I am very conflictd over how I feel about this project. I started out with a specific goal in mind and the result is so far abstracted, it doesn’t seem possible. I am however, pleased with the result I achieved, even if it wasn’t planned. My original concept was to mimic either turn of the century silent movies or film noir style using animation over video and stills. The production method remained the same, but my concept was simplified over time.
The end result is somewhat of a self-portrait. I was thinking about the idea of time and how fascinated i am with our connection to the people of the past. People haven't really changed over time. We are all still driven by the same things and have the same human emotions. This project is an expression of the female inclination to swoon over the dark and mysterious figures in fiction. I, myself, am especially guilty of staring at a stand of trees and watching a story unfold in my head only to be brought back to reality.
there's many things I would change about this project, the first being the amount of detail in the facial expressions and body movements. I'd intended to experiment with after effects, but that didn't happen. I wanted to achieve smooth transitions and detailed facial expressions. The jerkiness bothers me. It is, however, a distinct style and in the end, I think it lends itself well to the imaginary "phasing" aspect of this piece.
I am very pleased with the soundtrack as well as the filming. It was tough to only film on cloudy days and with no tripod, sp I think I achieved a soft and muted affect.
If I had more time, I'd focus on small movements and maybe even make the piece longer, too linger on dramatic moments. This piece was hours of work so I'm pleased over all.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
final project proposal
My final project is going to stretch my understanding of gesture and special effects in both final cut and after effects. It is going to be a heavily animated sweeping romance. All of the scenery where I will place my characters will be shot in video with the exception of zoomed stills for close-ups on small gestures. I am extremely inspired by imperfect animation that has artifacts of the animator’s hand. I think it adds warmth that plain photos and videos lack. I want my project to have a very overcast feel with subtle and graceful colors, maybe even black and white. I think the combination of animation with manipulated video made to look as if it was filmed in the silent movie era is very compelling.
I am torn over my plot. I am very drawn to history and anything period in it’s look and feel. I want to make a silent animated film with dialogue pages. I want the characters to move and act like Lillian Gish, Charlie Chaplin, and Errol Flynn. Everything will be very melodramatic with characters that mimic the smooth and swooping lines of the early 20th century. For the plot’s setting, I’m torn between Edwardian, Victorian, or turn of the century costuming and subject matter. It will be a corny, yet poignant forbidden love story that ends in tragedy, as if the characters are ghosts haunting the locations.
I am torn over my plot. I am very drawn to history and anything period in it’s look and feel. I want to make a silent animated film with dialogue pages. I want the characters to move and act like Lillian Gish, Charlie Chaplin, and Errol Flynn. Everything will be very melodramatic with characters that mimic the smooth and swooping lines of the early 20th century. For the plot’s setting, I’m torn between Edwardian, Victorian, or turn of the century costuming and subject matter. It will be a corny, yet poignant forbidden love story that ends in tragedy, as if the characters are ghosts haunting the locations.
"Ode to an Actor" self-critique
I am very proud of the result given the immense amount of technological difficulties I encountered during the process. I was greatly inspired by the rotoscoping examples on the blog for the darkened figures, which I just now realized are almost identical to iPod commercials. That's one of my self-critiques. The similarity didn't cross my mind and I hate the unoriginality, but I'm hoping that the animated feature changes the overall feel enough so that it doesn't look like I directly copied a commercial. If given more time, I would like to have included more intricate animations that are interactive with the figure. I would also like to expand the genres so that the audience receives at least eight different settings and visuals. On the whole, the masking done with the figure is quite clean and I'm happy there's no fuzz around his movements. For a small project, I'm happy with the result but would like to expand and pay more attention to detail
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Anthony, Ryan and Kyle's Sound Critiques
Anthony:
Ah, losing a valuable piece of expensive machinery. We’ve all done it at some point or another. This piece was successful and unsuccessful at the same time. I am a big fan of spoken internal monologues and this one was very honest and not at all overdone. At the same time, I would have liked to hear more of the uncertainty and panic of misplacing such an important item. I know that even when I lose something as cheap as my student ID, it’s a few good hours of panic and plan-making before I can relax in the knowledge that either I’ve found it or made a replacement plan. The voice and tone seemed a little too calm and bemused for the situation. I did however, appreciate the ambient sounds provided. They were the exact right volume and level of reverb for their surroundings. The fade-in interiors of buildings like Eickoff were dead-on. Really great job! Also the muffled winter footsteps were particularly effective, especially since footsteps tend to be one’s main focus when retracing them. Overall, great job, just would have like more of a build-up to the final discovery and relief. The panic and relief contrast could have been stronger.
