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Fermented images.

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Bread.

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Sourdough.

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Beetz.

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Squishy scans.

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Final cut!

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Post Crit.

Tuesday’s crit/progress report was a bit shocking for me and Alexa and it’s clear that our tone for the project as a whole needs a bit of revisiting. Should we embrace the “This Is Spinal Tap”/ “Documentary Now!” feel and go full mokumentary or should we continue in earnest and try to make the best of the material that we have?

The feeling that we get from the production of Slaughterhouse is that the people involved are ALL IN IT. There is absolutely no irony in the way that they are treating this undertaking which is admirable in a lot of ways. However, it can also come across as isolated and a bit overwrought. As outsiders taking a tiny step into their world to try and make sense of our own mission, Alexa and I definitely saw this intensity and felt the seriousness with which the cast and crew are approaching this play. However, if we embrace this feeling of being outsiders and of looking into this world from a different perspective, we have realized that the tone comes off as an unwitting parody of theater and of this production specifically. 

So who are we making this for? If it’s for the cast and crew of Slaughterhouse, we certainly have to assume a very different perspective. If we have learned anything through working with the cast and crew and wrestling with our own project it is that we have to be careful when it comes to intention and a sense of humor.

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Roughest Cut

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzY5672ZGs-CcXpWRGtyY2JVSVE/view?usp=sharing

Here is a link to the rough cut that was made for the Tuesday progress report... “Is it supposed to be a parody?”

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Working on some bits for the doc proj.

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Alexa and Emma Take Notes on All Our Material!

Intro: SOUND: SWELLS

Split screen or quick montage of introductions? Or do you want them to say their names before they talk in each section (this might get distracting since our main footage is the interviews)

If we do the montage Miranda should be the last one. The score should quick in. The image should fade to black and then she should read over Vonneguts introduction (over a black screen or a very simple image we can create on illustrator or something like that of maybe a clock ticking. (it could be found footage)

Maybe we create a section of images of clocks overlayed or put together with bells and ticking to use at multiple times throughout? Something overwhelming?

--  I think our most powerful imagery is of cheyenne’s metronome, Russell’s ping pong ball, the swirling leaves (Russ talks about) in conjunction with the Columbian hypnosis bits, and swimming/drowning in water

Start Video with Miranda and Vonnegut Readings

--  I really like Miranda’s talking about her attraction to the play—being “pulled by it” (2:05) with sign language and she knew that she needed to put it on the stage

--  “Condemned to be doing this” (5:30) the idea that this is just a part of the beginning of her crazy journey w S5 (6:36)

About the process:

Emma can introduce this. Wit the line “we approach time” which she says within notes/ cast and then she can say something more specific to rehearsals, to motivate the rest of the section (maybe her line on physicality) over footage from the rehearsal.

Paola says within the “Character and Embodied” people bring their own experiences paired with Heather Ensemble walking: use marker at 18:01

within Notes on Cast/ Group Rose says something about their sharing ideas process

We can cut to footage from the rehearsal, were they do one of their talks before getting on their feet.

--  I think one of the most visual windows we have into their process is in the pool scene

o   Heather talks about the video in images

o   Overlay footage of heather’s video

o   Russell talks about the scene in colors and images

Maybe Miranda says “its just very dark, from 31:43 of her interview” and then the actors illuminate it (with their color Columbian hypnosis)

Sound: Josh Dance

Maybe then we bring a transition of more Miranda. And start the Columbian hypnosis/ hands and colors section

Since we’re dealing with colors, within the practical process soffie talks about colors and designers. This could be a transition into their section about imagining the space collaboratively.

Something to think about: The tattoos, the materials from the designers,

Then silas can say his line about the 4d set and time within practical process. Something interesting would be to use Cheyanne’s metronome section within time in images and then have the ticking sound throughout a section.  Here we can have the interviews within time in images)

Array of times and periods (silas in dimensionality) can be paired up with something said by Miranda/ heather and sofie. Here we can cut through difference images from the actual rehearsal room (make it seem as if theyre jumping through time and space) or anything else we can think of. We can also use (insert) something like this visually and sonicly, so that everything is also interrupted to the viewer

--  Yas this is cool. Is the picture below what you are imagining?

