Imaginality

This is my final project four, based on the concept of imaginality (imagination + reality).
but i compressed it wrong, so it looks horrible.
i'll post a better version tomorrow

Project 3 Edited and Finished

"House Monkeys"

Project 4 Proposal: "Imaginality"

For my final project I will create a video that explores “imaginality” (imagination + reality). My video will follow a guy who has a vivid imagination that leaks into his regular reality. He will go through parts of his day and things from his imagination will appear periodically to help him deal with situations he gets in. I might make him have an imaginary friend that helps him in his day to day life. I'm going to use video and shoot the scenes of “real life” because I want reality to be easily distinguished from imagination. I will make an animation of the “imagination” factors of his day. The animation will be used in the video by distinguishing between the real and the imaginary. The animated objects will somehow get overlain on top of and intertwine with the realistic video footage. I will be taking still photographs also, which will display either 1: the thoughts people around the main character have about him (since he will be acting strange due to his “imaginality”) or 2: the main characters thoughts that aren’t influenced by his imaginary friend. If I use the imaginary friend I would have the main character think things independent of the imaginary friend, and in turn, the imaginary friend would comment on these thoughts (aka the still photographs). My estimated duration of the video will be around 3 or so minutes, depending on how many situations the main character goes through in the video.

Project 3: House Monkeys

Questions from class:

-where's the location/what's actually happening?
I think that the questioning of the location of the piece and questioning exactly what is happening is a valid point brought up by the class. The poem itself is based on an article from CNN.com about an act that was passed in the House of Representatives about banning chimpanzee's as pets. I agree that that needs to be stated somewhere in the piece. I think I'm going to add an intro that maybe shows a clip of the article or something. And I plan to change the first frame from saying "One Day" to saying "One Day in the House of the Representatives."

-why is the dialogue hard to understand?
The dialogue becomes difficult to understand because the characters are basically monkeys themselves. Instead of voting on more important bills and acts, the House is voting to ban chimps as pets, which is a slight waste of time if you ask me. So the characters are trying to have this intellectual, stimulating conversation that is just stupid to begin with. I think that when reading the poem this is much easier to understand. So to fix it, I think I'm going to have the character who speaks "Bonobos have been known to know those..." type of speech change as he goes (aka i'm going to make him start talking normal and then it change into maybe just blald;fkjadf or monkey noises).

i'll post the edited video after i fix it!

YouTube-Project 2: "Paradoxical"

Project 3: Animation

this is the poem i'm animating:

“House Monkeys"
By Michael Mendonez

One day,
A man or woman throwing down their cashmere scarf in disgust stood up
To say,

“The way in which a chimpanzee would live indoors, I say,
is both unsanitary, dangerous, and most of all,
gay.”

Referring of course to the primal, primatial, homosexual tendencies.

And a representative from Montana with an old-fashioned brimmed hat with gray,

“My nephew’s niece’s husband’s brother’s neighbor’s mother’s got a monkey and I ain’t seen nothing sweeter.”

When a zoology expert with a knack for overassuming his own genius would belay,

“Bonobos have been known to know those who exemplify great fear at their appearance will be more likely to retreat and use that to get to exposed meat or shiny items that provide tiny crises like knives or vises.”

And they tossed the shit back and forth, one to another until the cashmere scarf say,

“So I propose the Captive Primate Safety Act
Be one of the hundred, no, thousand stacks of unvoted bills we enact.”

And the brimmed hat said nay,
But they passed the act anyway.
323 to 95.
And action is the driving force of change.


So will somebody get these monkeys out of the House?

Project 1 Critique

1) My project was called "Don't Take Life Too Seriously, You'll Never Make it Out Alive."

Taking suggestions from the class, I think that I could cut some of the duration of the blurring I used to make the work more compelling. I had the clips at about 7 seconds each, so I understand that 7 seconds of increasing blurring could get old fast. With this, I think attention would be held better and the climactic ending would be better appreciated. Also, I've wondered if tinkering with and altering the photos in photoshop somehow would have made them more compelling. I like keeping things simple, but I think some editing could have made an impact.

I think my video was successful in the way that the music and the photos worked in sync. I tried to keep the transitions and the effects in time with the music, which I think enhanced the effect of each component. I also think that the high contrast of the images helped add an air of creepiness to the piece. My goal was to create an eerie feeling, and I think that the contrast helped achieve this. Lastly, I used a piano and melodica for the music. The melodica is a strange instrument, which I think also helped create the eerie feeling.

Like I previously stated, the relationship of the sound to the images was very important in my piece. I made sure that the images were displayed and transitioned in time with the music. I think I was very successful with how I synchronized the music and images.

I edited my video by placing the images in order on the track first. I followed by adding my sound. While listening to the sound, I added markers to point out where there was a shift or change in the music, and I applied my effects and transitions in accordance with the markers.

