dx_451

samsara

2008-04-27T12:17:00.001-07:00

SAMSARA
cycle of reincarnation or rebirth
The karmic balance at the time of death is inherited via the state at which a person is reborn. Through an undetermined amount of lives one can spiral upwards to become one of the gods. As a deity, one exercises divine powers until the good merit is exhausted. If one lives in evil ways, one is reborn as an animal.[
Saṃsāra is described as mundane existence, full of suffering and misery and hence is considered undesirable and worth renunciation. The Saṃsāra is without any beginning and the soul finds itself in bondage with its karma since the beginingless time. Moksa is the only liberation from saṃsāra.

Mother/giver of life…baking the bread…birth

Death – coffin of man, death is father sort of, spirit of destruction

Rebirth…girls turn to dust/flour…mother makes more bread → life

Turning of the bowl…the cycle …like folding of the bread

Sound of like a water wheel throughout the piece

What my images say:

Boy: tortured then peaceful…death…managing his sins
Girl: objectification of women…girl w/ pail on her head…kneeling down, grasping the floor
Mother: mother goddess giver of life, but also fate
Mother and father are dual forces (life and destruction)

title

2008-04-26T19:45:00.001-07:00

my piece is officially called SAMSARA. ^_^

moving into editing

2008-04-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

so on schedule. muahahaha.

i finished all my shooting on saturday. brought in outside actors for the last half.

btw, working w/ animals is really hard. i dunno if my dog shot is gonna work...sigh.

i watched 2 akira kurosawa movies: seven samurai and RAN. wow, i think he might be my favorite now. i'm gonna watch more movies by him!

this week i begin editing. my goal is to put together a rough version of "barnyard" and then make "blackbird" ready for the henry.

i've captured almost all my video already, i just have about an 1hr 30min left.

still on schedule plus movies!

2008-04-16T09:49:00.001-07:00

yo.

i'm so organized. i love it! i just met my other actor yesterday. he's really cool and knows a lot about film. he even wants to stick around for the rest of my shoot to help out. i'm meeting my last actress tomorrow. craigslist kind of rocks. i got about 30 replies so far. he he he. i will wrap shooting this weekend and then begin editing both blackbird and this new film which i shall tentatively call barnyard.

i've also been watching movies. so far i've viewed black orpheus, citizen kane, seven samurai, and i'm going to watch another kurosawa film over the weekend or friday. myaaaaa. good stuff. i tried to rent brand on the brain but apparently it's not out yet. sigh...

future film idea

2008-04-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

capgras disorder

on schedule

2008-04-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

i killed myself this weekend, but at least i'm on schedule. julia, if u read this, know that u're a godsend! i couldn't have done it without u!

as planned, completed half of my filming...i completed my daughter and son scenes. i will capture all this this week and begin editing (probably mostly chopping out bad footage and color correcting). need to find more actors b/c my other actors fell through. hopefully this is possible.

fremont is great and totally not as scary as it was made out to be. i had to mop the floor like 4 times though and scamper up scaffolds s i'm really sore.

now i need sleep.
but i can never sleep.

@_@

2008-04-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

The archetype → jung’s archetypes (the mother….yada)
In mythology what are the archetypes?

Rolling a rock constantly up a hill, knowing it’s going to come down again

Path to the end of suffering → can take many lifetimes to reach the end, till the cycle of rebirths (like my film, a cycle of rebirth)

The wheel of life, or "samsara", is an ancient symbol that has the same meaning in Buddhism and Hinduism. It is symbolises the cycle of birth, life, and death. When one revolution of the wheel is completed, life begins again with rebirth.

Need to find an 8 spoke wheel

Open with the turning of the wheel, end with the rest of the wheel…keep getting farther and farther away from it, things get blurry (tight with the camera then go out and up)

Archetypal Mother: Intimately known and yet strange like Nature, lovingly tender and yet cruel like fate, joyous and untiring giver of life--mater dolorosa and mute implacable portal that closes upon the dead.

Cornucopia, sheaves of wheat, autumn harvest, torch, bread, honey, and acorns –BREAD, SHEAVES OF WHEAT (symbols of the goddess mother)

Father is like Saturn…archetypal father → omnipotence, devouring his children

idea development

2008-04-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

just an update on the collaborative project....we decided to form a crew that will work on everybody's individual projects rather than creating one film, so it is still a group effort, however we will all be helping people head their own projects.

Idea Development, storyboard coming by wednesday:

Stages
The mother/the farmer’s wife
-rolling the dough, looking out the window, in the window is the dog, those who look away and try to see it end up dropping and tired like a hound, heavy eyes, weight of sorrow and fatigue in her eyes, this ghost, hanging in a droop, in the groove of her wrinkles, trying to look to something else, but all that’s there is the dog

The father/the farmer
-bringing down the axe (after the heaviness of the mother…maybe suggesting the downwards force…maybe not chopping a chicken, but can see the blood running off his blade, running off the stump, symbolic chopping but physical blood, the flicker of the screen in his eyes, what he’s done himself, what he did to his son

Chopping of the wood…big rim light functioning like the sun, glare in the camera, water for sweat

The daughter/young woman
-standing together, assault begins with the mother baking the bread, is then on all fours… a bell around her neck?, tears coming down from beneath the pail, starts “bleeding”, just a line…then start to see it spilling from her (all from her), from her mouth too perhaps?, throws her head back as she’s being sucked dry…that’s when the flour begins to fall, see it falling over the girl on all fours too, just piles of dust

The son/young man
-gulping the milk, crazed, crying out, sad, being poured into his mouth as tears roll back from his eyes, a pronounced Adam’s apple

-begins to bleed from the neck, as the father’s chopping the wood more and more, like orgasm, you can’t stop your self but crying because of your addiction…blood mixing with milk, like a chicken with its head cut off, just desperately running around trying to live with no abandon, running off away, into the darkness, dancing (writhing dancing), hands outstretched, spread like a wing flapping, feet stomping in the splashing milk

-the light of life is too bright to bear, going blind, looking into the light
-shaking camera, chaotic movement

-cup first, then like just all out?

