Medium Specificity

You'd think that as a filmmaker, the concept of moving images would have some deeper meaning to me. The idea that a picture is worth a thousand words certainly begs the question of motion pictures. And yet, I find that as a storyteller, I constantly take the medium for granted. Because of this, I decided to revisit the most basic elements of film--multiple moving frames and sound--to explore both the advantages and limitations of this art form.

I chose sound and image specifically because they most make up the narratives that I so strongly connect with. My piece, however, is not much of a narrative. It is, rather, a set of shots that depict students experiencing a typical day on BYU campus. Within these five shots, several technical elements are immediately noticeable. Unlike McCloud's "Setting the Record Straight", my piece takes an approach to the medium that calls attention by being noticeably different. Firstly, the film is a 360 degree video. That means the viewer has the ability to interact and look around the shot. And although the sounds of what is being depicted are clear and normal, the piece is presented in one frame-per-second.

In this way, my piece explores limitations, ask questions, and ultimately celebrates the technical possibilities of motion pictures. By using 360 degrees, the project presents present limitations and potential possibilities. For example, when watching a film, the viewer typically only sees the frame she is given and is expected to accept that one rectangle as the canvas. Even in observational cinema, the shot makes a statement. I wanted to explore that aspect as a limitation; what if you could look outside the shot? What would you see? Regarding subject and intent, however, there are so many new questions to consider in a 360 degree video, that perhaps it transcends the entire point and purpose of filmmaking as we understand it and is closer to VR, such as the new media experience found at The Void. Maybe film is supposed to be more straightforward. For example, a set frame tells us something specific. It hands us the subject, and forces us to make something of it. It inspires creativity rather than curiosity.

I also wanted to explore frame rate, as that is all video is--moving pictures. While most narrative films have a frame-rate of 24 frames per second, this one has a frame rate of 1 frame per second. This frame rate calls attention to the rather narrow bridge between photography and cinematography. The frame rate is juxtaposed against the sound, which is heard in real time, calling attention to the importance of sound to provide context and work hand in hand with image. We normally don't notice sound, but sound often informs everything we are seeing. It's half of the process. 

Altogether, I hope my piece reminds us of why we want to be filmmakers for one reason or another, and shows that we have only just begun to think of the potential of our medium.

Historical Stories

In 1980, a small fire broke out in the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino’s delicatessen. The fire spread quickly and trapped many people on the upper floors of the building (LA Times “Burning Memories: Ten years later…”). Investigators blamed the fire on an electrical short, but what if they were wrong? What if the fire had more sinister origins? On Biography.com, we found out that Vegas’s most powerful mob boss-- Tony Spilotro-- was banned from casinos in 1979. Armed with this possible source of embitterment toward the MGM Grand, we constructed a story about Spilotro’s comeuppance arson.

In order to make our story seem plausible, we researched whatever we could about the hotel and the time period in which it burned. A copy of the original MGM Grand floorplan helped us orchestrate and describe scenes. The wire short that caused the fire gave us a basis for Spilotro’s involvement. We also used terminology from the time-- “Pap” was a common, almost derogatory term for paparazzi photographers in the early 1980’s.

James Higgins, our main character, is one of these “Paps”. Similar to the approach of After the Deluge, we wrote a good amount of the narrative and especially the world of James visually. Enamored by the glitz of 80’s casino life, he loves taking intimate and expository pictures of famous people.  In some way, he feels like taking these photos gives him power over people.

He enjoys the power trip he gets from taking pictures, but wants something more high class. In an effort to raise himself above his life situation, James is willing to extort anybody’s misfortune or misconduct. Shamelessly, he photographs intoxicated people in compromising circumstances. Without a second thought, he runs into a burning building to photograph the panic, destruction, and possible injury happening inside. James’s position as a paparazzi photographer enables him to witness the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino fire objectively. James uses his camera to separate himself from the terrible events, and he feels no sorrow from it.

James doesn’t have the time or the depth to feel empathetic toward the MGM Grand fire victims. When he develops his photographs and sees Tony Spilotro fleeing the scene of the crime, he doesn’t get angry or upset. He isn’t overwhelmed at the loss of life Spilotro’s actions caused. He just sees it as an opportunity to blackmail himself into mob life. James has always loved power, and here he is holding a photograph that gives him power over the most terrifying mob boss in Vegas.

