Slow Motion Investigation

Slow Motion Investigation

Slow Motion is the slowing of time in a film, it was invented in the early 20th century by August Musger an Austrian priest. A term for creating slow motion is Overcranking which refers back to old fashion hand cranked cameras and how if early cinematographers wanted to produce slow motion, they would have to crank the camera faster to increase the fps.

The style is best achieved by filming at a higher fps or Frames per Second. By having more frames when you edit the footage and slow it down you are given a clean, smooth, slow motion video. It can also be created by taking normal footage and slowing it down but the results can be choppy based on how much you slow it down. Film is created by taking pictures, lining them up, and playing them at a fast speed. A clip with low fps that is slowed down has wholes in the footage because a picture wasn't recorded at that exact moment so it must jump to the next. When increasing fps those gaps are filled because more pictures are taken in the same span of time. The higher the fps setting the slower you can edit a video with still getting a clean result. The one disadvantage of shooting in higher fps is that it takes up a lot more storage so you might need multiple SD cards when you go out shooting.

Slow motion itself is used to create drama in a film and to stress a moment in time. This can be a wide receiver catching a pass and scoring the game winning touch down, or the intimate moment between friends when they forget everything wrong with the world and just live in a moment and enjoy life. Another use is to illustrate Romance but I am not interested in that kind of slow motion for my films at the moment. I mostly wan to focus on everyday things that everyday people see, and not glorify sex and women and all that shenanigans.

An idea I have for my Concentration piece is to crest a documentary styled film about what it's like to live with ADD. I was to include flash backs in this film that occur in slow motion and emphasize the effect ADD can have on a persons social and cognitive abilities. I feel by really slowing down facial expressions and actions I'd be able to show viewers who do not necessarily know what it's like to live with ADD micro expressions of slow thoughts, distraction, and other symptoms of the disability.

https://youtu.be/JtNqRUwNmgc

I am committed to play soccer at university of Tennessee and I found this video and it's a similar style of what I want to do. In the video they are informing viewers of the new god technology that tracks how far players run, their vitals, and how hard a kid works. But instead of just a boring interview they edited in segments of practice and games. And slow motion video and cuts that all help to emphasize the need for this technology. By slowing down and seeing how serious and hard these girls work, the need for the technology become greater and it backs the creators claim. This is how I want to use slow motion in my project. I want to be able to emphasize the importance to acknowledge and accept people with ADD and see it as an illness and not an issue.

Interaction of Text and Image Investigation

Interaction of Text and Image Investigation

Banksy

Banksy, and anonymous street artist, has become a cultural phenomenon in the two decades or so since he emerged onto the art scene in the 1990s. His well-crafted, stenciled works of street art provide satirical commentary on contemporary politics and social issues, or just on life itself, in ways that are somewhat enigmatic, leaving the viewer to complete their meaning. However his art is arguably the most controversial street graffiti in the world, but it has inspired many to follow in his footsteps and a whole subculture has been created because of how powerful his work is. This subculture includes using techniques like stenciling and the interaction of text and image to juxtapose two different ideas in one piece. While out with his crew one night, the police showed to up to arrest them, Banksy hid under a garbage truck to avoid prosecution. While hiding he noticed stenciled lettering and realized that by stenciling he could get a job done and get away quick enough to avoid arrest. Banksy incorporated this into his art and is one the of the reasons why he is still anonymous today. His work has become so popular that art collectors attend auctions where his art is sold off for hundreds of thousands of dollars to the highest bidder. Banksy does not care for the money however, he only cares to share his art and the messages that are held in every one of his pieces.

What Have I learned/ How Did the

Artist Use It?

In Banksy's work that he combined and image and text together he did so in a unique way. His image alone would represent one thing, but with the text it represented something totally different. In "Follow Your Dreams Cancelled" one of Banksy's famous works, a black and white man has appeared to have painted a "Cancelled" stamp over the words "Follow your dreams". Art is left to be interpreted by its viewers and therefore can have multiple meanings. If I were to take away the words then I see a black and white man. He looks like a lower class painter from the early 1990's, his use of only black and white could also signify that it is not a modern day person since colored pictures or film was not present at that time. and thats most likely what he is. But when you add the left portion of the painting, the text, then multiple meanings can be extracted for the work, all much more complicated that a picture of a man. I thought this piece was trying to show how older generations are stomping on the younger generations dreams because I myself have encountered many adults who believe that my dreams are too far for me to grasp. Other people thought the painting was trying to say that the government prevents people in the lower classes to achieve their goals. This could be true as well along with infinite other possibilities. Another aspect of the interaction of text and image is that the background on the artist is sometimes crucial to decoding their work. Banksy is known to lash out and illustrate contemporary politics which further backs up the earlier claim. But there is rarely a single concrete message behind art, its suppose to leave the viewer wondering and thats exactly what Banksy has done with his work.

Inspiration and Personal Use of this Technique

Learning about Banksy and analyzing his work and the techniques he uses has showed me the power of art and how it can be used to show feelings about politics, global issues, and social issues. Art isn't just for enjoyment, it can be used to educate the public and i love that. I love his hidden messages, juxtaposition, and artistic oxymorons. I want to make a difference in the world through my art the way Banksy does. I am excited to incorporate text and image into my work and maybe even try to put stenciling into some of my Hybrid work. Id like to make a projection onto a wall possibly of a stencil looking character animation or something of that nature.

