The final project we did was interesting to me... It was nice to see how different concepts and ideas could come out from everyone. I wish we did it in a real movement space, though, but it was definitely a fun experiment.
Narratives were very abstract to me and I felt everyone had their own interpretation of it. I think every piece did have a beginning, middle, and end, but the result was very different. I also think the use of sound, text, movement, and music made the project have different dynamics and added variety.
On the other hand, I'm very curious about how the watchers over in California felt about the project and whether the performance lost its messages over the Internet. The project we did based on Karyn's text was also very interesting and experimental. I wonder whether we truly physicalized her ideas and how much what we created matched what she had in mind. Probably not very much, but it's a good example of how much information one is able to get out of merely text and how many different interpretations people can have for one thing.
Overall I think in this class I was exposed to things that I had never touched upon before and I'm glad I had a chance to. I've always been interested in arts with different media and the class provided the opportunity to explore and practice.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Narratives ideas
I was flipping through my books to see whether I could find any inspiration in them to form my narrative. There's this picture book I've always liked, Turn Left, Turn Right.
It's a story about two people who live next door to each other but never meet because one of them always only turns left and the other one always only turns right.
One day they meet by a pond and they have such a good time together. At the end of the day, it starts to rain so they say goodbye and leave each other their number. When they get home, they realize the piece of paper which has the number has been ruined by the rain.
They miss each other a lot. And they both try to find each other but never do. They still don't know they are actually next door neighbors and keep missing each other. She still always goes to the left, and he still always goes to the right.
They are both very sad. The winter is here, which makes the city cold and gloomed. They both decide to leave the city.
She still goes to the left, and he still goes to the right.
They finally run into each other again by the pond.
For me the story is not necessarily a love story at all. I think it tells us that by staying in our comfort zone and repeating our habitual pattern we're missing a lot of things happening around us.
It's a story about two people who live next door to each other but never meet because one of them always only turns left and the other one always only turns right.
One day they meet by a pond and they have such a good time together. At the end of the day, it starts to rain so they say goodbye and leave each other their number. When they get home, they realize the piece of paper which has the number has been ruined by the rain.
They miss each other a lot. And they both try to find each other but never do. They still don't know they are actually next door neighbors and keep missing each other. She still always goes to the left, and he still always goes to the right.
They are both very sad. The winter is here, which makes the city cold and gloomed. They both decide to leave the city.She still goes to the left, and he still goes to the right.
They finally run into each other again by the pond.
For me the story is not necessarily a love story at all. I think it tells us that by staying in our comfort zone and repeating our habitual pattern we're missing a lot of things happening around us.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Warm-up exercise
My exercise came from a class that I'm currently taking, Physical Theatre Improvisation. Wendy has also taken the class before.
The class talks about movements in various different perspectives. Shape, rhythm, speed, levels, etc. The exercise I used focused on shape and filling in the shape. And mostly importantly, the group as one unit has to rely on their kinesthetic sense to find a beginning, middle, and end.
I thought the class did a wonderful job on the exercise. I liked how everyone was very engaged in the process and was aware of whether there was any space that needed to be filled. It was very enjoyable to watch.
The class talks about movements in various different perspectives. Shape, rhythm, speed, levels, etc. The exercise I used focused on shape and filling in the shape. And mostly importantly, the group as one unit has to rely on their kinesthetic sense to find a beginning, middle, and end.
I thought the class did a wonderful job on the exercise. I liked how everyone was very engaged in the process and was aware of whether there was any space that needed to be filled. It was very enjoyable to watch.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Lithium in process 5
After I felt I had acquired enough raw material (I felt I had enough stuff to play with), I began editing on iMovie. I liked how I started the piece in the second improv dancing clip, so I decided that was how I wanted it to start. But other than that I was just going to see as I went. I knew that would make the editing process longer, but it would also give me more opportunities to explore different possibilities.
I had all my raw materials laid out in the clip tab on iMovie. I went through the two dancing clips and cut out the snippets I liked. In addition to those, I had some clips on the drug bottle and Hershey Kisses as well as other pictures. The music had been imported from iTune. So I started puzzling the clips as if the music was the final picture (if that makes any sense).
At several different spots I switched different clips around to see what came out the most effective. That was really interesting because I got to see how a minute change could create an entirely different atmosphere. I also used some special effects that iMovie had, such as Earthquake, Aged Film, Speed, etc. I was careful about not overusing them because I thought it would make it look too much, or almost... um, cheesy.
Anyway, at first I didn't plan to play with the fast/slow motion function, but what happened was that I would find myself in a dilemma that the snippet I liked was shorter/longer than it needed to be to go with the music. When it was longer than the music, I didn't want to cut the snippet because I liked it so much; when it was shorter, I couldn't find anything else to extend it. So I "cheated" and adjusted the video's speed to make it match the music. It turned out looking nice, so I kept it. It was the biggest surprise coming out from my experiments, and I'm glad I tried that. I didn't play anything backwards, however, and it's something I'd like to try if I get to work on other projects in the future.
That's pretty much the editing process I went through... Took me a long time but I'm very glad that I spent time to gain that experience. Now, ladies and gentleman, proudly present the final product of our collaboration, Lithium.
I had all my raw materials laid out in the clip tab on iMovie. I went through the two dancing clips and cut out the snippets I liked. In addition to those, I had some clips on the drug bottle and Hershey Kisses as well as other pictures. The music had been imported from iTune. So I started puzzling the clips as if the music was the final picture (if that makes any sense).
At several different spots I switched different clips around to see what came out the most effective. That was really interesting because I got to see how a minute change could create an entirely different atmosphere. I also used some special effects that iMovie had, such as Earthquake, Aged Film, Speed, etc. I was careful about not overusing them because I thought it would make it look too much, or almost... um, cheesy.
