Lord of the Flies Weekend

What a weekend!

I love hand processing. It’s my favorite thing in the world. I don’t know if it’s the instant gratification of seeing my image appear only moments after I’ve captured it, or if it’s the joy of splashing around in chemicals. Either way it’s my favorite thing that I’ve learned how to do in undergrad.

When I was talking to Megan about this blog post, I told I would write about everything but the actual shoot. That’s because the other things were so cool.

For instance, Andy knocked Emma’s phone into the murky water out by Friday Hall. I’m still not 100% sure how that happened, but it did. He was keeping time and stopped to write himself a note when we heard the distinct kerplunk! of something dropping off the bridge into the water.

I also got to kick a volleyball around for our bumblebee to chase, which was even cooler because Laura Murphy showed up as an extra.

The shoot was quite an experience on its own. Who knew it would really take the whole time to choreograph and shoot a 56 second take? This is why narrative is too much work for me. Not that it doesn’t take time to set up a documentary shot or an experimental shot, but I just don’t have the patience for all of the blocking.

Scan Test

So, the 48 Hour Video Race is right around the corner. I have to say this is one of the things I was most excited about when I signed up for this class.

I didn't realize that there was a cameraless component to this assignment, but this gives me the push I needed to really get to know my scanner. So, this morning I got up early and started to play and this is what I got:

This is a present for Laura Murphy, a glass display of NYC, the cap to my flash drive, and a stress ball that I got from Duke two years ago. The motion blur is achieved by throwing red construction paper over the image mid-scan.

This is red construction paper. I used this as a control to see what kind of color quality I would get from my scanner. This red paper is on the scanner without the lid being closed so, it's a little blow out. I found that many things that I did all have this blown out aesthetic because I didn't use the lid at all this morning.

It's my hair!! Isn't the coolest thing. I think that Barrett will appreciate this the most when he looks at this. I really love the way my bed head looks. I really want to get a scan of my hair after its done in the morning to figure out which one looks better.

Here's my left hand. I was really excited to experiment with the pushed against the glass aesthetic. I also think that it works really well with the blown out look against my skin. It gives it a sort of ethereal feel.

These are my rubber duckies in a ziploc bag. I acquired them from the office where I work. They are in the bag because that's where they live--in my desk at home in the bag. I have considered poking holes in the bag, but they haven't asked me to yet.

This my rubber duckies poured out of their ziploc house.

I think that I'm going to use scanned images and photoshop to create a some cool effects. I'm really interested in simulating a digital rayogram for part of this.

Epimetheus

What more can I say about cameraless filmmaking?

It was pretty awesome. I really enjoyed it, and it wasn’t as tedious as I had originally expected. I thought it was going to be days and days of my life devoted toward the end of making something beautiful happen, but it was really just an afternoon pouring over my film strip and letting my imagination do what it does best (run amuck).

Are there some things I would change? Absolutely. That’s just the nature of art though. No matter how good we get at it we always think there’s something better—if we are no longer able to learn from our mistakes then we aren’t doing it right.

I colored my rayograms rainbow colored, and it looked really good in my hand. I was sad to see that it didn’t look as cool on the projector. My thought is that given more film to cover that it would have the desired effect, but I won’t know for sure until I stretch the film out in Final Cut. It would be a really cool to try in the future, and I know that I plan to further experiment with rayograms if I can find a project that requires it.

I would really like to do a rhythmic edit with manipulated film—even though it would be really expensive. I wonder if there’s a good way to repeat the same cycles.

I wish that I could have tried printing directly onto the film, but I missed that class so, I didn’t really understand the concept when I talked about it with my group. Cassandra and Barrett were both quite successful with their printing, and it looked really cool.

The scratching and manipulation from thadpovey was a little above our skill level. I really enjoy the texture that their manipulations yielded. I felt that mine lacked a certain amount of texture despite my scratching and the feel of the film in my hand.

I guess ultimately, the lesson that I’ve learned is bigger is better and more is more. In order to achieve texture and use of the whole frame in the name of giving new context to either the film or clear leader is to really go nuts.

This assignment was really fun and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I can’t think of another class where you get to take old film and make brand new beautiful things.