Category Archives: Workshop A

Living LIVE

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http://vimeo.com/51990076

Beau Cardall and Alex Olson-Bick

10/22/12

S&J Collaborative Artists’ Statement

Live LIVE

For our S&J Collaborations Project, we chose to focus on building/strengthening ourselves and our community through public media. Instead of being silent while governments and corporations create our reality through mass advertising and media manipulation, we aim to change social norms towards more sustainable thinking and disintegrate fearful ideologies, thus creating a new , community reality.

The two of us shared an interest in media manipulation and how we fall victims to their advertising. The most challenging aspect of this production has been learning how to mix abstractions with narrative. One way we’ve achieved this is by overcoming fears of filming the public by being comfortable with our artistic endeavors.

Our mode of filming is highly inspired by an observational mode mixed with reflexive moments. It was difficult to be completely cinema verite, but we got around this. Instead of using actors and scripts, we included our own participation and exploration of poetic expression.

“Das So Corny”

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Our collaborative project focuses on the struggles of working within a tight food budget while being acutely aware of the negative effects of genetically modified organisms and other unhealthy ingredients that are so common in inexpensive food.  Our voiceover is completely faithful to our collaborative essay, which gives us both a unique voice in the personal effects the food industry has on us, and a combined telling of the history of this mess of a food industry. This faithful voiceover is paired with a visually radical adaptation that uses abstract imagery that doesn’t cause a fight for the viewers’ attention. The juxtaposition between the poetically abstract visuals and our argumentative, expository voiceover mirrors both the physical and psychological effects of the problems within our food industry.

Carrion

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Taylor Good, Lisa Hurwitz, & Rhys Stevenson

Our piece sets out to examine the collective anxieties of our group members on the issue of homelessness and the discomfort it evokes in each of us, respectively. What is our relationship to the problem? What unique feelings could a meditation unearth? Rhys explores his visceral reaction when walking past a homeless person, Lisa makes connections between experiences with her first girlfriend and the impact they had on her views regarding homelessness specifically in LGBT populations, and Taylor examines her guilt over the pure fear of seeing a homeless person. Rhys concluded that he doesn’t know enough about a person to judge so he should just help, Lisa concluded that she should strive to look at homeless populations more equally, and Taylor settled upon getting over her fear of seeing someone homeless.

Primarily poetic, our piece plays with 3 timelines and both their similarities and dissimilarities. We attempt to recreate the mundane everyday experiences where our paths cross with homelessness. Symbolically, the subsequent result is that our paths as individual group members cross as well. Though written separately we quickly realize commonalities in our different experiences and portrayals of them.

Our adaptation, a literal one, explores a mode mostly untouched by group members in the first video project. Additionally the group will push itself to explore weaknesses from the first assignment. Lisa is exploring the long take, Taylor the short take, and Rhys on more fluid narrative. By playing with these techniques we hope to wield tension, hold viewer interest, and remain true to the stories we convey as filmmakers.

Equal

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Mariah Gerth and Emma Loftis

Artist Statement

The purpose of this project was to explore the misrepresentation of the LGBTQ community in mass media, and the religious influence surrounding the debate for LGBTQ rights.  Our adaptation was traditional, surprisingly so, considering how candid our audio and visuals were.

We used google image search to display how the simplest method of getting information only adds fuel to the fire of the LGBTQ community’s misrepresentation. We juxtaposed these fast paced images with distanced lockdown shots of real people who all identify with a different sexuality sitting down and having fun as equals.

Our process was very organic and casual to prevent any stilted or heavy-handed expression of the issues at hand. We simply sat down and recorded ourselves having a conversation about this subject. Then we set up a camera while making dinner to capture the truest reality of us interacting as equals.

The editing process was nerve racking at first, but our dedication combined with our great chemistry as collaborators made for a good work environment and ultimately, a good video.

Inspiring Change through Accountability

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Fall Quarter S & J Collaborations: Inspiring Change through Accountability

Fall quarter’s key assignment involves working autobiographically and collaboratively with the themes of “sustainability” and “justice.” These themes are very broad and the challenges associated with them can seem insurmountable.  Fall quarter is designed, in part, to draw students into these themes personally by reflecting on each individual’s own culpability in contributing to problems of sustainability and justice, and to reflect on the personal responsibility and agency one can bring to creating a more sustainable and just world in ways that inspire. It is up to each student’s  collaborative group to choose the specific aspects of sustainability and justice to address.

There are four key parts to the S & J Collaborations:

  • Part 1: A creative nonfiction literary essay written by you, individually, (for the page);
  • Part 2: A creative nonfiction literary essay written collaboratively (for the page);
  • Part 3 or 4: An audio-visual adaptation of the essay for the digital audio-video workshop;
  • Part 3 or 4: A visual adaptation of the essay for the 16mm film workshop.

In order to work on this four-part assignment, students will be given guidance in writing creative nonfiction and they will be given hands-on skill building in a 4-week digital audio-video workshop and a 4-week 16mm film workshop.

This site is designed to exhibit the fall quarter student-produced collaborations.