Anyway, at first I didn't plan to play with the fast/slow motion function, but what happened was that I would find myself in a dilemma that the snippet I liked was shorter/longer than it needed to be to go with the music. When it was longer than the music, I didn't want to cut the snippet because I liked it so much; when it was shorter, I couldn't find anything else to extend it. So I "cheated" and adjusted the video's speed to make it match the music. It turned out looking nice, so I kept it. It was the biggest surprise coming out from my experiments, and I'm glad I tried that. I didn't play anything backwards, however, and it's something I'd like to try if I get to work on other projects in the future.
That's pretty much the editing process I went through... Took me a long time but I'm very glad that I spent time to gain that experience. Now, ladies and gentleman, proudly present the final product of our collaboration, Lithium.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Lithium in process 4
I also noticed how Andrew used the text in the music. He literally cut the spoken text from Katie's recording, played with it a bit, and put it in the music. I found it amazing that a lot of the words he chose to use were exactly what jumped out to me when I read the text. So I thought, maybe I could re-visualize the text, since we all find the text itself so strongly expressive.
I pasted the text to a word file and changed the font to a medical-report looking font. I again used my digital camera to film the text. I played with the way I filmed it. When I moved the camera really fast, it created a blurry effect, which made it look interesting. I also tilted the camera to see if it would look any differently.
Andrew also lingered on the word overwhelming in the music. So I elaborated on the word more. I asked myself what could be overwhelming? And these were the pictures I found in my iPhoto that I found a connection to the word.
As I played with various ways of filming and different objects, the materials just kept growing and became richer and richer. It was a very exciting process.
I pasted the text to a word file and changed the font to a medical-report looking font. I again used my digital camera to film the text. I played with the way I filmed it. When I moved the camera really fast, it created a blurry effect, which made it look interesting. I also tilted the camera to see if it would look any differently.
Andrew also lingered on the word overwhelming in the music. So I elaborated on the word more. I asked myself what could be overwhelming? And these were the pictures I found in my iPhoto that I found a connection to the word.
As I played with various ways of filming and different objects, the materials just kept growing and became richer and richer. It was a very exciting process.
Lithium in process 3
Now I have the text, music, and some dancing I did. I want to edit the dancing clips and add something more to them. So I looked at the materials again and searched around my apartment to see if there was anything that I could use.
Andrew named the music Lithium, so I immediately dug out a drug bottle and put some pills in it. I took some pictures of the bottle and pills. I also used my digital camera to film them. From my past experience I knew mpeg files would lose the audio when they're imported to iMovie. But it wasn't a problem this time because I didn't need any audio this time, since I already had the music.
I also filmed some clips on the Teddy Bears and tool box but ended up not using them.
Then I started to think what lithium pills might mean to the patient. She apparently hated them because, like many other bi-polar patients, she thought they made her lose creativity. I looked around my living room and found a bag of Hershey Kisses, which belonged to my roommate. I never like chocolate--don't hate it but I can totally live without it. I looked at the Kisses and suddenly thought it would actually be visually interesting to put the pills and Kisses together. So I took some pictures of the bag of Kisses, with similar arrangement of the bottle and pills.
I kept exploring and asking myself questions. What can I do with the pills (and the Kisses)? I can count them, I thought. So I did.
The visual effect turned out to be very interesting. I can't really explain why, but doing the same actions to pills and chocolate just somehow has some kind of secret humor behind it (well, at least to me).
Andrew named the music Lithium, so I immediately dug out a drug bottle and put some pills in it. I took some pictures of the bottle and pills. I also used my digital camera to film them. From my past experience I knew mpeg files would lose the audio when they're imported to iMovie. But it wasn't a problem this time because I didn't need any audio this time, since I already had the music.
I also filmed some clips on the Teddy Bears and tool box but ended up not using them.
Then I started to think what lithium pills might mean to the patient. She apparently hated them because, like many other bi-polar patients, she thought they made her lose creativity. I looked around my living room and found a bag of Hershey Kisses, which belonged to my roommate. I never like chocolate--don't hate it but I can totally live without it. I looked at the Kisses and suddenly thought it would actually be visually interesting to put the pills and Kisses together. So I took some pictures of the bag of Kisses, with similar arrangement of the bottle and pills.
I kept exploring and asking myself questions. What can I do with the pills (and the Kisses)? I can count them, I thought. So I did.
The visual effect turned out to be very interesting. I can't really explain why, but doing the same actions to pills and chocolate just somehow has some kind of secret humor behind it (well, at least to me).
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Lithium in process 2
Andrew sent us his first draft of music on Oct 10. I was in upstate New York and was thinking to do some improvisation outdoors, but unfortunately I never got a chance to. Anyway, I got the next draft of the music from Andrew on Oct 15. I decided not to listen to the music before I improvised--just for an experiment. But I did read the text and looked at the words again before I started recording.
I did this in the living room of my apartment. I moved my couch so I would have space and the wall. The bears and the tool box were just something I had that I thought could be a metaphor of bi-polar (?). I put my laptop on the coffee table and used the webcam on it to record the dancing.
I improvised to the music twice. Here are the clips:
I actually felt very comfortable improvising this time (normally I'm awkward about improvisation). The music was playing and I just tried to find my way to connect to the music through movements. I really enjoyed it.
I did this in the living room of my apartment. I moved my couch so I would have space and the wall. The bears and the tool box were just something I had that I thought could be a metaphor of bi-polar (?). I put my laptop on the coffee table and used the webcam on it to record the dancing.
I improvised to the music twice. Here are the clips:
I actually felt very comfortable improvising this time (normally I'm awkward about improvisation). The music was playing and I just tried to find my way to connect to the music through movements. I really enjoyed it.
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