48 Hour Film Race... 54 Hour Film Race...

The 48 Hour film race was a bunch of fun. I thought it was a good way to wrap up all the things we learned in six by one. Personally, this film race taught me that it is still possible to make quality work without having much sleep, something that has seemed to be a constant theme of the semester. Going into the race I was not terribly excited. I had way too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it. I was like great, on top of my exams and final projects now I have to completely improv a film and dedicate myself to this project for the next two days. The night before the start, Sunday I believe, my darling Annie and I stayed up all night interviewing each other for the documentary I have been directing for 495 all semester. We had long drawn out emotional conversation that seemed to last forever. Many conclusions were reached in my mind about the nature of technology and its relationship to human kind. I, not willing or able to fall asleep, decided to spend the early hours of Monday morning returning my equipment and logging my footage until 12:00, the time of the mystery prop. I show up to the film studies office to hear Andre’ explaining the assignment to Chris- patiently waiting outside, I hear him say, “it has to be one minute long, and it doesn’t have to make any sense.” A sense of relief pours over my soul because I knew my sleep deprived waking consciousness was unable to produce logical thoughts anyways. I remember feeling slightly disappointed at the idea of a cookie cutter for no good reason at all. I fumbled through all cookie cutters trying to find my perfect match. The dolphin, the foot, and the star intrigued me, but ultimately my fate rested with the dog bone. I’ve been working for this Organic Dog food company called BLUE all semester on the weekends. I pet puppies and kitties and tell their parents about the health benefits of feeding their animals a healthy balanced diet. I don’t think I would have ended up with the dog bone had I not worked this job all semester. Anyways, I carefully drove home after securing my mystery prop to take the photos. I had been planning on using Photo booth on Annie’s Macbook as my method of acquiring footage. I had success with it one time shooting an image sequence with the built in mirror effect. I realized that the dog bone had a plane of bilateral symmetry, like the human body or a face, and that this would probably look cool with the mirror effect on. Still with no sleep, I take lots of pictures with the built in counter beeping 1 2 3 before each photo. After a while I grabbed some mirrors and started trying to shoot the dog bone inside of it. The slinky and the googley eye glasses happened to be right next to me when I was shooting and became what I think was the best part of the film. I threw it together while falling asleep in animation class that afternoon and was done with it by the evening. I think it was more fun to make than any other film I’ve ever made. As ive watched it more the symbolism starts to make more sense to me. In lots of ways the slinky tries to get across the concept of dualities link to oscillation and mirrors in a way symbolize the many layers of reality. Of course, that could all mean something completely different to anyone else watching the film. I like the venture into personal meaning. I had a blast that night at Jengo’s. Wish I didn’t have to go straight to work afterwords, but it was still loads of fun. I think my favorite part was the instillation pieces, but everything was fun and awesome to watch. This semester more than others has let me learn to apprieciate the talented community of filmmakers at our school and has brought optimism about all of our projects. 6x1 let me relax and breathe enough to start to hit at my true artistic voice. Watching so many films from my classmates enabled me to see their individual artistic styles and in turn help to develop my style. I also think that if I ever go on to become a teacher of film this class has opening up a door in the right kind of attitute to approach exploration. I look forward to surfing future 6x1 blogs to see how the class develops, and wish the best of luck to all the kids in class this year. THANKS and HAVE AN AWESOME BREAK. SLEEP!!!!!!

stream of consciousness is the only way I think

Universal healthcare,
Human welfare,
Happiness is what you make of life

Muslims pray every day,
Some of us think that’s not OK,
But who are we to say,
we “know what’s right” to believe in.

The media never seems to stop screaming in our ears,
The man won’t stop capitalizing on our fears,
What do you believe in?

Was it something you were told?
While you were young-
And the message was old-
Are all things created equally?

Take a river ride down the stream of consciousness,
Surf the wave of thoughts and feelings,
Believing-

The weak cry when tensions run high,
Do you fear for your life?
What makes any day different from the rest?
What’s the difference between the better and the best?
No pain without pleasure, pleasure without pain
Hard to gain with no loss or lose with no gain,

You’re living on a scale of infinite proportion.
You’re living on a scale for free,
The stakes are high-
And your thoughts might feel dry-
But still,
You’re compelled to try to know exactly why.

Push on forward,
Yes we can,
Push on push on as hard as you can,

What’s love is right and what’s hate is wrong,
But both are part of life’s circular song,

Relax and believe,
Create and relate,
Bridging gaps among people can destroy all the hate,
Identity remembers and thinks with your head,
Because no know what happens right after your dead.

