Research...

There was one common issue that I noticed was present throughout the class, as well as exciting opportunities that were emerging. What was consistent with almost all of the films we made was that there were usually two diverging ideas (or more) present in a film, but neither one of them was developed fully, and it seemed the director was being hesitant and not diving in completely to either one or both. However, it seems like there is a lot more chemistry inside of the class, in working with each other and figuring out exactly what kind of film each one of us wants to make. I definitely let go quite a bit and decided to make my films my own, to really get what I wanted out of each one, to kind of develop my own experience and make it more personal to my own goals.

"Making it my own" for this quarter means developing an interdisciplinary experience for every film. There are three major interests that I have, and am studying in and out of school, and they include: visual art, creative writing, and music. Film can incorporate anything, it is an extremely comprehensive medium that has many parallels to music and writing. Last quarter I noticed so many parallels to my poetry class that it was astounding, both in structure and a kind of emphasis on momentous epiphanies. This quarter, in addition to this class I am also taking a Drawing class and a Native American Art History course. As the quarter progresses, I want to involve what I learn from my other classes with the films that I make here.

Technically, I need to work on my lighting and on my camera language. It's really important that I do several shoots and take each one into the editing room to figure out what I need to alter, especially lightingwise, and to also pinpoint exactly what shots I need from what angles, and for what duration. I also need to plan out my editing so that it's not a last-minute thing and becomes a very expertly integrated part of the film. I really want to push myself with After Effects this quarter because I feel like there's so much potential for brilliant work there that I am on the brink of reaching.

So I would like to make two new films for this quarter, and a reedit of my "Lightness" bike film.

The first will keep the "UP" exhibit at the Henry close in mind, and will have music be a very important driving force in what I create. The concept in the film will be about reaching a high, coming to a moment of enlightenment, an epiphany, an instant of perfection. I plan on writing my own music to an acoustic guitar, and possibly a djembe and piano music. I want the music to be pretty simple, carried by the mood of the guitar notes and my voice, but very developed and nuanced in each part. I feel like my strongest film last quarter was my "Lightness" bike film, where it focused on just a moment of letting go, and built up really well to that point. I'm excited for the opportunity to do it again. I want to have my first cut of this film be at two minutes, and then go out and shoot again to possibly have it build up to be around 3-4 minutes.

For my "Lightness" film, I want to reshoot the inhale/exhale portion with a different background, and using an effect in After Effects to make the smoke more 3D. I also want to reshoot the portions where I'm wearing shoes and shouldn't be. And, I'd like to reshoot the moment where I let go of the handlebars, so that it's with a green background and doesn't have the white picket fence.

The last film I want to be an abstract narrative that uses powerful images as more of a driving force. I want to use After Effects heavily for this project in order to create an other-worldly mindspace that really takes us out of the real world. An idea I keep coming back to in my everyday life is the concept that humans are constantly trying to box themselves in, to create rules and restrictions for themselves to fit into, to sterilize the natural world into a clean-cut sensical textbook of an experience. The premise for this story is that it's about someone DIGGING, scraping for meaning in their life and in human existence or the existence of anything in general, trying to escape from this sterile social perception of life and delve into the experience of it.
I want to emphasize an idea of taking things apart. A few strong images I have in my head right now are:
- poking through a layer of film or tin foil, light shining through
- peeling back layers of an onion, or of skin
- drawing out squares in mid-air, trying to dissect everything into particles
-- focus on idea in science that there's always a small space between molecules... what exists in that space?
- putting everything into boxes, drawing out ruler lines
- taking the body out of context. it becomes an organic shape rather than a "human body"
I'm not sure how I'm going to do the last one though, but am interested with the idea of using dance choreographed to depict this.


So for the first month of the quarter I want to focus on making another really high-quality film for the Henry. This weekend I am going to start writing music and to search for an ideal location. When I was in Mexico for Spring Break there was one room in the house I was staying at where I kept finding myself in, having these surreal experiences where I felt completely out of my body but deep inside my head. It was a high-ceiling, airy space, with big open windows and old, broken wood furniture. I want to scope out another space like this to be a place where a person can meditate inside of their own mind.

By next week I'd like to start filming this space and to get a good feel for shots I want to use, how long it's going to be, so that I can write my music accordingly. I also want to reshoot my bike shots during this time.

By the third week I'd like to be finished shooting for both my first film and Lightness film and be working the whole week on editing.