Project # 1
January 26, 2011
"Weekend"
Story= The main character wakes up, walks into the hall way, drinks some juice, and brushes his teeth. Then, he reads a book, moving around the room to different areas, eats, then reads some more. After finishing the book, the character brushes his teeth, then goes to sleep.
Intent: My intent was to show that even though the character is in a physical place, he is also enthralled with the book, completely in "another world." What I wanted my audience to get from the piece is that sometimes people will ignore reality and spend entire days holed up in their rooms, "escaping" from everyday life. Place's don't just exist in reality but also in our minds.
What got me going on this idea was the thought of place as a narrative device, and how places that mankind has created throughout history have affected us. We get absorbed in fiction and it defines our life, to a degree.
When I finished my piece, I felt that I had fulfilled my concept. I discovered that jump cuts can be a very effective catalyst for story progression, and editing makes all the difference when it comes to pacing.
I feel that the main strengths in my piece is my editing and concept.
There are a lot of problem areas that I need to address in my reshoot:
1.) While I did experiment with the editing and it does work well in some parts, the overall piece need more visual excitement.
2.) I need to lose the title, for a few reasons. One, it distracts from the overall piece. Two, since it's presented in such a way (crappy piece of paper with shitty handwriting), it gives the audience an expectation of, well, shit. And, three, it deserves a better title.
3.) I need to trim down the reading scenes, and find a way to make them not boring. I mean, you're watching a character read a book. Not exciting stuff. Find a way to make it better.
4.) Needs a hook.
Honestly, I feel that I didn't do a bad job for my first EVER attempt at film. But that doesn't excuse mediocre work- I will take the critiques I get in class and reshoot my piece, making it even better the second time around. It's a lot of fun, to be sure, but I need to work even more.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Weekend (Assignment 1: Place)
Nicolas Pflug
Prof. Wissmiller
Digital Cinema 1
Place Statement
January 26, 2011
When a person thinks about what “place” means, they may present different definitions. Some may say, “Where something or someone is.” Another may say it’s a part of the landscape, like a forest or a city. Others may even say that place is a person’s social ranking. However, while all of these definitions are true, there is one more definition of place that is important. A “place” does not have to be concrete; many places are fictitious. What I mean is, “place” is also a narrative device, used by authors, artists, and storytellers to create worlds as vast as the universe and as familiar as your home town. Places do not merely exist in reality, but also in our minds.
An example of how this is true: there are people in the world that make a living by creating places and things that don’t exist. There are a LOT of people that do this. Any body who has ever told a story, written a song, created a narrative piece of art- these people, and more, create these worlds that are fictional. As to why they do it, the answer is a tad complicated. Some wish to make a point about society, some wish inspire others, and some wish to merely entertain. But one of the biggest reasons why is a simple one: escape. We, as humans, are escapists. We read books, watch movies, play games, listen to music, watch TV, play fantasy football... the list goes on. We do these things for a variety of reasons, but one fact rings true: that fictional places are as important to us as places we can see and feel.
If you were walking down the street and you asked one hundred people one hundred questions, fifty about Czechoslovakia and fifty about Harry Potter, I can bet that more people will answer far more questions about Harry Potter than Czechoslovakia. This isn’t from ignorance, far from it. It instead illustrates just how deeply fiction has permeated the human race. As a race, we have been telling stories to one another since the invention of language.
As an animator, I want to tell stories through the movies I create. I want to evoke in my audience that sense of escape, that feeling of total immersion into a strange new world. I want to create places and characters that my audience can relate to on a base level, while still providing new experiences and stirring emotion.
For my short film on place, I will show how people can spend entire days enthralled in a place created by someone else, namely literature. People can sometimes rush through the menial tasks of reality (eating, hygiene, etc.) in order to return to a place created by someone else, that only exists on paper and in your head. I plan on taking this idea, and showing it in action.
Assignment 1: Place
place (noun)
1. A particular position or point in space.
2. A portion of space occupied by someone or something.
3. A person's rank or status.
4. A position in a sequence.
Assignment 1: Free write for a minimum five minutes on "place."
Place. What does it mean to me... well when I think of a where I am, it's the library, working on homework.
I love the library, it's quiet, peaceful. It gives me time to think, and I just love being surrounded by books. I've loved literature my whole life and it just calms me. Later tonight, I'm going to be going to McDonalds then school to work on animation.
What's my place in school... I'm a sophmore animation concentrator. I'm a quiet guy that doesn't hang out much; mostly I just chill with my roommates and close friends, playing video games, cooking, and reading books. I think I'm a good student, but I do procrastinate a little too much. I think the PLACE I spend the most time at the school is the mac lab, working on animation stuff. I spend a lot of time in there. A lot. I guess if I had to relate how my experience at school to anything, it'd be the computer lab. Last semester, when I was working on finals and stuff, I probably spent 20+ hours in the lab, just staring at the computer, working on animation. And loving it. It really is just fantastic taking an idea out of your head and bringing it to life for other people to enjoy. I love stories and such, so animation is the perfect concentration for me. And that's my place in school, which has a big place in my life, it will eventually define my life and what I do for the rest of it. So I guess that the place that is gonna end up defining me the most in my life right now is MCA.
