jl.fa/ysdn 3009

What?? No Strike??

Yes! So now that there will be class on Thursday I feel writing in here is a hell of a lot more worth while.

So honestly I would have liked to have more to show for myself… but no, sadly I don’t have much. What I do have though is pretty good in consideration I had no idea what I was doing before

So I came home form work a few nights ago and was in some random mood where I felt like writing (for me this happens only every now and then) So I started to write my personal story concept I’ve had since forever, but then changed my mind and stated to write about my 10 favorite things. Somehow I just wrote a 3 page monologue about all of it.

So I’ve gotten it corrected by a few ppl and I think it’s about finished and ready to post here. I hope you like it.

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FAVOURITE THINGS

What are your 10 favourite things? I bet if you think for a few minutes you could come up with a bunch of things that you would classify as your favourite. I did, it left me wondering… what was your first thought? What was the one thing in your life your mind immediately thought of as ‘your favourite? Haha, mine was my pillow.

A few moments after I had that thought, my pillow being my favourite, I began to critique it; I started to wonder if a pillow being my favourite thing was normal?

You see this pillow I’ve had for what, seems to me to be my whole life. I think it’s the second or third pillow I’ve loved, but you know how Mom’s are, they sneak you a new one once the old one has finally gotten too old; and really, you hardly notice because it’s still hand made by your mom. Or, in the case of the pillow I have now, it’s the Hunchback of Notre Dam (you know those ones you’d buy at Wal-Mart because the movie just came out) that she covered up in a pink floral pattern. But, getting back on track, this pillow is not only something small to sleep on; it’s a comfort device as well. I love the smell and the softness of it, and when the day’s been a crazy design student’s day I find falling into that pillow is the best thing in the world. It’s like a mother’s hug, or a dad’s kiss on the forehead and a pat on the back; it’s reassuring. Not to give my one pillow all the credit, my mom also made me another bigger pillow that I sleep with as well (it’s the big one on the bottom and the small one on top, so the main one I do sleep on is the smaller one… details… *sigh*). They both work together to become my one favourite thing.

This pillow has always been my favourite thing. I remember learning in school that if your house catches fire that you should grab nothing and run out. Haha, I thought they were stupid and promised myself that I’d always grab my pillow and my bear, which happens to be my second favourite thing. This pillow is such a part of me that I take it with me when I visit relatives, or if I know I’ll be sleeping somewhere else for a few nights. I used to take it over to friends houses for sleepovers. I simply sleep better on that pillow then on any other. A childhood habit I haven’t gotten over, and probably never will, or would ever really want too.

But I talk too much. Was your first favourite thing something as sentimental? Was it from your childhood? Something you still go to, to feel better? I wonder if that comfort is as important to others as it is to me. It’s a curious question I seem to keep thinking about…

Hmm, as I said before, my second favourite thing was my bear, and it being quite similar to my pillow, it’s all about comfort and childhood memories. I wasn’t a healthy kid, I had bad asthma and got sick a lot, so I remember hugging that bear and taking it with me to hospitals. If I got upset at something I’d go to my room and lie on my pillow and hug my bear to feel better. And like then, I do the same things now; after a bad day I still like to sleep with my bear. I suppose it’s odd to have so many things to help you calm down? Someone said to me that maybe since I’ve moved out that these things have become more than just comfort items, but also something that reminds me of home and family. So maybe it’s not as weird as I first thought.

Anyway, I guess to get away from the hugely sentimental things, my third favourite thing would be my cat, Kitty. Dumb name for a cat I admit, but if you have ever met her you would understand how it oddly suits her. She’s crazy, and has expensive and picky tastes in food and litter, but somehow she’ll find amusement in the most random of things, like a pen or a candy wrapper. I never know what she’s batting around the house, but it’s bound to be something weird. With all her oddities, I love her all the more.

I guess it makes sense to love your pet, but I’m not sure people would place a pet on their ‘favourite things’ list. She is an animal and not a thing… but somehow I still like to view her as one of my favourites; I’m sure she won’t mind. I’ve created a complex bond with my cat where we’re best friends and playful enemies. Where I’ll chase her around the house and then she’ll chase me back. It’s a fun and rewarding friendship and I wouldn’t give her up for anything. A typical human-pet relationship I guess.

After that my favourite things became objects that I regularly use. This is where I wonder how people rate their favourite things, if they rate their ipod or mac, over something like a silly pillow?