--  Miranda “What does a body look like traveling through time?” (around 30min in)

Trafalmadorias see in 4D

SOUND: ORGAN RECORDER, MAYBE THE END.  

USE VOICEOVER OF SEEING THE TELEVISION and traveling in time (MARKED WITHIN “READING SCENES”)

We need Josh and Angus to read the script section ASAP cause we need voices with power and clarity. We need them to pronunciate.

From “vonnegut reading” thematic sequence she reads the anti war/ glacier section

Miranda talks about post war  and what she’s trying to do with this in this production (at 19:00 in her interview)

A section where miranda says “ I had the chance to visit the area and that influenced my work” -> we cut to the reels made from collected material and the actors talking about violence. (noah says a lot, but also Cheyanne says something when she thinks of red and probably designers too). In images Rose says something about the Hiroshima survivors.

Miranda can talk about the stricken body (at 21:20/ 22:49) which Noah mentions in his interview and physicalizes in heather’s green screen)

--  Yes, also had this vision—love it

Soffie can transition us out of the montage with her transparency/organza section withinpractical process

Sound: Josh DANCE

We can have here the section where we have all the bodies overlayed.

This can transition into the trafalmadorian section because in images Russell says something like “the swirling with the hands around me turns into the voice of the trafalmadorian) If I get really skilled at maya I could shift the hand into different objects)

--  YES I also had this idea literally the same NICE.

Then we should go to Russell talking about Billy as a ping pong ball (easy to do in maya or any other program, just a ball jumping around) and we can then cut to the swimming section (all of these inside images)

SOFIE in practical process and emma in theatrical process talk about the devising process and the directorial experience. This can transition to a Miranda ending? Also sofie says something about things coming together within time in images.

(this can be the montage we spoke about of rehearsals too, the one within their ‘chilling’ room)

Miranda says about collaboration that “they always do” know how to act/ design etc. and how she trusts them (at 28:13 interviews)

--  When miranda talks about how important it is to not tell them exactly what to do (29:00)

o   Maybe connects to when jess talks about the freedom to do what she wants (Notes on Cast)

--  (31:16)- “I didn’t even know what I was looking for” to “I found it.”

o   Connects to audio bit when Emma talks about CH in theatrical process

o    Overlaid CH

In the Sofie interview theres a marker over a good image of her drawing with the line “so it goes”  That’s important. Maybe one of our final images? A montage of them laughing talking about team work and seeing their designs?

THE PICTURES AND SO IT GOES! (on miranda’s interview, there’s a marker)  (the black box?, maybe this can be illustrated on illustrator? Just a couple of white pages with lines connecting them? Or an abstract image?)  (or  the polka dots patterns (another marker)

I would love a whispered recording (from maybe josh and angus of them saying  “and so it goes” to have over the polka dots?

The book could be the end (its not that necessary)

The language section is not necessary

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Organizing footage.

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James Bridle’s TED Talk

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http://citizen-ex.com/

Presentation materials

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Final Project Proposal

Emma Koramshahi

Alexa De la Cruz

Digital Art: Project Proposal

For our final project, we want to create a documentary-style art piece that explores what it means to be in a creative process. We will be using the film as our main medium for exploration throughout this process. Through using Miranda Haymon’s (’16) theatrical adaptation of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five as a vessel for our project, we want to visually explore what it means to experience a creative process and express an imagined space.

Our vision is to construct a 10 minute art film that begins to explore the space between the imagined and the realized. We want to use footage from rehearsals of Slaughterhouse-Five, clips from interviews with the cast and crew, and our own imagined visuals to express the nebulous world of the creative process. We also want to include material gathered from conversations with the team of designers. We want to weave our own animation and illustration with the live-action footage that we gather from these rehearsals and interviews to create something other than a documentary about Slaughterhouse. For example, we want to experiment with the sounds that the Slaughterhouse sound designers have been composing for the show to explore and communicate the visual textures and images in our own piece.

