Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Yard Work Noises

Tuesday morning ground-keeping is accompanied by the sound of many swarms of bees competing to prevent me from sleeping in. The buzzing is as startling and intermittence as that mosquito that speeds about your head when you try to sleep. The feeling is intensified when the workers make their way just outside your window. The buzzing is more like an engine of a flexing muscle car. The screeching of the weed whacker is akin to a buzz saw slicing scrap metal. Finally, the work moves away, and the ruckus slowly starts to decrescendo. Thought faint, the buzzing remains distinct and peaks from time to time. Eventually, the daunting siren of my alarm clock blurrs staccatos, and I’m forced to get up lacking a hour of sleep.

Poolside noises

The gentle rolling of the water makes an odd gulping sound against the edges of the pool. With no one in the water, the pool lazily whished and crackled with the soft whistling breeze in a predictable pattern. Every once and a while the high pitch plunk from a drop of water is heard. There were a few birds chiming in a couple of times in a call and reply like fashion. The quiet, soft murmur of the gysper in the middle of the pond provides a constant undertone to the louder noises.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Military Brat





My father is in the military, and our six year tour in Japan spans some of my fondest memories (considering I don't remember much before then). Unfortantely, I didn't take full advantage of my stay such as learning the language or seeing the sights. Now, as a fan of the country, I plan to return someday.

Response to Introduction to Avant-Garde Film

Avant-Garde film has a long road ahead of it. The heavy consummation of mainstream has marked all films with specific expectations. Journeys outside these expectations are quickly categorized as primitive. I feel that eventually a new movement will come, and avant-garde films will gain a better foothold—but not soon.

Response to An Original Art Form

Film is a media that incorporates many other forms of art, but never have I regarded it as overqualified method of reproduction. I always thought of film as a balanced compilation. At the start, I believed Richter too hypercritical: true, film relies on ideas and concepts derived from other arts, but new things can only be comprehended by relating them to familiar things. Only when he used the films Ballet Mecanique and Andalusian Dog as examples did I start to understand his point: both avante garde films can not be expressed outside film. It seems film has vast unexplored territory buried underneath the mainstream.

Film Manifesto

Stories are a daily exchange. As human beings, story telling is how we express ourselves and relate to others. As a filmmaker, one has the possibility to relay a story to influence ways of thinking. I want to be able to affect people—if not only for a fleeing moment of insight.