Assignment 2: Look up the definition of "place" and respond to it- blog further.
"1. A particular position or point in space."
What I get from this is that everything has a place, in the sense that everything is somewhere. For example, the book I'm holding in my hand is not on the table. It's in my hand. Or, the place I go to school isn't LSU. It's MCA. Stuff like that.
"2. A portion of space occupied by someone or something."
Everything has mass, right? Everything takes up space, whether it's people, planets, or oxygen molecules.
"3. A person's rank or status."
I'm from a middle-class family, at an expensive art school, hoping to become an animator and maybe make a name for myself. But I'm content at keeping under the radar, too- the main thing that I want in life is enough success to continue doing the things that I love. My place, or status, internally, is content. I'm content with learning new things on a daily basis, making projects, playing games and reading in my down time. I have good friends, and I think I have good work ethic. So.... yeah.
"4. A position in a sequence."
I guess, when we get all philosophical and stuff, this is exactly what we are. We're all just a link in the chain: what happened in the past will effect what we do today. What we do today will effect what other people do in the future. But it's that idea that what we do can affect others is what drives us, as artists, to push further and better our craft. By creating works of art that resonates with others, be they peers, the artistic community, or the population in general, artists can effectively shape other people's lives, even if in just a minor way. That subtle change in someone else's view of the world is what I strive for as an artist, storyteller, and animator.
Assignment 3: Answer the following questions: 1. What is "a sense of place?" 2. What does it mean to be a person in a place? 3. How do people shape places, and how are they shaped by them? 4. Can places be in our minds as well as etched in the physical landscape? 5. Are our identities a kind of place, in and of themselves? Blog further
1. A sense of place, off the top of my head, is where someone feels they are. It can also apply, I guess, to movies, books, and art. In order for a narrative to be successful, there must first be a place that characters can occupy. If there wasn't, then the audience would not believe the story. By creating a good sense of place, the creator can pull the audience in, which allows for the creator to set up events of the story. Thus, a narrative cannot unfold, unless it has a sense of place.
That being said, I think the way a "sense of place" applies to the real world is where someone IS and how that person FEELS about that.
2. To be in a place, somebody doesn't necessarily need to be in that place physically. Sure, if you take the literal meaning to the phrase, then, yes, to be in a place you must be there physically. However, people can also "be" in another place. For example, if you get completely drawn into a novel, and are completely enthralled in it, you are "somewhere else-" the world of the book. Sure, you may physically be wherever you are reading, but you are also in the world of the book. That's what we as creators strive for- an escape hatch from everyday life into a world of our own creation that we can share with an audience.
3. People are constantly changing the spaces they occupy, and the spaces that people occupy are constantly defining them. People, to use a worn-out example, have caused global warming, through harmful emissions. In turn, people must then adapt to the changing environment. It's a chain of cause and effect that's been going on since the dawn of man.
Imaginary places also define people. Books, movies, games, and art are constantly presenting fictional worlds, and if the audience is impacted enough, it can change their views and the ideas presented can come to define them.
Take, for example, Star Trek. The universe the series creates is entirely fictional, but their are hundred of thousands of people that know it by heart- some even know the fictional languages in the series. While the premise of the show is completely NOT real, people are so enthralled by the universe that it has come to define them.
4. As I have said earlier, there are places that only exist in our minds, but those places are as real to us as a country we have never been to. I mean, I've never been to China, and I know little of it's history, but I know it exists. However, I know more about the world of Hyrule, from the Legend of Zelda game series, than I know about China. I know that China really exists, and that Hyrule doesn't, but Hyrule has defined me as a person more than China has.
And I'm not the only one. You can ask somebody on the street a hundred questions about Czechoslovakia and a hundred questions about the Harry Potter universe, and, the majority of the time, you will find that people know more about Harry Potter than Czechoslovakia. This isn't from ignorance, but rather illustrates how fictional places have permeated our society.
5. Our identities are a place, as well. We all have places in society, of course , but it's more than that. Our identities are defined by the places, both real and fictional, that we have been. Eventually, we become defined by so many places and experiences that our identities become unique, a place of there own.
1. A particular position or point in space.
2. A portion of space occupied by someone or something.
3. A person's rank or status.
4. A position in a sequence.
Assignment 1: Free write for a minimum five minutes on "place."
Place. What does it mean to me... well when I think of a where I am, it's the library, working on homework.
I love the library, it's quiet, peaceful. It gives me time to think, and I just love being surrounded by books. I've loved literature my whole life and it just calms me. Later tonight, I'm going to be going to McDonalds then school to work on animation.