Transitions:
The hands of the girl on the floor, the hands of the mother rolling the bread
Milk spilling from the woman, into the man’s mouth
The massaging of the flesh, the massaging of the dough
Boy throwing his head back from the light, from ecstacy and the girl throwing her head back in “death”
The hanging droops down of the dog, the falling of the axe, the boy’s neck
The chopping., the running of blood down the boy’s neck
The boy running around with the axe in his hand, as we see shots that the father is in the chair, just like the daughter is the flour, see her hands, and see the working of the dough (leading that that is their futures)
The flour puffing

See the images of the mother folding the bread, splices of the sex massage but not sure if really creepy or not, images of the old man in a chair from behind,tight shots of the clothed daughter and the son drinking something (is he holding a cup as his prop?) , the baking of the bread again, more violent massaging (violence shown), the mother keeps on looking out the window but there is just the dog, the axe chopping see the son, the daughter beginning to be assaulted (see her pail head full form at her side, the chopping, that son is somewhat crazed, the old man in the chair, shit gets worse and worse, see more of the dog, milk drinking/pouring increases, blood on the axe, running off the stump, milk pouring from her, girl goes to floor, son is crazy, the flour being worked in with the water, start to die, boy starts to go crazy, flour starting to rain down, father in room with images of boy in background, see that he’s mentally watching them , boy running with axe and milk with the image of the chopping/old man, mother with the image of her daughter, looking out the window with tragic stubbornness. Keep going up and up.

The playing of the father behind the son, the mother behind the daughter, the daughter behind the mother, and the son in front of the father

The mother is to become the dog, the daughter is to become the mother, the son is to become the father, and father has nothing but himself and his thoughts

Props/Set
-baking stuff
-bowl, wood rolling pin, board, flour, water → julia’s house +me flour
-michale: metal pail, axe
-counter
-wood stump
-dead chicken → china town?
-red string
-hay → hay bundle?
-projector
-window frame…curtains
sift for the flour –> big one…make it! Big one (frame for window w/ tight netting stretched over it
bins to collect the flour
hella flour/coarse flour
table and chair for son?

Actors
Mother → julia’s mom….back up???
Father → Alexis’s Dad
Woman → Alexis/Julia….Bronowyn???
Young Men → Cody, Mark??
Dog → Tina

Camera Movement (up)

Equipment needed
-Freemont
-Lights → freemont plus extra
-panasonic/vx2000
-tripod
-dolly
-shotgun mic
-c-stands
-

General

-the crazy human barnyard

-man drinking the milk of woman → milk represent life-giving, nourishing force, the food of babies, the female sacrifice, and symbol of womanhood, a gift from the mother to the child, taking away something beautiful women have to give, sexually violent, crude, the woman must submit herself
-men…sexual perversion, violation of the sacred, Oedipus, wish to be infants/children again

-drinking the woman dry, sucking the life from her, like cattle, being milk, “bleeding breasts”

-one woman w/ pail over her head → abu Ghraib prison, one clothed, bleeding breasts

-rolling the dough, massaging the skin (sexual), baking = procreation, like molding of the clay, giving birth to the audience and the film if open with it
-being baked in the oven, cooked into being
-the mother is baking the ashes of the daughters to bake the bread, ashes from being sucked dry

-cycle of life and death, cycle of human sacrifice → woman sacrifice for man, son sacrifice for father

-emptying yourself, changing the eye to reach a life beyond sadness → UP – not as much the focus though

-perversion, sacrfifice, pain, greedy drinking, chaotic running

-double loss of innocence, for men who committed the sin, and for woman who are being violated

-father frozen in the chair, joy luck club → the pain of being old and having nothing but you and your thoughts

-mother constantly looking out the window waiting for something that won’t ever come, but she has to keep believing, to keep folding the dough over and over, to keep baking the bread (reflection of the blood hound)

-projected the image of the mother on the background? Or the father chopping the wood

-done in surreal/theatrical space, with mi nimal components that are all working for reasons, like a factor cycle of perversity and the pain and sorrow that is life. I keep passing around it, with each pass something is revealed, going up, seeing further and further past it?
-something revealed with DOF?
-moving camera up with each pass??

Research paper

2008-04-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

Dx453_Research Jill Collymore

ABSTRACT
This quarter, I would like to venture into new media/technology and expand production. This will be accomplished through three films: one old, one new, and one a little bit different! In terms of new media/technology, I would like to familiarize myself with/and work with the Steady Cam. On April 10th, I will receive a $20,000 18mm film camera. Experiments with the 18mm versus digital camera will contribute to the new media theme. Also, if deemed to significantly contribute to my work, I would finally like to break into After Effects. In terms of production value, again my goal is to bear down on preproduction. I will require myself to have complete storyboards, organize resources, and to the best of my ability, solve potential problems prior to filming. I plan on reviewing the power point presentations and conducting my own research to further knowledge on specific lighting, camera techniques, etc. This knowledge will help to improve production value. I would also like to seek out trained actors through the Internet or the UW theatre school. In addition, I wish to take advantage of the Freemont resource. The production value boost will be concentrated into a collaborative film, which I hope to pull several members of the class into. In sum, through a new film, a reedit, and a collaborative project, I plan to explore new media/technology/techniques and improve as a filmmaker while readying myself for the Henry exhibition. Hopefully, by May 5th, I will be able to present 3 short films (all under 5-6 minutes) for Henry consideration.

RESEARCH
I would like to compose a reading/viewing list tailored specifically for me this quarter. The titles on this list will serve as inspiration. I will also note technique, camera language as a form of communication, and make sure to check for “behind the scenes” portions on the DVD. These lists will include books/films I have already explored as parts of my own research, as well as titles suggested by my peers and professors. I already have decided to view Kurosawa films (as suggested by Shawn in my last crit). In addition, I would like to explore more Shirin Neshat films because her film Tooba resonated so strongly with me. The Bill Viola short shown in class on Tuesday also intrigued me, so I will follow up with his work. I hope to view two films per week on average. Over Spring Break I did a little bit of research on the DADA movement. I will continue this because DADA seems to be very compatible with DXARTS in its experimental nature. I will consult Dave/Zach and e-mail Shawn to improve this initial list.

The second part of my research will focus on collecting information from external sources. I plan on browsing online resources like YouTube, the links on our class website, and that one cow website (haha) to name a few. I will also review the power points from our class presentations. In this, I hope to learn more about After Effects, Steady Cam tricks, and specific lighting set ups. I also will look for resources that provide trained actors.

The last component of this quarter’s research will involve physical experiments with the camera and other materials. For this, I will seek the help of Julia and Alexis. I know that Alexis has conducted several experiments (unraveling a head, metallic goop…and lots of other goops come to think of it), and I need Julia’s skills as a photographer to explore the 18mm film camera.

THREE FILMS
As mentioned, I will complete three short films, “short” being a duration under 5-6 minutes. This first will be a reedit of Blackbird, the last film of Winter Quarter. The second will be a solo project that is already in development. Please check my blog at the end of this weekend for more details. The last film will be a collaborative project. Development for this project will begin this Friday.

