? Craft and Concept ?

CRAFT
What is craft? my definition of craft is the way something is made, the tools and techniques used when making either a piece of art or a movie or video, the work, effort and time put into that piece by either the artist or the director. a good example of this is an artist doing a painting this is a craft because he is making the art himself.

CONCEPT
What is concept? my definition of concept is the idea behind the piece and the planning process coming up with an idea and then refining that idea into something that can be used to make either a piece of art or a film or video. art gives the best example of this quite often not things people have made will be called art because of the concept behind it like some one could pick up an ashtray filled with butts and call it art because it depicts the decay of modern society that person didn't make the cigarettes or the ash tray but they came up with the idea behind the piece.

2nd review of experimental media

The second video i chose to comment and analyse was Robins. i found this video intriguing the concept really caught my attention although it was very unorthodox i think maybe that's why i like the piece so much. i think this piece involves both craft and concept although i do think concept is the stronger element behind this video. I'm not really sure what this video is supposed to represent but it gives me the idea of nightmares. they way the subject is almost trapped in various rooms and keeps ending up falling into the bed its reminds me of that panicky feeling that nightmares invoke that you cant escape and you feel as if your falling into a trap also the whispering voice that you hear (ex-diagetic) also helps add to that idea, especially at then end when the scene changes and the subject finds himself in the park in daylight and then you can even see the relief as he takes a deep breath out and feels free, because this to me symbolises the moment when you wake up and see familiar comforting things around you and you realise that it was just a nightmare and everything is going to be fine and that its over. I really like the idea of this piece a lot and it helped give me some good notions for my own piece although I'm still not 100% about what i want to do i have some good ideas.

1st review of experimental media

The girl chewing gum by John Smith was made in 1976 in black and white and has a run time of 9 minutes. a clever piece yet not one that i particularly enjoyed. A film of observation, when first introduced to the film you watch her a man directing people in and out of the scene and at first you think that is just whats happening a director is giving directions for people to enter and exit the scene and they are following that but as the piece progresses and birds fly in and out of shot on command you start to realise this is just clever editing. as the piece progresses the narration becomes more and more creative delving into what the narrator perceives to be the pedestrians personal characteristics and lives. The narrator even goes on to state that he is stood in a field a far few miles away from the scene you are watching in a middle of a field shouting into a microphone or so he says, when in all probability he is more realistically stood in a sound recording studio somewhere talking into a microphone in a recording booth. we then switch to the scene of a field with electricity pylons and cows in the distance but we still retain the sound from the Town, this i think is to demonstrate the element of control that the narrator supposedly has that he can remove different elements and impose them onto other parts of the video. again I'm not really sure what the point is other than to demonstrate that element of control.

1001 nights

i thought this video was interesting to watch, a experimental video by Jananne Al-Ani which lasted for 6:12 minutes was a short film where 5 women talk about their different experiences in which i can only guess are instances of war, it did make me wonder because all the women in the video in my opinion looked to young to have been involved in such things except perhaps one, these women very much look like ordinary people that you might cross on the street on any given day but the experiences they talk about and describe seem to have been truly terrifying to think of yourself in such a position. I'm not quite sure what the aim of the piece was or is but it was interesting to listen to those 5 women talk of their ordeals. I wonder whether maybe that is the point and you are just meant to listen and then imagine what it must have been like to go through something like that and realise that it does happen to regular people. its certainly something different.

koyaanisqatsi

I didn't really grasp the significance of this piece although i can appreciate the amount of time and effort that i know must have gone into it i personally didn't enjoy it, i thought it was fairly boring to watch (sorry but i really did) and struggled at times to pay attention this could be due to the fact that i didn't get it really i don't know. unfortunately i joined the viewing just after it had started so i missed who made it. throughout the piece you a swooped in over various different landscapes. then rushed hurtled through the city observing pedestrians and cars speeding along and rushing around oblivious to anything apart from whats going on in their own lives. at the end of the piece you watch a shuttle launch and then watch as a piece of the craft that separates from the main body of the ship is burnt up in the atmosphere and spirals back down to earth. this piece of the film is slowed down. i think its meant to symbolise the pattern of life in some way, that's the only meaning i could grasp from the piece other than that I'm not really sure.

Brighton Pics, Boat Museum and The Pier

I found this image quite inspiring, it may not be a traditional seaside snap but it represents the seaside all the same it just has a more quaint country feel to it i think. I like the way it shows different textures in the pebbles, the wood and the rusted chains and the way its slightly over exposed is a good way to exaggerate the fact that's its a sunny day at the beach. I like the way i managed to capture the boat, you can just about make out the sea in the background, it was by coincidence that i managed to capture the man who was sat by the hut, at first i didn't even realise he was sat there but i think this really adds something to the picture even if it was accidental.
I like this picture because of the slightly washed out tone of it, again the image is slightly over exposed, i did this on purpose because the lighting wasn't that good and the first image i took came out slightly dark so i altered the shutter speed to let in more light. To me this picture is a perfect way to express Brighton beach on a nice day. If you where to say those words to most people 'Brighton beach' they would generally associate Brighton with the pier. I especially like the way the image seems to suck your attention into the background and that although the foreground is what stands out most and is the most obvious part of the image it does still have a strong background and your attention is also drawn to the bottom of the Pier and because there is a lot to look at it is able to hold the attention for quite a long time.

My interpritation of experimental media

To me experimental media means to challenge the traditional conventions of media.

To find new interesting and unusual ways to present media to the public, in film this can mean shorts that are used to challenge people’s perception of things like art or the media today. Also using new and unusual techniques like montage in photography when creating pictures and challenging the modern consensus of what photography should be. Every so often someone will come up with a new technique for film or photography - as these are the most common areas that experimental media is used - and this will be adopted by various other photographers or directors in there work, until a new more 'edgy' technique is found. In this sense media is the same as many other industries trying to keep up or get ahead of the latest trends or technology.
In previous projects we have done photo montage this was a way of using experimental media by using diffrent aspects of lots of diffrent images you can combine that to create a new image. Looking at the film industry there are lots of examples of experimental media, for instances channels that air projects from aspiring artists who try out all diffrent types of film like animation, stop - start animation. Good examples of experimental media for me are Anime films, alot of modern Anime uses unconventional methods to confront modern problems in an unusal setting.
For this project i expect to use this opportunity to challenge modern media and its concepts by using unusual techniques and innovative ideas.