A tribute to UNCSA

Music by founder Vittorio Giannini (sung by Mario Lanza)

Video from films made by UNCSA alumni David Gordon Green, Jody Hill, Aaron Katz, Peter Hedges

A letter to Vittorio Giannini

Mr. Giannini,

I am currently wrapping up trimester one of year one at UNCSA, the school which you of course founded. Suffice to say I am pleased here, and feel very comfortable. The people here are intelligent, and, most of all interesting. This school is a fertile ground for artists. Of course I love my friends from back home, and always will, but back there, for the most part, people didn't have the deep passion for the arts, especially not my major, cinema. Whereas at home my parents discouraged watching so many films, here the teachers repeatedly insist we do. An arts school is truly an environment to which I belong, so thank you for that.

You fought to establish UNCSA, because it was what you believed in. Since I attend here, I am obligated to have the same drive. I need to fight to make the films I want to make, to stay true to whatever vision I might have, no matter how out-there or uncommercial it may be. You have left a legacy of refusal to compromise, so I'd like to follow in it.

Finally, something else that caught my attention when I read about you. Musically, you have been described as a neo-classicist, taking your influence from composers of the Romantic era, particularly Wagner. I also think it's important to look back in terms of one's art form. While I doubt I'll be neo-classicist, per se, in my filmmaking, I know that it is important to watch the classics. Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford - directors who helped write the cinematic vocabulary. A good artist should think in terms of the past, the present, and the future.

I don't know for sure, what any of the other schools I applied to would be like to attend, but I can safely say I am happy here, and think that UNCSA will nurture me as an artist. So good work, Mr. Giannini.

-Spencer Lucas

Final video project

Here is the completed video project I discussed in the last post. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out although I fear the voiceover may be a tad difficult to understand. This was a fun creative process, but not much of a learning process, because I have done plenty of editing before so it was relatively familiar. However, this was my first time doing one for a digital media class, so therein lied the new experience. Despite initial inclination, I avoided a droll lecture, and I hope that my attempt at giving it personality and fun was successful.

Video Assignment

At first I attempted to write a script in which I lecture my thoughts about digital media. But then I had a change of heart. I figured I could do a lot better with this assignment if I thought outside the box. Rather than lecturing about digital media, I decided to cut together a parody trailer using old horror films, for a new horror film about the most terrifying monster of all - The Internet! Of course I do not fear the internet, or I would not be typing this right now. What I intend to do is parody the mindset many of the older generation have - that the internet is strange, alien, harmful, a waste of time, making our kids stupid. By spoofing this paranoia I hope to call attention to its silliness.

A mixed bag

That term applies very well to digital media, and the series of articles I've read this week enforces that. The pros and cons must be weighed. For example, communication is at an all-time high, but attention span is suffering. That's why it's impossible to call digital media simply "good" or "bad." My personal opinion of digital media is this: like any form of media, it is a tool, and like any tool, it must be used correctly in order to be a positive force. Since digital media is a relatively new commodity, we are still learning how to do so.

Is digital media bad for us?

Saying that digital media is a "bad" thing would be oversimplifying a complicated issue. Digital media surely changes the landscape of modern art and communication, but it can't be so easily classified in such black-and-white terms as "good" or "bad." The consensus of the educated is that digital media is a double-edged sword. It is "good" in that it allows for faster sharing of information all around the globe, which gives greater access to potentially valuable info. Digital media is "bad" in its narcotic power of addiction, that causes us to lose touch with reality because we are so hooked in. I'm glad websites such as YouTube allow me to share my videos. I think we must take advantage of digital media's pluses without getting sucked in too deep. We cannot let ourselves lose touch with face-to-face conversation, or books mad of paper and ink instead of 1's and 0's. If we strike the right balance between the two worlds, we can make digital media work in our favor.

Werner Mixed

Wishing to create my own remix, I compiled a number of audio samples of one of my cinematic heroes - German filmmaker Werner Herzog (Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Stroszek, Rescue Dawn). The audio was a mixture of interviews and acting performances he gave for other directors (such as Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey-Boy). Besides idolizing Herzog as an artist, I have always loved the sound of his accented voice, so it seemed like perfect fodder for my remix. I set these clips to groovy electronic loops from GarageBand. I also incorporated a small snippet of music from his 1982 film Fitzcarraldo. However, its mellow, ethereal nature clashed with the upbeat music I had laid down, so I used it sparingly. You can listen below to my mix, entitled "Ecstatic Truth"

The Silver Screen Remix

Film is my artistic medium of choice. I devote countless hours to watching hundreds upon hundreds of films, from foreign and obscure art flicks such as Gummo and Irreversible to blockbusters like The Dark Knight. My aspiration is to be a film director. So as we read about principles of remix, it makes me ponder the remix in cinematic terms. How is the remix principle used in film? It is common for directors to homage shots from other films in their own. The most obvious example is Quentin Tarantino, whose films are essentially cinematic collages of a variety of previous films and TV shows. But film remixes are also done on a much smaller scale. YouTube is populated with recut trailers, in which existing footage is cut into a parodic preview. I myself once took dozens of Simpsons clips and set them to the trailer audio from Martin Scorsese's The Departed. One of the most popular and well-made recut trailers on the web is a cut of Stanley Kubrick's atmospheric horror film The Shining made to look like a heartwarming family film.

