What I learned

What I learned this semester?

 

This semester challenged me to use unfamiliar computer programs in order to realize my creative ideas.  The assignments forced me to plan ahead yet afforded me space to create and understand the value of editing.   In addition to the technical lessons learned, like how to splice and edit on Final Cut Pro, or create a button in Flash, this class has made me realize how to best use the rules of design to create, without hindering artistic impulses.

 

For the first creative video, I had a very developed idea.  I had planned out a mockumentary about the graffiti in the Hunter bathrooms.  I storyboarded to the best of my abilities everything that I wanted to do for the project.  But the majority of my plan relied on spontaneous interviews.  Additionally, a lot of the footage that I relied on as ‘b-rolls,’ could not be planned.  I just went into the bathroom to shoot all the graffiti I could find.  When I sat down to edit, my thought out premise and storyboard definitely came in handy.  For example, my plan to end the video with one of my ‘characters’ writing ‘the end’ on the wall proved to be a good creative choice that I had thought of earlier.  But some spontaneous decisions, like filming a painted over bathroom stall, gave one of the students I interviewed material to comment on. 

 

For the second major project, the flash animation, I struggled.  Because I was new to flash, I did not know all the functions and things I could do on the program.  I had no idea how to tackle the project.  I started with the concept of motion tweens and the ability to make things grow and change.  The idea of Pinocchio’s growing nose immediately came to mind.  By using different layers, tweens, text and inserting an image from the Internet, I was able to create a short Pino Keyo flash animation.  In the flash exercise, it was through the process of getting familiar with and learning the program that my creative juices began to flow.

 

MEDP 150 and 160 gave me an introductory overview to the skill set needed to succeed in the fields of creative media art.  Yet the best lesson, I’ve learned is the balance of planning ahead and encouraging sporadic creative choices.  

Simple Message= Simple Cartoon

Most people think of Saturday morning loony toons and Disney when they think of cartoons, yet some cartoons are meant to make you rethink your lifestyle. Adbusters.org, a self proclaimed journal for the mental environment sponsored a a “Slow Down Week,” in January of 2006. To promote and spread the week, artists created short cartoon. The “Won’t You Slow Down a Bit,” cartoon blazons a relatively simple message, by using a relatively simple cartoon concept.

The cartoon is mostly drawn in black and white, and the main character of the piece is a stick figure that could easily be drawn by Flash’s pencil tool. Although this might seem like an “easy way out,” the choice to implement stick figures actually broadens the message to everyone. Four and five year olds draw stick figures to represent people. Stick people have no color, ethnicity, religion or other definitions that more thorough or ‘realistic’ cartoon animation might carry. The choice of using a stick figure to depict the average working man, who wakes up early in the morning to sit in traffic, work nine hours and shortchange his wife, universalizes the message.

Also, the fact that it appears to be drawn by a young person, underlines the elementary observation that some people work too hard.
The cartoon character wakes up as his alarm clock on the left side of the screen, a ubiquitous symbol throughout the cartoon. His black eyes are highlighted by vein marks drawn by red lines, this is the only other color in the cartoon. The cartoon wakes up and stares out at the viewer, as his bed and hair kind of move in a liveliness that does not mimic real life, but further drives home the elementary aesthetic of the piece. It also undertones the motif that everyone is in constant motion, without even thinking about it. This element of liveliness in what would otherwise be still shots comes through throughout the piece, in the car the character drives to his desk and the drive-thru window.

The piece is relatively easy to do on flash, I feel like it would take a lot of time, but once the foundation is laid, it could be easily accomplished, by saving certain symbols and setting key frames, I think I could “slow down a bit,” to create a similar flash cartoon.

Deconstructing Hitchcock for the Stage

I recently had the pleasure to sit in on a rehearsal for an upcoming performance piece that integrates, dissects and deconstructs many of the topics we have been discussing in 150 and 160. The director Reid Farrington, who has a residency at 3-Legged Dog Productions downtown on Greenwich Street, wanted to adapt the legendary Alfred Hitchcock movie, “Rope” for the stage.

Alfred Hitchcock’s brilliant movie about two friends who murder out of curiosity was shot in what seemed like an endless shot with no cutaways. Hitchcock achieved this effect by filming 10 reels of 10-minute shots that carried the continuity of the action. By splicing these ten reels together, the film appears to be one eighty-minute shot of one apartment in real time.
Quoting James Stewart, one of the lead actors in the 1948 flick, Farrington insists that the integral team for this film was the technician crew, who rehearsed the shots for weeks before the actors were even brought on. To relay their process, four actors play the crew (including a Hitchcock whose blocking affords him to walk into that famous silhouette). The crew runs, trips, gallops and bumbles through the set of backdrops, movable screens and flats while certain clips of the original movie are projected on said set pieces. At times, the “crew” marks through the movie actors’ gestures. At others, screens step in to replace their positioning. The performer’s antics and characters, still in the rehearsal process, are reminiscent of a three stooges routine, as they run into one another and trip. Their lazzi bring to light the hard work and hilarity that happened behind the scene to make “Rope” work on film.