Ryan:
Is this you playing the guitar? You are very talented. The first thing that struck me was the sharp tone of the guitar compared the warm and casual tones of your voices. This is both positive and negative in that it communicates the focus of music in your life, but also overshadows and outshines otherwise important dialogue for the narrative. I love seeing creative processes, especially in music. Music is one of my passions but the talent of writing it has always eluded me. I especially loved how ideas were immediately realized audibly to us as if they were already completed the minute they were conceived. Again, the strumming guitar is prominent but also distracting to the verbal creative process. I loved how natural the conversations were between the speakers and how absorbed you, in particular were in the emotional value of the music. The memory evoked halfway through was unclear, again, a result of the overpowering guitar. If that was changed, it would be an especially successful project.
Kyle:
Yet another guitar, might have guessed! Though they share the guitar element, yours is very different from your brother’s. It’s more of a jumbled collage of sounds, almost like a cut and pasted stream of consciousness. It’s very electronics based and I got the visual of speakers, laptops and tine cans while listening. The snipping sound at the beginning was very clear and your sound quality is crisp throughout. Again, music is very prominent and I can see it plays a large role in your day to day perception. I would, however, like to have heard some original sounds and voices in your piece. There’s only so much re-recorded audio can accomplish and the result was slightly impersonal. Some organic contrast sounds would have been nice, but overall, it had a sort of swift beat and rhythm, almost as if it was the sound of checking things off a list, a mix of work and leisure, the sounds of a college student. Though the narrative was unclear, it did come off as a very robotic, youthful rhythm of a life lived through electronics.
Ah, losing a valuable piece of expensive machinery. We’ve all done it at some point or another. This piece was successful and unsuccessful at the same time. I am a big fan of spoken internal monologues and this one was very honest and not at all overdone. At the same time, I would have liked to hear more of the uncertainty and panic of misplacing such an important item. I know that even when I lose something as cheap as my student ID, it’s a few good hours of panic and plan-making before I can relax in the knowledge that either I’ve found it or made a replacement plan. The voice and tone seemed a little too calm and bemused for the situation. I did however, appreciate the ambient sounds provided. They were the exact right volume and level of reverb for their surroundings. The fade-in interiors of buildings like Eickoff were dead-on. Really great job! Also the muffled winter footsteps were particularly effective, especially since footsteps tend to be one’s main focus when retracing them. Overall, great job, just would have like more of a build-up to the final discovery and relief. The panic and relief contrast could have been stronger.
Ryan:
Is this you playing the guitar? You are very talented. The first thing that struck me was the sharp tone of the guitar compared the warm and casual tones of your voices. This is both positive and negative in that it communicates the focus of music in your life, but also overshadows and outshines otherwise important dialogue for the narrative. I love seeing creative processes, especially in music. Music is one of my passions but the talent of writing it has always eluded me. I especially loved how ideas were immediately realized audibly to us as if they were already completed the minute they were conceived. Again, the strumming guitar is prominent but also distracting to the verbal creative process. I loved how natural the conversations were between the speakers and how absorbed you, in particular were in the emotional value of the music. The memory evoked halfway through was unclear, again, a result of the overpowering guitar. If that was changed, it would be an especially successful project.
