Day One

Today, I was able to work with an actor and get some initial footage shot.

These are photos of my green screen set-up, and a quick composite using a still pulled from the footage...

STORYBOARDS

I am posting these again to improve the visiblity...

Proposal

ABSTRACT
This work is a self-exploration into instances of isolation, turmoil, and joy, and how they feed one another and flow together.

OVERVIEW
I often feel like my true human spirit and body is repressed by social structures, automated systems, then detached as a result of our communication technology. The abundance of electronic social networking and telecommunication makes my relationships virtual and distant. These relationships to people, become relationships to machines and computing, and my isolation boils into aggravation. It is through this anger and turmoil that I am able to smash out - through my expression of violence, I can release this rage. This brings me back to my raw human condition - bringing me back to my flesh, and clearing way for my ability to love. It is in love that I am free. I am using two human characters to represent different stages - the male performs the state of turmoil then transforms into a free being, represented by the female.

The crowds swarm in the world around me, whispering a language I cannot understand, looking at me with expressions I cannot decode. I reach out for a connection, but they remain in a mist of distance – I am becoming smaller, the darkness bigger. The more of them there are, the more alone I am. My fellow human beings loose their form becoming one distorted mass of noise and soulless automation – their whispers become an engine, their bodies a machine that surrounds me. My detachment from the social umbilical causes my anger to build. I am a wild organism that is shackled to the structures of Society. My spirit becomes more restless the longer I remain in the machine. My spirit forms a rage strong enough to shatter the physical world – this wild rage suddenly spews from my body, casting away the industrial form that surrounds me. The tentacles of technology reach for me again, but my flesh fends-off their strike. My fury is released and freedom appears in its place. The heat of my frenzy cools, and I have departed from the rigid grip of human construct. I am moving like life now, joy builds, and my body is loose – free to move. Clearness comes, and I am a channel of light and love in nature. The Sun’s light creates her, warms her, and she runs free through the Earth’s natural beauty. She is love, her eyes look into me and pull the darkness away.

TIMELINE

My project was approved by CARTAH, so I was able to reserve all the necessary equipment early on. This will also add incentive to make sure I’m prepared during each stage of production.

WEEK 3: Finishing IDEATION, shoot test footage

WEEK 4: Storyboard/script, hire/meet actors, shoot initial scenes with male

WEEK 5: Schedule/prepare for female shoot, plan effects shots

WEEK 6: Shoot female scenes, schedule shoot for faces, audio recording for turmoil

WEEK 7: Audio recording for isolation, shoot faces and human figure for isolation

WEEK 8: Audio recording, effects photography and video

WEEK 9-10: Pick-up video/audio, Post-production

BUDGET
Stage Rental: $650/day x 4 days (hourly rates avg. $140/hour) LINK
Camera Rental: $70/day x 8 days LINK
Light Kit Rental: $35/day x 8 days
Audio Rental: $15/day x 8 days

Effects Materials: Machine Junk $100

Talent: $50/hour x 9 hours (3 hrs Male, 3 hrs Female, 3 hrs pick-up)

Craft: $20/day x 8 days

Screening Space: $250 for 4 hours

TOTAL: $4520.00

STORYBOARDS

BACKGROUND

Edvard Munch was able to express himself by painting hmself or characters in different situations - each painting has a story that in combination with imagery, communicates his psychological state. Munch use of color, abstraction, and simple narrative is important to my piece.

Terry Gilliam's Brazil is a reference work because it explores the haunting presence of technology and civilization, and a human being wrestling to escape it all. In the end, love wins, and the machine crumbles, and not only is this concept moving, the imagery is great reference for this piece.

Artists like Picasso, Matisse, Ingmar Bergman, David Lynch, and Edvard Munch, have developed an individual voice n their work, and this is the most important referential material.

REFERENCE

EDVARD MUNCH Spring, Jealousy

INGMAR BERGMAN

PABLO PICASSO Process 

MATISSE

PRESENTATION

This is a video/audio piece to be looped on a monitor with speakers.

FABRICATION

Although this work does not have an installation feature, I will need to craft several things for the effects.  I will be creating green sheets of paper that I can shoot different colors being painted on in real-time - creating layers of media that I can composite over the imagery.  I will also be constructing the machine elements with various electrical components and scrap metal, and I will have to make special wiring to use as the tentacles.

