Parker's 302 Experimental Blog

So Michel Gondry (Me-shell) inspires me a lot with his work because it has such variety to it and other-worldly qualities to it. It's, for a lack of a better word, so weird! The morphing style, which I fumbled on during my presentation, was called the Michel Gondry effect. The interview where he explained it confused me because he's fumbling his english. What I got out of it was he would take two cameras, one for frame per second that took pictures and another that shot video, and lay them both together to form this frozen in time effect. Marth Colburn's work made me feel anxious. I mean, during some if her work I started to shake my leg up and down. It actually annoyed Gabby because she was feeling anxious as well! I get that it was meant to evoke such a feeling of uneasiness, so it did it's job. I personally don't find enjoyment in feeling unconfortable though, but if I wanted to show someone what experimental film is Colburn would be someone I show them. I do a...

I have never been to an official film festival before. My expectations are unknown mainly because I'm not sure what will happen. Fortunately, I assisted Gabby with a project she entered, allowing me to get a pass for free. When attending, I want to network with different filmmakers and get a sense of the film community. Being surrounded by others who find film as engaging as I do allows for an enticing experience I never had. The experience of watching people's other work could serve as a conduit of inspiration for future films I create, so using Cucalorus to influence my own film making is something I plan to take from attending. Films I want to watch: Quest, Thursday 4:15pm - This film sounds incredibly sad and I love to torment myself with sad things. From its short description it seems to have a coming of age story where an abused kid finds help from his teacher. It sounds interesting. Unapologetic, Thursday 7:45pm - I'm always on board for some black power activis...

This is a role that I seldom get, but always wanted the opportunity to do for a music video. Its a role I want because the art of music videos molded me into the person I am today. In high school, I would direct my own short films and music videos, but never on a professional level. Now that I am given the chance, I AM going to run with it and make the best product I can imagine. I want my crew to be comfortable with me and to see my vision, and I know the people we have can pull off amazing things and I've already seen initiative from many people. My plan is to give everyone a realistic goal that will create a beautiful end product. My self portrait is close to my heart because it's where I consider my hometown. When I was young I shuffled through many different homes. I was lucky to stay in one place longer than 6 months. The only place that was consistent in my life for a long time was Holden Beach. For this project, I drove to Holden Beach with my friend to help film me. ...

Marlon Riggs This was a particular person I was excited to discuss about. I adore Riggs' courage to create to the highest caliber. He went against the grain for what society considers "appropriate" and would unforgivably shove the fact that he was gay  and black in your face. These two identities together has long been stigmatized, and he saw his chance as an educated individual to give people like him history. He brought an understanding of the plights that gay black men face from the racism in America to the othering from the LGBT community. Marlon Riggs is the first modern individual who dared acknowledge his background and is forever an iconic individual for gay black men. Su Friedrich I really enjoyed discussing Friedrich's work. Lesbians are another highly stigmatized identity. Her work seemed very secretive, depressing, and personable. The sink or swim film where she was recounting an incident with her father almost made me choke up. I watched more of Hide ...

This is perhaps my least anicipated assignment because I'm having a hard time coming up with a possible solid idea. On one hand I want to make it a celebration of individuals who have fostered me into the person I am today. Another idea would be to focus more on me being gay, as that is something very key to my identity. But, the idea I think I'm going to decide to go with is a reading of blog posts from my personal blog that I made 3 years ago. On it, I post very personal things that are ridiculously uncensored and blunt, something I rarely am in real life. I worry about doing this though because it may be too truthful and make others feel weird. My blog has posts that talk about suicide, betrayal, sexuality, and frustration, things that we all seldom talk about casually to other people. But will disclosing these things make people think I'm a weird person, or will everyone feel less restricted conversing with me? Will I feel released from my chains as an individual, or wi...

1) I have definitely felt a sense of progression with my relationships with various individuals when working on this project. In collaborating with now 8 individuals, I have felt a progression of community, which is something that I haven't felt before. I normally detest group projects and prefer to work alone, but I've been fortunate to work with people who also strive to be successful in this industry. 
 2) To think after all that work we have done over the past few months is interesting. The entire project is essentially a roulette wheel, and when it's done spinning the result is what we've created. It's true though, that with time and determination from a small group of people, you can achieve a multitude of things without it being costly. 
 3) Generally there isn't much on a technical level that I've learned with this project. I had already worked with 80% of what we did, such as sound recording, sound editing, premiere, and cinematography. The bigg...