“I’m Questioning My Education…”

So what is the point of this post? While it’s true that I have an undeniable love and appreciation for Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder lyrics, thats not the reason I wanted to post this song and its lyrics. But as I sit here and try to put into words my real reason for doing so I still don’t know. There is no link to my abandonment theme here, unless you wanted to say the lyrics are asking you to abandon passivity or your “norms”. Still I had no intentions of making this post work with my theme. I just think the song is so powerful and every time I listen to it, it motivates me. It makes me think twice about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. If I’m really being taught the truth, or if I’m being taught what superiors want me to believe is the truth. I think what I really just wanted to do is share with other people what inspires me. This song inspires me. It makes me want to explore the things Eddie is saying. Yes I called him Eddie, we’re close like that. Anyways I still don’t really know what I’m saying. If nothing else I just wanted people to have access to a song and view they might not have heard before.

I’m questioning my education,is my education who I am now? While you’re deciding, I’ve been finding,looking around in the here and now. If I’d been taught from the beginning, would my fears now by winning? I’m questioning my own equation,is my own equation relevant somehow? The flags are waving, the news is breaking, see the man who can’t pick out his own tie. If I’d been taught from the beginning, would my fears now be winning? A wild world, figuring out the answers, I’ll be in my own dance and I… I’m questioning my education, rewind and what does it show? Could be, the truth it becomes you. I’m a seed, wondering why it grows. -Eddie Vedder

Web Based Project 2

done

So this is the last piece of the puzzle exploring abandonment through the lens of my best friends studying abroad for the semester. I tried using images that depict the emotions I am feeling. My angle with using the water, was to abstractly illustrate tears and sadness.

P.S. – just because I only use Traci & Geetas faces does not mean I miss them anymore than the rest of you. I love and miss you all! I just happened to have phone conversations with these ladies.

First Release From fatherdaughter productions

It’s official; the master minds of myself and Sir Nicholas Colby have finally released our first title under fatherdaughter productions. It’s just a tiny something- a lens project, depicting a breakup. We wanna give a shout out to Louis Armstrong for giving us some sweet tunes.done

Abandoned in Motion

done

This short is my first attempt at actually illustrating abandonment. I took the photos in Saratoga Springs, NY at various landmarks around the city. I chose to use a 10 year old girl as my model because I wanted to illustrate the feeling of being small when you are outside your comfort zone. While the girl is a child, I have dressed her with token adult accessories. As the short progresses she loses an accessory until she has none. My reason for doing this was to show regressing more and more into a childlike state. I am really happy with the photography and the short itself. I am excited to film the next one. Let me know your comments! I would love to hear them, both good and bad.

When Does Abandoned Turn Into Forgotten?

When does abandoned turn into forgotten? This is a question I have really been thinking about lately, especially with this project being a personal reflection of my life. When you think about it, being forgotten is the next step after being abandoned. If there is anything worse in a relationship than being abandoned, it is being forgotten. It seems to be a sequential process, first you are abandoned, that is the main action. You are physically being plucked out of a person’s life against your will. Then to make things even worse, the action of abandonment serves as a catalyst to erasing you from their thoughts and life until you are forgotten. Really, you can argue all forgotten people, places, ideas, etc. were abandoned before they were forgotten. That is not to say that abandonment always ends with being forgotten. I would argue that, that is absolutely not the case. I think there is still something beautiful about abandoned places because they can be full of erie memories. But there is a transparent threshold between being abandoned and remembered, and abandoned and forgotten. Where is it? How do you define it? My real question is how do you stop it? At this point in my abandonment process, I feel as though I am on quickly traveling down the road to being forgotten. It seems to be an icy hill that I cannot help descending. The tagline for this blog is”… being abandoned isn’t so bad afterall…”,I am definately beginning to question those words.

Sidebar: I am in love with this video. The whole thing is pretty much shot in close ups at obscure angles and it works for me. I enjoy it. Plus the song is amazing, as well as the band. And I do actually get an abandoned feeling from viewing it. This is the type of stuff I want to make.

“You Only Grow When You Are Alone.”

So I was looking for some inspiration and I stumbled upon a website devoted to director’s quotes and I found this one from Paul Newman. “You only grow when you are alone.” I absolutely am in love with this quote. I think it describes everything I am living at the moment. I am discovering more about who I really am and what I really want out of my life now that I am alone. Or to follow my theme abandoned….
In the absence of my friends and family I have started to realize things about myself that I have been trying to hide. For example, I have been working on a screenplay for the past couple weeks for my narrative film class in which I drew the storyline from events of my life. Writing this script has brought to the surface waves of emotions. Emotions I had thought I had dealt with. Obviously not though. Each draft I complete, I have been forced to dig deeper and deeper into myself to illustrate in the characters what I am really feeling. If I wasn’t alone at the moment I know that I would not have given this script the proper time it deserves. i would settle with a first draft and concentrate on my friends and making them happy. Being alone, like Newman says, is forcing me to discover myself again. Paul Newman was a good man. Rest in Peace.

