Class Reflection

I can honestly say that I am so thankful that I took Experimental over Narrative or Documentary this semester. I definitely want to make narrative films, but I learned so much as a filmmaker. I built a lot towards my foundation and as an individual. I feel if I would have taken the other classes, I would not have grown this amount in a semester time on a individual level. I learned about being more vulnerable in my own work. I was very scared to open up about some of the darkest things in my mind. This class was a good outlet for me to express this to a group of like minded individuals. It was a safe space of sorts to show people some new ideas I wanted to express. Im more comfortable with sharing my work to a mass audience. I want to show my work to as many people as possible now. I want to submit work to Visions and Cucalorus for next year. I learned I just might be more of an experimental filmmaker, but I am okay with that. I learned that I want to direct even more. I found that I want to be the front man in a project. I thrive when more eyes are on me.  I really want to do another art installation, I got such an amazing high after doing our group installation on Sunday. I would love to do that a lot more actually.
I believe the things that I will take with me from this class is all the practical life experience in uncommon situations and constantly applying them to my future projects and life. You have to produce your life. So we are all producers, Im taking that mindset into the rest of my life. Push yourself to outside of your comfort zone, but actually push yourself to where your anxiety lie and face it. Thank you Shannon.

Live music and video performance Idea

Right now our group idea has a framework with our direction. We want to do a scary horror theme mixed with an anxiety simulation. We want to do two things for the presentation. We want to make an enclosure where the show happens on silks. We want to control the entire environment to give the best performance. I thought of the idea of an anxiety simulator to the audience. We also had talked about projecting images onto three creepy girls in a white dress. We want to show triggering images onto the girls or the silks. We haven't firmed up which way we want to go to. We are going to figure which way we can go with the materials that we can obtain. I am also trying to secure a band to play intense music as ambiance music to go with the performance.

Self Portrait revision

The concept of my self-portrait is staying the same. I am 1000 percent locked in. I am going to push myself as a filmmaker by exposing myself as beautifully as possible. The technical side was what I needed to figure out. I am going to shoot multiple takes of my personality. Each take will be me showing one side of myself. I will frame myself where I can layer multiple videos on top of each other. I want to represent the fame as me and inside of the frame is all my personalities. This will be layered with the dialogue of each of my personalities trying to speak.  Sometimes it will be clear but most times it will be a lot going on. Editing will be pretty important for this. The audio mixing will make or break my video. I am excited about this.

Ok Go

Ok Go was a very awesome group. I never heard about them prior to this presentation. I really learned a good deal about them. They are a spectacle every time they put out a music video. They have a special feel about them. The fact that they do all their video in one take is amazing alone, but they do so many optical effects that go into these videos are amazing.

Cucalorus

My Cucalorus did not go as planned what so ever. I was not able to go to any of the screenings at all. The past 2 weeks for me has been very tough, to say the least. I am dealing with financial issues at the moment. I did not have the money to afford to get the pass. I recently got my car towed and that took all of the money I had saved for Cucalorus. 125$ gone just like that. I had to make the decision to take care of other expenses. I was hoping that I could make back the money with tips at work this past weekend, but I did not meet the number I needed. I think the hardest thing for me was not even seeing my film at Jenga's Playhouse. I thought it was a free installation but I still had to pay. I just didn't have the money to do it. That made me the angriest honestly. Kyle was super awesome for trying to getting me an extra ticket to a screening. I could not attend due to the fact I had to work which sucked. My job over scheduled me due to the fact Cucalorus was taking place. I work downtown at Kilwins.  I will say I am very proud of my friend Chloe for having her short accepted inside the festival. I was super proud of her. I was able to talk to her before the screening of her film. I am for sure next year am going to volunteer to make sure I can make sure to see some films and interact with more people. I was able to talk to people at my job about the festival. I did get a small interaction with some cinephiles.

Self Portrait Idea

In my self-portrait, I want to paint a picture of how my brain operates. I have had a discussion with my best friend trying to explain how my thought process works. I want to visually express how my mind feels. I want to push myself in this project and go as personal as possible. I want to expose myself to the masses in a figurative and literal way. I want to use this video for people to get a grasp of who I am as a person. I have a lot of confusing thoughts and fast moving parts to me.  I want to show the levels of things that I constantly think about. I want to layer video of me explaining my process as best as possible. I want to show the barrier that I feel I have with people I truly care about. I have trouble being clear with my intentions. This creates a lot of trauma for me and darkness I deal with on the daily. The sound I want to mix my voice of dialogue with sounds I hear from my inner demon. I want to make a soundscape of my wellbeing at this moment. Chaos should be the feeling I want to leave the viewer with. I think I want to physically have a barrier in front of the camera as I'm filming. I not exactly sure yet at this moment. I really like messing with lighting, primarily color. I use a lot of color in my projects. I think I have to go all in with my cinematography. I think I will buy more colors to use for this film.

Project 1 D reflections

I learned a lot about working with pictures to make a video. It takes a good bit of time to accomplish what you want. You can put a whole two hours into something you thought was super cool. You are super happy about it but you look you are only 12 seconds into a 2-minute long soundscape. That was an adjustment for me. The workflow was a bit more lengthy. I wanted to try to do animation in our video so I drove myself crazy to do it. It took me 6 hours to do 15 seconds of animation.  I have a whole nother level of respect for animators. I knew it took time but I truly understand now for sure.  I am happy with how it came out for my attempt at doing animation. I want to actually do it again one day.

Cucalorus Pre-Event Intentions

The biggest things I want to get out of going to Cucalorus is inspiration and networking opportunities and knowledge. Watching shorts films from filmmakers from around the world. It's really awesome to see what creatives have worked on. It pushes me to keep working. I love that I get the opportunity to talk to the filmmakers after the screening. I get to get immediate feedback about my thoughts about the film. Film festivals are a hub for filmmakers and cinephiles around the world. I really am excited to meet them and seek out what opportunities to perhaps work with new people or even learn about new filmmakers. I love learning more about filmmaking. I want to learn new techniques to approach my films.
I want to check out Jenga's playhouse to see our work with an audience. I have a friend who got accepted to support her. I want to check out the how-to documentary about how to eat poop. I haven't looked at the parties that are taking place yet. I will be there for sure. I love a good party.

I plan on asking at least one question after a screening.
I want to talk to people who watch the installation of our films.

Shooting Experience

The biggest thing that I learned about shooting on film is the usage of light. I know how I normally set my setting on my DSLR, going into the project I thought I could translate both easily. I learned that there definitely is a difference. I do want to explore more with a film. It makes me want to buy a new camera. I really did enjoy trying to film in the dark. Floating around any type of light source was fun to push my creativity. I do want to shoot during the day next time. I want to see the challenges the day will bring. 

Maya Deren

She is a truly amazing filmmaker. I thought that Ashley and Tristan did a great job with their research that they did for her. Deren is a popular filmmaker that I studied a lot in other film studies classes, but  I did learn more about her in the presentation. I thought both Ashley and Tristan spoke very well to the class.

Harry Smith

I thought this was a good presentation of Harry Smith. I got good information about his life. I found it was interesting how much Smith stole. Even his friends put up with how much took from them. I couldn't be a friend to him if he stole from me. I love that he was ahead of his time with how much he experimented with drugs and folk music. He was doing that before the 60's where everyone was doing it.