An animation I like

One of my favorite animations that is on television right now is The Venture Brother, which is played on Adult Swim. The show has to do with a parody version of what a Johnny Quest character might be like if he grew up to fall short of emulating his super scientist father, and how he lives his life as a sham scientist with his two strangley naïve boys and body guard. There are many great things regarding the animation of this show. For one, there use of space is great, they really take into account how a camera might be able to film these characters if they were real and a lot of times it gives a good 360 degree feel of a space, capture all sides of a room and a character. Another thing that I like about the show is the realistic way they make their characters move. Not that I don’t like animation that allows their characters to move in unnatural ways, but it fits the style more to have them move as real people would, especially because the show parodies the style of sixties Hanna Barbara cartoons, which were very still and bulky with limited movement.
Another aspect of the show that I like is their attention to detail when it comes to backgrounds. As I mentioned before, this a show that parodies shows like Johnny Quest, a program that would reuse their backgrounds and not pay too much attention to continuity details. In the Venture Brothers, this does not seem to be the case, most likely because the show is made with Flash and it becomes a lot easier to manipulate backgrounds and allow for greater detail.

What I learned from editing

I really enjoyed doing this editing project, I thought that it was a lot of fun. As far as my planning and experience doing this project I would have to say that I feel I wouldn’t redo the way I went about editing just because since this wasn’t my first time using final cut, I felt I had a good sense of what needed to be to make a decent video. If anything I wished I had more time to do the production part of it because there were a couple of shots that I felt I was missing and if I could have gone back and reshot some things I think I would have been happier with the finished product. However, although this was not my first time editing videos, it was my first time editing a narrative piece and I would have to say I did learn some things from that aspect of the experience. The most important thing I came to realize was the importance of continuity and I feel that doing this project gave me a good sense of how to link up shots so that they appear to be seemless. Another thing I learned was that to make continuity work, and to make a video look good in general, the cuts always need to be on the action.
Like I said, I am pretty happy with the outcome of my project, I think I did a good job doing my preproduction work which made things go a lot smother than if I had just tried to wing it.

Editing Analysis

One piece of media that I really like the editing for is the music video from the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song Scartissue. What I really like about the editing in this video is how simply it tells the story of all the scars that the band has gotten from the life in the desert. One thing I really like about it is how it keeps continuity with the time of the day, especially at the end of the video when they have all of their magic hour shots. I also like the pacing that the video has as a result of the editing. Seeing as how the video is supposed to have a depressing, reflective feel, I think that the slow pacing and extended shots work really well with trying to achieve these aesthetics. I also feel like the extended shots and slow cuts go along with the scenery. Taking place in the desert, it seems to represent a place where time stand still and the longer shots and slow cuts match that by slowing down the time frame of the video. Another aspect that is interesting about the video is the order of the shots. I like how they have a good balance between them driving and then taking pit stops in the desert. I think that by doing this, the shot sequence again adds to the idea of slowing down time because it shows their disregard for a time frame for which they must end their journey.

What media I like

As someone who aspires to be a media artist, I try to expose myself to many different types of media. I find the Internet to be a great place to find different articles, television shows and works of art that people have created and posted. Of all the websites, the two that I visit most often are facebook.com and boingboing.net. The thing that is great about facebook is it allows you to keep in touch with all the people that you do not get to see in your everyday routine. I feel that I have made a lot of friends over the years and facebook allows me to keep in touch with all of them because its newsfeed thingy reminds me that they exist. I like boing boing because it gives me access to lots of cool and interesting articles about different projects going in the political, science, and art world.
For the kinds of media that I like to view, I think that my favorite kinds are movies and animation. As far as movies go, I still really enjoy the event aspect of having to go to the theater to watch them, and sitting in the big dark room and experience peoples stories on the big screen. And as my education in media increases, I find myself enjoying people’s work more and more and I feel that I have been gaining a good critical eye for understanding the way that movies are made. I also really enjoy animation, especially stop motion and classical drawn, I hope to be more involved with animation as I progress in my career and I feel that learning flash will definitely increase my abilities to pursue these aspirations.

What I learned in class

I have to say I feel like I learned a lot from this class. It was my intention to specifically learn how to use both final cut and flash, and though I kind of accomplished the basics of both of these programs in other classes, I feel that the assignments given provided good practice for the skills I had learned. As far as 150 went, I also found that class to be very helpful as far as learning not only how to use other programs, such as Photoshop, but it gave a good basic understanding of how to use cameras and lighting equipment. I think this class is really well put together in the sense that it gives the students a taste of so many different aspects of media making, and it gave me a good idea of what I wanted to narrow my focus down to. However, I felt I was in an interesting position because I was forced to take these classes after I had already completed the now obsolete media 151, and had a lot of basics in this field accomplished from taking other classes, however, the hands on aspect of the class was definitely an improvement from the way things were done in the past. All and all, I thought this class was a great experience, and I find myself wanted to continue in a postproduction direction. I feel that I still have a lot to learn and it is unfortunate that I only have one semester left at Hunter and am only one analytical class away from finishing the media major, but I feel prepared to increase my skills by using the foundational skills gained from this class along with what I have learned in other classes and through outside experience in the media world.