The Blackbird Reedit
-meet with Shawn next week
-consider title further
-is the sound at best quality it can be? (seek Cody)
-typography is terrible, needs improvement (Katilin?)
-reedit noose section (sheet blowing onto branch? sheet wrapping around her neck?)
-determine if a re-shoot is necessary
-is my actress available? her schedule?
-leading through the sheets portion needs more momentum…how to accomplish this

Collaborative Film
-push myself into new zones, open myself up and learn from my peers’ viewpoints, opportunity for larger/more complex production, can really create sets, use the power of multiple minds and multiple hands to accomplish one film as a class

New Solo Project
-check my blog Sunday

IMPROVING

I am taking all my past crits into consideration. My goal is improvement and taking advantage of the Henry opportunity. I need to talk with Dave/Shawn/Zach to help orient myself in the directions I need to be facing and running towards. I want to get to the moon, and past the hand that’s pointing at it! ^_-

CALENDAR

This weekend – meet with people working on collaborative piece, decide on subject matter, begin to storyboard that piece, storyboard my individual project, begin to gather actors, scout locations, camera experiments with Alexis, watch 2 films, online research, continue DADA research, schedule Steady Cam, gather props, review power points, see if Fama is available for r-eshoot, show Fama film

Week 1 (April 7th – 14th) –schedule Freemont, begin to film individual project, see where filming is for group project, pick up new camera, camera experiments with Julia, train/get Steady Cam, re-shoot with Fama? Know her schedule, meet with Shawn about blackbird

Week 2 (April 14th – 21) continue/finish filming for both projects (@ Freemont?), begin capturing/editing footage, dxconcert, watch 2 films

Week 3 (April 21st – 28) begin editing like crazy, edit for concert…and more editing, if possible have first edits done, bring to dave/zach/shawn for crit, class crit? If possible, finish Fama film.

Week 4 (April 28th – May 5th) keep editing. Have editing finished by May 3rd.

Week 5 (May 5th – 12th) Stuff in the can for the Henry. Anything that was said to be dropped for the Henry feel free to work on it now.

Week 6 (May 12th – 19th) Extra credit film with Julia and alexis? Something fun, like dancing or a music video, cut loose a bit. Just watch a lot of films.

Week 7 (May 19th – 26th) the Henry! Woot! Then go out of town to get my game on

READY TO GO!

2008-03-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

Did a lot of my own research this break. Started reading about the DADA movement. I've decided that I'm going to try to move more from a surreal pov to a DADAist pov. I want to do less monumental sweeping things and try to dial in on something a little more specific...addressing things less dramatically. I dunno. I just feel like morphing. I'm pretty sure I still want to work with single channel stuff though. I'm interested in multi-channel and installation works, but I will probably explore those avenues in the 400 series. I REALLY want to work with legitimate actors this quarter. Hopefully I can find some.

next actress

2008-03-15T13:40:00.001-07:00

this will potentially be the next actress for one of my next videos...my teammate is so gorgeous! white girl fro! ...u know i hooked her up.

getting meaty

2008-03-13T16:04:00.000-07:00

in their destructive fires, they may burn our bodies, but no our spirits... fire destroy, but then feed the soil from which things grow. not only will we be destroyed. they will destroy themselves in their own fires... but our spirits will go up blazing into free spaces. after all the past and continuing trials we suffer through, we fight in music and dance to break away. we sing through fire. we dance.

white sheets. black woman. burning bodies.

strange fruit. billy holiday.

she becomes free as she burns in the fire.

i want to have a happier memory for all those who lost their bodies brutally in the fight. i want them to remembered for more than a picture of a bloated body floating down a river, or for choked throats swinging. i want to remember them for so much more than that. they gave me a larger plate of existence. i want to remember them in the freedom they created. not in their moment of death. death is crazy beautiful, ugly beautiful, strange beautiful, nonsensically beautiful.

feeling like shit

2008-03-10T23:45:00.000-07:00

i suck at life. i suck at art. i feel like shit.

here's the problem...i can't extricate myself from my films. i'm trying to give this UP! peace a hopeful/happy ending when i don't feel this way. i'm utterly lost in my piece and i'm utterly lost in life.

therefore,

screw it. i'm editing my piece about a girl who is lost in all these motherf**kin sheets, and the image of happiness in taunting her. and at the end she's still lying there and then spontaneously combusts, into flame, her body burning. how's that for optimism?

images

2008-02-28T12:23:00.000-08:00

it is also interesting to look at the meaning of laundry blowing in the wind, especially white garments...most of the time they are undergarments, bed sheets, undercloths...so it's kind of revealing, like urself all out there. i think that contributes to my meaning in a nice way....i should put thought into what laundry i choose to hang.

something like this but lighter, more washed out...more yellow, more white

churning

2008-02-28T11:51:00.000-08:00

ok. maybe i don't even need to start in a house. maybe i could start with the burning body of a log and then cross dissolve to a body laying in the grass (like u think it's africa b/c it's tall grass)...but then stand up and it's like a house in the country of something and there's this clothes lines of laundry everywhere...wouln't it be cool if i could have a bird land on the line and then fly off...kind of like the messenger of the start of the reaction. the beginnings of flight, precursor to the jumping? sigh...i need a trained bird

after crit

2008-02-28T11:36:00.001-08:00

ok. so sweet i'm going to combine the ideas

need to work out details, storyboard...will do that friday night/saturday...maybe film on sunday
need to talk to ma african peeps (will do that 2night and 2morrow night)....african dance company? (but then i'd need to pay them and i don't have this money)
trampoline....need to solve this..how will i get the people to jump the way i want them to
paint...i will kill these people i i make them jump on a trampoline with paint...hmm, is paint a red herring? talk to dave
kjell's suggestion of creating a field of laundry...

developments with combining the idea:
what will the house be like? do i wann go all hut with the house? probably not. if it's more modern that could kind of create a more surreal space...b/c u don't expect necessarily to find Africans in like a middle American/country home. the protaganist (fama) will walk out into this laundry after passing the wrinkled body of a log in her house or something....will it be daylight/mid day. ...maybe mid day (the afternoon heat and the sun as a bell wringing in white sky)....myess. as she gets lost in these clotheslines of laundry, see other Africans standing up amongst the blowing cloth)....then the jumping starts...i really have to think about these transitions.

desaturated/pale color to juicy full bursting color (that in itself is uplifting.

much to think about.

inexactly beautiful

2008-02-27T22:04:00.000-08:00

inspirations:

pour the earth and stars into me
a gust inside a god. a wind.
the sun as the one bell of a hot city
the wrinkling body of a log (death of prior state?)
drifting through soft gray feathered light
floating laundry drying in the morning breeze --> angels

a body, a spirit as sound ---> i wish my parents had been musicians, and left me with themselves transformed into sound...

i slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the starts but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of teh perfect trees...all night i rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. by morning i had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

come away, o human child
to the waters and the wild
with a faery, hand in hand,
for the world's more full of weeping than you
can understand.

the birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away. we sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains. - Li Po

------------------------------------------

...my other movie idea i just got imagery that expresses exactly what i was thinking (the idea about a bridge extending boundless into the sea, the feelings of my character --> "am i a pier? half in, half out the water?"

random: i still want to make a film where i try to get the audience to fall for the protaganist...but i am not ready for this yet...

ok...the africana has been abandoned. CRAP! maybe another day.

