Were I’m At: Project Status Report

So, yeah, this week was terribly busy, which means I’ve got no footage yet. However, it did give me time to get into contact with people, so at least I know I have subjects to film. For the Person video, I talked with Mark… still no definitive “hook”, I gues I really don’t like that term… it seems to cheapen what I was after with Mark’s video. I wanted to talk with him about his personal life and feelings about the world and his place in it (that’s what I’ve narrowed down to at least for now). See, Mark is the second youngest of his family. His younger brother and himself all have much older siblings. Maybe Mark and his family are the hook… his father died when he was young (which is one thing Mark and my sister identified with eachother when they first met, be fore they started dating as our dad had recently passed away). So Mark has his mom and his step dad now. But I’ve noticed, in comparison to what I know about his older siblings, Mark is struggling to find direction in his life… he has deep struggles with religion (his family is very devout Christians, his brother’s even a minister) and his place in the world. This is what I’ve been thinking about for Mark’s video… something introspective, the class clown opes up kinda viewpoint.

Secondly, the Place video, just need to talk with the owner and Steve to set up some times to film. The idea video, I have a list of people I’m going to talk to: My friend Toni (she recently had to sell her father’s home since he passed away last year), my friend Malina who lives in Las Vegas (I’ll do phone interview), and my friend Becki, who has moved a number of times in the last year due to new jobs and a new fiance, and she’s moving again… possibly to her childhood home.

That’s where I’m at.

Noun’s The Word

Ok so this assignment should be rather interesting- three videos based on the description of a noun (a person, place, thing or idea).  So here’s what I’m thinking so far, and hopefully these ideas are cool cuz like I said before, my brain’s a little tired lately and it would rather sleep than think.  So here goes nothing.

Person:

I was going to do a video for my Basic Video class but my other idea was accepted (through a lot of option weighing since both ideas were well received by my instructor) so I was thinking that I could do a small version of that video for this class, like a prologue of sorts.  The person whom I find to be very interesting is Mark Hubing, my sister’s boyfriend.  Mark has a very unique personality which would show no fear of the camera, thus would convey well through this medium.  I think it may best to go about this documentary style and film snippets of Mark’s daily life.

My original idea was to focus on both Mark and his best friend Joe, because of the strong friendship that the two have, but I think with the time constraints of three minutes I will only focus on Mark.  He is a musician so some of the sounds I can incorporate would be of his original work.  I think scheduling may be the only possibility for problems to arise, but Mark is usually around enough that hopefully this would work out.

Place:

The place I think would be interesting to record would be this coffee shop I sometimes go to in Cedarburg called the Cedarburg Roastery.  Cedarburg in general is an interesting place to focus on because of the strange mix of conservative small town residents with the mingling of other more liberal minded residents (which are usually former out-of-towners).  The Roastery offers  a view of this life as people drink coffee at the tables outside while passersby take walks with their kids and dogs.

Besides this angle, the Roastery is very picturesque and quaint and offers the unique experience of being able to see coffee actually being roasted in a large roaster in the middle of the cafe itself.  I can incorporate the daily sounds of the the normal goings on and conversations that occur at the Roastery, and also the sounds of the roaster itself, which can be very loud at times (something which can be distracting at a coffee house, but  I guess it’s part of it’s charm).  The only obstacle I can think of is getting permission from the owners, but I am friends with someone who know the owner fairly well, so it shouldn’t be too big of a deal.

Thing/Idea:

I want to explore the idea of “home” in this last video.  One way I was thinking that could be done is with a series of small interviews with people about what they think “home” means, and what is “home” to them personally.  I would need to get some people that are willing to be filmed, which can be difficult when people get shy, but I think I know enough people that I could have enough material for a three minute video.  I might also then juxtapose the places people call home with their individual interview clip to help bring the idea out into the tangible world more.

Techno Speak Makes My Head Hurt

Maybe it’s just me and the fact that I’ve been perpetually sick (with the cause of my woes now having a more dark and sinister name- “mono”, damn you Epstein Barr virus, damn you to hell!), so my head may just be a little fuzzier than normal, but in reading John Hoem’s Videoblogs as “Collective Documentary”I kept getting snagged by his descriptions of the technical aspects of posting blogs, moblogs and vogs.  After wading through the reading I think I have a descent grasp on his points, but we’ll see come Friday morning’s discussion.

 From what I gathered, Mr. Hoem was describing the ways in which the posted media like video can be altered and expanded upon within a digital Internet environment.  And with each altering the original source would essentially remain unaltered because of how things are set up on the Internet.  With each new addition by a new vogger or blogger a new work comes into being because of all the work put into it from the current and past contributors.  So even if they had not expected to work together to create this output, they essential have created a collective work.

The collective process also goes beyond the work itself and extends into the texts and video made in response to the original.  Even the comments left expressing what the reader or viewer felt about each original material become part of the collective, and then in turn the comments about others comments would also be included leaving the collective to grow endlessly in all directions.  Who knows we are probably in someway already linked to something on the Internet through this fashion, and thus I think we have become part of the creative collective.

The idea of using other’s work, however, can get fuzzy when people start to get very possessive about ownership and copyrights infringement laws.  But it doesn’t seem to have stopped people from being creative with their new interpretations.  Though we have seen the law pop up here and there and make things more difficult for people.  In dealing with art, can that line be crossed without consequence?  Or do artists need to be wary of the material they use in their own creations, lest they be punished for working with that material.  Can we justify copyrights at all anymore?  Do people truly own something once it’s out of their heads and into the world at large?  I think the Internet says no to that question more often than naught.  Which is probably a very good thing for those who create through the collective.

Where Have You Gone Guerrilla Television?

The “Epilogue” from Deirdre Boyle’s Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited ends on hopeful note; that even though “the future of guerrilla television remains to be seen” there is still a chance for it to survive into the new millenium. Written nearly ten years ago in 1997, the new millenium may have brought unexpected evolutions for “revolutionary alternative to a monolythic system”. In reading about the history of these television evolutions that my generation (post Gen-X, but yet not exactly Gen-Y) took (or still take) for granted as being an established constant of our daily lives, was incredibly revealing.

I feel excited and riled up to take action, I want to carry the torch handed off by guerrilla television even further into the future. But at the same time I can’t help but realize the enormous pressure weighing down on this progress by its heavy-handed opponents. In the “Epilogue” Boyle paints a vivid picture of the sorted history of the development of cable (and cable-access) tv and public tv and the struggle for an alternative voice to be heard and seen among the broadcast and cable giants. This struggle, she informs us has been further complicated by the interventions (interference?) of the government and other political forces.

Although I grew up knowing a little about cable tv, I only have had cable in my household for a small period of time when I was about 4 years old, so the only thing I wanted to watch was Fraggle Rock on Nickelodeon. I wasn’t really interested in the news media or documentaries that may have been on there also at that time. So with cable being something still foreign to me in some respects (like I don’t see it as a necessity as many Americans do, to me it is definitely a luxury or even a novelty at times) I began to think about how public television rates in my mind as offering a balanced spectrum of information and shows.

I think that there is an interesting change occurring in public tv that I can’t recall occurring when I was younger. Although there may be more shows that counter a conservative opinion (for instance “In The Life” the only nationally televised LGBT news magazine) there seems to be more corporate sponsorship popping up as well. It may be seemingly harmless as “Juicy Juice” sponsoring “Maya & Miguel” or “Arthur”. But Masterpiece Theatre in now sponsored by Exxon Mobil. I think this is a disturbing trend that should be investigated further. Guerrilla TV is probably still around but I think it’s being mutated, if we’re lucky maybe it’s just hiding from the public until the environment improves.