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!