Remix

Since the beginnings of recored sound in the late 19th century, certain people have enjoyed the ability to rearrange the normal listening experience with technology. John Von Seggern of the ethnomusicology department at the University of California, Riverside, says that the remix "is a major conceptual leap: making music on a meta-structural level, drawing together and making sense of a much larger body of information by threading a continuous narrative through it. We depend on what has come before. If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in the paper on which your poem is printed. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in there. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. The existence of a remix is dependent upon the existence of the music that it is mixed from. And all music is a remix, be it conscious or subconscious, whether or not we wish to admit it. But we should embrace the remix rather than fear it. The remix opens up countless artistic opportunities. If the lines holding the past and present together are ruptured, then the future will break through. 

The New Music

In an earlier post I mentioned Radiohead's online release of In Rainbows and their "pay what you want" price. An article I recently read informed me that Jane Siberry had been using the same strategy as far back as 2005 as part of a musical reinvention. She also changed her name to Issa, altered her musical style, and incorporated performance art into her tours. This strategy has garnered her financial success, and has been accepted by her fans. This is a perfect example of adaption to a new digital climate. Siberry/Issa chose to accept the status quo and "go with the flow" rather than beating a dead horse by trying to carry the old-world approach to the music industry through the 21st century. Says Siberry/Issa: "I'm just opening the doors." Emerging artists, as well as established ones who wish to stay relevant, would be wise to walk through these doors.

A war that can't be won

The government is waging a so-called "war on piracy." Downloading copyrighted material is punishable by major legal prosecution. What the gov't fails to realize is that such a war cannot be won in this manner. Access to so much digital media through YouTube and P2P sharing and the like is all too present to be simply eradicated. Lawsuits against a mother posting an online video of her eighteen-month old son dancing to an unauthorized Prince recording is the work of a disconnected generation. Lawmakers need to adapt to the presence of file-sharing, and must do so in a way that encourages creativity. This is the generation of remixes and mashups, which may be an unfamiliar art form to some but still can produce valuable and interesting world. If the gov't retools their copyright laws in just the right way (I don't claim to know the answer, I just figure its probably out there), the doors can be opened and this art form can flourish  legally.

Where is the line?

Nothing is original. Whatever we may call original is just composed of more fragmented earlier works. Did Nabakov mean to steal the story of Lolita from Lichberg? Probably not. Our subconscious creates seemingly original ideas from everything we absorb. It is simply inevitable. Therefore, we as a society must accept that this will happen, and be open to sharing work with others. If all artists alienate their bodies of work, no more art can flourish. Art is a collaborative project of all humanity, and we must borrow from each other to produce the best work. Not to say we can just steal other people's works and repackage them as our own. Lines must be drawn. A balance must be reached. We cannot mimic other art, but break it apart, tinker with it, re-appropriate it into something with our unique sensibilities. That is as close to originality as we can get.

New literacy

Many would argue that in the age of text messages and IMs, we have become a generation of illiterates. Stanford professor Andrea Lunsford argues otherwise. After analyzing thousands of student writing samples, she concluded that "we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization." You can read the full article here. So is her statement valid? I think the Greek comparison is a bit of a hyperbole, but she's onto something. There is a revolution in writing. A totally new style of literacy is being born, in which the younger generation is absolutely fluent. It's hard to define this as a positive or negative shift - it's just a change. It's clear that writing in all its forms will be different from now on. I'm one of the people who still reads books. I'm a slow reader, but in the last half-year I've gone through novels like Lolita, For Whom the Bell Tolls, High Fidelity and War of the Worlds. I'm sure we have many riveting blog posts ahead of us, but I for one hope we don't lose touch with literature in the classic sense. Not everyone has to sip wine in their armchairs discussing Dante, but the printed word should not be left in the dust as we move forward.

Free-appropriation - plagiarism or unique art form?

