Presentato per l'approvazione della Societá di Mezzanotte...

Fianl Summation

2008-04-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

Alot has changed since I last posted. We have gotta final cut and I think it looks great. We still want to add little tweaks here and there but I really think we have a great project. I learned a great deal from this experience and in a way I don't want it to end. This has been one of the best classes I have taken in college. I've learned so much about post production, especially that sound work is a pain in the ass. Working with protools was a very new experience and it has made me want to persue it even more. I have seen first hand how much it can help your film's sound and make it better. We got our original music put in and that just adds a whole nother' level of awesomeness in my book. John got in touch with the members of Carolina Steel, a bluegrass band from Washington, NC, and they recorded an original song based on the story of acid park. He also got a local artist to design the credit art for us. I think being involved in this project has changed the way I look at editing and has improved my abiltiy to edit, espicially the orginazation part of it. Another project that helped me alot was the festival project. Learning how to narrow down my search and finding the festival that best fit the movie was a great help. Not only can it save me money, but it can increase my probability to get into festivals. I look foward to continuing my work with John and making this piece a festival quality film.

ps. Skippy loves Julie 4 life and Buffy RAWKS!!!

Festival Price Sheet

2008-04-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Can I get a recap?

2008-03-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

Blog Redo: Take One

WElk (cut)

Blog Redo: Take Two

Week One:
Today was the first day of classes and it began at 12 pm and ended around 6:30. Lets discuss the class to which this blog will mostly pertain to though, Advanced Editing. I'm working with John Marshall on the Whirly Gig Documentary. I'm really excited to start working with this one. Today I got to see some really nice 8mm footage John shot and it got my very pumped. We began discussing how to control and manage the work load, things we still have to do like re-photograph the 8mm and 16mm footage as well as film some extra snippets of the farm, and planning schedules to meet regularly outside of class to stay on top of things. I think this project has alot of great footage to work with and I can't wait to start experimenting with this thing.

Week Two through Five:
Work, work, work... then more work. John and I have alot of footage to go through to find the shots that will truly encapsulate the story we are trying to tell. John has come up with a concept for how the images will be shown in the film. He sees the film going from light to dark with the interviews as the soundtrack. We have alot of stills and he has planned to use them in the film to break up the video footage.

We broke up the footage into dark and light, cloudy and clear, etc. We also went over the interview footage, which was not the greatest experience. We do have one really good interview of a girl that Ryan knows but the rest are not that great. John has some people in line to interview down the road, so hopefully they will have a better outcome. I also plan to redo my interview due to the fact that the day I did mine the McRib returned to McDonalds and threw off my concentration. John came up with a pretty neat idea that the footage will only appear on screen when the people are talking due to the fact that this place sort of lives through it's legend.

The class gave us some great feedback on our first five minutes. They told us that the still images should be removed because they were a little jarring and for some reason very pixalated. I don't think it is a big loss though. I think we still have a great film without the still pictures. Sound came up as well. To soundtrack or not to soundtrack, that was the question. I know John has some ideas for opening and closing music but I think the film can work work with no score. I like the idea of having the interviews and maybe the sounds of the actual whirlygigs. Also the structure will be changed. I think the idea of going from dark to light is a really good idea. I think it fits well and will make the film stronger.

Week Six through Eightish:
With the first rough cut looming ahead crunch time is upon us. We know now how the film will visually take place and how it will look but the sound is still a big issue considering it will make or break the film. John and I are trying to contact different people and get an interview scheduled. Our rough cut is coming together but the audio is just not there. I think once we have more of the audio the film will play so much better. The images are nice but the story behind the images is what we are looking for. The Vollis interview is really great with some slight problems, but they can be fixed with pro tools later. We will be showcasing our rough cut to the class soon and i'm a little nervous and anxious to hear what the class thinks. I hope the changes we made work out. We've alot of work inot sifting through hours and hours of footage to get the golden nuggets hidden within those mini dv tapes. We have a plan to go back to the park and get some more 8mm footage as well as an interview with Vollis's daughter to help clear up the myth and add some pizazz. I think getting footage of Vollis and his daughter walking in the park together or standing in front of the wrecked car would be amazing. I can't wait to get the new interviews done so we can get them on the timeline and start wrapping this project up.

Post Rough Cut:
So we showed the rough cut of the film and I think it went well. We got some positive feedback and some good ideas to fix the weaker points. Our big problem is still sound though. We now have a few interviews ready to be filmed and plans to return to the park so I think soon those problems will be behind us and we will have plenty of sound to work with. I look forward to returning to the park and hopefully getting some footage of Vollis and his daughter.

