Assignment #1: 16mm Film Manipulation Response

The first manipulation assignment was both challenging and exciting. Considering that this was the first time I'd ever touched film stock, learning multiple ways to manipulate it was a bit intimidating. I found the 100-frame animation to be the most difficult as it took a lot of time to accurately draw my idea, and even then I could only hope that my image would appear clearly and flow through the frames as intended. My favorite process of manipulation was when we learned the rayogram technique using unexposed film. In another course I had read about Man Ray’s rayographs but I did not completely understand the process so actually getting to create one myself was very exciting. It was interesting to figure out how to use the materials we had in class to convey the classical elements, and it’s safe to say that my film is a bit outside the box. Looking back on it now, I definitely got carried away scratching and hole punching the film and to be honest I just smeared a whole bunch of the ink colors together because I thought it looked cool. All in all, I found the entire process fascinating and I’d like to continue learning how to manipulate film. Ideally I will gain a few artistic abilities and my future manipulations will have a clear message or theme rather than resembling a piece of art found in an elementary classroom or on the side of the road. Ultimately I really enjoyed this assignment, and I feel I learned a lot from the work we did.

Week #4 - R3 Media Response

The topic for this week is crowdsourcing. I believe using crowdsourcing as a method to create or fund a project is really smart. The idea of unifying a variety of voices and perspectives on one topic or to meet one common goal is extremely interesting and I believe that it enhances the projects’ potential. Crowdsourcing acknowledges the fact that there will always be someone out there who thinks of something you didn’t and uses it as an advantage. By having that wide range of input, the project itself becomes more meaningful and has a higher chance of reaching more people, which in turn means having a bigger impact. In the video we watched for this week, we learned about Wikipedia and how it functions. It is interesting to think that there has always been a stigma regarding the lack of credibility of Wikipedia articles, especially among professors, to the point where the site is not acknowledged as a usable source for academic papers. Despite this negative belief, I find that most people, myself included, use Wikipedia for quick information on many topics. I particularly enjoyed the article about Cloud Filmmaking, I was highly impressed with the company and how the company’s crowdsourcing approach is also a big factor of their outreach goals. In the article it mentioned how our species learns and empathizes through storytelling, which I believe is completely true. We always share things about our lives through social media, especially now that we have the technology that we do, and it is fascinating how Cloud Filmmaking is using that aspect of our modern society to connect people from all over the world.

Week #3 - R2 Media Response

This week our reading discussed the idea of sound and listening. Sound is one of the senses that people don't always fully pay attention to. You hear sound but you must listen to truly perceive it. Acknowledging the importance of sound and utilizing it to create situation and provoke emotion is an essential part of filmmaking. In one of this week’s videos, David New used subjective interactivity to convey the importance of listening. He showed how easy it is to disregard ambient noise in our everyday lives and how important it is to just stop, listen and take everything in. In the second video for this week Justin Boyd discussed his process of capturing field recordings and mixing them with found objects to create original art works. I was particularly interested in this technique because it pushed me to think about how I could manipulate certain sounds to communicate my way of perceiving in the films that I make. In the reading for this week we learned about acoustic ecology from R. Murray Schafer, which he states aims to accentuate the delicate balance between organisms and their sonic environment. In this article I was intrigued by his term “sonic sewer”, to describe the overpopulation of sound in cities, and I was shocked to find out that companies, like Harley-Davidson, are copyrighting their sounds. I also would like to participate in the listening activity that Schafer uses with some of his students as I feel I need to learn to really step back and listen more than I do. In the second article, the most notable aspect for me was the idea of acoustic activism. I find it really interesting to think about and consider all of the sounds in everyday life, from manmade to natural ones, and I had no idea how extensive the research on sound interactions could be.