Project 3: Tiny People ENTRY 1

I've seen projects where 1/30 scale figures were placed in normal surroundings, and the effect it gives is a very interesting story, a story of tiny people placed in a big world, almost like that surreal Alice in Wonderland-like feeling. I would love to work on one of these projects as well.

One of the biggest problems I have is that I don't have tiny 1/30 scale figures so I was thinking of replacing it with small clay figures instead. 

Here are some of the examples and links I've gathered.

Wast of Words

Crying Won't Help You Now

You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

All these photos were shot by Jen: More here

This would cover macro photography, in which I am really excited to try using macro lens.

One of my biggest worries is that the clay figure might not end up looking as realistic as those 1/30 figures look like. I considered buying those scale figures off of ebay, but I'm afraid the shipping time would not be here by the time I start this project.

Project 2: Dance Film ENTRY 5

Benjamin Millepied

Benjamin Millepied is a director, choreographer, and a producer born in Bordaux, Gironde, France. In 2010, Millepied choreographed and starred in the Oscar winning feature Black Swan. 

Since then, he has directed a number of short films, commercials, and music videos in collaboration with artists including Philip Glass, Mark Bradford, IO Echo, Lil Buck, and Zeds Dead. Most recently, Millepied directed a short film for luxury jewelry brand Van Cleef and Arpels based on his original choreography entitled Reflections. In 2012, Millepied founded The Amoveo Company, a multi-media production company and art collective based in Los Angeles.

Though Millepied haven't directed or choreographed that many cinematic films, Black Swan was one of my favorite dance films nevertheless. Everything, ranging from the camera angles, lighting, close up shots of the protagonist's facial expression, and unto the costume. 

Though his choreography are beautiful and his camera techniques are beautiful and fascinating, the fact that the protagonist is always on the verge of insanity keeps the audience at the end of their seat, anticipating at what would happen next during the beautiful performance.

The makeup choice also conveys the character the dance is being performed perfectly as well.

Scott Speer

Speer was born in San Diego, California. At age 23, he was signed with HSI Productions, and in 2006 Speer received the MVPA Award for Directorial Debut of the Yearfor the music video of "Stars" by Switchfoot.

In 2007 he won his first MTV Video Music Awards Latin America in México, for his work with "Bella Traicion" by the Mexican pop sensation Belinda. In June 2007, he directed a three-part video series for Ashley Tisdale. These videos included "He Said She Said", "Not Like That" and "Suddenly" released on her DVD There's Something About Ashley. In 2009, he again directed music videos for Tisdale for "It's Alright, It's OK" and "Crank It Up" from her album Guilty Pleasure. He also had an on-and-off relationship with Tisdale from 2009–2012.

In addition to directing, Speer produced and second unit directed the feature film The Beat, an official selection of the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and remains deeply involved in independent films. In 2010 Scott directed The LXD episode "Duet".

Speer directed Step Up Revolution (2012), his feature film directing debut.

In April 2012, Speer released a young adult novel called Immortal City, about a world in which celebrity culture revolves around supernatural beings, specifically guardian angels.

In April 2013, Speer released a book called Natural Born Angel. He is currently in the process of writing the third and final volume of the Immortal City trilogy

One of Speer's many remarkable scenes from his film: Step Up Revolution is the art museum scenes. There are many dance films that only centers around dance itself, but this scene, not only does it showcase amazing body movements that sometimes reminds me of heartbeats and life in general, but he does an amazing job blending and combining dance with visual arts and cinematography through his use of life, costume, setting, composition, color tone, makeup, and more.

Project 2: Dance film ENTRY 4

Yesterday was the final shooting and editing date for the dance film. Here's the video:

I ended up settling with location 1 only because of the "welcome" sign and the nature-like surrounding around the area. I took many shots of the atmosphere like the plants, the floor texture, and the wall texture, in hopes to blend it in with the dancing footage to create that interesting nature / spirit feel to her dance moves.