THE McRIB IS BACK!!!!

2008-01-27T17:30:00.000-08:00

Time to fill you in on some updates. John and I have been meeting weekly to keep the footage updated and to weave a rough cut together for Wednesday. We've been going through the tapes trying to separate clips into different categories to help organize things and make it easy to drop clips in. It's crazy how long it can take to create a 5 minute segment. Trying to cut together interview clips that were not all that well done is a hassle that John has become familiar with. I've been trying to put clips in that match the overall arch we are trying to establish and create a pattern of the many different types of media we have, (i.e. DV, 16mm, super 8, and still photography). We have alot of amazing footage and alot of fat to trim away. This is going to be hard to decide what good bits aren't quit good enough. We have a pretty good idea of how this 5 minute scene will look and it should turn out good. Looking foward to hearing what people think, cause that will help alot to hear different opinions from people outside of the project. Till next time.

New Class Same Blog...so to speak

2008-01-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

Week One (Jan 9Th)

Today was the first day of classes and it began at 12 pm and ended around 6:30. Lets discuss the class to which this blog will mostly pertain to though, Advanced Editing. I'm working with John Marshall on the Whirly Gig Documentary. I'm really excited to start working with this one. Today I got to see some really nice 8mm footage John shot and it got my very pumped. We began discussing how to control and manage the work load, things we still have to do like re-photograph the 8mm and 16mm footage as well as film some extra snippets of the farm, and planning schedules to meet regularly outside of class to stay on top of things. I think this project has alot of great footage to work with and I can't wait to start experimenting with this thing.

haiku of the day

2007-11-29T17:04:00.000-08:00

seven yellow birds,

a small tree with four branches,

three birds now turn blue.

Music + Video = Thunder Rod

2007-11-28T17:16:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. We got to see the end result of the super 8 projects, and they were good. I was really pleased at how our video came out. Oliver did a great job. I really enjoyed working on this project, and I actually would love to work with super 8 film again. I really like the way it looks aesthetically...that's too big of a word, lets try "it look right purty"; much better. Just the sound it makes is nice...the soft pur as the camera exposes frame after frame of awesomnosity. I did however grow to get a headache when the song we chose starts playing...odd, but true.
The Zorro fellows were a little odd, I think I would have been concerned working with them on set. They looked like aliens or something...maybe pod people. The music video was good though. Also creepy was watching Travis dressed liked demon faced monster in a wetsuit terrorizing poor Kevin. The start of the video was really cool. I liked the shot of him running with the camera in front of him down the pier with Kevin's balloon. After watching all these music videos it made me wonder...do people still watch music videos...cause MTV doesn't do em' and what i've seen of MTV 2, niether do they. It's a shame.

No subject needed...

2007-11-18T17:46:00.001-08:00

A little pissed,

A little tired,

A little left out,

A little mired...

A little responsible,

A little confused,

A little down,

A little unused...

Super 8

2007-11-14T17:06:00.000-08:00

Well the footage is back, well at least most of it. I hate the fact that some of our footage didn't come out but the footage that did looks pretty nice. I think we have enough to pull together a good music video and i'm sure we'll find a way to use the "blank" roll the developers sent us back. The editing phase is next and I feel like we don't have alot of time to do it. Hopefully i'm wrong and we'll have more than enough. We'll see soon.

CUCALORUS!!!!!

2007-11-07T17:04:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day of Cucalorus Film Festival and it was great. Visions was really good. The films were really good and it was a good time. I had seen some of the films prior to visions but was surprised by a few. I really enjoyed Mario and the Freedom Princess, it was a cool film. All in all a good start. I can't wait to do some projectionist work for Lumina this weekend too. I'll be working on Monkey Warfare and the Don Hertzfeldt short that shows before it on Friday. It should be fun. After that I have to go see CONTROL!!! If you guys are going to see it let me know. Well till then...adios

SUNDAY!SUNDAY!SUNDAY!

2007-11-04T08:38:00.000-08:00

2007-10-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

cold.

manic high goes to low.

unexplainable sadness.

too much going on in my head.

cold.

72 Hours of Mayhem...

2007-10-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well the weekend went by and a music video got shot. Friday was a dissapointing day to begin with. We had planned to shoot our big scene on the beach that morning. I met with Oliver at Micki's house around 6:30 am to get started with prep work...then out of the clouds above us came what we had all feared...rain. Yes our first day began with rain shutting down our beach shoot. We percervered though and went to plan b and shot some animation and a disgusting food fight, care of the scraps that Jimbo's Resturant was so kind to give us. We ended our first day of shooting later that night.

