YESSSSSSSSSSSSS MEN

I really enjoyed watching “THE YES MEN” and wish we could have finished the movie in class! The guys were hilarious and I couldn’t stop laughing the whole time. I thought their approach to showing consumers in society was brilliant. I was blown away that the people at one of the first conferences, which was supposedly full of people of higher education and from big businesses, did not even crack a smile or look around the room to see if they were on candid camera when one of the yes men ripped off his suit to reveal the hideous costume underneath; the phallic costume. They were so casual with what was going on and actually believed the ludicrous the yes men were feeding them. On the other hand they finally got their response they wanted out of college kids. Leave it to college kids to be the open and honest ones. I thought it was pretty sad that many corporations contacted the yes men thinking they were members of the WTO just because their websites looked similar to the real WTO site. It just goes to show they don’t even care enough to take the time to research who they are bringing to their conferences. I thought it was awesome that while the YES MEN were disguised as the WTO they even got a large sum of money donated to them from one conference and they didn’t even have any second thoughts of giving it back, they were just excited to put the money to new ideas. It takes some guts for these guys to stand in front a group of highly sophisticated and probably rich group of people and pose as members of corporation with fake ridiculous names, but they did it with class.

The reason we watched this in class is because the YES MEN are a culture jamming activist group and since we just barely learned what culture jamming is, this fit in perfectly. I don’t think it goes hand in hand with Assignment #5 but rather with Assignment #6. Found Footage is going to be a hard project to accomplish because there are so many ways to approach it and complete it. The Yes Men used mixed media to get their point across through the documentary and I think it worked well. I’m not sure what I want to do yet for my assignment, but I too was hoping to do a culture jam. Maybe with reality show clips, poking fun at them and creating an underlining beat.

ECSTACYYYYYY

Being an artist of different mediums myself, whether it be photography, painting, ceramics, or film I too would be upset if someone took my original piece of work and tweeked it to make it reflect what they thought was right like in the Molotov Man article. Using my piece of art to portray a different meaning would be insulting. This was a hard article to choose sides with because I saw both sides equally. I could argue both sides, yes a moment in history shouldn’t be owned by just one person, but on the other hand if you were the lucky one to capture that perfect moment why shouldn’t you have the rights to it. You put your life in danger and had the right equipment at the right time to get that photograph; you should have complete control over it. It is a hard debate. I do however feel that if you ever “copy” or include someone else’s work into something new you created, you should credit the other artist out of respect. The only shady aspect of “copying” without crediting is if you try to sell your piece. I don’t think you should gain money from something you re-created off of someone else’s work, that doesn’t seem fair, unless you get full permission from the other artist. The other article talks about adapting ideas from already existing ones. I believe when it comes to novels/book, songs, and movies it is hard to come up with a fresh idea. Looking at movies nowadays everything is adapted from something else whether it’s an already existing book, a true story, a sequel from a previous movie, a story in current news, etc. It’s like everyone has run out of creativity and art now has to start from something that already exists rather than from scratch. As humans, we learn through other people. I know a lot of my ideas for artwork have come from things I’ve already seen and already exist in the art world. With this in mind, I would I agree with the second article. I found it interesting how this article also talked about how Disney steals a lot of their story ideas from already existing stories, but yet the question is never raised of where they got it and they have never been sued for copyrighting.

Saturday Shoot

What class allows you to drink beer 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday? 6x1! The Saturday shoot was AH-MAZING. It was such a beautiful day, a perfect day for a shoot! My group and I had planned out our one shot skit prior to the shooting day which was a good idea so we wouldn’t be flustered last minute. It was fun helping out the other groups and trying on different costumes. I think it was good to work with other groups since we have been limited to our small group work and partner work the whole semester. I thought my group was the only one that was really into props and wardrobe, but I was definitely wrong when I ended up wearing a cowgirl outfit for another group’s project. I felt like we weren’t separate groups anymore, but instead one big group giving each other advice and input on how to improve the one shot. I did get really tired, hungry, and thirsty halfway through the day and wished we were able to take a lunch break or even pitch in money to get lunch all together to be delivered. I don’t function well without food and drinks for a long period of time. Besides that, the day went great and I learned a lot! I’ve never used a Bolex camera before and loved loading, unloading and developing the film. It gives you a new appreciation for film since you are hands on through the whole processes. I also liked that we used an 8mm camera for “behinds the scenes” footage. I thought it was cool that we all used it. So who knows what will come up on the film, but I can’t wait to see! All in all it was great day and good experience.

TELL ME, TELL ME, TELL ME OUR MYSTERY PROP!!!

After discussing the 48-hour video race in class I had a couple ideas in mind. I’m 90% sure I will use stop animation with stills I take using my Nikon D40 SLR camera. I really enjoyed using this technique when we were doing the multi-plane animation and it was fun to move around objects in order to achieve animation. A lot of my planning and ideas will be based once we receive our prop. I really hope it’s a physical prop not music or a sound clip. I am more of a visual person so it will be really hard for me to work with just music and not be given any direction on location or props to use. Depending on the prop we are given I might change my idea of using stills to create animation to using a scanner. But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

I am a little nervous of keeping this project within a 48 hour time frame. When given projects I always start working on it right away and slowly perfect it over time until it’s due. I NEVER leave projects to the last minute because it freaks me out ha and that’s exactly how I see this project as. Only having two days to work on this project stresses me out. I feel like I will come out of this project with something I won’t 100% like because of the time restrict we have been given which means I won’t be able to put a lot of time into the pre-production creative side of it. It scares the bajeezum out of me! It will definitely test my stress level as well as my ability to achieve a project up to my standards in a limited time. I am a perfectionist so it will be hard for me to let go of perfection and just go with my gut on how to achieve the project quickly and efficiently. It will be a challenge for me to accept how the project turns out where I might not have time to re -“shoot” or fix it. All in all I am really excited to see what our prop is and how my project will turn out!