James’ chip-on-the-shoulder attitude serves as a contradiction, and even push-back, against the general disdain of paparazzis during his time. His occupation serves as a symbol for anyone who is seen as the lowest of the low at the beginning of Reaganomics. Although he rails against the common perception of his profession, James himself buys into a sort of “trickle-down” ideology. He wears well-kept tuxedos and fraternizes with people from a higher class. He acts as if spending time photographing famous people somehow rubs their importance off onto him. He also separates himself from the moral implications of photographing for tabloids through a twisted sense of jaded ambition. The world looks down on paparazzi, so he might as well expose the world’s dirty secrets.

This project was a collaboration between

Barrett Burgin

and Madison Ellis

Process Piece

Initially, telling a story strictly through audio without the accompaniment of video, or any other element for that matter, might seem to be difficult and confusing. For us it certainly was. One of the elements we found most compelling about processes we watched before class such as “The Smokehouse” or “Five” were the visuals (especially of delicious food). However, upon completion of the audible sequence, the result was surprisingly beautiful.

For this project, we struggled finding the right process to present. Originally, we wanted depict what it is like trying to find something to watch on TV, but on our first attempt, we realized we wanted something a little more engaging. Certainly watching television is a common human labor, but besides the clicking of the remote and the sounds of the shows, there aren’t very many ways to go with it.

As we explored the idea, our original concept evolved into the process of going to the movie theater. Sounds of popcorn, tickets ripping, and friends and family enjoying themselves permeate the audio clip. Each sound invokes a memory, as all of us in this class have been to the movie theater. We decided to take that aspect of nostalgia one step further by creating the process of seeing a movie being shown on film. Because of this element, we had to create a composite of sounds from the past and present. Probably the most compelling aspect of the created piece hearing a film projector, giving the audio piece more of an authentic sound.

The piece follows the basic story model well. It was created as a sort of audio POV piece of the process of going to see a film at the movie theater. There are even different sounds in each ear, not unlike the “Virtual Barber Experience” found on YouTube. Our process starts with the ambiance of waiting in line to buy a ticket, then leads to ripping the ticket, buying popcorn, and finally arriving at the seats. With a distinct beginning, middle, and end, the story is able to be told without the use of dialogue.

It is interesting that a story actually can be told without a narrator holding the audience’s hand to guide through the tale, or even visuals. Instead, we experience a narrative simply through real life sound effects. The fact that the audio clip turned out realistic and rather easy to follow was a surprise because of the aforementioned beliefs on the subject.

The process of finding a process to record was the largest task. With digital films currently dominating the theater market, it is difficult to find a theater that even has a film projector anymore. After various phone calls and research, we were fortunate enough to get in touch with the one theater in Provo that still owns a film camera. They graciously gave us a tour. Possibly more enjoyable than actually creating the piece, learning about the old projector as well as taking a tour of the old SCERA Theater was an unforgettable experience. The kindness of the theater’s employees was what ultimately made this project possible.

Hopefully the audience of our process piece is able to further appreciate all that goes into screening a film, as well as reminisce on wonderful experiences of going to the pictures. We also aimed to reflect on the beautiful history of film’s progression to the point where it is now. Perhaps next time the listener goes to a movie, he will think more about the process after listening to this piece.

Barrett's Round Robin

A warrior took his son hunting, but the son was struck dead. The warrior sought vengeance on the gods.

A warrior, grieving his son's death, obsessed with taking his vengeance on the gods, became convinced by grief and sunstroke that he was a god himself.

"Blinded by fury and the fact that his glasses had been stepped on in battle, 
the warrior was unable to see his son was alive and well."

In his blindness and panic, the father became disoriented. Mistaking him for an enemy, he put his spear into his son.

 

As his father stabbed him with the spear, Andromedes remembered the myth: sons killed by their fathers become demi-gods. 

Aidan: The first thing that comes to my mind about this assignment is its organizational difficulty. It would be simple enough if it were done all at once and in person. However, for our group at least, the virtual element became problematic. Whether from technical difficulty, or the kind of miscommunications that occur in virtual conversation, we experienced confusion. In my case, this was creatively restricting because I spent more time stressing over communicative errors than thinking about artistry or collaboration. As far as the work that was done, I found it to be challenging because there is no sense of control. However, it does prompt one to be more economical in the use of language. I found that to be a valuable experience in making less words mean more.  

