Saturday Shoot

I always seem to get my blog days mixed up, so I'm responding slightly later to our Saturday long take shoot. First off, I thought it went great. Everyone showed up, ready n rearin to go. For our project we were trying to create an early 20's, silent film treasure hunt type of feel. But as our explorer discovers the buried idol, and hides it, chaos ensues and he is chased by fellow explorers (a few people from later on in the 20th century appear; but i think it helps with the absurdity of the piece).
The other group that helped us out worked great with us, and had no qualms about dressing in crazy costumes for our bit. And Jon did a spectacular job running the camera and keeping time. Our piece came out at exactly 50-some seconds...It was really cool getting to use the old Bolex cameras, doing the processing of the film, and capturing them on video. The old scratchiness that is produced certainly aids in our genre we were goin for.
I also really enjoyed the smaller 8mm camera that was going around. I'm interested in seeing what kind of footage manages to come out of that. On the whole, I think saturday went great for everybody and was a lot of fun. We definately got lucky with the good weather.

Ecstasy and Molotov responses

I suppose the general theme of both articles is "what exactly are we entitled to as artists?" With concepts and ideas created from your own mind, what happens when a similar concept or idea appears. The same goes for images and sounds and writings. It gets even more confusing when an artist is knowleadgable of the others' work, even 'stealing' or coyping a portion of it, or even the whole thing.
I kind of enjoy the idea of cryptomnesia. It really gives the feel that, even throughout history, without ever knowing it, you yourself as an artist may resonate in a precise and identical way to another artist somewhere that you don't even know. I always find myself worrying about subconsciously putting things into my artistic works, that may be considered plaguerism and i wouldn't even realize it. But I suppose after so many centuries of artistic creation and human nature playing out, there are only so many general themes and occurances that one can go through without repeating. Personally I believe there are only three main themes to human life that ever really matter in art: Sex, Love, and Death. (and i'm pretty sure I heard that somewhere.)
The Molotov man was an intersting case study of rights and ownership. It worked out for the best between Susan and Joy (both received much more press and business b/c of it i feel). But both learned an important lesson about human rights, artistic interpretation, and when not to sue an artist with a vast amount of crazy friends.

48 Hour race

After only a few screenings of previous 48 hour race products, I have several ideas of what I would like to do. Most likely I will use a digital camera and produce a stop-motion effect type of film. I was particularly inspired by the film that had dancing doll parts and jars spinning (I forget who made it or what it was called). But I enjoyed the simplicity of it and the use of sound effects and music.
I have a few ideas and probably won't decide exactly what I want to do until we discover the mystery item. But I was thinking of maybe doing sort of a musical montage/ dance with food products, such as having oreos spinning and then opening and closing, the filling dissappearing then reappearing.
I was also thinking of maybe using dvds and remotes, perhaps even paints and paint brushes creating a painting. Basically I want to use inanimate objects and make them animate somehow.
I could use a human being in some capacity, but rarely do I get a chance to create stop-motion films that I want to use this opportunity to create some unique footage that is different to/ adding something to my own personal style.

St. Louise Response

The Scratch Film Junkies' 'St. Louise' was exceptionally rhythmic not only in the use of the soundtrack, but the images meshed so well to create their own rhythm. The rockin' tune was well fit for the fast paced and chaotic nature of of the footage. Really goes well with the Film Junkies' style. I also enjoyed the use of text at the beginning such as "This Film was made..." and "Do not take with other medications" sort of sandwiched between the true colors of the filmstrip. As always there was awesome scratching and tinting around images of moving or talking people. The airplane and the music seemed to build up great suspense, it flew right at you as the tempo increased. You kept waiting for more scratching or shapes to appear ontop of the plane, but it always remained in view, ever-escelating towards the viewer. I find this semi-long take to be quite unique in what i've watched of the Junkies so far. The cartoon that was engulfed in scratching and manipulation was also quite creative on their part. Great morphing shapes as well, such as tghe tearing of film becoming four circles and then combining to be one.