#i didn’t even say ANYTHING about mimesis in these notes - which is truly to my credit

[starbuck]

had a really normal movie experience tonight.

[mishathevideoboy]

Final Portfolio

Collective project notes

Final Project

Lighting Project

Storyboard for the final project

Final Project script

Misha: The pictures of them where all over the walls. Quite a lot of different women, all of them different colors and sizes. But not weight, it doesn’t speak on him necessarily but it's just what society likes.

Arella: I can see why you love the female body.

Misha: I adore it! I love women. Not in the perverted sense, ok maybe a little but also in a respectful sense. They’re sweet, their eyes are warm their hearts are big… mostly.

Arella: Is that all they are to you?

Misha: No they are more, you’re more too. My mother embodied self sacrifice she had casual partners when I was young but I never saw them, I never knew they existed until I grew up.

Arella: Your father abided by that?

Misha: No, he likes women as much as me, maybe in different ways too. I was born in the 90’s duh. And it was strange hearing about what my Dad says my mother and his relationship was. Why would you have partners like such in the 90’s?

Arella: Seems bizarre, what’d she say?

Misha: She was in love from what it seems. My mother was a romantic but she wasn’t really in long term relationships except for one guy long before I was born. She was “stoic” whether that was good or not, who knows.

Arella: My mother had partners, but I never got to see her. Busy etc. You know the story.

Misha: Yeah that’s even worse, at least my parents where here for me.

Arella: Do you ever want them to sit down and create a truth?

Misha: Like a lie?

Arella: No, more like a cohesive narrative.

Misha: That’d be unimportant. I think part of the story is that they’re own stories are so tied to their side and their belief. They both think they’re right and that's all that matters to them. Pass the flour?

Arella: Here, I don’t know maybe that's wrong.

Storyboard for 12-year-old message project

Idle No More project notes

Posts

1.

This idea brought up " In Defense of the Poor" of an imperfect media seeking to transcend platform, medium and societal standings often reminds me of the trend that was once Vine. These series of images found in Vine are using mimesis and relatability as a means of spreading and reaching more and more audiences. The structure of the videos themselves follows this visually short lifespan followed by a long subconscious time of retention so that you may recommend this low quality super compressed media thus proliferating it further. 

2.

Educational:

The educational video serves in enlightening the audience or teaching them of something previously unknown or unheard of. Look to most documentaries for this style of video.

Entertainment:

Entertainment video, this kind of video can be seen with irreverent youtube comedy videos like memes or comedic videos with no sort of external critique. Another form of entertainment video is Hollywood movies such as the superhero craze happening right now.

Artistic:

Artistic videos can be seen as film and cinema that pushes artistic boundaries in composure and storytelling, this can also be seen in short videos we watched for the class that take an unusual approach to storytelling

Commercial:

Commercial videos can be seen in things like advertisements and videos that try to push upon or sell you a product.

Not all of the aforementioned sections are mutually exclusive and many of them can be used to describe one video.

An external category of video that doesn't fit into TeeVee, Film, or Art is personal video storytelling. This kind of video can be found on Snapchat and Instagram, these types of videos do not fit into any of the other categories due to their temporal existence and pointlessness to anything greater in the world.

3.

Almost immediately the Violent footage of the Civil Rights movement drew me in. Not many documentaries truly confront the violence and horrendousness of it. This collection also had brilliant dialogue pacing and great sound design to accompany the images and interviews to almost make it feel as though you were occupying the space. The components used where archival footage, news footage, interviews etc. But the practice of juxtaposing the interviewers frame with the scenes or horrible violence made it more powerful as if the history of this trauma was pushing these people forward to discuss these times and what it meant for America and Black Americans, as well as what it could mean for them now and in the future.

Not many questions persist but it did ignite my desire to see more civil rights documentaries recently. However looking back I can see the strategies used in this series have influenced a lot of documentary making today. The somewhat lively and in your face method serves to attract a lot of attention of viewers especially one as myself who is now bombarded with so many different screens trying for my attention.

4.

1. The sitcom parody was by far my favorite, I didn't take much away from all of them but this one spoke to me because I grew up in an Afro Carribean household and my mother would make these jokes about my first girlfriend because she was white. It was more just nostalgia to these conversations and less the commentary.

2. Coco Fusco took this interesting surreal approach to social issues and racism, whereas Eyes On the Prize (EOtP) really approached these subjects with sincerity and judgment. Although the message from EOtP was conveyed through strange means and strange editing it wasn't as "odd" as Coco's

3. No questions beyond wanting to see if the artists made any interviews on the subject matter they commented on.

5.