So here's what i think i got: a morning sky awash with angels, laundry blowing in the wind,waving over her over and over again, washing her into something differnt as she approaches (underlying poetry that won't be emphasized necessarily, foreshadow to the transformation...clothes/ new outfits/ perspectives/SKIN)...walking through white laundry...u realize it is much bigger than just one clothesline. just a delicate reveal of multiple clothelines (filming technique will help it seem like this...need help with that)....and amidst the blowing the spirit ('i'm thinking young man...possibly Verne). and he touches her and opens the wheeling universe and she laughs up into the open sky

before laundry scene she wakes from somewhere summoned...the morning sun as the bell ushering us from our beds (perhaps sets a tempo?) ...as she leaves her house she passes the fireplace where we see a wrinkling log in the fire....death of previous state...she steps out into the laundry area (here is where she will fall...camera trick so that the world is upside down for a moment...hmm how to do this?)

i guess the triangle would come during the scene where he touches her. ...touches her without a face. need more time on this one

during her waking, before the field, i need pointers that show the trapped state. her mental disequilibrium. that she is one of the sheep being herded into the human barn. how do i point to this? how will she initially be summoned? things to think about...

i think that's all for now. i'm tired/ off to bed.

god damn beautiful

2008-02-27T21:52:00.000-08:00

the singing robes fly onto your body and cling there silkily,
you step out on the rope and move unfalteringly across it,

and seize the fiery knives unscathed and
keep them spinning above you, a fountain
of rhythmic rising, falling, rising,
flames,

and proudly let the chains
be wound about you, ready
to shed them, link by steel link,
padlock by padlock-

but when your graceful
confident shrug and twist drives the metal
into your flesh and the python grip of it tightens
and you see rust on the chains and blood in your pores
and you roll
over and down a steepness into a dark hole
and there is not even the sound of mockery in the distant air
somewhere above you where the sky was,
no sound but your own breath panting:
then it is that the miracle
walks in, on his swift feet,
down the precipice straight into the cave,
opens the locks,
knots of chain fall open,
twists of chain unwind themselves,
links fall asunder,
in seconds there is a heap of scrap-
metal at your ankles, you step free and at once
he turns to go-

but as you catch at him with a cry,
clasping his knees, sobbing your gratitude,
with what radiant joy he turns to you,
and raises you to your feet,
and strokes your disheveled hair,
and hold you,
holds you,
holds you
close and tenderly before he vanishes.

the poem rising by its own weight

denise levertov

this poem makes me want to cry b/c i want to scream how right the words are! how much i feel them! how beautiful they are! how beautiful he is, the miracle. this is the most beautiful fall. for me this is where i take "the spirit catches you and you fall down". i guess this moves me so b/c i find these falls and these words of sorrow so intensely beautiful. it makes me want to live life b/c it demonstrates the voice/ the other minds that are falling beyond the superficial level of life. others who are sensitive and screaming in their revelations and being so miserably and wonderfully overwhelmed. this makes me want to live life. this is upllifting.

ok, so now i'm going to go have a poetry orgy and come back.

gnosh

2008-02-26T12:48:00.001-08:00

nylon...makes sort of dirtier and vignette-esque....can see in the corner of Noel's film...makes it really orange tho so he color corrected by nuking the blacks and making them really green and then really boosting the mids. lighting schemes i should focus on planning ahead more or getting a specialist.

fama on a horse (dees's horse Rowdy...ask her) --> the spirit --> the pide piper?
Amy...so take Grace Jones as deliverance, the crashing spirit of woman, leading the more wispy women away...and then maybe the color trampoline bouncing? ...things ot think about...

african beauty

2008-02-26T11:34:00.000-08:00

ooh!

2008-02-26T11:04:00.001-08:00

oohh...maybe the red paint can move from psychological to physical...a beautiful death, maybe the bodies end up in the water, and the red paint starts to flow like blood, and becomes like the life of the bodies running off to reveal the black skin???

beginnings

2008-02-26T10:59:00.001-08:00

Grace Jones is very inspiring to me right now...powerful, black, beautiful, ANGLES ANGLES ANGLES

black people are so fjucking beautiful. i'm so proud to be black cause we're the shit. hmm, i'm really feeling my Africana right now and that definitely might have something to do with my film.

really going myth with it...the spirit catches you and you fall down, beautiful deaths. positive death. death celebration? beautiful endings with light at the end of the tunnel?

earlier trampoline idea: going back to my paint....beautiful black bodies doused in colored paint (probably red) filming them contorting with wide smiles in the air (movements African dance influenced)...slowed down in post production

ramps, inclines, smoke

need to talk to all of my Senegalese peeps

the spirit catches you and you fall down...triangles

actors

2008-02-16T21:06:00.001-08:00

my filming went terrible.

f*ck

next time i'm going to make sure and get actors who have time and who are willing.

major sigh

death poetry

2008-02-15T17:47:00.000-08:00

cannibalism...the belly of the whale

A black hole : A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing can escape after having fallen past the event horizon. an object with gravity strong enough to prevent light from escaping .

an empty version inspired from the real thing

a word fossil, a blank page, an empty book.

statue/posters of cannibals on the walls, in the courtyard?

parting words????

