The prompt for our third video assignment was "artificial light." Beyond that, it could be anything. But our teacher is pushing us to create videos that have a sense of spectacle - images that stand alone, that are worthy of being seen as single images without context or a linear story. For my project, I tried to use an artificial lighting set up that would blow out my subject's faces and skin, creating the look that was influenced by Vogue in music videos of the 80's. Erica, Anna, and I created a studio set-up in our classroom, and I shot a kind of portrait... different from my previous portrait.
This edit is not finished... but will remain as is until I find time to continue cutting. My teacher has recommended I use this project as an opportunity to try cutting a sequence about ten different times... Some changes will mean completely eliminating certain shots, while some changes might be so slight they would only be noticeable to me, but will make a difference to the cleanliness of the final product.
My classmates from the screenwriting class, Mike and Joe, were my subjects.
Enjoy!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Arthur's Day & Culture Night
Last year, Arthur's Day was celebrated in Dublin to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Guinness. This year, the city decided to celebrate again, just because it was so much fun the first time. At 17:59 pints of Guinness were raised across the country to toast the 251st anniversary of Guinness. For the celebrations, bands played in pubs and venues, everywhere. Unfortunately we didn't really figure out what was going on until shows were all sold out. It was a real bummer because many of the bands who have submitted to have music videos made by our program. The way it works is this: Tisch collaborates with HotPress Magazine, which is the big music magazine of Ireland. Like their Rolling Stone. HotPress puts out a competition for bands to have their music videos made by the Tisch students - the bands submit a song, a photo, and a blurb about why they deserve to have their video made by us. As of now, we have 87 submissions, which we've been sorting through, attempting to narrow the selection down to a few favorites.
Check out this short article to read more about Arthur's Day:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/news/arthurs-day-snow-patrol-biffy-clyro-and-westlife-help-guinness-celebrate-14957749.html
Friday night was Culture Night, so again there were events all around the city, and country. I made my way to the Museum of Modern Art with some of the other Tisch kids for the evening. Parts of the museum were open until 10pm, and outside there was free beer and live music. Everything was set up under a beautiful tent with bohemian styled tables and benches. After a late start and a few wrong turns, we only made it for the last hour, but the jazz band we caught was fantastic. After the official event, we made our own fun playing in the museum's courtyard. A beautiful space.
It's great being in film school... everyone takes direction so well for photographs.
Check out this short article to read more about Arthur's Day:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/news/arthurs-day-snow-patrol-biffy-clyro-and-westlife-help-guinness-celebrate-14957749.html
Friday night was Culture Night, so again there were events all around the city, and country. I made my way to the Museum of Modern Art with some of the other Tisch kids for the evening. Parts of the museum were open until 10pm, and outside there was free beer and live music. Everything was set up under a beautiful tent with bohemian styled tables and benches. After a late start and a few wrong turns, we only made it for the last hour, but the jazz band we caught was fantastic. After the official event, we made our own fun playing in the museum's courtyard. A beautiful space.
It's great being in film school... everyone takes direction so well for photographs.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Portrait
Our second assignment for my video class was a "portrait."
The focus was to be on the face - to explore how even the most subtle facial expressions, if shot and used correctly, can really effect the viewer. Our professor is hoping for us to learn how to create "story" without prescribing a closed narrative to our pieces, as music video is not like narrative film making.
While watching our videos in class today, we discussed Walter Murch's advice from "In The Blink Of An Eye" about finding the "Decisive Moment" in every shot. The decisive moment is hard to describe.... it's the moment in which something happens, that makes the shot effective. It might cause you to feel an emotion that you can't always come up with a name for. It's a moment that, if placed just a frame too early or too late, will no longer have that same effect. Henri Cartier Bresson showed us many examples of this in his still photography, when he did a series of photographs all capturing decisive moments - if he snapped the shutter just a fraction of a second earlier or later, the man jumping into the puddle would not have the same effect on us.
I did my portrait on my suite mate, Erica, who happens to be an exceptional hip hop dancer. I took her down to a location I found on one of my runs, and after a few hours of shooting and good time spent in the editing lab, this is what I came up with. Unfortunately there seems to be some glitches in the upload, but enjoy!
The focus was to be on the face - to explore how even the most subtle facial expressions, if shot and used correctly, can really effect the viewer. Our professor is hoping for us to learn how to create "story" without prescribing a closed narrative to our pieces, as music video is not like narrative film making.
While watching our videos in class today, we discussed Walter Murch's advice from "In The Blink Of An Eye" about finding the "Decisive Moment" in every shot. The decisive moment is hard to describe.... it's the moment in which something happens, that makes the shot effective. It might cause you to feel an emotion that you can't always come up with a name for. It's a moment that, if placed just a frame too early or too late, will no longer have that same effect. Henri Cartier Bresson showed us many examples of this in his still photography, when he did a series of photographs all capturing decisive moments - if he snapped the shutter just a fraction of a second earlier or later, the man jumping into the puddle would not have the same effect on us. I did my portrait on my suite mate, Erica, who happens to be an exceptional hip hop dancer. I took her down to a location I found on one of my runs, and after a few hours of shooting and good time spent in the editing lab, this is what I came up with. Unfortunately there seems to be some glitches in the upload, but enjoy!
