Final Project – Video

Video found here: http://vimeo.com/11253175

Painting to Video – Film

Link to video here.

Painting to Video Story

Setting – Young Man in dorm room aggressively packing his backpack. Papers are strewn across his desk. The state of the room ends up in complete disarray by the time he is done packing. He hastily swings open his door and storms out.

[Flashback] – Young Man walks into an office to meet advisor. He looks defiant as he sits down across from his advisor. The advisor opens drawer and pulls out manila folder and places it on her desk.

ADVISOR: Do you know why you are here?

YOUNG MAN: I’m pretty sure I have an idea. Why don’t you cut to the chase and tell me what you need to say?

Advisor opens folder and pulls out sheet of paper. She slides it across the desk to the young man.

Young man looks at the paper nonchalantly and shrugs.

YOUNG MAN: This isn’t anything I didn’t know before. You are wasting your time.

ADVISOR:  Its not too late in the semester to pull your act together. If you just started caring about your work you can succeed.

YOUNG MAN: But I don’t care. And I won’t! I don’t even want to be here.

ADVISOR: I think it is time for you to make a serious decision and realize the implications of your carelessness. Your future at this school is in jeopardy.

Stands up leaving hands on the table and leans into advisor.

YOUNG MAN: My future is more than what any piece of paper can say.

Grabs paper off desk and tears it in half

[End Flashback]

[Present] – Elevator doors open in lobby of dorm. Young man walks out of elevator and exits the building. He calmly walks into the sunset.

End with: Shimmer – Marcus Krackowizer

Movie Scene Analysis: Double Indemnity

The movie I have chosen is Double Indemnity, an American film noir from 1944 directed by Billy Wilder. Basically, the plot of the movie involves Phyllis Dietrichson convincing an insurance salesman, Walter Neff, to kill her husband and make it look like an accident. By having her husband die in an accident, she is entitled to twice the amount of life insurance thanks to a double indemnity clause in his life insurance. The scene I have chosen is the first time Neff meets Phyllis to talk about insurance for her car. The scene begins in this link at 1 minute and ends at 3 minutes 40 seconds.
This scene demonstrates many characteristics of a film noir. Film noirs are known for their low-key black-and-white style. As soon as Neff enters the living room in this scene, we see some examples of this. The blinds in the windows create shadows and a pattern that covers Neff and most of the room. As Neff walks around the room, he gives a voice over describing the room as “still stuffy from last night’s cigars.” This type of voice over is one of the most famous characteristics of a film noir.
Before this scene, Neff is at the door and is invited in by Phyllis who is at the top of the stairs wearing only a towel. She leaves the scene and Neff is alone in the living room. Once Phyllis re-enters the scene, the audience can tell by what Neff’s voice over says that he is attracted to her. The way Phyllis is re-introduced is with a close-up of her legs as she walks down the stairs. This emphasis of sexual motivation is another characteristic of film noirs.
Of course the plot of the movie is very film noir, with a private investigator trying to uncover a murder and Neff having to deal with a femme fatale.

Scene Shot-by-Shot:

Video Scavenger Hunt

Link to Video

Catch Me If You Can Title Sequence Review

Catch Me if You Can

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaLDyrun_Cc

The opening title sequence for Catch Me if You Can was done by creative directors Kuntzel + Deygas and the production company Nexus Productions. I really like this sequence because it tells a story (the plot of the film pretty much) and manages to incorporate the text into the graphics. For instance, the straight lines in letters such as “h” and “t” are elongated to create walls or cables that fit into the action of the story. Since the “plot” of this sequence is bare bones and shows only that one man is chasing another, only about three or four colors in the frame at once. Human bodies as well as other subjects are drawn as simple geometric shapes giving it a very simplistic look and overall feel. The title sequence does an excellent job of communicating the mood of the film since it displays the plot and shows how the main character attempts to slip his captor, by wearing different disguises. There are a lot of elements of visual design in this sequence. Besides the color element that I already mention, and the use of lines originating from the text, there is a lot of repetition used. For example, there are scenes of similar looking people sitting at similar looking desks. There is almost always in a scene a line of people walking that look exactly the same. I believe this is supposed to show how easily the main character was able to blend into his fake occupations. Finally, when the title of the film appears,  the word “Me” in the title blows away, suggesting that the “me” in the story is as hard to capture as the wind.

