Munro Ferguson, Drux Flux and the 3D Movie
How to Revolutionize Cinema without Really Trying The talk by Munro Ferguson, How to Revolutionize Cinema without Really Trying, was quite engaging and interesting, primarily because the title of the lecture gives me the idea of a laid back approach to filmmaking, with some clever and original ways of making a no-budget production. However, the films screened were actually the complete opposite to this notion given away by the title and in fact covered not only an astounding technical ground by the use of animation and anaglyphs but also the thematic of the films was compelling and sent clear messages through their stereoscopic imagery. The film I found particularly powerful during this stereoscopic screening was the animation Drux Flux, in which a tragedy is played out; the individual is crushed by industry and machinery, the films official synopsis “Drux Flux is an animated short comprised of fast-flowing images showing modern people crushed by industry. Inspired by philosopher Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man, the filmmaker deconstructs industrial scenes and their terrifying geometry to show the inhumanity of progress. A film without words.” The film starts as an individual image and then becomes a collage of images, channeling into a fast pace of disorientation and intense imagery, all the deconstructed abstract imagery is then constructed into an individual built of machinery, at this point the tragedy plays out. The technical development of this film was interesting and it struck me when Munro Ferguson said that Drux Flux was released as a two-dimensional film first and this was a stereoscopic remix of the original release. I intend to talk about the stereoscopic version of Drux Flux compared to its traditional cinematic version and why the anaglyphic version of the film works better within the subject matter of the film as opposed to its cinematic version. Drux Flux was released in 2008, and the stereoscopic version screened at Intersection Digital Studios was released some time after the original release that same year. After watching both films (both on big screens) I realized that both versions are collinear, similar in presentation and have roughly the same running time. The film starts with still images of a building, at first the pace is slow and the images are clear and are a single photographic image. As the film progresses the pace speeds up and the image becomes a heavily composited frenzy of industrial subjects, such as bits of machinery and industrial tools, as the pace gets faster it disorients the viewer, the composition dematerializes into fragments and the image looks more like a composited abstract collage rather than a traditional photographic sequence. The quality of the images however allows for the viewer to catch glimpses and bits from the fast paced sequence. The effectiveness of this composition in a flattened traditional two-dimensional screening is still intoxicating, but because of its ferocious pace, the potency of the composition is toned down and the viewer is not able to appreciate the collage in its entirety. The viewer has more to gain more from the anagylphic version not only because of the pop-up attriubutes of 3D, but because the concept of the film lends itself to these attributes. When the film goes into its collage-like sequence the picture is split into geometric shapes, this is clevery accentuated through the stereoscopic technique. As the sequence continues certain parts of the film are once again accentuated and the emphasis placed on certain pieces of the collage draws the audience eyes towards them, for instance, I recall a clock that really stuck out during the 3D screening, but as it is only in the sequence for a short time, its not as enounced in the traditional format. As the image becomes more abstract and harder to understand the anaglyphic format allows further understanding, as nuts, bolts, hinges and other machinery bits are enounced and the abstract geometric shapes are allowed further examination as they move on the screen. This subject matter in my opinion is rendered further because of its solid and industrial based shapes, because as the image melts down, simple objects such as a coat of plaster, a brick or a clock are brought out and provide the viewer with a more articulate viewing of abstract imagery. In conclusion, although the film is also great in a two-dimensional environment, I believe that the audience has more to acquire from the stereoscopic version because the speed and abstractness of the sequence earns another level of understanding by using the 3D tool to accentuate shapes and objects, and drawing the viewer to different parts of the screen that would not otherwise attain this attention.
—-
Works Cited
http://steadydietoffilm.typepad.com/blog/2009/11/short-films-theodore-ushevs-drux-flux.html
http://www.nfb.ca/film/drux-flux-3d-en/
Mobility Games Videos
Having fun with mobility, adapting time and things to a different lapse
Mobility Screen Shots
These are the screenshots from the Code Lab Mobility software… pretty cool stuff.
Gabriel and Myself will have the videos at Code Lab next class!
The Muffler Scavenger Hunt!
Where is the Muffler?
Click here to scavenge for the Muffler ~ Unfinished, Unfortunately
Thanks for the shit.
These are my ‘Flush’ interventions, I like the result, yet in the ladies room someone ripped off half the vinyl stickers, but WaTEvA. Anyways, still the same social comment on Flushing, briefly ‘don’t forget to flush’ and ‘Where does it end up’… take what you want from it.
Flush
The mock composite for ‘urban interventions’ I derive two meanings from this, a reminder and a guilty conscience.
The Muffler!
Well, in class and finished my panorama today as well as finished up a storyboard for a film I wrote that I will be shooting soon. Anyhows got bored and took this picture of my kitty into photoshop just for fun! So here is Muffles, although I like to call him The Muffler nowadays. MeOW!!
Panorama’s
This is the first assignment for DIVA-200, it consisted of building a panorama for print in photoshop. When thinking about the assignment I figured that a 35 mm negative (of still photographs) is essentially a naturally built panorama that could go up to 36 in width and 1 in height. I had this roll I took about 3 weeks ago and wasn’t using it at all, so I scanned it at a high resolution, scanning the divisions between photos as well to build a more natural looking panorama. A film negative is too small to display and be able to read the images easily so ‘blowing it up’ using a scanner and photoshop to create the composition would bring this panorama into a easily viewable environment.
Later today I have my proof printing session, I will be printing the panorama displayed below
‘fuse snuggle’
yea, so new blog! Im Kain, a film student at ECU and also a musician. This is a video I made this summer.
My favorite albums of all time are: ‘Obscured by Clouds’ – Pink Floyd
‘Red’ – King Crimson
‘Stag’ – Melvins
‘And The Circus Leaves Town’ – Kyuss
Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
