This semester made me aware of just how stubborn I am. And just how much I need to be willing to flex myself. Working on both the sound and video projects, I noticed some specific things about how I function creatively that put me at odds with any sort of exploration, or at least put me in a position where I had to be willing to rethink some of my preconceived notions of how to work.
For instance, both projects showed me just how attached I am to the idea of narrative. Kelly mentioned in her blog that she saw the exact opposite about herself, that her own fiction oddly enough resists arc in some way and fights the stereotypical structure of narrative, something I would say is to her credit in her work, something that distinguishes it and opens it to a lot of linguistic play that perhaps my work is not as open to, given its adherence to that old concept of plot. I, on the other hand, both in my fiction and in this class, have been attempting to subvert the whole narrative paradigm I’d previously operated in creatively. Sort of. REALLY stubbornly. You’ll notice that both my sound project and the video project I participated in had some arc to them, largely because that’s where I feel I work from creatively. This is what makes sense to me. What I’ve wanted to do, then, is to work around that arc, to see what ways I can play with other elements to redefine what I’m doing with the whole concept of narrative. In this respect, Kelly and Todd have both really pushed me. I suck at working in groups, so this was really a struggle for me, and I have to admit that if I’d been entirely in control of this project, the end result would have been very different. I think each of us believes this about ourselves. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There is something interesting about the idea of attempting to remove as much of that Aristotelian arc of conflict as possible, and Kelly and Todd have both helped it in this direction (I was probably dragging my feet every step of the way). I thought it was very interesting that Kelly thought it was going the other direction, when I felt it could have been much more plot-oriented than it was. Shows my biases, I suppose.
Secondly, I think the video project in particular pushed me to be more willing to edit my original conception of a creative piece. I resist revision. Vehemently. If I revise, I either add to the original piece to provide clarity or I throw it aside entirely and start over. I do not cut unless I have no other choice. Todd and Kelly are clearly believers in cutting, and I think this was the greatest problem we ran into putting the final piece together. Again, this is certainly not a bad thing. It’s entirely possible the project is objectively better because of their willingness to remove things they didn’t feel fit in. I just had a different idea of what fits in. Almost every time we discussed whether a particular shot was working for the whole project, it played out largely the same.
Me: “Oh come on, that’s hilarious.”
Todd: “It doesn’t fit.”
Kelly: “Yeah, it really doesn’t.”
Me: “But… come on! He’s feeding the toaster baked beans! It’s funny!”
Kelly: “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Me: “Okay. Fine…. But it would have been awesome.”
That old adage that a writer is supposed to kill his babies when he revises is not one I concede to often, and so letting go of some of my favorite parts of our footage really hurt. This is the essence of collaboration, I suppose. Maybe it didn’t fit into our final concept of the project. But it fit into MY concept of it. Which is why I fought so hard to keep things in. But ultimately, I suppose, because we had to debate about things like this, the project reflects more accurately our combined views on what we finally wanted to do with it. Kelly’s and Todd’s were just more likely closer to each other’s than they were to mine, hence my initial resistance.
I’m with Kelly that I felt like overall this class opened me up to a lot of non-writing ways of being creative, and I would be interested also in continuing to pursue them. We all talked about taking the full footage we got for the apocalypse piece and making our own individually realized projects out of that. Perhaps it would be a good exercise to do this and place them next to each other in some way; perhaps this combination and repetition of images could as an artifact say something different than the version we cut apart together. Even the idea of comparing collaborative work to work derived from the same sources but different artists intrigues me, and I wouldn’t mind playing with this further. I suppose that might be the best way for me to ultimately get away from simple narrative without rejecting it entirely, by stacking it instead. Something to take with me, I guess.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
dead baby jokes
Only slightly ironically, the idea for this project began as a joke. I think I was discussing Cormac McCarthy’s The Road with my boyfriend one afternoon, and no doubt he or I made some tasteless comment about dead baby jokes, since there is in fact, to my knowledge (since I have yet to finish the book), at least one dead baby in the novel. So I asked him what he thought stand-up comedy would be after the apocalypse, how a post-apocalyptic environment, particularly one in which someone is left basically alone, would affect the parameters of comedy. I didn’t exactly say it like that, of course. It was more along the lines of “Would we still have crappy Seinfeld airplane humor if everyone is dead?” But the concept was born, and it was born out of goofy speculation.
Then I decided I really liked the idea. And pitched it to Kelly and Todd. And since all three of us both have a fond appreciation for the absurd, specifically when it comes to humor, we decided it was rife with possibilities. We found ourselves almost overwhelmed with the possible places we could take it. And, also, could not resist the opportunity to bring Bill Cosby to a new level.
At this point we’re envisioning it as something with a very loose narrative base to it, so loose that I don’t think the apocalypse itself is given too much time to come to the forefront. A lot of the visual element will be a single character on the screen negotiating with his newly decimated surroundings, and doing so largely through an exploration of humor, as it either changes or doesn’t change from our pre-apocalyptic understanding of it. And, of course, it means we get to make Todd grow a beard. Which should be an experiment in and of itself.
