Since we'll soon be seeing a dance performance at the Krannert Museum, centered around the exhibit of Audubon prints, I thought it might be a good time to starting thinking about birds, so I'm posting three videos on the subject. This first is a clip from the movie Winged Migration, a profoundly beautiful documentary on the migratory patterns (and adventures) of birds around the world.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The music of birds
French composer Olivier Messiaen was fascinated by the sounds that birds make, and their vocal landscapes influenced his music. He often transcribed bird "song" for piano, even orchestra. Here's an example from his composition, "Little Sketches of Birds."
And check out this website, which includes a fine essay on his methods, has another musical example, and is illustrated throughout by the work of Audubon: http://www.lichtensteiger.de/messiaen_oiseaux.html
And make sure, after you listen to Messiaen's music, that you also listen to the extraordinary sounds of the Lyre bird,as presented by David Attenborough, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y
And check out this website, which includes a fine essay on his methods, has another musical example, and is illustrated throughout by the work of Audubon: http://www.lichtensteiger.de/messiaen_oiseaux.html
And make sure, after you listen to Messiaen's music, that you also listen to the extraordinary sounds of the Lyre bird,as presented by David Attenborough, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y
Monday, March 16, 2009
the beginning of poetry...
The characteristic silence of the audience was shattered.
The speech bubble reminded me of returning home for Christmas break this year to my family who had continued life without me. I secretly hoped I wouldn’t miss anything going on in our suburban town or within the walls of our four-bedroom home, but not all wishes come true.
As printed in the Warhol booklet, “everybody becomes a celebrity” through the method of capturing portraits with a Polaroid camera.
This class has been a "first" for me in many ways as I have experienced performances and discussions that I have had nowhere else.
The volume and change in pitch made me jump out of my seat, as it was unexpected. It was like I had just turned the corner at a Haunted House and even though no scream came from my mouth, my body language suggested that I was definitely surprised.
So I went in as a blank slate.
The show was bizarre.
Rather than revealing something that would make the audience less impressed, this thin white bar allowed the jumper to jump higher, display his tricks and make the audience laugh louder.
It's really all about perspective.
The speech bubble reminded me of returning home for Christmas break this year to my family who had continued life without me. I secretly hoped I wouldn’t miss anything going on in our suburban town or within the walls of our four-bedroom home, but not all wishes come true.
As printed in the Warhol booklet, “everybody becomes a celebrity” through the method of capturing portraits with a Polaroid camera.
This class has been a "first" for me in many ways as I have experienced performances and discussions that I have had nowhere else.
The volume and change in pitch made me jump out of my seat, as it was unexpected. It was like I had just turned the corner at a Haunted House and even though no scream came from my mouth, my body language suggested that I was definitely surprised.
So I went in as a blank slate.
The show was bizarre.
Rather than revealing something that would make the audience less impressed, this thin white bar allowed the jumper to jump higher, display his tricks and make the audience laugh louder.
It's really all about perspective.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
found poetry
- making poems from entries in class blog posts
- people's voices coming through in their posts
- you come to class and discover that different people had the same reactions
- pull together different reactions to the same event
-- sometimes similar, sometimes completely different
-- find music (or images, video etc.) online to go with lines from posts
-- like a dream, mixing things together in different ways, all coming from different sources
-- like a diamond: the more angles you have on something, the meaning multiplies geometrically
- Renga (Japanese collaborative poetry)
- renting cameras from the library? (Luna will check on it) PG's camera
- this reminds me of....
- this makes me think of....
- this makes me feel....
- don't be afraid to put in parts of your past lives, your stories, things that move us
- people's voices coming through in their posts
- you come to class and discover that different people had the same reactions
- pull together different reactions to the same event
-- sometimes similar, sometimes completely different
-- find music (or images, video etc.) online to go with lines from posts
-- like a dream, mixing things together in different ways, all coming from different sources
-- like a diamond: the more angles you have on something, the meaning multiplies geometrically
- Renga (Japanese collaborative poetry)
- renting cameras from the library? (Luna will check on it) PG's camera
- this reminds me of....
- this makes me think of....
- this makes me feel....
- don't be afraid to put in parts of your past lives, your stories, things that move us
brainstorming
- multiple representations of a single idea
- Theme and variation (or variations w/o a theme)
- something visual; sound; writing
- saxophone, piano
- spoken word
- sound effects in Garageband (or Logic)
- poem with dialogue
- story as blog
-- goes backwards in time
-- comments become part of the story (secondary characters)
- make a video
-- live action or animated? machinima?
- video essay
-- PG's "Bring me the head of Diogo Alves"
- Theme and variation (or variations w/o a theme)
- something visual; sound; writing
- saxophone, piano
- spoken word
- sound effects in Garageband (or Logic)
- poem with dialogue
- story as blog
-- goes backwards in time
-- comments become part of the story (secondary characters)
- make a video
-- live action or animated? machinima?