What's my place in school... I'm a sophmore animation concentrator. I'm a quiet guy that doesn't hang out much; mostly I just chill with my roommates and close friends, playing video games, cooking, and reading books. I think I'm a good student, but I do procrastinate a little too much. I think the PLACE I spend the most time at the school is the mac lab, working on animation stuff. I spend a lot of time in there. A lot. I guess if I had to relate how my experience at school to anything, it'd be the computer lab. Last semester, when I was working on finals and stuff, I probably spent 20+ hours in the lab, just staring at the computer, working on animation. And loving it. It really is just fantastic taking an idea out of your head and bringing it to life for other people to enjoy. I love stories and such, so animation is the perfect concentration for me. And that's my place in school, which has a big place in my life, it will eventually define my life and what I do for the rest of it. So I guess that the place that is gonna end up defining me the most in my life right now is MCA.
Assignment 2: Look up the definition of "place" and respond to it- blog further.
"1. A particular position or point in space."
What I get from this is that everything has a place, in the sense that everything is somewhere. For example, the book I'm holding in my hand is not on the table. It's in my hand. Or, the place I go to school isn't LSU. It's MCA. Stuff like that.
"2. A portion of space occupied by someone or something."
Everything has mass, right? Everything takes up space, whether it's people, planets, or oxygen molecules.
"3. A person's rank or status."
I'm from a middle-class family, at an expensive art school, hoping to become an animator and maybe make a name for myself. But I'm content at keeping under the radar, too- the main thing that I want in life is enough success to continue doing the things that I love. My place, or status, internally, is content. I'm content with learning new things on a daily basis, making projects, playing games and reading in my down time. I have good friends, and I think I have good work ethic. So.... yeah.
"4. A position in a sequence."
I guess, when we get all philosophical and stuff, this is exactly what we are. We're all just a link in the chain: what happened in the past will effect what we do today. What we do today will effect what other people do in the future. But it's that idea that what we do can affect others is what drives us, as artists, to push further and better our craft. By creating works of art that resonates with others, be they peers, the artistic community, or the population in general, artists can effectively shape other people's lives, even if in just a minor way. That subtle change in someone else's view of the world is what I strive for as an artist, storyteller, and animator.
Assignment 3: Answer the following questions: 1. What is "a sense of place?" 2. What does it mean to be a person in a place? 3. How do people shape places, and how are they shaped by them? 4. Can places be in our minds as well as etched in the physical landscape? 5. Are our identities a kind of place, in and of themselves? Blog further
1. A sense of place, off the top of my head, is where someone feels they are. It can also apply, I guess, to movies, books, and art. In order for a narrative to be successful, there must first be a place that characters can occupy. If there wasn't, then the audience would not believe the story. By creating a good sense of place, the creator can pull the audience in, which allows for the creator to set up events of the story. Thus, a narrative cannot unfold, unless it has a sense of place.
That being said, I think the way a "sense of place" applies to the real world is where someone IS and how that person FEELS about that.
2. To be in a place, somebody doesn't necessarily need to be in that place physically. Sure, if you take the literal meaning to the phrase, then, yes, to be in a place you must be there physically. However, people can also "be" in another place. For example, if you get completely drawn into a novel, and are completely enthralled in it, you are "somewhere else-" the world of the book. Sure, you may physically be wherever you are reading, but you are also in the world of the book. That's what we as creators strive for- an escape hatch from everyday life into a world of our own creation that we can share with an audience.
3. People are constantly changing the spaces they occupy, and the spaces that people occupy are constantly defining them. People, to use a worn-out example, have caused global warming, through harmful emissions. In turn, people must then adapt to the changing environment. It's a chain of cause and effect that's been going on since the dawn of man.
Imaginary places also define people. Books, movies, games, and art are constantly presenting fictional worlds, and if the audience is impacted enough, it can change their views and the ideas presented can come to define them.
Take, for example, Star Trek. The universe the series creates is entirely fictional, but their are hundred of thousands of people that know it by heart- some even know the fictional languages in the series. While the premise of the show is completely NOT real, people are so enthralled by the universe that it has come to define them.
4. As I have said earlier, there are places that only exist in our minds, but those places are as real to us as a country we have never been to. I mean, I've never been to China, and I know little of it's history, but I know it exists. However, I know more about the world of Hyrule, from the Legend of Zelda game series, than I know about China. I know that China really exists, and that Hyrule doesn't, but Hyrule has defined me as a person more than China has.
And I'm not the only one. You can ask somebody on the street a hundred questions about Czechoslovakia and a hundred questions about the Harry Potter universe, and, the majority of the time, you will find that people know more about Harry Potter than Czechoslovakia. This isn't from ignorance, but rather illustrates how fictional places have permeated our society.
5. Our identities are a place, as well. We all have places in society, of course , but it's more than that. Our identities are defined by the places, both real and fictional, that we have been. Eventually, we become defined by so many places and experiences that our identities become unique, a place of there own.
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