One Step Closer to Graduation

While I was pretty nervous when I first started Capstone, in the end everything turned out really great and it was a eye opening experience. To create something that I had truly wanted to create for a long time was an indescribable feeling for me. I was extremely with how "Through Different Eyes" turned out simply because it was what I had envisioned the moment I had the idea to do it. The most memorable part about the whole experience was when I had finished the video. I wanted to show it to so many people, and that was something new for me. I was truly proud of what I had made and was really happy with the positive reception I got. Even with all the stress of presenting it to the whole faculty, I stuck it out and got through. Overall, my experience in capstone was really awesome to me simply because I got to do something that I love and added another piece to my portfolio. I most definitely consider "Through Different Eyes" to be my best work so far, and I can't wait to see what I make next to further develop my style.

Think Fast!

During the final stretch of the semester at Shepherd University, they brought in a live trivia game show for students to participate in called "Think Fast!" Some friends and I got to attend the event and even though we did not get to go on stage, it was fun just sitting and participating in the audience. The questions that were asked referred to a wide variety of pop culture references which really made this even fun for students. There was a lot of energy at this event as people in the audience were screaming and trying to help out their friends who were on stage. One of the coolest parts about this was that some of the questions they were asking referred back to some of our earliest childhood memories. For example, some of the questions asked you what a specific song was, and in some cases it was the theme song from a cartoon that was popular when we were growing up. That being said, this event was not only referring to recent pop culture, but to things that are nostalgic to the student body. In the end, the match was extremely close with the person who came in second only being one question behind the winner. The contestants got a variety of prizes just from participating, and the winner actually got a pretty hefty cash prize which is pretty awesome! With the stress of finals week creeping up, this event was definitely a great opportunity to get out, clear your head, and just relax and have fun.

A Night at the Movies: Horrible Bosses 2

I had the pleasure of being able to take a trip to the movies and see Horrible Bosses 2 the other week. Since this is the second installment in the series, I was a little bit skeptical about going to see it. The first movie was absolutely hilarious due to an extremely diverse and well picked cast. When I first saw that this movie was coming out I had no idea what they could possibly use to make a story possible. After watching, I was completely satisfied with the sequel and thought that they did a fantastic job on it. The movie was just as funny as the first movie and the original cast was brought back along with some new characters as well. Not only was the movie hilarious, but it was beautifully shot. The cinematography was awesome and they even had some really well edited sequences throughout. Like the first movie, the strongest aspect was the cast. Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day all work so well together. With the additions of Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Chris Pine, and Christoph Waltz, this movie hosted a cast full of stars. If you are a fan of the first film, I highly recommend that you go see this movie and get some good laughs out.

Conservation Film Festival

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the American Conservation Film Festival right here in Shepherdstown, WV. I only got to attend one of the blocks of the festival, which was hosted by the opera house in town. During the time I went there were four films that were shown, all having a nature theme to them. The first film was about a paleontologist who talked about some of the parks across the country that are great locations for digging. While this film was very entertaining, it was my least favorite out of the four that were shown. Secondly, we saw a movie that was about a wildlife photographer who traveled to different parts of Alaska to experience the natural beauty of the state. The film was broken into five different parts that corresponded to each area that he was filming at. The camera work in this film was incredible and some of the shots that he was able to get were amazing. We saw everything from bears playing to glaciers that were hundreds of feet tall. The third film that we watched was about a couple who had met through the National Park Service and through a mutual love of the outdoors. It begins by the couple explaining how they met in a specific park in Wyoming and ends with their wedding in the park they met in. While the film also had a lot of great camera work throughout, the story behind it was extremely heartwarming and that had a really powerful effect on the tone of the film. Lastly, we watched "Sticky" which was an animated short film about a type of stick bug that went extinct on an island off the shore of New Zealand. While many scientists believed it to be extinct, there was one group of scientists that visited the island and found a group of the insects still alive, the last of their kind. The film was extremely informational and taught me about a type of bug that I didn't even know existed. In addition to that, the animation in the film was flawless and extremely visual. After attending this film festival I felt inspired and even had some new ideas for ways to edit my final video. If you ever have the chance to attend this film festival I would definitely recommend it!