I recently read an article about the controversy surrounding German author Helene Hegemann, who cut-and-pasted fragments of other works to form her own. You can read more here. The question is raised - is free-appropriation writing a form of plagiarism or is it an art form in its own right? I believe that unique art with a personal stamp can be created using bits and pieces of preexisting works. In the words of none other than Pablo Picasso: "bad artists copy, great artists steal." He is not referring specifically to free-appropriation art, but the concept is still applicable - as long as artists don't simply "copy" works but reassemble them into something personal and meaningful, they are practicing a legitimate and unique art form. During my days in middle school, I raided the recycling bin obsessively for Newsweeks and New Yorkers, because I quite enjoyed cutting them up and creating collages. Yes, the individual images were crafted by others, but I made them into new works with a distinct voice. Hegemann is also a collage artist and I think that as long as she credits those whose works she uses, she should be free to practice her art.

A reflection

Earlier I typed up my thoughts on digital media and its existence. I still hold the same stance. However, further discussions with classmates have given me some new perceptions, particularly the concept of digital media and the internet as a separate plane, rather than merely an extension of everyday life. I also learned a little bit when I added a picture to one post and thought about the effect of imagery on blogs. This enforced the idea of digital media as a distinct language, and working on my blog has hopefully improved my vocabulary, so to say.

Digital Media - Woven Into Society's Fabric

Digital media, in all its forms, is already integrated into the fabric of society. The presence of Google, Facebook, etc. assures that we are by and large constantly online, and society is utilizing that. A teacher might post a link to his or her website for the students to review as homework, such as a relevant news article or YouTube video. Up-and-coming musical artists might post tracks to their MySpace to get noticed. Established artists are revolutionizing the music industry. Radiohead made news in 2007 when they offered their new album In Rainbows as a digital download, allowing customers to pay whatever price they saw fit. Trent Reznor released the Nine Inch Nails album The Slip as a free download on his website, saying "this one's on me." These are just a few of countless examples, but the point stands. Digital media is here to stay. As much of our society functions on the internet as it does in real life. In order to get something across in the worlds of commerce or art, one should be familiarized with the world wide web and know how to take advantage of online resources.

For this post, I experimented with Photoshop Elements to produce an accompanying image. Though not entirely content with my final product, I like the idea of creating and posting imagery to a blog. With the presence of images, multiple senses can be stimulated and make the blog post more dynamic. An image can also grab the attention of a web surfer and cause them to actually read the post. One might think "this is an interesting image - I wonder what the text here says about it."

What Is Digital Media and Why Are We Studying It?

Digital media itself is easy to define - text, images, videos, software, etc. that is stored electronically on computers, and oftentimes available on the internet. But why is this significant? In an increasingly digitized age it is important to evaluate it. Digital media is unlike print in that is so readily available all over the world, and encapsulates a tremendous berth from the stupid and mundane to the brilliant and profound. Anyone who has ever surfed the net knows that there is buried treasure, but it must be dug for - something especially hard to do with literally millions of distractions available. It is important to study digital media so we know how to efficiently sift through it, finding the best and most reliable information with the fewest detours. Although so much of the younger generation is computer literate, Digital Media students get a leg up, and are better navigate the framework of the web, and therefore can better network and get themselves out there.

Online discussion forums

In my previous post I stated that good blogs should exercise some basic formalities. However, I think less of that is required for discussion forums (although it's always welcome). I take little issue with spelling/grammar errors and abbreviations in forum posts, as long as the text is still legible. What really matters are the ideas, and persuasiveness of the arguments. Calling something "stupid" or "gay" does little to persuade, whereas an interesting viewpoint and some good evidence provokes thought. But what's most important is to get the ideas across. Same goes for real-life conversation. If the ideas are there, and all parties respected, the conversation will produce nuggets that can be remembered by those involved and taken with them to apply in other conversations and in life.

What makes a good blog post?

I don't read many personal blogs. But this assignment for Digital Media class poises the above question, and I think I can come up with some general attributes that may be found in some of the better blogs. First of all, a blog must have something to say, some sort of topic or agenda. Anyone can make a self-obsessed Twitter account letting the world know "just took a shower," "working on homework," "drank a Dr. Pepper," etc., but why the hell should anybody care? Not to say that a blog should lack any personal touches or anecdotes. In order to not be a lecture, a blog, just like any type of journal, should have a personal stamp upon it, because the medium tends to have a certain informality about it. However, such informality shouldn't be taken out of hand, wtih obvius speling erorrs and oBnOxIoUs fringes (though admittedly I'm somewhat guilty of that in my blog title). Grammar nazism shouldn't be required, but in order to retain some kind of credibility, a good blog should demonstrate some competence in the way it's written. Well, it's about time I wrap this post up, because I believe a good post shouldn't ramble too much. Not all writing should cater to an ADD generation, but I want to leave prose to novels. People typically visit blogs for digestible bits, so I'd like to give them one right here.