Portrait HD from Hannah Epstein on Vimeo.
Monday, September 20, 2010
tardy
This morning I woke up at 9:57.
My class starts at 9:45.
The walk to class is 25 minutes, if I hustle.
So I flagged down my first cab.
Our professor tends to start late, so I really only missed about five minutes. It's just amazing to me, that in two years at Middlebury, I think I've slept through one class. Just two weeks in Ireland and I'm already oversleeping. I wouldn't have believed that my alarm even ever went off, had I not found my phone under my pillow, rather than on my bed stand.
Things to note:
-everything seems to be kept luke warm. No one seems to get the extremes of hot and cold like we do in the U.S.
-you should buy spices to put in your burger meat.
-grocery shopping is stressful when you have to bag things yourself with a line of Irish behind you, tapping their feet.
-Look more than once before crossing the street, to make sure you've looked the right way for oncoming traffic.
My class starts at 9:45.
The walk to class is 25 minutes, if I hustle.
So I flagged down my first cab.
Our professor tends to start late, so I really only missed about five minutes. It's just amazing to me, that in two years at Middlebury, I think I've slept through one class. Just two weeks in Ireland and I'm already oversleeping. I wouldn't have believed that my alarm even ever went off, had I not found my phone under my pillow, rather than on my bed stand.
Things to note:
-everything seems to be kept luke warm. No one seems to get the extremes of hot and cold like we do in the U.S.
-you should buy spices to put in your burger meat.
-grocery shopping is stressful when you have to bag things yourself with a line of Irish behind you, tapping their feet.
-Look more than once before crossing the street, to make sure you've looked the right way for oncoming traffic.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
groceries... or lack there of
My cabinet currently consists of:
-salt
-an orange
-peanut butter
-frosted flakes
-can of tomato soup
-and tea bags
My space in the fridge currently shelves:
-one egg
-orange juice
-balsamic vinegar
-mustard
Needless to say, I miss Midd's unlimited meal plan. Going food shopping is a different experience without a car and grocery bags. And then you have to remember that you can only buy what will fit in one cabinet and one shelf in the mini fridge. It just never seems like a great opportunity to walk thirty minutes in the rain to shop for food. But I guess I'll have to. The convenience stores have been okay so far, but I guess after two weeks I can no longer use the excuse of having just arrived.
Don't worry Ma, all is not lost... I HAVE made some good meals. Take a gander!
-salt
-an orange
-peanut butter
-frosted flakes
-can of tomato soup
-and tea bags
My space in the fridge currently shelves:
-one egg
-orange juice
-balsamic vinegar
-mustard
Needless to say, I miss Midd's unlimited meal plan. Going food shopping is a different experience without a car and grocery bags. And then you have to remember that you can only buy what will fit in one cabinet and one shelf in the mini fridge. It just never seems like a great opportunity to walk thirty minutes in the rain to shop for food. But I guess I'll have to. The convenience stores have been okay so far, but I guess after two weeks I can no longer use the excuse of having just arrived.
Don't worry Ma, all is not lost... I HAVE made some good meals. Take a gander!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
inanimate
We've had lots of fun traveling on the weekends and exploring the city after class, but we've also spent a good amount of time in the classroom, behind the camera and in the lab.
For our first exercise, we were told to create a video using an inanimate object and a one minute clip of music. When our professor said this to us last week, we asked if we had to shoot ONLY the inanimate object. He danced around the question and said he was letting us make that decision. In my liberal arts state of mind, I thought, okay, he wants us to think outside the box and come up with something more, he's just not gonna spell it out for us.
WRONG.
He meant literally, an inanimate object, and nothing else. But I wasn't the only one who misunderstood the instructions. In fact, the entire class did. We all ended up incorporating a person in our videos in some way or another, to more or less, make our objects "come alive." Paul (professor) was astounded by our unanimous misunderstanding, but took it well and let us all laugh it off. Apparently we are the only class to ever come in with every single video having something animate. Of course now it makes total sense that we were supposed to use only the object. The whole challenge was supposed to be to make our objects "come alive" through creative camera work, lighting, editing, etc. We still got lots of feedback on our rough cuts, which was great since we're just learning the basic elements and characteristics of music videos. But of course, after the critique, Paul assigned us each tasks to do for our final cuts, namely finding ways to recreate the exercise and eliminate any people, whether it be through different shot selections in editing, or going back and reshooting. I went back and shot more of my chosen object, my camera. Here's what I came up with...
