Project 4 Addiction

Project 3.

storyboard for proj 3

the start of project three

this is the poem that i am going to be "interpreting." i'll put up my storyboards when i can get to a scanner.

Addicted

Obsessed with a thought
teasing, he daunts
some divine sleeps,
postpones a feast,
and skips meals.

for no day's plenty
to fulfill that budding dough
of idle verses
lurking in his head,
whistling, enticing!

Pale, scrawny, and hungry;
looked upon with pity;
is it proven he's unhappy?
Been addicted to life,
too large to chew.

Mel Winney

adaptation

For project two I recreated a monologue using short clips of people on youTube giving their own monologue(video blogging). This literally took me way over 20 hours of work. Very tedious and boring... not at all fun. I think it's at least somewhat successful though.

the monologue I used was from the movie Adaptation. The script is below.

Do I have an original thought in my head, my bald head? Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn’t be falling out. Life is short; I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’m a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. Oh well. The dentist called again, I'm way overdue. If I stopped putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass, if my ass wasn’t fat, I would be happier. I wouldn’t have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time; like that’s fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day; really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing; I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more; improve myself.

Maybe I should learn Russian or something. Or take up an instrument. I could speak Chinese. I could be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short; stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that? Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don’t have to be attractive. But that's not true, ''specially these days. There's almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel like I should apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that’s what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry... all my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help from them; but I'll still be ugly though. Nothing is going to change that.

Critique of Project 1.

"Connected"

I think what was successful in my project was a sense of humor and a strong visual motif that carried throughout the piece. The orange plug in front of the white background allowed for a simplicity of the image that let the viewer focus on the narrative and the more complex sounds. Since the narrator was slightly hard to understand(especially with the noises in the background) keeping the imagery simple was key to the success.

To further the success I would have had more images that more clearly outlined the story. I felt limited by the way I was taking the pictures(hanging the wires from the ceiling) so I eventually grew frustrated with the photography part of the project and probably moved on slightly too soon.

My editing process was to first lay down all of the images into groups as they pertained to the narrative. Then I put down the narrator sound track, and lined up the images so that they matched up with the story. Then I added the background noises. Fin.

I think the narrative is still somewhat apparent in the images without the sound, but the sound definitely adds a stronger cohesion. And the background noise adds context for the images, especially the opening AOL dial-up noise. Although I never said "internet" the feedback I recieved after the piece was shown made it clear that they understood it was about the internet.

The only other audio I could think of slightly working is that instead of the phone noises I could've had sound from a gathering. So there would be the inaudible chitter chatter of a busy restaurant in the background while a human spoke the narrative. While I think this takes away the importance of the internet in the piece, it is definitely an alternative solution.