Tuesday October 7, 2014

Today we will spend time in class reconnecting to the videos, readings, and references from the past few weeks. We will review Download Helper and Adobe Premiere Pro. We will also have an opportunity to screen your homework cut-ups, and talk about your in-progress work. See the plan below:

IN CLASS:
SCREENINGS:
Screen segment from Sonic Outlaws
Read/review William Burroughs, “The Cut Up Method”, listen to Burroughs audio clip
Review selections from Elisa Kreisinger, popculturepirate.com 

DEMO:
Review Download Helper (see prior post or in class handout)
Review Premiere: The Basics (see handouts for basics)

HOMEWORK:

1) If you haven't already, export your homework cut-ups (based on the 30 second transcription) as H.264, to the appropriate Vimeo preset (probably SD Vimeo 29.97. If is is HD, use HD Vimeo 720p 29.97). Upload the videos to Vimeo and post to your blog. If you don't already have a vimeo account, sign up for one here.

2) Begin working on your final project, due for critiques beginning on October 21th. Your final project will consist of a cut-up/ mash-up made from 2-5 sources (with no more than 2 video sources). It should run between 3-5 minutes in length. It must be a video edited in Adobe Premiere Pro. 

Your final project should land somewhere between the references we looked at in class, and your own unique vision and perspective. Your final project must have a clear message or intent. This method of working is best applied to critiquing or radically altering something's meaning, so start there. For example, "I really dislike this well-known politician and wanted to make it sound like he was paranoid about the apocalypse," or "I wanted to make this person protesting gay marriage sound like they wanted to get gay married," or "I think advertising has been brain washing us since the 1950s and I want to point that out," or "Reality tv is trying to kill us, and here is proof," or "I wanted to mash up this serious film noir starring Humphrey Bogart with this goofy b-horror movie about giant teenagers to see if I could make a new movie about civic responsibility." Use your humor, style, and critical lenses. 

For next week, I want you to work your 5 sources. If you want to change what they are, do it. For next week, you must have three different, working sequences in your project file. You should have one main sequence, and two experimental sequences. Think of these experimental sequences as magical places where absolutely anything goes and nothing makes sense. GO WILD. ABANDON ALL LOGIC. Try all the filters and effects. 

Next week in class, we will do more in-progress screenings, and have some time to discuss things one-on one, and some work time. 

GENERAL NOTES: Be bold and experimental. You should choose things that you don't like, disagree with, wish were different, or want to change. Do not choose your favorite things, something you like very much, or something to which you feel close affection. There is much more potential to radically change something to which you have a bit of distance or distain. Consider using old (historical) footage. Speeches and talking heads are good places to start. Don't limit yourself here, gather options. But do not choose movie trailers. Do not choose something that you agree with or respect, unless you want to try to radically alter the message. This method is best applied to things which you want to point out how messed up, inherently broken, or already fractured things are. Remember: FORM IS FUNCTION. 

You may find it useful to plan your video before you make it, or not. Try out different methods of working and see what works for you. This is also why I want you to have multiple sequences, to try out different styles of editing. Be prepared to talk about your different working methods in critique. 

Some very helpful resources:

Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/movies.  HIGHLY SUGGEST using the internet archive to find your source material. It is free and you can very easily download from the hundreds of thousands of moving image files on there. I recommend checking out the "Ephemeral Films" or the "cultural and academic films" sections. 

Download Helper: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/. Download helper is a plug-in for the firefox browser that will help you appropriate video and audio from you-tube like sites. See the previous post for more info.