02_expert movie list

Tom Schumacher’s Unofficial “Movies With Really Good Sequences And Other Good Parts, Too” Top 19 or So, in a coincidental order:

- “Doctor Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”, Stanley Kubrick
- “Citizen Kane”, Orson Welles
- any Ingmar Bergman movies
- “Interiors”, Woody Allen’s homage to Ingmar Bergman
- “The Battleship Potemkin”, Sergei Eisenstein (baby carriage scene)
- “The Third Man” (escape scene where Orson Welles gets shot at the end) (sorry, spoiler) (by Graham Greene)
- “High Noon” (Gary Cooper alone on the street scene)
- Monty Python’s “Search for the Holy Grail” (dragon chase scene)
- “Gaslight” (the part where she thinks she’s going insane)
- “L’Aventura” (the scene in Noto)
- “Bladrunner” (sushi bar scene)
- “Memento” (opening scene)
- “Sabatoge”, Hitchcock (bomb on the bus scene)
- “Saving Private Ryan”
- “Breathless” (original version, not the one with Kim Bassinger or whoever)
- “12 Angry Men” (original version, great cast)

proj1_reaction

As typical after each of these exercises, the balance between questions raised and answers suggested remains heavily skewed to the former. Given the framework of experimentation, the question of practical application is essential and unavoidable. At the conclusion of the class presentations, it was apparent that first we must consider not “how” to apply our studies, but “what” were our studies?

Remembering that we all started from basically the same point, the staging, recording, and diagramming of a human action, it is important to recognize the different paths people took in exploring the action, giving image and form to the action, and presentation.

I saw most projects falling under three categories of conceptualization, which lead to typical methods of representation.

1. Objectification of Gross Form: Typically the result of lofting key points, the form of the original action is identified and maintained throughout presentation; animation dominated by moving the object across the view frame exposing specific volumes and surfaces. See Fiver or Mercedes.

2. Imagination of Relationships: Segmentation or duplication of a single complete (or “summary”) form; concentration on important point sets (as defined by planes) or the disposition of the entire form over time. See Jonathan or Dorit.

3. Hybrid: Usually involving manipulation and animation of overall form during/as presentation, often to the point where it can no longer be said that there is a single summary form throughout. See Carl (or Beret).


As predicated in the assignment preface, the animation experiments require multiple steps before becoming what is typically considered “architecture”. Or perhaps that is to say, they require further testing: testing in a different medium.

I imagine the next step for each of the three different approaches will in turn be unique themselves. They would range from refinement of a single model (Objectification) to the study of a sequence (or perhaps pulling highlights/compelling moments) in the morphing of the Hybrid concept.

Another difficult question to answer is the relevance of the emergent form’s relationship with its original input: the diagram of an action over time. In my own study, I felt torn whether to represent the original action and relationships, or to embellish the emergent form. Of course I felt the pull towards editing and sculpting the digital model, but to what end? Without program, without ground plane, I resolved to consider the form as solely an investigation of the dynamic relationship of the original action.


As a side note, the biggest challenge for me rooted in this last point, and dealt with the idea of the narrative. The refinement of the original form, the further abstraction of animation, and the unlimited potential of video editing often lead to a very vague road of no parameters. As the “model” became more about the form/volume-making and less about the integrity of the original action diagram, the less clear the strategic narrative was.

1d_progress

"blue steel"

starting over is the new fold.

1c_ali rahim jitterbug

after our discussion of andrea kahn's "drawing building text", ali rahim's project reads more and more like an elaborate gutter design. (which presupposed its gutterness from its inception)

Diller + Scofidio

the one trick pony

1c_video

my intention, sculpted by failures and discoveries in the software, was to describe two-dimensional attributes of the model's contour lines. the big decision was to primarily use a controlled light source as the most important device (others included utilizing the model's placement among the grid, and the display of wireframe). i focused on one specific aspect/view of the model's surface/space and rigorously edited a limited series of isolated frames and animated sequences to elicit a richer description of the contours.

using lighting as the primary sectional device, i believe this animation shows the more segmental aspects of section. that is, the section reads more three-dimensional. for instance, you can't take a section of a kielbasa without serving up a good hunk of the polish deliciousness. (consider the jitter effect the mustard and kraut) section can certainly be a lone profile, almost like a silohuette; but when designing with three-dimensional models, the three-dimensional segmentation capabilities the software allows us should be exploited.


[video is 65mb; i'd like to know how to set up an alternate posting site. anyone have any WAM setup know-how?]

1c_progress

light section


[track 10 of marek's blue techno disk is amazing; but the fix my sink song is terrible.]

Update: Track 14 is money (sans keyboard guitar solo). Can't make it stop.