Semester wrap-up!!!!

I really enjoyed the screening party on Wednesday night. Everyone had some great projects, and it looked like everyone had put 100% into all of the film projects. The installation pieces were a lot of fun. The painting piece was interesting because it was rather interactive and everyone got a chance to put their mark on the canvas. I was rellay pleased with the way that our installation came out as well. It was a great improvisational mixture of technology and nature and I felt like this piece really described the way that I feel about life. I am constantly struggling with technology, always wanting to escape it somehow to return to what human beings once knew before it came about. To show that even if technology fails us one day, we will always have the trees and the animals to fall back on for entertainment purposes. The funny thing is that everyone got to do something that they wanted....Even though I was the director, i wanted everyone to feel comfortable doing what they do best, and it worked, because James got to play his guitar, Wayne got to mess around with his DM2 mixer, Amir got to read his powerful poetry and Oliver and I got to perform a piece. You know, sometimes improvisation just works better. I don't think that this project would have been as effective if it had been anymore structured or planned. It felt very mystifying. I look forward to working with everyone on some future projects. I must say that this class was my favorite at UNCW. I don't really think that the school knows what kind of good things are coming out of the film studies department these days, although they will soon know, and then everyone will want to be a film studies major.

Installation

Thanksgiving was a great break. I got in the mode of being on break, and this last week of school has been tough, because i am ready to relax, and there is no time this week. Everything for all of my classes is due on Dec 5th. We just finished up the music video, and it turned out really good. I think we are going to submit it in the end of semester screening. Everyone worked really hard on all of the projects, and it paid off. It was great to finally see how they all turned out once they were edited together. We are now moving on to the installation piece, which I planning to be a psychedelic journey. With some tvs, VCRs, and projectors, and dancers, we will make this happen!

Finals

I really enjoyed the seminar that we had on the film festivals. It was really helpful, because I have been wondering about what festivals I should consider sending my work off to, and now I know. It really hyped me up about making new films, and just getting my work out there. i want to submit to the Wisconsin Film Festival in December. Cucalorus was rather inspiring as well. I saw lots of great films, met some awesome filmmakers as well. I'm not going to go on about it, because I wrote a three page paper. I am excited about the final installation projects and end of the semester party. We are in the process of collecting Televisions, VCRs, dancers, projectors and other random objects to really blow this project out of the water. I have an awesome group, so there will be some awesome installing going on. I can't believe the semester is almost over. One more semester and I will be completely done with school. wow. I'm not really that sad. I believe I will be moving on to Chicago from here. hope everyone has a good break! Go Eat some tofurkey!

One-Take

Here is a video we did for the 2006 One-Take Film Festival. We made top ten. You might recognize the boots in another project coming up!

V-jay

I thought the V-Jay workshop was really fascinating. I know it would be a lot to get used to, but probably not that hard once you get the hang of it. It was actually really trippy. I felt like I was on acid, ecspecially the video of the cars sped up traveling superfast through the city lights. That is exactly how I feel as I am traveling through different cities. I got the same rush of energy just from watching the video.. We want to get in touch with Dr. Kreul and try to incorporate that into our final installation project. I am really excited about Cucalorus. It will be good to get out and see some good films and enjoy myself. I feel like the semester has been really stressful yet fun and rewarding at the same time. I have just really not had the time I need to relax and enjoy myself. I am constantly on the go, but hey that's life. It seems like it has hit me a lot harder this year for some reason. I am also excited about the installation piece. I am confident about our group, and I feel that everyone is going to put forth their best. Hope to see you at Cucalorus!!

Howl-oween

We finally completed the music video. I know that we got some good footage. We were a little worried about reading the light meter on the camera, and whether or not the film was going to be too dark, but I have a good feeling about it that it will turn out better than we imagined even if it looks a little grainy. The locations were great along with the colorful props. Over the past weekend, I aquired a super 8 camera from the 70's and an old school polariod that still works. Both cameras have old film in them, so I want to send off the film and see how it turns out. I am super excited about the Cucalorus film festival. I didn't think that we would actually get a film in this semester, but I was surprised when I found out that our film manipulation project was accepted in the Cucalorus Visions Showcase. I am rather confident about our group for the final project. This is going to be so much. I told our group, "Let's go all out!" I will be graduating next semester, so why not? For now, our lips are sealed.

music video update

This weekend my group and I got together to do some shooting on the music video. I am really excited about this project, and I feel that we picked some really cool locations to shoot. We don't really have a story or a point to the music video, but then again music videos don't really have to have a point as long as they look really cool and you have lots of psychedelic props. We ended up using a lot of the props from my house, because for some reason I just seem to collect random things. We are almost done shooting the video. I think that we only have to finish shooting the rest of the footage on the band as they are practicing tonight. I got to shoot a little footage myself in which I found out that it is really hard to rack focus ecspecially without a tripod. Sunday, the sun was extremely hot and it did not feel like fall as we were shooting. I did a few tracking shots as well, which were really hard to do as well. For the most part, I was in charge of the costumes, because we didn't really need any lighting since we already knew that we wanted to use natural lighting.