I appreciated your thought process in this video. I can tell you spent time calculating the plot, organizing people, gathering equipment, editing, watching and so on…it seems though, that there was so much organized, that when it felt unorganized, it was really distracting….as in some of your lighting, color correction, voice over….when the loose ends showed up, they were noticeable as the rest of the video was “put together”…..but this is something that can be remedied by more time, less complications, and well….simplifying. now that you are working with big ideas, see if you can simplify the delivery of them…to save yourself more work, and, I suppose, say your point in a shorter sentence….

“If I had more time, I’d have written you a shorter letter” – Mark Twain

As it takes more time to really focus on what you want to say and how to say it, as opposed to babbling on and on….i think in this vein art/film/music/sound/etc is similar. Not that your video should have been shorter, that’s not it at all, its that I wanted to receive your message more clearly…with less distraction. Can you find a way to turn your attention to detail onto the visuals themselves? Can you balance the energy you spend on your thought process with making a beautiful video? Beautifully surreal, Intelligently grotesque? You’re almost there.

By the way, what is your message? You said in class that your main character was basically “soulless”….but I think your videos are more complicated than that, which is good. In your videos there is an internal process of an individual juxtaposed with external social architecture and the struggle that ensues. Are you conflicted? If you are, great! Most great artists are!!!! Maybe recognizing those conflictions would be a step for you as a creative person…for me, your ideas border on the existential, mythological, and social ways of being in the world. Read Jung, Foucault, and maybe even some Helen Keller. Do you know Butoh? Kazuo Ono is somehow related to what you are doing…a conflict between physical/internal/mystical/societal…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUjhQLB0hXY&feature=related

Anyhoo, your film was one of the densest, in terms of heady ideas, in the class thus far. Which, I appreciate. Thank you for trying to make me learn something and make me feel something at the same time…most videos don’t. Whatever you do, don’t stop making art, you have a keen eye and a keener mind.

Although, I will say there are ways to combine stop animation and acting successfully…here is an example from seattle based artists britta Johnson and d.k pan… http://vimeo.com/11446257 ….do you see how they use adult/child psychology to form meaning in their work? They take a fantastical idea and form mythology around it and relate it to the viewer. They give us an experience of discovery, similar to your stop animation work, it gives the viewer a moment to…. WONDER, MARVEL, ENJOY, whatever you want to call it.

Also, there is something to be said for illustrating an existing story with stop animation…another by d.k. pan… http://vimeo.com/35038113 …this story makes me feel elated/sad/confused/moved in a really good way…it speaks to my child side and my adult side again…

You mentioned you didn’t like Svankmejer or Thu Tran…why? Can you try to talk about it? When you realize what you don’t find interesting in others work, it helps identify what you like in your own work. I encourage to watch them again and listen to your instinct when you are deciding why you don’t “like” something and why you do “like” something…there is more to art than just liking it or not…we, as makers, have to really analyze what moves us and what doesn’t…once you begin to figure this out for yourself, you can implement elements that you do appreciate into your own work…

When it comes to the ideas in your work, I understand what your intent is when you talk about it, but I don’t see that intent in your videos…yet. I think you will get there. During this time though, hone your skills, make more animations, make more puppets, find more to express with your puppets, make me care about them, what they go through, tell me their story, so that I can relate my own experiences to theirs and form meaning from your work, because as of right now, im unsure if your work means something to you. Does it? What does making video mean to you? Why do you make the things you make? For a grade or….for something else?

Stylistically, stop animation is very popular right now in music videos….there are some really great animators out there…..check em out…

Allison Schulnik   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puph1hejMQE

Michel Gondry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q27BfBkRHbs

I think most people, especially in Western Culture, want to feel. And think. At the same time. While looking at something interesting. That moves. And maybe even eating popcorn while doing all those things…..! Which I think you can do already! Really!……but the question then morphs into….

How do you resonate your intent with your audience? How do you affect people after they’ve seen your creation? In the case of your film, would it have resonated with me more, if it had been longer? What if moved through time differently, instead of one straight shot? I would have liked to have seen the details of her hair, or nails, or curtains while hearing her words. I would have liked to have time to get to know her before she cries on my bed, not much time, maybe even only a minute, but some bit of identity that I can hold on to, relate with, or project on to…before im swung into emotion. I would have liked to take her out of context a little, maybe by a projection, installation, or a mask tool….

Have you seen this…by a fellow grad student at the uw…

Rodrigo Valenzuela… http://vimeo.com/35288013…He does this thing where he eludes to emotion to create emotion, as there are no tears and only glimpses of vulnerability

….lets compare that with this….

Bas Jan Ader…. http://www.basjanader.com/….who goes straight for emotion without giving us any context or identity

Then there is this by Leif Anderson….http://leifjacobanderson.com/index.php?/project/im-not-proud/……who uses alternative spaces to create more emotional weight with his video work.

