i am very sorry to the class not only for failing to demonstrate my light, but forgetting to upload the video of it working… anyway here it is, in case any of you were curious…

If anyone wants to watch my Forever Young video just click the link. It’s on my facebook but is set that everyone can view it so I hope it works! Enjoy.

Finally on Youtube Yay!

What an exciting predicament that was not so exciting I was in. Forced to recede from my original ideas to the extent where I didn’t have to be a physics master, it opened up new possibilities to enhance my own film making abilities. Hence the wording of it being an experiment. Still, I did not want to stray too far from my notions of a Rube Goldbergian/Pythagoras Switch creation so I started off making contraptions which fell apart in  lieu of filming. I captured as much of my meager first attempts as I was able, but cut most of it out in processing and editing, as consequence, the video is lacking in the extra minute or so length that I would have required to obtain more of the atmosphere I wanted to build. I had some footage of Doctor Ekulsen running up the stairs, that didn’t work with the rest of it all because I wanted to keep a balance between him and the other elements, but as for the future, I definitely acquired some good shots to use in other projects or even possibly a recreation or better crack at this coconut. All in all, I think that I worked within my capabilities to produce something that was better all around rather than overambitious and lacking.

Watch the video on youtube here.

For my final project I have done a storyboard animatic, which is a rough cut of animations. I choose this project because I like to tell stories, its my passion. And with project I have decided to base it upon my own life! Well kind of…just the things that happened to me for the last couple of months. Everything you see in this short has happened to me since coming to Toronto, unfortunately….

The Premise:

The premise basically revolves around a day in the life of a unfortunate unlucky soul, well me…. and the humorous misfortune that happens to me. The whole video is done without dialogues, the way I see I, is your making a 3 mins videos there’s no point in having dialogues, dialogues create information and background about characters, and with a short like this its really unnecessary. A good storyteller knows that, not that I call myself a good storyteller…. I kind of suck actually. But i liked how this project turned out!

The Process:

I first draw up backgrounds for each scene in my sketchbook, which totaled roughly around 36 scenes. Then draw the animation on post-it notes, I do it on post-it notes because the material on them can been seen through, this way I can make sure I’m animating over the backgrounds and previous animation cel properly, they act as a sort of flip-book if you will. Then scan them into Photoshop where I would clean them up and prep them for editing in Adobe Premier. I much prefer Adobe Premier over Final Cut for the sole reason of having the feature of editing your Photoshop work and premier would be directly correspond to whatever you do in Photoshop, a very handy tool especially if you’re doing traditional animation.

– Draw backgrounds onto sketchbook

– Draw the animation on Post-It notes over the backgrounds

– scan them then clean and crop them for editing

– then finally edit and animate them in Adobe Premier!

Challenges:

The biggest Challenge i had with this project was definitely the time constraint, i realized that this would be time consuming, but i definitely underestimated the time it takes to do up the animation. I had to cut a lot of scenes out. There was actually one scene in which I’m late for my time based media class and as I arrive Kate Hartman gives me a hard time and gets very angry. But that scene would’ve taken too long to edit; the whole process took me around 30 pages of my sketchbook, and 60 animation cels. And right now I realize that I really should put sound effects and some sound in it, I think ill edit that some time in the future. But in the end it’s all worth it eh?

“According to my LUCK”

So for my final project I decided to make a song because I enjoyed the audio element of our video project’s earlier in the term. I thought that making a song would be fun and take what I learned in that project a step further. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking to record as I hadn’t been playing any music in quite a few months. As I started to get to work I began writing on my guitar and rather quickly a song came together. I made a rough recording on my tape recorder and showed it to my friend who has a recording studio and he let me come in one afternoon and record my song onto his 2 inch tape machine. I played the bass guitar parts to a click track and then played the guitar chords over that. Next I tried to do the drums, but as I am not a drummer, I quickly gave up on that. So I called it a day and asked a drummer friend of mine to listen to my rough song and think of what he could do with drums on it. Luckily he agreed and once the drums were added a few days later, I was amazed that I had something that sounded like a real song. That day I recorded the lyrics that I had written, and had another friend double my voice with hers. I really liked the result of the male/female element to the vocals. So now I had a song with drums and vocals but it still sounded thin or maybe a little amateurish. My friend suggested that I start to layer guitar parts and that really is what started to make the song sound distinct. I just kept going and going with the guitar parts basically for the rest of the three hours my friend had given me to use his studio space. I was extremely lucky to have this kind of a resource available to me, as everything I could have ever needed to make a professional recording was made available to me. So now I had about ten guitar parts and a bass track, drums, and multiple vocal tracks of me and my friend Julie. I could now start mixing in Logic Pro and about a week later I had a rough mix happening that I liked and with a few last minute overdubs of a little synthesizer and adding effects like reverb and compression, all of a sudden I was finished. Then I continued to tamper with the mix and and almost ruined what I had by overmixing. I should have left it alone but I couldn’t resist and had to stay up all night fixing what I had done. I subtracted a few guitar parts and got it back to the kind of sound that I had wanted, and overall I was really pleased with what I had accomplished. The song is called ‘Life’s Planned’ and I really happy with the result.

