After Man on a Wire

I forgot to mention I went to Ellen’s house after we saw Man On A Wire and we saw a bunch of the Grad students’ works. They were all very interesting to watch and Ellen’s house is AWESOME. I also got to talk with some of the grad students and I made friends YAY!

Man on a Wire

Today we watched a free screening of Man On A Wire. This movie, although it was a documentary captured the feeling of a heist narrative. Some parts of the movie were a little cheesy, such as the introduction shots of the individuals involved in setting up the wire where they moved a light over their faces for dramatic effect.

I was surprised they had so much old footage from him walking on the wire. I was wondering whether or not it was old footage or if it was footage that he had recreated. From what I could tell later on within the movie it was not a re-enactment. It was very insightful on their parts considering they didn’t even know if they would be famous; the recording of their plans could have been used against them. It was as if they had known that this documentary was going to be made later down the line.

This movie’s structure was very well organized; the tension was built up very well, and the moments that were re-enactments still somehow involved the viewer, so you felt like you were there right along side of Philippe Petit. At the culmination of his finally walking across the twin towers, the movie doesn’t just fade away, there is such an expression of beauty as the shots of him on the wire and the viewers below are placed together.

The only thing that might have let me down within the movie was the ending. I was sad that he didn’t end up with the girl he had originally started with and that it didn’t end with just the walk. It faded away right at the very end when it just seemed incomplete. But I suppose life doesn’t have its perfect endings.

MORE AMODA

That footage wasn’t actually mine, but I was interviewed for Artebone, a small production company which is trying to gather together and look at different artists within Austin especially focusing in on Digital Artists.

This small documentary they were making was for the Austin Museum of Modern Art and the Digital Art Festival they were holding. Some of my favorite 8bit artists were there and I loved seeing the different displays that were up.

I made some new connex, with some of the people there and hopefully that’ll lead to something good later.

I still need to check out AMODA. I wish I had a car. :(

Morgan Spurlock

Morgan Spurlock came as a Distinguished Speaker to the Union. Super Size Me the documentary was one of the documentaries that I found very captivating when I first saw it. ; You might say it changed the way I looked at documentaries. I honestly hadn’t watched as many as I could have before then, but this probably was a turning point for a lot of people. For someone to make something and for it to create as much of a snowball effect as it had done was very inspiring.

Morgan was very honest in his way of speaking, but for a large portion of his speech was more pushing against the unhealthy ways of McDonald’s and how it’s a big evil corporation and so forth. Not that I don’t agree, but I wanted him to talk more about his process.

Once he finally got talking about his process though it seemed like it was just a miracle idea that just popped into his head. He decided to create Super Size me over a Thanksgiving coma when he was watching television and saw a clip of an indivual who was suing McDonalds for making them overweight. And he gathered all of his resources and went out on a limb and did that.

It seemed more like a comedy act than a speech. It was a pretty dynamic speech but it just made me want to stumble upon something that’ll give me recognition like him.

Realms of the Unreal

This was a very eerie but beautiful Doc. It was a little on the long side. It felt like Alice in Wonderland meets Van Gogh meets Peter Pan maybe? I am very impressed with they way they animated Henry Darger’s work. I had actually seen his work before this documentary, but finally learning more about him was enlightening. I wish that I could do the same things they do with animation in flash or after effects or whatever they used.

In looking back at it, most of the film was the illustrations, b-roll, photographs, stock footage and documents. All of the individuals talking were simply underplayed beneath his work. This conveyed the importance of audio and what you can do with only audio. I’d like to implement most of the things I’ve seen in this doc to mine.