Photo Shoot

So this past weekend I completed a photo shoot for one of my web based projects. As mentioned in my previous posts I am exploring the topic of my own personal abandonment. One of the feelings I discussed was how my comfort zone had been abandoned when my friends left me. To me this meant feeling less confident, smaller. Since you can’t produce a concrete image of an emotion, I tried to capture these feelings by photographing a 3rd grade girl in a series of isolated locations, as a opposed to someone my true age. I accented my model Ellie with token adult accessories such as a scarf, sunglasses, and an oversized purse, with the goal of showing her age as a feeling, not a reality. As the photos progress she loses the accessories gradually. The more abandoned and alone she is, the more she regresses. I also played with dark shadows in the later pictures of the series. To me the high contrast images and harsh shadows show a lack of physical presence, and represent only the essence of a person.

The second to last image in my series is of Ellie coloring a tracing of herself on a sidewalk. I am in love with this image. It shows the token children’s activity of tracing yourself with chalk, but brings in the sense of abandonment in that the tracing is just that, a tracing, it is empty inside. Throughout the series of photos she is so overwhelmed with abandonment that she loses herself. And in the very last photo she is a complete silhouette. I think the last two images of my series ( the ones posted along side this) are extremely powerful and illustrate exactly what I was trying to do. Actually I cannot take all the credit for the success of these photos, especially the chalk tracing one. My original idea was Ellie sitting along side the tracing. My thought here was to show detachment from self. Ellie suggested with her wealth of 9 year old knowledge that she should color the tracing. I pretended at the time it was a good idea and snapped the picture to amuse her. When I went back later to review the photo, I realized what a success Ellie’s idea was. The picture of Ellie coloring the shadow gives an action to the loss of self. To me it actually gives the photo more of a sense of a feeling because Ellie is creating emptiness. Now the photo has this art therapy feeling that I adore! I’m embarrassed that I was so quick to pass off the artistic opinion of another because of their age. Ellie’s 9-year-old brain conjured an image far better than my own.

Artist’s Statement

What is it that I love about film? Why do I have this desire to be a part of it? The answers to these questions are ones that I was asked to dig out of myself by film professor. . .
I love film’s ability to make you feel something. Whether it makes you happy, sad, amused, pensive, or angry, it is still acting as a catalyst for emotion. When I see a good film it cycles through my head endlessly for a good two weeks. I am filled with inspiration to do to others what that film has done to me. The idea of personally making something that causes another individual to feel a certain emotion is one that intrigues me. I want to make films that get stuck in people’s heads. I want them to see an image in my film that makes them feel something. I want them to identify with a character or a storyline. If I could accomplish one of these things I would feel like my art was worth while. I love dramatic images in film. They really hit me hard and stay with me. There is scene towards the end of Benny & Joon where Johnny Depp is swinging from a window of a mental institution that I absolutely adore. The action is slowed, the color is bold, and he connects with the camera. There is an entire montage in Into the Wild that grabs me as well. Part of it includes Emile Hirsch running with wild horses with the sun setting in the background.
I don’t know why, but this scene always makes my eyes water. I want so desperatly to create a film that does that to someone. Where an image or action is so beautiful that you can’t help but be overwhelmed with emotion. So why make films? Because it’s a chance to make someone feel…

Abandoned With a Purpose

I was recently assigned the task of keeping a blog, which over time I will add videos I have made to for my web-based production class. As my professor, “the one they call Derek”(Stepbrothers, 2008. ) haha sorry I couldn’t resist doing that, anyways as I was saying – as Derek talked about the course objectives I immediatly started thinking of what I was going to make my blog about…

I have a very close-knit group of girlfriends. So close in fact that we act more as a family of 9 than a possie of 20 something year old girls. We constantly look out for one another, each one of us having someone else’s best interest at heart. I cannot say enough about these girls, however I will state that they are the most beautiful people I know inside and out. To my dismay, seven of my not so blood sisters decided to study abroad Spring semester. Scattering across the globe to India, Ireland, Italy, and Australia I have been unintentionally abandoned.

With a gaping hole in my heart and a giant tear ripped in my comfort zone, I have been left to figure out how to live life at Endicott without my support system. I can’t decide which process has been harder, finding the strength to encourage my sisters to not fear their chance of a lifetime adventures and push them out the door, or learning how to live without them…

After the cyclone of ideas finished spinning in my head, I tuned back into class just on time to hear one of the greatest coincidences ever. Derek informed us that our blogs needed themes. We could choose our themes from the words Leaving, In-Between, Abandoned, and Transition. I just about jumped out of my skin I was so excited. Each of the words fit with my idea exactly. The word I chose was abandoned. Throughout this process abandoned is going to mean about 20 different things to me…

Being the phenomenal friends they are, each one of them wrote a letter to me to read when I am having a rough day. It is safe to say that all of the letters have been read. In each of those letters each girl told me that I was going to have my own adventure and personal growth while at Endicott just as they were having abroad. While it was hard to imagine at the time, I am now seeing what my adventure is going to be. Learning how to live and explore my feelings without my friends through film. I plan to completely submerge myself in my production classes, digging deep to find out what about film gets me going. The absence of some of the best ladies I know will aid me in producing meaningful shorts and webisodes for this class. I cannot wait to explore my thoughts and emotion in film.

I guess I found my own recipe for lemonade.