Process Piece

Going into this project, we felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer potential for material out there, processes being such an integral and ubiquitous part of life, and recording them a pretty simple thing to do. It was easy to get caught up in this plethora of material. It actually made picking a subject more, not less, difficult. After taking a few recordings of mundane morning and night routines, we narrowed down our options by wanting to try something different: these recordings were rather boring activities that anyone could hear on a given morning.  We didn’t want to pick something too ordinary, or we felt we’d have to remake the wheel in order to be interesting. We also wanted to do something that would engage the ear in this purely auditory piece. Music, and musical instruments, proceeded from here very naturally. The appeal of this process comes from its simplicity, while still retaining a kind of quirky and rare quality. It reveals how music itself, which is very process-like, is itself a product of prior preparation, whether it’s practicing or even a quick tuning up before you can grant the ear a song.  

Watching the clip of Jack White putting together a makeshift, one-stringed slide guitar really brought me towards this musical idea. I felt that all this preparation for a musical instrument led the ear to be more engaged in the process, because it expected an sound-focused product, despite the rather visual process. That visual component set that video apart from our project, but it reminded me of what we needed to do to make the process an interesting one for the ear to actually experience, not for the eye to imagine. The first stroke of the ukulele really surprises the ear with its discord and sets up an expectation for that chord to be resolved, as it almost always is in music. Playing with these expectations means it’s really satisfying when the strings are all tuned up and some really much nicer sounding chords are played.  The strum at the beginning and the strums at the end act as the exposition and resolution respectively in order to make the process feel whole and complete for the listener.

In Music 100 here at BYU, the post-modern era included the very eccentric musician John Cage.  He produced many unique recordings people had not thought of before.  In class, we listened to a few clips of John Cage simply tuning a piano.  It had no musical structure as it was just the tightening and loosening all the stings in the piano to sound the correct notes.  At first, I did not really understand the purpose of this song--if song it could be called.  However, having spent so much time discussing and studying processes, it has more meaning for me.  I respect the idea of processes much more than I did before.  The tuning of the piano is one of the things that really inspired Caitlin and me to record the tuning of a ukulele.  This recording that we took has more meaning to me as well since I know how to play the uke and I’ve tuned it many times before.  I am hoping that with this recording, people can really understand that the beauty of an instrument doesn’t come from just playing it, but from simply working with it and urging it to make a certain sound that the musician is looking for.

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Tiny Stories

Billy never learned to think before he spoke.

He said some silly things.

Many times he didn’t know why he said them.

Tommy never learned how to turn his bike.

He always went straight.

Running into things was the only way to change directions.

Charlie never learned how to use the potty.

He found some interesting places.

Others found an interesting boy.

Jonny never learned how to be hurt.

He couldn’t feel his owies.

Jonny really messed up.

Mary never learned how to dress.

Sometimes she put her shoes on the wrong feet.

Other times it was worse.

Brevity can have a big impact on the absorption of a story.  If a story is too long, many people in the will not be able to pay attention well enough to get the message unless it is repeated so many times it gets imprinted on their skull.  However, make it short and entertaining and the people should be able to carry the heart of the story with them wherever they go.  In the reading, the author mentioned that the images were meant to map different ways we connect to each other.  This idea was interesting to me so I tried to incorporate it into my stories.  Each character has some gap in their knowledge or some problem that leads to other problems.  This I find to be true with real life.  Everyone has a gap that widens when they experience other things.  I chose to show this in a humorous and light-hearted manner.

I thought of a little picture book for kids that would subtly teach them lessons in a humorous way.  Once I had this idea in mind, I had to then think of a source from which to draw inspiration.  This part was rather easy.  I was sitting in class and Benjamin said something about me getting mauled by a tiger from the story I told just a few short weeks ago.  When Benjamin said that I remembered all of the stories that my classmates had told.  I wrote down little notes about each story that I remembered so I could use them for reference later.  In thinking about the childhood stories I read, I remembered the Captain Underpants books that I loved.  I didn’t really model my characters after the characters in that series but rather I tried to use the idea of simple shapes and cartoon looks to draw my stories.

It was rather easy to come up with the stories to tell.  The toughest part about the writing was coming up with a problem each character had that brought about the outcome we see in the pictures.  Drawing is not one of my strong suits, as one can clearly see from the images I made, so this part of the assignment was the most difficult.  I was trying to really infuse a childish look into the pictures but I think what I actually did was create pictures that look like a child drew them.  I threw away many pictures because I just could not get what I wanted.  I’d have to say this was the most frustrating part because it’s hard to be a perfectionist with something for which you have no talent.  

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Music Mosaic

Here is the song I chose to be my inspiration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r45MxbG6or0

 This Music Mosaic assignment was a very interesting one.  It was admittedly a rather tough assignment at the start.  With a weird imagination and no drawing, sketching, or painting skills, I had to figure out which pictures that I could capture or alter in a more grounded setting.  Considering these limitations, I decided to use some pictures that I had taken myself and also some that I found on the internet and worked over in Photoshop.  While listening to the song I chose, I really saw no narrative playing out.  I noticed that the visuals that I had in my head on the first listen to Pigeon on the Gate changed after a few more listens. From the start, I thought of rather spooky mansion scenes or castles for some reason.  However, after I listened to the song a few more times, the song began to make me think of classic Irish landscape scenes, with rolling green hills and castles and streams, as well as modern upbeat cities.  However, none of the images I had in my head were grounded or very realistic looking, each looking as though it came from a painted storybook.