Tabitha: We’ve repeated frequently that creativity loves constraint, and in these short story exercises, I’ve found that to be the case. There’s something really challenging and yet freeing about having to communicate plot, character, theme, and ambience in 20 words, ten words, six words – whatever the case has been. It’s intriguing to build off other's ideas in both written and visual form, but in this particular assignment, the communication and technicalities tripped our group up a bit. In Totems without Taboos:The Exquisite Corpse, DJ Spooky speaks of breaking down “the linear flow of ideas between people.” The at-times confusing form of this assignment made it a bit hard to do that, and it sometimes seemed as if we were creating an unwieldy, passive Frankenstein, a painfully self-aware and pointless monster, instead of the one that haunts Mary Shelley’s novel purposefully. It’s an elegant art form, however, the very short story, and feels like a language of its own. To learn it feels essential, but the path to doing so can be hard to navigate.

Trevor: These story sequences were exercises in entropy both in the interpretation of them and organization to do them. Writing and compiling the stories became a weird mission of preservation. There was an odd weight of lineage and legacy to respecting the last story and passing on something understandable and inspirational for the next while trying to write something decent. It’s an odd way to play the surrealist game DJ Spooky told us about, turning the Exquisite Corpse into a preservationist exercise. A truer playing would have veered into the irreverence of something like Axe Cop’s childish, self-contradictory bliss nightmare.

Camden: This telephone-esque exercise was a fine example of how the style of a story can develop a momentum even if the various chapters of the tale are written blindly by different authors. As readers, we can easily discern the familiar components of our favorite genres.  As writers in a group, we perceived distinctive story components and were able to incorporate those components into whatever chapter we contributed. It's almost compulsive. We don't want to write something that goes against the established theme or tone. As a testament to this, some aspect of the original tone was preserved within each mini-series written by our group.

Barrett: Throughout the entire assignment, I was most fascinated by the way my story seemed to evolve. It made me realize that whether or not we intend to apply the “Exquisite Corpse” idea to our art and our stories, historically, it is bound to happen anyway. Do not all stories and ideas become embellished and drawn out over time? The organization of this assignment was inevitably a disaster. Not in the ideal sense, perhaps, but in the realistic carrying out of it. I’m still not sure if it was all done correctly at this point. But I tend to believe that is part of the process and certainly part of the art. Confusion is only compounded into the spontaneity of our responses. In fact, disastrous collaboration is often what spawns cherished art. The somewhat humorous example of the ruined Ecce Homo fresco in Spain comes to mind. It developed from ancient art to bizarre reconstruction attempt to template for memes. This assignment allowed us to just taste that process and be aware of doing so.

Dark Glass - Musical Mosaic

Song: Rhapsody in Blue - 8 bit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpgaBuZODQU

For my musical mosaic, I decidedly spent time looking for one of the most beautiful classical pieces I could find. After browsing through various compositions, I decided on “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin and then found an 8-bit version of it. The gorgeous intricacies of the complex music sound ridiculous when played and compressed in 8-bit, which is exactly what I was looking for. I then spent time locating several pictures that are either iconic, beautiful, or personally meaningful to me and I edited them to be my own, purposefully pixelating the images until they are only recognizable from a distance. Doing a Google Search for famous or beautiful images was a very intentional decision and one I took some time with. The viewer needs to recognize what the image should be in order to be affected by what it is not. The compression of both music and image is jilting and is meant to be off-putting. While I included the pictures and song, as the assignment calls for, the piece is really most powerful when viewed as a video and is intended to be so. Consequentially, I will also include a link to the work as a video. I decided to call my Musical Mosaic “Dark Glass”.

My intent for the project ties well into the writings of Annie Dillard, as my intent is all about seeing and perspective. The pixelation of famous or beautiful images beyond the point of enjoyment parallels the way in which the western world now experiences or “sees” culture; that is to say, we see what we expect to see, and what is fed to us through our screens. Culture and relationship is not necessarily unalterably ruined by technology, but it is vastly affected. From the music we enjoy to the politics we feel passionately about, nothing we experience goes unaffected by our high-speed cultural lenses, and it is difficult to truly enjoy beautiful things such as a kiss without the cultural weight our perceptions give us.

The title of the mosaic refers to 1 Corinthians 13:12 and how we quite literally “see through a glass, darkly”. Annie Dillard makes the case that it is so difficult to truly and objectively see something other than what we expect, and I think that case is only even stronger in the 21st century. A work of art that explores a similar concept as the one I am attempting to depict is actually located pretty close to home. It is a sculpture on BYU campus of a pixelated elk out in the woods. Of course, we expect to see an elk in the woods, but we also are used to experiencing animals and anything outside of our immediate world on a screen. My guess is that the sculptor’s intent may be similar to mine: while we recognize and even celebrate technology’s place in society, we also hope that we can outgrow it’s iron grip on perspective in our culture.