- video essay
-- PG's "Bring me the head of Diogo Alves"
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Narrative stacking/spoiler alert!
Don't read this if you haven't yet looked at the "World Builder" video yet!
But I'd like to make a few points about narrative here, in relation to this video. The graphics are impressive, but in my opinion, carry the weak narrative along. Makes sense, perhaps, that only one day was spent filming, two years honing the special effects.
The video's narrative is made of essentially four distinctive blocks. The man lying down in an empty landscape, examining photos of a woman that float in the air. Then, he begins constructing an elaborate world--a few streets of what appears to be some European city setting. Then, the woman from the photos appears from a doorway and takes in the world, delighted. Finally, the world deconstructs itself, and we see the woman lying in a hospital bed, see on a sign what the world building has been all about. I haven't mentioned the cheesy use of a flower, by the way, but its use at the end, in which the digital flower appears in an actual glass of actual water, is a too well-worn "surprise" that film has used again and again: a person returns from a fantasy world, and yet carries with him/her some object from that world, which implies that it wasn't a fantasy at all.
Thinking of our discussion on Shakespearean Design in the last class, though, how could the four blocks of the narrative described above be moved around, rearranged to create perhaps a more interesting narrative? What might be added to it, or subtracted, to transform the story's meaning? Any ideas you might come up with we could discuss in our next class.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
The healing holograph
How to build a holographic world, and why.
Filming took one day; post-production graphics, two years.
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
Filming took one day; post-production graphics, two years.
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Cirque Eloize
Going to the circus with my best friend, I expected giant elephants, spitting fire, and roaring tigers. Walking into the theater I quickly realized that this was not going to be that kind of circus.
The setting was dark and foggy, the exact opposite of what I thought it would be like. We immediately drooled over 'Stephane' and laughed at the swinging light and their random stories with hard to understand accents. They were all characters in a story, but I didn't realize that until towards the end.
The Martial Arts part was by far the most amusing. I could not stop laughing for 5 minutes straight. My stomach hurt. The men trying to mock the martial artist and failed miserably. They kicked each other, hit each other and fell down to the floor. I haven't laughed that hard in I don't know how long.
The part that amazed me the most was the big iron ball with 4 people all moving around it, holding onto each other and swinging round and round. This made me think of a team. They put all their trust in the others to hold them up, balance it out, and be elegant all at the same time. I enjoyed watching how they were all intertwined and moved around each other where i would lose them and only be seeing one object, instead of the many things it held.
The trampoline made my heart jump. They could jump so high! I was jealous. I wanted to jump on that trampoline. My favorite part was seeing them vanish on the ceiling, and drop out of nowhere to then vanish again.
That brings me to the xylophone players. They were hilarious, fighing over which song to play and how fast to play it. The sound was incredible but their stage presence was even better. Throughout the piece there were little things falling out of the sky onto them, ending with hundreds of them pouring out of the sky. This made me think about the dance performace where the strawberry fell out of the sky. Theres something about objects falling out of thin air that excites me.
The one thing I thought about the most was the little iron sculpture that wheeled in and out of stage throughout the performance. At first I thought it was just one random thing in the beginning of the show to be funny. Then I thought it was creepy. Then I loved it and wanted it to come out more and more. I thought about this little creature as one of the characters. I wondered why they put this random robotic sculpture in the story line at all, then realized that it would not be the same without it. It served a purpose. I'm still trying to figure out what its real purpose was, but honestly, that rolling robotic sculpture is the thing that stuck in my mind the most in Cirque Eloize. And maybe thats why they put it in there.
I loved that they had a storyline, characters and music. The music was absolutely amazing. It brough emotion to the whole story. I even teared up at the end. I very much enjoyed this unique circus and hope to see another like it.
The setting was dark and foggy, the exact opposite of what I thought it would be like. We immediately drooled over 'Stephane' and laughed at the swinging light and their random stories with hard to understand accents. They were all characters in a story, but I didn't realize that until towards the end.
The Martial Arts part was by far the most amusing. I could not stop laughing for 5 minutes straight. My stomach hurt. The men trying to mock the martial artist and failed miserably. They kicked each other, hit each other and fell down to the floor. I haven't laughed that hard in I don't know how long.
The part that amazed me the most was the big iron ball with 4 people all moving around it, holding onto each other and swinging round and round. This made me think of a team. They put all their trust in the others to hold them up, balance it out, and be elegant all at the same time. I enjoyed watching how they were all intertwined and moved around each other where i would lose them and only be seeing one object, instead of the many things it held.
The trampoline made my heart jump. They could jump so high! I was jealous. I wanted to jump on that trampoline. My favorite part was seeing them vanish on the ceiling, and drop out of nowhere to then vanish again.
