Earlier tonight I went along to most of the events taking place today at the Broadway Cinema for Trampoline.
I started on a group walk called the "psychogeographic walk" around the town. My new pal and fellow mm student Sophie was in the group too! She didn't remember me though and that left a wound. We used maps made by Heath Bunting, who sort of led us around but left most of the decisions for us to make. This lasted for 2 hours and I thought it was a nice experience, but I came away not feeling the same as some of the others in the group. I think you could split the group into two exactly, where one half knew exactly what was going on, understood and got something out of it, while the other side didn't really understand it; I definitely stood in the latter. ...if you see any chalk markings on the ground around Nottingham town, that was us!
After this expedition Sophie and I got some coffee and made our way back to the Broadway cinema to see the films.
The first was a collection of short films titled The Surveillance City. I enjoyed the first film, titled The Bodyguard because the music was quite hypnotic; I could hear a synthetic sound that reminded me of a grasshopper, while very high pitched noises were distributed to every degree of the room.
The next film was quite interesting. It was the video diary of a man (Casper Below - direct video link) trying to gain access to the CCTV footage of himself from different shops that he went into during the course of one afternoon one day. In the end he had no luck from any company and he had to go through weeks of stupid bureaucratic letters. I felt I could relate to this because of the problems I had video recording on a tram a few weeks back, and also because earlier on, on the walk with Heath Bunting at the Broadmarsh Centre, we were stopped by a couple of security people telling us not to take pictures or record anymore (documenting the walk)! The person in this film also went through similar trouble when he tried to film at important buildings around London, such as the back of 10 Downing Street. This piece was called Sensitive Building. I like it!
Another film I really didn't understand especially how it related to the surveillance theme, was a film of many jolty, unpleasing to the eye quick shots/video recordings of someone doing there washing up-i think. You couldn't really tell what they were doing, you just saw water, bubbles and heard the noises from the movements. So basically I fell asleep a couple of times because it was SO dull! Reminded me of the Bill Bailey joke on Part Troll though :D
Then I stopped to have another coffee with Sophie.
The she went home.
Then I had a wee.
I went upstairs to the Mezzanine bar because an interesting experiment was supposed to be taking place called "Fortechnique/Fontechniquer" by Cormac Faulkner. I was a bit late and when I got up there there was nothing happening, just a bar.
Then I bumped into Steve who was working there and we went down to the studio where they had an experiment taking place called Satellite Bereau "Join". This was a very cool idea... They hand you a GPS telephone and a bluetooth device. Then they tell you to walk around town for a about half an hour. The GPS device will track everywhere you go, send a message back to them and then project your movements onto a wall, which is then drawn on top of with a highlighter pen. So the idea we had was to go outside and walk the shape of a penis, just to see how i might turn out. They may even well tell us that we cocked/ballsed up their experiment!..that would've been perfect. However, 20 minutes later we got back and they said it tracked it fine and we could see it on the wall. The first question they asked us though was "were you trying to make a shape?" I turned to look at Steve and we both convincingly and innocently said no. It turned out to look like an aircraft, though Steve said it was more like a leaf.
Then an insane man called Frank Abbott performed his "Hoose Memory" in the bar at Broadway. It was so bizarre! He stood there underneath a spot light, holding a remote control connected to two mini amps that had the horns from a fog horn stuck on it. All this connected to a pole he was holding, like a pole used to hold various liquids given to those who are really sick in hospitals. He told an anecdote about the time he was in New York, killing a mongoose, meeting a Jewish couple and how the law prohibited him from driving with the Jewish couple as his passengers with a dead mongoose in boot of his car at the same time.....
It was weird!
Finally I watched the last of the short films.
Here is one of the final films I watched and managed to find on the tube. It is Jeroen Offerman performing the entire Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven backwards and then later reversed the video. It's really amazing!
An eventful evening you might say.
Update:
Here are some more things i've found from Trampoline on the net...
A still image from another short film called A Veritable Logorrhea. It used beautiful language, most of which I couldn't understand though.
A stop motion film I really liked called Lisa and Jean. It was filmed in Nottingham, here's a still.
Here are some films similar to the ones I saw at Trampoline (and by the same people who has their work at Trampoline)...
And here is something cool but I can't figure out how to embed the video like the ones above!
It was great to finally discover whose painting i've been using as an avatar/profile picture all this time (pictured above: Not To Be Reproduced). It is René Magritte, here are some other of his works that I've also seen before and liked but never knew who it was...
I love the work of surrealists. Their images stir something inside of me more than any other art genre or artist i've come across.
Here is a famous painting by Hans Holbein; a German Rennaissance painter and it's called The Ambassadors. The first time I saw this was on a TV program like the Culture Show where the image had been blown up onto a wall somewhere in London and the presenter was talking about it very fondly describing the significance of every object. Then talked in great depth about the skull at the bottom that you can only see by positioning yourself up against the wall looking down at it. I think this could be an early example of surrealist work... perhaps Ernst and Dali et al liked this painting too?
This is an image by John Heartfield; a German Photomantage artist and it's called The Spirit of Geneva
And finally M.C. Escher. Another artists whose name I didn't know but was already very familier with his work. He used mathematics, polyhedras and geometric distortions (amongst others) to make the impossible realities look real. in Eschers world everything is relative.
