Wholphin now has online shorts
Been a fan of the dvd since no.1
Wim Wenders The Logic of Images
The angels are dressed in black trenchcoats, and shot in black and white, in Wings of Desire
I enjoyed reading his interviews, even though I haven’t seen half of his films, like King of the Road (on my list). I engaged most with his discussions about process. In his essay “impossible stories,” he puts his films into two general categories: those which evolve, from the inside-out, and those which proceed from the outside-in. One type of film is made with an “open system” – unscripted, based on an idea, unsure of how it will end ; the other a “closed system”- scripted, with the ending known before beginning. It stands to reason since he used to be a painter. There were similarities between his and Lynch’s processes.
Another thing – for him, images don’t automatically lend themselves to story – he has to “force” them into storytelling. “My thesis is that for me as a filmmaker, narrative involves forcing the images in some way. Sometimes this manipulation becomes narrative art, but not necessarily. Often enough, the result is only abused images.”
“Wings of Desire,” 1987 – nice essay in there about its conception, in which you can see his process unfold. One of my favorite films.
motionographer
My husband looks at this site every a.m. - www.motionographer.com I’m forever getting stopped cold, looking over his shoulder, at some unbelievable images.
I would like to get interested students in the habit of looking at it daily, to expand their world of visual ideas. It’s the best site for seeing what’s hot right now in motion graphics. Today motionographer lead me to a collection of recent Canadian animations on the Sundance website. It’s a bit overwhelming to see so much creative stuff out there, but it’s great fun as research. Plus I find out about companies all over the world doing amazing work – this morning was blown away by this music video by N.A.S.A., created and directed by Argentinian artist Jimena Oddi. Then I started watching all the N.A.S.A. videos on youTube…
David Lynch and TM
I recently listened to David Lynch’s book on his practice of Transcendental Mediation and how it affects his creative process. He narrates it, and now I hear his voice in my head whenever I read something by him. It’s a unique voice, one you don’t hear much nowadays but is reminiscent of what i think 1920s radio announcers sounded like. Lynch talks about harnessing the subconscious in his artwork – his process is all about being true to images that suddenly come to him, around which he builds narrative. I have certainly been party to his imaginings – I was an early fan of Eraserhead and Blue Velvet; I missed Twin Peaks while it was on air but devoured it when it hit the rental shelves. I figured that anyone who could create a character on prime-time called the Log Lady (albeit an ancillary character), I am disciple to. Lost Highway- bad taste left in mouth moreso than usual with that one. Mulholland Drive I didn’t like so much while watching it (except for the Robert Blake “now give me back my phone” section), but I woke up mulling over it for days. I think that his movies are leeches on the brain. He makes full use of our hard-wired need to make narrative up, to figure things out, letting us and our subconscious do a good portion of the work.
Robert Blake's Mystery Man
In the book he writes that ideas are fish – you have to catch them. If you don’t mind getting just the little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But to catch the really big fish, you have to go into the deep water. His entry point into the deep water is TM. I also like this: he says that being an artist only means that you need time. Time, that’s it. He describes his creative process as action – reaction. You do something, then reflect on what you did. You will suddenly see your next move, but that won’t happen if you have an appointment in half an hour. Artists need the time. He did take 5 years to finish Eraserhead, after all.
Sunday Supplements, 2005
Summer 2005 I had started a project that involved combing through the circulars, or supplements, that come with the Sunday paper, and finding crazy images of tchotchkes, like statues of Jesus, flowers, birds, Elvis, etc. I was already making 2-d, non-digital collages out of them, and I wanted to play with animating these things. Storm came and I forgot about them, ’til I archived them, then I forgot about them again. I just found them, and I kinda like ‘em.
Milo and Otis
The family vacation was in the mountains and the cabin had a vhs copy of Milo and Otis. Being a film that I always had a bit of an embarrassed desire to see, I decided that it would be good fun to watch with the teenage nieces. The first half-hour or so was fun and Dudley Moore’s voice over was very silly, but then the film started getting a little dark, then darker…by the end, the nieces were joking about which Milo we were on, Milo number 13 or 14, due to all the scary shots that it was hard to imagine a cat surviving, or at least sticking around after. A quick search showed that we certainly weren’t the first to wonder about whether cats and dogs were harmed in the making of the film. It’s all allegation, since no one really knows – the film was made by a popular children’s writer in Japan. He had a private island that he was starting a zoo on, and hired a film crew to shoot there for 4 years. The American Humane Society had no jurisdiction – but stands by the film (see this blog). Still, this makes watching the film a different experience now. I did learn that the AHS has trademarked the phrases “no animals were harmed” and “no animal was harmed” and only films that have had an AHS rep on set is allowed to use those phrases. It also makes me think about how we perceive animated animals differently from live action animal antics – animation alleviates a whole level of anxiety since it’s “not real.” But emotionally, is the effect the same?
Bum Lee’s Sports and Other Diversions
I discovered Bum Lee through the Independent Exposure Animation program screened at Zeitgeist. Sports and other Diversions is a very nice traditional animation, but it’s great to see the other pieces on his site like Shave. He went to school at Carnegie Mellon and I noticed that he had James Duesing, (who I am now remembering meeting at the 2004 Ann Arbor Film Fest) Susie Silver and Golan Levin thanked in his credits. Quite a crew! CMU looks like a place for students interested in trad animation as well as for those interested in the interaction of code and robotics with video and sound.
things that didn’t go far 1
dandelion piece while in Santa Fe NM. there is a surprise ending. it looks better when it’s projected big – the formal aspects of white fluff is what i was interested in. this piece has seen different incarnations with different endings, but it never gelled into “the piece.”
1min 15sec, 25 MB
it takes a few minutes to download. be ready to meditate for a minute.
Cornelius Washington, Garbage Hopper
Katy Reckdahl wrote an article in the Times-Pic about Cornelius in ’07. I interviewed him and shot a bit of him working – he had started working with SDT and was assigned to St. Bernard at the time. I had seen Cornelius in action before. Once before the storm, driving through the French Quarter, I got caught behind the garbage truck. What luck, I thought, but then I received a great gift -Cornelius in action. Cornelius had been the master of the garbage can, but that changed after the storm with the arrival of the super-sized cans that we now have. Watch the short at Vimeo. I wish I was able to do his talents more justice-I made this video with what I had, for his family.
river 2
quicktime