Molotov and the Ecstasy of Influence Response

The Molotov reading was very interesting.  I am really not good when it comes to all that copyright politics stuff.  I may sound ignorant when I say it, but it did not seem like it was that big of a deal just to see if you can get permission to make a painting of a piece of art that was originally created by someone else.  I kind of thought that the author who was telling their story was making a big deal out of something that was not that big of a deal.  Sure, the author was putting his or her own spin on the piece of art but it was still originally the idea of someone else. Yes, art should not have any limits but it still gets very difficult to decide who is in the wrong and who is in the right when someone wants to take another person’s idea.  The tone I got from this author was kind of negative and a little pompous.  Again, I could be wrong but that is just the vibe that I got.   I mean, if you are that nervous about getting involved in copyright issues then do what the original artist’s lawyer requests you should do.  After all, they worked hard for that piece and getting your art to be recognized is not an easy thing to do, so credit should be given to wherever the credit is due.

This same idea of plagiarism falls in line with “The Ecstasy of influence” article.  Plagiarism is a very scary word to me.  Since the topic of this article is plagiarism, it reminds me of how paranoid I get whenever I have to turn in a paper for one of my classes.  So much is at stake like the grade you will receive, how much the paper will affect your overall average, and last but not least, making sure that the information, or ideas, included in your paper is 100% yours.  The professors scare you so much whenever they say that one word.  It is scary that whether or not you meant to plagiarize you still get penalized for it. There are no re-dos and regardless of your intentions the fact that you still plagiarized is a nasty concept.  The article points out that it is ok to be influenced but you still must watch what you claim as your idea.  Influences still have their own ways of leading to new and fresh original ideas.

Beat Stretch

I would definitely say that the beat stretch was very soothing.  It would be something perfect to fall asleep to but other than that I really do not think it is something that I’d like to listen to on my own.  The music was beautiful but I just felt like it was the same thing over and over and over again for a solid hour.  When I first started listening to it, I wondered if the music was even playing since it started out so quietly.  Personally, since I like songs that are fast paced it is hard for me to have interest in slower moving pieces of music.  Another opinion that I have about the beat stretch is that I thought that it sounded quite eery.  It sounded a little dark and spooky in a way.  It kind of made me think of being stuck in a dark forest with tall trees and the silence of the forest was constantly being interrupted by the sounds of creepy animals.  This is, at least, what stuck out to me the most.  I guess now if I think about it, the music sounds a little somewhat spooky, yet I think it to be quite soothing and relaxing.  The day I listened to it, I had just got back from Connecticut for the week.  I was feeling pretty stressed out from all of the projects, papers, and tests that I know are coming up.  Trying to get everything together before the end of your last semester is pretty challenging.  Anyway, before I go off on a tangent, listening to the beat stretch almost made me forget about all of the things that I have going on and to just sit down, slow down and breathe.  After a long yet short week of constantly being somewhere and going all the time, just sitting down and listening to a classical piece of music was kind of nice.  The assignment required us to not do anything while listening to the music.  I guess I am glad that I was pretty much assigned to chill out and listen to music for a good long while.  Not my first choice of music, but still comforting and soothing nonetheless.  I really do not listen to classical music all that much but I guess when I am forced to listen to this genre, it is kind of nice to listen to. 