A parting word? Jisei nado
The melting snow zansetsu ni ka mo
is odorless. nakarikeri

The snow of yesterday Hana to mishi
that fell like cherry petals yuki wa kino zo
is water once again. moto no mizu

Tender winds above the snow Moromoro no
melt many kinds nayami mo kiyuru
of suffering. yuki no kaze

I cleansed the mirror Harai arai
of my heart...now it reflects kokoro no tsuki no
the moon. kagami kana

When autumn winds blow Nan no mama
not one leaf remains nokoru ha mo nashi
the way it was. aki no kaze

more about this world

2008-02-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

film upside down or flip it upside down in after effects?

another male floater: chase
another male floater: possibly cody wyles

man walking...his body skews...?

way of communication (black bar across face, white words appear on it...or could be a white bar with black words...?

brush walls and words appear, fall, crumble, are revealed...? what is the fossil of a word? haha...my riddle and i figured it out! an empty page....a book with now words

OK...really digesting my idea:

this is a death of two kinds...physical (represented by absent body) and spiritual/mental -> consumption of words. In this way, my buddha God is both malevolent and benevolent. Reabsorbing ppl's thoughts, what they left, it's like a complete deletion of their mark walking the earth. It is just a death. It's a deletion. Which is much more severe. And in this way, the world is very empty. Very blank. Very temporary. And always new. Malevolent and benevolent my Buddha God is like the underworld. The underworld contained in his stomach. A grave site inside a body. So why does man seek this devourer? Is he trying to reclaim something?...is he following? what words are exchanged with him and the other men standing by. And why is it a world of men? B/c the opposite sex consumes each other. Sex is oral, sexual practice involves eating, their is a softness and comfort found in women. This world is void. It is stripped. And no consumption is going on other than that of the buddha. Buddha is the black hole....when he eat's u hear a crunch.

what type of a man walks into a black hole? And he asks, "is this it?"

salvation of the forgotten millions...title???

at end, michael's shoes come off, bare collar bone, bathed in light

SOOO...what is the environment...where will i film? South Seattle...industrial, will nicely and oddly complement "zen-ness"

SOUND
-wouldn't make sense to hear words clearly b/c they were consumed, so maybe echoing like from a deep well (the black hole)...can't really make out anything, echoes and radiowaves,whispers of the wind

SARTE - hole philosophy

-"you don't know a man till u walk two moons in his moccasins" --> need to reinvent this

2008-02-15T15:48:00.000-08:00

adding motivation to man character...man is wearing weights on his legs, and a mask over his mouth

solidified

2008-02-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

OK guys. Got my idea.

Man: potential actor = Michael Skinner....other options= Julia's friend, julia's actor (forgot their names)
Buddha/God/Theif/Consumer = Ben Ossia ... absolutely wonderful for the part

Materials needed

Black goo of word souls to be eaten by Ben: big thingy of yohgurt, black food coloring (Safeway)
Lights --> Glazers...ok..we seriously need more lights for this class cuz i'm broke
Men's Shoes --> collecting shoes from people's Dads (my dad, alexis shoes, julia's dad)
Buddha Earrings - Gold, in car
Microphone --> Alexis

Man walking around...empty shoes lying in places where ppl UPped. Like someone who was climbing the stair...one on one step, one on above step....man leaning against wall/or waiting for the bus...shoes surrounding them as other ppl who UPped while waiting for the bus too. ALL SHOES MUST BE UNTIED. The whole world will be scintillating (after effects)...can photo shop Ben blue (motion control photoshop zombie creative cow tutorial). As passes or nears the shoes can hear voices of words that were sucked up. (Alexis sound help)...need to pick out words carefully/maybe things about expression but also casual things...sometimes see trickle of words waft by, very subtle and very fast/sketchy...arrives at the buddha who eats this black goo...words sprout on his body...an "a" dribbles down his chin. See Man's shoes start to undo themselves.

Look out for storyboards/shooting locations posted 2night!

BUDDHA IMAGES

mistaken blog posts

2008-02-14T10:51:00.002-08:00

so i realized on tuesday that i've been posting to the wrong blog for awhile...so if you haven't seen anything new on this blog for a while, sorry...i was accidently posting on a different blog. i just transferred over some of the recent stuff from the accidental blog postings to this one, the correct one...so if you want to see what i've been thinking you can now read below.

more erUPtions

2008-02-14T10:51:00.001-08:00

having up embedding in things like words or things ppl are saying discretely in video.....hulia!

up videos

2008-02-14T10:50:00.001-08:00

...i had a bunch of u tube videos here but i don't feel like transferring them

PICK UP

SHUT UP...and drive....b/c Rihanna's hot

7 UP ...this is like the best thing ever

F*CKED UP

ok...f

2008-02-14T10:49:00.001-08:00

i'm dead...and floating up up uppity up up shut

in anti-gravity.

Somewhere
between gray metal and foreign energies,

where plains of collected gas and space gather and
thread,

a soul could contemplate retirement
a million inches above home.

Blinking lights and flying machines
carry us to Chinese places.
Physics and engines, Bernoullian law,
even the sky is permeable to these powers and
visions framed by a square of plastic.

But beyond this clear, closer
to the angled perspectives we crane to see,

the clouds move in quiet herds.
The sun catches their edges,
penetrates their curve,
moistens the throat of a mass that begins to breathe.
In pinks
and blues it salivates and swells, fills with God,
reveals its kept horizon.
A Universe of beginnings.
An ocean where the great whale that is soul can beach.

Here,
where the torrents of wind and weight would crush a
bone,
Here,
where pitches deafen and explode,
Here,
where we'd fall

in a place not meant for man

is where an angel resides,
in anti-gravity.

PUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUPUP!

God sucking back up the earth...but not a god we know necessarily...more like a black hole, a mouth with cavities, and everyone's being deleted and drinking 7up.

hey zeus -> jesus...pointing up...reflection is pointing down...i'm tired of reflections so it'd have to be subtle...sodom and gomorrah...how the hell do u spell that??? ionno

kind of like how they portrayed hal...some huge close framed thingy that was sucking up everyone...a straw? one big ass straw and god sucks up everyone like a 7up 7-11 slushy....SLURP! big bang reversal

people popping out of their shoes....everyone's migrating up...all that's left is their shoes...a bunch of shoes everywhere and no people...pop

ok...how bout this....: i love words..here's something i wrote on words:

Satisfaction,
I think, for me,
comes with the knowledge of knowledge.
As I wonder through such and such page of such and such book I happen to currently have in my possession, other circumstances can rarely rival the feeling produced upon discovery that an understanding has been reached. In a private club of some education or reader’s thoroughfare, I understand what someone else has said. The velvet ropes open. I can see them and their mark in the pages and know there’s a private commonality. I can track what they have tracked and see the mother of their deduction. Me 2006 and some man of time, history time, anytime, have looked over the same pages and sifted through the same paragraphs, learned the same methodologies. A mention of construct, hypotheses, effect size & p…and there’s a language I can speak, we are scientists maybe. A reference to Orpheus and I know the meaning, the significance, the religion, a past God even. The drop of a name and behold illumination, an ability acquired from the steady pursuit and dedication to the leftovers that many have dubbed “education”. That is the power of a university. In this billion minute history we call humanity, in this temporary book marriage, I can discover and learn and theorize and philosophize with a companion of infinity. Ah what joy is mine to know that despite all things forgotten in time, some rippling word, idea, or memory can find both of us, and what fortune is ours that we can share in each other.

