Final Film Project Edit

Blog 4: Sound-Image & Image-Image Relationships

     The scene that I chose come from the film After Earth starring Will Smith and his son. The sequence that I chose is ambitious on paper. It's a conversation between Kitai and his father Cypher in a post-apocalyptic earth, only thing is they are not speaking face-to-face. They are talking via headsets, Cypher is explaining to him what the risks are going to be when trying to get to the other side of the planet. Another element is that Kitai is also recalling events that happened to him years earlier so as they are having the conversation they are also weaving in and out flashback scenes of him and and his sister. While keeping up with the continuity, the music compliments the dramatic content of the conversation as Kitai's voice raises and tears roll down his face the music takes a back seat as it fades out to what he's saying to his father.
     It was extremely smooth (as most major hollywood features are) the flash back scenes were low in volume as Cypher and Kitai we still speaking. One minor thing I noticed when Kitai got emotional he seemed to be screaming  at the air, made it seem a little awkward. In all actuality he was but it would have been better to see him direct his anger towards something specific. All in all a very modern, very well done ambitious sequence in this movie.
   

Video Project: My Space

Project1(160) from Frankie Paulino on Vimeo.

Sound Project: My Name Is Anircia

Museum of the Moving Image

           My trip to the Museum of the Moving Image was very special. It was my first time going and I had a blast. While walking through and experiencing all the exhibitions there was a lot of things that I hadn’t seen in real life about movie production. For example the effort that it took for sound construction in the early to mid-1900’s for feature films. I had no idea that they had to build these elaborate sound stages that took up acres and acres of land in order to complete movies. It was a great perspective as to how far we have come in the movie making process. Another personal favorite was the exhibition of the primitive way we projected movies with the old spools. Seeing the old instruments up close gives you a deeper sense of how difficult it was to do everything back in the day also makes you appreciate the craftsmen who made them.    However what intrigued me the most was the costume design section and the team of contributors that it takes for one feature. Almost all designs back then were made especially for the movie where as now characters wear something that you are most likely to see in a retail store. The best little piece of trivia that I learned was about Marlon Brando’s Godfather character and how his cheeks were essentially made in a dentist’s office by Dick Smith and Henry Dwork. All in all it was a tremendous mind opening experience that I hope to re do.

Sound-walk

             The soundwalk is an exercise that absolutely everyone should try. Before venturing out into the outskirts of my neighborhood I went over the thought of taking a stroll in order to just listen. To me that is very much undermining the whole experience of the urban landscape. The city offers so much, not just to see but to hear and smell and touch. To focus on one would be to just consuming one ingredient. While it is true that some of us are moving so quickly and so often that we take for granted some of the things that surround us daily, so in order to really appreciate and accentuate the neighborhood I chose to go to one of the noisiest parts of Inwood in uptown Manhattan at a time where there is not a lot of people on the street. At 1 a.m. probably in any other city in America there wouldn’t be as many people out in the street on a Wednesday night as there is here but this what makes this city special. I chose to walk down Nagle Avenue which is under the train tracks of the 1 train. Every 5 to 10 minutes the faint sound of the train gets almost too loud then becomes faint again, flowing from foreground, to surrounding you to background.  There is the occasional yell in the local rhetoric ‘yeeoooo’ responded by a very similar one back in an inverted inflection. As I approached the biggest street in the neighborhood the sounds grew louder and more invasive. There were more cars, more people and not to mention the trains kept coming. At times it was so overwhelming to the point where I had to stop and regroup in order to stay focused. 

Artist Statement

        Any artists’ work is a reflection of themselves - I am no different. My mission is to illustrate the inner workings of my imagination through a series of well thought out narratives, designs and layouts that will often allude to my interests, inspirations and muses. People who do not limit themselves to one aspect of media making are the ones who inspire me the most. My main interests lie in dramatic and sports writing along with the narrative that it tells in addition to video production and photography. As a media maker I believe the most important part of my work will be to clearly display my personality through everything I do. Minimalist, collected and classy would be the three best adjectives to help paint a picture of what how I want my projects to be illustrated as. Every creator should go through meticulous proportions when it comes to their work. When it comes to what I create for my audience it has to be subtle and poignant. If you go to great lengths when it comes to preparation your work will reflect that. Nothing will ever be half done or done last minute; I owe it to myself as an artist to put my best work forth. My audience will never be cheated.