FoundFootageFoundFootageFoundFootage

Not everyone can relate to what you and I appreciate... we can all relate to somthing.

Different ways to produce images

Scanners
Putting a piece of paper over an object and shading it
Imagination (not sure how to get them back)
Security Cameras
Cell phone cameras
Animating Pictures

The camera obscura (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura) was once used by painters to trace images of reality. It may have been valuable in humanities understanding it the fundamentals of perspective.

The thing I like about the idea of a 48 hour film race is the opportunity and necessity of improvisation. Being able to quickly improv is a valuable skill that can be used for evil, but also can get one out of sticky situations. Film is not a medium known for its improvisation, mainly due to what makes a film a film. Jazz is about being in the moment- you have a chord progression, we feel a melody, but still anything can happen. Its like a random conversation, it could be about anything, but the rhythm is born from listening and responding. While painting strives for the same ideals of music, improvisation seems to play less of a role in painting as it does in music. Perhaps this is because paintings are normally painted by a single artist, where music is a conversation among the many. Regardless, I feel like film is normally stuck to the constructs of the painting, where its permentability (?) tends to outweigh the emphasis on improvisation. Theater can be all about improvisation, which reminds me of the rough theater article we read earlier this year. I think the best ideas magically arrive in the minds of the moment, and i think that this 48 hour film race might just conjure up the inspiration to improvise brilliance towards the end of the year. I like the idea of film as an event. It bothers me how much it seems like the media, which filmmaking in all it's genres seems to frame, plays such a monumental role in the way we communicate and understand our reality. I think kids today have a perception of history and future shaped strongly by the images in the media that they have discovered and less by the knowledge they were A. Told or B. Read about. We go to movies in theaters, watch them in silence with strangers, then leave most of the time without mentioning a single word to the community we had just shared emotional experiences with. The fact that our civilization can produce art on the screen that is so seemingly real or produces messages we understand as important enough to believe in, get angry about, or even shed a tear over seems to only emphasize the importance of understanding those images to the point that we understand why they make us feel the way that they do. While this is possible to do alone, the probability of a group that shares emotions and knowledge with each other seem to open up an infinitely larger amount of possibilities than the single mind. I have enjoyed studying film in college for this reason and am excited that the 48 film seems to so strongly emphasize the idea of experiencing film as an event in a type of communal experience. I feel it’s analogous to when our ancestors would sit around a campfire and tell stories to each other (the midnight society).I suppose there’s good practice to the games we play. I like how this class has had limitations on the films we make. Normally that sort of thing annoys me but over the semester I think I’m beginning to see the benefits of it. Well yeah, it should be fun.

I leave you with this.

Can you own an idea? (can you own anything at all?)

What did you create? Creator? Why fluster existence with a wink of the eye? Purpose? Purpose to anything? We are tools for the greater picture- a step in the process, a feeling of progress, a flow of the past, present, future. Always in one place, everything else is shifting; the personal world revolves around you!

What are your ideas? Where do they come from? How did they get here? The past revolves around you. Your past is who you are at this point of the timeline. You’re a sum of the products before you, the entire range! Evolution, society, history; everything is a process and we are stuck in the middle of it.

You can’t completely own an idea because your idea was partially created by what inspired you to create it. An idea is a portal back to the whole. Like lightening, an idea needs two points of connection: the individual and the world. The exchange of energy creates magnetic fields that direct the process.

The first four letters of freedom is free. If our country is truly free we will abolish on copyright the things that massage our senses. It is apparent through studying history that the highest values of a culture are most strongly reflected through its artistic expression, limiting this expression seems anti-human. An artist can’t control individual’s interpretations of their own art, why should they limit to what others can do with it. It is completely necessary in evolution that we are able to use images and video in the most productive way possible to assure proper communications and reflections of the whole. I believe that it is more useful for images to be available for use than not for use. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words and images will never hurt me, or should I say society.

A bird doesn’t completely choose the song it sings. While it’s temperament affects the things it says, and in many ways there seems to be an internal independent energy that wants to say them, it still falls down to the result of a long math equation of circumstances. Even down to the evolution of the species vocal chords and its need to mate to survive. Birds songs help bring birds together all feeling spring from events beyond those feelings. Nerveless, the sound of the birdsong is what it is at that particular moment, and the bird can sing its song loudly and proudly. Sure, the bird “made the sound up”. But it doesn’t own it. I know birds aren’t trying to buy and sell their songs, but I think most of us agree that the sound is nature, and excuse me (or don’t) for sounding Native American but something seems wrong / disrespectful about buying and selling nature. Art, photography, the Molotov man, and anything you’ve ever experience from your first and last breath to the blog on this page is in some way nature and its only in the greatest advantage of man to share and harmonize with this great gift as much as possible.

