Corrine: Communications Lab

Here's my storyboard. I've never worked with flash so some of these may not be as fully animated as I envision. I've written a story to include the copy, because i don't think my animation/drawing skills are to the point that I can really convey this story just in images. As Frank in "Motherless Brooklyn" says, "before you wanna be scarface, you gotta wanna be scabface."

Here's the story:

black bird loved to fly.
his friends could always find him floating above the clouds.
he had won the annual flying marathon three years in a row.
everyone was proud of their local champion.
one day black bird was flying and was struck by tragedy.
he left the hospital in tears. would he ever fly again?
he swallowed his grief and began to work. his one wing would need to be stronger to do the work of two.
black bird shocked everyone at the marathon. not only could he fly again, but take first place. he was still a champion.
when he held his trophy he forgot his arm's new strength and accidentally broke it in two.
he was devastated. he had worked so hard to prove that he was the same black bird.
the other black birds' words of comfort could not reach him.
he flew far away, well into the night.
he felt better after flying for so long and began to head home.
he ran into the other black birds who held a surprise. they had repaired his trophy and fixed the wings so he could hold it.
black bird was not the same black bird, but he was still a champion.

Posted by corrine at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I agree with the logic behind micropayments, but until there's a more cohesive payment system online, it just creates a roadblock to content which seems petty with a smaller amount. I would be pretty annoyed if I had to create a log in, enter all of my personal information, verify, all to give an artist 5¢ for viewing their work. I wouldn't mind if it were a one time registration and from there on a simple click, similar to itunes. Maybe publishers could get together and create as single online payment system that you can join and then use seamlessly on all of their sites.

My favorite online revenue model is salon.com. They give readers the choice between viewing an advertisement for a few seconds, or paying a subscription fee and view the site ad-free. I think it's a nice solution that doesn't alienate different users. The only problem with this is that a lot of independent artists have smaller audiences and can't attract advertisers - or have content of which advertisers may be weary.

Ultimately, I think users will contribute to worthwhile content online. The main problem now, is making it easier to purchase than it is to pirate.

Posted by corrine at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We all agreed on a loose story for our video shoot, which gave us a pretty concise set of shot lists. We wanted to be able to improvise shots as we found them and possibly use some found footage interspersed between the main story line. The whole video was pretty abstract, so that gave us much more freedom. We only needed the following key shots and focussed on those: dean being woken by death, dean and death playing chess, dean winning, death moving the chessboard, dean running.

The video was shot in Baeck's apartment. We met in the afternoon so the natural light was sufficent and we didn't make much use of the lighting kit at first. However, it started to get darker, so we played around with the lighting and that's how we discovered the shadows. We decided to film the running sequence using that, which was a relief because Dean was understandably hesitant to be running outside in his pajamas, as initially planned.

We borrowed a camera from school, but Baeck preferred to use his and already had a tape. He did most of the filming, we all helped direct the shots.

After we finished shooting, we came back and started digitizing the film. The editing was split between us all, although Dean managed to get a lot of it done on his own. He also composed some original music for the video, which fits really nicely. We had a lot more footage than we initially planned because we improvised quite a bit on the shoot: the shadows sequence, dean wandering through the hallway, the city shots. We hadn't been to Baeck's apartment beforehand, but found pretty ingenious ways to take advantage of the space/location. Once we had compiled all of the footage, we had a full sequence and decided to scrap the previous random images/footage idea - it would be too overwhelming, and long.

Once the editing was complete, we created the DVD in idvd and agreed upon a title. Initially we wanted it to be "exit" in French. Much to our chagrin, exit in French is "exit." Someone from another group recommended exit in Latin - "exunt" - and we all agreed.

I think we had a good approach in keeping a very simple story line that allowed for a lot of abstraction. We had a pretty limited timeframe and if we had too many required shots, we couldn't have gotten it done in time. All in all, I'm really happy with the way it came out. It's a bit dark, but in some parts pretty moving.

Posted by corrine at 02:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got my ticket for Scott McCloud yesterday ... thank you for arranging this! I'm pretty excited to hear him speak ...

Posted by corrine at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm working with Yasmin, Baeck and Dean - we all agreed upon doing a loose rendition of the famous scene from Seventh Seal where the main character plays chess with death. Here's our storyboard and shot list:

Posted by corrine at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)