Response To Sound/Light Project

I found these projects to be very enlightening, especially the light project, but I'll start with the sound project. The biggest thing I learned about sound is how to record it. Using the equipment was particularly good to learn. It was also a good experience to see how sounds can be manipulated and just what sort of effect they can have when juxtaposed with other sounds.

Now to get to the lighting project. I learn a lot about lighting in just one class period. I always use to think of cinematography as seeing an object, lighting it, and then filmming it. I was wrong. I never fully understood depth of field and how f-stops effect that. Contrast and composition have also become more engrained into my mindset. I had already been fairly proficient in using a lightmeter, but using it in the field, with others watching me, and their pictures depending on correct readings, really helped be understand lighting a whole lot better. Even though I don't think my pictures turned out as well as I had hoped, I still was inspired by some of the amazing photos that other student took. The lighting project has really helped me understand my photography better, and inspired me to develop my 'eye' a bit more.

Light Journals

Light Journal #1 - I'm sitting in a classroom watching 'Veritgo.' The projector is in the rear, a stream of fine lines of light streak above my head, dust particles illuminate the beam. A computer monitor is on in the left hand corner of the room. It's pools of light remove contrast from the screen, and I can barely see the image on the projection screen. The door's window is covered with a black garbage bag, and the lights from the hall way create a slight halo effect all around the frame of the door. From behind me, the windows to the outisde are also covered, but light creeps through. The students in front of me are silhoetted as there is more light in front of them and my eyes cannot open enough to see details in their shoulders and back.

Light Journal #2 - Outside of the Seahawk Landing is the 'Landing Strip.' Light pours in from all the windows of domiciles above. different shades of black hit the sidewalk, as curtains and other objects within the windows of each home cast varying levels of light. Lamp posts run down the strip. A fine mist is in the air, and the lamps have a halo around them. Unfortunately, I can't see the stars above me, I can see the moon, it is full right now, but I can't see the stars. There is so much light pollution! Large windows, such as that of the Market Place and Recreation Area, cast large sections of light on the ground. Bushes, lamps, and bikes cast long shadows.

Black and White Photos

Response Entry to Assn. #1B

Assignment 1B took a long time! It was a tedious process with a lot of second guess and experimentation. I felt this project was an excercise in not trying to try. I at first was creating somewhat of a story. Not with a beginning, middle, and end, but it definitely had a protagonist in my head. I felt it made it easier for me. Then, I began experimenting with themes and feelings. I would close my eyes, with the prompt in my mind, and then listen. Did I feel, "Saints rising like falling stars?" I saw in my head a mixture of religion (life) with falling stars (death). I began to experiment with contrasting sounds and then stumbled upon the idea of mixing stability, rhythm, and just when you thought you knew what was coming next, bam, a different more intense and unpleasant aural experince. We experimented with mixture of reversal sounds, speed changes, and then contrasting normal speed sounds. Overall, it came out quite nicely and fist the prompt, "Saints rising like falling stars."

Response Entry to Assn. #1A

For assignment numbero uno ah, I worked with Dylan, Kristian, and Brandon. We went to Brandon's apartment, and began compiling a list of different sounds there. We became inspired and started looking for different and unique audio clips. To get perfect ambient noise of crickets in the woods, next to the Apartments, we went around and "shut off" the airconditioning units to six different homes. What we didn't know we did, was we shut off the power grid, temporarily, which we later got back on. We compiled a number of sounds when we traveled down the road to the local Target shopping center. With the permission of the Head Manager, we recorded room tone, and various conversations, and sound effects involving drink machines, and ice. Along the road we grabbed cars passing and car horns. Each member did an equal amount of work between picking sounds, recording sounds, listening to the sounds, and recording the timecode in our time logs. In total, it took about three hours to get 25 special effects, 10 conversations, and 5 ambient sounds. Overall, I believe we got an effective sound library that is both creative and varied. I felt that listening to the sounds on the clamshell hurt the initial response to our sounds, but in the end, I believe that when listened to properly, and then incorporated into Assignment #1B, they will serve to make an interesting audible landscape.

