Meshes of the Afternoon - Maya Derren

heavy symbolism - objects becoming objects, figures becoming other figures, windows, door ways, paths, ocean, beach, mirrors (man's face inside of mirror, mirror face = man, but also female subject = mirror face), multiple personalities/realities, one of three - blood on her hands, chance or fate, the key is a knife, the knife is in the bread, the bread is sustenance or just normal, bread of life, knife for death, sexual attempts, breaking, revealing the illusion, playing with flatness of film space, two dimensional space, footsteps, deliberate movements, emphasizing gestures, stairway, upward, through window, into, from exterior to interior, within/without, confusion of space, up is down left becomes right, etc, crawling up the walls, removed, ghost like, detached and without, sleeping reality, reality of losing key, dropping the key, losing the way in, to the interior, from without, the exterior, began while walking, a flower dropped on the ground, the flower - feminine, sexual, youth, life, unattainable flower, the flower becomes the knife, the passive symbol of life becoming active tool for death, tool for breaking, shattering of illusion or reality, shattering of feelings, mystical mirror faced figure always walking down the path, forever chased, no perseverance, she gives up, returns home, is called home, compelled home, into the interior, away from action, from trying, chasing, resigned to defeat, to return, and sit, and close her eyes, closed off to the outside, venturing inside, the record player, no outside noise, no other instruments or sounds, no active processes

elevator pitch!

1. It's called Holy Moments, and it's a short romantic piece with a boy and a girl, sitting on a rooftop at night, all sparkly stars and big bright moon, staring into each other's eyes, looking deep, and finding a moment of intense connection, of absolute vulnerability, without words or music or dialogue, just looking, intently, intensely - looking.

2. New Year's Eve an hour before midnight and the whole thing is sparks in soft focus and silhouettes, soft booms from popping bottle rockets overhead, sparklers waved through the air and a feeling of lightness, vibrancy, youth and excitement, fun for fun's sake and celebration, excitement, anticipation.

3. It's like a walk through the forest, with the sense of indeterminate time you experience staring into branches or looking over the landscape, feeling a breeze blow across your face, a sense of the infinite and present all at once, surrounded by ancient trees producing falling leaves, peaceful, calm, limitless, just shaking branches, just whispering grass.

concepts

critique

During critique, please discuss:

1. material choices or processes

I chose to animate in Photoshop still images taken from the internet. The process was completely digital, from the internet to the editing software, which relates the material to the conceptual idea of >>>

2. conceptual process

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3. intended communication

In this video, I intended to communicate a sense of overwhelming visual information, as well as a sense of play. I chose images with bright colors or vibrant patterns, as well as images that communicated happiness or energy.

4. Is this the result of your first try or were other attempts made?  Are those attempts present in the final work?

There was one, brief, previous attempt, which contained only a few images and was not animated. It was discarded before reading through the tutorials again and figuring out how to use Photoshop to animate.

quiz no. 1

1. Mise en scene is every thing present in the scene, including costumes, props, backdrop, decoration, people, and so on.
2. A scene is composed of a shot or shots. A shot is continuous length of footage that may be very short or very long, and may even encompass an entire scene, but it is footage from only one camera.
3. Editing is the processing of arranging shots.

three transitions:
-wipe
-jump cut
-fade in/fade out

by any means necessary

My concept for this project came while editing some photographs. Zoomed in as far as Photoshop will go, the arrangement of pixels formed accidental abstract color field compositions. Using Photoshop's ability to animate, I had originally planned to make a short video consisting only of pixel animation in Photoshop. When I sat down and started to work, though, I was immediately confounded. I didn't understand the timeline in relation to the still images in the layer stack, or how to move them or make them animate or anything like what I had imagined. I spent some time going through the posted tutorials and testing out what I read as I followed along, using random images from google. I kept working from that same file as I learned more, adding to the experimentation. I may not have produced exactly what I had planned on doing, but by experimenting, I learned how to arrange and animate still images in photoshop, as well as edit video layers and apply adjustment layers to segments of video.

four words, one sentence

Caught in the backseat among discarded clothing, shivering in the bright light, leaving us no longer intimate.

