Portrait of a Place: PENN STATION NYC

My First Animation Using Keyframes

Title: Where I Belong

MY VERY FIRST EXTREMELY SIMPLE WEBSITE

Click here --> SPRING DREAMING

Additional Information: My very first haiku is the content of the website.

Production Notes

I really enjoyed the entire process of the assignment Portrait of a Person. The pre-interview was very helpful to develop a topic and direction for the interview. The freedom of the pre-interview allowed for a natural and enthusiastic response during the initial interview.

Editing the audio may have been the most stressful and nerve-wrecking task of the entire project. To cut over 20 minutes of audio below 5 minutes while maintain a concise theme and story was a challenge. Every edit I felt may cut something beneficial to the story. I let friends listen to it over and over again and I received some great advice: K.I.S.S. (KEEP IT SIMPLE-STUPID). I decided to give faith to the listener that they would be able to grasp the concept without hearing the complete back-story. I continued editing the audio even after the second phase of the assignment. Mainly because adding visuals to the audio altered my approach to the story line.

If I had the opportunity to complete the process a different way I would only to save time from excessive edits. I would prepare my audio to be accompanied by visuals by adding them as I went along. Rather than making my audio piece stand alone then trying to find visuals to add to it. However, I appreciated the way the process was arranged because now I have two semi-independent pieces.

I don’t believe I learned anything “unexpected” in regards to making a film. I welcomed the challenge with open arms. It was pretty exciting to see how multiple elements contribute to a segment of viewing time- it was awesome. I wanted to learn how else to make that second or segment even more fascinating. After learning how the target tracks worked adding additional clips exactly where I intended them to be was a breeze. Actually, I did find a problem in exporting my project. The clips I originally chose were not the clips that played, and some clips did not play in its entirety.

I am happy with the overall flow of the audio piece and how some sounds worked perfectly with the visuals. I could improve on my transitions and my use of text. I would want the text to appear and then dissolve and for them to be a tad bit slower so that the reader can comprehend what is being said. In some critiques of my project I was told that the text were a slight distraction, because they were trying to watch and listen as well as read, which caused a challenged for some. I agree. After re-watching “The Idiot Box” it became a challenge for me as well. I assumed it was easy to digest because I was able to do so in post-production of the piece because I knew what to expect. I had to place myself in the viewers seat and see it “for the first time”.

The Idiot Box: Visual & Audio

Sound-Image

I start my analysis at the height of Marcus and Mike Lowry victory of a “righteous bust” in Bad Boys 2. The music starts very upbeat and full of enthusiasm and quickly turns dramatic as it cuts to a medium pan shot of Marcus as he receives a call stating that his sister had recently been taken hostage, by the very person they’d just defeated. The non-diegetic violin’s chords are strained as the pan is slowed and zoomed into Marcus’s face to show his anger. The sequence quickly cuts to a pan of the police precinct with multiple officers standing around a conference room flustered and concerned; than a quick cut to Marcus sitting down. The ambience in the room is very foggy with a flickering type of glare shining through the scene to accentuate the tension in the room. Every time the images change the sound reacts to it. As the images slow down so does the pace of the music. The shots are arranged in sequential order as well as in order of the present speaker. The speaker or where our attention should be placed in that moment composes the shots. While Marcus is sitting down looking up at Captain Howard speaking the camera is in a high angle position. When Captain Howard finishes stating “Captain Dean, from the F.B.I, informed me that they have pinpointed your sister and her hostage taker over the border of Cuba.” The camera cuts to Mike Lowry’s reaction of distraught from Marcus’s point of view. It then quickly cuts to Captain Dean speaking in a continued high angle shot stating that “The United States does not negotiate with any hostage takers; especially Cuban hostage takers.” The cut then transitions into a subjective shot of Captain Howards’ annoyance of the previous statement. Marcus becomes enraged at the F.B.I’s nonchalant attitude towards the matter and storms out of the conference room; the camera follows him and swiftly cuts to Captain Howard nonverbally suggesting that Mike check on him. Mike Lowry runs after him however his running after him is done in slow motion with dramatic drums beating slowly to prolong the magnitude of the situation. There is a match on action cut as Mike Lowry runs to the door and reaches out to open it. The cuts appear to be seamless as they attempt to get all point of views. This particular sequence catapulted the entire movie to a level of intense anticipation and anxiety.

The Idiot Box: Audio

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This is the audio piece of a two-part project for class.