Artist Statement Revised

There have been many times when I have been very busy with school, homework, and everything else that I've thought, "if time could stop for, like, five seconds, even that would make a huge difference." When I start to feel stressed, I tend to tune out the things that are going on around me. Usually I'm listening to music, and don't quite realize that I'm not 100% focused on what I should be doing. Sometimes I will be listening to music on my commute to or from school, and realize I can't remember how I got from my apartment to Haymarket - but somehow I did, and amazingly, I'm still on time...

To create the feeling of time stopping, I slowed down the speed of certain video clips and used slow transitions between shots. To show time passing I used shots that can be easily recognized: people walking down the street, a market, my feet, etc. Since time cannot literally be stopped, the shots that show time at a standstill are somewhat abstract. I also chose an instrumental song called "Time Stops" by Explosions in the Sky which plays through out the whole video. The song is to help make the connection that each event is happening within the same short span of time; to act as a narration of some sort.

Artist Statement

There have been many times when I have been very busy with school, homework, and everything else that I've thought, "if time could stop for, like, five seconds, even that would make a huge difference." When I start to feel like this, I space out and tune out everything around me; I suppose it's my own way of making time stop. What I'm hoping to create is a moment like that for the viewer; a moment when things are easy to tune out, but still have something that keeps the person engaged.

Proposal

There have been so many times in my life when I've been really overwhelmed with school work and life in general that I think to myself, "If time could stop just for an hour, that would be the biggest help ever," and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. So, for my final project I want to make time stop using digital images, sound, and possibly video.

I'm still working on ideas of what the subject matter of the photos would be, but I want to try experimenting with a series of images shown in conjunction with music; specifically an instrumental called "Time Stops" by Explosions in the Sky. I chose this song not for its title, but because when I first heard it, it felt like time had actually stopped...

One idea that I had was to record a video of the city... the cars passing, people walking, etc. The video will have sound that's almost overwhelming - have the video start out at a regular tempo, but the sounds a complete sensory overload... Gradually, the video and the sounds will slow down, and once the video was at a standstill I'd start using photographs and the song. After a few pictures, I'd gradually introduce the video again.

I'm still not sure if the photographs will have the same content as the video, but once I start the project, I'll be able to figure out this.

"Expanding the Image Breaking the Narrative"

The movie that I watched was Eternal Sunshine directed by Micheal Gondry.

The clip from the movie that I chose the main character, Joel, is going to see Dr. Mierzwiak for his first treatment to forget Clementine. It starts with Joel sitting in a chair in one of the rooms of the office, hooked up to a machine. There are two doctors who are putting objects from Joel's relationship on a table to get him thinking about the memories attached to those specific items, so that the memories can be erased. The is a cut from Joel in the chair in the office to him in his bed in his home, hooked up to a different machine with one of the doctors erasing the memories he is having while he sleeps. From this point on, there are many dream-like/flashback sequences that Joel has about his memories with Clemetine.

The transitions used between shots to go from what is actually happening in the scene, to what Joel is seeing in his head, are non-sequitor in nature. One of the shots is of Joel watching himself during the first proceedure, and then as time passes, what happens makes less and less sense. For example, there is a shot of Joel coming out of his apartment with two trash bags, on his way to the doctor's office, and then the shot changes from a medium shot to an over the shoulder shot, and we see Joel sitting on the sidewalk hooked up to the equipment. The shots are quit cuts, and the tempo is sped up a lot as time moves along during the time we're on Joel's head.

Overall, I was impressed with the way the whole movie came together in the end.
I liked the way the music was used as a way to add to the mood of certain scenes... I think it helped me relate to Joel's character since going to a doctor to have your memory erased isn't something people can say they have done. Sometimes the music added to the overwhelmed/anxious mood of a scene...

Sounds 2

I hate loud noises and things that are hard to tune out. I don't like being in a car with the music blasting, I hate that screeching noise the T makes when it pulls away, I don't like the television to be too loud, the noise my alarm clock makes my skin crawl, and I don't like the sound of the vacuum when it first turns on. The only loud noises that I don't mind are sirens. I've always lived in the city, so I'm used to hearing sirens every hour or so.

I've always liked the noises of high heel shoes on hard surfaces, I'm not sure what it is I like about the sound, though. I like the sound of a train's whistle because I lived fairly close to the Lowell train station. Throughout the summer I could always hear it at night, for some reason it's a very comforting sound. I also like the sound pebbles make when you walk through them.

When I was younger I paid more attention to sounds. I remember listening to the blood swish through my ears when I was little and wondering what that sound was. Sometimes I'd make words out of the crunching of my food, like, I'd crunch Mary has a Little Lamb or something.

Sounds

I wanted to write this before I forgot...

I've been thinking about the way my source would sound if it were a noise - and you know when you're in a packed auditorium or resturaunt, and everyone is talking, but you somehow manage to hear one conversation clearly. That's what my source would sound like, the conversation that stands out in a room full of numerous other conversations.

I was also thinking that if it were music, it would probably be an instrumental - most likely foreign sounding, or something that you wouldn't normally think to listen to unless someone suggested it.

Source Project

From doing this assignment I learned that communicating my source was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I realized that what it comes down to is that it really is just things that inspire me. I just like random things - the way light posts line up, the way the wind might blow open a newspaper that was thrown on the side walk, the interesting physical features of a person, etc. I was apprehensive to take new pictures for this project because I didn't want to be trying too hard. So I looked through boxes of old pictures that I've taken over the last five years and found pictures that I felt showed what I was getting at.

The second hardest part was figuring out how to present them. I thought of putting them into a collage, but I didn't want to cut up the pictures in case I thought of something better to do with them. Finally, I just decided to mount them on black poster board because I wanted to show that there was no vague, hidden message. I just like things...