Gone Viral

The Ted Talk by Kevin Allocca was quite insightful, showing us how tastemakers (quite often celebrities) begin trends for videos to go viral. This is much easier today through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But wait. Isn't YouTube also a social media website within its own right? It has similar interactions of sharing, commenting, and networking with other users as other social media sites. It allows tribes of people, as Seth Godin calls groups of people with similar interests, to connect in yet another way. And yet to me it appears that most videos that went viral in 2011 were not connected to a specific tribe. Nor were they a call to action. Instead, most seemed to be pointless and funny or adorably cute, with an auto-tuned pop song and an auto commercial thrown in. It appears to me that the majority of viewers are in for quick, rapid fire, easy-to-get entertainment. Some of which became lucky enough to become a pop culture phenomenon either in its universal berating (Rebecca Black's Friday) or by ease of reference and the humor related to it (Honey Badger).

The top ten viral videos of 2011 according to TIME magazine were:

1. Friday - Rebecca Black
2. The Homeless Man With the Golden Voice
3. Volkswagen's "The Force" Commercial
4. Jack Sparrow - Michael Bolton & Lonely Island
5. Father-Daughter Duet (A father and his little girl singing Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes.
6. Webcam 101 for Seniors
7. My Drunk Kitchen: Brunch?
8. Anderson Cooper Cracks Up
9. Dancing Thom Yorke
10. Honey Badger

Interestingly enough the Like/Dislike button has been disable for Friday. Perhaps once outclassing none other than Justin Bieber for the most disliked video on YouTube requires such dire actions.

Now I will go and clean out my browser history after even typing the words "Rebecca Black" and "Justin Bieber" into this blog.

The Pursuit of Perfection

Life isn't perfect. I'm not perfect, I'm human. Truth is, we live in an imperfect world. And yet, here we are surrounded by advertisements and images that promote the attainment of the impossible, largely thanks to computers. The moment you Photoshop an image it becomes produced. It becomes fake. Sometimes Photoshop is pushed too far, and the retouched images begin to feel constructed. This is what happened in the pursuit of perfectionism by the German music production companies. In their efforts to produce something that looked and sounded better, they crossed the line of reality. Because no matter how hard we try, computers simply cannot replace reality. At least not yet. Because computers rely on mathematical algorithms which are designed to create something exact. But the thing is, something like music, or rough theater is not perfect. A musician may strum too hard on a guitar or an actor may speak too softly. But people have come to accept these imperfections. Otherwise the line of reality is crossed and the product becomes an uncomfortable experience for the consumer.

This relates to the discussion we had today in class about some of the new HDTVs. They are simply too clear. When looking at others around us, the human eye cannot possibly see that clear. It is almost as if our television set has turned into a microscope. Every detail is in sharp focus and this disconcerts us because the effect is not natural. As if the image we are viewing on screen contains inorganic creations as opposed to actual human beings. Our brains perceive that this level of perfection is unattainable by those who are simply human, and that is one of the reasons such technology makes us uncomfortable.

The Truth Is Out There...

I was extremely excited to work with film as it was something I had never before had the chance to experience. Yet it was also a very daunting task to undertake as we had one minute, and one take to get our shot absolutely perfect. Since the camera was in my hands, it was probably one of the most stressful projects I have been a part of since coming to UNCW last year.

My group chose to make a one minute monster movie. Think about Monster Quest, but without a budget or sound recording and you'd have our concept. As we were shooting on high contrast B&W film we felt that playing off an old-time news interview would be the best route to go. Matt M. was the person who sighted the "monster", Levi played the reporter, while Stanford was left to be the monster with me behind the camera. After checking, triple checking, and running through our script multiple times we were finally ready to roll the camera. Everything during shooting went absolutely perfect. Everyone seemed in focus, timing was perfect, and the "monster" got right up to the camera with "blood" pouring out of his mouth. Then the camera falls to the ground and dies. Perfect. Great. Wonderful.

But that is where the good ended. We returned to the darkroom only to open the camera and discover that our film had jumped off the sprockets, or some equally devastating tragedy. About a third of our film had wrapped around the daylight spool. The rest was folded tightly throughout the body of the camera, bent to the point that it developed with thick, black lines across it. We also lost the climax of our film where the monster murders the reporter and camera operator. Disappointment struck full on. To the point we even considered a reshoot.

In the end we chose not to reshoot and instead work to use sound to recover what footage we did end up with. Although the film is not yet entirely finished, I cannot wait to see what happens to it in postproduction. It is going to still be awesome, I'm sure!

Films Without Cameras

At first I was skeptical of this project, being that it was experimental. While the theme of earth, fire,water, and air intrigued me, I was unsure how to even begin representing them with the materials supplied. But slowly, as I looked at the paints, inks, and sharp little metal objects ideas began to take shape. Blue ink blown downclear leader would represent water as it merged with green ink to show the merger of water and land. Along with a cracked desert through the use of crackle nail polish. Knowing what to expect with rayograms, I chose a selection of natural materials along with metals to mark my film. The real challenge for me came when attempting to design an animation. I am not an artistic

person when it comes to drawing by hand or drawing digitally. Yet in the end, the seemingly most difficult part of my project became the quickest and most simple. While attempting to portray the elements through poorly-drawn figures, I remembered back to my Japanese lessons from many years ago. Each kanji symbol isone of the elements. The kanji rearrange themselves into the next element, all followed by the kanji for the number one. Roughly alluding to the elements being one.

Overall, this first project, and my first time truly creating a cameraless film was very interesting as well as

rewarding. While initially I felt this project would be dull and boring, I see now how fascinating it is when viewing everyone's interpretations of the elements, and different manipulations of the same supplies. After this project, I will no longer be able to look at experimental film the same way again.