4/20 - Colleen - Kathleen I forgot to read your scripts until today.  I personally like the one with Michael better because it's more ambiguous and gives other people another avenue to shape the story.  However, there are things you could do to make the relationship with the girl more open... I don't think it's a huge difference and I hope that you were able to get some shooting done while away.

Meanwhile, for reference, you should see La Jétte by Chris Marker.  Very important French experimental film that is related in theme to yours.  It's not long - 30 minutes or so.  SEE IT, it's very good.  It's groundbreaking for its use of still shots instead of moving image.  Also the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes to mind.

Project One: Crescendo & Decrescendo

    As mentioned in my introductory interview, I am inspired by the things around me and particularly the things which influence my identity in some way. I have lived in the same house my whole life, a house in the country which my great-grandfather built that sits across the road from a train track. As I lay in bed at night I hear them go by, growing louder as they approach and rattling the whole house as they come near... and then the sound and motion slowly fade. Because the trains rocked me to sleep and their rhythmic sounds were and are my lullabies, they have become a part of my idea of home and even my identiy.

    I had several ideas of how this might be incorporated into a project for this class. To begin with I researched trains, saving pictures off the internet and making sketches. Then I pursued my first idea, which involved a Flash train growing larger and passing by over/past a video of me sleeping with the sound of a train coming and going overlaid, but decided based on the limits to my knowledge of Flash and the time allotted to this project to pursue another idea I had. The key to this idea would be an audio recording of a train going by, which would only have been a small part of the Flash project.

2/7/08  Colleen – Are you still working with the paper house?  I liked that sculptural idea.  I pictured a dull light coming from it.  I just bought good speakers for the classroom today.  They are somewhat large, but perhaps they could be hidden in the pedestal or support for your house. 

reply: Yeah, sorry, I've been really busy so I keep forgetting to post on here. I am still planning to do the paper house, but I haven't gotten to the point of testing the effect of the sound yet so I don't know if I need extra speakers... but if it turns out I do, that's great that we have speakers. ^_^ It also curred to me to do something with light, but I haven't figured out the best way to put a light inside safely and in a way that won't affect it's structural integrity or, um, wobblesomeness. So I'll be brainstorming on that.

Artist Presentation

I'm going to talk about Christopher Baker after all, mostly because I'm having trouble finding some one else who's an artist making use of YouTube in particular as art. (I did spend a lot of time looking for some one else, however, since you mentioned that you'd brought up Christ Baker to several other students.) There are professional artists using it to talk about and/or showcase their works and amateur artists doing all kinds of things with it, but it's difficult to find professional artists using YouTube specifically as an artistic medium.

reference sites:

http://christopherbaker.net/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/bakercp/

http://www.some-assembly-required.net/blog/2007/04/sound-in-art-art-in-sound-i-wrote-this.html/

http://artdept.umn.edu/areas/timeInt.php/

Look at http://www.thekitchen.org/ on May 13th there's a panel discussion called "Artists Using YouTube"

Final Project:

30 March 2008

I think I would like to do something with Flash (though based on the limit of my experience and the impending nature of this semester's deadlines I might be getting in over my head), so I've been brainstorming about what I might do with that. I am very interested in narrative, and in the idea of interactive narrative (eg. fanfiction). I would also, if possible, like to incorporate YouTube or at least be able to post the finished work in some fashion on YouTube. I have been considering an idea wherein a (Flash?) video could begin a narrative which would then be posted on YouTube, and finally viewers would be invited to continue the story and post the next chapter on YouTube. Secondary responders could either make their own chapter 2 or attach a subsequent chapter to another person's response. I have an idea of what this narrative might be about and am brainstorming on details, but I wanted to check the basic idea with you before getting attached to anything. ^_^ What do you think?

3 April 2008 ~ I like your youtube continued story idea. However, have you seen how the video reply system works? basically the easiest way to string together videos from different people together on youtube is to have people respond to a video and then have someone respond to them, but when you do that the link on each video points to the video it is a response to SO I was thinking it might be interesting to use this and tell a story BACKWARDS basically you would post the end of a story then the response would lead up to your end and the response to that would lead up to where that one started until you reach a start. then just by linking to the start video someone could follow the whole story to the end.Or you could just make a page that compiles all the normally ordered) videos together or repost them backwards. Anyway, just and idea check out the way responses on youtube work and take it into account when you set up your narrative structure. ~ Ian

6 April 2008 ~ I think you should look at learningtoloveyoumore.com for more ideas about a collaborative story.  I really like the idea of YouTube responses.  Let's brainstorm.  You have limited Flash knowledge, but what you know you were able to manipulate quite elegantly.  It's just a matter of putting in the time.....

27 April 2008

Yesterday I was supposed to reshoot the first set of actors (2), which I began shooting two weeks ago at which point we were unable to finish and the shots we did get were too dark; but my actors backed out with no further notice than Friday afternoon, leaving me insufficient time to replace them and their house (upon which I was depending as a set).

Today I finished filming with second set of actors (3) and am currently working on editing.