In approaching this, I’ve found a couple of different works that seem to speak directly to our intentions (or what we think our intentions are; as Todd so aptly pointed out, these things have a tendency to take on a mind of their own). The first is a video called Flatness 145, done by an artist named Rob James. It’s fairly simple and makes no effort to explain itself, something I think we’re shooting for ourselves, since explaining why anyone would want to figure out comedy after their entire culture has been wiped out may double the length of the video and make it, frankly, way less funny. It consists of a simple group of brief collected images, drawn together with headings at the beginning of each “day,” and a sense of movement that conveys the passage of time through simple tasks. Embedded in these images is something odd but seductive in its simplicity: numerous fruits and vegetables that appear occasionally, breaking up scenes and giving the impression that some sort of vegetative invasion is occurring. There isn’t a whole lot to it, but James is clearly playing around with the absurd imagery usually associated with the B movie genre, and that sort of silliness that does not draw too much attention to itself is basically what we want to convey in our own piece.
The other one is The Allens by artist Erik Bunger. Conceptually, this one is just as simple, but is at the same time more complex in its execution; its inaccessibility is in fact the point of the piece. The entire video is a monologue from Woody Allen in which his original awkward Brooklyn speech is layered over by waves of the same words translated into various languages, to the point that no linguistic thread can be found throughout in one particular language. As Bunger explains it, the languages become nuances of the same personality, like linguistic tics almost, although in some places there is some overlap so comprehension even for a native speaker of one of these languages is compromised. Its pertinence to our project, I think, lies in the fact that something as simple as humor, which can be treated itself as a language of sorts, can be compromised by external forces, in this case a complete breakdown of social and cultural norms. How does one approach satire when there’s nothing left to satirize? This sort of distortion, although in a subtler way, is the focal point of our piece.
Then I decided I really liked the idea. And pitched it to Kelly and Todd. And since all three of us both have a fond appreciation for the absurd, specifically when it comes to humor, we decided it was rife with possibilities. We found ourselves almost overwhelmed with the possible places we could take it. And, also, could not resist the opportunity to bring Bill Cosby to a new level.
At this point we’re envisioning it as something with a very loose narrative base to it, so loose that I don’t think the apocalypse itself is given too much time to come to the forefront. A lot of the visual element will be a single character on the screen negotiating with his newly decimated surroundings, and doing so largely through an exploration of humor, as it either changes or doesn’t change from our pre-apocalyptic understanding of it. And, of course, it means we get to make Todd grow a beard. Which should be an experiment in and of itself.
In approaching this, I’ve found a couple of different works that seem to speak directly to our intentions (or what we think our intentions are; as Todd so aptly pointed out, these things have a tendency to take on a mind of their own). The first is a video called Flatness 145, done by an artist named Rob James. It’s fairly simple and makes no effort to explain itself, something I think we’re shooting for ourselves, since explaining why anyone would want to figure out comedy after their entire culture has been wiped out may double the length of the video and make it, frankly, way less funny. It consists of a simple group of brief collected images, drawn together with headings at the beginning of each “day,” and a sense of movement that conveys the passage of time through simple tasks. Embedded in these images is something odd but seductive in its simplicity: numerous fruits and vegetables that appear occasionally, breaking up scenes and giving the impression that some sort of vegetative invasion is occurring. There isn’t a whole lot to it, but James is clearly playing around with the absurd imagery usually associated with the B movie genre, and that sort of silliness that does not draw too much attention to itself is basically what we want to convey in our own piece.
The other one is The Allens by artist Erik Bunger. Conceptually, this one is just as simple, but is at the same time more complex in its execution; its inaccessibility is in fact the point of the piece. The entire video is a monologue from Woody Allen in which his original awkward Brooklyn speech is layered over by waves of the same words translated into various languages, to the point that no linguistic thread can be found throughout in one particular language. As Bunger explains it, the languages become nuances of the same personality, like linguistic tics almost, although in some places there is some overlap so comprehension even for a native speaker of one of these languages is compromised. Its pertinence to our project, I think, lies in the fact that something as simple as humor, which can be treated itself as a language of sorts, can be compromised by external forces, in this case a complete breakdown of social and cultural norms. How does one approach satire when there’s nothing left to satirize? This sort of distortion, although in a subtler way, is the focal point of our piece.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
an excuse to discuss rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
I’ve always been fascinated with stop action animation as a medium, probably because it’s so labor intensive (and probably also because I grew up with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Wallace &
Gromit and so many other claymation kid-oriented work out there). Working in precise, meticulous terms is always something that I’m awed by, probably because fiction writing allows me the opportunity to write in a whirlwind and correct later, rather than create in a slower way which requires working out things on a micro level until it works before moving on. I don’t have the patience for it, and so I’m intrigued by it.