... It rains a lot here, which gives good opportunity for a lot of blank staring, or contemplation. Rain tends to do that, moodiness. It puts you in a mood, renewal or depression, inspiration or utter stupor but it’s a moody thing. Anyway, zillions of raindrops plock against everybody’s windows and drip their way down to holes and find their way back to the sky. One drop decides to suck its way down in front of you, a path that you happen to catch, and it maybe hold’s your attention for a minute. With the bustle of everything you have to do and the busy bustle of rain itself perhaps you don’t give a lot of thought to that one drop. Or maybe you do. Anyway, it doesn’t really last. This is something natural. But that existence applied to people becomes a bit unsettling, or a whole lot unsettling to some. I mean, the crazy egotist who slaps the ground with a heavy boot and like a grizzled 1493 pioneer tries to embed his existence is far from uncommon. But perhaps I’m a bit grizzled because I don’t like the idea of being a nameless bit of infinity either. However, my wish to leave behind a leftover, admittedly not completely selfless act, really comes from a deep desire to contribute to something which I admire above all else and something that is, I believe, divinely beautiful. The words of us. The words of us.

Perhaps now my giddy delirious joy talk up there makes more sense. Literature is the human mind on paper. Psychology of the years. All the keys to our futures and answers to questions lie in what has been said long ago, by somebody else, and what new things you can create come because we listened to something, we experienced, we were inspired by another man’s theory. I feel that many of us are looking for some type of meaning, some type of answer, some feeling, even if we don’t have a question. I have been bogged down by these thoughts. What is beautiful in this world? Although our nature can reach equilibrium, it is overwhelmingly ugly. Too many people give into this, our human nature. Things become pointless, why are we doing things at all?, there’s a million explanations. And conclusions can always be wrong, probably are. Nothing can ever be proven really, only falsified. Is it enough to take pleasure in one cozy thing, and leave something else unfulfilled? Is there really such a thing as reality or is it all our individual perceptions? Does our existence matter? Is it meaningful? Every corner turned is a quagmire, and food for thought doesn’t satiate.

Then one evening in Shanghai I had dinner. And after watching a greasy chef aptly crack the neck of some unlucky duck, and us nibbling its grease, feeling sophisticated that we had experienced something “peking”, I migrated to the deck outside. The breeze was soft, the lights were blinking, and some warm sensation inhabited my stomach circling, something comforting, like Buddha. I let my senses operate smoothly and gather in all that color and twinkling light and let my eyes organize the perspectives of the tall buildings. A boat on the water birthed fire and works and its ringing peaceable broke my air. From above the strolling couples, the striding students, the stumbling toddler all transformed to little electrons pushing their way through a neural highway and like that, on a balcony in Shanghai, drunk on blinking light, a heavy piece of the puzzle gently found its place. They’re all trying. They’re all trying. Everybody was, is, are trying to live. And it was beautiful. And everything thing else, all the other questions, seemed less important and partly answered. And there was a platform in the quagmire. It didn’t diminish it’s monstrous size or depth but lifted you out of it just enough to see it from different air.
We’re all trying, no matter what darkness we’ve found ourselves in, no matter the person we are, have become, or used to be. That is beauty. That is history. That is a simple truth. That is what poetry is. It is my satisfaction, it is what the Book can become.

------------

-so basically b/c i have orgasms over words...all the words of people float UP! and away and maybe there's a junk pile of all the words or something and some fat man is eating them all and getting like a really huge manipulative dictator brain....wow

-someone eats Buddha and gravitates up to nirvana...UP!...hmmm but that could be way too controversial.....eating buddha...how do u eat nirvana? or maybe just like the warmth of Buddha or the holiness of him like consuming his teachings....omg they could eat his words/his teachings! this ties in with the other idea! wooot!

2008-01-19T11:57:00.000-08:00

rearranging the pictures to proper position then film starts going...broken pictures
body parts mixrf

..oh, and the assignment

2008-01-17T12:46:00.001-08:00

Woman with a movie camera; edit a narrative from 30 minutes of
spontaneous, unscripted POV footage shot in places you’ve never been

before, with people you don't know. While on location focus on
lighting and composition, and while editing pay attention to pacing
and structure.

gwag!

2008-01-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

-someone going around with a polaroid…only by snapping pictures of themselves can you see what they are feeling
-doesn’t make sense, different people

manipulating time…b/c stacked on top of each other, collision of edits, time and space doesn’t necessarily have to make sense…play with this

Soviet Montage:

based on conflicts of scale, volume, rhythm, motion (speed, as well as direction of movement within the frame), as well as more conceptual values such as class.

-each portion leads to a certain emotion, when that emotion is reached – or on the breach of being reached scene changes

places I’ve never been….love, complete vulnerability, the moon, the bottom of the ocean, things I’ve never fit into…uniformity, fitting in, all of my insecurities

big hand vs smaller man’s hand…tough calluses, growing out of position…on ground, the step, then table till I’m a giant

a film, a trailer, for something that will never happen, in places I’ve never been

turning down staircases, as round the corner on different staircases (one by 20th apartment)…walk up and away

Trailers:
Misleading?? – bad ones maybe → if tell the whole story definitely bad
Want to make people see it – different psychology there and methodology of working
Moments that never happen
Looking at a film, analyzing it, and reinterpreting it
Title sequence often better than the film itself
Like a poem or haiku of the film
Intro to great novel kind of
Opportunity to make the film of your dreams, just make the trailer for it

Typography

-about visual language
-william tell apple poster – the text actually is encoded with the meaning

-trailer: a film within a film
themes into symbolic forms
introduction, throwing audience into general world of the film
Bond films – intro with circles, bullets, and women →power of intro

Barbarella intro w/ jane fonda – zero gravity strip tease
-words are adolescent in behavior – the words can have personality

working with or against the music

---ringing of a bell, rippling water reverbing out, drop, as hits bell hits letters form

-the typographic voice

hehehe

2008-01-14T17:30:00.001-08:00

dis make me happy

http://raygirl.deviantart.com/art/Hear-Me-Colour-66389052

film as a palindrome

2008-01-14T16:41:00.000-08:00

2008-01-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

disclaimer: if anyone borrows my ideas i will beat them up! >.<

2008-01-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

Harpies
I want to write of girls free and vicious like lions, tearing at branches and beating silver backed chests. I want to talk of little girls of fire and spit! After weighted walking, they’re running through the streets. War calling. Jumping into space.

