dan's project
Last year my friend Dan (who will be taking care of the technical side of the stray cinema screening event in London) curated a cool digital art show called ‘Intimacy and In.yer.face’. He released the raw footage files from this show on his website, and asked people to remix them - [url=http://www.intimacyandinyerface.ne]www.intimacyandinyerface.net.
The second part of this project is a series of free workshops which are being held by local artists on audiovisual manipulation this Saturday (28th April). These workshops are aimed at total beginners - providing the opportunity to get hands-on experience in the manipulation of audio and video, through both software and hardware. Anyway, I think I might go along to a workshop, you should contact dan@straycinema.com if you are keen to come (and live in Wellington).
The Magic Of Youtube
By homage, 4 years, 9 months ago - No Comments
In the spirit of the best film I've seen recently, The Illusionist, let's talk a little bit today about magic. In particular, some good old-fashioned science magic.
Sat through it? Good. So the really clever thing about Mr. AGFish (if that's his real name) isn't his ability to predict the numbers that will be rolled on a die.
Obviously.
Neither is it his skillful use of weighted dice, because, obviously, he isn't using them (he's a scientist!)
So bearing in mind that his trick is patently fake and does not pretend to be otherwise, is his cleverness in the degree of classic Houdini-style misdirection he applies to his trick - making us focus on his obviously ridiculous little machine so we don't notice the simple trick he's doing?
Well, that's part of it, but I think the REAL cleverness being applied in this video is the very plain and yet apparently maddeningly counterintuitive exploitation of perceptions of what we see on Youtube.
In that only one person, in the pages of comments deriding Richard's poor scientific spirit but rich parlor-magician hucksterism, had the laterality to realise that, conceivably, someone on Youtube might be capable of performing rudimentary sound editing. nobody thought to question why the majority of the video consists of dick's irrelevant face, and then when he starts actually doing the trick proper, there's no pesky lip-synching for the (gobsmackingly simple) overdubs that have been added after the fact. (insert shyamalan-viewer "argh - of course!" here).
the reason i'm bothering to bring this up is that it's brought home to me a peculiarity of the new media: the default assumption that most people making it are completely bereft of technical ability.
this isn't any kind of snobbish clarion call, no summons to the talented folk reading to throw down their burdens and take the world by storm by exploiting the fact that suddenly expectations have dropped to the level where fratboys hitting each other in the face with hammers is considered worthy media for consumption. (though that is a shame).
i just think it's nice that media has become so personal(/unprofessional), such an intimate(/shoddy) process of creation and dissemination that it's made magic possible again.
but then, nobody on here needs reminding of that...
a self indulgent blog about improvisation
By michelle, 4 years, 9 months ago - No Comments
im interested in the combination of improvisation and art, whether it be film, theatre, music - whatever. I spent three years performing improvised theatre, and what interests me is collaboration, and the creation, which tends to come from deep within the sub-conscious, a place that often gets drowned out by logic and careful planning.
i just found an article on idealog which draws a parallel between improv and business, it's rather interesting, and a tad cheesy. but i really like this advice:
"Take your ego out of your ideas. We say one plus one is three. Your idea and life experience and expertise with my ideas, life experience and imagination create a third person—a thing we'd never create by ourselves."
Six minute Stray Cinema edit
By michelle, 4 years, 9 months ago - No Comments
Interesting, I just found this six minute film using our footage on Benjamin Woodling's blog. Unfortunately it is too long to submit into our competition, but have a watch and leave him a comment, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.
Failed to load video.
This blog is for writers...
By michelle, 4 years, 9 months ago - No Comments
who may be keen to contribute to an crowdsourced story - Assignment Zero. Here is an excerpt from an earlier blog I wrote about the project:
"Assignment Zero - they are writing a story about croudsourcing (in particular the growing trend in Internet usage, and the current and future effect this will have on journalism). This is a working model of an 'open' newsroom and journalists, and contribution is open to everyone. Apparently there are more collaborative reporting 'experiments' on the way from Assignment Zero after this one."
Anyway, they are looking for people who might be keen on contributing to the crowdsourced film part of the story, you could write about us! I think this project provides a great opportunity upcoming journalists and budding writers who want experience. More information can be found here.
By michelle, 4 years, 9 months ago - No Comments