The Final Stretch

With our presentations coming up next week this past week has been a busy one. I have been editing my video almost everyday and working hard to make it exactly what I want it to be. Most of the footage I shot is turning out really well in post production which is extremely exciting for me! I have also finished up my audio track for the video which is definitely helping me along in the editing process. I have been heavily editing a lot of the footage and playing around with various effects and some of the plug-ins that I purchased. Messing around with a lot of the effects in Final Cut has actually been a very fun process because there are so many possibilities when using effects. Their was actually a point this week where I thought a lot of the footage for my video was destroyed. After a really long talk on the phone with Apple Tech Support, I was able to fix the problem. Hopefully this is the only speed bump that I run into before presenting my project! The presentations next week make me nervous but I am going to do whatever it takes to get this video done!

Artists Inspiring Artists

In September I also attended the Shepherd University Art Department Faculty Show. This was a great experience simply because looking at other people's art is what helps you become a better artist. Since I have a minor in Photography, it was great to see what some of the faculty in the art department was producing since a lot of them have been instructors of mine. This event was held partially in the library and another part was displayed in the new art building. Not only did I see some great pieces in the gallery, but some of them were incredibly inspiring. Some of my favorite pieces were done by Mike Mendez, who made photo-grams using different objects. The textures and compositions of his pieces were very intricate and interesting to look at. I was lucky to attend the gallery on the one day that it was open. Even the free food was great!

Hypnosis!

In the beginning of this semester Shepherd hosted an event that was really awesome. They brought in a hypnotist by the name of Kevin Hurley. I was immediately interested once I saw the posters going up for this event. In the beginning of the show he brought up a couple different students from the audience and sat them down next to each other in rows. As the show went on his was slowly hypnotizing them without them even knowing it. I will definitely say that the show was not what I expected at all. This guy really knew what he was doing and had mastered the art that is hypnotism. He even taught us a little bit about hypnosis as the show went on. The best part by far was seeing some of our fellow students fall asleep on each other and just acting goofy overall. He even has videos online where you can hypnotize yourself just by listening to them and following his instructions. Pretty neat stuff though!

Eat. Sleep. Edit. Repeat.

Continuing on with my capstone video has been going smoothly! Last night I recorded almost sixteen minutes worth of audio using the MicroKorg. With the help of some friends I was able to get a few tracks laid down that I feel will work very well with my video. My video was partially edited when we started recording the song, so for the first part we were able to actually edit to the video as it was playing. Other then that I gathered a little bit more footage that I thought I could incorporate well into the video. I still have one part to film and after that I will have all the footage I need. One other thing I did this week was develop some time lapses using a GoPro. Since time is one of the underlying themes in my video, I feel that time lapses are one of the most unique ways to capture time passing by. The GoPro makes it very easy to make these as well. With most of my footage already filmed the editing process has begun and soon that will be what I am focusing most of my time on. Here is a video of some great time lapses just to show how awesome they are!

Music Music Music

This week a lot of progress was made on my project. I gathered lots of footage in preparation to begin the editing process. Since we are now down to only three weeks until we need to present, I want to give myself plenty of time to edit and make sure everything comes together the way that I want it to. However, figuring out my audio track is one aspect of my project that needs to be completed before editing begins. I had some trouble finding some royalty free music that I enjoyed for this specific project. I wanted the audio to be very ambient, but also have the happy or sad feeling that I'm looking for in a song. After struggling to figure out my audio track, I came up with another idea. This week I will be working with some friends to create my own music for my video using a MicroKorg synth. I am extremely excited to be doing this because I have never created my own music for any of the videos I have made. Even though it will take some extra time out of my schedule I feel that this is going to be all the more worth it in the end. Not only that, but the sounds that you can create with this machine are exactly what I had in mind. Basically I will have an endless library of sounds to work with. Once I get a track done using this I can hop straight into editing the first part of my video. I still have a little bit of additional footage to gather for the second part of my video, but that will all be getting filmed this week as well. I have been carrying my camera around very frequently usually where ever I go to make sure that I can capture moments that may not be expected. I am very excited to start editing this project once this audio track gets done!

Adventures in the Filmmaking Process

Continuing on with my capstone video has only gotten more intense. I have been shooting a lot of footage lately with the help of some friends. Since I want the moments in this video to look as natural as possible I have tried to avoid getting my friends to act for me. There is a lot more raw emotion when you capture a natural reaction from somebody, which is exactly what I am looking for. I have also been utilizing a tripod much more lately. I like to have a good balance of tripod shots and handheld shots in all of my videos. The reason for this is that I also believe that a healthy balance of these two kinds of shots can really enhance a video. I like for some of the shots in my videos to have a "home-movie" type feel to them because it helps the audience feel as if they are experiencing that moment in real time. However, tripod shots are also really effective when trying to really get the audience to focus on one thing. Besides shooting, I have also began to really think about what I want to do when editing my video. I have a good bit of ideas for this video and I am extremely excited to do my best to make these ideas come alive. I have also downloaded some new plug-ins for my editing program and have been playing around with some of them. Just from my first glance I really think that they are going to really help some of my edits and really give the video a unique visual style which is exactly what I want. There is still plenty of footage for me to shoot so I am excited to keep filming and hop into editing very soon! HERE is one of the plug-ins that I downloaded.

