Final Projects

Working on these last few projects has been pretty interesting, but I'll admit that I prefer and am more interested in the movie than the book.
I love making movies and I don't get stressed out while filming and editing them, so when it was assigned I was excited. It's essentially a comedy about the worst monster movie ever made, filled with cliches and such from other bad monster movies. I filmed most of it all in one day, but when I found out that it wasn't due for a very long time, I began to lose focus and haven't filmed for a while. It's done now, but the time difference between my first shooting and my last was maybe a month or so.
Once we were assigned the book, THAT'S when stress started to outweigh the fun. I can see how some people would get a kick out of making a craft like this, but I've started to realize that it's not exactly for me. It costs more, seems to take more time to build, and I'm generally less satisfied with the final product than I am with a movie. I've done little things like this before but this was the hardest. Be that as it may, it was kinda neat to learn how to do some of these book things and seeing how other people were making theirs was really cool.

At Land

We watched a silent movie called "At Land" today by _____. It was black and white and seemed to have a very surreal style to it, it was almost dreamlike as the main character would wander from scene to scene encountering many different people and places. It reminded me of Michel Gondry's work with "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" and "Waking Life," which is another movie based on dreams and surrealism. I've always enjoyed films like this because I find it very interesting if the filmmaker gets it right, "it" being what a dream is really like upon recollection.

Blibbity Blop Blop Bloop

The other day I got to see some old high school friends who were in town touring with their choir. They had come all the way from Indiana and had been touring for 4 days in different states. It was a surprise to see them and they were very good (it especially helped that none of them really knew I was going to be there, so they were surprised too). The strange thing is that just last night I got a call from another old friend saying that he was in town, so it's been a strange but enjoyable couple of days for me.
My 16mm experimental film thing worked out pretty well I think, though I'll admit I was pretty much making it up as I went along. I used a knife to scratch off most of the film covering stuff, but halfway through one of my room mates let me know that he had sandpaper which worked a lot better. The first half of the film is shapes changing into each other, whereas the other half has more to do with paint splotches and dynamic color transitions.
Here's the video of my other project, it's supposed to represent how a sudden storm works. I wrote and performed the music (not, not wrote, but made up) ad it was recorded on a cheap keyboard, so I'm sorry if it sounds strange.


For up-do-date-Isaac-news:
I'm going out on thursday night to see Keren Ann over at Johnny Brenda's. If you haven't heard of her, check out her song "Not Going Anywhere."
ALSO! I just found out that Glen Hansard and Marketa Irgova of the movie "Once" (they won an oscar for the best original song for a movie) are going to be performing at the Tower Theater later in March. Yes.

Beautiful Day

that pretty much sums it up; it is about 50 degrees outside or so with a little breeze, which is a nice break from the 30 degree rain we've been having. My friend Ray and I are making preparations to start production on our zombie movie for the Terror Sci Fi Festival this coming october, so that's pretty exciting.

Edit: hardly 30 minutes after I posted the previous paragraph, it began storming outside and dropped 20 degrees. Stupid weather.

Though I haven't been getting much sleep, these past few days have been pretty relaxing. Being home was nice and I got to eat real food for 2 days, and my classes haven't been as hectic. Also, while at home I found all of my old paints from my summer session here 2 years ago, so that just saved me about a hundred dollars. Hooray! Everyone seems to be getting deathly ill, so I'm hoping I can just avoid that all together, though one of my roommates (who sleeps in the bed under mine) is one of those very sick people, so I'm doing all I can to boost my immune system (eating oranges like candy, drinking green tea, and taking vitamin C tablets). I've been quite healthy all year, so i kind of would like to keep that up.

For up-to-date-Isaac-news:
I'm starting to realize that I don't know enough about art history as I should, and considering I'm sitting here in art history class while writing this blog probably explains why.
Also, I've decided that "Set List" by The Frames is one of the best live albums I've ever heard. So much goes on during it, including a fire and a sudden break from an ordinary song into "A World of Pure Imagination" from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (Gene Wilder version).

In an attempt to avoid working in 2D...

...I'm doing this.