Day two was the only day I missed and from what I hear it was a doozy of a day. Drunk golfers, little to no sun, and other great adventures were had...

Day three, the final day of principal photography. We set out to the beach to film our epic opening. I don't really want to say to much about this in order to avoid giving too much away but needless to say it should be interesting. If you go to Lexi's blog she has a couple of teaser photos to get everyone hyped up for the music video...I really think in all honesty that this group did an amazing job and I am very proud of all of them. I can't wait till we get huge in Canada and say so long to all the little people...

lessons learned...

Producing is a pain in the ass...

I found out that in order to be a good producer you defenitly have to have a certain kind of personality that I don't really have. I think I did a pretty good job, considering I myself am a very unorganized person I did find it pretty hard to get 4 other people organized and all that other stuff...it was a good experience even if I bitched about it, I can see why I was given this role.

Honesty in the age of Dinosaurs

2007-10-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

The diary films were more than amazing yesterday. The films were great representations of the many personalities that are in the class. I really Thought Amir, Lexi, and Micki took things past there comfort zone and really showed us something we don't see on the surface. I think they put themselves out there and I respect that beyond words and beyond what a simple blog could express. I enjoyed the different styles that people took even though we all had the same assignment. This was by far the hardest and most enjoyable project so far...time to step it up.

Meetings, Projects, Tests, and Insanity...

2007-10-15T14:17:00.000-07:00

Basically the past couple of days have been insane. Working on projects, meeting with groups, trying to study for midterms...all weighing heavy on my shoulders. Working on the diary film has been alot more challenging than I thought it would be. I've been trying to push myself to do new things and try new techniques for this project. But I do feel with all these things on my mind my creative work may be suffering a little. Now trying to produce a music video is a new hurtle for me to leap and hopefully not clip my toes on. This role will be an extremely big challenge for me considering that I am a severely unorganized person. I think that it will work out for the best and help me become better overall. Or destroy me completely as a person and drive me to drug abuse.

Either way I'm looking forward to it.

Some links for my peeps(aka Wayne, Oliver, Lexi, Micki, and ...me)

2007-10-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=72355087

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=711390

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=20614600
(thank god eveything)

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=77386649
(police putz)

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=31615857

Pics and More

2007-10-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed the picture assignment. Working with the pentax was a great experience. We got alot of cool shots but our first roll was sabatoged by the developers. So we reshot them. I think they came out better the second time anyway. The assignment really helped me understand lighting and creating interesting compositions.

The second part of the project was a little interesting. Editing these pictures to a soundscape was alot harder than I thought. Travis and I were in the lab for about 2 hours and relized we hadn't even put a dent in our project. I think our idea is really good and fits the soundscape and works well with the title. I can't wait to see how the other projects used the photos and soundscapes to create masterpieces...

A Light Through Part 2...

2007-09-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

This time I decided to use work as my shot to examine light. While setting up some stuff in the ballroom I decided to watch as the lighting was fixed. Along the two side walls a light green light, almost like key lime pie color, was dripping softly down the walls. AS it spread down the wall it got lighter and lighter until it faded away. Above me were the main lights that now had the UNCW seal over them casting down the schools logo onto the front curtain. I got under the light so I didn't have to look at it directly and could see the beams of light being shot off into different directions in order to show the logo. After the those were set we dimmed the other lights. Watching them slowly dim was nice. The lights went from a bright yellow almost white to a dull orange with darker shades deep inside the bulbs. Then it was time to leave, but with a better way to look at the lights I see everyday.

A Light Through Yonder Window Breaks pt.1

2007-09-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

My first test with watching the light takes place in my apartment living room. At about 5:30-7:00 pm the sun setting casts it's fading light through my living room windows nicely. I sat under the windows so I wouldn't block any of the sun's light coming in. I watched the sun mirror the blinds onto the carpet at a skewed angle. The light filled the room even with the blinds closed giving it an orangish glow. I followed the light to a cd-r that was lying on the floor. The light hit the cd-r causing a rainbow of colors to cover my ceiling. As time went by the angle of the mirrored windows grew more and more obtuse. It reminded me of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, just not black and white. Soon the orangish hue turned more muted and was turning more yellow. A short time later The room goes dark as the sun retreats beyond the rooftops of the apartments on its way west...manifest destiny.

Black & White...

2007-09-16T09:51:00.001-07:00

Maya Deren

László Moholy-Nagy

Ed Templeton

Man Ray

Sound Projects, Or How I stopped Looking and Learned to Love Noise...

