FST 553-800 Experimental - Meg Lansaw

George Kuchar & Guy Maddin It's difficult to write about Hugh's presentation due to the two week break between his first and second subject. I would have liked to have seen this presentation all at once to get a better understanding of the similarities of the artists. I do know that HUMOR was a commonaility between the two! I have a bit of a twin obsession, so I find it very interesting that Kuchar had a twin who was also involved in film. I am curious how the death of his brother affected his art... What I found most interesting about Maddin is his intentional use of mistakes. The fact that he entrusted himself to make the mistakes knowing he could not fix them was intriguing and led to some incredible films.

Meg Lansaw Final Project: Adventure #5 Surrealist Stop Motion Animation Research: Martha Coburn and Kelly Galliger are my assigned artists for my presentation and they create stop motion animation, so I will definitely drawn inspiration from them. I also plan to research tutorials online the best way to technically accomplish this film. I will be experimenting with several phone apps designed specifically for stop motion, Description: Arrow is a stop motion animation about a feral dog surviving in a landfill as he awaits his forever home. The set is a shoe box sized landfill comprised of items my previous dog destroyed, as well as trash accumulated from the project. The dog is made from a flexible plastic-coated wire my old dog ripped out of a cat toy. Adjustable toy bulldozers and construction workers will doze in the background, and aluminum birds will litter the top of the frame. Trains and planes will pass by in the background with a backdrop o...

The catalyst for attending this social justice panel was my friend Hillary Pierce. We worked together ages ago as Set PAs on the 2nd round of Bolden. She was professional and knew her stuff way back when. It's great to see how far she has come over the past dozen years. What is even greater is that I truly love and appreciate her films. I've seen two of her documentaries, Tower, and The River and the Wall, and both were impactful and still resonate with me. Tower, the animation of the first mass shooting at the University of Texas in the 1960's was my favorite film at Cucalorus several years ago. The fact a friend and Wilmingtonian made my favorite film in an International Film Festival was a beautiful feeling. I look forward to seeing her next film about the three young teenagers! I found Lizzie to be very interesting and genuine human being. The way she talks about her work and how passionate she feels about filming documentaries about issues or happenings in her hometo...

I was able to watch this presentation twice and thought Christina did a great job! That fact Shirley Clarke had a a phrase coined after her for grabbing the camera from Cinematographers is all I need to know to love her. Her Academy Award win for Best Feature Film Documentary in 1963 for Robert Frost is an inspiration. 1963 makes it all the more significant. Although dance films are not my cup of tea, I enjoyed watching Clarke's pristine cutting on action to transition to the next location. Her ability to cut the film at the most specific moments was very impressive. Her film on the bridge was as equally as interesting as what she did with the sound. She was not permitted to use certain songs so she took snippets from too and looked them! That worked out anyway! Jen Proctor also utilized sound in unique ways. "Am I Pretty?" was a powerful and painful thing to " watch". Using just the audio was quite relevant to all girls insecurities due to what they've...

I was able to make it to a film block today! I chose dthis specific block because the film Sideways sounded really cool, and it was quite clever. The filmmaker was not at the Question and Answer session and I'm bummed about it! I'm curious how they shot it and where! Were Burt and Ernie inspiration for this film? The other films in the block were quite good, but I never quite got over the trauma of the first film, Midwest. Considering the content of my final project, this really hit hard for me. I know this is a reality in life, but wished for more promise for the little guy. The befriending a the bird brought a small glimmer of hope, but part of me thought the bird would be his dinner! Thank goodness the rest of the block didn't involve animals! Overall, the block was fantastic!!

Chelsea did a great job with her presentation but felt this was being rushed through to move onto another presenter. Marlin Riggs was ahead of his time with being outwardly homosexual during a time in which people were not in acceptance of this lifestyle. It's very interesting that his childhood school experience improved after moving to Germany. I'm curious if he was more closeted there or if Germans were more tolerant of homosexuality? His activism in gay rights at the time was really bold. I'm unsure if this is true, however I think with someone like Riggs being a known artist and a gay rights activist, he likely inspired many others to come out of the closet and own who they are with less fear of judgement.

Pearl's presentation was really interesting. I was drawn to Maya Deren as a human just as much as her work itself. The fact she obtained a college degree in the 1940's is remarkable! Even more incredibly, her accomplishment of the first Guggenheim grant ever is some serious female power! She wrote, starred, shot, AND edited her own films (on actual film) is badass. I literally wrote and underlined the word, BADASS! Her techniques of using jump cuts, superimposition, surrealism, and movement are awe inspiring. I love the mystery around Deren's death on a Friday the 13th having potentially been due to her reaction to her being cut out of the family will. That's far more interesting way for an artist to pass away than a brain hemmorage. As for the similarities of Deren and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrigh, both based in NY, love working with other cultures and films based on humanity and dance. That is literally all I have written down for her because Deren's life was so mesm...

I have question marks listed by Adventure Option 5 because I have trepidation taking on a stop motion animation considering the tedious process. I was unable to shoot a film that I conceptualized a while ago, but haven't shot a frame of it. My idea stems from the backstory of a dog I adopted but had to rehome. He and his brother were rescued from a landfill at 6 months old, and had the scars to show it. I thought he'd had found a forever home with me, but at the end of the day, this dog was meant to be an outdoor dog. He was so used to being outside where everything is fair game to chew or go potty on. We did tons of training and tried for 6 months, but I realized I could not offer this dog the life he deserved. He needed to be out and free and I couldn't provide that for him. Returning him to the rescue was a very low point for me, feeling I'd failed him. My heart ached that I had become a person I used to judge. I hated myself for months, until one day I heard from...