First of all, it's snowing. That is the shit. Period. Sentence fragment. Unfortunately, though the snow looks nice now and excites me about the potential of any classes being canceled, I know it will only begin to heavily snow/ice rain later tonight, which is supposed to clear up by 1 am, meaning that it's starting too late for us to miss anything, and ending too early to be a problem tomorrow.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY&feature=bz301
I usually don't openly endorse politicians, but I really like this guy and I love the fact that he doesn't read from a script while he speaks to an audience.

This just popped into my head today that I should probably mention this movie: "Once." In case you've never heard of it, it's a modern-day musical set in Dublin, Ireland. It follows the story of a busker who plays his guitar on Grafton Street in the heart of Dublin. During the day, he plays songs that everyone knows in order to make money, but at night he plays songs that he's written, which are full of emotion. The story begins with a young Czech woman who overhears one of his songs at night. Throughout the rest of the movie, which takes place in a week, they find a common interest in making music and recording songs, the guy being haunted by memories of his ex-love, and the girl haunted by the memories of her old home. The guy is played by Glen Hansard from the Irish band The Frames and the girl is played by Marketa Irglova, who helped Glen record one of his newest solo albums. Neither are trained actors which is one of the things that makes this movie so genuine. The entire movie is filmed with what appears to be a home video camera and it all has a very real feel to it, like a documentary. I consider it to be one of the most important musical movies of my/our generation and it really made me re-think music and movies. If you see it at blockbuster or west coast video or whatever, I strongly recommend that you check it out. Here's a preview: http://youtube.com/watch?v=7mIpwx5lA5I

For up-to-date-Isaac news:
I get to go home for the first time in a while on Friday, which I'm excited for. Not only will it give me a chance to see my dogs again, but I can also get some laundry done and buy some groceries as well. I'll only be there for a day or so, but it'll be worth it.

Flipbook/other projects

As far as my flipbook goes, I think I'm doing alright. It's so far been a mix of spontaneous creation and nonsensical, late-night dawdling. For the record, I don't think "dawdle" is used very often, so I take pride in dusting it off once in a while, just like the word "smarmy." The story of my flipbook is simple like (I assume) everyone's is: it's a pong game being watched by my head. One of the "pongs" gets frustrated and shoots the other, making him the winner. My head reacts accordingly with a horrified look. I can only hope that I won't be judged as being "sick" when it's inevitably showed to everyone I know.
Anyway, about this new project. Drawing on 8mm film is a brand new concept for me, as I'm sure it is for many others in this class. Watching the films in class, I can't really imagine doing anything too much different than what was shown (swirling colors, molding shapes) but I'll do my best to come up with something original.

For up-to-date-Isaac-news:
I'm trying to find a way to legitimize my dislike of others downloading music from sites like "frostwire" and such, while at the same time my love of creating mix CDs for others in order to get them to enjoy my types of music. The argument is that what I do is the same as what others do when they download music for free, which is essentially stealing. My argument is that what I do gives a small taste (one song per artist) of the music I enjoy and entices others to go out and buy their music once they've reviewed what I've given them. I'm not mass producing these CDs with all of the music I own and giving them out for free, I'm only doing it for one person at a time. Again, the argument against that is that I'm still taking away from the artist and that it's just like more people are doing the same thing, only on the internet instead. I don't want to simply stop sharing the music that I love because I'm pretty passionate about it, but I feel so strongly that the artist deserves all the income he or she or they can get. Guys like Elton John and such I don't care too much about, because it's clear that they won't suffer at all even if they stop making money all together at this moment, but bands like The Robot Explosion, Damien Rice, and Dan Le Sac need and deserve that money now and for years to come.
Oh well, I'll figure out some kind of counter-argument someday. For now, I'll enjoy my recently purchased "The Shepherd's Dog" album by Iron and Wine. Sam Bean is one of the most deserving artists I know and respect him way too much to not give him something for his artistry.