Kyle:
Yet another guitar, might have guessed! Though they share the guitar element, yours is very different from your brother’s. It’s more of a jumbled collage of sounds, almost like a cut and pasted stream of consciousness. It’s very electronics based and I got the visual of speakers, laptops and tine cans while listening. The snipping sound at the beginning was very clear and your sound quality is crisp throughout. Again, music is very prominent and I can see it plays a large role in your day to day perception. I would, however, like to have heard some original sounds and voices in your piece. There’s only so much re-recorded audio can accomplish and the result was slightly impersonal. Some organic contrast sounds would have been nice, but overall, it had a sort of swift beat and rhythm, almost as if it was the sound of checking things off a list, a mix of work and leisure, the sounds of a college student. Though the narrative was unclear, it did come off as a very robotic, youthful rhythm of a life lived through electronics.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Old Negro Space Program reaction
The Old Negro Space Program spoof takes everything that made Ken Burns Civil War a heavy and evocative slice of history and turns it on it’s head. The result is awkwardness and hilarity. Part of the reason Ken Burns’ original was so successful was that it took the audience deep into the heart of the American crisis while maintaining its gravity and mystery. By zooming in and out of still photos, he achieves motion picture standards of reality and continuity while maintaining the authenticity of the photographs and not attempting to reenact such heavy material that could easily be misrepresented by human error. The untold stories of the narrative lie in the spaces between the stills.
The spoof is very aware of what makes the original successful, so they, in turn, were able to successfully mock the drama of it all. They took note of the extreme authenticity of the photographs, so it was immediately funny when the clumsily photo shopped pictures of the “original black astronauts” were shown and zoomed into, as if zooming was going to make them any less fake. The awkwardness in the fact that you know you are supposed to feel something profound when that effect is being used is what makes it so funny.
Another technique is the juxtaposition of using both primary source speakers and academic figureheads to propel and explain the narrative. The spoof latched onto the effect of having old gritty people going on tangent about the old days while a contrasting self-important professor gives a formal recount and analysis of the events, often reiterating words to appeal to an “audience of lesser intelligence”. In the Ken Burns piece, these academic authorities demand respect and due the emotional evocation of the piece, the audience does not even consider that they are being condescended to. As the parody is totally devoid of authenticity and emotional weight, we are made extremely aware of the stuffy professor’s self-importance and the humor in his constant use of similes.
Perhaps the most hilarious part is their choice of music. Its nearly the same, twanging, meandering fiddle music as Ken Burns and it totally clashes with the subject matter! The moment it starts, you are immediately aware of the inconsistency and to not take it seriously. The gospel music behind the perseverance of the “blackstronauts” is particularly ridiculous. The true finale is the mention of the landing on the moon alongside the wig advertisements in a dramatic pan of a yellowed newspaper. Brilliant.
The spoof is very aware of what makes the original successful, so they, in turn, were able to successfully mock the drama of it all. They took note of the extreme authenticity of the photographs, so it was immediately funny when the clumsily photo shopped pictures of the “original black astronauts” were shown and zoomed into, as if zooming was going to make them any less fake. The awkwardness in the fact that you know you are supposed to feel something profound when that effect is being used is what makes it so funny.
Another technique is the juxtaposition of using both primary source speakers and academic figureheads to propel and explain the narrative. The spoof latched onto the effect of having old gritty people going on tangent about the old days while a contrasting self-important professor gives a formal recount and analysis of the events, often reiterating words to appeal to an “audience of lesser intelligence”. In the Ken Burns piece, these academic authorities demand respect and due the emotional evocation of the piece, the audience does not even consider that they are being condescended to. As the parody is totally devoid of authenticity and emotional weight, we are made extremely aware of the stuffy professor’s self-importance and the humor in his constant use of similes.
Perhaps the most hilarious part is their choice of music. Its nearly the same, twanging, meandering fiddle music as Ken Burns and it totally clashes with the subject matter! The moment it starts, you are immediately aware of the inconsistency and to not take it seriously. The gospel music behind the perseverance of the “blackstronauts” is particularly ridiculous. The true finale is the mention of the landing on the moon alongside the wig advertisements in a dramatic pan of a yellowed newspaper. Brilliant.
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