What I Hear

I sat on the stoop of my apartment in Williamsburg in Brooklyn and listened for the sounds of my street. At first it was pretty quiet and all I could really hear was the wind blowing. It picked up and I could hear the branches rustling in the tree that was on the street. Then I saw some people walking by on the street talking in Spanish. Next I saw this guy walking down the street with this mannequin and his dog. I heard parts of the mannequin fall and the dog became a little scared and he told the dog not to be afraid. I sat there for a little longer and not much happened but I did hear some cars drive by and I could hear what music the people driving them were playing. I also heard an ice cream truck go by, but there weren’t any kids around so it didn’t stop. While I was sitting there, I also hear the front door to my apartment building squeek open and then slam shut and heard my neighbor’s footsteps as he went down the stoop. Some more people went by and were having conversation but not about anything too important. I also thought I might be able to hear the J train going over the Williamsburg bridge but I think I was only imagining it. After I sat out there I kind of realized that my block is pretty quiet, especially during the day.

Here's the album

I meant to post the album with the post

A Design I Like

One design that I like is the album cover to Bob Dylan’s Bringin it All Back Home. What I first noticed about this cover is the content of the photograph. The setting seems to take place in some kind of upper societal apartment which could represent class and prosperity, but the expressionless faces and a skewed items all around lead me to think that they are supposed to represent the disdain and dissatisfaction that some people experience when they become as famous as Bob Dylan had been at the time.
I also really like the way the camera seems to warp everything outside of that main circle. I feel that it adds to the chaos of the room’s clutter. Also the fallout shelter sign gives a very dystopian feel. One more thing about the photo in particular is that the tinted lighting gives a very dated feel to it, as if the events in this picture occurred a long time ago, but long ago in the sense that its far off from Bob Dylan’s present.
A final part that I like about the album cover is the contrast between the photo and the text. As I said the photo gives a very chaotic view of maybe the current times or of Bob Dylan’s life itself, but the text seems to give a very stark contrast. The text is very clean and seems to represent order and seems to me to really stand out against the disorderly photo. I feel like this is a very typical design of the 60’s where it mixes pretty standard fonts with an idea of chaos.

What I See

A movie that I watched recently that I thought had a very interesting approach to its filming is the Godfather. I got the idea to view this film after we watched that documentary about lighting, and having not seen it before, decided that it would be a good choice for this assignment. The first thing I had noticed specifically was the lighting of the film. It was mentioned in the documentary, but its yellowish tint I feel really dated the film in a good way. It made you really feel that the events were taking place during the forties. The way the lighting worked, it seemed to mimic old photographs and it made me feel like I was watching the actual story that I could speculate about when looking at an old photo.
Another lighting technique that I noticed was the use of shadows on the different characters. In the scenes where the Corleones or multiple families were meeting and doing business, the dp used lots of shadows on their faces to give a more ominous feel to the characters. I liked to how in the documentary the dp said that someone was concerned because you couldn’t see Marlon Brando’s eyes and his response, “exactly.”
I liked too how as the movie progressed the used less of the yellow tint in order to signify that time had been progressing multiple years as the movie went on. Aside from the lighting, I just wanted to say how much

Last week was our trip to the museum of moving images. It was both my second time there and my second time being part of an educational tour, and I have to say that I really enjoyed the museum both times.
Of all the exhibits, I would say that my favorite two were the stop motion strobe sculpture and the stop motion animation station. This time around I didn't get to see the sculpture, but I was so impressed by it on my first visit, I thought I might talk about it a little more. What I really enjoyed was how they showed you its appearance without the strobe light so that you could get a real sense of how the illusion worked.
I also enjoyed the stop motion animation station. It was fun to mess around with the pieces they gave us. I also enjoyed the little Monty Python video that they had playing. It was a cool little station, but I was a little disappointed that we didn't get as much time to spend with it as I had on my first visit. Come to think of it, I felt that much of the tour was a little rushed, and there were some exhibits that I saw the last time I went but did not get a chance to see them this time around.
In spite of that, I thought the museum was a fun trip. I had a good time and the tour guides there are always very informative. I would definitely love to return.

Hello

Hi, I'm Matt Gershowitz and welcome to my blog. I hope you will enjoy your stay. Here is a picture to look at while you wait for more posts.