Vampire Weekend

Before you begin to worry about 2 consecutive days of nightwalkers sucking people's blood, I can tell you that Vampire Weekend is a band. Worry free!
I was lucky enough to have a friend who has a brother who had two extra tickets to a concert of theirs at the First Unitarian Church this past Thursday. I'm pretty new at listening to these guys, so it was pretty much a stab in the dark, but I was happily surprised at the outcome.
Vampire Weekend is a band that came from New York and has only recently becoming known to people outside of that area. They came out with their first CD only within this past month and are already on tour to promote it. Their style is a wonderful mix of energy and frankness, singing about things such has karma, New Jersey, and laundry. Their lead singer (not sure of his name) has a great high voice that's not overpowering. The combination of his voice and the drumbeats used sounds almost African (the members of the band are all white males, 4 in total) and most of what they do is relatively simple, but that's not to say easy. If the bass line is playing, it's almost definitely playing alone with the drums, and the same with the lead guitar or the keyboard. Every instrument is treated with the same care. I say it's simple because there's not much going on at one time, but it takes a lot of care to do that, just as it is the same for a seemingly "simple" painting.

I was sick for about 3 days this week, and I think that's all I'm going to get, which I'm greatful for. I try to drink a lot of green tea and Vitamin C supplements and such, and since I don't have much money for food and therefore eat seldomly, that green tea and Vitamin C doesn't have too much work to do. I guess I can consider that a good thing, right?

After listening to "Teardrop" by Massive Attack for years, I've just learned that it's the theme song for the series "House" about that doctor with a cane. I'll do my best to not pull the "Damn, now that everyone knows about it I can't enjoy it as much" like I did with every song from the "Garden State" soundtrack (and most recently "Juno").

For up-to-date-Isaac-news:
I recently found out that my best friend is leaving for Ireland this summer, making me very jealous, though I was only there a few months ago for the second time. I really do love the place.
Also, just found a pair big fuzzy comfortable socks that I had received for Christmas. Awesome.

Iron and Wine

I just think this is pretty cool.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TLNyVLbqdEg

The Persistence of Vision

The first movie I remember seeing was "Jurassic Park," which I saw when I was three-years-old. My mom took my older brother and me to see Snow White, but it was sold out. My brother, Sam, who is two years older than me, demanded that we see Jurassic Park since it had dinosaurs and special effects. My mom never really considered this to be a good idea, but knew that we would enjoy it and it was either this or go home with two very disappointed boys.
My mom will never forget the looks she got from the other adults in the movie theater as she helped her 3 and 5 year old boys down the aisle into seats that were too big for us. Nor could she forget the immediate regret she felt when the lawyer in the middle of the movie was bit by the T-Rex and shaken like a rag doll. I will never forget hiding behind the seats as the T-Rex chased the jeep down a long road in the jungle in the famous "objects in mirror are closer than they appear" scene.
As we left the theater, my mom had all these awful visions of the nightmares my brother and I would have, while in reality he and I would argue about points of the film for days until we saw it again with no nightmares to bother us. It was seeing this film and enjoying it so much (traumatization) that began my interest in film and flip-books. I remember being very young and figuring out how stop-motion and flip-books worked by watching endless "behind-the-scenes" clips from dinosaur movies, Disney movies, or pretty much anything with special effects. I remember how awful most of them turned out because I didn't understand that, in order for there to be fluid motion I would need a certain amount of frames. My first claymation was made out of playdough. It was a green dinosaur and I would move it with my hands to make it look like it was walking. I didn't have a camera or anything, but I used my imagination to see how it would have looked on screen. Since then my knowledge of "how it's done" is more mature and I would probably be able to make something pretty coherent if given the right tools.
I've always enjoyed making flip-books and things, so I'm really looking forward to how my project turns out here. I'm glad I had such an early exposer to the persistence of vision because it engraved a deep interest for how things like claymation and flip-books work.

For up-to-date-Isaac news:
I've had the same phone since I was 16, which was my dad's old phone, which he bought in 2000-ish. I have no real need for a new one considering that this one sends and receives calls and text messages, but it's battery life lasts about half a day and turns off sometimes when it's closed. I sometimes don't realize it until it's 3 days later and I think "Gee, I haven't gotten a phone call in a while" and then I find that my phone's just been off and I have 13 new messages from my friends wondering where I am.
Anyway, I've lost it for the 12th time last night because I put it in one of my coats, which was left in someone's room and is now gone. Normally, I like when I misplace my phone for a while, or the battery dies and I can't charge it for a few days because I get this comforting disconnection from the digital world, but in this case it's not quite that great cause it's my alarm clock and without it I'll get a lot more sleep but worse grades.