Something’s in my skin and I can’t get it out. I wriggles and writhes like an insidious worm through the pockets of my bone. It fastens my muscle to my flesh. No matter how much I stretch I can’t flex it out.

Toe flexing sinews.

Something in my mother died last month. Today I looked up, and the weight of sorrow and fatigue in her eyes was enough to discern even through her glasses. This is not a poetic line. This is not a description quoting the typical tale of distraught women surviving. This is my own mother, and her eyes are heavy, and I didn’t even notice, and it pains me. When exactly did this occur? It could’ve been years ago! This ghost, hanging in a droop, in the groove of her wrinkles. It’s sick. I missed it. To realize that you haven’t been awake, you haven’t been watching, you haven’t checked, haven’t turned around to check what is now or what is home. Yesterdays left and today I found my mother wrenching, quietly, as she watched over me, like she always has, and now I’m pained. From the pits of my being something rang so horribly hollow. A wind blew inside me, all throughout. That is what it is to be sick. Hollowness of being. An emptying.

Dream Slip.
Somewhere near the beginning of time, we lived in agricultural peace amongst warriors akin to Gods. These demi-Gods watched over our villages, and were a source of beauty, grace, and pride. They served as representatives for our lands, and utilized their talents in service and aid. They were celebrated as swans amongst birds. There was no jealousy.
This peace however was new, and proceeded a time of great violence and bloodshed. A time where brute strength and malicious wit was valued over honor and understanding. A time when breaking another man paid off more than showing him kindness.
In these dark times, the demi-Gods were employed by their city-states in the sole interest of slaughter. In an unending struggle for power, their superior skill, agility, mental, and athletic prowess was prized above everything because it gave them the ability to black out life. Their divine gift gave fat senators a right to rule, their divine gift beat upon the heads of those who cannot stand against the wind. People were ripped from the plots of their life.
Powerful yet malleable these warriors were weak, as most creatures are, against the ever tireless and agile hands of human manipulation. So we shaped them to resemble hell’s fury, we shaped them to bore out holes reflecting our emptiness. We let them loose. We said kill. They killed.
But these brutal times grew tired, worn, and eventually ceased. Governments failed as they always do. Man returned to the earth to taste the salt on his lips and feel the sweat on his brow. He returned to the sensations born under the sun that unfailing nourishes everyone. Steady hands and quiet labor. He forgot his dreams of dominance, traded black for blue sky, and violence rippled further and further away until it was only a shiver in our memories, only when the wind whispered.

To be continued…

film ideas spilling

2008-01-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

A shadow, drowning in a city of sunlight. Walking out in the street, amongst all the people, falling away. Maybe just a footprint of where it was last standing.

a short trip to hell, briefcase, masked figures surrounding you, standing in a line, hell masked in a city, like waiting in line to enter a building or something, men in coats and hats

sinking in the water, a shoe slipping off revealing a bare foot…maybe that of a child, or no, a sandal slipping

white sheets flowing composited to make water

the life of a star, living isolated in the sky looking down at the grains of sand that are the people wishing upon it below, receiving the wishes…cataloging them. → like commercial in a big circle lit from behind

calling out to each other, echoing, across great distances, across the mountains…Ikue Asazaki

I had a dream once. The sky was grey and milky. Vaporous clouds sifted through the different levels of atmosphere like oil. A man had drunk up the earth as if by a straw, and all that remained of the ocean was a soft smell of salt and a large extended puddle. By that time the fish had already sprouted wings. Flittering and flopping through they air, they look like drunk and awkward dragonflies with a weight too heavy for tenuous wings. Goggle eyed they stare up and down at me as I float by. Up on the streets people ride the trolleys. Fastened to electric cable’s they propel on one-way tracks. They dart like beetles, full of city men. The clanging of their bells has left a permanent melody in my head. One travels by air balloon to the docks below. The construction men work down there. The smash of their hammers and the slice of their drill is my lullaby at night. Their working never ceases. It’s cause of the state-wide policy: to build a bridge across to the Eastern lands. Each day they drill down into the mud and establish a foundation. From there they lay down plank upon plank stretching outward. What would the Chinese say do you think? If you walked right up to their doorstep from the sea? The dock must be miles long now. It’s the edge of the earth. Many of the men walk down those planks and don’t come back. It’s just too far! To travel back and forth like that. Sure, they have a special trolley that moves along the bridge. It can get them back home in a couple of days. But out there, they say they work straight under the horizon. That out there, the clouds move in quiet herds. The sun catches their edges, and penetrates their curves. It moistens the throat of a mass that begins to breath. Breaking through in golds and blue the sky salivates and swells, fills with God, and reveals the kept horizon. At the beginning it was like a stubby root, a tongue sticking itself out. The dock reaches like a long finger now, pointing to something I cannot see. When infinity is but a long walk out to sea, I wonder why it is that I’m still sitting here.

escape

2007-11-30T13:03:00.000-08:00

so u guys kind of made me psychologically unload what i unconsciously hid in my piece. it made me reflect about the past and yeah, the underneath meaning of it all is probably more "escape" than "death". i still want to stick with some of my ideas of how to make the video, but perhaps i'll add another more subtle layer. however, i did kind of want it to be grandiose and nonsensical. we'll see....

escape.

Update

2007-11-29T10:35:00.000-08:00

Filmed hardcore on Saturday and Sunday. Filmed hardcore yesterday. Gonna film hardcore again on Saturday.

I have two different themes working right now and I plan to fuse them together.
1) return to fantastical childhood where dreaming in waking isn't crazy, weird, and is entirely possible. looking for that door to take you somewhere else. death without actually having to do the act. just leaving to someplace else. living in innocence and beauty internally. never having to lose that every lifetime.

2)my concert piano past. the torture. being killed by music. being consumed by the fire. launch into madness. instead of conquering it the alternate reality is losing to it and being consumed completely. death by music.

fusion: the tragedy of that loss of magic, in passion and music the death and remembrance of innocence and ease, a haunting.

we'll see what it ends up as when i make it. things might change.

yup.

damn

2007-11-27T12:35:00.000-08:00

recorded a bunch of schtuff this weekend. then got another idea. gotta film again. damn.

Insight into Assignment Trois!

2007-11-17T13:02:00.001-08:00

OK, so thanks for all the crit about the titles and timing and cheesy effects and all that good stuff...it will be noted for the future. In case you guys wanted to know more about what I tried to accomplish and just what was bubbling around in my head when i made this...I'm going to write about my piece.

