Day One

Semester wrap-up!!!!

2007-12-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-06T18:10:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

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

2007-10-30T22:42:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Real life story

2007-10-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a video I made last year around this time. It took us about 30 minutes. We were trying to make a film a day, and well that didn't really work out but here is Episode 1. Enjoy!

Self portrait

2007-10-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

I had a great fall break. It was good to finally have some time. Not that I really got a chance to relax, it was more or less a good time to catch up on some school work. I worked on my self portrait a lot. It was kind of neat because it didn't really take me long at all to figure out what I wanted to do for this particular assignment. I knew that I wanted to record my own music and so I did. I also wanted it to be somewhat serious and playful at the same time and it is. I picked a really awesome location. I don't want to give anything away for tommorow when we actually screen the projects. I met up with my group a couple of times over fall break to throw around some ideas for the music video. I have some awesome props that we plan on using for the video. We already shot one roll of film on the band that we chose. I just got finished doing a music video for the majestic twelve. The video is rather experimental itself. The band is going to promote it nationally. I would like to show it to you and I was wondering if we could get screen credit for a project that we worked on outside of school?

Light of Day

2007-10-02T19:28:00.000-07:00

After sifting through stacks of boxes and old newspapers, I have finally seen the light of day again. I thought I had lost it for a while. I can breathe again in my new apartment. I decided I would go for a bike ride in my new neighborhood. It was a beautiful day. I noticed the way the lighting stuck out through the tops of the church cathedrals like holy rays. I felt nomadic. I yearned to travel faster and faster away on my bike, peddling and stabbing the wind with each breath. I was there. I was here before. I felt the cold October sun on my back, eating away at my summer skin. The afternoon shadows from the trees played games on the historic houses. I felt that my eye was an experimental camera capturing the blur of the beauty that surrounded me as I felt my soul sift gently through the changes of the fall air.

Light observations

2007-09-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

I went for a walk today. One last walk in my old neighborhood. It will no longer belong to me after Sunday. I will have a new home again, and another after that. And then there will be another house. Until the end. Although that is not what this is about. The truth of it is that there will always be light, so there is no reason to be sad I keep telling myself, but why are you? It is nice today, the weather is considerably agreeable with you, and all you can think about is traveling. how selfish of you. I never though that 21 would be such a mindsweeper. Ok so my walk was nice. There are many trees that loom over the road on Bonham Ave. They are almost haunting, although when the afternoon light breaks through them it creates quite the spectacle on the road. The sun-speckled dinosaur patterns on the road do not make me sick to my stomach like the accumulation of old sofas and refrigerators that people have abandoned and strewn all down the side of my road. I keep thinking as long as I look to the sun gods there shall be light.

35 mm shoot

2007-09-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

I took the school's camera out around 6:30 or 7:00. because i wanted to catch the sun at a good time of the day. It was a nice day for a bike ride so my boyfriend and I went for a ride on our road bikes. It was nice to get out and enjoy the fresh air, while taking some photos. We went to one of our secret spots, where we like to go and sit. There is a bridge with a stream running underneath of it. This is a really neat spot because it is back in the woods on a little trail. I got one or two photos here that were underexposed because of the lighting. There was a lot of shade from the trees. We found baby frogs and lots of neat plants with berries as well. I took a photo of this giant fungus that we thought was a big slab of meat, but it wasn't. I was really relieved about that. We then rode over to this retention pond with a million turtles poking thier heads out. I tryed a lot of different shutter speeds, moving the camera around to blur a particular image, and changing the f stops. I also took some photos through this wire of the sun going down. I hope they come out well. Overall, it was a successful mission. We got to see some beautiful things, a bike ride, and interesting photos for the assignment. Can't wait to see what everyone else does.

Still Photographs

2007-09-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of some of my favorite photographers for now until I can get a chance to scan and post my own.

Bruce Monk and Mary Ellen Mark

you can have any colour as long as it's black

2007-09-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is the name of our sound recording project, and it turned out to be just that. Me and my partner Stephen went through the class tapes to try and find the creepiest and darkest sounds possible. I don't want to spoil our project. I will just say that we found some pretty interesting sounds and used them to convey our theme. We wondered what we could do to make the sounds sound more dark and eery. We decided that it would be a good idea to slow the sounds down so that they sounded almost warped in a way. We also used the pen to manipulate the levels of the sound, making them go up and down or back and forth. It was fun to make some of the noises rather repetitive. I was really amazed at how cool the three tracks sound when edited together. I found this project to be a puzzle. It was a matter of finding and mixing the right sounds together. I really enjoyed this assignment. We were a little scared when we were recording onto the master tape, because we thought that we were going to record over someone else's project, but we figured out where we were at when we actually listened to the tape. I can't wait to hear what the other groups interpeted with their theme.

