Assignment 3 - Remix Video

AIRSHIP from Andrew Kirstine on Vimeo.

For my final assignment of the class I had little idea of what I was going to do. It's difficult for me to get ideas for videos when I'm filming them myself, but having to take videos I didn't make and turn them into something new was even harder, especially with the criteria of each video being in the public domain. I started searching for videos I could use, and after scrapping over 7 initial ideas I came up with the concept of AIRSHIP.

With this video I wanted to create a juxtaposition between family life and the atrocities of war to show the ignorance of man. I decided to use solely black and white film in order to create a coherent setting, which in this case is World War II and home life in America. By using only black and white it seems to create a singular timeline, and the viewer believes both sets of images are happening concurrently. I tried to capture a feeling that I sometimes have, when I read or see glimpses of wars thousands of miles away from me and my home. At first I feel scared or saddened by what I've seen, but eventually I push those images to the back of my mind and continue on with my everyday life. Every human being in the first world is guilty of this. I also used the shots of landscapes at the beginning and end to show the viewer that both these lives are happening in the same world we all live in, yet they are both drastically different. I used the flag at the end to remind the viewer that even though these two worlds are not alike, the people in both images are from the same cloth and country.

I decided to do longer shots for the clips from the happy, family videos, while doing really quick flashes of the war torn clips. I did this to show the feeling I was talking about, where you are affected by what's happening to your fellow man but only for a split second until you get sucked back into the everyday world you are living in, remaining blissfully ignorant with your own first world problems while these terrible things are happening to your fellow countrymen. 

The song I decided to use was 'Come Take a Trip in my Airship' by J.W. Meyers. I thought this song perfectly captured my idea. The songs low fidelity fits right in with the grainy black and white images I used, while the subject matter of the song can be construed as both a tourism guide as well as a call to arms.

Works Cited:

“Early Settlers of New England (Salem 1626-1629)”, 1940. Archive.org video, 5:54, accessed March 24^th, 2013, http://archive.org/details/EarlySet1940

J.W Myers, "Come Take a Trip in my Airship", 1904 by Columbia #32589, 78rpm, accessed March 24^th, 2013, http://archive.org/details/airship1904

“Redwood Estates Promotional Film”, 1927. Archive.org video, 10:25, accessed March 24^th, 2013, http://archive.org/details/RedwoodE1927

“World at War (Part 2)”, 1942. Archive.org video, 16:53, accessed March 24^th, 2013, http://archive.org/details/gov.fdr.42.2

“Your Family”, 1948. Archive.org video, 10:38, accessed March 24^th, 2013, http://archive.org/details/YourFami1948

Remix as Art/Political Statement

Thinking about the videos we watched in class, I’ve come to the conclusion that many of the remix videos involving film transcend the typical ‘film as a narrative’ trope they have been placed in for so long; The re-contextualizing these remix videos have reinforced my idea of remixed video is moreso an art form than one of film, with many of the videos we’ve watched being closer to art than to a typical film. One such video that I’ve seen that is actually one of my favorite pieces of art is called Ultimate Reality, a collaboration between musician Dan Deacon and artist Jimmy Joe Roche, in which they re-appropriate Arnold Schwarzenegger films into a kaleidoscopic piece of art, taking the clips as throwing away the emotional/mental/psychological attachment the viewer associates with the original footage. I felt this especially with the clip we watched, Telephones; the original intended emotion the viewer was supposed to have towards the original scenes is gone, with all that’s left being the emotion they feel the new director is trying to show; with Telephones, we have no context to the original scenes in which the director has taken his clips from; instead, we are subject to the multiple tropes films take when showing scenes with telephones, with emotional scenes taking on almost comedic qualities, making the viewer hyper aware of how a scene stereotypically plays out, almost in every film. 

Another common denominator in the films we watched, is how none of the films retained the artistic qualities the original films had; all of them could be linked closer with visual arts as opposed to a film or television show; they functioned more as a social or political statement as opposed to an emotional statement to the characters. Taking these scenes out of context removes all of the emotional build-up of what the director was trying to show and re-appropriating it into what the remixer was trying to show; with the Wonder Woman video we were shown, instead of a strong female superhero, how even someone trying to be empowering towards women shown as a hypersexualized object. With the clip remixing the newscaster clips, we are shown a deeper, more psychologically dark peek into the human psyche as opposed to the neutral, unemotional tone most newscasts run with. I think this is the most interesting aspect of remixing videos, giving a deeper meaning to otherwise light or unassuming video clips.

Sound in Film

After Thursdays lecture I have thought more about how much sound really means to me in relation to how to analyze the films I watch; I usually take into account the cinematography first, then the writing and dialogue, then the acting. Sound is usually last on my list of things to look for. While we watched the film in a different class, I revisited Once Upon a Time in the West and felt that the sound (or in this case, lack of sound) in the opening scene creates an entirely different feel to the scene than would have been if there had been a song in the background; the few sounds used in the scene work to create a tense environment, personalizing the characters as silent, dangerous men. The sounds of the dripping water and the fly in the background created an anxious environment for the viewer, as these two sounds create that same feeling when heard in real life (for me, at least). 

After the class I’ve noticed how sound has affected my mood and analysis towards certain scenes, without me even realizing. One film I recently watched that I thought of again after the lecture was a scene from Django Unchained; the scene in which Monsieur Candie cuts open the skull to show Django and Dr. King Schultz the two indents inside the skull. The entire scene during the dinner and the aftermath is characterized with mainly silence, just the voices of the characters making chit chat. Even before the skull I felt anxious in the scene, something that happens often to me when characters are speaking in complete silence. The sound of the skull being cut gave me chills, and after that scene the action explodes. The use of the sounds in the scene made me feel much more anxious about the scene than I would have been had there been some sort of score of music in the scene.

Assignment 2 - Photo Montage

burton from Andrew Kirstine on Vimeo.

For my Photo Montage I did a short story about a frog. I thought it would be interesting to do the film with toys as opposed to people, as I’ve never done something like that before. The film begins with the frog, named Burton, waking up after a long night of partying and having a morning cigarette. A common motif I use in the film is interchanging two shots of Burton and another object or character, moving closer and closer while switching between the two. I believe this technique allows me to show, albeit vaguely, that there would be certain actions between the two shots in question; when Burton thinks of the beer can, he goes to the tavern to get another drink. When he arrives, a couple comprised of a Mr. Potato Head and a small doll exit, and the motif appears again; this time, Burton brutally murders the Potato Head and goes with the doll back to his place. The last time it occurs is between Burton and the doll, before they sleep together. 

I was inspired to do this movie after watching Toy Story, and I thought it would be fun to have to construct my own sets and props using everyday objects as opposed to trying to find a perfect setting in the real world. I came up with the darker message after finding the toy I used for Burton, which I thought had a smile that could pass for something scary. I used the insides and outsides of shoeboxes for the buildings; a small box and a piece of felt for a bed; and sriracha sauce as mock blood. I found all the characters in the film at the dollar store. The song I used was Slippery Elm Tree by Len and Joe Higgins, which I acquired through archive.org. I used the song to make the video seem more lighthearted, even though it ends with Burton committing multiple crimes to appease his appetite.