Our concept is based on animated actualities: a continuously rising modality of documentary filmmaking explored by Werner Herzog and Edet Belzerg, amongst other artists. Following Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Herzog found himself advocating the capacities and benefits of exploring the ability to create virtual realities within digital documentation. He speaks about his process as the construction of “a form of space we haven’t experienced yet;” where viewers are able to experience a non-realistic space (House). This space Herzog expresses, the space in his filmmaking that allows his audience to enter spaces that they would not be able to access in regular filmmaking, exists in a realm in between the real and the imagined. In our own work, we want to try and access that space ourselves with our audience. Herzog also strongly advocates that the process of an artist is less of a process of dictating the outcome and more of a process of discovering the world, where the piece or art slowly reveals itself to the artist. We believe that the interviews will give us moments that will enable us to experiment with animations that bring this concept to life, where our artist will literally meet their art and viewers will be able to see and experience this very internal and subjective process.

We have already been engaged in conversations and visited rehearsals with the Slaughterhouse team. Throughout this process, we have already been able to appreciate the process through which this play is being produced. Conceptually, the director/ writer had a skeleton of the story, scenes and images she wanted to withdraw from Vonnegut’s work in this retelling of the Slaughterhouse-Five story. However, most of the final outcome is being created through the process of collaboration. Within the rehearsals, we were able to appreciate how the actors and the DSM team use a strong visual language to re-engineer the scenes within the play, that will ultimately create the final product. It is these “in-between” moments which we wish to explore in our digital piece.

In terms of our source material, we plan on filming Slaughterhouse-Five rehearsals, conducting interviews with the cast and crew, and gathering audio bytes from rehearsals. We plan on mostly using Digital Design Studio equipment such as the camera, the lights, and potentially the green screen to gather our initial material. We have already organized to use equipment from the DDS, the Language Resource Center, Second Stage, and other students.

We have a rough schedule for our plan of action that involves about a week’s worth of time to gather our source material, so that the rest of the remaining semester can be dedicated to developing the style of the video, editing the footage and audio that we collect, and actualizing the animations that we want to include. As of now, we plan on shooting on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, with meetings in between to sort through the data. Then, by the end of next week we hope to have a clear perspective of our formal and narrative choices for the rest of the project. We hope to extract segments that will shed light on the creative process within the Slaughterhouse team.

For our animations and illustrations, we plan to use various design programs to manipulate and fabricate images the cast and crew convey throughout the rehearsal and interview process. In this way we will attempt to express the mind’s eye of the actor and explore their imagined space with our audience. Like in Woltin’s The Last Hijack and Belzerg’s Watchers of the Sky, our goal is to use graphic tools to create expressive images that engage in the process of “layering and creating the in between world” (Murphy).  As for our the style of animation, we have currently been watching work that ranges from classic 3d modeling on programs such as Maya, rotoscope and 3d cameras within After Effects, rotating virtual interfaces that simulate a gaming selection process through 3D scans and Gary Gutierrez’s style used within the 1977 Grateful Dead concert series. Although we have yet to reach a formal conclusion, we have been exploring the previous techniques. We plan on selecting a formal style based on the material we gather within the next week.

We have already met with and collaborated on a schedule with director/writer Miranda for what rehearsals we are allowed to sit in on, film, and record. During the rehearsals we were invited to sit through before break, we were able to realize some stylistic challenges and get a feel for the content of the show. We also met with the director to collaborate on a schedule for gathering our source material. In meeting with Miranda, we were forced to contend with some differences in expectation and restriction. However, we were able to reach some compromises and eventually have been able to re-craft our vision somewhat in order to comply. We fully recognize the challenges in realizing our project through another source and will make sure to be as flexible and adaptable as possible without sacrificing our vision.

Although we are using documentary style and film as a means of expressing our idea, we do not want to create a documentary film. Our intention is beyond just telling a human narrative. We seek to explore a more cerebral space of the imaginative process and eventual creation of an art piece.

Sources:

Adams, Beige. “When Docs Get Graphic: Animation Meets Actuality.” Ida. 2016. Web. March 20, 2016.

House, Patrick. “Werner Herzog Talks Virtual Reality.” The New Yorker. Jan, 12, 2016. Web. March 20, 2016.

Murphy, Mekado. “Coloring Real Life with Animation.” The New York Times. Nov. 12, 2016. Web. March 20, 2016.

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Figuring it out... Ch 14 practice.

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Ch 13 practice: PDF

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmezUo0qERM)