what makes an "Urban Magnet," which was the idea centered around this lecture. In a sentence, an urban magnet is an urban area that attracts a lot of people, local and tourists. He talked a lot about the way to make urban areas successful (urban magnets) is that the area must have great architecture, but also include various areas of interest for all people. He said, "Urban Magnets are about PEOPLE. What are people doing? What are people interested in the area? Build upon that." He also mentioned that the wonderful architecture did not mean it had to be built from the ground up all the time. Some of the best architectural places are spaces that have existed in the area for a long time, but have been slightly renovated. He said using spaces that already exist keep the flavor and history of the urban area.

His "Ingredients to Successful Magnets" were:
1. Retail Experience
2. Production On-Site
3. Educational Piece
4. Landscape/Architecture
5. Festivals

A lot of his lecture included beautiful images of Vancouver. He showed us how a lot of the success in Vancouver has to do with the fact that they have these huge skyscrapers right next to beautiful parks. They integrate the spaces, rather than separate them, which is the traditional style of city planning.

Boniface also mentioned a term that is used in Vancouver, simply called "Vancouverism" which is the idea that people are not overwhelmed by the high buildings because they really can't see the tall buildings when they walk. The tall structures are generally built in a "tower-podeum" form. The shot below of Vancouver's city hall is a great example of this "tower-podeum" structure.

Boniface also mentioned that when housing structures are built within the city itself, there is still a sense of privacy, because the housing areas have a good bit of space between their home/apartment and the street.

Boniface helped the audience see the similarities between Vancouver and Downtown Memphis. I believe what he said makes a great urban magnet could be done in Downtown Memphis to revive life in that area. Prior to the main artist lecture we watched a video on the happenings of local urban areas being transformed into urban magnets. It was really cool to see that plans for this have already started. The main areas discussed in that video included Overton Square, Downtown Memphis, and Hernando, MS. It's exciting to see that there are plans in place to make our local urban areas more people friendly.

Just to Update....

Just to update my blog a little bit for those keeping up with it, I have been doing most of my posts on my team's blog page. I'll try to transfer some of that on here or you can just go to that link and read how we're coming along with our project at:

Group JACCT

Also, I'll be posting my thoughts on Thursday's visiting artist: Alan Boniface. So look for that later on tonight or possibly tomorrow.

Film: Secrets and Lies (1996)

As I went down the movie list and read their descriptions, this movie jumped out to me the most. The first place I went to search for it was YouTube and, sure enough, there is was in fourteen parts :).

I really wasn't expecting to like this movie as much as I did, mostly because I had never heard of it. The very first thing I noticed and really liked was that it started off with three different stories (Hortense, Cynthia, and Maurice), and how the movie did not take long to make the connections between them. I was engaged in the movie the whole time as if it were a true story happening before my eyes, in the present time. The characters and their mannerisms and personalities were very real. The story was also very believable, something I believe to be very important for any movie in the Drama genre.

What also made the movie different from any other "adopted child seeking their biological parent(s)" movie was the racial tension of it all. The mystery of who Hortense's biological father is also kept me wondering throughout the entire movie, waiting for an answer. The man's identity was never directly revealed, but through Cynthia's reaction at the mention of him, the viewer can gather that something bad happened (possibly rape), considering she became pregnant at fifteen. I also like how the story leaves it up to the audience to determine what may have happened.

Two things surprised me in the film. The first is Cynthia's turn around from not wanting anything to do with Hortense to actually building a genuine relationship with her black daughter, and being proud of who she has become. Second, is that Roxanne accepts Hortense as her sister at the end. I definitely didn't see that one coming. Overall, I would watch this film again! :)

Cinematography/Screenwriting Readings

I definitely learned a lot from the readings listed on the blog for this week. I actually spent six and a half hours on Saturday reading most of them, and finished the rest on Sunday. Thinking about it now, I really couldn't have done that if they were not slightly interesting, but they obviously were otherwise I would have given up on them. The article I favored most would have to be the "Premise" article. It's my favorite, but also the scariest. Even now, the question, "What's your premise?" resonates in my head. Two of the notes I jotted down were:

• The premise should be the driving force behind every event in your screenplay.
• If your story does not have a clear premise, it will lack focus and drive.

I guess it's the importance of the premise that scares me. If I don't have a good one, which is foundational to the film itself, my film will be unsuccessful.

I also enjoyed the character development article. This one left me a bit anxious too. I'm no expert in developing characters by any means. I even remember story writing assignments in middle school and some high school, and this has always been a problem for me. I develop them as I write, when I should really develop them first, then write. Not just that, but I also learned that EVERY character must be carefully developed and in detail, not just the protagonist and antagonist.

The readings were great. Those were the two that I enjoyed the most. I did enjoy the basic time structure of a two-hour film. Now, I will be the girl in the theatre timing the first 30 minutes, then the next 90 minutes, and the final 30 of any two-hour film. :)

A Movie that has Impacted Me

I really had to sit back and think about what movie has impacted me. I remember mentioning in class that I hate bullying and that it truly is something that bothers me. So Pay It Forward came to mind. While I had never really been bullied, I remember watching the movie with my family when it came out, and I was bothered that the bully in the movie bullied people for no reason. And it wasn't just verbal. It bothered me as a ten-year-old (age I was when movie came out in 2000) that this boy (main character) and his friend were bullied and they didn't do anything to deserve it. I also realized that it could happen to me or anyone my age and younger (I realize even now that it happens at any age). That may be why it scared me and stuck with me. I watched it again a few years later, still very anxious, dreading the end. It did not have a happy ending but I learned later that that's just reality. Victims of bullying have died from it and that bothers me to this day. They are either killed from direct physical abuse, or they end their own life, because they have no hope of it stopping. That breaks my heart.

Goals for this Class

In this class I really want to learn the technical skills of shooting and editing video and composing it into an interesting film that really captures the audience's attention. I am I Digital Media major alone. My concentration is not in film or animation. It's just Digital Media, but I do want to learn how to compose a short film for future reference. So in list form, here are my goals:

• Learn video/sound editing techniques
• Learn to write a story (screenplay) for a movie/ short film
• Learn how to create a compelling short film
• Discover the audience(s) I wish to reach
• Truly narrow down the topics I want to explore for short films
• Learn to effectively convey my message to my audience
• Learn how to properly critique a film

This is the list I came up with in one sitting. I'm sure more will come up as the semester continues. I am extremely nervous about this class because a lot of this is new to me, but I am excited about learning new digital techniques.

4 Minute Speech Notes

So below are the notes I wrote down in preparation for my 4 minute speech about myself.  There were six prompts to answer:

1. Peculiarities of my life that have made me see with special eyes are ...

2. Conflicts formative in my life are ...

3. Themes that I'd like to work with are ...

4. Types of character I empathize with are ...

5. Story topics I'd like to explore are ...

6. Ways I'd like to act on my audience are ...

 

So, normally, when I prepare to do a presentation of any sort I try to jot down my first responses at they form in my head. I did the same with these prompts. I read them to myself and I wrote down what came to mind, hence, the large amount of notes. 

After I wrote down my notes for this assignment I realized that I only had 4 minutes, so what I did next was go back through my notes, realize I could not cover everything in 4, and then decided which information was the most important for this assignment.

I circled a few letters here and there as visual reminders, but I also made mental reminders. I tried to program an order in my mind so that I wouldn't have to glance at my notes too much.

So this is a photo of my note taking:

4 Minute Speech

So this is our first assignment for this class and I am really nervous because I am not comfortable speaking in front of people.

I have written down my notes, but may have not practiced as much as I should have so we'll see how it goes.