Observer

2007-09-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

Sound recording makes me so very happy. I walked outside my apartment at night and captured the dark sounds, and then I walked out the next day and captured the light sounds. That is night and day sounds. All of them were pleasant to my ears. I walked and then ran. I found that I was able to close my eyes and escape through the sounds of the bugs for a few seconds. I feel like I spend the majority of my time trying to escape from something that I am unaware of. I have always been a restless soul with a desire to constantly keep moving around the earth. I become melancholy when I am forced to keep my feet in the same spot. As a child, I remember begging my mother to take me to the travel agency so that we could look at the different travel packages. The night I recorded sounds, the bugs got under my feet. I decided I would keep moving, even though I felt like a piece of stale bread in the toaster. You may wonder what the hell I am talking about? I guess what it boils down to is that sounds add a bit of pandora to my box of paranoia.

Tangerine Clash

2007-09-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

I'm all lost in the supermarket, where I can listen happily. The scanners are all chiming in 3/4 time, singing a far better tune than the trendy new-age yoga mother music that gently plays overhead. Help is summoned over an intercom. I can tell by the urgency in the cashiers voice that there must be a real problem at hand. As I scan the refrigerated cooler in search of tangerine juice I can hear ripe produce crashing to the bottom of a new plastic bag. My mind drifts into the thoughts of my hectic day, just as a compressor kicks on in the cooler and reminds me that I am here to shop. All around people are chatting about property management, soccer sign-ups and so many other things I hope to never be concerned with. In the distance I hear talk of a stand up bass being played somewhere the night before. That is something I could stand to hear. I finally find the tangerine juice I've been looking for and head for the door (after paying, of course). I never knew buying juice would create such a symphony.

Cat Scratch Fever

2007-09-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

Where can I possibly go to be alone with my sounds?

So.....I sat alone in my apartment with my two cats as they made all the noises in the room. So I found out what they do all day when I am away. Not only do they like to purr, grunt, lick their fur, move their poop around in their litter box, scamper across the tile floors, they are also considerably good at rolling their R's when they want to eat food. And boy do they like to eat food. I have never heard an animal make so many various and obscure sounds. These two black felines named Hinka and Havolina are in to everything. I know your thinking what kind of names are those? Well Hinka is an Indian term and Havolina means wild boar in Spanish. Hinka likes to go to extreme measures to eat the same foods that I do, therefore I listened to her rummage through the garbage for five minutes looking for potential leftovers. I also listened for the sound of Havolina running her claws across my salmon-colored chair. hmmmm maybe she likes it because it reminds her of a big fish? After a little while, I heard both of them scattering across the floor and fighting with their tiny marshmallow paws. I just bought them these stupid little mice with bells on their tails, because they like the way that sounds when I am trying to sleep. Cat noises are rather therapeutic to me. I read in a magazine that a cat's purr carries the same sound wave frequencies as the tool that doctor's use to strengthen human bones. Scoundrels!

Evening Spells

2007-09-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

Sitting alone outside on my porch. Dusk has swept the over the ground, as I reflect in my grandmother's wicker rocker. With my eyelids closed and my eyes anxiously awaiting the sounds of vibrant life around me, I have learned to listen to the night creatures as they speak to me in song. I have much to learn from them. I ask myself, where do their secrets go? Will I ever know? Do their sounds amplify up and out into the universe and become tiny stars? As I sat listening that night I recorded this beautiful ambiance in to my brain. I could hear the echoes of my childhood reminding me to laugh at time games and to never feel old. With all the global warming, the cicadas still buzz, the crickets out-cry the drone of the city. And I wait for something, maybe a mosquito that will chat quietly without razorblades in its mouth. I sleep. A poem for you:

An Ode.....

To the music that I hear
Between the spaces in my head.
I have heard it.
Come and go.
Although it stays awhile
To let me know
It still haunts me.
Rhythm
``````Beats
Against
my
Brain.
An Ode
to the
Music
that makes me
SANE!

Artist Bio

2007-08-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

I cannot begin to describe how overwhelmingly excited I am about this class. Since I started film school back in 2004, I have been itching to work with actual FILM! Now I have a chance to, thanks to the Silvas After taking Dr. Kreul's History of Avant-garde class, I became obsessed with experimental film production. Not only is it the best way for independent filmmakers to express themselves, it is also a fun way for a film community to come together and collaborate with different ideas. I wrote a script in screenwriting class with the intentions of turning it into an experimental piece shot on Super 8 film. I want it to be this crazy carnival extravaganza that takes place in the suburbs. I want to have over-the-top costumes and props. There will be hardly any dialogue at all. I would like to experiment with some strange animal sounds during the editing phase, and incorporate some hand painting and scratching on the film as well. I feel like this is going to be a good semester. I have finally reached senior status, and soon I will be on my way to who knows where or what, although one thing is for sure, and that is that nothing compares to the idea of living, experimenting, documenting, and experiencing everything that you can without regrets. Experimental film gives me a kaleidoscope view on the world. It is a juxtaposition of poetry, music and rhythm. It is what you want it to be. It is what they want it to be. It may even be what the animals and trees want it to be. After all, it is what it is. I feel that film should replicate existence. Existence can be fucked up sometimes and make you want to cry. Please try to refrain because there is a cure. Maybe a strange animal is following you home or you ran over some glass with your bike tire. If you are mad, you should take a photo of your tire or this animal and put a scratch on the photo to represent your day. If things are going good, paint something pretty on a piece of film. I guess in the end it all works out.