Considering Interventions and Narratives

As far as The Marx Brother's "Duck Soup" goes, i feel it is most definetly a narrative film. It relays a story to the viewer through a progression of related scenes and characters. It gets from point A to point B over the course of conflict and resolution. "The Way Things Are," i feel, also goes from A to B, but in a more obscure and not neccesarily a narrative fashion. I see this film as more of an intervention than the other. There is no human audio interaction that would take away from the focus of the sort of 'cause and effect' patterns and scenarios we view in the film. This linear progression differs from Duck Soup in a way that the audience member is able to interpret what's on screen more freely and without the subjective influence an actual story with plot might have.

Wednesday's Discussion

This we watched "Removed" in our discussion group. I found the concept, or perceived concept, of this film very interesting. It redirected the audiences attention to the male. By doing so the scenes took on a whole different identity. We are still given the full audio, but are through distorted by only having the males visible. The whole thing was very amusing and entertaining.

Sonic Outlaws Blog Assignment

Andy Warhol

Point 1-

Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, an avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, an author, and a public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats.

-wikipedia

Point 2-

He started getting involved in art when he was bed-ridden with an illness. He described this period of his life to be very important in his career.


Point 3-

April 7, 2008 Lecture

Sitting in the audience, a monotone female voice-over came on through the auditorium speakers commanding that the lights now be turned off, and so it went. I enjoyed the performance at the beginning of class a lot today. It made me think a lot about the aspects of filmmaking in general. It had some very interesting points that I took into consideration, not neccesarily agreed with, but thought about sincerely. It made me think about what defines a movie or film as such and how it is defined, thinking about the framing and projection on and off screen. Most of these perspectives I wouldn't have initionally thought about on my own and I now appreciate these certain conceptions and possibilities of the art that is filmmaking on a different level.

Table Top Video (artist statement)

This was a very interesting way of presenting a proposal for me. I felt it gave the artist a vast boundaries of what we could and could not do. My proposal was something of abstract art. I first lay down a white poster board that say "life outside of the box is..." and that rest was a blank palette. I then move a box into the frame and remove its cover to reveal the box is empty. I then scoop into the box with a plastic spoon from off camera. I bring the spoon out of frame and scoop a different color paint from seperate cups everytime before bring the spoon back into frame and then continue to splatter the may colors on to the poster board. At the end I spin the poster board 180 degrees and remove the stencil that had been not made apparent at the beginning. In many different colorful paints the word reads Beautiful. The message or proposal I am trying to suggest is that one must look closely to see the beauty in life by thinking outside of the box at times. But if you make the effort you'll see that it's there.

The Tree Planters Video

For some reason i some what enjoyed this piece of work. at least parts of it. i thought the opening left pan was very asteticly pleasing and the light balance was very comfortable but yet striking in a way. It made me very curious as to where we, the viewer, were going. What story or meaning are we about to be shown? And then the left pan came to a rest and we waited hesitentley for something to obscure the frame with it's presence. the helicopter. this film then took a drastic turn for me as an audience member. i fell symptom to something of a cheesy, cliched right pan back through what we had previously visited, only this time it felt fake. the travel back through the dirt and mud soon became redundant and played out. i lost faith at the end of the film.

The Great Pumpkin Race/At Land

I enjoyed this film a lot. It was very light-hearted and i like it very much so because of that. It was also a root of camera tricks. It is always nice to be refreshed by seeing how far film has come. The reverse motion actually looked fairly believable. It was all very humorous.

Maya Derren has always seemed to be a very innovated filmmaker. Her films are usually very surreal and original. I liked the changing atmosphere around her throughout the movie, it kept me waiting for the next switch. It got me involved and interested interested in the film which a lot of movies aim for but not everyone accomplishes. I enjoyed it.

The Amateurist

This 1998 film by Miranda July was very strange to me. I felt like I was being thrown into the middle of this film with out any background knowledge. So right at the start the audience was given their emotion to feel; confusion. Even with the servalence camera we are continually feeling unsettled because of the voyeuristic aspects of the film.
The "professional," as she refers to herself, comes off very passionate about what she does but seems internally conflicted. Both women seem to have their issues. One is trapped in a room being studied via video camera and the other is obviously mentally distraught. This is only assumed, because the audience doesn't really know too much about her, so we assume she must have something a bit wrong. Overall I enjoyed this film but it was uncomfortable to watch.