Project 3/6 Evals

The class project was something that I felt could have been a little more rewarding an experience. The concept was original but I think that there could have been a more cohesive project put forth. But that could probably only have happened with smaller groups like we talked about in class last week. The hand processing portion was neat, inasmuch as I watched the techniques that the other groups in the class used to get their images as much as experimenting with our own filmstrip. My real love for the project came with the sound fx portion of the film. Adrian and I rented the Marantz from Tony and walked around campus one day trying to find sounds that we thought would benefit the sports theme of the film. We walked all around the gym getting the different sounds of swimming, basketball, etc. But the best sound came when we were walking back to the car and a plane flew overhead, no words needed - Adrian pointed the mic and I hit record. Played beautifully with the discus thrower. I do agree that limiting the groups to four people would greatly enhance the clarity of idea and concept among future submissions.

The collage project was one of the more difficult projects for me this semester, that is not to say I didn't enjoy, but it challenged me further. I spent a lot of time collecting footage and sound for the project with constantly shifting ideas and plans. The deadline kept approaching and I still had no conviction for anything of my outlines for the collage' structure or narrative. Finally I had a Sunday night off and I sequestered myself in the lab. As I started reviewing my footage I realized I had gathered clips that contained a lot of footage that was similar in style and aesthetics to films I have seen in the last few months and I wanted to use my all-time favorite medium - the movie trailer - as the base for telling my rather "moments only" story i'd found in the footage. I felt fairly pleased with it, I spent much, much closer to the audio this time around. Layering sound is...dynamic to the ear, I'm starting to believe. What I took away from the comments was the lack of the "movie announcer voice", i'm still looking for good samples.
A fulfilling project and and fun end to the semester.