I feel like life is centered around being something else instead of being happy or centered around this tail chase of work and leisure only to continue the pursuit in vain. When I think about myself and my narrative I like to highlight the enjoyment of my life with friends and my personal successes with art that are recognized by others. I feel the key to happiness in my life is to not chase pleasure through the masochism of doing work for pay but rather find happiness through working on what I love. 

6.

Reflecting on this previous project is difficult. The reason its so hard falls onto one aspect. That aspect being that I did as much as I wanted to do to help but to a certain point I also didn’t do more. A project relies on two people functioning to their best ability, and that was true for this project but only at times.This project was not being cared for properly and attended to properly. My partner and I had collected the best footage we could find and worked to the best of our ability in creating a joint format that would answer our questions. What went wrong came down to disagreements about execution. My partner insisted on using their dorm room computer which was not appropriate due to incessant technical difficulties with said computer. My partner also had a lack of focus when it came to putting pen to paper so to speak, and although I spent most time editing I found my patience with them worn thin and the lack of progress being made on the project incredibly frustrating. Over the course of 4 editing sessions I started to slowly decrease my effort in the hope that my partner would pick up the slack of the project. The issue is that he did not pick up slack nor do any work they promised to do. This forced me last minute to dump all my effort into the project. Ultimately I should’ve never decreased my effort and I shouldn’t have been so subtle in my approach of telling my partner to pick it up. Editing is incredibly easy for me and so is filming, so the fact of this project being so subpar falls on me having not put 100% effort in and just completing the whole thing myself.

7.

1. The collective video had not inspired me at this point but I spent a lot of time refining and reflecting on what others were saying to help me create a narrative. I started thinking the video would function better as a shorter piece without dialogue and more focus on imagery and words and less on actual voices. I felt this would give it an aspect of timelessness.

2. My Tumblr posts on final project

post 1

post 2

post 3

8.

Persona Reflection

Saviour by George Ezra reflection

I had worked with Berit and her group on her lighting sketch after being under the impression that my own personal project would not be accepted. Due to this, I joined the project late and I couldn't contribute to the field of ideas. I instead offered my lighting skills and I also made it a point to get gear for the group as well schedule and find a location for my group to shoot. I took a very "employee" and not a creative approach to this project.

9.

Persona Reflection

Saviour by George Ezra reflection

I had worked with Berit and her group on her lighting sketch after being under the impression that my own personal project would not be accepted. Due to this, I joined the project late and I couldn't contribute to the field of ideas. I instead offered my lighting skills and I also made it a point to get gear for the group as well schedule and find a location for my group to shoot. I took a very "employee" and not a creative approach to this project.

10.

1. I took on the role of working on the introduction piece of the Smile project. The way we found our positions was left mostly up to the class but when we found our smaller groups people started to take smaller leadership positions within said groups. The position I feel I took was leading the people working on the beginning section of the project.

2. Our responsibility was to create an opening that set the stage for the rest of the video without distracting from the subject matter or being to forward with subject matter that no one else would want to see the video. I feel I fulfilled my responsibilities quite well leading the group and in keeping our group focused and clear,  I also made sure to keep open lines of communication within each subgroup so that we had consistency between all our messages and segments.

3. Our group decisions relied on a vote so that we could all have a say and unanimously agree on the objectives we wanted to pursue. The decisions I participated in where the discussion of Font choices and text choices. I did not participate in the decisions of the main theme of the video and its content, I felt I would do a better job focusing the beginning of the video around a theme instead of injecting themes and ideas into an already crowded process.

4. I don't see my voice and vision existing in this project. I am not bothered by this but taking a colder more calculated approach to creating this project, in this instance, made sense.

5. I was completely seen and heard when we split into smaller groups and I started working on the beginning section of the Smile project. I wasn't seen or heard in many other sections aside from when the project started rolling into its editing phase, I wasn't bothered by this because I feel I couldn't have contributed more.

6. I didn't learn any new skills in this project, I did, however, share my skills in communicating and working collaboratively on creative projects.

7. I do not feel this collaboration was equal among us all, quite a few of us put in more work than others and this dissuaded me from putting even more effort in, that way others could pick up that slack and be forced to create parts of the project as well. My part in this was strong but it diminished upon seeing many peoples laziness and lack of care in making said project happen. I think we need a more looming aspect of attention from the professor so that the lazier students can be forced to contribute and participate instead of sitting and eating or playing on their phones for most of the class.

8. Nothing I'd really like to share but I do think the concept of the project was interesting.