four words

backseat
caught
intimate
shivering

exercise one

smaller moments, out of focus and vague, but simple and intimate, honest maybe awkward
just thinking about the past and time shared on rooftops and under bridges, setting off fireworks and getting caught
with champagne in my mouth, with a song on the tip of my tongue
a release of breath, a minute before morning
rambunctious and ridiculous, inspired and overreaching : knowing how to go too far
and not looking back, but over the shoulder, out the window, laying in the backseat on the road from nashville to asheville the first time I heard Astral Weeks and remembering how it felt to climb up a parallel tree when it was cold in Murfreesboro and on the way home, the wheels that spin, the rain that pours, the foggy lights and fingers cold, you let Mirah say what you couldn't and I ran wild through the mountains of East Tennessee for you, living life as a story I could tell you on the phone as I sat in the backseat of my car, shivering, fingers cold, foggy lights again, but above, the streetlamps in the parking lot, the fields stretching for miles all around

I decided to come back home.

drunk most nights, with Germans on the couches and a Swede in Colby's bedroom
he was a hermit for months

inspiring concepts

climbed down from the tree next day, a queen

yellow hair windblown over freckled cheeks, light in soft circles (seen through leaves), and the rhythmic sound of sneakers hitting pavement keeping time for melodic laughter

• La Jetée
• Jules et Jim
• À Bout de Souffle

all those excitable french men

Here We Go Magic - "I Just Wanna See You Underwater"
my girls, guy's eyes, lion in a coma, brother sport

Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken
the music is always in the distance, strummed or sung
late summer, at summer and graham, a tinny car speaker buzzing "Fools Rush In"

[Georges Méliès took a trip to the moon and
came back to earth as Michele Gondry made of cardboard and sincerity
to live in eternal sunshine]

mumblemumblemumblekeepitrealmumblemumblemumble
and at the core, just some heartfelt words (conversations on a porch, perhaps, before sunset, or in the night before sunrise)

just... trying - searching blind like four eyed monsters

Hannah Takes the Stairs, Mutual Appreciation
>>>Bujalski<<<

turn into something, loch raven
we
longing for a microphone left on, picked up a pencil and started to hum
started to
tigers
hey kids, let's pick up sticks,
let's make a sound of our own

no budget, some friends, from the hip, not saving-private-ryan-shaky, but bright, very bright
(i'm not a slacker, i just don't always know what i'm doing, or why. i only feel compelled, drawn, towards a holy mountain, and secret places, where there's no one watching.)

expectation leads to disappointment
if you don't expect something big, huge, and exciting, usually...

Time for a Change

The awkward schedule of ceremony delaying the inevitable, collective relief - less cheers and shouts than easier breaths, a feeling summed up as: "finally...". The roaring wave of nomination's momentum has come to finality at reality's shore, as foamy surf, to soak into the sand while already our eyes look toward the oceans of possibility once more, to await the next wave. We will move forward, it seems, finally.

Before the poet begins to speak, the mall is already dispersing, and replicas of Abraham Lincoln's inaugural china await the scraping of fine silver, forks and knives hungrily diving into chicken, perhaps. Still some cynicism remains, still some skepticism eats away at this moment's silver lining. For so long government has been a merciless machine, ingesting constituents and pumping byproducts into corporate coffers, while voices of protest drowned in the mechanical din. Now this person has promised change, to dismantle that machine and give we, the people, the tools to build together, a new machine. I wonder, though: what machine will we make? How will it hunger?

This country has been without a leader for at least eight years. I don't remember Bill Clinton much. Barack Obama's rhetoric so far has been inspirational, and comforting, mostly, just to hear what sounds like truth and resolution, as if he actually believed the words he spoke. I'm happy that the man chosen to the highest office in our country, who represents America to the world, is intelligent, compassionate, and rational. Barack Obama is a leader, without a doubt. This country has needed a leader, and I'm glad we have one, but I'm wary of the hero-worship and idealization that has already accumulated at Obama's feet. Huey P. Newton once said, "Heroes ain't nothin but sandwiches." Everyone has the same potential, which is limitless. The danger of heroes is that they blind people to their own potential, as if the brightness of their heroes seem to outshine their own attempts at greatness. But everyone can be great! Everyone has something to contribute, a perspective to offer, and certainly love to share. I think Barack is keen to this empowering thing, with his calls to service, and his emphasis on we, us, the people, not on himself as a "decider". I'm glad to hear that sort of language in his speeches, and I hope it resonates. I hope that as the millions of ears around the world hear his words, the millions of eyes watching turn inward, and discover the potential slumbering within. We need less heroes. We need more action. This country should be loud, and wild, and buzzing with life. I hope that in the next 4 years (hopefully 8!), we will begin to awaken, and look to a new world with open eyes.