Layering Investigation

Layering Investigation

David Salle:

David Salle was born in 1952 and became an American painter, printmaker, and stage designer. Salle and his peers worked to rejuvenate the art of paintings by introducing new and bold techniques, including layering. In the 70's Salle traveled to New York to pursue painting but he knew it was nearly impossible to make a living from art. His art didn't gain public attention until the 80's. His paintings and prints appeared to be randomly layered on top of one another combining to make a poetic work infused with humor and theatricality. Salle's work was categorized as postmodernism because of his ambiguous combinations of original and traditional styles, and his art-historical references. he inverted the familiar into something strange and unrecognizable through details, juxtaposition, and illogical compositions. He leaves viewers to develop meaning from his odd art works.

http://www.davidsallestudio.net/077%20Comedy%201995.jpg

The picture above is David Salle's "Comedy" made in 1995. The piece shows two parallel scenes, on the left a group of business men sit in a room with one woman who appears to be giggling. The man closest to the viewer is also smiling. The right side shows a domestic scene that appears to be on it's side. In the middle of the scene is a picture of a headless mannequin in a flowy, volumous dress. The mannequin is surrounded by butterflies. Below it is a ruffled harlequin collar, a reference to which looks back toward some of his earlier paintings, including "Sextant in Dogtown". Because this painting presents motifs and objects used in earlier work, it stands to continue Salle's ongoing yet ambiguous portrayal of the roles and expectations of women in American society. The woman on the left is a juxtaposed with the domestic scene and the overlying image of the wedding dress on the right, suggesting the impending threat of homogeneity and domestication. Yet the woman's bubbly nature amongst a sea of testosterone, contrasted to the seemingly bliss domestic scene on the right suggests something different. It could either be a communal joke based on sexism, hence the title "comedy". Or it illustrate the idea that she carries the power to destroy preconceived notions about her sex, freeing her from her "womanly" tasks. Salle uses layering in order to contrast different ideas and leave viewers up to analyze the piece for themselves. The layering allows him to contrast these ides and opens up a way to tell a story without using words.

I have found that the way Salle uses the side by side method to compare and contrast in his work to be extremely intriguing for me as a film student. I feel I could use this to show different separations and divides created because of social issues in our society. By using a side by side comparison I could show similarities and differences precisely. His use of flipping images is also attractive to me. I like how he put thendomestic scene on it's side in order to show that that life is not appealing to the younge woman on the other side of the piece. I flip images to evoke skepticism in my viewers and to allow them to question the social issue I'd be covering in that film. 

Research:
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-salle-david.htm

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-salle-david-artworks.htm
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3767

Hybridity Investigation

Hybridity Investigation

Chris Landreth "Ryan"
Chris Landreth studied engineering and worked as an engineer which developed into him doing animation as a second career. While being an engineer he designed, tested, and abused computer graphics software products. These products included movie grade animation software. The software intrigued him and his work got him familiar with the technology so much so that he started doing it as a hobby and then as a job. In 2004 he created and directed an animated documentary called "Ryan" about Ryan Larkin, a Canadian animator living on skid row because of drug and alcohol abuse. The 14 minute film is an interpretation of an interview Chris had with Landreth. The baseline for the film was an audio recording Chris had of the interview. He animated around the soundtrack using his animation to illustrate the characters and emotions poetically. Instead of normal animation with "normal" looking characters Chris perceived his characters, including himself, with holes and chunks taken from their body. He uses this technique to portray the loss of ones self through life and how it gradually chunks away from who you are. He took what he felt the characters conscious and inner appearance looked like and put it on the outside so it was displayed to viewers the fragility of an artistic life.

Hybridity it the use of multiple art forms to create complexity and variety into a single work. This technique allows artist to explore the infinite possibilities and combinations art has to offer. Today the movement of ideas, capital and people is faster and wider than it has ever been before in history. The cultural dynamics of globalization have presented new challenges to the existing models for explaining the forms of belonging and the patterns of exchange that are occurring in the world. Because culture is no longer understood as the discrete and unique expression of activities and ideas that occur in particular places no culture can exist in isolation. Which means artist must branch out as well in order to satisfy the ever increasing cultural dynamic and convey its equally as increasingly complex concepts and ideals. Thats why hybridity is becoming so popular because artists are ditching single technique art work for the infinite possibilities hybridity has to offer.

Chris Landreth uses Hybridity in his film "Ryan" by combining the animation, photography, and a sound track. It might not be as apparent as some other artist's hybrid work but it relates to what I want to study the most. I want to make documentary styled films in order to show social issues and spread messages while also incorporating montage and outside themes. Landreth's does this by using hybridity to show what he believed his characters looked like on the inside and bringing it to the outside through
animation. Then he uses the actual recording of the interview he had with Ryan as the main soundtrack. The recording is art in its self because you can hear the real emotion Chris and Ryan express which makes the animation that much more real. Chris also uses real pictures to show what Ryan and other people looked like back then before life got complicated for him. He's doing this to show how Ryan was a real human being, a whole human being, which adds another layer to Chris's work.

This has inspired me to research different documentary styles and pursue the idea of using things other than film. I now express interest in animation, docudrama's, and interview style recordings all because of this work. I think Chris portrayed the interview beautifully and I hope one day I too can create such a well rounded piece of art.

Image addresses:
I don't own any rights to these images.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nbkBjZKBLHQ/maxresdefault.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f7/Ryan_DVD.jpg/220px-Ryan_DVD.jpg