p.s I have been trying for two hours to upload the song but can’t so far, I’ll keep trying, but any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

For my final project, I created a song and video. As you all saw, I performed the song live in class and had the video playing in the background. Normally I like to play music with a jazzy vibe to it, however I felt ambient would be best for the mood I was trying to portray. I wanted the project to deal with the difference between light and dark and how the two depend on each other. The original track is roughly 4 minutes, so I had to cut it down to 3 for the presentation.

I will post a link to the full version of the song later. Here is a link to my music video Light the Dark.

I also thought I would post the lyrics if anyone wanted to read them.

Light The Dark by Anna Valerio

Trembling fingers
Cold, cold eyes
Your lips are loose
Your heart is paralyzed

Don’t let yourself fade away
Don’t let it all fade to grey

Without dark there can be no light
Light up the darkness
Without black there can be no white
Light up the darkness

Cold chills
Blood rush
Fever fuss
Love and lust

Take a breath
Hold it in
Let it go
From within
Breathe in deep
The words you can’t keep
Let them go
Let me go

Without dark there can be no light
Light up the darkness
Without black there can be no white
Light up the darkness

Take a breath
Hold it in
Let it go
From within
Breathe in deep
The words you can’t keep
Let them go
Let me go

Without dark there can be no light
Light up the darkness
Without black there can be no white
Light up the darkness

Disintegrating into the nothingness that surrounds you
Don’t let it consume you

Without dark there can be no light
Without black there can be no white

I’ll pull you from the shadows
I won’t let you fall, fall, fall…
I’m here
I’m right here

Here is a link to my video on youtube, as well my written statement. thanks

– michael

Video Study of Color and Texture, By Michael Abraham Orfus
Conducted between 10:24 pm on December 1st, and 1:12 pm on December 3, 2009

Concept:
We experience color and texture all the time. Are senses are constantly bombarded by an array of tactile and visual information, however our conscious experience represents only a small slice of sensory possibilities (take for example different types of light or radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum outside of direct human perception; infrared, ultraviolet, etc). Due to the sheer volume of what we can still perceive, we cannot give most of this information our direct attention, and it goes unnoticed . . . what I propose is that we do absorb a considerable amount of these stimuli and their effects on a sub-conscious level, and that the feelings and sensations associated with these encounters are imprinted in our sub-conscious memory. As a result, even the most minute or passing tactile or visual experience has the potential to trigger a feeling, sensation, or even evoke an emotional response based on ones own past experiences of similar phenomenon and the events surrounding them. My film aims to provide the raw materials (color and texture) to stimulate the subconscious memory/experience in the individual viewer. The film also records a selection of my own visual and tactile experiences from 10:24 pm on Tuesday December 1st to 1:12 pm on Thursday December 3rd; a period of approximately 39 hours. The information is mediated through the camera, which when used freely can reveal to us what we can’t see on our own.

Methods:
Produced with a combination of stop motion and frame by frame digital photography, the film is composed of approximately 865 individually shot digital photos, shown at 1/10th of a second each; hours of visual information are condensed into in just over 2 minutes. Shot with a Canon Powershot SD780 IS Digital Elph, the subject is a selection of my everyday, or chance visual and tactile encounters mixed with more deliberate, generalized imagery intended to produce an emotional or cerebral response in the viewer. My notes record and list all materials in the order they appear, as well as by the time the photographs were taken.

