Homework for Week 4

HW 3/1: Creative Assignment Scanography: Create 2 series of scans with 4 images each. Present 1 series printed on paper. Present the 2nd series as an E-book (use either Flipsnack or iBook Author).

 

Gyres of Glitter 

  Touch

At Closing

Portals

HW 3/2: Creative Assignment Stop-Motion Animation: 

Pulse

I wanted to take on the challenge of using stop motion in a way that could move.  I have been reading about and aching for those lost in Orlando, when a lone wolf gunman shot down 49 and injured 50 more at the dance club Pulse.  

I incorporated audio from Amanda Alvear, who was using snapchat at the club when the gunnman opened fire.   The film is meant to eulogize those lost. The aesthetic is akin to a spirit dance, a glittering constellation of light in remembrance of those lost.  

First Draft of Film

Set: This is not found footage from the club.  I constructed a set from cardboard, fabric, a mirror, and my dresser top.  I made the "Pulse" sign from decorative gems, and shot the images with the stop motion app on my phone. 

Credits: 

Alvear, Amanda.  Snapchat Audio

Gorecki, Henryk.  Symphony #3, Dave Zinman, Dawn Upshaw and the London Sinfonietta. 

2nd Draft of Film 

(Incorporating Peer Feedback)

2nd Draft Adjustments:  I edited the footage to create more of a visual narrative that moved toward greater abstraction and one that was less redundant  (see fellow student's comments).  I also reedited the sound file in audacity to create greater silence, added effects to the gun fire, and used the sound of text messages on vibrate, as many had reported that after the gun fire they heard the sound of unanswered phone calls and messages in the room.  Last, I added the names of the victims in the rolling credits at the end. 

Potential in the classroom: While I have nothing against toys and bendable plastic figurines to create stop motion animation, I am trying to think of new ways of using the form, particularly in the English classroom.  For "Pulse," one of my challenges was to convert a form, which is as staccato as gunfire itself, into something elegiac.  

I think the same can be done in the English classroom.  For example, we can use stop motion with human action, and I would ask students to stage a scene from a short story to dramatize it in a series of moving stills, to animate those human stills, adding sound and music with Audacity.  I am currently teaching a course in Narrative Theory and Short Fiction and I will encourage my students, Masters students and soon to be teachers, to use stop animation to imagine the imagery, gestures, and action of the short work.  Students to date have already a passage and used audacity to manipulate the text and my hope is that they will use this same audio file to accompany their images. 

HW 3/3: N/A

HW 3/4: N/A

HW 3/5: Final project 

Buttons and Zippers

Dice Roll: Mapping; Stop Motion; and Sculpture

After a project like "Pulse," which I am grateful to have done, I would like to animate a chapter from a children's book I wrote 2 years ago, titled, "Buttons and Zippers"; the work, set in a fastener store in the garment district of NYC, involves the unlikely friendship between a button and zipper who, through happenstance, find themselves sharing a plastic bin amid hundreds of the store. 

I will be animating introduction and Chapter 3.  

Mapping: I am using mapping, specifically Google maps for the establishing shot.  The effect will be a stop motion animation/descent from a world view to the street facade.  I may also use Photoshop to change the name of the store to the store in my story, "Zippers and Buttons."

Stop Animation: I will be animating one button and one zipper in the scene attached.  I may, or I may not use googly eyes.  I may also construct a set of the interior and interior of the bin.  

Sculpture: In another section of the book, Zippers is tossed into a bit with hundreds of cranky Zippers who are crowded and tied together in an impossible mess.  The sculpture will be of Zippers and is the set piece for the scene in which Zippers must contend with the snake like coils of crank. 

Chapter 3: Worried

Buttons looked about the bin to see only one long strip of cloth divided yet united by a gleaming edge of metal. 

"Hey" Buttons whispered.  "Do you know where we are?"  Buttons rolled over to the other side of the bin and settled in.  That long strop of metal turned over, as if waking from a sleep.

"Me?  You talking to me?  They call me Zippers.  At least that what I hear day-in and out."

"Glad to meet you, Zippers.  Buttons the name here.  Howdy do."

"Howdy do to you."

"So are we the only two in this joint?"

"I think so."

"Well, how do we get out?" Buttons was nervous.

"Out? Why would you want to leave?"

"I don't know, there must be something else to see than these plastic walls"

"Really, It’s growing on me.” Zippers replied. “I’m thinking of moving over to the back side of the bin."

"I've been there.  It's a lot like the front.  Besides, I'm settled on seeing beyond this bin."

"You’re not worried?"

Buttons paused.  Buttons liked being a confident button, be he did have concerns.  And since he liked his new friend Zippers, he wanted to be honest.  "Actually, I am worried about these holes."

"What holes?"

"These, right here." Buttons pointed to the four holes formed in perfect rows and columns in his front.  "I worry I might catch cold or drown or get carried away by a gust of wind.  I feel...”

"Not whole?"

"Ha, ha, Zippers.  But you’re right, I feel like I am missing something."

"Well, Buttons, you’re all smooth and shiny.  You even have that wonderful lip about your face.  Me, I’m all ridges and edges and teeth.  Ugly, really.  You must think I am going to bite you."

"Never.”  Buttons replied, “I would never think that.  You seem like a straight-up, friendly kind of zipper to me"

"Thank you, Buttons."  And with that, Zippers wrapped one metallic edge around Button's smooth finish, and they both fell quickly to sleep.

HW 3/6: Look at each others’ homework and give comments. Leave a minimum of 7 thoughtful comments, which provide feedback to the work as well as recommend ways to take the work further. Indicate on your blog who you gave comments to and share in a few sentences your take-away from looking at each other’s coursework.

I have surveyed my classmates postings for this and in some cases last week's homework assignment.  I found that the three comments made on my films were encouraging an helpful.  Catherine wrote about the sound gap, which I knew was abrupt.  My own impulse was to play with silence in that moment, and Catherine had felt the same way.  I may do that and include the sounds of texts on vibrate, since after the shooting, it was reported that the sound of texts were non stop as people were trying to exit the club.

I learned a great deal from surveying the work of others in the class.  The proposals for the final projects were inspiring and some work CJ and Ivan's taught me in their experimentation.

HW 3/7: Readings. Share 2 take-aways.

Takeaway 1: I was struck at the movement in forms of digital literacy from its inception years ago with passive use to what now has become a generation of digital producers.  The constructive dispositions noted by Brigid Baron demonstrate the possible value of digital work and technology in enhancing the lives of students, particularly with global awareness, social justice, and positivism.

Takeaway 2: Maker Spaces:  the growth of Maker Spaces, particularly on college campuses is reminiscent of guild work in which craft trades are taught from peer to peer and master to student.  Here the crafts are interdisciplinary, linked by the sense of adventure and invention and of course by technology.  In our world today, the fabrtonics, even LED lights in dough!, the 3-D printers all inspire groups of people in one space to make objects.  One would think that digital production might separate the space of makers, but in fact, maker spaces bring together in one site the makers of things, of objects, be they material or digital.  Here, crafts people can make and build.

My project this week was in response to the massacre and tragedy in Orlando.  I know myself well enough to know that when I don't know what to do, I make something.  In the past, I have written poems (after the suicide of a student) and made pledges and followed through in action (I rode my bike 4,800 miles across the country in a anti-Bullying awareness campaign).  When Orlando happened, I was wandering around the Mall buying things to make my film.  In doing so, I realized that the Pulse nightclub would be the subject of my work this week.  Each of the scanographies and the draft and re-edit of my film centered around the victims in those moments of the tragedy.  In the end, I choose to build in the wake of destruction.