That brings me to the xylophone players. They were hilarious, fighing over which song to play and how fast to play it. The sound was incredible but their stage presence was even better. Throughout the piece there were little things falling out of the sky onto them, ending with hundreds of them pouring out of the sky. This made me think about the dance performace where the strawberry fell out of the sky. Theres something about objects falling out of thin air that excites me.
The one thing I thought about the most was the little iron sculpture that wheeled in and out of stage throughout the performance. At first I thought it was just one random thing in the beginning of the show to be funny. Then I thought it was creepy. Then I loved it and wanted it to come out more and more. I thought about this little creature as one of the characters. I wondered why they put this random robotic sculpture in the story line at all, then realized that it would not be the same without it. It served a purpose. I'm still trying to figure out what its real purpose was, but honestly, that rolling robotic sculpture is the thing that stuck in my mind the most in Cirque Eloize. And maybe thats why they put it in there.
I loved that they had a storyline, characters and music. The music was absolutely amazing. It brough emotion to the whole story. I even teared up at the end. I very much enjoyed this unique circus and hope to see another like it.
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Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Cirque Eloize
Well, I experienced that "other perspective" that I hoped for on Tuesday night. Our tickets confused the ushers at first but we were then guided to seats behind a white counter that typically is reserved for critics. While I was still a part of the audience, I was able to pretend that I had a different perspective because of my new placement in the theater.
The show opened with dramatic music and the eventual introduction of what I call the three MC's who provided comic relief between acts.
The semi-transparent curtain separated the foreground from the background on stage. It made another barrier between the audience and performers. The curtain was lifted at various times throughout the performance but I thought it was an interesting feature as I was asking myself "Is this real?" as if the performers were behind a TV screen.
The combination of the curtain and fog added a mysterious, eerie appeal. The show was bizarre. There was a variety of stunts, music and jokes which kept the audience entertained. I thought Act I was good until I saw Act II, which I thought was even better. I particularly liked the trampoline scene. Again the use of the curtains made this engaging as the audience had a limited perspective. This reminded me of a film shown in wide screen versus full screen. I always feel as though I'm missing something when I watch a film in wide screen. Why do the black bars above and below the picture have to be there? I assume that if there's something important, the camera will eventually pan. Yet I still want to know what's happening outside of the primary action. I felt the same way when watching the visually captivating trampoline jumpers. I wanted to know their tricks and see the behind the scenes, or in this case behind the black walls. Eventually, the curtains lowered and raised to reveal a bar near the ceiling that one of the performers grabbed before jumping back down. Rather than revealing something that would make the audience less impressed, this thin white bar allowed the jumper to jump higher, display his tricks and make the audience laugh louder.
I also enjoyed the xylophone scene and the objects dropping from the "sky." I'm still not sure what fell but I hoped that it would eventually downpour on stage because it was very neat to watch. This was also similar to the White Out dance performance with the unexpected, objects entering the stage.
It's really all about perspective. The audience in the balcony essentially has a different view than the front row who directly engaged with some of the performers. My perspective from the critics corner to the 2nd floor library allows me to expand my personal view into a collective opinion of yet another exciting show.
The show opened with dramatic music and the eventual introduction of what I call the three MC's who provided comic relief between acts.
The semi-transparent curtain separated the foreground from the background on stage. It made another barrier between the audience and performers. The curtain was lifted at various times throughout the performance but I thought it was an interesting feature as I was asking myself "Is this real?" as if the performers were behind a TV screen.
The combination of the curtain and fog added a mysterious, eerie appeal. The show was bizarre. There was a variety of stunts, music and jokes which kept the audience entertained. I thought Act I was good until I saw Act II, which I thought was even better. I particularly liked the trampoline scene. Again the use of the curtains made this engaging as the audience had a limited perspective. This reminded me of a film shown in wide screen versus full screen. I always feel as though I'm missing something when I watch a film in wide screen. Why do the black bars above and below the picture have to be there? I assume that if there's something important, the camera will eventually pan. Yet I still want to know what's happening outside of the primary action. I felt the same way when watching the visually captivating trampoline jumpers. I wanted to know their tricks and see the behind the scenes, or in this case behind the black walls. Eventually, the curtains lowered and raised to reveal a bar near the ceiling that one of the performers grabbed before jumping back down. Rather than revealing something that would make the audience less impressed, this thin white bar allowed the jumper to jump higher, display his tricks and make the audience laugh louder.
I also enjoyed the xylophone scene and the objects dropping from the "sky." I'm still not sure what fell but I hoped that it would eventually downpour on stage because it was very neat to watch. This was also similar to the White Out dance performance with the unexpected, objects entering the stage.
It's really all about perspective. The audience in the balcony essentially has a different view than the front row who directly engaged with some of the performers. My perspective from the critics corner to the 2nd floor library allows me to expand my personal view into a collective opinion of yet another exciting show.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
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