Richland Digital Video Evening Class 2017

Hi everyone. Tran here. After I read “The Writings of Dziga Vertov”, I saw some interesting points to think. One of them is that the author is sure about the quality of cameras. He thinks that they are much better than human eyes. They could not be limited by time and space like our eyes. They show what they see to the real world without distort like theater, which is a new concept he wants to mention. From there, I think he supports for anti-illusionism theory. He likes something real and alive like documentary or biography. However, as an artist, is there any contrast inside here? In my view, I think we need illusion to make the stories or films more attractive.  

My take away from this article was that the author feels that the cinematographer has been restricted when filming, to seeing things from the natural eye's perspective. It is an interesting prospective to think of how the camera can help you see things better than what the human eye can. I also think that his way of creating films seems to break the rules of Continuity principles that we used to complete our first video.

one of the most important elements in a movie is cinematography! That's why videographers try to show you different perspectives and camera angles, it may be things that you witness in your daily life but not from that perspective or angle. My personal opinion is that perfect angles are everything, it would make a movie a winner or a loser. I always look for different angles when I'm shooting but after reading what Dziga vertov did I'll try to look harder for better angles!

What I learned about the Kino Eye is how it captures what the human eyes cannot at times. The way the camera makes what I'm seeing more interesting was not something that I'm used to; it also brought a new perspective on different types of filmmaking there are out there.

To be honest, even though I tried, I still don't really understand what is this reading is about. But I think I still get the gist of it. I believe it is about the different point of view of a human eye compared to the eye of the camera. The way I see things is different than the way things are depicted on film. Like when watching a horror film, the director will choose creepy things to film instead of cute and colorful thing to describe a mysterious, scary atmosphere. After reading this, I know that I need to pay more attention to normal things I see in life. So that when I want to create a certain feeling in my movie, I will know what things I should put in my product.

Kino eyes – Dziga Vertov has given me a brand new point of view of using camera to make a movie. I used to think that camera was just a tool for me to create my creation. Somehow, it was the same as a printer which would copy my thoughts and my opinion and made them become a logic montage for me to tell the story. Therefore, after reading Kino eyes, I am really surprised about how amazing and great a camera can do. I now know that, cameraman are trying to show viewers a thousand varieties of camera angles and this make viewer have a more completed point of view whenever they watch a TV show or a movie. We can describe and create emotions and concepts of the movie through camera, on the other ways, it can be said that camera will make sense everything. For example, low angles usually describe how scaried  a character is. In conclusion, Kino eyes – Dziga Vertov has made me change my thoughts about using camera when making movie. 

     The reading had some interesting (albeit unusual) points that contrast with the filming standard at the time. One of the main things people tried to do with film was to emulate what the human eye could see with the camera. But the Kino-Eye style contrasts that, by wanting to do what a camera cannot do while emulating the human eye. Capturing motion of objects, chaos, and other elements that made things look unnatural in traditional formats is what the Kino-Eye aimed to achieve. It is definitely an interesting perspective and I don't think I would have considered "capturing chaos" as a objective of filming. Overall, I think this reading has given me more to consider and made me think about "how" I want to film, having choices between human eye emulation vs. Kino-Eye motion and chaos, which is something I had not considered up to this point.

     The reading gave me some better insight on elements to consider when watching movies and even fiction in general. I especially enjoyed the example comparing the scene of the person having trouble sleeping without context and then with it. It makes for an interesting perspective, seeing as how a simple scene that ties everything together can make the scene part of the larger story. Without a scene to tie everything together, we as the viewer are left to wonder what the purpose of the scene will serve in the story as a whole and as a part of the narrative. Though I would have originally though that such a small detail can be explained later and make the scene work in the grand narrative, but without the context for that scene, it would lose some of its effectiveness at that time and make it feel like a wasted scene. Overall, I found the chapter interesting and very informative on things to consider when viewing video and film.

What got me thinking was how cameras break the rule on how we see things. Like see things in slow motion, the human eye cant see that, but a camera can. Apply effects like different angles that we don't really see, change the speed of the film, different flits, etc. People don't make it interesting, the cameras do.

What is kino-eye? Kino-eye is every view you wish you had. It is every perfect shot and angle, strung together in perfect sequence and projected to dazzle your senses. Kino-eye is perfection; kino-eye is not human. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article. It is so true that the views that are taken in by the human eye, while fascinating, are nothing compared to the experience of film shot well. Even while reading this my mind conjured up all of the angles and shots mentioned. I was then also able to think about what it would look like from my point of view (ex: the ballerinas all on stage vs. shots of different body parts, angles, movements, etc.) and I could easily see how that was much more interesting. It is unfortunate that we can't always see things in the same fascinating ways that can be brought to us on camera, however, I think it makes it that much better when you see a well-executed piece of film, and even better when you are the one who shot it and yo...

I found the piece by Bordwell and Thompson really interesting because it talks about aspects of a film that I have never thought about before. When they were discussing the way that sometimes we know more than the characters and sometimes the same, or less, my mind was blown! It seems like such a simple thing but one you never think about. It reminded me of every time there is a crazy plot twist where the good guy is the villain or something of that nature. We didn't know it of course, but the character did! Or when you know the killer is behind a door and you just want to scream "WATCH OUT!", because you know what is about to happen, but the character is unsuspecting. The other thing that piqued my interest in the article is all of the movies they talk about. It really makes me want to watch them now because they make them sound so interesting, and so I can think back on this and notice all the little a-ha's I had while reading. Overall I really enjoyed reading t...

The narrative of a story can go more than one way, giving the story more suspense and curiosity.  I really enjoy movies that give giving you short flashbacks of the past connecting the present story like the movie "13 Reasons Why".  The narrative of the story keeps the viewer hooked, questioning , and guessing what happened.  Not every story will be cause and effect in a direct order they vary from movie to movie depending on the type of feel the director is trying to give the audience.

