light observations

I think this is what I was supposed to do?

The light in my bedroom is soft and brassy at the same time.  It seems like a cold fluorescent is muted by the yellow tinged light fixture.  It gives the white walls a dingy look, cream rather than their actual eggshell color.  There are lots of harsh shadows since the light is coming directly from overhead.  The light exposes every particle of dust but also is dim enough not to be blinding.  The artificial light clashes with the cleaner looking light coming from the window, which is partially obscured by blinds.  The light from the window is overpowered by the fluorescent about half a foot into the room

In the yard behind my apartment, the light is cold and fuzzy.  It’s overcast and the sun only touches the ground in a patch of grass far away.  The diffuse light is sort of dim, but still seems clean, natural, and inviting.  There aren’t many shadows at all except right around where the ground is exposed to the sun, where it looks stark and blindingly green with thick, black shadows.  The blue-gray tone of the light makes it seem like it should be much cooler outside; it looks like fall without the orange, yellow, or red.  

response to presentation: Maya Deren

Maya Deren has been one of my favorite filmmakers since I first began studying film, but I never realized how much I didn’t know about her and her work.  I think choreographic film is fascinating and would love to watch some of her later works to see how her style evolved over time.  I also love the anecdote about her love for cats, and hearing things like that about your idols humanizes them a bit.  I would also like to know more about Deren’s ethnography, and the ways in which her book Divine Horsemen was controversial.  Ryan’s presentation was entertaining and thorough, and it’s clear to me that she did a lot of research and was very passionate about her subject.    

Lynne Sachs- Extra Credit

Drawn and Quartered is probably my favorite film that Lynne showed on Wednesday night, mostly because she makes the technicalities of the medium so apparent.  Hearing her talk about the process of cutting film was fascinating, especially the concept of destructive editing.  I’d always known that before digital editing, filmmakers had to physically cut the film, but hearing Lynne talk about her experience editing this film (and in the process, becoming more confident) made it more tangible for me in a sense.  Her story of cutting out the parts of the film with her face present and then re-inserting them back after some convincing helped me to further relate to her film-making process and the evolution of her distinct fingerprint that is present in all of her films.

response to Lynne Sachs interview

What I found most intriguing about the Sachs interview was her approach to documentary.  She talks about getting people to open up to her by making their experiences familiar as opposed to alienating them, and making them feel like they experienced some grand horror that’s so far away from the filmmaker that they could never understand.  One problem I have with most documentaries I’ve seen (think History Channel) is that the narrators always seem so far removed from the historical circumstances because they tend to treat it like just that: history.  I think I would be able to connect with a documentary more if it treated those circumstances more like experiences people actually lived, which they are.  Her whole philosophy on familiarity is very insightful to me.  The concept of a dirty bed being the most intimate you can be with a person without them actually there is something I’d never thought about before, but I guess that’s why I can never really sleep in hotels.  

response to Lynne Sachs film

One of the films by Lynne Sachs that I watched was called Same Stream Twice.  What I interpreted the film as is that the first part, the slow motion long take of a little girl running, was a reflection of nostalgia and childhood, and the choice to shoot in black and white emphasizes the nostalgia.  The second part, I believe, is the same girl as a teenager or adult, running in the same fashion and looking at the camera.  The film being distorted and “scratched” shows the passage of time, and because of the title, the film means to me that a person is changing and evolving so much as they age that they can never truly be the same person they were before.    

response to assignment 1B

Assignment 1b was extremely fun and interesting for me.  I had some experience in sound design and editing, which is what I want to do for a career, but I had never done it in a collaborative setting before.  Working creatively with someone else on a soundscape was a completely new experience.  I think one of the biggest things I learned was that working with someone else forces you to slow down.  Normally when I edit I get “in the zone” and plow through it.  Taking the time to listen to someone else’s suggestions not only made me sit back and take breathers, but slowing down helped me to concentrate more, and to be able to analyze my own work as we were making it. 

Moritz, the absolute film

Honestly, this article was kind of mind-blowing for me. I have been studying absolute film for several weeks now (with my film-maker presentation and in FST 372) and have never made the connection between absolute film and absolute music. This got me thinking about how all of the films I've seen from this movement really embody the concept of "absolute," as in, having all of the necessary aspects to be considered cinema, but with no narrative purpose, just pure film for the sake of the art. It is increasingly frustrating for me when people watch an absolute film (or Experimental film in general) and ask "why? what's the point if I don't 'get it'?"  Sometimes a person creates art just with the intent of exploring what they can do with the medium, and it doesn't have to conform to any one person's idea of what art really is.

response to presentation: Harry Smith

I had seen several Smith films before Ben's presentation but didn't know much about his personal life. I though the description of his upbringing was super interesting and the video of Smith being interviewed was a good choice and helped to give a more complete picture of him as a person and artist. Ben did a good job of covering the variety of Smith's work as as a film-maker and archivist.

response to presentation: Len Lye

Madison's presentation about Len Lye was concise and informative, but it was evident that she was passionate about his work. I thought it was really important that she included his upbringing, interests, and artistic endeavors outside of film, because it gave a more well-rounded picture of who he was as a person and how his experiences influenced his style (like his Maori influence and advertising career).

response to presentation: Jonas Mekas

I think Matt gave an interesting, comprehensive presentation on Jonas Mekas, which was a great introduction to the film-maker presentations and Experimental film as a whole.  Mekas has lived a very long and prolific life, which makes it difficult to include everything about him while still giving a detailed description of his cinematic style and philosophy, but I felt like by the end of Matt's presentation, I had a very strong idea of who Mekas is and what he stands for. 

synesthesia and cymatics

synesthesia is a concept that I have always been fascinated by, but never quite understood.  My best friend in high school was a synesthete, and for her, every number had a different color.  It was a hard concept for me to grasp and even harder for her to explain, but watching the TEDtalk about synesthesia made it a little more clear.  The concept of connecting one sense with another is one that I would like to see explored more in art, much like the woman who painted songs, and I think film would be the perfect medium to experiment with.  I'm going to be honest, before the last class period I had never heard of cymatics outside of a physics class, which is strange because I've been a musician all my life and sound is my favorite aspect of film.   The concept of sound as pure energy that has the capability to create tangible patterns, and as something you can physically feel is very interesting to me, and also something I would like to experiment with at some point.  I feel that synesthesia and cymatics are quite similar in the fact that they combine one sense with another in an unexpected way.

sound recording experience

Although we didn't get the cleanest sound out of all the groups, I would say we had a very positive experience with the sound recording project.  Everyone in the group had a positive attitude and were quick to brainstorm and think creatively.  We did run into snags since we recorded a large portion of our sounds in public, and background noise was prevalent.  However, I was pleasantly surprised at the range of different and unidentifiable sounds we were able to record.  It was only my second time using an H6 recorder and it has been a huge improvement over the H4n recorders we used in 201, making the whole process more streamlined and pleasant.