Even before I get to my electronics I find that my next favourite thing is a gift from my current boyfriend. It’s a pretty necklace of a crystal butterfly that catches the light and makes little rainbows everywhere. This effect reminds me of when my mother put a crystal butterfly on the sliding window door so she’d know the door was closed (funny story; she had once walked into a window door and chipped her tooth because the door was so clean it looked like it wasn’t there). The light would get caught by the butterfly crystal and would shine little rainbows all around the room. Sometimes I would lie upside down on the couch watching them when I was bored. Sometimes I find myself watching these little rainbows, just daydreaming of nothing really relevant or anything too important. It’s an escape from a stressed out lifestyle I tend to lead.

I guess from here on out my favourite things become my ipod, macbook, my green bag and travel mug, scarves, and all my useless collections of random stuff. All of these things have meaning behind why I consider them a part of my favourites… but somehow they don’t seem as important or relevant as the first four things.

The ipod was a Christmas gift from my parents a few years back, and I got the case from my brother. I am often reminded of them when I’m listening to music along my travels around the city. I bought my Mac with my own hard earned money, and it’s helped me though school. People tend to identify me to it at work sometimes. Customers used to call me the ‘girl in the corner on the Mac’. I’ve even stuck a Starbucks sticker on it for amusement.

It’s no surprise to most people that my favourtie colour is green, I wear a lot of green clothes, and own a lot of green accessories, and even my ruler and X-Acto knife are green. So when I bought my green bag it soon became a key part of my image. It’s got a tear in one of the pockets, and has been washed twice, but somehow its faded appearance adds to its obvious favorite status. Similar to my bag, my green travel mug is also one of my favorite things. My best friend gave it to me a few years ago, and I carry it with me proudly. I love scarves of all kinds and colours; small thin ones to thick warm ones. As a child I never did like them though, it’s only in the past year that I’ve really gotten into them. It’s a part of my image that I really enjoy and like to switch up based on how I feel that day. Everyone has a certain look to them, mine has included these three things for while now, and I still really like them, so favourite things they stay.

As for my collections, well… I’m a packrat and always will be. I love stuff and love that I’ve got so much of it. I thrive on the fact that most of it is useless, but they are somehow oddly useful. There was a day many years ago where I promised myself that I would keep everything, and never throw away things that could possibly ever come in handy. See, my mom hated that I’d keep things, so she’s threaten to go in my room with a big black garbage bag and go through all my stuff. She wasn’t joking like I thought she was, and did come to my door one morning. I got so mad at her, but was forced to throw away my many random things anyway. This included my old marble collection. So, a year or so passed and I was making something for an art assignment where I needed a smooth round ball to make a head. I searched my room for just one last marble I may have saved… but no, there was none. My art projects head was then a ball of tape instead. I went back to my mom and glared and said I’d never clean up my random stuff, but keep it in big piles in my closet, at least then she wouldn’t see it. But that was then and now since I live on my own all my stuff is everywhere. What I tend to keep is really random, and not really a regular or consistent thing; sometimes I keep things and other times I’ll throw them away. I like rocks, neat looking sticks and shells, string and ribbons, paper of kinds, dead batteries, bags and boxes, coloured pencils (I’ve over 500!), pens, buttons, sowing supplies, stickers, owl figurines, old silver dinner settings (like plates, glasses, bowls ext.), safety pins, art supplies, odds and ends … Uhh, you get the picture, random stuff in general, I love to keep.

But somehow these ‘favourite things’ seems temporary and ever changing. I’ll eventually get a new ipod and Macbook, my bag will break and the mug will too. I won’t wear scarves forever; they are just a fad as of late, and really my collections are forever growing and evolving to encompass different things. It seems to grow with me, and will always be there, but not always the same. Somehow the first four favourite things seem more solid, like they have roots that go farther down into me.

Maybe the pillow will become too tattered, and my bear will sit on the side too long. Kitty will die before I do, and who knows, I may break up with my boyfriend and I’ll stop wearing the butterfly necklace. Really though, I don’t honestly believe my pillow will become tattered, and my bear never does stay on the side forever. Kitty’s only two years old, and I think I’ve a few years left to go with this guy of mine, if not forever, so the concept that these things hold a longer lasting affect on me pretty much holds true. I think where I’m going with all this is that to me, ‘favourite things’ shouldn’t be just material objects, but objects that somehow become apart of you. There also seems to be a variety of things that could be your ‘favourite thing’. They all seem to mean something different, like the difference between my pillow and my Mac.