Influences:
I have always been interest in the psychological effects of color – the idea that certain warm or cool colors or shades are associated with specific emotional or psychological states. My only conscious film influence is Stan Brakhage (1933 – 2003), who I was introduced to in this class. I love the abstract quality of his films and seeing his work has somehow affected the way I want my films to look. Mostly I am interested in his idea of revealing the universal in the particular. I sort of relate it to my interest in the way the camera can mediate our experience of the world and also reveal aspects of nature that we cannot directly perceive with our own eyes.

Challenges  / Successes:
The biggest challenge probably was taking the number of photographs needed to achieve the desired effect. As mentioned, the film is composed of 865 individual frames, which is maybe 1/4th of what I shot attempting to capture the correct compositions. At first deciding what to shoot and what not to was somewhat challenging, but as i got more involved in the process this became more intuitive. For documentary purposes I wanted the film to have a level of real-time continuity so I decided to shoot it straight through, in order, and with for lack of a better term, a sense of urgency. Needless to say the production consumed me completely for several days. Due to time constraints and the necessity to work on other assignments, I did not get to experiment with an audio track to supplement the visual aspect of the film. This may have helped to create an atmosphere of free association for the viewer. I do feel however, that the piece has a strong enough visual element to work in silence, and in the end I don’t think the lack of audio hurts the film, which is based primarily on retinal evocations of subconscious sensory-memories and their psychological and emotional associations.

For my final time-based media project, I have decided to create an installation piece. I thought of creating a spinning light source that projects images, or rather shadows of birds on walls. I also plan to accompany this with bird sound effects. I originally wanted the sound effects to be frightening but now I wouldn’t mind having a variety of bird sounds. For example: having peaceful sounds as well as creepy and terrifying. This will ultimately cause the observer to feel overwhelmed with different emotions and will allow the observer to escape into a different setting. This piece was influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s film “The Birds.”

For the actual light, I have used two pieces of wood to create the base, a momentary switch, a motor, a piece of wooden stick to hold up the plastic container that is used as the shade that will evidently have the bird cut-outs (to create shadows). I also found these really large cheap Christmas lights that I will be using as the light source because LED’s wouldn’t help show the shadows. I would imagine placing this particular piece in a room with only white walls for a better contrast. If I had more money and time I would make the piece to be hung. Instead of it being on a stand I would want it to take as less space as possible, so that observers would not be distracted by the device.

Revisiting electronics was kind of a suicide mission from the beginning. I just wanted to challenge myself a little and make use of the left over materials I didn’t use for the electronics project. I thought that problem solving skills would work well here. As for judging the finish product as a piece of installation art, it really depends on whether the shadows are well shown and the combination of light, shadow and sound are effective for my presentation. There were definitely a lot of errors through the process of getting this assignment done. I did learn a lot and I will probably revisit electronics again, just not for school purposes. I think that there’s too much pressure, due to time restraints. Overall, I think that I did an okay job on the finished piece. I tried my best to make the idea in my head happen. I would change having the momentary switch to a dial switch so that I could control the speed of the motor and also I wouldn’t have to constantly push the button for the piece to work. I would’ve also experimented with different paper so that the shadows would show up sharper.
——————————————————————————
So I completely forgot to take pictures of my project and left it in my locker after class. I’m a complete idiot. And i’m most likely gonna pay for being so forgetful.

sorry

My video, entitled From Cradle to Curtains, A Chronology, is a long, prosper life condensed into eighty seven seconds of abstract reinterpretations. Should I e-mail the powerpoint in addition to my written statement though? I’m not sure if I should. Let me know.

So even though I know what each scene means in this video I felt leaving it up for interpretation would be beneficial. At the same time however, I feel like people can’t link these to moments in life whatsoever. I guess to cause less confusion and yet not give it all away, I’ll use the pomegranate seeds as an example. These seeds are supposed to be seen as cells in the human body that could one day potentially turn cancerous. The unsettling and somewhat chaotic movement of the camera imply this tense uneasiness, realizing that things which make our bodies prosper and function could turn life-threatening at any moment, like those superheroes we read about in fables, suddenly falling transitioning over to the dark side. The individual I represented in this video actually loses their life to cancer, which can be understood by successfully interpreting the scene that follows, but before I get too ahead of myself I’ll just post the link to the video and leave it up to the viewer to understand. The video doth lay here.

Glad to be part of this class though, and thanks for all of it. 🙂