White Trash Humpers & VHS

Trash Humpers

"Are you not entertained?" Maximus yells to the crowd.  Yes, I was entertained.  The humor began to wear off for me when the humor became a bit more twisted (dragging the baby dolls, the racist humor, etc.).  I did find the actual trash humping to be hilarious in a visual sense as the slapstick was well done.  Whenever they incorporated vegetation into the scene, it would initially make me laugh, but then it would make me feel odd (which it probably should). 

I think there were some great visual and storytelling moments in the video - the monologue about life without heads, the driving scene with the talk about how he lives his life, the shots of them sleeping indoors and out, and the ending scene with the woman and the baby - just to name a few.  These scenes gave this overly repulsive (to me, anyway) and "Jackass" type of movie some redemptive nature.

Visually and structurally I think it was wonderfully made.  The ffwd and rew and play, the visual texture of the videotape, and the tracking glitchiness of it perfectly matched what I was viewing.  This style of 'editing' was well played and while I was watching, I tried to think of how I respond if it was in a different or 'normal' viewing or editing style and I think it would not have had the overall same feeling and it would have seem more 'staged' and that would have taken the edge or anxiousness away from the viewer in a bad way.

VHS

Just a quick note about this - fantastically shot and edited.  Very suspenseful and entertaining.  I try not to watch these things too often because of how wound up I feel during them, but was glad to 'experience' this video.  It was fun, playful, eerie, and wild.  It gave me a bit of the "Blair Witch" experience in that it looked authentic even though I know it wasn't. 

Multiple Screens = Multitasking

The Friedman readings have aligned perfectly with what I've been working on for the fourth project.  I liked how during class Todd separated film/video into architecture and interface - and along with the split screens and multiple framings, in my next project I will try to address these.  I am still trying to think of ways to address the 'depth' issue and connection with the architecture.

I think "Televisions" dealt with medium specificity indirectly (using the lcd tv as a monitor for my digital camera and then recording the results of aiming the camera at the tv) , though I didn't go into the project with that on my mind - I just wanted to work with video feedback for the fun of it and see if I could do anything with it once I amassed a collection of 'neat' visuals. 

This time around I am doing this project for the fun of it too, but also with a specific goal in mind of incorporating medium specificity and convergence.  The idea of split and multiple screens has always been a fascination of mine because of the simultaneous events/actions/thoughts that occur in our lives overall. 

I love how we think that we are multi-tasking, but in reality, we are just sequencing our actions almost in a frame by frame way so that we aren't actually multi-tasking, we're just doing an action, stopping that action, doing another action, and just doing this back and forth.  One could argue the person who is walking and texting is indeed multi-tasking, but I would argue that the guy is texting while leaning forward (therefore his legs automatically move so he won't fall). 

So, one of my side intentions for this fourth project won't be to show the jerkiness of multitasking (though that would be an interesting video and perhaps a future project and I think "Noah" dealt with that somewhat), my intention will be to show that whether we can or can't multitask is irrelevant because the world and life is one GIANT MFing multitask (in a positive way, of course).

Window washing

I really thought the Virtual Window reading was perfectly timed for where we were at and perhaps where I am specifically as far as creating video projects goes.  As I said in class, the word 'ventilation' really made a connection for me.  It could be that it is a metaphor that works for me, but I also think it allowed me to think about how the screen can be more than just a 2-D plane on which to slap visuals upon.  The idea of ventilation is to make that visual plane more than just 2-D by letting things transfer in and out and possibly touching or interacting with the person on the inside of the window.  The virtual window for video is not merely a photo or mirror, it is a series of well-crafted paintings that are accompanied by the construction of the frame and sound to fully envelope the viewer into another time/space.

How this applies to this class is finding ways in which we can realize this virtual window into our projects.  Trying to remove the frame of the camera by use of light and dark and arranging these images within the rectangular shape of the screen so that while the frame remains rectangular, the images that the viewer is seeing may not necessarily be rectangular.  I don't know if I described that too well, but it is something I have tried in my latest project and am hoping to allow the shape of the shot be determined by the blackness of the frame and the light and dark of the shot.

Goddard and Beyond

I wish I could understand French because it would have made Wednesday's screening much more enjoyable.  I really like the concept of him reflecting on footage from years ago, especially considering the situation.  Often times when I work on 'projects' and then I see something like Goddard's, it makes me realize that for a lot of people film/video has the ability to transform lives or at least expose life in ways that no other medium can.  In the future I could possibly use some older projects I have made to reflect upon at some point and I think it could be interesting to include other viewpoints.  Not like a 'making of' video, but like Goddard, really delving into what was being said, was it worth it, etc.