Favourite things all have memories attached to them. Whether they are old or they are new but remind you of something old. Favourite things are probably kept because we have placed a great deal of time or feeling in them. No matter what your most favourite thing is, whether it’s more sentimental or useful, I really think it all depends on the personality of the person for how and why choose them. I’m sure a pillow is not going to be everyone’s favourite thing, or even a bear, a pet or a necklace for that matter. It’s a funny thing in the end… why we all have favourite things, and what makes them ours.

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So how I plan to make a movie around it is pretty simple i suppose. I’ll have my dialog as that base sound, i may add some atmosphere sound as well, like music that i usually listen to and house noises… I dunno, something small in the background sometimes so its not just me speaking. Then I’m going to borrow a friends camera and film me speaking as well and clips to reinforce what I’m talking about. For example, the part about Kitty I’ll film my feet chasing her and her running away and then me running away from her chasing me. I want a pastel colour or high contrast to everything so that it give off a look of a memory… abstract camera angles and interesting ways to capture not only the objects I’m talking about, but the feelings I’m trying to explain as well.

It’s alot to take on with only 2 weeks to go… but I hope to accomplish something that has feeling and atmosphere even though the topic is about things. We’ll see i guess.

I think I wrote a lot more than 2 minutes … so i may have to cut some out, or maybe I’ll just go for however long it turns out to be… I really like what I’ve wrote lol. XD

pj 3 – skribbles on a lined paper

yeah… I’m having a hard time trying to organize this project… I keep thinking I should just do one of my ideas… but then i dont like any enough to do fully.. so then I’m back to the jumble of ideas.. idea. *sigh* and then when i try to write a script it seems to thought out to just be thoughts… so ugh.

what i think i should do is jot down a generalized point-form list of all my ideas and then record me talking about them all… so that way i have a somewhat order to my thoughts but not a complete order that it sounds forced or too scripted…

anyway.. I scanned some of my notes so that you’ve prof I’m working on this during the strike lol…

hope you can read them ok… XD I’ll post the sound file once I record it. From the recording I’ll prolly create a storyboard and start planning out how I want things to work.

ahhh so much work…

Project 3 – object studies…?

ok… so I have NOOOO idea what to d for this project.. mostly cause I cant sette on just one. My mind keeps thinking up somewhat stupid ideas and somewhat ok ideas… but nothing solid. So… I thought then why not do them all?

So my main object focus is my pencil and paper. All my favorite objects as well as a bunch of others will be the secondary objects, and the general concept is about brainstorming and being unfocused and indecisive. I want the narration to be my voice inside my head as I think trough all my ideas.

Some rough ideas I have to bring into this mess:
- eggs. where they come from and how we eat them all in dedication to my roommate Selena who loves eggs.
- my kitty is crazy: a psychoanalysis look at her behaviors.
- design hell day paired with fucked-up dream about that same day. (involves 10 favorite things)
- music video to a Latvian song. (Prata Vetra is the artist and I put imagery of objects to go along with the music and my interpretation to what they are saying – funny cause it won’t relate at all to Latvian speaking people.)
- how to make a good latte. (sarcasm aimed at Starbucks and how to make a shit latte. Object is coffee.)
- Green my favorite colour. (a self-made song about all of the things I own that is green, sang along to a familiar childhood song… like twinkle twinkle little star or something like that)

and yeah… maybe more small ones that are really bad that I scratch out right away… well, w/e, I’m off to go write the ideas down on paper now… here’s hoping I come up with a pretty okay Script!

byeeeeeeee~!

LightNumbers

Hey,

So I was thinking more about how I was supposed to do my paint idea for this concept and decided that it was a bit too hard. I don’t have a camcorder, and I don’t want to borrow one really… just in case I spill paint all over it… And taking still images of it wouldn’t really work either… I dunno, I had bought the paint and plexiglass and set it up only to realize that it was a bit too impractical.

But good news! I was shopping around Value Village the other day and found a LightBrite! so I bought it and found a new light bulb for it and it works!! So I’m going to use that as my medium to draw numbers on! I was thinking of all the different ways to photograph that and there are tons so I’ve a fair room for experiment. The only thing is I need someone to put the pegs in to make the numbers as I take the pictures… I think tonight I’ll be able to get someone to help.

