It was completely by surprise that I stumbled onto all six pages of the original storyboards I drew up for my Film 203 animation class that I took in 2004. I honestly thought I'd lost them when moving and hadn't actually seen them in over five years. I've previously shared the drawn backgrounds and actual film strip from this final project titled, Over at Grandpa's. What's also exciting is that I recently purchased a vintage 16mm projector (still on route) to try and capture some of my remaining film school shorts that I haven't been able to play. It's yet to be determined whether the film from this animation will hold up in the projector, but hopefully I'll be able to share some excerpts at the very least. For now, it's just cool to be able to look back at all the work that went into this claymation that I never even got a chance to screen.
For a long time I've had it in my head that I'd share some of the notes that I've held onto since film school. Given that all of these assignments have now been uploaded, I figured the syllabus from Film 486: Experimental Film Production, was as good a place to start as any. Check out the list of projects we were assigned in the fall semester of 2006, and then check out my links below to see what I did for each one.
Video Collage For this one I took it upon myself to bring new meaning to time travel. Check out The Other Time Machine. Formal Film Project Shot on 16mm and presented at the Sask Film Pool, for this assignment I created X. Media Diary My goal with this assignment was to create a photographic quilt of my past using cropped images and textures from my childhood. What I made was, from 84.
I rediscovered all of my film school notes over the weekend. Had I gone to class more often I'm sure there would've been even more. I'm not entirely sure what I've stored away here, but I'm fairly certain that there's going to be lots to share.
I'm hoping to pull up some notes on former assignments and show you the resulting projects I did, maybe showcase a few syllabuses to give you an idea of what some of my classes were like, and ultimately archive anything of value for my own sake.
Film school was meant to over-prepare you for the potential challenges that the real world would present. While I still have yet to encounter the majority of these situations, the truth is there were some great exercises that I still borrow on to this day.
In the very first core film production class that I ever took, we were required to do an in-camera edit. This meant no software and that things would have to happen chronologically for your project to make sense. Like most projects, things were left fairly open-ended for each of us to make our own mistakes and find a personal style. I was reminded of all this when I discovered my original storyboard for that in-camera project, titled Homeless, that I'd drawn up.
Homeless Storyboard - Click to Enlarge
I always argued that every filmmaker created a homeless guy movie at some point, so I suppose I was eager to get my own out of the way. While the project is alright, it's always been the technique and experience that I gained from it that I like to talk about. Finding the storyboard just further emphasizes what a great starting point this was for learning how to think through my shots, cuts, and how to compose a complete piece.
With the music altered in post and titles added when I uploaded it to YouTube years later, this project is otherwise exactly as the storyboard illustrates. Despite blogging about my film school history on a regular basis, it's cool to actually discover a piece of it and have the story present itself.
This is the last of the film school slide volumes. Look over the images once more and think to yourself about what the story or scene behind them might be and share it if you like. As I've expressed, this is a great exercise for a variety of technically based (film experience related) reasons, but it's also just a great way to wake up your brain.
#11 - Truck Old truck with Saskatchewan plates, what's the owner like or where is he or she?
#6 - Waffle Ceiling Mad Men office space or space office for mad men?
#1 - Window Sask. Legislature, maybe a stately home even, who's inside?
#16 - Papers A million old stories, a lost message, stacks of old observations . . . find something.
And we continue with my film school still frame exercise. What's the story behind these images? What kind of movie would these be from? What's the scene? Do they connect with one another somehow? These were all things we were asked when assigned this project back in the introductory class to the film program. I may have taken the images, but the beauty of the project is that they are what you make of them.
#10 - Alley Building Lens flares, over-exposed, a back alley entrance - quirky address or seedy meeting place.
#14 - Government House Historic home, government grounds, modern day or early 20th century?
#7 - Caution Foreshadowing. What's going on here - crime scene, painting, leaky roof?
#15 - Tree Lined Road Drive to a hospital or prison in the country - a stately manor perhaps?
In continuation of the images I posted yesterday, here are several more slides from the same film school photography assignment. Several of these images were never used in class, so coming across them again after years in a box has me redefining their meaning. The idea behind the project was to consider possible scenes or stories related to the image, as though it was a still frame from a feature film. What do you see?
#2 - Pentax My friend Ward. Shooting each others portrait at the same time - what happened to the picture of me I wonder?
#8 - Fountain Dimly lit, beads of water collecting - someone else was just here.
#5 - Bowling Alley A time gone by, abandoned, nostalgic, what's inside?
