Lighting observation #3

There's usually a candle lit in my room.
The light that the candles give off is much more relaxing than the brighter light bulbs on the ceiling. I like the orange tone it gives everything and the soft feathering to the border of its reach. It feels more natural and I think that's a combination of the color and the movement. It's not a static light, unlike the light from a lamp. It feels more natural and organic and, overall, just gives a better feeling.
I think colored light in general helps the light feel more natural. Even if it's a colder color like blue, it gives a different context to the light that makes it easier to accept it as part of something rather than just light for the sake of light.

Lighting observation #2

The windows in my apartment create clear rectangles of light. It's especially jarring when I looked at how the sunlight spread over my cat's fur.
While the light that came through the window completely highlighted his side and tail, his entire front of in shadow.
I used one of these moments for taking pictures for the project. In the picture, his front is largely made up of one tone of dark gray. Near the top of his head, some of the fur catches a little bit of light. But the real contrast comes out against the border of his nose which cuts in front of the portion of him that looks completely white from the amount of light that's shining on him. Even though the image is in black and white, this contrast gives the image a feeling of warmth on the whiter parts and a feeling of colder shade on the dark parts.
It's a really versatile feeling created by just the amount of light, even when limited to a black and white style.

Lighting observation #1

My favorite shot I took for the picture project was of a sparkler. When I started thinking about what to do for an abstract picture, I immediately thought of sparklers because the let off such a bright burst of concentrated light and I thought it would be fun to capture that in a weird way.
The final shot shows one globe of light at the center with multiple flecks of light pushing out from it. I love the contrast between the lines of light and the dark background. There are spots where the light blurs into a gray that melts into the background, but other spots have clear borders between the sparks and the background.
You can also see how the light from the sparkler casts an area of light on the deck posts behind it. There are areas of bright white and, around this area, shadows of varying grays.

In response to Assignment 1b

I felt like the majority of the assignment relied on experimentation. I'm not sure if that's just what the essence of sound design is or if it was because I'm so unfamiliar with the process of it. Either way, I thought it was fun to dig through the different sounds and see what we could turn them into either by using effects or by changing their context.
I feel like the context of the sounds was ultimately the most important part of constructing the soundscape. Not only did dialogue taken out of context change the situation, but taking things such as a checkout beep and combining it with other sounds made our minds jump to the image of a heartbeat.
I liked that when we created our soundscape we were able to build a sense of differing space based on ambient noises. It made the final project really interesting because it seemed to jump from place to place but it was easy for my brain to follow the progression.

In response to "The Absolute Film"

I think the most important connection to take away from this article is that between the concept of absolute cinema and the dada art movement. Dadaism pretty much encompasses the creation of art just to be art, which is the same definition I took away from the descriptions about film in the article.
What seems to be really defining for absolute cinema itself is that it uses means only privy to the medium of film, which I think connects strongly to one of the generally accepted criteria in experimental film wherein the pieces drawn attention to their existence as film. This presentation of "absolute cinema" in conjunction with what I already know about experimental film created a more solid understanding of what it meant to make something experimental. Mainly, I think I can word it as making a film to just be a film instead of a story or a piece that makes a point.

Synesthesia & cymatics

Synesthesia has always been something that's interested me. Looking at how the senses mix puts an emphasis on how closely connected our senses are. Sounds are associated with images in our heads in a way that pulls out memories whenever we hear something distinct enough. Synesthesia is a much more intense connection and I think it's interesting to think about how people with this trait must view movies. It's a great discussion to look at while looking at film aesthetics. Especially since, as filmmakers, we're often encourages to make sure all of our images and sounds are pleasing together.
Cymatics is something that I've heard of before mainly just as sensations on the internet. I've seen a few videos of adjusting pitches to make images in sand, but I mostly always thought of videos of paint on or above speakers so that the sound of a song made a physical image for viewers to look at. I love thinking about the idea of converting sound into a visual picture that can be looked at and even enjoyed to the same amount that the sound itself is.

Sound recording experience

Looking for sounds was a surprisingly fun experience. Going into the project, I thought it would be a serious struggle to find noises that we thought we unique enough to capture. It turned out to be fun because everything seemed to make its own sound that was completely different.
While we were recording and looking over sounds afterwards, we talked about different things that each sound reminded us of. The sound we captured of hitting shells against a cement pillar sounded surprisingly wet, almost as if we were slapping water instead of a hard surface.
We also found sounds that I ended up really loving. I really enjoyed the ambiance we captured in the cafe of a bookstore. Our group also pointed out how in some of our bookstore recordings we could faintly hear the music that was playing over the speakers. It sounded pretty freaky through the headphones while we recorded.
Overall, it was really fun to experiment and listen more closely to sounds that I normally wouldn't have thought about.