Another side note: I think I must have eat something funny yesterday cause I woke up today with my stomach turned upside down… I’ve been dizzy and mostly in the washroom so I thought class was prolly not a good place to go to… It’s only now that I can look at the screen of my mac and not get sick :S …

I’m pretty sure the LightBrite is the concept I’m going to sick with, and I think it’s almost as original and good as my paint concept. Heres the Creative Brief about it:

Title: LightNumbers

Concept: What I want to do is capture, in an interesting way, the count down from 10 to 3 in a LightBrite machine. I plan to use exposure settings as well as angles and mixtures of light to add variety to the count down. Different colours and ways of entering/drawing the numbers will be varied too.

Audience: I think my audience will be people who are interested in creative ways to use old objects. It really depends on how the finished version turns out and what quality of images I’ll be able to gather. I’m hoping to create a visual theme of quickly put together lights, and get an electric feel. Maybe the count down could be used at the beginning of a movie or music video? Or the start of a show that is futuristic or maybe even retro? I think it’s hard to say right now.

Key Message: That old childhood objects can be used in a completely different way and create a completely different mood as well.

Content Planning: When thinking of who I wanted to help me place in the pegs I originally thought a woman should because their hands are smaller and more attractive in a way. But then, mostly because I’m going to see my bf later today I thought he could maybe help instead. Cause if you think about a LightBrite you think of little kid hands playing with it, but if I have large man hands instead I think it takes the LightBrite more out of context and relates more with my thoughts of taking old child toys into different contexts.

Bibliography: A LightBrite, and my boyfriends hands? Sound I’m not sure but I thing I’ll create it myself. Maybe a cracking noise or a ‘pang’ ? Or to add to the ‘electric’ feel a spark or fuse noise? not sure.

Visual/Conceptual References: As soon as I saw the lightBrite I was reminded of a time when I lived in Winnipeg an me and my brother would go into my grandparents basement and play on the lightBrite. I loved it and made him play with me when he would have rather played with his dinosaurs… it’s a funny memory. (We where there for Thanksgiving too, I remember it wasn’t that good and my parents made jokes about my grandmas awful cooking on the way home.) So really my blurred memory of how the lights looked to me then is an important visual factor I want to re-create and to take to a different level.

Oh!

Ok ok, so I was talking with a friend about my concepts for Project 2 and she and I came up with another cool idea!

Pipe cleaners! you know those fuzzy and colourfull bendy things? Yeah! So for each number I can twist them into that number! XD I dunno, it’s a cute idea I think. Better then the bubble wrap one cause thinking about it more I realized it’s kinda dumb cause you wouldn’t really see the poped ones… So yeah. Instead of the bubble wrap I might do pipe cleaners.

I still like the paint concept too… I’m not sure what one I’ll do yet…

ahh well.

EDIT – So here is the creative brief I wrote about this one:

Creative Brief(s)
1. Title – possible name, working title
Colour-Twisted Countdown! (Pipe Cleaners)
2. Overview – description of concept
The concept is to twist and turn pipe cleaners into numbers quickly. It’s taking something simple and making it more complex.
4. Audience – who is the intended audience and how this will be considered in project?
The audience would be for children, probably an introduction to a crafts show or movie. So by using something simple like pipe cleaners to create numbers is creative and beneficial to the learning of the child.
5. Key Message – what do you want your audience to learn from your work?
To realize that simple objects can be used in fun and creative ways.
6. Content Planning – what content you will include and how will it will be structured?
I’ll have a bunch of randomly coloured pipe cleaners and set up a table with a bunch of other craft supplies. I’ll then focus the camera on the table and my hands as I proceed to make the numbers. The sound between the frames will be a child counting down the numbers. I’ll probably do it several times and record it with video so that I can pick between the takes and merge them together. I’ll also try to take it with only photos (step by step) and try to add this to the video footage to create an interesting dynamic between photos and video.
8. Bibliography – relevant sources used in work
I’ll have to find a child’s voice counting down the numbers, and I might have to get a friend to help out with the photo/video taking.
9. Visual/Conceptual References – images and ideas that inspire your concept
I was cleaning my room the other day and saw pipe cleaners on my floor. I had got them for my birthday from a friend (who also got me a bunch of other random craft stuff). A few days later I was talking with a friend about my ideas for this project and she came up with the idea of twisting pipe cleaners, which at first I thought was pretty random but then remembered that I do have pipe cleaners at home. After thinking about it a bit more I thought how neat it would be as apart of a craft show! (I used to watch them when I was younger.)
So in general the random cleaning of my room, a friend’s crazy idea and the memories of old-school crafts sows is what has inspired this concept.

Storyboards – drawngs

So I narrowed it down to two.. cause drawing all of them would have taken too long and would have been at bit unnecessary.

Bubble Wrap Count Down:

Painting Countdown: