Light Journal #1 and #2

Light Journal 1

The skylights in my living rom run parallel to each other. They are spaced about 2 feet apart and my ceiling is about 15 feet above the floor. They are incredibly annoying. We can never control the light in our apartment. Between the two large skylights hangs a fan that is continuously in motion, since we can't afford A/C right now. It's either gas or A/C right now. The result of the constant circular motion of the fan and streaming sunlight is interesting to see. My entire living room floor appears to be living. The circular shadows fall on the floor and on the chairs. it's hypnotizing. All my furniture looks like its squirming. The entire room moves and pulses.

Light Journal 2

My roomate always leaves her light on in her closet. She has a serious night light addiction even though its known that nightlights can cause breast cancer ladies! But that's a whole other conversation. She has blackout curtains in her room to ensure proper napping. Because of the curtains, her room is void of almost all light. When you see her closet backlit while the lights are off in her room, its straight out of a horror movie. The only light that escapes comes from the rim of the door. Light escapes especially from under the door frame creating a light walkway leading to her door. The rectangular rim of lights is magic.

Black and White Photos that move me.

Yeah I like Danny Glover.

Review of Assignment 1b.

I had no idea that assignment 1b would be so tedious. I like the sonic aspect of film ver very much. In fact I'm interested in music videos, but remixing sounds for the project "At the Doll Hospital" is killing me. I've spent over three hous in the lab trying to get to 2 minutes and 30 seconds and I am still very unhappy with the results. It's going to take at least another 3 hours with Jordan and my complete attention. To figure out how to drop the filters and to understand which filter gives the desired result has taken the most time. I thought I would be much better at this than I am. Making creepy sounds that aren't cheesy is harder than I expected.
The other night I was in the editing lab putting filters and speeding up laughs so they sounded really high pitched and creepy. The lights shut off in the lab and I ran out. It scared the crap out of me.
Sorry I sound whiny. I just miss the visual. Shooting on 35mm this weekend will definitly spice up this assignment. peace.

Review of Assignment 1a.

The best part of assignment 1a was meeting Brandon and Emily. The second best part of assignment 1a was following people closely with a shotgun microphone trying to pick up on their conversations (that unfortunately were void of interest.) Actually, it made me a little sad that out of the 4 or so groups of people we "stalked" nary a one were actually talking to eachother. People need to spice it up a little bit.
Getting the sounds didn't take too long, but logging, capturing, and creating the log with the sounds and times was extremely time consuming and tedious. Very, very, tedious. I hope I never have to do that again. I think better things are to come with 1b. Although, I have been known to want to leave the very second I sit down in the editing lab to work on a project. blah blah blah

Sound Journal

1) Small water fountain in lobby of my work. I'm trying to block out the sounds of the cars passing by outside the window as I concentrate on the small fountain. The water drops about 6 inches and plinks plinks down a corrugated surface to land on polished rocks. The individual drops hitting the rocks. I am pleased that I can easily concentrate on the plinking water. It has an extremely calming effect. Although, it kind of sounds like pee or bubbles popping. I feel so gullible for enjoying this sound. In the past five minutes I have gone from energized to drowsy due to this damn plinking of the fountain....

2) Now I am listening to cars passing by outside my work on S. College Road at (:45 in the morning on a rainy Thursday in late August. I absolutely love the rise and fall of the hum of slow traffic outside work. Its rumbling hum that is so incredibly melodic. The large glass windows suppress the sound of the engines but the sound of the tires on wet pavement still manages to waft into the lobby. The slight rattling of the glass is aids to the solid sound.

Reading Responses

I just reread the Hans Richter article so that I could write this reading response with the text fresh in my mind. I liked that he drew the conclusion that experimental filmmakers are in their own sense original artists and not dependent on literature. I believe Richter's article tried to touch on such a broad range of topics in too short of an article. It felt like I was constantly was trying to keep up.

Scott McDonald's article was definitely the most comprehensive and easiest to relate to. I liked his concept that because audiences have been trained started at an early age to believe that a narrative feature film is the only acceptable type of movie. When I saw my first experimental films in Kreul's class last year, I admit I was counting down the minutes till it was over. I considered it a film, but not entertaining nor enjoyable. I love the whole idea that experimental film could serve as a cultural revolution. yay.




Finally, Fred Camper's article just amused me. I love that he even attempted to put parameters on experimental film. Good luck with that Camper. His article further affirmed to me that Stan Brakhage is the man. According to Brakhage, the term Avant-Garde was " too European " and "Underground " film making was also a misnomer because he lives "9000 ft about sea level." Glorious.

My roomate and Lucas are explaining why the Caribou want us to pipe out the oil in Alaska. Something about the pipes creating heat and workers dropping food for them to eat. They are convincing me slowly. F Anwar