Film Version:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4vx7xFzn6s&feature=youtu.be

Thinking and Writing — Nightcrawler

“The best and clearest way I can phrase it for you, to capture the spirit of what we air, is think of our news cast as a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut,” counsels news director Nina Romina in Nightcrawler, a 2014 film that explores the underbelly ethics of TV journalism in LA. The story centers around one Lou Bloom, a new cameraman who finds he is very comfortable working in the industry, and who will stop at nothing to get the most graphic shot he can—“If it bleeds, it leads.” However, to say that Nightcrawler is only about violence in media would be to commit the same crime as so many of its characters: seeing at face value. The story’s anti-hero is very decidedly a charming, slithering psychopath. “What if my problem wasn't that I don't understand people but that I don't like them?” he says. His insensitive behavior never changes, but only continues to horrify at greater levels, and he is ultimately rewarded for it. The film deliberately puts a clinical psychopath front and center to symbolize the psychopathy that is becoming pervasive in the news and media industry. Through its main character, Nightcrawler shows that, like Lou, TV journalism isn’t just violent—it’s heartless.

Many elements of the film reinforce the idea of a collective psychopathic approach to journalism. The way the characters at the news station interact with one another feels nonchalant after reporting terrible and grotesque things. Lou is rewarded by the industry for taking unethical risks and breaking laws, similar to the way clinical psychopaths often achieve success. Lou’s continually darker demeanor and dangerous demands also seem to parallel the increasingly violent appetite of the news director and she seeks more graphic footage to air. His behavior seems abhorrent at first, until the audience realizes by the end of the film that he fits right in. No one but the police seems to care when Lou’s partner dies getting a shot, or worse yet, that Lou actually films his partner dying and sells the footage to the station. By the time the credits roll, we cannot truly hate Lou for being a psychopath, when his sins are so disgustingly pervasive throughout the entire TV journalism machine.

The aesthetic of the film supports this idea, as does the music. As the film’s cinematographer, Robert Elswit creates a “look” that feels slick and dreamy, especially at night as Lou grabs his footage. The neon lights and popped-out glow of the city scream superficial. Elswit’s sweeping shots of LA cityscapes and broadcasting towers are meant to remind us that the emotionless industry never sleeps. The choice of cinematographer for this project is also notable, as this isn’t the first time Elswit has visually connected psychopathy to an industry. His award winning work on There Will Be Blood follows a very similar theme. The music, too, is specifically set to give the audience a level of disconnect. It certainly never feels ominous, but captures a sort of dreamy quality, even when Lou is doing particularly atrocious things, such as dragging a dying man’s body across the street to get the shot he needs. The music isn’t contrapuntal, but rather fits with what Lou is genuinely feeling, which is perhaps more horrifying. The same dreamy music underscores the “glory” of the news industry, welding together Lou’s insanity and the industry’s disconnect.

Screenwriter and director Dan Gilroy explained the reason for using Lou in a 2015 AwardsLine interview. He stated, “What we were aiming for in telling this success story—what we wanted the audience to walk away with—is that the problem wasn’t Lou, although Lou is obviously a problem for quite a few people in the film. The problem is the world…the society that created Lou and rewards Lou.” He goes on to explain that the film never answers the question of whether Lou is actually a psychopath, but rather urges the viewer to wonder about their own assumptions based on the world Lou finds himself a part of. Because of this, the case could be made that perhaps Lou is, in fact, not a psychopath at all. Regardless, the theme is less about the possible mental condition of Lou and more about the obvious emotional disconnect of the television industry. The case for Lou as a psychopath rests in the idea that his clinical behavior serves a symbol for the larger corporate monster.

As a filmmaker, a personal takeaway of mine from Nightcrawler is to avoid losing my humanity trying to get “the perfect shot.” The film seems to be a relevant critique on the media industry in general, on trading values and goodness for producing a good product. The subject is certainly poignant and true for TV journalism, but could be applied to any medium, or even to our consumerism culture as a whole. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but relate to and even root for Lou. Filmmaker or not, perhaps the further-reaching point of the film is that if you sympathize with Lou, there may be something wrong with you, too.