Medium Specificity

Art expresses emotions, thoughts, ideas, and principles through many different mediums. However, art itself is an idea or a discipline that can be displayed. Yes. Art can express or educate us about art. For example. Many films are created including instructions on how to make films. Many books teach how to write. But there’s something deeper than just art showing the tools within it’s medium. Each medium contains unique elements that can be toyed with in order to open our eyes to the significance of those elements. This project highlights one of the most powerful mediums we enjoy today. Film.

99% of the things we see in film today are not real. They are created either by acting or by post production technology. This video is a obviously fake example of how film can be manipulating. It’s purpose is to open the eyes of it’s viewers. I don’t think people thing when they see Harry Potter using spells that magic is real, or that there are huge robots being built after seeing Pacific Rim, but there are a lot of little details in films that can go unnoticed.

The first shot in this video is of a friend of mine throwing a football to himself. Now, obviously in real life, you could never be in two places at once. On film, it’s simple. You can just use layers. In an editing program, you can take another moving image and place it on top of a similar moving image filmed at a different time and make it look like it’s happening at the same time! Can you imagine if your eyes were capable of doing that? What a cool tool!

Also included in the film are shots of sounds that do not correspond with what we see on film. For example, Richard plays scales on the piano starting on the left side moving right on the piano. Pianos are built so that the further right on the keyboard you play, the higher the note, but in this video, the notes get lower as he progresses towards the right. Again, not only can film be visually deceiving, but it can also play with your ears. This segment is the most deceiving because even a experienced piano player might not notice the difference. The rest of the shots are pretty obvious in their ill-matched audio. This gives contrast to the other more convincing shots in order to better express this phenomenon.

While shooting and editing this piece, I thought a lot about The Parent Trap (1998). Editing and shooting two takes then slicing them together, ending up with two shots of the same person in one frame is not easy! I appreciate the post production in that film much more.

From now on, I hope I can be more appreciate of art in not only its overlying presentation, but also as a mastered discipline in it’s own medium. Touching on the topic of unintelligence in art, Edward F. Rothschild said, “The usual difficulty with the observer of modern art is that he does not inquire patiently and sincerely concerning the ‘meaning’ of a work of art which strikes him.” Being educated and thinking deeper within the constraints as well as the far reaching opportunities within each medium has created a new sense of reverence for art.

History

The adaptation of a historical event into a screenplay is both fascinating and enjoyable. This particular story is especially fascinating to me because not only is Martha my great great great great grandmother, but it took place over a hundred years ago just a couple miles from where I live now. For me, this story about Martha and her Native American encounter is incredible, and what makes it incredible is that it’s not a fictitious story carefully pieced together to make profit. Instead, it’s a real event that happened in a real place.

The New Orleans comics “After the Deluge” by Josh Neufeld was very well done, and aside from the stunning writing and illustrations, the story is so close to home! That hurricane was only a couple years ago.  The story would be captivating to anyone who remembered watching the news that day or anyone who had friends of family in the area during that time. Because of the insane levels of hardships that those people faced, that story will be told in classrooms for hundreds of years.

When I think about events like hurricane Katrina or Martha’s history, I am so grateful for the art of writing and storytelling. Without these mediums we would never be able to enjoy and learn from those stories. As we wrote the screenplay, we enjoyed looking back into time and almost jumping into their lives. It is an intense story, so we decided to listen to soundtrack of Legends of the Fall by James Homer. The music helped set a mood for putting the story together, but even with some great music to inspire and a short paragraph of the Indian story, there were many unanswered questions.

What did the environment look like? What was Brigham Young like? How strict were parents back then? Could a mom leave her daughter alone in a house? How violent were the Native Americans? These were all questions that we were able to look to history to understand. Martha Mariah Mayer’s personal journal was a great source of information, as well as LDS Church History.

From LDS Church History we were able to understand Brigham Young’s character much better. By reading his words we were able to get an idea of the way he talked. Martha’s journal includes hundreds of stories. Each one of the stories we read helped us understand her character and build her character into the screenplay.

The LDS series of Bible videos is a great example of a project based entirely on history. The details of set design, writing, characters, are all influenced and based on historical documents. The filmmaker’s careful consideration of these elements help strengthen the validity of the themes presented in each film.

Click HERE for screenplay PDF.

Process Piece

Process. Everything is a process. And a process is everything. Whether it’s a extremely complex yet unrehearsed jam session in a music store like Falling Slowly from “Once,” or a simple everyday fishing trip. Our everyday lives are full of them. Our everyday lives are made of them. Unearthing and analyzing these processes as well as discovering how present they are has opened my eyes to the beauty of completely natural documentary storytelling.

My partner, Neal, and I decided to record the process of fishing which is a process that is pretty common. We were looking for something full of sounds that could keep a listener engaged, that would also tell a story. So we found a quiet river, recorded some sweet sounds by throwing a GoPro down the river and into the water just like you would a lure, and reeled the GoPro in. We flopped it around on the surface and ultimately treated it exactly as it were an imaginary microphone on a real bite. We were very pleased with the natural sounds we got from the GoPro and were excited to put it all together.

We decided to add some fiction narration by playing with personification and comedy. The piece ends up being pretty funny, I think. After I compared our process piece to some of the others posted on our classmate’s blogs, I was surprised to find that there was powerful beauty in the simple recording of clean, real life sounds. There was a stark difference between those that were obviously created fictitiously and those that were really documented. Going back to our piece, I wonder if those clueless fish talking to each other underwater were comedic enough to be distracting in a way that takes away from the awesome experience that is fishing. Is the beauty of process diminished by comedy or simulation? Watch this.
 
Kinfolk Story: Honey Harvest from Kinfolk (kinfolk.com) on Vimeo.

Can you imagine hearing the honey bees screaming “I hope the humans like the honey!” or “Where are they taking us!?” in silly voices? It would undoubtedly compromise the beauty of the natural process. Our challenge was trying to make it clear that fish were present in this process, and that they were caught. Recording natural conversations of fisherman aside the river, sounds of a reel, water, and splashes, I’m sure a clear understanding of the process could be accomplished without superficial and artificial dialogue.

These thoughts are a great example of how this cycle can be so useful in learning about creativity.