The Art of an Experimental Film Script

So far my senior capstone project has been running very smoothly! Along with all the other work for the class that I have been doing, I have been actively shooting footage since before we even returned for the fall semester. This past weekend I went out of town and shot some more footage during my travels, which was very successful. I have been started thinking more and more about how I want to edit my video to make it the best it can be. After meeting with my director this week, he was able to provide me with a lot of articles about montage. These have proved to be extremely helpful and have given me some options of which direction I want to go with this. I still have a lot of footage that still needs to be shot, but will be getting a lot of that done this upcoming week. Other than that, I was unsure of how to write a script for my video since there will be no dialogue in my project. My director also helped me with this by showing me an AV Script, which I am going to begin working on during the editing process. The reason for this is because in an AV Script you simply show what is being played in the video on one side, and than explain the representation on the other side. By taking screenshots of my clips this process will be much easier and more effective. So after a few more shooting days, the editing process will begin!

Godard and Counter-Cinema

This week I read Peter Wollen's article on Jean-Luc Godard and his Counter-Cinema that he has practically created himself. Wollen talks about each of the seven values that Godard has showcased in the films he has made. By reading more about these seven techniques, I have learned a great deal more about experimental film-making and have been inspired to try out some of these techniques.

1) Narrative Transitivity v. Narrative Intransitivity

• Narrative Transitivity is the usual narrative that many people are used to. Wollen discusses how Godard broke this process very early on. He tells how in one of his films, he showed a series of random images throughout to represent the ups and downs of everyday life. This definitely relates back to my vision for my video since I want to create moments like this as well. My video will show many shots of different situations and imagery that can relate back to certain emotions, ultimately giving the images new meaning.

2) Identification v. Estrangement

•  In this technique Godard would go against the normal emotional and close relation to characters that most movies create. The article says that sometimes he would not match the voice to a specific character, or would have the characters directly address the audience. By doing this he is going outside of the norm and using the characters as a completely different tool. While the characters that will be shown in my video will be unidentified throughout, this is definitely another interesting tactic to play around with in the future.

3) Transperency v. Foreground

• Thirdly, Godard also showed the process of the film actually being made in one of his movies. This had never really happened up until Godard did it, but when he did he created another game-changer. By showing the film-making process in one of his films, he ultimately changed the whole meaning of the film just within that sequence. Not only did he show this, but during this sequence he scratched the surface of the actual film, creating an interesting visual effect. Techniques and effects like this will definitely be a huge part of my capstone video. 

4) Single Diegesis v. Multiple Diegesis

• Typically in films we always see characters that a part of the same world within the film. Yet again Godard goes outside the norm in his movies by creating series of characters who all come from different worlds, and speak different languages. In my video, the characters will be unidentified, leaving their backgrounds and locations a mystery throughout, leaving the interpretation up to the audience. 

5) Closure v. Aperture

• Many of the images that we see in film that evoke our emotions are normally a self-contained object that could mean something to a specific character in the film. Godard used many different styles in his films to create meaning in certain images such as open-endedness, overspill, and allusion. While I will be using lots of different kinds of abstract imagery, all of the scenes that I create will help evoke that emotional reaction that I am trying to help the audience receive. 

6) Pleasure v. Unpleasure

• While filmmakers are normally always trying to get a good reaction from their audience, it does not always happen. Wollen goes into more detail about how Godard's films were not received well by some simply because of some of the harsh and explicit imagery that he used. Sometimes when trying to convey a message, more explicit imagery can really enhance certain points trying to be made. Unfortunately, this can turn off certain audience members based on the fact that some do not want to view explicit imagery. 

7) Fiction v. Reality

• In today's cinema fiction is normally the cookie cutter style of film-making, since that what normally attracts bigger audiences. Godard wanted to convey images of "real life" to create different representations and emulate them to audiences. This style will be extremely prominent in my video, since I want to capture as many natural moments that occur in everyday life. I want to steer away from acting for this project simply to give the footage the most natural feel possible.