Since listening to the song got me thinking of things very old an things very new, I decided to work that idea into my images.  That is why I chose to take and alter old photos by colorizing them and trying to show some piece of modernism in older and more vintage photos.  I feel like this brings the old and new together in the same picture and really embodies the images I saw in my head.  This song has a little bit of a darker sound to it.  To show this I worked with the photos to create a little more shadow and a little less highlight by bumping up contrast or burning the images.  The pictures I chose also consider the landscape of Ireland and the typical image of Ireland in their subject matter and composition.  The original song Pigeon on the Gate was written a long time ago and the version that I chose by Celtic Grooves has a very modern dance twist to it.  The new interpretation of the song uses a very intense beat to create a harmony that then carries the classic pipe melody on top.  I decided to also make the photos also look a little less like real photos and more as though they were painted in order to exhibit the storybook idea that was stimulated by listening to this song.

It was a tough goal, to be sure, especially when I don’t consider myself a very artful person but I do think it was great to explore this area.  I would have liked a little more time to accomplish this task as I could’ve gone on more hikes to capture images that I would’ve liked to include in this Mosaic.  There is no story to these images as the song I chose did not evoke any story.  It is merely a look into and a representation of what I saw in my mind as the music played.  

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Thinking and Writing

  Summertime for moviegoers is always a wonderful time where many come to the theater with the highest of expectations to be excited out of their seats by the movies they so desperately want to see.  Often times, the biggest of blockbusters are released during the four month period of summer.  However, the summer of 2013 was a bit underwhelming with the onslaught of highly anticipated but rather disappointing movie releases.  One example of this is the movie Elysium starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster; written and directed by Neil Blomkamp.  Elysium promised to be an exciting and thought-provoking film which, when released, fell short of that promise.
The hype for this film was incredible.  It has at its helm the same director as did the well-received movie District 9 and many consumers were very excited to see Matt Damon in another action film as well as to see Jodie Foster come back to the big screen after a few years of scarcity.  Also, since District 9 was met with such great critic reviews and audience reception, many expected Elysium to be better or just as good.  However, it just didn’t live up to those expectations.  The previews gave viewers the idea that this movie was going to be a big action flick and while it does have a lot of action in it, it isn’t the fun joyride that many people went looking for.  This film tries to employ action as a way to grip the audience and get them to accept a message.  It attempts to be thought-provoking while also trying to entertain and excite.
While watching Elysium, I found myself many times wondering if the director used some of the same footage from District 9 in his sophomore film.  Both take place in the slums in some part of the world and have a message of social inequality and class warfare.  Elysium is very heavy-handed with regard to the issues it presents.  The film pits the poor against the rich in a world where only the poorest live on earth anymore and the rich and privileged live on a heavenly utopia in space called Elysium.  This can be a very difficult topic to deal with because it is a real issue in today’s world.  There are many moviegoers who love to hear about the poor man looking out for his fellows.  The modern day audience especially because of the financial crisis and the social gap that seems to be getting wider and wider.  However, though it is interesting and engaging, it is very volatile and easy to get wrong.  The wealthy people in the film were not real and there was no way of connecting with them at all.  They were very much caricatures of real life in the way that they had no regard for any life that was not at their social status and they literally ran away from the less fortunate who resided on Earth.  At one point, one of the CEOs actually becomes angry when a lesser poor person breathes in his vicinity.  This adds nothing of meaning to the issues presented by the film and just pushes the audience even further away.  It is hard to connect with something so exaggerated.  
The antagonists were made out to be too bad and the poor people were too good.  They did not seem real enough to really get the audience to care.While this film has an earnest message that it would like to put out in the spotlight, it has very little to hold it together.  In order to really grip the audience and make them truly take home a message, a film must make the viewer make an emotional investment in the film so that he feels what the protagonist feels and begins to believe what the protagonist believes.  The film focused too much on the evil of the wealthy people and too little on the good of Matt Damon’s character for the audience to really care about him and support him.
Some argue that this film is a great piece to watch solely based on that fact that it has an earnest and heartfelt message.  It is true that the film should be given credit for really wanting to make people think about the way the world is.  One can tell that the crew really does want to audience to leave having thought about the issues.  However, the flaws that exist should not be ignored just because of this one good merit.  While the effort was there and the intentions were earnest, the message reached a very small percentage of the audience because of the film’s shortcomings.  It could’ve really affected millions if it had been carried out better by the characters and the plot.  This is why Aristotle placed reasoning in the third position after plot and character.  If the first two needs are met well enough, the third will fall right into place and be very well expressed.  However, this film put reasoning at the top and did a poor job of supporting it with the other elements so it was left impotent.
Previews are meant to give a small snippet of a film that engages the audience and leaves them wanting more.  The previews for Elysium did a wonderful job of this and really excited moviegoers.  However, it failed to hold up its end of the deal.  It wasn’t the movie it promised to be and the message it was trying to espouse seemed to fall flat with nothing to support it.  There are really only a few tweaks that could have been made to this film to make into a true blockbuster and a critical success.  The idea was there, unfortunately, it was not handled correctly.  The audience was deceived and had a poorly built idea thrown at them.

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