Project Rating

1 - cameraless filmmaking (The process of creating our own film and developing film is so cool!!!!!) 

2 - multiplane animation (It was tiring; I hope we had more time to work on it) 

3 - creative crowdsourcing 

4 - rhythmic editing  

5 - the Bolex Long Take 

6 - 3D Anaglyph (We rushed our project so it didn't turn out good) 

"The Rough Theater" and 6x1

6x1 is a very fun class, I had many new production experiences on experimental filmmaking. Like what Peter Brook mention in The Rough Theater, "an architect is better off if he works like a scene designer...than if he builds his model from a plan...", which is put the creativity on top off general rules. In class we had different projects that need us to make short films out off cardboard and use daily life things to represent props in movie. These activities helped me to observe my imaginations and trained my creativity. I believe there is not only one way to do things in film, what is different and what is special makes a film unique. In rough theatre, the arsenal is limitless (Brook). 

The rough theatre that Brook talks in his article is not limited to the general ideally big house movie or show theatre. Since audiences are focused on following the storylines, the environment will not be a big factor to change what they think about the films, however watching the same films at different occasions would give the expectators difference experiences or feeling. The theatre guides our imagination and builds the stage for us. The little flaws or inconsistencies that theatre presents is evidence of the limitless arsenals or techniques that are used to within the rough theatre. We can interpret the story any way we like to so it is up to the creativity of the creators to guide our interpretations. 

Film manipulation

One of our project in this semester is multi-plane animation, which is a type of stop motion animation. We had three layers of glass to work on that helped us to reveal a nice looking depth of field, since we did Beijing opera characters in a outer space travel scene. Before I started working on this project, I thought it would be an easy and fun project. However, it was very tiring. I think it was because we did not have much time to shoot it and plan it more thoroughly. We tried to use many creative props to present different concepts, but it was not as easy as I thought. I think creativity is very important when doing stop motion animation planning. Since it's animation, one is not limited to what is put into the story or what is being used as props. In other words, you can go crazy with them. Thinking outside the box and using your imagination is important. Use PESfilm as an example: a broken computer motherboard could be filmed as a bird eye city view; sticky notes could be filmed as slices of butter and candies could be filmed as fireworks. Looking at general items in a different way and manipulating them differently in videos will get surprising and inventive result. The things that are least most expected to represent something other than what they truly are is where one's imagination can shine the most in an animation. It will be up to the audience to understand what the animator is trying to get across. 

Crowdsourcing Media

Crowdsourcing is to gather different ideas from many people to achieve a same goal or to perform a same idea. Most of the time, in order to obtain an idea, the creators will subdivide the work to people who will contribute with certain rules when they pitch in ideas for the overall main idea. In the panting industry crowdsourcing is used in many ways, one of the best examples would be where different painters draw separably and when put together it can become a mural or a collage. Crowdsourcing is also wildly used in film industry, "Star Wars Uncut" is a famous example, which is an online activity that allows people from all over the world to shoot a small part of "Star Wars" movies and upload them, editors will put clips together into new Star Wars movies. Crowdsourcing can be seen as a new type of media, it's easy to spread out topic information through the Internet, which can quickly receive other's support at the same time. Also, it's cheap to make crowdsourcing films since most of the time people would provide their little ideas for free. Crowdsourcing gives the opportunity for many people to contribute towards something big. It is also like how open-source material is distributed online. The general is taken from the main source then altered or improved to make it better or more appealing to everyone. Most of the time, the idea that was first put out to the public has been completely changed into something different. The finished product will be made up all of the contributors that sought to make something even better.

Acoustic Ecology and Film Sound

Acoustic Ecology is the balance between living organisms and the sounds around them. Since the sounds in urban areas have become nosier due to urbanization, it has extended to natural environments, and certain sounds have been defined as a type of pollution. The idea of acoustic ecology is for people to experience the quiet soundscapes that natural environments offer, such as forests and rivers. Many theories state that natural sounds could evoke a person's psychology such that it clears the person's mind and allows him/her to come up with ideas or to concentrate on a specific topic. In relation to film, most of the time people do not care about sound as much as visual aspects, however, sound plays an important role in films, too. Distinctive sounds can augment the focus point of a scene. For example, when we see a person walking on the streets, we hear distinct footsteps more prominently than the noise of the city in the background. In reality footsteps are blended in with noisier environment but in movies they have been exaggerated to become more noticeable. When we close our eyes and listen to the sound of nearby environments carefully, it is not hard to notice distinct sounds, we could also identify the distances of the sound and let our imaginations to form images in our mind. A similar situation happens in the filmmaking, the sound designers will create different soundscapes to make different layers of sounds. When people receive the sound as a whole it invokes the viewers imagination which makes people feel like they are at the location of the story, in the film, rather than just watching a screen. 

Media Fest Response

Creatives of Synesthesia and Cymatics in Film

       Cymatics is a graphic creation of sound vibration, for instance by putting sand on metal board, different shapes will be formed according to different pitch of sound are played. In films Cymatics is usually used as inanimate moving objects corresponds to display as sound frequencies. In the experimental film which we watched in our first class, the color and shapes on the screen correspond to beat of the soundtrack to creative patterns and movement In editing, this could be referred to Rhythmic Editing, where the clips follow a distinct pattern, suck as our second project which we followed a rhythmic of 5-15-5-10-5 in our experimental one minute film.
        Synesthesia is widely used in painting where many artists convey their ideas of their cognitive of seeing, feeling, or touching things. An artists may draw something that they feel represents a feeling or expression but the viewers may not understand at first, until it is explained to them. For example, people might think of certain colors we may associate them with a feeling, emotion, or an experience. In film,  if we look at a shot of an explosion without any sound, most people might imagine hearing booming sound based general experience. In film perspective, for example in the video skill of juxtaposition, if there is a shot of a man directly addressing at the camera, then next show cut to a cup of soup. People might automatically associate these two shots together and think that the man is hungry. Synesthesia affects how we perceive things in life. People with the rare Synesthesia may perceive things differently more often than others.

Response to hand-painting

I think the short film we watched in class is very unique. The main idea of this film is mainly about the munis and the beats because the filmmaker gave colors and shapes actions to match up with the sound track. Also, the filmmaker used different ways to emphasize the music tempo. For example, in  the part where only few white lines appeared on a black screen, audiences' attentions were drawn by the changes and movements of the white lines. Since these lines are moving rhythmically, it looked like characters while dancing on the screen. In comparison, the other parts had more colors and shapes mixed together showing on the screen, which gave the audiences a decision for what to focus on.