If you know me well, you know that I am a ultra sentimental gal. I am also a bit of a "perfectionist" when it comes to my art. I know perfection does not exist, but I am as meticulous as possible when creating my art. Trying to whittle together a lifetime keystones and narrowing it down to a singular photo album has been really difficult! I skipped over a gap of a few years in my teens though. It wasn't intentional, altough it might be a blessing. You're welcome. Rehearsal is crucial to a project like this because that's just how it is with film. That's what makes it magical. Experimenting with unknown f-stops while shooting brings me great joy. That feeling of getting your film back after it's developed is like opening a present. I chose to do a project about my father's Dementia where you watch someone's mind slip away. How scary that is. Perhaps this is a project that I need to do in order to free myself of resentments of a man I've real...

As the presentations progress, there is a common thread of these artists having experienced great trauma, but created beautiful art because of it. It's sad to think some of the best pieces of art stem from a place of depression... Stan Brackage was an orphan until he was 6 years old and was able to accomplish making his first film by the age of 19! That's crazy to think since that was during the mid-50's! Painting on film and running it through a projector is an interesting idea, but hope it was already damaged! Over the course of his lifetime, he authored 11 books, etched, dyed and superimposed images! There is speculation Brackage died of cancer due to a Van Gogh'esque manner would verify he literally died for his art. Ja'Tovia starting her filmmaking journey because her Dad let her watch Mo' Better Blues is absolutely hilarious! I love how she worked her way through film by starting as an actor, then transitioning behind the camera. She also created docume...

First of all, I love how excited Drew was about his assigned artists. The comment that computers were legos to him as a kid. He found computers to be easy. His genius audio/visual performance where light came to life through the computer in which he played. The coining of a "musical trip" is the best descriptive term to describe a person. Working with Thom Yorke was an interesting piece of trivia! Barri listened to his dreams a lot to inspire his work. Since the presentation was split a week and Tarik is so intersting, Harry Smith fell into the background. I found it sadly poetic that their commonality of drug and alcohol addictions inspiring beautiful art.

Open Tides has opened my eyes to tears. This film was so beautifully made, like poetry. The use of time lapse with the moving sun of a day in the life of Masonboro island and returning a year later after a hurricane was an effective way to set up this love letter to nature. The deep respect Andre has for the environment is truly moving. The most poignant part of the film was when he wrote that he dropped his phone in the water while capturing images. His first thought was not about losing the phone or the contents saved inside, but the affects that it's innards would have to the water over a period of time. His fascination with how the skeleton of a farm animal could end up washed up on a marsh was a thought many wouldn't spend long to ponder. The reference to a manatee (sea cow) added a sprinkle of humor to this otherwise serious piece was refreshing. Andre's use of multiframe images and color layers shifting as a bird flies through the frame was simply genious. I have s...

I found this video letter to be unusual in the sense of visual narration, a closed captioning of sorts. Birdseye watching through a hotel window of a bustling intersection was a voyeuristic choice of angle. Drivers of cars with no knowledge they are contributing to an art piece simply by driving by with their headlights on creating light smears is a curious thought. Have I been recorded walking or driving down the street without knowledge of being watched? I can only hope if so, that I didn't unknowingly ruin a shot on actual film! This video essay was less intimate and personal than the others I have seen, but being different doesn't mean it's bad; it's just different. The concept deviated from a letter to a person, but still functioned in an effective way.

I really loved this piece and found it to be very emotional. The odd feeling of looking like no one in your family, then discovering a photograph of a relative you did not know and could never meet, must have been isolating and liberating. When you spoke of meeting your grandparents at 27 and how uncomfortable it made you being around two blood relatives looking nothing like that of the images you'd looked at your whole life. Photographs age, but the people captured are permanently etched in youth in which they were taken. It's like seeing the picture of a two year old on your fridge for twenty years and seeing that person again at the age of 22 is a bamboozling feeling. In addition to the narration of the letter, I loved how you utilized the camera starting with the feet and slowly moving upwards on the body yet your face is not revealed until the end. The choice to refrain from showing the face until the end was a beautiful reveal and a powerful way to close out the film.

Although this my be too soon and too close to home, but I have opted to write a Video Letter to/about my father. Our relationship has been quite the evolution over the past 44 years. Having been born in 1976 and growing up in the 80's, home videos weren't as abundant as they are now. Poignant moments were usually captured in photographs. Photographs a captured moments in time documented so you can have a reference of memories as you age. My father's advancing Dementia has often reminded me of a photo album where pictures slowly begin to disappear. My concept for the Bolex project is to film in a room in my home filled with my parent's belongings. Slowly as the film progresses, objects will begin to disappear until there is nothing left but black.

The lesson taught me that I need to further practice learning the Sekonic light meter, however sometimes the miscalculated light readings led to happy accidents. Utilizing actual film again and refamiliarizing myself with my Pentax K1000 was a joy! It was also great to use the H6 Zoom recorder again for individualized practice. Recording foley sounds was particularly magical in the sense you can make random objects sound like something completely different! Creating an experimental soundscape was a challenge for me and my fear of deviating to a narrative was legitimate. I failed in that regard. Listening to the soundscapes of my peers, I was disappointed with myself for not stepping outside of the box. The good thing is many people used my foley recordings, so at least I contributed to the experimental soundscapes of my peers. Swapping soundscapes with other students and pairing them with a shared pool of images was my opportunity to step back into the experimental genre. Using the eff...