(let it load fully, and turn up the volume! the intro is quiet but essential)
For our first exercise, we were told to create a video using an inanimate object and a one minute clip of music. When our professor said this to us last week, we asked if we had to shoot ONLY the inanimate object. He danced around the question and said he was letting us make that decision. In my liberal arts state of mind, I thought, okay, he wants us to think outside the box and come up with something more, he's just not gonna spell it out for us.
WRONG.
He meant literally, an inanimate object, and nothing else. But I wasn't the only one who misunderstood the instructions. In fact, the entire class did. We all ended up incorporating a person in our videos in some way or another, to more or less, make our objects "come alive." Paul (professor) was astounded by our unanimous misunderstanding, but took it well and let us all laugh it off. Apparently we are the only class to ever come in with every single video having something animate. Of course now it makes total sense that we were supposed to use only the object. The whole challenge was supposed to be to make our objects "come alive" through creative camera work, lighting, editing, etc. We still got lots of feedback on our rough cuts, which was great since we're just learning the basic elements and characteristics of music videos. But of course, after the critique, Paul assigned us each tasks to do for our final cuts, namely finding ways to recreate the exercise and eliminate any people, whether it be through different shot selections in editing, or going back and reshooting. I went back and shot more of my chosen object, my camera. Here's what I came up with...
(let it load fully, and turn up the volume! the intro is quiet but essential)
inanimate from Hannah Epstein on Vimeo.
sunglasses and grass
This weekend a group of us hopped on the train and spent the day in Wicklow.
If I have my facts right, we were standing on the eastern most point of the Irish coast.
We all had our fingers crossed that we wouldn't need to take our rain coats out of our bags, which is a pretty big thing to wish for over here, but we ended up with an absolutely gorgeous day. There were some scattered showers through the afternoon, but nothing that lasted more than ten minutes, and they ended up giving us an amazing rainbow. I had never before seen an entire rainbow....
On the train ride in we could see huge stretches of green along the ocean, and we all quickly decided that was where we wanted to be. We made our way through town, grabbed a quick lunch, and as soon as I didn't have food in my mouth I asked someone plainly, which way to the water??
Dublin is great, but I do miss the mountains and the grass and the cows. Oh Vermont. I felt like a dog let off her leash when we got into Wicklow, and we all ran across the fields and played on castle ruins and then made our way down to the water.
We established a rule as a group the second day we were here: if we see stairs, we must take them. The stairs in Wicklow led us down to the little beach where we hung out for a bit and took in the view. The rocks here seem to be especially perfect for skipping. All round and smooth. I got tired of skipping rocks and decided to go for a dip. No one wanted to come with me, so I swam out alone and prayed there are no sharks in the Irish Sea. It was pretty chilly, but I just reminded myself of all the kids "polar bearing" up at Midd in February...
The golf course there is beautiful... Harrison and Dad - you might want to think about playing there! Ma, you'll be happy in the grass with a book next to the ocean.
Later we made our way out onto this long cement pier to see the light house, and I went for another dip. This time I got to JUMP. I got my friend Mike to join me, and we ran off repeatedly. After my second swim I was out of dry clothes, so the evening was a bit damp... but well worth it.
If I have my facts right, we were standing on the eastern most point of the Irish coast.
We all had our fingers crossed that we wouldn't need to take our rain coats out of our bags, which is a pretty big thing to wish for over here, but we ended up with an absolutely gorgeous day. There were some scattered showers through the afternoon, but nothing that lasted more than ten minutes, and they ended up giving us an amazing rainbow. I had never before seen an entire rainbow....
On the train ride in we could see huge stretches of green along the ocean, and we all quickly decided that was where we wanted to be. We made our way through town, grabbed a quick lunch, and as soon as I didn't have food in my mouth I asked someone plainly, which way to the water??
Dublin is great, but I do miss the mountains and the grass and the cows. Oh Vermont. I felt like a dog let off her leash when we got into Wicklow, and we all ran across the fields and played on castle ruins and then made our way down to the water.
We established a rule as a group the second day we were here: if we see stairs, we must take them. The stairs in Wicklow led us down to the little beach where we hung out for a bit and took in the view. The rocks here seem to be especially perfect for skipping. All round and smooth. I got tired of skipping rocks and decided to go for a dip. No one wanted to come with me, so I swam out alone and prayed there are no sharks in the Irish Sea. It was pretty chilly, but I just reminded myself of all the kids "polar bearing" up at Midd in February...
The golf course there is beautiful... Harrison and Dad - you might want to think about playing there! Ma, you'll be happy in the grass with a book next to the ocean.
Later we made our way out onto this long cement pier to see the light house, and I went for another dip. This time I got to JUMP. I got my friend Mike to join me, and we ran off repeatedly. After my second swim I was out of dry clothes, so the evening was a bit damp... but well worth it.
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