But to achieve the projections, Farrington went through a process he calls “reverse rotoscoping.” Rotoscoping is a technique used to create believable animations by tracing over, frame by frame the subjects of live action film, and translating it into a drawn form. To isolate the actors and shatter the film onto different projections, Farrington took the reels from “Rope,” which he obtained from Warner Brothers, and traced over the actors in order to manipulate their placement for projections. Using programs like After Effects and Photoshop, he is able to essentially three-dimensionalize the film for the stage. Farrington was able to obtain the ground plan from the movie, to lay out his stage. With these processes as a basis, the actorsare free to reincarnate the film technicians’ rehearsal process of setting down the actors and props marks, in a fun and intriguing way.

The piece is only three weeks into the rehearsal process, and only four reels of ten were presented, but Farrington’s project certainly promises to be an media and theatre integrated spectacle to behold. It will preview with six performance in the UNDER THE RADAR series through The Public Theater before opening at PS122 in April.

a balance of spontaneity and strategy: reflecting on the production process.

In reflecting on the process of my creative video project, one lesson sticks out—expect the unexpected and plan to be flexible. Especially given the nature of my video’s premise and style, and despite plenty of planning ahead, my process would have probably gone smoother if I was more aware and creatively open-minded when I was actually shooting.

I set out to make a mockumentary of sorts on the graffiti in Hunter bathrooms. I envisioned a perfect balance of interviews, intellectual stimulation, comedy and aesthetic appeal in a five minute short. I wanted to get janitors scrubbing, artists writing on walls, students caring and agreeing. While I had planned out what I wanted to capture, in a documentary style, I failed at recruiting enough ‘actors’ for shooting day. While I kept specific ideas and shots in mind, I feel that if I had been more prepared to go with the flow and less dead set on getting specific shots the video would have unraveled more fluidly and less stressfully. I did realize about halfway through shooting that if I trusted my gut I could develop a nice short video, based off the candid responses I received instead of preconceived notions of what would be best for my vision.

During the editing process this idea manifested into a guided ‘edit-as-you-go’ process. Because half of the shots and interviews I wanted never worked out, and were replaced with equally entertaining content, I had to restructure the entire storyboard I developed. For example the shot I wanted to begin with turned out to be a talking point of one my interviewees. Therefore I saw it more fit to include the graffito ‘Why do you exist?’ during that segment as opposed to as an opening. Conversely, my filming partner’s idea in shooting the building outside to establish content, proved to be a good way to begin the video. The interaction with the janitors did not go as smoothly as I had anticipated because of the language barrier and their reluctance to be on camera. Nevertheless, a lot of their shots were easily incorporated into my new edit scheme.

To conclude, I am grateful for my meticulous planning ahead; it certainly guided the process. Yet I think the most valuable lesson to learn is that the media-maker must learn to be flexible and always have his creative eyes and ears open because brilliant concepts or ideas my come when the planning is over and execution is taking place.

Editing Across the Universe

The 2007 motion picture Across the Universe, directed by Julie Taymor, depicts the story of young adults grappling with love, death and family during the turbulent times of the Vietnam War. With characters like Jude, Prudence, Lucy and Sadie, the movie features the actors performing covers of the hit songs of the Beatles to develop the story musically. The movie’s linear structure often breaks for musical, or instrumental montages.

One brilliantly edited montage comes as Lucy discovers her boyfriend has died in battle in Vietnam. The montage does much to progress the story. It shows the shift of Lucy, from a happy-go-lucky high school senior, to a saddened woman who has lost a loved one. Simultaneously it introduces a new character, Martin Luther, who loses his younger brother in the violence during the Detroit Race riots. The montage’s soundtrack is the pure voice of his younger brother singing an acapella rendition of ‘Let It Be,’ shifting into a gospel version as the choir leader at the funeral performs to the bereaving family. In addition to progressing the story, the montage encapsulates one of the movie’s themes—the instability of the country in the 1960s. The cutting back and forth from the funeral of the fallen Vietnam soldier and young black Detroit boy highlight the fact that regardless of race or age, many were suffering loss during the volatile political climate of the decade.

The montage begins as Lucy and her sister bike by her boyfriends house, sees the soldiers approach the house and give his mother a letter. A shot of the fallen bikes on the pavement cuts to a slow motion shot of the soldiers leaving the porch as the two girls run to comfort the mother. The muted scene takes on a somber tinge as we see the letter and dog tag fall to the porch’s floor, showing the audience that he has indeed died in battle. As the audience sees the dog tag fall, the boy begins with the lyrics, “When I find myself in times of struggle...,” and a cut to the a fence begins the musical montage. It’s understood because of the song and unrelated footage, that we are entering a new location. In an inductive manner, a shot of two black men grabbing the fence to jump over it cuts to a larger shot of them running in a derelict alleyway. To establish the chaos of the riots, the filming is done in an unsteady, documentary-esque style, panning across to see the National Guard, and zooming into burning cars and tanks. A shot of burning police car establishes the location as ‘Detroit,’ within ten seconds. Amidst people running around on the street a shot of burning building pans down to abandoned and burnt car, where we see our frightened singer crouching by the fender in a near fetal position. That dramatic shot takes on stronger meaning when it cuts directly to an army soldier shooting at a fleeing vandal. After returning to the frightened boy for a shot, the piano kicks in and we see a hearse process into a cemetery. A cut to a line of mourners with black umbrellas entering into a church, establishes the fact that there are two funerals while keeping the color and motion of the previous hearse procession. In a parallel editing style, the audience goes back and forth between the two funerals and sees the older brother—Martin’s grief against that of Lucy’s, the folding of the flag and the open casket of the young boy.