Also! I'm really glad that our mail service here at UArts is very very very slow because I really don't want to receive my tax information so I can fill out my FAFSA on time and receive a good scholarship. I mean, why would I want that?

Music

Alright, I probably should have said first that music is a very important part of my life, so I'll get that out of the way.
I always had a pretty strange taste in music while growing up. My dad played the acoustic guitar like no one else I knew and my house was always filled with acoustic instruments and folk music. While my fellow peers were listening to things like Britney Spears and Blink 182 in middle school, I was listening to Cappercaile, Nick Drake, and Leanard Cohen. I remember when people in study hall would ask me with a very confused and somewhat disgusted look "What are you listening too?" when they could hear my headphones. Thankfully, the world has changed and folk music along with it's counterparts have been more accepted and adapted with my generation.
When I was 12 or so, my dad gave me a small $40 starter acoustic guitar. He and I never discussed how I would learn, so I took it in my room and studied the hell out of it until I began to recognize it's sounds and parts. Unfortunately, I had only taught myself a few chords before school became hectic enough to keep me away from learning any more.
Years later, when I was about 15, I was going through the typical young teenage tragedy and needed more than drawing to help vent any and all stress. I'm not sure what lead me to begin to write music, but I just started letting rhymes come out. We had this old (it was my great-grandmother's) piano and, like the guitar, I sat down one day and began to figure it out. Through this kind of process, I've learned how to play not just the acoustic guitar and the piano, but also the electric and bass guitars, the bazooki (I banjo-like instrument), the dulcimer and drum dulcimer, the djembe drums, and the banjo. Though I can hardly read music (like my dad, who is also self-taught), I can pick up most instruments and figure them out in a day or two if I already don't have any idea how they're played. This love of music, instruments, and song helped to install a deep enjoyment of song-writing and performance. I try to make it to most open-mic events and have occasionally been part of benefit concerts for a few different causes.

Well, after that rant, I'll sum up and just say that music is great and I hope those who read this can connect with what I've posted.

For up-to-date Isaac news:
tomorrow is due the first draft of a 2-D project that neither I nor the rest of the class understand. I'm content in BS-ing what I can.

Early!

hooray! It's early in the morning! Well, it's really not that early but I have this thing about waking up before 12.

A band that I haven't listened to in years is Nickel Creek, a very talented young trio boasting probably the best mandolin player in recent years.
I'm not up to date on their recent albums, but the one that I started on years back was "This Side." I threw up a few songs of theirs. I plan to add plenty of my favorite bands to this site, so keep checking.

For up-to-date-Isaac news:
I'm currently waiting for this glue to dry on my zoatrope and trying to ignore the fact that I forgot a pepper for drawing. I used the pepper for some pasta last night, so I feel like I have a good enough reason not to have one considering that I needed to eat.

Time/Motion

Alright, I'm Isaac and this is the first of many blogs for my time/motion class.
First of all...that's me, in all of my pink-sunglasses glory. I think they look cool, don't ask why.

I'm a huge fan of music and movies, a couple of highlights are:
Music-
Damien Rice, Sufjan Stevens, Alexi Murdoch, Common, Antony, The Arcade Fire, Belle and Sebastian, and there are many more (4.1 days of music worth, according to iTunes).
Movies-
Love movies, but I can be a bit of a critic. Occasionally I like to sit down and watch something laughably awful (The Gingerdead Man and Mangler: Reborn are a couple), but the best of the best are things like Waking Life, Children of Men, Jaws, Alien, Wristcutters: A Love Story, Trainspotting, Requiem for a Dream, Pi, many many more.

For up-to-date-Isaac news:
I forgot my glasses in another room in the Juniper building (I live in the Projects...I mean, Furness) and currently can not see very well.