-
Ambition
2004-11-30 13:49:22
Ambition can out distance ability. Impatience can also thwart ambition.
The good ideas vs. the good video:
It takes much more than what looks like a good idea to make a good video. The execution matters more than the planning. Good planning can help with execution, but it isn’t necessary. What matters is how hard you work and how well your video works with its target audience. I think.
The artistic struggle is a pain in the ass.
The unforgivable sin for the entertainer is to bore the audience. Nothing is anathema; nothing is forbidden, except boredom. There is no greater flaw than to make something boring.
-
Montage
2004-11-02 17:29:33
"One of the familiar parables about montage, and how it works, describes how the Russian director Pudovkin (or in some versions his teacher, Kuleshov--the story varies but the moral is the same) performed an experiment with the great actor Mosjukhin. Pudovkin told Mosjukhin nothing, only to "look at the wall," then took a lengthy close-up in which Mosjukhin looks off-camera, but you can't see at what.
Then Pudovkin got some stock footage of a banquet table, of a beautiful woman, of a cute child. He intercut these stock shots with Mosjukhin looking at the wall. When he projected it, the audience saw: steaming food, close-up of Mosjukhin looking off-camera; beautiful woman, Mosjukhin looking; charming child, Mosjukhin looking.
And the audience said, "What a genius Mosjukhin is! With just the subtlest movements of his face, first he saw the food and showed us hunger; then he saw the woman, and showed us mute desire; and then he saw the child, and somehow conveyed a warm, protective love."19
It was all just the same shot, of course, of Mosjukhin looking at the wall. In this way Pudovkin made the point that montage does not simply connect shots, it creates something new, that was present in neither shot before. "
-
flaws
2004-10-28 11:36:49
I think I figure out part of what I did wrong in my recent music video. I picked a song with contradicted the main dramatic theme of my visual material.
I selected scenes about Li’s apparent crush on Yukito. In those scenes, however, Li is struggling with his feelings. I think that Li does feels drawn to Yukito, but he is very torn. Those feelings of attraction are confusing and frightening to him. SO whenever Yukito gets too close, then Li has to run away to relieve his inner tension.
I paired this inner tension with a song that was about someone who is honesty in love. The singer has no doubt or confusion about his own feelings. The tension in the song comes from doubt about the other person loving the singer back. The singer seems to be devoted to a person who is not as deeply in love with the singer. Hence there is a touch of sadness to the song.
The themes don’t quite line up. One drowns out the other. They are similar but have key differences.
Plus the video is rather boring.
So I have promised myself to be more careful with my song selection next time. I want to make sure that my dramatic themes align perfectly. Also I am going to work with material that has stronger percussion.
-
New Music Video
2004-10-25 11:56:23
YES!
I just completed my latest music video. I hope that it gets a lot of luv. It was a strange premise (Li x Yukito) that popped into my mind while I was making my last music video. (And doing this one I got an idea for yet another Cardcaptor video, but I think I will hold off on that idea.)
I am trying to learn patience from all of this and accept that I am learning something each time that I make a music video that will help me to make a better one next time. Patience is not easy for me. I want to make a great music video, but I know that will take time.
-
Deadlines
2004-10-14 11:50:00
I hate deadlines. Actually hate isn’t a strong enough word. I despise deadlines. I just cannot stand them. I feel as if I am literally going to die if I don’t finish in time. A deadline gets me all worked up. It activates all of my anxiety, which is always way too high to begin with. Then it calls up my defiance to authority. I hate people telling me what to do. When somebody orders me what to do then all I want to do is defy them in whatever way will frustrate them the most.
Yet without deadlines, then I never get anything done. I am all for starting things. I always have new inspiration to start things. I recently read that for creative people sometimes the hardest thing in the world is finishing the job. I have heard this before, but as I read it recently, it is back on the top of my mind. Deadlines, for all their wickedness, provide me with a reason to force myself to finish the job.
So occasionally I have to make-up an imaginary deadline to force myself to complete a task. But even these imaginary deadlines evoke all of my worst reactions to a deadline.
JOURNAL: storyteller (Alexander T)
Current server time: Jan 14, 2025 07:36:23