We live in a time where the public is beginning to realize that technology is fundamentally changing the manner that we receive information. I think it is wrong to blatantly resell a persons work as your own, but I do not see any problem in using someone else’s finished product as a piece of your own. The world is a collage as it is. Art makes people happy, I wish money didn’t make people feel greedy or angry.

Below I posted a video below from the “future” that talks about Prometheus, a revolution released by Google (in the future). By this time of the future, scientist have found ways to digitally replicate the five senses. Logging on to the web is like logging onto your dream reality, a realistic web of reality we can all live in. Everyone’s thoughts generate the reality. Copyright becomes illegal. The desire to own is directly opposite to the desire to share. Artist who truly wish their art to resonate will let it travel among the information highway wherever it is meant to go. They will trust in their audience and in humanity to do what is right with their creation. They will understand that they are a step in a process. All that helped them create from the past helped shape the present, which in turn goes on to shape the future.

If God's a dude in the sky with a white beard we'd all getting hit for plagiarism. Fortunately God doesn't seem to mind. (does that make it ungodly to?)

Prometeus

Real, from the future.

One Shot

you dont have to wait for more instructions; no one makes a monkey out of me.

Ideas for the one shot-

Intense, to only have one shot; it adds a lot of pressure. It seems the simpler the better, the easier not to mess up. On a very fast side note I think all mess up’s are actually fate once all is said and done. But anyways, here is a list of things I would like to see in the one shots: gnomes, fireworks, Martians, dancing, giant insects, polar bears,
Animal suits in general, hysterical laughter, leprechauns, ray guns, President Bush, Dick Cheney, bubbles, fire, acrobatics, mirrors, and anything at all that is musical in any way. Ideally the one shot could feature all these things, but it might get in the way of keeping it simple. Although, there is a type of entertainment that results from the failure of complex things, not to mention the glory of accomplishing them.
It would be ironic to shoot some kind of competition where a person only had one shot- like one of those half time shows from sports game where the competitor must make the half court shot for 100 billion dollars. It be a one shot documentary. That reminds me of an episode of Upright Citizens Brigade where this kid has a chance to win 1,000,000 dollars for kids with cancer, but he ends up missing the shot- the organization decides to take 1,000,000 dollars away from kids with cancer. They give him a second shot, but of course he misses again. “Oh Timmy, you don’t want to take money away from kids with cancer, do you?” The simple fact is no one does, which makes the bit funny.

Occasionally people glow. The happiness of their souls forces photons out their bodies into the atmosphere. Positive rhythm is the happiness that makes the glow, the things they know is the happiness they show. Good film captures the glow, because what we know is what they show so you know.

Do you think there‘s an equivalent to a visual rhyme? Similar sounds, similar colors. Things that groove- you already got the idea from the last stanza so lets fit something that flows off the history into le future. A continuous link of good fitting ideas- clever transitions, respectable plot lines, interesting facial expressions… cartwheels.

I like to see things that are fun. People having fun, joy, smiling, flowers with faces on them. Quirky ridiculousness; happiness is more than a face you make, it’s a feeling too. Keg stands; I would like to see keg stands in the one shot. In fact, I would like to see Aliens doing keg stands. For the record Microsoft word, a recent authority on spelling denotes the words “keg stand” as two words, not one.

Are ducks quirky because they quack? Webbed feet and billed faces make me love awkward people. It takes creativity to break the out of the norm. Even animals make mistakes, in fact, they embarrass themselves. I like it when nature is goofy.

F: presidential debates, cheaters, people who want to tamper with the election, total slackers, Sarah Palin, bankers, bankers, bankers, people who say WWIII is on the way and theres nothing we can do about, people who don’t want peace, money for a profit in the sense of greed, not having enough hours to the day. Apparently you only sleep for a third of your life, I bet we still dream for half of it. God is love, don’t you forget it. Apparently I’ve lost the ability to brainstorm in an organized manner. In music it would be called a lack of phrasing. Anything goes!

6x1 Elements project all group footage

Kyle C, Nate, Dustin

Super 8

Elements project

this is the film I scratched, magazine transfered, inked, burned, bleached, licked, and sharpied

Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός - rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement, symmetry") is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER...