I think that my sound was integral to the imagery. The sound helped the piece flow, and significantly added to the climax of the piece.

2) Watching my video without sound was weird, because the sound was so integral and weaved into the images of the piece. I had this idea for the sound from the beginning, so it's hard to think of changing the audio. I think that maybe I could use a more etheral sound in the beginning, like a flute or a harp. I think those intruments would also set an eerie tone. I also wonder if adding maybe some type of drum or bass instrument at the climax would work. I think it could add a bigger bang.

Project 2: Take 37

lets try this one more time...
for real this time...

I was thinking about doing like a mockumentary of the person who created Charlie the Unicorn travelling around showing it to people on the streets. With this, the video takes Youtube out of existence. The point would be to show how hard it would be to show the animation, and how the reactions to Charlie the Unicorn would be different if Youtube never existed. I was talking to my friends and we decided that if Youtube never existed, that people would either be creeped out by Charlie or think it's just plain weird. So i plan to stage footage of showing people in a Youtube free world Charlie the Unicorn. I will splice in clips of the actual animation with clips of peoples reactions to the animation. In the beginning I also want to show a quick clip of some dude eating chips with a Charlie tshirt on watching the video on Youtube (then it would fade into text that said something like "what if you tube didn't exist)

Project 2 Actual Concept

So my project is going to center around the Charlie the Unicorn animations on Youtube, utilizing both part 1 and part 2. I plan to use the original animation as the basis for my video. The video focuses around a journey that Charlie is taken on by other unicorns. So, i plan to take clips from both parts and splice them together to create a journey that will fit my narrative. My narrative is going to be about people going on a journey to the magestical Youtube (think the wizard in the Wizard of Oz). They made a video and have to get it to the all mighty Youtube. I think this is critically examining Youtube because Youtube is so easily accesible by millions, which has made it the center of media culture. If Youtube was harder to get to, that would change its entire influence on the world.

I hope this makes sense!

project 2 concept(ish)

i am thoroughly confused on project two. under the description it says to critically examine film industry/culture....but the given project approaches don't really seem to critically examine much of anything.

so, like i said, i'm confused. either way, ive come up with some concept type things...
-splice movie clips together: id really love to say something, or rather, have my favorite movies say something about what has become of film culture. i'd love to find clips that work together like in the western movie example shown in class...but that also may take 37 years to do. (not literally...i hope).
-id also love to not only say something about film but about consumer culture. there's this video on you tube called Charlie the Unicorn. it's slightly ridiculous, slightly disturbing, and pretty much hilarious. One day when i was shopping i stopped in Hottopic and saw a Charlie the Unicorn shirt and couldnt believe what our society is idolizing...dumb cartoons made solely for you tube! So i'd love to use clips from Charlie the Unicorn together with some of the insane amounts of copy/remake videos on you tube, along with footage of the clothes out for it.

but yeah....those ideas could be totally off base.

this is my melodica. it kinda sounds like a harmonica and an accordion had an illegitimate love child. i think it sounds pretty creepy so the sound of the melodica was the inspiration for my project, which is based on creepy 35mm black and white pictures from a really old cemetery in jersey city.

5 Commercials

1. The first commercial i saw was a Susuki commercial. It had quick transitions from one clip of the car being driven, to the people in it, to the place they went, and back to the car. I can assume from the fast paced transitions that the music accompanying the commerical was also fast. The car in the commercial was also a pretty cool car, and the simple/quick transitions from one clip to the next gives off a cool vibe about the car. Of course, the commercial ended with writing about the car.
2. The second commerical was a Jaron's Furniture Outlet commercial. It basically just showed clips of furniture, but the way it transitioned was weird. Each furniture set was flashed more than once and the camera moved around to different views in each flash. It did so very fast, almost like it was changing to the beat of the music. I'm guessing the music was a drum beat. Like the Susuki commerical, the fast paced transitions make the Jaron commercial have more of a cool, "i want to buy that" vibe.
3. Puffs Plus tissue commercial. This was an animated commercial about a kid who needed soft tissues. The camera panned in slowly on each clip of the kid and mom walking to find tissues. The commercial then showed a demonstration of that tissue verse another and the camera stayed positioned on the demonstration. The commercial moved at a medium pace, giving a relaxing feel.
4.The next was a pizze hut commercial. It showed short, even length clips of people eating their new lasagna. The camera stayed in place and close up on each person that was shown. The only change in this pattern was the last clip that showed an image of the new lasagna; it was longer than the other clips.
5. The last was a commercial for Mama Mia. It showed clips of the movie that seemed to switch at the pace to a song, because some clips were shown longer than others (but didn't seem to have anymore importance).