Camera/Effects Test #1

Again, in anticipation of my exploration into some simple composite effects, I am testing camera settings, and FCP settings - and am gaining some great practice in these intro tools.

After watching several tutorials, I decided to start testing techniques last night. Playing with FRAME RATE, SHUTTER, FCP SEQUENCE, and LIGHTING, I have found one that will composite smoothly on a green screen, and will give me enough elasticity so I can manipulate the FPS's with minimal loss.

Below is last night's camera test of my hand in front of blue which was composited over green screen. There is compression noise since it is for internet:

Green Screen Tips

In preparation for some simple effects I want to shoot, here is some pop-info on Green Screen:

THE RIGHT COLOR

LIGHTING/SHOOTING

In the pursuit of more expression in my work, I am adding animation/composite elements to the piece.

Project

I will portray four basic inner states of the human being, using audio/video tools to explore an Expressionist approach. I am most interested in how areas like Isolation, Fear, Rage, and Fulfillment are present to us today, and how I can use digital media to express these conditions, as artists used their tools at the turn of the century. I am fascinated by what Expressionist artists might have done with the new-media tools of today.

In my initial research, the work of Munch, Matisse, and Picasso are informing my process: Munch's ability to capture mood and psychological states, Matisse's use of color and shape, and Picasso's ability to create a visual poetry. They all have the ability to see the world through their own thick lens of expression, and that is something I aspire to.

I shot this video to see if this idea could work, and to test some video and audio tools.

After creating the video, I see that I want to add a symbolic element to accompany the human form. For example, in this video, I feel that his Rage is a symptom of his human spirit being repressed by technology, so I want to add a swirling web of wires and electronics that the face could slowly burst out of:

Week 3: Shoot Test footage, and finalize Concept for Piece

Week 4: Storyboard Piece, and Schedule equipment/actors

Week 5: Shoot Content for RAGE

Week 6: Shoot Content for ISOLATION, Plan Audio Components

Week 7: Shoot Content for FEAR

Week 8: Shoot Content for FREEDOM, Audio Recording

Week 9-10: Pick-up Audio/Video, Post-Production

Strippin it down...

Like most of the students in 202, I started with an ambitious undertaking and a lofty dream. But after my initial research, critique, and reflection, I have stripped down my idea. As Maja pointed out, our robust starting ideas hold much truth about our course of study for years to come. In the big picture, I see this moment in 202 as an opportunity to explore more aesthetic and personal expressions - the development of voices for future works.

In my initial idea, I was attempting to visually and aurally express emotional states connected to social and geological data. Now, I will only be looking at the emotional states, and develop a series of video portraits expressing these emotions. I am interested more specifically in what Anger, Isolation, Joy, Sadness, and Peace mean to a modern human.

Through the late 19th century and early 20th century and artist named Edvard Munch produced works of art that conveyed deep emotional meaning with very simple techniques. His use of color, light, brush, and subject illustrated what he thought was the powerlessness, turmoil, and existential horror of society at that time. He practiced both in and out of academia, taking useful technique from the Impressionists, but discarding their themes.

The reason I discuss Munch is because his work has always fascinated me - especially his paining "Jealousy", and "Spring". He is able to capture emotional states in a simple and primal way. He used traditional techniques to establish his own voice, and even embraced new technologies like etchings and print-making. What would Munch create today if he had our tools available to him? What would a Munch audio work sound like? A Munch video?

I am interested this approach: Exploring a few basic emotions in a simple way with modern tools in audio and video.

Dr. Tool Vs. Mr. Art

There are many ways to generalize about the artistic process, and define specific systems of media creation. In our department, I have seen varied approaches - some artists explore the tools and find artistic vision through experiments, and some carve their statements with the tools after establishing a vision. What comes first: the pencil or the concept?

The issue is not black and white - research in technology and searching for something to say, weave in and out of each other. Interesting ideas glow while testing technology, and technology colors the concepts, but there is a dialogue - there is a conversation happening, and snowballing.

I am taking advantage of this moment in my life to examine my own process, and learn how to channel the creative juices into a more distinct stream of experiences. I want to look deeper at what I want to say.