Breaking Down the Narrative

This week I read more into the works of Mike Wayne in a book titled "Theorising Video Practice." I read his chapter that focused on breaking down the different kinds of narratives in the films that we all see. The way that clips are arranged in film makes a huge difference when trying to convey a message. He started early on describing the classical narrative and goes on to explain how you can break down this type of narrative into five parts. These stages are the exposition, conflict, rise, crisis and closure. His insight on the classical narrative provided a very interesting read but for my video I am definitely not focusing on a classical narrative. Wayne than goes on to talk about narrative and certain codes that filmmakers can play off of to create a flowing narrative. These codes were developed by Roland Barthes. The first set of codes he describes is the Semic Codes. In the text he says, "they are labels we mentally attribute to character and locale." (Wayne, 156). Secondly he talks about Cultural Codes which generalize all the general "knowledges" that we experience in everyday culture. Reading about these codes was extremely interesting because when planning out my capstone I really wanted to convey ideas in a non-classical way. I want to make something that is heavily subliminal and everyone can relate to in a way. By reading about these codes it really helped me develop some ideas for different imagery I can use to convey my ideas. Not only that, but it gave me some insight into styles of narrative that I could experiment with in later videos!

A Meditation on Violence

The article that I looked into this week was Maya Deren's actual notes on her film "Meditation on Violence." This film focuses on two different schools of Chinese boxing, the Wu-Tang and the Shaolin. Deren created a multitude of experimental films in her career which makes her work very well worth studying before jumping into my video. In her notes she describes the ways that she planned on emulating these styles of boxing strictly through visual style. She planned everything out to the finest detail when preparing this film. She goes on to explain how Wu-Tang is a constant state of balance in motion, while Shaolin is more of a formalized aggression. By analyzing this, she was able to come up with unique locations, photography, and editing styles. To associate a certain location with Wu-Tang, she wanted to find areas that seemed endless with no angles and soft lighting. This would definitely give the viewer a more calm feeling, a definite association with Wu-Tang culture. For her shots involving Wu-Tang she writes about keeping the action in the frame and to keep it circling within the frame. For editing, she wanted long shots with very little cuts and the best continuity possible. For Shaolin, she wanted the locations to be less rounded and more square. She wanted medium camera runs with the action addressing the camera more so than Wu-Tang. For the editing she wanted more cuts to chop up the action and make them more intense. The amount of time that she put into developing this idea is absolutely astounding. After reading this I was extremely inspired by her process and wanted to know how I could use some of this technique for my film.

Capstone - The Experimental Narrative

This week I read a chapter from a book titled "Writing a Short Film" that was talking about the experimental narrative. Since I plan on making my video primarily experimental, this was a great read for me. In the chapter, the author talks about how making an experimental film is similar and different than making any other kind of film. The author even adds a whole section that only talks about the distinct characteristics of an experimental film. Some of these characteristics include non-linearity, a distinct style, and the abstraction of character. Non-linearity had always been one of my main ideas when first starting to think about this project. A distinct style was also always in mind, but reading more about how to make it really stick out has proved to be very helpful to me. What really struck me in this article was the section about the abstraction of character. I never planned on having a character in my project, but after reading about this more in experimental films, I really want to add a character into the mix. The section in the book explains that by adding a character, they can be used as a direct vessel for the ideas of the director. This really intrigued me and I definitely plan on adding in some abstract shots of a character that will guide the film along.

Senior Capstone Statement of Intent

For my capstone project I have decided to make a video that will focus on life. As people, I feel that we sometimes let life pass us by when we get sucked into a routine. In my opinion we should cherish every single moment that life brings us no matter how big or small because we never know when a part of our lives could end. These moments could simply be buying a new car or moving away from home to go to college. I want to capture as many little and big moments that life has to offer any given human being. Having a wide variety of different shots is extremely important and is what will really make this special. The video will host a variety of tripod shots, hand held shots, and the use of a GoPro to create time-lapses. Since one of my main interests in film is editing, I plan on heavily editing the footage I gather to create a unique and visually interesting collage. Since different moments make us all feel a certain way, I also want to emulate those feelings through editing as well. For instance, during happy moments I could boost the colors and during sad moments I could give the footage a more negative feel through visual effects. The video will be extremely subliminal and host many underlying themes, one of the most prominent being time. By making this I hope that people can view life from a new perspective that shows them that time should not be wasted and to value each moment that presents itself to you.