Reading Response on Narration vs Narrator, Narrative Voice

While reading the book, I kept thinking about 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' and 'Desperate Housewives' as a character narrator and a non-character narrator. We can't hardly say which one is better. In '~benjamin Button', Benjamin narrates throughout the story and it drew my attention to his character even more. In 'Desparate Housewives', a dead friend of four other best friend married women reveals the story about each family's odd side depite they look apparently perfect. It's up to the narrator to comment about what is hidden behind the story so that it would create tension and interest from the viewers.

Progress with Clovis Portrait

Our prototype of a Portrait of Clovis. We would like to express her habitual life, interest and desire through websites that she browses.
portrait rough cut from Nick Perez-Gurri on Vimeo.

Thoughts on Abbott's article "Character and self in narrative"

Why do we need characters and actions in narrative? Without them, stories can't be clearly told to the audiences. Personality shows the perspective within the film. Self is very much influenced by surroundings around him/her for sure.

Koyaanisqatsi

As I was reading Bordwell's book I found out that 'Koyaanisqatsi' has more clear cut that "A Movie" but there weren't any specific explanation about this film so I decided to watch it on Youtube. 1 hour and 26 minutes. Alright. Why not? What is it mean by the way? I didn't looked it up the meaning of 'Koyaanisqatsi' until I watch the movie. I thought I might be able to figure it out through out the movie. The song? It keeps saying 'Koyaanisqatsi over and over again with brownish tone images of flickering ashes. It is quite depressing. What does it want to tell me? Is this a Grand Canyon ore what? This is distributed by MGM, When I first saw the lion I expected something more than this. Maybe it is volcano in the middle of the scenes. I see desert... Everything seems so empty. Shots are pretty nice. The angle, natural lighting... The long shot of the valleys, mountains, clouds, oceans... but what am I getting out of this? Hmm...... Almost no organisms present. Little bugs fly around. Depressing. They are not still images though. Water falls, clouds moves and dust flies. Was music pre-composed? Not sure. They might have added according to music. Watching the film was not so exciting because I'm used to Hollywood's clear narrative style. Music is not so calm. My mind was unstable as I was listening to it. It was hard to sit through out the whole thing. Many experimental or documentary films tend to test my patience or endurance. I wonder how many years took to collect all those images. By the way what is the director try to convey through his film? In the beginning lots of scenes like ocean waves or water falls are in slow motion. No single words... I want to hear some voice at some point. After sequence of nature, wee see the developed part of the city, factories, constriction places. Machines... Explosion. Pow!The director is blaming the development of mechanisms, pollution? Is that a nuclear bomb or something? The mushroom gets bigger and bigger. Tall buildings and people looking at them, kind of happy faces. I don't know.... for sure... There is a scene where airplane moves from far away. Very slow.... Why so slow? Battles. Which I am afraid of. Air force jets and tanks all over. Destroyed cities. Grey color cities. No vividness. Broken city lights, windows. Then, buildings, bridges, and everything collapse. Scary... Lots of people in the city. Things are so random here. Scenes of nature, battle, and people. Citylights and cityscapes are expressed with fastforward movement... It contrasts with the slow movement of the nature scenes in the begining. I really wonder what the huge fake moon means...

Musical: Story of My Life

Thomas and Alvin they have been friends for a long time(30 years). Thomas had left the town and succeeded as an award winning writer. However, he and Alvin start to feel a gap between them. Alvin stays in the town to inherit father's bookstore and dies when he has a fight with Thomas after he gets engaged and cancel inviting Alvin. We don't know how he died. Audiences see both characters from the beginning but Alvin is actually a ghost.
It doesn't clearly say that but Alvin love Thomas. It's a more than a friendship. It was a moving and heart warming piece. Lighting and setting were very minimal so I wished it was rather played in a small theater.

http://thestoryofmylife.com/

Happy Valentine's Day :D

Non Representational Portrait: Clovis

Gender: Girl
Age 30s
Where: New York
Neighborhood: Brooklyn
Race: French-American
Job:j janitor, part time musician : trumpet
Marriage status: divorced
personality:eccentric, bad temper, sexual, self-centered, greedy, compassionate humanitarian, vegetarian, feminist
Appearance: Fat, mid-height (5' 6''), Brunet
Style: oversized t-shirts, baggie jeans
habit: chain-smoker, drinker
Music: Heavy Metal(Metallica)

Central Problem : Loneliness + Sexual

Website she frequently visits:

Brad PItt Fan Club
http://bradpittfan.com/

Sliming product:
http://shop.nordstrom.com/Slimming

Fresh Direct
www.freshdirect.com

Blind dates
www.match.com
www.chemistry,com
eharmony.com
honrymatches.com

My experimental film?

