Rhythmic Editing

Before Thanksgiving break, Jason and I filmed my idea for the rhythmic editing assignment. This is the first project out of all of the ones assigned that I have not been looking forward to. Mainly this was because when we were introduced to the assignment and watched the samples in class, I had a hard time watching them without getting a headache. It could be because it was like nothing I had ever seen and I just wasn't used to that. I'm not sure, but I was a little bummed I couldn't watch the samples. It was hard for me to come up with an idea. The only thing I could think of was to film Jason cooking something, that way I would have a process and a beginning and ending. So I filmed him cooking chicken and mashed potatoes! The best part was I got a meal at the end! I tried to get different shots and angles, but with some things, I could only get one shot so we couldn't do it over. I think that the footage turned out nicely and I am going to the editing lab after classes on Tuesday to finish editing it. We had filmed Jason's idea earlier before the break. He had a detailed idea of shots that he wanted. His idea was to shoot my morning routine. He also attempted to get different shots and angles. I saw a little bit of what he edited and I thought that it looked really good. I was excited that I could actually watch what I saw without getting a headache. He also chose a song to back it up that I think went really well with it. I'm excited to see what everyone came up with in class on Thursday. I just hope I can watch them without a headache.

Cucalorus!!

Cucalorus was awesome! Although I didn't get to see everything I wanted to see, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the films I was able to see. The first screening I have to talk about it is the UNCW Vision screening. I missed this last year so I was really excited to be a part of it this year. A film I made with a group in my Intro to Documentary class last year was selected and screened in this year's Vision screening so the experience was even more special to me. I was so glad to see Jengo's Playhouse completely packed with people. I came in a few minutes late and ended up having to sit on the floor because there was nowhere else to stand or sit. It was awesome to see that amount of support for the student films. I also enjoyed the student films that were shown this year. Obviously, I have a bias and enjoyed mine, but there were also a few that really stood out to me. Lexi's film about her father's death and the impact it has had on her was amazing to me. It was such a personal piece and I think that it says a lot about her and what film means to her. It seems like it is her outlet, almost like her diary and I think that is really awesome. The film Scarz by Todd and Amir was also really good. I had seen it evolve in Intro to Documentary last year and being able to see it fresh again was cool. I enjoyed it even more. I also really liked the film with the mario, nintendo storyline. I thought that was a very creative idea and whether or not you are a fan of President Bush, you could laugh at it and enjoy the film. One of the feature films that I saw was Hannah Takes the Stairs. The storyline wasn't the most interesting and complex, but I was still interested in the characters and the film. One of the most impressive things about the film was the acting. Over and over I found myself thinking, "wow, these characters seem so natural!" I constantly felt like I was in the scene with them, at work or at home. That was very impressive to me and made the film even better. It was basically a comical story about Hannah who finds herself "chronically dissatisfied" especially with men. It follows her struggle to find happiness. It was very entertaining and although odd at times, I did enjoy it. I absolutely loved Cucalorus last year and this year it seemed even better. I can't wait to see what it's like next year!

Update

I really enjoyed last week's class. The competition to make the longest film roll was really fun. i was skeptical at first and really didn't think it would last as long as it did. After watching the other group get creative and organized with their system of hanging things from the ceiling, I was a little worried about our group making it. However, after looking at the rolls, I am kind of thinking that my group had the longest stretch, but we will see after we measure them in class on Thursday. I also think it's cool that our Teacherman took footage of us working on it, just like he has done with other projects. It's good for the memories. We have finished working on Assignment 3. We have finished all of the editing, and I think that it turned out really well. Because our ambience and dialogue is so dominant and strong, we don't have many sound effects in our rayograms film. But there are a few in there, but they are very suttle. We also slowed down some parts of the footage and I think that it gave the film a very cool effect. I think that it turned out nicely and I am excited to see what the rest of the class thinks. We started working on assignment 4. This one has been a little more difficult to find sounds that we want to go with it. I think that our dialogue is going to be the dominant track, so we are working on getting the timing right with that. We have found some ambience for it, but we are still looking for more sound effects. The tone of this one is going to be more light and funny than the rayograms, so we have a little more sound researching to do. But I am looking forward to hearing suggestions from the class on Thursday.

Rayograms

I think that in Brooks article about the idea of rough theater, it relates to what we are doing in class with our experimental films. Especially with the last project, we will be using cell phone videos or digital camera videos to portay motion picture instead of a regular film camera. This image will not be the greatest quality, but it will allow us to get more creative with our filmmaking. As for this week's class, I am excited to see what everyone's works in progress for the rayograms project looks like. Jason and I have composited a segment of the rayograms footage and we have researched some different sounds. We put in some archive dialogue from what we think is a very old horror film, but I think it goes with the tone of the film. We also added some ambient scary sounds; it's almost got a musical tone with a little choir voice in the background, but it mostly just sounds like ambient scary noise. We are still looking for some added sound effects. We have found a couple that might work ok, but we are still looking. We also have tried to play with the audio levels and get those sounding right, but it still needs a little more work. It has been really fun looking up noises and adding them to the footage. Just like every other project in the class, the creativity is endless and completely open, so I can't wait to see what everyone's prject looks like.