4-23-07

Sharon Lockhart’s “Goshogaoka” was one of the first films that I have seen in which there is no camera movement through out the entire film, and with such a great length of time. The concept of a foreign country practicing an American sport and looking much more dedicated then the founders of the sport look gives great meaning to the practice itself. I know the practice was coronagraph, which gave less of a sincere feel to it, but was a great pleasure to watch. One of the first things I noticed was the fact that there was no hoop in the frame at all; no one made any shots through out the film. I felt indifferent in many ways about this practice and the way it was shot and staged. I felt cheated in the sense of that is not how you should play this sport, or that’s not how we do it in the U.S. But then again that might be how they practice in different parts of the world, so overall I enjoyed seeing basketball in a very different prospective.

4-16-07

Whenever I’m sitting and doing nothing, or whenever I come encounter with an awkward situation I have always thought to myself, why doesn’t anyone ever put these moments in their film, or make an entire film about them? Hamilton captured those situations very well, during the screening I did not enjoy the concept as much as I thought I would, it seemed very boring and pointless. After watching the whole film, I realized I really did benefit from the film, the characters, the setting, and the filming. I was surprised how the concept worked out in a narrative style film; I connected and was intrigued by the characters. It really moved me in the sense of me as a filmmaker and I really want to capture all of those awkward and non-active environments, that has happened to me through out my life.

4-9-07

Through out the all of Jennifer Montgomery’s films I found them very unique and diverse from one another. In her first film “How to use Equipment” I found it very humorous mostly because I could relate to having to teach people how to use what I find very simple equipment to use. I wish that she would had the other role because I was really into that film and the abrupt end to it made me feel incomplete. The second film “Age 12: Love with a Little L” was to me not as captivating in the sense that I could not relate to the situation, except what I observed of girls as a 12 year old boy, and I did see some moments that I witnessed but nothing to strong. There were many things I did not even notice until after talking to others in the class about certain metaphors of the adolescent girl. Jennifer’s last film she presented was the most powerful, but I did not see how some of the aspects she used were relevant, I suppose that after the long discussion of the “controversial” hand-made film that was created right in front of the camera, did have significance, that I will never quiet understand. When I realized that Jennifer was going around the states to her old film friends and slowly gaining her old film equipment I thought that she was mending some old relationships at the same time that she was getting her things, but the last interview I soon realized she was doing most of these things to create a dream that was all about her and just her.

4-02-07

“more junk in the trunk than a honda
i know you wanna do the JANE FONDA
one, two, three, four
get your booty on the dance floor.
work it out, shake it little momma
let me see you do the jane fonda.
five, six, seven now
if you dont know, let me show you how
to work it out..work it little momma
i know you wanna do the jane fonda” (Mickey Avalon)

Click Here to hear.

Those horrendous lyrics written by the rap artist Mickey Avalon were the first thoughts I had when experiencing the Scott Stark video “More Than Meets the Eye: Remaking Jane Fonda.” In Stark’s video he uses an old Jane Fonda instructional workout tape, as the background/plot to help tell the story of her personal life, and her thoughts of the Vietnam War, through text. The images that Stark uses through out his video, is Stark himself working out to the tape in various places and/or situations, such as a public parking lot, houses, fields, ect. With Starks choice to use himself as the central image and not the actual Jane Fonda workout tape is not as surprising as I first thought, you can hear the tape clearly playing as the soundtrack and through out the video I found that not actually seeing the tape was somewhat expected, if he would have cut to clips of the tape I would have felt letdown. After seeing the thoughts of both Jane Fonda (sound & text) and Scott Stark (visually) I have different prospective, on Jane Fonda as a person, and on styles, techniques, and purpose to video making.