I wanted to show you these so you can see how other artists (in video) work with emotion, intellect, and narrative. And how the execution of that story by you becomes the piece, so its not just her story, its yours in a way too.

Its been interesting to see your video range over the past months. There was collage, fictional narrative, and now more like documentary…I like that you are searching for something and are trying new forms of storytelling to discover it. I encourage you to continue to experiment, as every experiment you do will lead you closer to your voice. You seem like a project-based artist, one who can really commit on one project or idea, carry it out, and move on to another, this is strength of yours. Use it. I will ask, once you have honed your story telling strengths, what stories will you tell? What do you care about enough to tell people? And how do you give voice to your own story?

When people can reference something as loaded as say Kurt Cobain, it really changes things. I start thinking about his life and capitalism and grunge, which I don’t think is where you want my mind to go. I think you want it the other way around….where I don’t have any reference point and I end up losing myself to a moment, to a passing thought, to a passing motion. This kind of thing…. http://vimeo.com/2601707 by Jonas Mekas, who, in this short video is paying homage to Henry David threau, just as you pay homage to Kurt. One of the major keys in using someone else’s work in your work…is making it your work. I.e. stepping away from the literalness of retelling a story that Kurt told and making it YOUR STORY inspired by Kurt, as Jonas Mekas steps away from Walden (by Thoreau) and makes it his own thing.  But I don’t think you are out to make tributes to others’ work your whole life. I think you are searching for something more mysterious and you are just beginning to discover it.

Watch these.

Bas Jan Ader http://www.basjanader.com/

Jonas Mekas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhmZ7C-oXDY

Gasper Noe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cx_LMMUgJ8 (be warned this movie is VERY graphic)

Research these.

Tehching Hsieh http://www.tehchinghsieh.com/

Linda Montano http://www.lindamontano.com/living_art/index.html

Fred Tomaselli http://www.artabase.net/exhibition/2311-fred-tomaselli

Fred talking about his work http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/fred-tomaselli/video/

It also seems like you are overwhelmed with options, I only see this in you because I am similarly overwhelmed. Maybe limit yourself, as a lot of artists do, to one or two strategies. For example, a lot of sound artists put limits on what sounds they actually use to experiment with in their performances. Other artists restrict themselves to one medium and expand it….take Stanley Kubrick…who focuses on filmmaking, but set out to make every genre of film he could…take your previous film of your friend when the camera was connected to him…..I could have watched that, just that, his nuanced facial expressions, his gait, his background, for many minutes, just as a portrait, with the diagetic audio included. And I could have seen what you see in him, why you chose him to study, why you chose to be around him, and how his experiences relate to my own life.

Lastly, it seems you are drawn to science, psychedelic, mindfulness…and the unknown. Let us experience those interests of yours with you. Record what confuses you, so we can be confused too. Record what changes you, so we can be changed too. This does not have to be epic, actually, its better if it is not, its better if you record the small, the quotidian, the everyday, and let us find the grand within it. Whatever you do, don’t stop making art when the class is over, you have something, pursue it.

 A few people who make powerful documentaries for me are Errol Morris, check out “Vernon, Florida” for sure. Here is a short clip http://vimeo.com/28746985 , oh and another short clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RMRMf_-j0s&feature=related . Another great film of his is “Fast Cheap and Out of Control”…….. (http://www.videodetective.com/movies/fast-cheap-and-out-of-control/529186 ) (SEEEE IT)  I think there are similar sensibilities, albeit different ones too, in both your work and his. It’s a kind of letting go as a director, and just letting the talent be the talent, and you be you, maybe just guiding them along to where you might want to go. Which, as you know, takes a certain trust between the filmmaker and the talent, and I think you attain that kind of trust in your video.

 Another documentary director that I’m really really moved by is Jonas Mekas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhmZ7C-oXDY Another one of his films…. http://vimeo.com/2601707 ………..

 I think these directors celebrate life, as in they don’t ignore the struggles of our everyday consciousness and our awareness of it, but they don’t forget about all the beauty and meaning we’ve created in the world either. They don’t try to define a certain emotion or idea, they just let it be as it is and let the audience have the discovery of its emotional weight…which I think is similar to how you work.

 I think your video (in a perfect world) would benefit from even more time spent with this woman… (Making a video takes so much time! The relationships you must cultivate, the recording of the footage, the watching, the editing, the viewing, the re-editing and so on and so on….) It would be really interesting to see what you could do with more time and a bigger commitment. In all, I hope you continue to follow video portraiture/documentary in an experimental way as I really do think you have a unique eye for certain nuances in time, especially when you are focused on your intent, whatever that may be. By the way….what is your intent as a video maker?

a recent video i made

these are scanned images of the first frame and the last frame on rolls of film i have taken from 2007-2012