I filmed this piece called "Deviation from Daily Routines" in college. It was an experimental film portraying students having difficulties waking up by alarm clocks sound and starting daily routines.It has a narrative but style of it was experimental for me.

Everyone has desires and dreams but they also have to live the unavoidable and boring daily routines. Using Techno music in the day scenes reflect with their mechanical daily routine and fusion jazz music adds delightfulness in the nighttime scenes. The Bolex camera was used to create more natural color.

Reading Response on "Experimental Film"

When I was in college, I always thought why do people make these nonsense experimental films? What the point? Why do those filmmakers want to be different from mainstream ones? They don't care about earning profits? Are the all rich?

Now, I can understand a little better. They want to explore things like scientis. Not all the films need to have narrative, and some can have jump cuts. Who made all the rules of films? They seem like they are not obligated to respect 180 degree rule, contunuity or any other rules. By not having narratives, some experimental films show more aestehtically and peotically done pieces.

Reading Response on "Narrative and Life" & "Closure"

I believe narrative can be both artistic and non-artist-like. It could be as simplest or the most complicated as it can be depending on target audience and the taste of the author. It could be expressed in variety of forms, spoken or non-spoken. I sometimes prefer non-spoken like paintings because I can unfold my own stories within my head. Non for the films but for some novels I prefer open-ended narrative.

All sorts of narrative have its time, called "narrative time" in Abbott's reading. There needs to be timing so the story could be understood by viewers. In "Citizen Kane". flash backs brings the time to the past to explain the context. Without adequate narrative time, viewers might get confused. Some paintings are exceptions because they denies our "narrative perceptions" In the reading, it's called "narrative jamming" It sounds something like a traffic jam where all the cars are stuck at some point and difficult to find solution.

Story of Mr. H, Ms. E & Mr.B

Mapping Project: Yum's Body Parts

I created my cartoon character 'Yum' to tell a story about 'Love'.

What is definition love?

Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment.

As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. (Wikipedia)

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Features:

-Brain is the largest in scale

-Everything happens within the body

-3 different events(happenings) take place in brain, heart, and eyes.

-First Person View to Omniscient View

-Action Verb: Love

-Symbols: B, E, and H

-Narrative goal: Listen to three stories of fairies in the body map and have the viewers get their own solution

-Materialistic vs Idealistic vs Honest

Story Map Brainstorming: Love is...

What?
I was looking through some pictures my boyfriend (he's a photographer) took and tried to find meanings of LOVE. How would you bring Love into three different stories?

My goal is to create a child-like tales of three fairies about seeking real LOVE.

Reading Response on McCloud Reading

What I like about comic book is that you can manipulate time however you want. You can even play with duration. There would be limitation to shot slow motion with the film however comic book can extend one part very easily. You simply need to draw one frame to next frame with a tiny change like a stop motion animation.
The depiction of a rope is simplified as a second which includes twists within the plot. Comic books allow you to emphasize the moment by expressing the frame in size (or length of x-axis and y-axis) and shape(rectangular, circle, trapezoid, etc) and you can also use different shaped bubbles. I personally like the cloud shape with mush edges.

There is a 180 degree rule in film that if the camera moves more than 180 degree from the object than the point of view flips and that can confuse people. But I think since the comic book is a set of still images, readers won't get too confused if angles or directions are switched.

Also, by adding one text, the characters can move to different places. Let's say "1991. Seoul" is written on the top left corner, then the readers will shift the space automatically.

There is one Japanese comic book I loved and the final volume took 6 years to be done from the second till that. The author played with the time of the real world too.