48 Hours

So yeah, the 48 hour video race.  This will be something interesting and unique that I have never done before.  We will definitely see what happens because my improv is not outstanding.  I have been thinking about the types of devices to capture images that we can use and so far, all I have got for an idea is using my phone to capture video.  I am really glad I decided to switch back to my old phone so I can capture video since it seems to be my only source right now.  In the meantime I will continue to figure out if I can find out any other pieces of equipment that I can use to film the project.  I figured I can tell a narrative story with a suggestive take on experimental editing style.  I am not entirely sure on that yet.  I am short on ideas right now and am not exactly sure on what I would like to do yet.  It will be twice as interesting to see what happens when I have my mystery prop picked out that has to be put into the film.  Maybe I can do a film of someone who is trying to send a last minute message to someone and has no other way of communication.  Maybe they have to send a video because a voicemail will not do since the person who they are trying to contact never checks their voicemail that often.  Maybe the reason for that can be that only wrong numbers usually leave voicemails so that person does not try and listen to voicemails any longer.  Or the person trying to send the video message wanted to say something special and the best way they thought they could do so was by video message.  I know that happens sometimes.  Maybe it’s someone trying to send a threatening message to someone else and they wanted to seem more intimidating by a message with image.  Eh, sounds pretty basic so far, but hopefully I can think of something more exciting and interesting to come up with soon.  For now I will continue to think of something a little more creative and hopefully something will come to mind.  Hopefully, I can try and use another type of device besides a phone, but we will see.  I am very interested to see what everyone will come up with for this project.

Colors, Animation, and Fun

So this first assignment that we had was way cool.  I love how we were pretty much unlimited to what each of us could do with our film strips.  It was exciting to see what was presented on the film once it was projected.  Once again, I really like the type of exposure I am getting to cameraless filmmaking.  Even though it is a bit time consuming the finished product is very rewarding and the time making the film was really fun.  I was very pleased with the way our film came out.  I wish that I can get better at doing more animation work.  I find animation to be very fascinating and fun so any type of exposure I can get to that is totally awesome.  I was quite proud of the tree I made given that I have never done this type of animation before. I thought this assignment was a perfect amount of exposure to a new type of animation that I had not experimented with yet.  I spent an entire semester with Maya and had a fair share of 3D animation but actually getting to draw on real film and making your own animation with your own hands is very neat.  I loved the way all of the colors turned out.  They were really fun to draw on film and the markers we were able to use were awesome.  As we discussed in 495, I am definitely not opposed to doing this type of procedure again for our senior seminar film.  After this assignment I would really like to try and experiment with more magazine transfers, animation, and color drawing just for fun even.  I would love to experiment more with 16mm film.  I would love to actually make a film and capture images.  Then before it’s developed would like to draw on the film strip and make abstract shapes.  Pretty much like Andre’s films we watched in class or kind of like Naomi Umen’s film with the nail polish, Removed.  I do confess, I would like to go more narrative for a lifelong career in film, but I still would love to be able to make more abstract pieces for my own personal enjoyment.   Again, with this project I loved that we got to mess more with the splicer.  It took me forever to actually believe that how they made films long ago was just by cutting and taping the film together.   Messing with real film is a nice break from the technology and the digital world.

Chion and Cummings

Sound is something that should most definitely be appreciated.  Even though I do not feel that sound has just as much importance than an image, I do feel that both are just as equally important.  Sound is what provides an image to be so much more.  It allows the image to have a greater significance and give more of an emotional feel to whatever is being projected on screen.  I remember reading a similar article in Shannon’s 302 Experimental class about sound and the assignments that she gave us to let us have our own new appreciation towards sound.  We found out that sound could be interpreted in so many different ways.  Many sounds sound completely similar to other subjects that are entirely different.  Learning about the way we hear things was rather fascinating.  It was also interesting to associate certain sounds that normally would not be put with certain images.  If you just take a moment or two to just sit and listen to the sounds that are going on around you, it is incredible realizing all of the sounds you would not normally hear.  I remember that Experimental gave me a whole new appreciation for sounds and I paid closer attention to noises ever since then. 

Cumming is right in his article about acoustic ecology and how everyone should have a better appreciation for sound.  It may allow you to have a better appreciation for the environment that you live in.  It could even teach you a thing or two about your own environment.  The more you learn to listen, the more fun sound becomes.  I absolutely love listening to music.  It is one of my obsessions.  I personally think it is fun to listen to a song and make a new discovery of a hidden sound that you did not hear in the song the last few times you listened to it.  Discovering a new beat or a new word said in the background of a song is kind of a fun game for me.  Every once and a while my friends and I make these types of discoveries and when we sing the songs out loud we put a greater emphasis on the words or sounds that other listeners may not hear or pay as close attention to.