2007-09-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Part A: For the first part of the project we had to find several types of sounds, ambient tracks, and people talking. Sounds easy but soon turned into something completely different. Finding the ambient tracks I think might have been the easiest, and the sound effects the hardest. Finding 30 sound effects didn't sound hard till we tried to put it in practice. Eventually when you have 3 college age males together trying to find noises for a project, flatulence is bound to come up at some point. Trying to find all the different noises was much harder than I had imagined. Sadly I couldn't just make one appear so we had to resort to some help but got the job done. The vocal tracks seemed pretty simple, just find someone to say something, easy right? We were able to get some people to speak Portuguese and my partners Amir and Travis just so happened to speak German...how convenient. The other vocals took a little thinking. All in all we got what we needed and had a good variety in our soundscape.

Part B: This part is alot harder than I expected it to be. My partner and I were given the title "You can have any color , as long as it's black". Easy right? Not when you have no images at all. WE have to take sounds and mold a story around the sounds and try to convey the mood and story that the title portrays. We have to take the other groups soundscapes and take three minutes worth of sounds and use them to make our title live. I don't really want to reveal the plan of action so as to ruin the surprise, but I think the title will fit the sound design very well.

Soundscapes in e minor

2007-09-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

In a room poorly lit, I sit and ponder sound. With my ears sharply attune, this is what I found...

I chose my bathroom for my first test. I turned off my air conditioner to cut out any extra noises that would clutter my eardrums. Within the first minute I noticed a slight buzzing in my ear which I attribute to one of two things, the voices in my head singing me a song, or my ears adjusting to the lack of sound in the room. Soon I started hearing the dripping of water. Soft, quiet drips from my toilet tank. I soon picked up on something humming in the wall. I slowly slid closer to my wall and put my ear to it. It was the soft rhythmic hum of my neighbor's washing machine. It's humming sounds like a soft beating heart through the wall. I soon hear the buzz of the washer loudly screech through the wall and the muffled footsteps of mt neighbor walking to the washer. Before I felt too voyeuristic, I decided to move on.

For test number two more was needed, I found me a crowd and thus succeeded...

For my second test I sat inside the student center. I took a seat and began to really listen. I quickly pick up on two very squeaky voices having a conversation behind me. The two female voices are discussing a professor they dislike. Both share a squeaky, squally kind of voice that quickly grates my nerves. In the distance I hear the sound of chairs grinding across the floor. Soon the room begins to fill and so do my ears with voices from all around me. Female voices, male voices, laughing, coughing, all began to meld into one overwhelming sound. Eventually a large portion of the room began to leave and brought a new noise to the equation. Flop-Flop-Flop, as at least six pairs of flip flops exited the room. They almost seemed to be in rhythm with each other.

For test number three, the final one, I took it outside to get some sun...

The beach was an obvious choice to go and explore sound, not to mention a great place to relax. I chose to go at 7 pm to avoid crowds of people and to get free parking. I found a nice spot and laid down. Right away the ocean begins filling my head with it's gentle roar. One after another, the waves crash onto the shore and quickly retreat back into the ocean. I hear tiny splashes coming from in front of me. The sloshing of a birds feet slapping on the dampened shore catch my ear. Soon the slosh turns to squawks and squeals as a group fly over head. AS one squawks others seemingly answer him with another squawk. Soon the loud squawks turn to gentle hums as they fade into the distance. The wind picks up sand around me and blows it onto me. The sand gently crashes into me and makes a soft noise. It sounds like someone is pouring it on me,each grain softly flying on me. The gentle howl of the wind soon mixes harmoniously with the crashing waves and nearly puts me to sleep. It's time to leave.

The Rogers Manifesto

2007-08-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

When I look back on my upbringing I wonder to myself, where my interest in experimental film came from? I'm from a tiny farming town where you rarely see see films period...let alone a Brakhage or Makavejev's film. Early on I noticed I was not like most kids in my town. I didn't like their music, their clothes, and they felt the same about me. One of the first films that stood out to me that changed the way I thought of films was Pink Flamingos. I was 13 or 14 and would never be the same from that point on. Since then I've sought after the underground/avant-garde/experimental filmmakers and their works. After barely making it through high school I started to think what I would do with my life. Well in order to put off all that thinking I decided to go to college. Shortly into my first semester I found out they had a tiny film program. I quickly relized this was the path for me. After that semester I decided to move here and attened a more in depth film program. I hope in my life I am able to make the films I have a passion for. I look forward to making films that mean something to me...regardless if anyone else likes it. Love it or hate it, but you'll feel something. That is a goal I want to strive for. I look foward to the experince this class will give me and can't wait to get started. Shalom.