Video Project

Here is my video project. I used Han's Richter's "Inflation." The first time hearing this song, I thought it was rather upbeat, than as it got faster, I just imagined something creepy from it, so I decided to go with creepy. There really is not story other than a girl who is lost and has two sides to her. I worked with the camera angles to create a creepier effect. Also, I made it black and white to match the era of the sound. Enjoy.

Final Animation With Audio

Questions for Reading #2

Benjamin notes that once mechanical reproduction became popular, the idea of "authentic aura" soon disappeared. This is relatable to things we see today that are mass-produced and mass-re-created.  Do you think that the more something is re-created the more value and power the original piece loses? Or do people become detached from the ideas that the piece was originally meant to hold

With this loss of the "aura," Benjamin speaks a lot about regaining the aura, and perhaps doing it in film. Is it necessary to regain the idea of the aura in film, when the director or camera man are shifting the perceptions and views how they see fit? An aura is dependent on the viewer and always subjective, while with film, there in a specific intent most of the time.

"We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. This image makes it easy to comprehend the social bases of the contemporary decay of the aura. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life. Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction."

First Animation from Triptych

Animation from Triptych

With deleting about 90% of my layers, I decided that I wanted to keep it a little bit creepy. There is no story to it; however, I wanted it to look a bit as if it were an old-timey film, as if you can almost hear the crackling of the camera in the background -- perhaps like a silent film. I did not want it to be too complicated to look at, so I mostly had one thing going on at a time. Also, I wanted to feel as if time was moving specifically in this piecesince I mostly focused on time travel. Donnie Darko offers a lot of time travel, and it also very creepy, so it works out! I hope you enjoy. :)

Triptych Montage

Steam Punk Time Travel

One of my all-time favorite movies is Donnie Darko, and that was something that came to mind while doing this project. Not only does it deal with time travel, it sort of gave me a theme to think about. I used "Stem Punk Time Travel," but I also wanted to keep a very dark feeling, and perhaps creepy. I used the dates as a symbol of time travel, and keys to symbolize the ability to do it, or do anything. I did some research on time travel and steam punk, and since steam punk stems from the Victorian era, I attempted to include things that also made sense, such as the dress, and the plague doctors mask, etc. The last one, I used the largest date I could make, and made it rather clustered and confusing on purpose, because the more we grow and expand into time travel, or just get older, the more things we create, and the more complicated life becomes. I also dropped the background, but still used the gear from the two previous photos, because it doesn't seem as anchored, which ties in with the whole idea. It's generally confusing, and that's what I was going for.

Critical Questions to "Basic Animation Aesthetics"

1. Relating aesthetics to real life, as a society, we generally try to achieve the best be can and look the best we can while doing it. Sometimes we try to cut corners doing this, and a lot of the time we get the same result. O'Reilly sets rules down for himself, and draws lines at what he cannot do. Do you feel that it is important to set boundaries to what you are doing if you are trying to achieve something specific in your style or something with guidelines? If so, do you already have boundaries? Did you find yourself creating boundaries in our last project? Also, if you do not feel that rules are necessary, do you agree with this quote from the passage, "The more rules we allow the more this elegance is compromised"? Page 6.

2. O'Reilly mentions that in a large audience there may be only one person that notices the flaws in your work. Do you think that using this as a mentality, it would make it okay to cut some corners, or use rules you may have prohibited beforehand? Also, do you feel it is important to run your works across many people of many different skill levels of media/art before completing a project, or go off of your own insight and if it makes sense to you? He also mentions that sometimes things just don't seem right, but we cannot put it into words, or figure it out -- if this is the case, would getting help from a qualified person be in your continuing process?

Tate Project GIF

 

Title of painting: The First Cloud

Originally I planned to use this painting, and have the light flicker, with the man's head bobbing. However, after looking at the same of the piece, and general somber feeling, I decided to keep the light coming on and off -- the nature of a storm, and the heads/torso disappearing in a creepy effect that forces you to watch something else or perhaps pay attention to another point on the GIF/painting. I used three general layers -- one for the original painting/room, the next for medium light, and the last with brighter light. Following this, I used the stamp tool to erase/blend their heads into the background. Finally, I used tweening to help blend layers, and copies of the layers together. Overall I thought of the title "The First Cloud" as a storm and flickering lights and a general struggle to feel safe and sound.