FranzFerdinand took the cover of their second album: from: This is a poster by Alexander Rodchenko where he has used the face of Lilya Brik. Read this
That's enough typey-clicky-cutty-pastey for today!
Project: Stop Motion Location: Norton Court, Radford + Arboretum Camera: Olyympus C3000Z Editing: Final Cut Pro Time Taken: Over the span of about 1 and a half months, altogether roughly 2 days Music: Deerhoof - My Diamond Star Car
Finally finished, though hurriedly, to hand it to Simon today. This was my second attempt at the stop motion technique. I was inspired to make this piece by the continual noise of cars outside my room in my first halls of residence. Since then i've moved to different halls and I thought that move would be a nice simple way to finish it.
Once again I've got a new (yet old) song for you to hear. It is really an old song that I used for my band and changed it slightly but this is how I originally intended it to sound. For now I'm going to call it A Rat Without Shadow, but that title may change, as the song isn't even finished yet. I will fix that bum note in the guitar solo, add on the extra parts and eventually get round to recording some magic..... (singing). The usual place to find it, it's the first song on my myspace
Project: One Shot Film Location: Yo! Sushi!, Lace Market, Nottingham Date: 19/11/07 Edit: Final Cut Pro Edit Duration: Two and a half hours Music: Venetian Snares - XIII's Dub
I've had a pretty rough week this week, I can safely say. So to end it on a nice note ;) I've recorded a new acoustic song. It's sounds just like how I felt earlier today, it's amazing! There are no lyrics or singing just yet but there might be before the end of the year. It's on my myspace and it's called Fall Asleep (Watching A Movie)
The idea for my one shot film 'Smile' has been put to rest now. I talked it over with Deborah who is running the module and although she didn't say it was a bad idea, she explained that there will be a lot of organising, co-ordinating and planning involved. In other circumstances I would be up for the challenge but because of the tight schedule I would much rather go with ideas that don't mean as much is involved.
I've just recorded a new song. It's called Black Museum because I took samples from the original Black Museum show and used it in my song. It's an electronic/ambient thing and if you want to check it out please see my other myspace: http://www.myspace.com/courtinthepast
I'm very pleased though because i've had two ideas for the One Shot Film project, which I can't wait to get going with. I also have titles for both, which is really unlike me... Death and Smile
Death is obviously quite a morbid subject but one that I feel may be a good subect to cover. I've tried to write a prologue, it's something like this... Death; us humans are afraid of death, it's because we don't know what to expect. But this is wrong, if you take away the reasons religion condition us with such as reincarnation, heaven and hell, we can expect there to be black; nothingness. So death is the only thing throughout out lives we can expect to happen and know what it entails. Is it not life then, that we should fear the most because we do not know what to expect throughout our lives or when to expect death? And this might be at any given moment... The story so far still needs some attention, but I know the message will be clear.
Smile has almost the same message, but I think it will leave the audience feeling happy, positive and generally better than when they first came to see the film. It's a simple story about one mans perspective and emotions of the world that doesn't smile anymore. He becomes so affected by what he sees and hears, that he decides to think of a melody and come up with a song on the acoustic guitar on the spot. In doing so, passers by on the street where he is playing become so mesmerized by the words that they can't help but smile and think of nice things, if only for that moment. The music is a song I have learnt by Charles Chaplin and it is titled "Smile" but the lyrics were written by Turner and Parsons.
I am really looking forward to making this film this week. On completion I will upload it.
Sidenote: It's funny how things in life repeat themselves - the reason I got onto this course was partly due to these animations. They've been an inspiration to me along the way because I fell in love with the music the first time I heard it and to see the images that were in the song writers mind when he wrote it is truely wonderfull.
Music: Pink Floyd Animation: Alan Parker
THE TRIAL EMPTY SPACES GOODBYE BLUE SKY This was my favourite for a long time
Another stop motion I have been working on. It's a very simple but time consuming piece, though i've enjoyed making it. The music is a song I recorded sometime last year and just called it the jazz jingle.
After a friend who persistently told me to upload these videos I finally budged and here they are, in one short clip.
Part 1 - High Speed Chair Race I've already posted this video but just to add it was made in the Waverley building, it took about and hour to complete (maybe less) and fades out because just after that scene the movements were far too jittery to pass as a decent stop motion film. The music is in a genre called Math Metal; I think it intensifies the speed and subject of competition between the two racers.
Part 2 - Bin Illusion I liked the idea behind this film the most because it was very simple and effective. I chose the music Air - Run because by sheer coincidence I was listening to the song at the time I was watching the video. I think it fits very well because the timing is great and it also has no lyrics (or at least that snip), which won't distract the audience from what occurs in the film.
Part 3 - The End This was a filler scene. We wanted a final piece to end what we had shot so far and The End seemd most appropriate. I also like this because it is again playing around with the idea that stop motion can create many illusions. The music is Gong - Foolefare because I needed a very short song and this worked very well.
With all of these videos I think that we didn't put enough time and effort into our movements; we should've moved much more slowly because it would have made the films a lot more smooth and easier (on the brain) to watch! By the way I hope this all makes sense, i'm tired and I can only be bothered to write this like a beatnik (and I'm not using the word pejoratively).
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