Costume:
I had Im wear all black in hopes to convey the symbolism of a shadow, a shadow that is not capable of escaping her own insecurities and catch up with the pace everyone else is going.

Location:
I chose an abandoned house to further symbolize isolation and solitude. The intention of this dance film is to convey whatever is going on inside a insecure person, stopping them from living the lives others are leaving. The abandoned house is meant to symbolize the past, the part of her that is being locked behind everyone else.

Time:
The film was shot when the sun was about to set, giving off that nice golden flare over curves of trees. 

Project 2: Dance Film ENTRY 3

Last Thursday, I went to take a location scout through the back of ISB with my friends for shooting locations for this dance film. Here are some of them.

Location 1:

^ This would most likely be the location I would base the majority of the shoot on. I can't get inside, but I really like the "Welcome" sign on the building.

The house on the opposite side is being sold right now, it's probably the scariest looking location (because the tiny street to this house is extremely isolated), but an interesting looking one. I really wish I knew why this place was abandoned from the start, both sides of them.

Location 2:

^ Another good one I could also use, I really love the green leaves growing around the house's fence. Again, I can't get into this building.

Location 3:

^ An interesting old apartment, though I'm not sure if I can get into this one either. looking from a far, it looks interesting, but once filmed up close, I'm not sure if the image would be that pretty compared to the big picture. Also, there are always cars parked around the area.

Location 4: 

^ This one is definitely not a location, it's just this small, guard-like house, but it's in front of someone's house. I might not actually film there, but might take some sneaky stock clips because the pattern of the woods are so pretty.

You can view more angles of these location scout shots on my flickr.

I also talked to Im roughly about choreographing the dance and how maybe she could adapt some of her previous choreographs into this to cut off the amount of time she would have to rethink about a new dance.

As of now, we're both selecting music for the film, and then we'll meet again to discuss some more.

Project 2: Dance Film ENTRY 2

Yesterday I had a dance film meeting discussion with Ms. Price and Ms. Schroeder. We talked about setting internal ISB dates before submitting the Dance Film entry to the actual film festival. The dates are as follows:

Hamlin Film Festival Timeline

Call for entries with intent to apply: September 5 to September 30, 2014

Submissions: Due by November 15, 2014

Film review: November 15 to December 1, 2014

Applicants notified: December 5, 2014

Films online for viewing: December 12, 2014

ISB's Internal Timeline

ISB Screening : November 7, 2014

Have film selected : October 31, 2014

As mentioned on my earlier blogpost, I wanted to film something that has to do with inner struggles (like a phobia or fear). Therefore in terms of location, I am looking for ruined houses, mot preferably with broken walls and a lot of dirt, while sun can still shine through the windows so that the lighting would still be easier to manage. The intention is to create this feeling as if though the subject was left behind in a house where everybody else around her already advanced forward with their life, unlike the subject who was still stuck in her problems.

> Some of the locations we came up with are:

> Petchaburi (Constructions / partially built buildings)

> Horse Stable area right outside the back gate of ISB.

> Parking areas

> The new villa, go past the embassy house, when you hit the dead end, instead of going left, go right (There should be a could be a couple of constructions there)

> Platinum outdoors area when it's closing down.

In terms of class relevance. I'm not so sure how I can relate dance film to photography as well as I could, so, in order to avoid problems like making dance film that does not have as much photography relevance, I was planning on photographing the dance along with filming. In hopes that I would be able to express just as much expression I intended to for the dance film. Because this is a dance film, I might also want to play around with motion blur / long exposure as well, so there is going to be high possibilities I'll take advantage of the location and dancer to do that.

Here are some of the examples I was looking at.

"Brides" by Olesia Kliots

"Motion" by Bill Wadman

"Daydream Arts" by Cindy Singleton

With slow shutter speed, I believe it would be an appropriate technique to try out while doing the dance film project. 

There is this abandoned house not so far away from ISB's backstage. Today, after school, I will go there with my friends and will photograph the area to see how it looks like and how much access and safety we have to film at this house. And from there, I will decide who the subject and the general characteristic of the main subject be later.