#9 - Utility Closet Shades of yellow and orange, full shelves, hidden supplies, someones collection.
A movie, technically speaking, is simply a series of still images played at 24 frames per second to create the illusion of movement. This fact proved to be the central theme of my very first production class and the inspiration behind many of the projects that we were assigned in the winter semester of 2003. Working with the Pentax K1000 (still camera) we were instructed to capture images and then create a back story, soundscape, song, or any cinematic embellishment we wished, to add another layer to the images.
I vaguely remember what I did, but stumbling on to these slides again was a treat. It brings back a lot of memories to see how 7 years ago I was just beginning to explore my love of urban texture and depth - bricks, concrete, peeling paint, retro settings in a modern context, etc. This influence is evident in several of my projects, most notably, Urban Jazz from that same year.
If you imagine these slides as a single frame in a feature film, it's actually a great creative exercise (hence the assignment) to picture what might be going on - Where are we going? What is this leading to? What does the image say about the theme, style, genre? I have my own notes on how I accented these images, but I'll leave it to you to come up with your own stories.
#12 - Western Furs
Bold text, patterned windows, bellowing smoke, canted angle to emphasize scale - this is the cold city. #3 - Piano
Stylized text with Canadian reference, short depth of field - foreshadowing for Keys perhaps?
#13 - Hang Up
Abandoned, desolate, no answer . . .
#4 - The Red Light
Industrial elements, a bright spot of color - welcoming or foreboding?
I was going through some old files on my computer today and came across this article I wrote for the university newspaper back in the fall of 2005. There are probably three times as many films about the Iraq war out there now, most recently I watched No End in Sight and Iraq in Fragments, but there are still no easy explanations regarding the chaos occurring over there; no easy solutions either. Here's what I wrote back then:
Our perception of the world, likely now more than ever, is a result of a media induced society that aims at unleashing our empathy on those who have undergone some experience. It sounds vague, but let us not kid ourselves, anything can be news. This is the first lesson in understanding bias. Perhaps you’re tired of reading, watching, or hearing about Iraq, but I have to admit that my own ambivalence towards what was happening over there was lifted after watching several documentaries. More than changing my views on Iraq, which wasn’t really my intent, they helped me to refine my views on the media. The first documentary I watched was Control Room (2004), which provides insight into the infamous Al Jazeera network, and the perception of the war created by both Middle Eastern and American coverage. After about a half an hour of watching I started to realize that I really had no idea what was going on in Iraq, or the middle east for that matter. I became conscious to the fact that my entire view of the war had been shaped by heated debates and broadcasts that often played the Americans as struggling heroes and the Iraqis as victims or lunatics. Even worse, I realized that most Westerners who are not directly linked to the conflict are probably having their minds made up in much the same way. Directed by Jehane Noujaim, Control Room is filmed in Iraq and focuses on many of the media correspondents and military spokespeople located there. It’s a real eye opener that delves into the problems of open and honest media when anyone can access it. However, the films real strong point is it’s realistic, no nonsense Iraqi perspective that allows you to come to your own conclusion about what you may be watching on the nightly news. Of course, Michael Moore has to come up when talking about Iraq because of his latest release Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). This film takes an entirely different approach, because it’s strength and perhaps it’s flaw, is to inform through entertainment. I have to admit that I became emotionally revved after seeing Moore’s film and was determined that Bush was wrong, the war was wrong, and Americans were crazy. But, regardless of your viewpoint, Fahrenheit’s real power is it’s ability to spawn discussion. I’ve been with people who never expressed an opinion about the war, and after seeing this film, wouldn’t shut up about it. Michael Moore has adopted a sketchy reputation for altering facts for the sake of making arguments. For that reason my eyes opened a little wider when I ran across Alan Peterson’s Fahrenhype 9/11 (2004). Now I’m not saying who’s right and who’s wrong here, because in my opinion the truth lies somewhere between these two films. Moore is clearly a democrat and Peterson a republican, but from Peterson’s lesser known film I was amazed at hearing how some of the people who were in Moore’s film actually felt. Ultimately these three films share very different opinions that are expressed in equally different ways. Although each of these films make great arguments, what I really got from these experiences was the reasoning to never accept easy answers. Media is simply communication altered by perspective. The purpose and logic seems black and white. Although, at one time so did war, and yet here we are living in a world where buses, hotels and skyscrapers are targets and still most people don‘t understand why. The answers are complicated, but the information is out there. The good news is that if you’ve reached this point in my article you’ve at least attempted to understand another viewpoint. And for the sake of what I’m trying to say, that’s a good start.