The montage is a tear jerker, introduces a new character, shows plot development, highlights motifs of the film and features a powerful rendition of the Beatle’s song, “Let It Be.”

Broadsheet to Browser: New York Times offers an Interactive Website

The less the user thinks the smarter the website design. The average internet-surfer has to know where to look for what, without loosing patience scrolling and searching. An intuitive, or user-centered design, will anticipate what the user wants. The New York Times’ website encapsulates many aspects of user-centered design such as interactivity through discussion boards and mashups.


The primary reason to type “ nytimes.com ” into a browser is to stay informed with the world’s happenings. For this reason, the very first webpage of the site broadcasts breaking news, updated regularly, accompanied by a picture relating to that story. Instead of directing the user to the history of the periodical or subscription process, the website recognizes the ubiquitous interest of staying informed and displays breaking news. Tabs on the top left direct users to “Today’s Paper,” “Most Popular,” “Video,” and “Times Topics.” While hyperlinks on the left vertical bar lead users to every topic, a search bar on the top right can take the user to any page related to the users search inquiry. Without even scrolling down, the internet-surfer has access to the entire website.


In this age of convergence, where mediums constantly overlap, the New York Times, recognizes that the average user wants more than a “black and white” news report. Many feature segments include videos, sound clips and photographs. Furthermore, discussion boards prod browsers to “share what [they] think.” If you want to follow, what contributing reporters think of the latest news, you can follow the Time’s blogs, which are divided into subcategories based on topic.


In a recent exposé entitled, “Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering,” the Times implemented a kind of mashup feature. Combining maps powered by Google and information from water testing, the map feature allowed subscribers to search and explore condition of their local water supply.


Such features are advertised alongside the content of the actual article. Smart website design draws the user to the content (article), while keeping additional options (video, sound clip, photos, blogs, discussion board) in plain view.


The New York Times’ website addresses the changing media landscape and demands of its users by creating a user-center design for its web page. The website remains popular for me, and many users because of its multi-media features and interactive features.

“In order to listen we must stop, or at least slow down – physically and psychologically.” (Wrightstson, An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology). Listening involves more than hearing, its an active process that involves interpreting the din and noise around you into meaningful signals. For my soundwalk, I did just that in the neighborhood I go through everyday. The Gramercy/Murray Hill/Kip’s Bay area, I walked up First Avenue across twenty-eighth street and down Lexington until Gramercy Park. This neighborhood is bustling with Indian restaurants, hospitals and students. As I actively listened and interpreted the noise around me, I was able to focus on certain sounds and their purpose. I was shocked at my ability to hone in on a certain noise and concentrate on it.


KEYNOTE: A very strident keynote, or background noise during my soundwalk was the incessant drilling of a construction worker on a manhole on 1st Avenue and 26th Street. As I left my dorm on 25th, I could hear the rhythmic drone and drill of metal on pavement. It started as a hum, escalated to a crunch and culminated in unbearable drilling noise, in which if I had tried to say something to the person next to me, he would have had to cringe to understand. An interesting thing about this drilling noise is that might have began as a typical cityscape keynote; a background noise to fill the space. Because sound waves attenuate, the noise was bearable from afar, yet upon approaching them they could no-longer stand as passive keynote.


SOUND SIGNALS: One sound signal or foreground sound intended to attract attention that I could not ignore on my soundwalk, was the loud Bollywood-inspired music that roared from a the Banana Leaf Restaurant on Lexington Avenue. The owner consciously played this music from the dining room in hopes of attracting customers with an appetite for naan and curry. The music first grabbed my attention as I turned the corner from 28th to Lexington. An allegro tabla line combined with the squeaky scales of the main female singer. Perhaps, because I could not understand the language, I could concentrate on the intricate rhythms and layers of the music. This music is meant to be inviting to customers, and it says, “We’re an Indian Restaurant, Exotic! With Music! Come EAT!”


SOUNDSCAPE: Because this neighborhood does not have a definite identity and is a cluster of medical and professional buildings- hospitals, clinics, dental schools, and Stuy-Town, it would be difficult to name a soundscape. But as a resident of the area, I could easily pinpoint the most recognizable sound for the neighborhood—the blaring ambulance horns. In fact during my 35 minute stroll, I heard a total of 4 individual ambulances blaring through 23rd Street, Up 1st Avenue or down Park Avenue. These sirens have the implication—of medical concern, haste and precedent over any other vehicle in its path. Yet because of the neighborhoods dynamic, it also means you are close to a hospital.