OK, my title was Revolutions of 60 and as I explained it was about ways we break time despite being biological creatures that are bound to an existence with time. At the beginning, I breifly titled each haiku in the theme they portrayed about time....bound, infinetly, imploding, remembering, daydreams.

I'm not going to write too much about each haiku because I prefer it when people can take different things from art and when things are open and ambiguous...but...

Bound haiku was about man being bound by time. I think this was pretty obvious...that's all I'm really gonna say.

Infinite haiku represented one of the ways we attempt to break time, attemps at being infinite. The moments in humanity or in individual lives that are infinite, even though we biologically die. This is where the statues tie in...portraits of ourselves that are infinite.

Impolding haiku was kind of the nature of humans coupled with our relationship with time. We are constantly moving forward b/c we have to, b/c we must look to a future to survive. Yet we live so heavily from our pasts that we kind of implode on ourselves. This was kind of the underneath thinking process in my editing but I wasn't really trying to portray this heaviness at first glance. I edited the piece so that the beginning contains the end and the end contains the beginning and the final product is a pop! However, I also wanted to show the personal space of the bus and tie that in with the ride of our lives....blah blah blah

Remembering haiku is probably my favorite and pretty loaded. It's like a flashback, another way we break time. Lose ourselves into a different reality in another time. I tried to tap into some eternal emotions here, and purposefully left it pretty open b/c I want it to represent so many things in different people's minds. Of course I have my preferred interpretation but I ain't sayin! ^_^

Daydreams haiku is similar to the remembering one as far as escaping into other times and making that become ur current reality goes. I wanted to show the breaking and split literally...so you see her revolving with her daydream.....perhaps the effect was cheesy...but i still kinda like it, haha, oh well.

so that's all.

2007-10-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

this weekend completed all my shooting...might do some additional shots later if needed, or inspired
sound issue? filmed sound won't work completely. need to solve..go out and get sound?
today will attempt to transfer shots from tape to hardrive so i can work while out of town this week.

random brain spilling

2007-10-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

bubble gum pop connective thread ...things that give/renew, things that take away....change of states, pop

return of animation:gray garden...dark matter: consumption...the bubble pop:bus change/release....bound by time: grandfather clock man....walking disappearing peoplle

piece is an infinite loop, evidenced by ending, bus comes back at end but not on it, outside of it ...inside and out of it...our existence is on a bus, and we're trying to get out of it, watching our old selves come by (all characters originally on it)

black paint
gum
tarp
gray paint
art building? hose down
bus --> know times

Actors:

bus: ---
dark matter: becky/rocco
grandfather clock: dad, male actor (mike...mark (umbrella man))
statues: reanimation girl....julia/alexis/other male/clcok man...possible other male
walking:where? julia/alexis/random others? lisa chase

transition --> sillborn baby look from g-pa clock to still garden
bus --> foreign finger popping, the forces you never know when where who how they will strike
stain on g-pa's shirt trans from black paint

on the bus...dark matter...clock man....stillborn garden...walking to road

2007-10-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

Alright....tonight's gonna be a long night but i've changed by idea. after really getting into the project some adjustments were needed. all i'll say for now is that my projects kind of about reverse birth.

aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh

2007-10-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

yea....i definitely learned something. i learned that my idea isn't working at all, it's coming out reaaaalllllyyyy cheesy. so...uh, i'm in the process of trying to save myself.

Sentiments

2007-10-11T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the emotions I want to play with in this film:

"One by one I watch them leave my side, leave the darkness, leave this misery that wraps me round and round and under. I watch them fly. To be great, to know greatness, one has to have visited the deepest pools of sorrow. Why am I still here? Why am I still here?"

"Maybe aviation has become a fruitless dream. "

"They mistake my strength, and slap my hands harder. But what they don’t realize is I’m not who I used to be. I am Icarus, fallen from high sky. Burnt by a sun. I sleep in an ocean so slow and cold that even I cannot wake from this slumber, no matter how hard they shake me. I was broken by the time I arrived. I can't."

Official Idea

2007-10-11T15:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not posting sooner! We just now got Internet in our hotel rooms!

OK, so the final idea I'm going with is a very intimate look at someone desperately trying to hold on and pull him/herself up. This is going to be demonstrated literally, in that I'm going to have a person hanging off a ledge, trying to pull him/herself up. There are going to be others hanging off as well. Somehow, they manage to succeed, they reach their goal, they pull themselves up, they leave the threat of the abyss. But the character of focus, no matter how hard they try, no matter what they do to attempt to control the forces around them, they cannot pull up. My film will focus on the emotional hardship, the breaking of strength, and what happens when strength/hope/happiness runs out....an imminent fall? The juxtaposing element will be a kind of smiling face constantly facing the protagonist, almost mocking, almost benevolent, almost sadistic, maybe angelic that constantly taunts the person hanging. It is the constant view from up above, from where the "hanger" wants to be, the hand that is seemingly being offered in aid, something that has control...but that can't be grasped either. It is something to taunt you to insanity and magnifies the utter failure in the inability to pull upwards.

This will be shot in the dark. Use of lights will help visibility. Still considering various optical effects. Storyboards in formation. (Would post them but in lack of a scanner...bah) Have actors and film date set.

Start up

2007-10-08T23:20:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

OK, so this is the start of my blog...

ASSIGNMENT ONE:

My brain's been kind of dead recently, but here's a meddely of things that have been swirling around up there:

Peephole/keyhole --> shooting through that
A light source above a fan...light getting sprayed around
Mirror on the floor - somebody walks across it, record that
idea 1: maps of light ...man's illumination, loss of knowledge, lightness and darkness, evolution, following maps of light, navigating by light, constellations, shadows...

idea 2: city of shadows (wrote a poem about that)......................how the hell am i gonna do that?

idea 3: allegory of life...people in a room, the clock = the light of the sun moving across the floor (shining thru a window), as the day sets life closes, day closes, possibilities close, human emotions, shadow cast faces, interacting all with a chair, solo, barren feel......CLICHE?????

idea 4: randomness...trying to figure out how to pull this one together: trapt by light, lights changing the dynamics of the environment : dude walking down the street at night, (using car headlights) strong beams of light shine, more shine, enclosing him, they have a "weight" and "force", can push and pull him...new scene: bowl of white paint, bowl of black paint..character dips head in black paint, everything goes to black, absence of light...dude dips his head in white paint...everything goes to white....how do i eliminate a shadow? bah

i'm a little worried. i can't really seem to settle on something i'm happy with. so far, i think the trapped by light (headlights of a car, me-he 0_0) is my number one. prrreeesssuuure. gah

jill