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This is my final video piece on this little journey I put myself through.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Rough Edit Number One
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The idea behind video number one is that the sounds of skateboarding are immediately recognizable and can be miss match and replaced without affecting the viewer.
Rough Edit Number Two
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The idea behind video number two is that the wheels spinning sound like a movie projector. I played with the color and contrast a little to try and bring the feel of old 16mm film out of minidv.
Rough Edit Number Three
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The idea behind video number three is to put excitement and action with sound and cuts to parts of skateboarding that are not general seen as exciting.
Monday, November 19, 2007
What I Choose to do Differently
This time out Im going to move my focus to more of a color work. The rich graffiti art found in Cream City skate park is on par with any art I have seen. Also, the juxtapose of the rich color found at Cream City Skate Park will be nice to work with against the bland grey of Brookfield Skate Park. It will cause drastic changes in atmosphere. I have also started capturing images of empty skateboard obstacles and busy skateboard obstacles. As far as audio goes, I plan on concentrating on a little less ambient sound and picking out more dynamic skateboard sounds. This should be easy considering the different amounts of sound you can find between indoor recording and out door recording. Ill just have to watch my sound levels a little better than I did the first time around.
Ten Questions to be Answered Through Art
1. Is it possible to make an art skateboard video that translates to the general public as well as hard core skaters?
2. Is there a noticeably different feeling at an outdoor skate park as opposed to an indoor skate park?
3. Can the sounds of skateboarding make a song?
4. How disorientated do viewers get when audio is not sinked to video?
5. How can audio be used to build tension?
6. Can a lack of visual stimulation be prolonged by powerful audio stimulation?
7. How can one translate more mundane skateboard images to be accepted the same as more dynamic images?
8. Will changes in seasons disorientate a viewer?
9. Can sound be shifted from one clip to another without the viewer noticing?
10. Are editing cuts best used as hidden to the viewer or as obvious visual cues?
2. Is there a noticeably different feeling at an outdoor skate park as opposed to an indoor skate park?
3. Can the sounds of skateboarding make a song?
4. How disorientated do viewers get when audio is not sinked to video?
5. How can audio be used to build tension?
6. Can a lack of visual stimulation be prolonged by powerful audio stimulation?
7. How can one translate more mundane skateboard images to be accepted the same as more dynamic images?
8. Will changes in seasons disorientate a viewer?
9. Can sound be shifted from one clip to another without the viewer noticing?
10. Are editing cuts best used as hidden to the viewer or as obvious visual cues?
The Best Parts
To this point, along this whole journey my favorite experience has been the realization that Im not just another guy filming skateboarding and making little videos of my friends. Im not knocking the people who do it, but I have always wanted more than that. Some people skate because they love to do it and they dont ever look or even care about being sponsored by a company. There are also people who make all kinds of films just for the sake of doing it. Im not one of those people. I enjoy being a sponsored skateboarder and some day Im going to enjoy being paid to make films. Im developing my eye for framing and gaining experience for projects and ideas later. Ive always told kids that the more time you spend on a skateboard the better you will get at it. Its something I believe in as much as anything else in this world. You dont have to be a natural painter to create a master piece. I dont have a natural eye for framing a shot, but Im working on it and Im getting better. Every minute filming with my camera is as good as every minute I have been riding my skateboard.
Surprise, surprise.
There were a couple of things that surprised me on my trek work. First was the appearance of a man skateboarding in bright red shoes. With the dull gray backdrop of a cement skate park the red shoes really popped to the eye. It made me realize I could do more with little things like that in my work.
Secondly, I was surprised by the amount of sound I had to deal with. I guess as humans we get used to letting our brains drown out noises and sounds that we dont need to hear all of the time. It made a more interesting editing process for sound.
Lastly, I was vary surprised by how many ideas would start shooting through my mind as to different was one could go about capturing skateboarding from a skateboards eyes. I started watching the different ways people would do tricks and the different lines people would use in the park. I began trying to mimic some of the different styles of skaters at the park so I wasnt just getting my skateboards view.
Secondly, I was surprised by the amount of sound I had to deal with. I guess as humans we get used to letting our brains drown out noises and sounds that we dont need to hear all of the time. It made a more interesting editing process for sound.
Lastly, I was vary surprised by how many ideas would start shooting through my mind as to different was one could go about capturing skateboarding from a skateboards eyes. I started watching the different ways people would do tricks and the different lines people would use in the park. I began trying to mimic some of the different styles of skaters at the park so I wasnt just getting my skateboards view.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Finding Peace and a New Mind Set
Throughout my first year in collage (as a film major) I have been coming to grips with doing artsy thing video wise and noticing the way people look at me while I am doing them. These “artsy” things done with my video camera can some times involve swinging my camera around like an idiot or simply filming a particular object or space that other people don’t view as worth any ones time to capture on minidv tape. Im not one to ever fall victim to embarrassment, but that’s not to say that having people look at me funny doesn’t bother me some. Along working on this piece I decided to start staring at people who were looking at me in those funny ways. I even went to the extent of finding things to film that may even bother people around me. I empowered myself in this way and found a vary peaceful state of mind in my methods to filming artsy things.
It was along one of these “artsy” filming days that I found myself rolling around the skate park just filming the ground running by the camera. I started thinking about what a skateboard would see if it had eyes in front of it. Then I started thinking of the skateboard having the mentality of a dog pulling an owner by the leash. Skateboard obstacles became things to seek out with an animalistic curiosity. Its with this experience that I now try and skateboard with the mentality that my board is leading me around the streets and skate parks. I try to skateboard with the sheer will of a dog who has been in the house all day and is finally getting outside. There is no time to be wasted, eyes straight ahead moving as fast as I can.
It was along one of these “artsy” filming days that I found myself rolling around the skate park just filming the ground running by the camera. I started thinking about what a skateboard would see if it had eyes in front of it. Then I started thinking of the skateboard having the mentality of a dog pulling an owner by the leash. Skateboard obstacles became things to seek out with an animalistic curiosity. Its with this experience that I now try and skateboard with the mentality that my board is leading me around the streets and skate parks. I try to skateboard with the sheer will of a dog who has been in the house all day and is finally getting outside. There is no time to be wasted, eyes straight ahead moving as fast as I can.
Problems I had on treks one and two.
Throughout my first two treks on this project I experienced two problematic situations. The first one was weather conditions not being vary cooperative. The second problem was trying to find a way to get good audio sounds while avoiding recording common talking at the skate park.
As far as weather conditions, I live in Wisconsin and we have this saying here that goes like this, “If you don’t like the weather wait five minutes and it will change.” I had a couple of days shooting video where it would rain on and off about every half hour. This caused problems with having a consistent gray cement tone to my footage. When it would rain I would be forced to wait for the rain to dry up. Waiting for the rain to dry up also took longer than it would in the summer months. Also with the seasons changing here the weather caused the leaves to change colors. The color change was great but as we all know the color change is followed by the leaves falling off of the trees. Many times I had to bring a broom to sweep out the leaves in the skate park.
The problem of avoiding recording conversations was also prominent on particularly busy days at the skate park. I wanted to capture the sound of skateboard wheels shrieking across a tail slide, the crisp snap of an ollie and trucks grinding coping. This problem would not have been so bad if the conversations were anywhere near G-Rated. Kids like to talk about things they would never say in front of their parents I guess is what Im saying. This problem caused me to resort to picking out little bits of recordings and piecing them together as apposed to having long takes of ambient sound.
As far as weather conditions, I live in Wisconsin and we have this saying here that goes like this, “If you don’t like the weather wait five minutes and it will change.” I had a couple of days shooting video where it would rain on and off about every half hour. This caused problems with having a consistent gray cement tone to my footage. When it would rain I would be forced to wait for the rain to dry up. Waiting for the rain to dry up also took longer than it would in the summer months. Also with the seasons changing here the weather caused the leaves to change colors. The color change was great but as we all know the color change is followed by the leaves falling off of the trees. Many times I had to bring a broom to sweep out the leaves in the skate park.
The problem of avoiding recording conversations was also prominent on particularly busy days at the skate park. I wanted to capture the sound of skateboard wheels shrieking across a tail slide, the crisp snap of an ollie and trucks grinding coping. This problem would not have been so bad if the conversations were anywhere near G-Rated. Kids like to talk about things they would never say in front of their parents I guess is what Im saying. This problem caused me to resort to picking out little bits of recordings and piecing them together as apposed to having long takes of ambient sound.
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