Wells Reading Response

This essay compares the differences between traditional or orthodox animation with a more experimental animation. In  contrasting the two, wells talks about things like continuity (or lack there of), form, style, artists, etc. In regards to orthodox narration he basically says that most of the reliance of the animation comes from the continuity of plot and the way that everything in the film is tied to the evolution of the plot. This is shown in not only the way it is crafted, through cel animation, but also the way the gags and style all add to the forward motion of whatever actions are being portrayed in the animation. However, with experimental animation, it doesn't rely on the traditional tropes of narrative and continuity. He says also that unlike in orthodox animation where the audience is following an identifiable figure in the animation (duck, human, etc) in experimental the subject is much more abstract. He also talks about the more obvious presence of the artist in the animation. It is much more about personal expression, as opposed to simply telling a narrative story. Of the two, experimental obviously offers a much larger palate of what you can do. I like the idea of being able to do anything you can possibly think up. But also, after having done the small 100-frame animation I also have a deep respect for being able to execute realistically something that is more concrete than abstract.

Bridgeman/Packer Experience

Well...That was interesting. For monday nights class I was definitely surprised when I found out it was so interactive. I never expected to be up there on stage with a bunch of dancers trying to do performance art. It was definitely entertaining. The beginning was fun and light-hearted but it did eventually get to be a little too serious for me. Dance isn't really my medium of expression (even though i surprisingly used to dance as a kid) but even so i felt like some of the activities were taken a bit too seriously. I had fun when we were like goofing around. The main thing that i found so interesting was the way they worked with the projections. It was very cool to be able to interact with yourself and with others projected images. But once again, after a while it felt a bit like over-kill. It was interesting to see who were the film students and who were the dancers and the difference between the two.

As for the performance on Friday I have mixed feelings. First of all, I didnt realize that Bridgeman/Packer was JUST Bridgeman and Packer. I guess because there were so many of us at the monday session i assumed it was a dance company with more of a dance crew. For me, I was torn by the performance. The first half i thought was very interesting and had enough variety that it kept my attention. The opening pieces when they had the number sequences projected onto them was really cool. Also i really liked the multiple projections of themselves when they were weaving in and out from behind the curtain. However some of it seemed to drag a bit long for me to the point where it had lost the appeal of the "trick." That is also definitely how i felt about the second half. The trickery and quick pace of the first act was able to distract me from things like the real lack of dance, but in the second half it was far too slow paced to camouflage it. There was just a lot of shuffling around stage and a lot of repetition. I get what they were trying to do but i wasnt really moved by it. At that point it just kind of felt like cheap tricks.

Overall it was a very interesting experience and i think they had a lot of very good ideas, it just wasnt really executed like i expected it to be.

Crowdsourcing

My first real experience with crowdsourcing was last year for my 495 film. During talks about making plans for funding our short student film the use of Indiegogo and Kickstarter were brought up. Both Indiegogo and Kickstarter are crowdsourcing websites where you are able to set up pages for whatever your project is and they crowdfund.

We chose to do a Indiegogo and for the most part it was very effective. We set a goal for what we were wanting to raise and we reached our goal. However, the main reason this worked is because we got funding from our close family and friends as opposed to random people and a real "crowd." That idea really only seems to work if there is already a "crowd" in place, like with the Veronica Mars movie. Since there was already a big show following it was much easier for them to get funding than it was for a small film like ours, which had no guarantee as to what the funding would get them.

The Wikipedia concept I think is incredibly interesting. I like the idea of using so many minds to form something. It seems to be so true that two minds are better than one (thoughtful minds, that is). It is interesting how many people want to have a voice on things like Wikipedia and how important it is to take advantage of crowdsourcing opportunities.

I really do like the idea of crowdsourcing. Even with the frames that we are making for class, i love seeing all the of the work that everyone else has done. It is so interesting to see how each individual sees similar figures so differently. Crowdsourcing really manifests itself well in the creative community because each person has such different creativity!

Media Fast

So I finished the media fast on friday. I decided to do the 3 days that we ended up having off from school because of the snow. I think this might have made it a bit easier in some aspects and a lot harder in others. Firstly being: all I wanted to do was lay in bed and watch movies on the snow days. As an alternative I read a lot during this period. It also forced me to do other things like clean my room (which it was in desperate need of), do laundry, start on homework early and even get some writing accomplished. I did go out to the beach bars Thursday night which was an interesting experience. I was with a group of friends and I couldn't help but notice that they spent an absurd amount of time on their phones. At the bar it was a welcome relief to hear some music! It was definitely really hard trying to stay off my phone. It is like an impulse to check it all the time, even when nothing has happened on it. Another thing i found very difficult was driving in a silent car. Luckily I only drove one day of my fast. It honestly made me feel a bit insane. I found it became harder and harder to shut my brain off and it was almost exhausting to never have the relief of a media distraction. Silence did present a lot of insight and creativity in my writing and also just about my life. I was able to give my full attention to challenges I was presented with, whether I liked it or not. I was definitely glad for it to be over though. I like movies/tv too much, I like music too much, and I was happy to get it all back.

"Begone Dull Care" Response

Here is a somewhat coherent list of my initial thoughts after watching the film:

- Very rhythmic with the music. Reminds me of that guy who did all the colorful shapes and was very interested in making the film speak for itself by asking that it was not set to music. He also worked for disney at some point, and it was very apparent in the really beautiful colorful work he did. (Oskar Fischinger, had to look that back up).

-The medium of the film is very Stan Brakhage. It is all like direct markings on the film strip. The colors remind me more of his hand painting and drawing.

-It reminds me of the drawings we did as a kid where you paint something and then once it is dry you cover it with black crayon and then you take some sort of stylus and carve markings into the crayon so the color shows through.

-The film had "acts."The black and white middle part with just piano and the more lively parts with more accompanying jazz.

-It reminds me of modern art, with the colors and shapes, just set to music. Like Kandinsky

So there you go! My initial thoughts.