PROJECT IDEA: The raw natural emotions of our masses are being restricted by our use of automated systems of communication, convenience, and our aversion. I want to cut a hole in this confinement, and let the anger, sadness, joy, and peace pour out.

Concerning my own process right now, it is apparent through this blog that I splatter buckets of conceptual directions onto the wall, and find the good morsels after the dregs drip out.

Back to the drawing board...

Exploring & Experimenting

This week, I experimented with some of the interactive tools in video - namely Processing. This is my first exposure to a responsive video tool, and I was able to trigger video events through placing color data under conditionals. This experience in writing code, problem solving, determining parameters, and getting the system to work and see how it behaves, was a great experience for me. It is one thing to imagine something as being possible, and it is something else to have it materialize.

I am also getting more comfortable in approaching this project. After the critique by Hugo, and some helpful conversations with peers, the idea has taken new forms. I am going to seek out a simpler interaction between the movie and the environment - and this weekend I will even start learning a simpler tool for video called PD(Pure Data).

I would like to explore a social space - and build a visual poem that conveys human interaction with that space.

Artist Process - David Byrne

One avenue of David Byrne’s artistic pursuit has been the use of PowerPoint software, an idea of his that I chose to look at for this assignment. This endeavor illustrates an artist researching a tool not usually used for art, and creating expressive works with it. Over the past few years, Byrne has been exploring the use of PowerPoint, and the idea came to him while working with the program to give presentations.

He found that the media tool actually had a negative effect on communicating his ideas instead of aiding him, and it was this very opposition that he found inspiration. After experimenting, with different uses of the program including some heavily satirical presentations making fun of PowerPoint itself, he was able to form his main idea for a new project: Take the rational forms and structures of this business tool, and use them in an irrational way.

Byrne studied corporate culture to find his pallet, and began to compile cliché images and jargon commonly used. “I love to use clichéd phrases, and cut them loose from what they are associated with”, he says, “…use them as free-floating poetic elements.”

For example, he took a look at phrases like “economic indicator” and “global initiative” and searched for a dialogue between these bits of jargon with more emotional phrases like “let yourself go” and “feeling really good”. In trying to discover any emotional connection between the two types of speech, he started arranging them on slides and presenting them graphically.

Using his collection of bar graphs and charts as reference, he began creating his own set of data visualization that was totally nonsensical – global trends modeled by arrows pointing and curving in chaotic directions, layers of corporate jargon phrases in bold fonts spread over the page, and emotionless corporate portraits of well-dressed people, distorted with shapes and discoloration.

Byrne presented this work in a book, a DVD, and a gallery exhibit displaying his slides on multiple screens throughout the room. For the DVD presentation, Byrne composed three electronic scores for the images, giving the piece an extra dimension for the experience. He used melodies that were mechanical, but have a bubbly, happy feel to them to create the contrast between a rigid corporate aesthetic and an emotional aesthetic. For the production of the book presentation, he collaborated with an artist on design. Byrne has built several pseudo PowerPoint presentations that he also performs across the country.

What Will the Darn Thing Look Like?

All this thinking about concepts and tools...

What will it look like? What is the "flow" of the piece? What is the "look" of the piece?

An INTERESTING IDEA for pseudo corporate symbols/charts, and simple approach to visualization.

Mulling It Over

This is a late night entry to log the dialogue I am having with peers and with my own head. My idea, as seen in my last blog entry, could be approached, created, and implemented in many ways. I am searching for a method that will be both realistic AND challenging.

My research thus far is looking at both technical and expressive ways of harnessing data. The RSS feed is an accessible form of information that can stream in real-time, so how do I convert this data into usable or readable material for a programming tool like Processing? This research is already expanding the possibilities of expression, and it's only been a week!! Here is information on and access to one tool being used to manipulate streaming material: proXML

The main question I am facing at this moment, is whether to pursue a real-time implementation, or to create a static simulation. Over the next week, I will explore more tools and ideas, and decide which approach to take - where is the balance between creating a challenge for myself and being realistic?

The one-sentence project-pitch:

An expressive cinema story who's script is written by the emotional, biological, and elemental status of our region.

...more to come as it comes...