I did get my idea for project 3 watching the "One Year Project" and I've already shot a majority of the video.  I basically video recorded myself sleeping for two nights (5 1/2 hours each night).  Watching the video of me sleeping certainly gave me an insight to myself that I've never actually seen before.  I decided to use the sleeping video of myself as the anchor for a two-part video and I'm sure this has already been done before by many, but hey, not everyone sleeps the same way!

Uhopia, that's right, I said it.

I remember the word 'utopia' being a very popular word when I was a kid in the 70s.  It was something that I remember being talked and taught about at elementary and middle school:  how one day we could create and all live in a utopia.  I also recall utopia being a common theme in music during that era and it definitely helped to form my pseudo-hippy mental state as a young person. 

I don't know where or when or exactly why, but I distinctly remember falling out of love with that word and the idea of a utopia.  I'm not a nihilist (I believe the world is actually a better place now than it was when I was ten - not that there isn't a lot of fucked up shit going on), but I suppose I just got sick of hearing that word and then seeing how the people or organizations or whatever that were pumping it out actually behaved or interacted with others.... Off the soapbox.

I'll have to dig it up (if I can find it), but back in the 80s I wrote a poem or some kind of prose piece about a fake society called "Uhopia".  I think it was just me giving the Utopians some of my misaimed anger or disillusion or apathy or whatever political struggle I was going through in the "It's morning in America" Reagan era.  I think me being in the Navy at the time also put a certain skew on my lens, but, hey, the port calls were great!

I think it would be interesting (how many posts about ideas have I started like this?) if we could use our creative effort to create a visual and audio utopia (or uhopia, you make the call).  What would it look and sound like?  Could you create a video that symbolized your utopia?  Would you create a very personal utopia or aim for a more universal one or would it be one and the same?  What rules would this utopia enforce (if any) and how would they be enforced and how would you show that?  I think this is something that we could do as a project in this class as it would be hard for this project not to be autobiographical in some way. 

Karen Carpenter and It Wasn't Love

I grew up with the sounds of Karen Carpenter and Todd Haynes' unauthorized biography of her brought back a lot of memories.  The use of the dolls was off-putting at first because I thought it was funny, but once I got used to it, I thought it was a great choice to represent her story and that time period.  I think using the dolls, besides creating multiple visual metaphors, allowed Todd to put the focus where he wanted it to be.  And though he told the story in a chronological way, it was chockfull of information and innuendo that made this seem to be more than just a story about Karen Carpenter.

It Wasn't Love used music, costumes, props, acting, and found images to make this story seem more than just a story of that one night and lost/found love.  Some of the choices made seemed quite personal and I couldn't grasp onto all of them, but I was fine with that because the film was entertaining and I was able to connect with enough of the choices to feel as though I was an insider.

What I took from both of these films (besides their entertainment and artistic value) was choosing the music, acting, props, footage, etc. that fits  not only the 'story' being told, but also the film itself.  In other words, keep the colors you choose within the palette you've created and this will allow the personalization of those colors not make the viewer seem like an outsider.  This will be especially important in our next project.

The Myth of Science Exposed by the Science of Myth or Love Monkeys vs. The Promethean Inventors

The unilinear history that Vattimo discusses and that postmodernism negates has rarely been seen in the films we have screened in this class.  The autobiographical films we have seen can be categorized as unilinear, though Speaking Directly certainly pushes the idea that an autobiographical piece can work outside of the constraints of linear history. 

What fascinates me about this is it seems as though a lot of my present time is dealing with past actions and future possibilities in a folded web of time.  And though my 'life story' can be told chronologically, how can a proper rendering of one's life be told in a 2D chronological story when the multidimensional experience of life seems to be so much more? 

It Wasn't Love deals with this with an extreme focus on a moment or event that is multi-layered and filled with something that is beyond a linear telling of a story.  So, maybe after we rip the myth and the science from our stories what we have left is the moment or love or emotion or something that only art can express and what myth and science can't. 

I think a good way to apply this to our projects would be to try to focus on a moment or an emotion or 'love' or something that is not dependent upon science or myth and doesn't necessarily have to be told as a complete story.