Hey guys, my name is Tu. I have never really noticed the importance of causes and effects in making movie. I made one film before but it turned out to be really different from what I expected to be. And now, after the reading, I realized that my story was not coherent and it couldn't lead the audiences' emotions because there weren't causes and effects. Things were just kind of happening spontaneously in my film so it turned out really bad. Some movies are harder to understand but in the end, most of them try to tell us a story. Most Disney animation movies have a really great and relatable story behind it but my favorite is Princess and the Frog.

               Hello, my name is Quynh Thu Ly. I used to read a few knowledge about making movies and steps to build up a story but I think this reading (narrative as a formal system) has given to me the most detailed and useful information. It explains and analyses carefully about differences between plot and story, which is usually misunderstood by a lot of filmmakers. Moreover, examples have shown that there are actually many principle elements that will help building up a story more completely, including times, spaces, actions, etc. We can use those elements creatively to make our movies more interesting and attract people. One of my favorite movie is “Gone Girl”, which has the greatest and the most surprising twist ever. This movie does not follow the normal time flow and it also messes all the events up, which makes viewer really confused and then finally everybody is surprised by its ending. I think it’s a kind of super creative way of usi...

From the start of reading "The Kino-Eye" by Dziga Vertov, you definitely get the feel of what being an artist of any sort on the wrong side of the iron curtain was like. That is not to say, as an aside, that incredible art did not come out of the soviet bloc. I merely wonder how much more would have come if it was not constrained by approval boards and the looming threat of reeducation if the work was not deemed appropriate. I digress. The idea behind this reading, one that is actually mildly liberating for me, is that by using the camera we are effectively unchaining our own perception. What I mean by this is that throughout our life we are bound to the reality that is what we see (for those that do see, I do not presume to know where those without sight or with the multitude of various sight based benefits and negatives find their binding...they generally do not enjoy film in the way we do so I believe it to be a moot point at this time. ) When utilizing the camera...

Weekly Reading – 9/12 – Tran Tran Hi everyone, I am Tran. I have read Narrative as a Formal System. I learnt from this reading because it gave me more knowledge about narrative and details about what I did learn in class, so I can understand deeply about narrative. Also, I understand the difference between plot and story, which I did not pay attention before. I realized this difference in one of my favorite film called Titanic. When Rose the main character and Jack her lover in this movie were sinking together, the music in the film made that scene more horrific, which is nondiegetic material. And this is not the part of the story. It belongs to the plot. In addition, we can still infer that Rose always remembered Jack and Titanic Ship until she was old, which belongs to the story. I felt interested while reading this material because I can learn something from that, and hope you feel the same thing. This is the link of the movie if you want to watch. Enjoy!! https://www.youtube.c...

FYI -- still unable to access Blackboard and this weeks assignment info.  Log-in errors;  will try to resolve again when I get back to Dallas/dcccd next Tuesday.

Hello: While reading the Bordwell & Thompson article, I was enlightened on how much information actually goes into filmmaking/movies. What stood out to me the most was the fact that the plot and story were not the same thing. As silly as it might seem to some, I genuinely thought they were the same thing. This article made me think about two of my favorite sci-fi movies: Avatar & the Alien Series (including Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, etc.) . Unless I still completely misunderstand what the definition of a plot is, from my understanding, the plots of both movies change during the film. In Avatar it was to explore the planet that they landed on but it ended up becoming about a human man who tried to save the natives of the planet. Similar to Avatar , the Alien Series initial plot was to discover a designated planet where the staff and crew were headed but the plot changed to defeating an alien life-form they had picked up from a different planet that was not the design...

Bordwell and Thompson - Narrative as Formal System Everything we do is a story that I didn’t even know about. Telling a joke or talking about what I did yesterday is a story. So, does that make me a narrator? Because I’m telling a story of what I or somebody else did and giving a seer of events. But aides all that, personally I didn’t expect the narrator to be a major part in movies, stories, documents etc. The way I use to see the narrator is just a person that mumbles about stuff but, actuals puts input to the story and gives a feel to the viewer. Also, I never really understood why some movies start right into the middles of action then cuts to the beginning where it starts inducing charters or some problem. But know I get it. It gets me thinking on how the story is going to play out. It does leave me at this cliffhanger where I want to see more but explains what happens before it gets to that situation. But down fall of that is how some movies give you enough info...

Hey everyone, Luke here. I've read through the "Bordwell and Thompson-Narration as a Formal System," and was pretty intrigued by what I read. While some of the content was part of our lecture, some of the things mentioned in the reading that weren't present in our lecture really interested me and gave me new insight on film as a whole. I had a general idea of what narration was, but I was surprised to find out how much film uses narration in both restriced and unrestricted forms, and how each type of narration complements each film. The use of restricted narration in films such as Silence of the Lambs  works incredibly well and presents suspense in an excellent way. I've found out that using certain forms of narration and different points of a film can draw in the audience incredibly well, and after thinking about it, I can definitely recall some examples where this has happened to me in a theater. The example that shines to me the most at the moment would be dur...

Welcome.   Waiting to see the syllabus.  

This blog is where we will discuss theoretical and historical readings assigned in class. Whenever the syllabus reads " Blog Post Due:",  it means you are to create a new post here with your response. What I'm looking for in your responses is for you to show me how you're thinking about and integrating the reading. Don't tell me what it says, I already know. I want you to tell me, or show me, what it made you think about. This will be an aid to our conversation about the text in class. If you are having trouble thinking about what to make in your projects, these readings are meant to get you thinking about how other people have approached the subjects we will be covering. Please take these readings seriously! Looking forward to a great semester with all of you.