https://vimeo.com/126081719
It's still a bit off, but I think it's because I'm converting it through HandBrake to decrease the file size to upload it, as the song lip syncing is fine in both Final Cut and QuickTime.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
XR: final project
https://vimeo.com/126012421
version2: https://vimeo.com/126171045
in camera edit redo https://vimeo.com/124774474
version2: https://vimeo.com/126171045
in camera edit redo https://vimeo.com/124774474
Monday, April 27, 2015
Danielle Rennalls: Extra Credit - Technicolor Exhibit
Attending the “In Glorious
Technicolor” exhibit at the George Eastman house was a very fulfilling and
rewarding experience. Entering the exhibit with not even the slightest idea of
what to expect, I was completely blown away by all the artifacts, information
and images that represented the introductory of Technicolor and color cinema.
“The Technicolor Motion Picture
Corporation began in Boston in 1915 and rapidly grew into an essential part of
the American film industry, fundamentally shaping the aesthetic, cultural and
industrial nature of cinema.” The introduction of Technicolor transformed
cinema from black and white and gave it a whole new colorful meaning. Still in
operation today, “…Technicolor created the only commercially viable color
process for motion pictures” and today still “provides high-quality digital
services to the motion picture industry, from digital intermediate and
restoration to international distribution.”
This particular exhibit at the
George Eastman house “celebrates Technicolor’s vivid history…[and is]
comprise[d] of previously unavailable documentation, posters, behind-the-scenes
photographs, cameras and other original artifacts…” The exhibition also
celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of the Technicolor Motion Picture
Corporation as well as its great achievements. The exhibit highlights early
Technicolor films such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, the initial
two color process which consisted of green and red color separation and early
filming equipment weighing two hundred pounds.
My favorite section of this exhibit
that caught my attention for a lengthy period was the wall lined with dyes used
throughout Technicolor’s film coloring existence. These dyes were used in a
“sophisticated dye-transfer process” which ultimately aided Technicolor to be
the best in the industry. This particular section of the exhibit was very
interesting to look at, as it reveled how little I knew about the process of
creating colored moving images. Furthermore, it demonstrated that often times
consumers like myself take the film making process for granted as we become
ignorant living in a world so advanced that we fail to realize that this wasn’t
always the case.
Another section of the exhibit that
I found rather interesting was the section in which the process of generating
color schemes was described. Initially, Technicolor believed that there were
only two primary colors (red and green) and so they created a process that
utilized and separated these colors in order to produce a color palette for
their films. However this color palette proved to be very limiting as they were
unable to achieve colors that consisted of purple, yellow or blue. Therefore
Technicolor went on a hunt to discover the missing element and after realizing
that this key element was blue, Technicolor transformed the cinema as “[it]
could finally reproduce the world in all its natural color.”
However, the equipment and the
process developed to capture the world in its natural color was in itself
another hassle. The cameras were so delicate and heavy that it required trained
technicians to operate and several persons to move them around. “Unlike with
black and white films, the Technicolor process was so complicated that the
company mandated that studios purchase a full package, hiring the camera and
camera crew from Technicolor, which previously was not the case with black and
white cinema, as studios had the ability to use their own cameras and cameramen.”
Moreover, the company also supplied a color consultant to advise on appropriate
colors for makeup, costumes and set design in order to ensure that colors used
during filming would represent their appropriate meanings.
Nevertheless, after twenty years of
dominating the color industry, Technicolor came to its decline. With the film
industry changing so rapidly in the 1950s Technicolor was now faced with strong
competitors such Eastmancolor and many others who were making a similar color process
but was significantly cheaper. “Within three years of the film industry switching
to Eastmancolor, Technicolor retired the last of its three-color cameras” as Eastmancolor
was much more appealing and moreover “Technicolor could not handle the
introduction of the wide screen.” Therefore, Technicolor stepped down and
offered its services to the public in another way by “offering its superior dye
transfer printing for films photographed with color processes.”
Getting the
chance to see a small synopsis of the process by which color cinema was
developed was very gratifying. Though in this day in age the digital era has
taken over, it was nice to take a step back and appreciate all the hard work,
time and dedication that went into the process so that a digital age can even
exist today. Technicolor was truly a company that was ahead of its time and was
able to impact the film industry in more ways than one.
Citation
“In Glorious Technicolor” Exhibit, George Eastman House,
January 24 2015 through April 26, 2015 in Special Exhibition Galleries.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
McCluhan has thoroughly considered the effects of the medium itself in his essay. I found his point of view interesting though I'm not sure I fully understand it, because while many of his points of view are compelling some seems contradictory. In essence, I think he is saying there is a fundamental way in which we absorb media determined by the medium used in and of itself. This idea has been reestablished as new media and technology have developed. For example, McCluhan references Cubism, which fundamentally changed how people take-in visual art works. It told the audience to see the work in a particular way. "The effects of technology do not occur at the level
of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception
steadily and without any resistance." I really enjoyed this statement, and think it applies to cubism appropriately. However, the impact of cubism is really the function of the style and not really the medium itself I'd say; it's still a painting. But it is because it's a painting that the audience has to change their approach in viewing. I think this is really the way in which "the medium is the message"; there is something about a work's particular medium that affects the audience in a way no other medium could.
Really, I'm torn by this argument. In one way I totally agree that an art work maintains an element of its power in the exact medium it showcases. But to Mcluhan's stance overall, I see a problem in saying that the medium is more important than the message, and that's what he seems to be suggesting. I like the claim that people "never used to ask what a melody is about", and I agree. But a piece of much is much more about the melody, and different songs can convey very different emotions. To respond more directly to the author: A melody can work very effectively, but it is not obsolete because it uses similar theory as older songs. Perhaps I'm getting confused by his statements, specifically that "if it work's it's obsolete." This one stuck out to me, mostly because Mcluhan seems to believe it so strongly yet it sounds like a contradiction.
And while I do believe in experimentation in art and "art from adversity", there is nothing lacking on a fundamental level of an art piece if it is not actively redefining its medium. Sometimes- often, actually- the medium is nothing more than a vehicle or tool to deliver a more important message. Unless I've missed something critical (possible), this is Mcluhan's argument.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Christian Cieri - Medium is the Message
As a Digital Media Studies major, I was forced to take DMS 101 here, which is entitled Introduction to Media Studies. I had to read countless essays and articles written about media, and I distinctly remember reading Mcluhan’s argument on media being the message. At first I really didn’t understand it, and honestly I’m still a bit confused on it, but to the best of my abilities I have tried to figure it out. The conclusion I’ve come to is that what a medium contains is information found within a message, which is the media. According to Mcluhan these are separate things, and they don’t involve one another, which I can agree with to some extent, but I do find issue with. As a fan of musical theatre, I’ve seen many live stage shows of musicals, and their respective movie adaptations. Often times, with a few rare exceptions, the movie versions are almost always different, and cut things out, or restructure important elements of the show to fit the film. Here is where I diverge from Mcluhan’s argument; the information of the medium, the musical itself, is adapted between its two different media (film and stage). So, in a sense, the message/medium is crucial in defining what the information is, even when the information is the same between two media. It changes.
I also really enjoyed Mcluhan’s argument about sports being a form of controlled violence, because essentially that’s what it is; violence. His last statement on the subject matter that sports would be meaningless without an audience truly resonated with me, because as someone who does not enjoy watching or playing sports, they truly have no meaning for me.
To touch back on what I was speaking about with musical adaptations being changed over media, I’d like to present a perfect example of this occurring. My favorite musical, Little Shop of Horrors, premiered Off-Broadway in 1982, and in the end of the musical all the lead actors die. When the show was adapted into a film in 1986, the ending was scrapped and the two lead actors lived, producing a happy ending. This was all done because when the show transitioned to film, the main character was made more sympathetic, and the text audiences did not want him or his love interest to die. So the happy ending was filmed, but only because the original ending did not work in the context of the new media; the film.
Here’s a link to the happy ending:
And here’s a link to the original ending:
Finally here’s a link to director Frank Oz talking about the ending:
Monday, April 13, 2015
Danielle Rennalls: Medium is the Message
Marshall McLuhan’s
The Medium is the Message was a very
rough reading with very hard concepts to grasp. His chapter on
Understanding Media: The Extensions of
Man states various concepts and ideas concerning different media that he
categorizes into two subgroups (cold media or hot media), not solely based on how
the material is being presented but based on how users react to the material
itself. However, through the development and advancement of technology, some of
McLuhan’s concepts regarding various media such as photography, has been
outdated, for though McLuhan’s concepts and ideas remain unchanged, the world
around us is constantly evolving and ultimately so is media.
Categorizing media
into subgroups like that of McLuhan’s is one that will need constant revising and
editing. For as time changes, so does our interactions with media, how we
preserve them and how they impact us. Take for instance photography. McLuhan
refers to photography as a hot medium, which he defines to be mechanical, the expansion
of space, low in audience participation, exclusive and detribalizing. These
various definitions and categorizing of hot medium may have worked well for photography
back in McLuhan’s time, however in this time period photography is far less
mechanical and exclusive than he describes it to be. In this day in age, taking
a photograph no longer requires a professional but can be done by an ordinary,
unprofessional, inexperience person. Moreover, almost all people today have a
device readily on hand that can capture an image, illustrating that photography
is more inclusive. Furthermore, McLuhan’s concepts limit photography to low
audience participation, which in 2015 is quite an inadequate
categorization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMEC_HqWlBY
McLuhan response-Anna L.
The key argument that McLuhan
posits, the straightforward title “The Medium is the Message,” confuses many
people as in evident in the some people’s responses from his interview- the
importance/relevance of content is questioned and one woman pointedly asked
what the point would be to the interview, or even to her asking the question.
McLuhan responded saying that his argument does not suggest that the content is
itself worthless, but that rather that content is contained within the
construct of the medium, which comparably has a much greater ruling effect. I
think the weakness of this interview is that he fails to outline in concrete
terms what effects he is concerned about, other than a “shift in awareness”
from literacy. From reading this chapter in Understanding
Media: Extensions of Man, I found
a couple other common themes. One is that he criticizes that TV is a numbing
nothingness. Also, I think it is interesting to consider how community works
with TV because McLuhan also critiques it for creating isolation; but in
another sense, if large amounts of people are tuning in to watch a specific
event it creates community collapsing the importance of distance. I think a lot of this reading is difficult to
sort through because it feels antiquated when McLuhan uses the advent of print
and electricity as points of comparison. If he mistrusted the impacts of
television on society so much, who knows what he would think of the internet
today. His point that it takes a long time to accurately analyze these effects
is valid.
It seems to me that a medium, or
any user-interface design, is most successful when it appears to be effortless.
As a consumer, I want to be drawn into the story/argument. As Whitney has
mentioned in class, even with abstract themes work that takes you elsewhere is
the most successful. We often take this reality for granted which is perhaps
why McLuhan’s argument of the medium’s paramount significance important is
startling.
In terms of
examples, while someone already presented on Nam June Paik, I thought of his
work that included the “map” of televisions because it comments how the medium
itself functions across the country- Electronic Superhighway, http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=71478.
I also looked at Video Tape Study No. 3 because it uses distorted television footage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EECKIAHJUlk
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