Sound Reports

Sounds of a courtyard at 8:00 p.m. -- I'm sitting on a park bench next to a pool. I close my eyes. First thing I noticed was the sound of people splashing in the pool near by. The laughter and small talk overpower my senses at first. I then filtered them out and tried focusing on the smaller sounds. There were crickets in the background and cooing of various animals. Filtering past that, I could really hear sounds that I normally don't hear. Next to me was a light pole; I heard the buzzing of electricity surging through the wires. Keys jingled like windchimes as people from Wagner got into their cars; the gravel crunched beneath the soles of their feet. Someone opened the doors of the Village Building, and I heard the key swiper beep and the bar lock of the door click open. As the door closed, I heard the swoosh of air as the doors smashed into their frames behind them. Finally, I heard the distant rumble of cars in the far off distance on S. College Rd.

Sounds of the Library at 1:00 a.m. -- Now, I decided to sit in the library late at night. There are very few people here. I hear the sound of distant people whispering to eachother. It sounds like I'm in a movie theater when people attempt to gossip in the middle of a feature. What they are whispering, is indistinct. The sound of a vacuum cleaner rumbles above me like rolling thunder. As people frantically cram, pencils click against the wooden tables and papers seem to almost slice through the air. A foot is tapping and I feel it with my foot because it is touching the floor. The clock clicks every 'one-one-thousandths' as my life clicks away in this library. Finally, the door rolls on its track back and forth, back and forth. It sounds like rollerblades.

Responses To the Readings

Hans Richter's 'Film As An Original Art Form' -- I disagree with this guy. I think that narrative film is in no way less real and valid because it "records" images. When I watch an experimental film, I am completely aware of the person making these images. I do not feel it is a pure artform free of "cliches." I have gotten completely lost in movies and believed in them all the way to the last frame and even outside the movie theater. This guy is an idiot.

Scott MacDonald's 'Introduction to Avant-Garde Film' -- I have seen many experimental films and thought that it was interesting for "what it was," but I can't say that it has ever spoken to my soul. Again, I don't believe that mainstream audiences have been "programmed" to enjoy only one type of film. Personally, narrative is more true to life because I personally "could" see a car crashing and exploding, maybe; however, I have never seen light that looks like crumbled paper along with the most horrid sound of screeching balloons and audio pops! Nor have I seen my vision changed as if someone took film and cut it up and then pasted it all together! Is this making sense? Look, I know I'm being extremely symplistic, but I still feel that I have more spiritual and even religious experiences when watching narrative than I do experimental. I try thinking, when watching an experimental film, what's there? The answer is really nothing. With a narrative, I know. Maybe I like the comfort, but I feel it's more true to life.

Fred Camper's 'Naming, and Defining, Avant-Garde' -- How could you possibly define what an experimental movie is? Doesn't that destroy the point. Isn't it suppose to break away from mainstream media and specific genres, when now this a-hole is trying to categorize it. Oh, and if someone doesn't fit all, you still get a cookie, because you only need about 4 or more! This guy is an idiot. Giving criteria, makes it a specific genre, defeating the purpose. I took this test, for a movie I want to write. It is completely narrative, a bit more independent than mainstream, but guess, it passed this stupid test! I didn't think it was an experimental film, but maybe after reading this genius, I should reconsider my whole life. Bottom Line: YOu can't define experimental, it's in the definition! Whoa, that's a paradox!

Artist's Manifesto

My name is Jordan Ferry and I'm a film-a-holic. Not that funny? Oh well, I don't give a damn. I am a filmmaker, not a videomaker. I feel that all students need to use film; atleast, once in their life. It's not that expensive look into it! I used to be in love with the advancements of digital technology, but since I bought my Krasnogorsk-3 Super 16mm camera off eBay, I've changed my mind. I believe eBay is a haven for filmmakers and that the best thing communism ever did for filmmakers was give them cheap cameras. I love film, and always want to use it. I have made a couple of shorts and am trying to write a script. I have directed a documentary for Playwrights Producing Compnay (PPC) over the summer, and am currently editing it for entry in Visions '08. Recently, I've been hired to be a producer for Teal TV. It is a television broadcaster run by students of UNCW. I want to be a director in the future. I want to also direct a feature length film before I graduate.