 6x1 is like a creative playground; I’ve enjoyed the out of the box techniques and the theme that just about anything is possible as long as you can figure out a way to do it. I like the rayograms- I didn’t get the effect I had envisioned with the crystals, yet I’m sure that what I see in my head is possible and that it would just take experimenting and trial by error.  The scratching and painting makes me happy because I envision a small society that has survived nuclear war that destroyed all their technology utilizing film painting and scratching and old projector to entertain each other. I also think that if everybody painted on film and shared their creations with each other there might not be as much war in the world.  Today I played around with letting the ink run down the film strip via the force of gravity (which everyone keeps saying is the weakest force in the universe but it got the job done). I was please with the effect I got, especially running complimentary colors at the same time next to each other, hopefully they will shine happily and harmoniously on the screen. I have enjoyed this opportunity to experiment with color harmony. I’ve had this theory that if you lay the 8 steps of the musical major scale across the rainbow you will get the same kinds of tension among intervals. Chords of color like red/yellow/blue or orange/green/navy vibe well together- their wavelengths groove with each other because they have things in common, which allows them to resonate with each other.  Resonance in molecules arrives from balanced harmony. Benzene, a hexagonal molecule made entirely of Carbon is the example they teach you in school. The Electrons inside the ring do not stay near the individual carbron atoms which make up the points around the ring. Instead, due to the symmetrical and harmonious shape of the molecule, the electrons swirl around the entire molecule, all six carbon atoms, as one big cloud. Like a music or color, if a symmetrical and harmonious rhythm lets the energy of the pattern blossom.

 

If you took ten people from around the world that all spoke different languages and let them all live together in one big room they wouldn't be able to communicate- the words they'd use would have little to no connections in each other's mind. However, not all communication is lost in such event. The spectrum of emotions is understood among those who have experienced similar things.  If you have ever been happy you know that it makes you smile so when you see someone smile you know it means their happy. Same goes with frowning. Yet there's still an infinite amount of different kinds of smiles and different kinds of frowns that mean different things. Our inner emotional tone is a like a unified wave of all of our ups and downs - there are colors and sounds that look and sound exactly like we feel. 

The Abstract Expresionalist painters believed they could burn and bleed the seed of their soul onto a canvas without painting. The thinking an individuals muses through out the creation of art is the energy inside of it. The mind is useless without ideas. Appreciation and the ability to enjoy and share art with each other nears us closer to the benzene molecule. The more we share the stronger we resonate, the stronger we are.

Got out my box of toys for the super 8 shoot. Looking forward to playing Dr Frankenstein by making my action figures, flowers, dinosaurs, cars, and whatever else come to life by means of the energy we put through them and the light of the world.  The eatpes animations are super creative and interesting. Good sound makes things real. Good night makes me sleepy…

there is only everything because nothing isn't anything at all

The reading Stan Brakhage felt optimistic and encouraging. While much of it felt like technical advice, I had a strong appreciation for his attitude that any idea should be explored. I believe he said that much art had been born out of technical inability, and that experimenting with the intent of problem solving opens up far more possibilities than simply “following the rules.” (“many creations are born out of technical inadequacy) No rules thinking starts revolutions (usually chaotic ones). I especially liked that he used mica crystals in his filmmaking. Using crystals on the film or exposing them on film has always been something I have thought about doing. I’m a firm believer that we intrinsically see nature’s patterns to be beautiful. I liked that he asked to reader to write about successful glue types- it just goes to show that a good artist is always looking to expand their tool kit
His personality seemed to shine clearly through his writing. Perhaps I should say his light exposed his picture onto the book ;) I especially enjoyed the title- after giving and taking, what’s left? I never realized until reading the article that film tempo’s are always in even numbers- he gave the examples of 24p and 16p. Atoms with odd numbers of protons, neutrons, and electrons, are on the whole less stable than ones with even numbers… The thing he wrote about crystallizing tape with an iron was way cool- I would definitely like to try that kind of thing.
I enjoyed that his work pays far more attention to chemistry than the work of other filmmakers. It’s truly experimental to follow any kind of inkling you have to get the feeling your looking for. I feel like it draws more on the world of inspiration and less on the world of what’s already been done to try and melt things into the film or mix concrete or V8 or god knows what just to see what it looks like. Way cool- its like fuck it, I’m gonna let myself loose and see what happens when I try this. Its less finite- I think it makes it more about the process and less about the product, which is awesome, cause life is a process, not a product.
The most important thing I got out of this reading is that its more important to try something new than to worry about what its going to look like. I mean sure, there’s a time and a place for everything, but its more important to try and fail then to let your good idea die inside your own mind. It’s like ART and SCIENCE. Two totally different ways of approaching the same goal- the only way to learn new things is to try new things. I mean sure, you can blow a building up or completely destroy a strip of film, but the knowledge of a process is far more important than anything you can hold in your hand… most of the time….