But the stop-action in Stop Motion Studies is of a very different breed. And I found myself even becoming impatient with it as it went along. Perhaps it’s the disconnect of it, the jump between sections both in the actual photographs and for the “reader,” who is experiencing brief pieces, linking only a few photos that are presented in loops of no more than a couple of seconds that one can watch once or twice or sit staring at indefinitely. Because these are only short loops connected by the reader’s navigation between screens and whatever thematic (and clearly locational) correlations he or she makes, it never fully coalesces into one piece for me, becomes there are too many jumps.
So this may seem like a silly question, but I’m curious why this (side note: while searching for Wallace and Gromit videos on youtube, I found a LOT of edited together and played with versions, which felt relevant to me; thus the clip I’m giving you guys is one some guy edited together with Flight of the Conchords music layered on top of it, which amused me):
is less appealing to me than the stop motion pieces, why I am drawn to Wallace and Gromit and even silly remixes of it, but am put off by these other pieces, despite the similar attention to detail that I find fascinating about both poles of what we consider “stop action/motion.” I’m sure there are a lot of little reasons. Wallace and Gromit is adorable. It involves an evil penguin and a wide assortment of cheese. There are a lot of very simple jokes in it (Gromit getting into the fridge and finding a handful of bunnies pretending to be condiments and hiding behind celery). But I have a feeling there’s something more basic to it too.
I feel like I get the point to Wallace and Gromit, whatever that point might be. It’s linear, it’s accessible, it says something clear. I find myself alienated in all these ways from the Stop Motion Studies. There’s no linearity to it apart from the omnipresence of the subway. We are only given small, distant glimpses of people and as a result are alienated from them, something I think is aggravated by the fact that people usually appear in three sections or less. There is no consistency of personality in it. So what am I supposed to feel from beginning to end? I’ve gone through a lot of it and I still have no idea.
Perhaps the delineative aspects of it are exactly its point, that it’s saying something is essentially delineated about life and that observences on the subway offer us perfect examples of this. But in this case, the point is labored. Why continue to make essentially the same piece over and over again? As usual, I might feel clueless on this, but I am, as so often happens, lost.
I’m intrigued by the idea of searching for lines in things that might not necessarily have lines. Putting lines where they don’t belong. If I felt like a plot was implied in these images, particularly if it’s clear there was none in the first place, perhaps I would be less resistant to them.
Gromit and so many other claymation kid-oriented work out there). Working in precise, meticulous terms is always something that I’m awed by, probably because fiction writing allows me the opportunity to write in a whirlwind and correct later, rather than create in a slower way which requires working out things on a micro level until it works before moving on. I don’t have the patience for it, and so I’m intrigued by it.
But the stop-action in Stop Motion Studies is of a very different breed. And I found myself even becoming impatient with it as it went along. Perhaps it’s the disconnect of it, the jump between sections both in the actual photographs and for the “reader,” who is experiencing brief pieces, linking only a few photos that are presented in loops of no more than a couple of seconds that one can watch once or twice or sit staring at indefinitely. Because these are only short loops connected by the reader’s navigation between screens and whatever thematic (and clearly locational) correlations he or she makes, it never fully coalesces into one piece for me, becomes there are too many jumps.
So this may seem like a silly question, but I’m curious why this (side note: while searching for Wallace and Gromit videos on youtube, I found a LOT of edited together and played with versions, which felt relevant to me; thus the clip I’m giving you guys is one some guy edited together with Flight of the Conchords music layered on top of it, which amused me):
is less appealing to me than the stop motion pieces, why I am drawn to Wallace and Gromit and even silly remixes of it, but am put off by these other pieces, despite the similar attention to detail that I find fascinating about both poles of what we consider “stop action/motion.” I’m sure there are a lot of little reasons. Wallace and Gromit is adorable. It involves an evil penguin and a wide assortment of cheese. There are a lot of very simple jokes in it (Gromit getting into the fridge and finding a handful of bunnies pretending to be condiments and hiding behind celery). But I have a feeling there’s something more basic to it too.
I feel like I get the point to Wallace and Gromit, whatever that point might be. It’s linear, it’s accessible, it says something clear. I find myself alienated in all these ways from the Stop Motion Studies. There’s no linearity to it apart from the omnipresence of the subway. We are only given small, distant glimpses of people and as a result are alienated from them, something I think is aggravated by the fact that people usually appear in three sections or less. There is no consistency of personality in it. So what am I supposed to feel from beginning to end? I’ve gone through a lot of it and I still have no idea.
Perhaps the delineative aspects of it are exactly its point, that it’s saying something is essentially delineated about life and that observences on the subway offer us perfect examples of this. But in this case, the point is labored. Why continue to make essentially the same piece over and over again? As usual, I might feel clueless on this, but I am, as so often happens, lost.
I’m intrigued by the idea of searching for lines in things that might not necessarily have lines. Putting lines where they don’t belong. If I felt like a plot was implied in these images, particularly if it’s clear there was none in the first place, perhaps I would be less resistant to them.
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