Movie Poster

This poster was created by Shepard Fairey, who is more famously known for his Barack Obama “HOPE” poster. Similarly to the Obama poster, this poster for the movie Walk the Line uses a very limited color palette with only 4 or 5 colors. These colors are mostly shades of red and yellow. Fairey lists Alexander Rodchenko as an influence and it is certainly transparent in his use of geometric shapes and simple color schemes. The simplicity is not only in the colors but in the details. The silhouette of Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash is one solid color that only breaks up at the face to show some detail. This poster uses very little text as well, with the title and month of release as the only text. Fairey uses a slab serif typeface which is reminiscent of old west advertisement/posters. It seems that Fairey wanted to mix old style poster designs with contemporary designs. This is evident in the poster’s slightly old western look. The guitar also has a lot more detail than anything else on the poster (arguably there are only 3 or so objects). But I believe that Fairey wanted the emphasis to be on the guitar to show that Johnny Cash was known more for his music than who he was. The fact the “Johnny Cash” is facing away from the viewer and the guitar is facing towards the viewer bolsters this belief.

My Propaganda Poster

For my poster, I decided to create a recruitment poster for the place I work, which is a department within Housing & Dining. The style I was going for was the look of one of Alexander Rodchenko’s works. Really I just think that communist propaganda type posters look cool. That’s all. Thanks for reading/viewing!

In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age

At the National Gallery of Art, I slowly paced myself through an exhibition entitled In the Darkroom:  Photographic Process Before the Digital Age. The exhibition is an informative guide through the history, invention, and processes of photography, starting with salt paper prints and ending with silver dye prints. All the photographs were selected from the National Gallery’s permanent selection and are organized as to show the advancement of film photography.

As well as including William Henry Fox Talbot’s photographic drawing dated 1839-1844, the earliest photograph, the exhibition displays the works of famous artist such as Alexander Rodchenko, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, William Eggleston, and Andy Warhol. There seemed to be no overarching theme, leaving me to believe that the photographs were chosen to put an emphasis on the photographic process. The more modern photographs, or the ones after the early 1900s, were much more interesting. The earliest photographs were not very artistic, sometimes with just a single subject in a frame, and were, except for the historical point of view, not much to look at.

Since there was no central theme, the photographs were of many different subjects and encompassed a wide variety of elements such as contrasts, rhythm, depth of field, lighting, negative shapes, and so on. It was also very interesting see old family photos and Polaroid pictures on display in an exhibition in a museum. If one were to visit this exhibit and not find the photographs on display enlightening, one might still be enthralled with the history of the photographic process. However, I doubt anyone would find this exhibit less than interesting since it includes many famous photographers. The exhibition is quite literally a stroll through decades of photography inventions and innovations. For an experienced photographer or a hobbyist, this exhibition is surely a must see.

Chapter 12

Photography takes a great amount of time and decisions to do. There are many important ideas to consider when snapping a photograph. Photographs are taken to capture a moment or an emotion that the photographer hopes to remember each time he or she views the photo. The people or objects in the photograph are captured forever in the frame while the photographer, or the observer, will never be a part of the picture. It is very important to be a good observer when taking pictures. As evidenced by the photos of Dorothea Lange, spotting an opportunity to take a picture is crucial. If Lange had not turned around to the camp in which Florence Thompson was, Lange would have never captured the famous “Migrant Mother” photo.

Lange also experienced some unwanted effects of the picture as well, however. For instance, Thompson was upset that she received no money while Lange profited heavily from it. Lange also was upset to find out she is now widely known for “Migrant Mother” and labeled as a “one-picture photographer.”

The rest of the chapter discusses the technical aspects of photography. These aspects include shutter speed (the amount of time the shutter stays open), the lens type (each can give different perspectives, film type (the amount of light sensitivity in color or black and white), camera types (whether inexpensive, moderately expensive, or high-priced), lighting (natural or artificial), and print quality (in terms of exposure and contrast).