Sunday, November 01, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Inspiration for any kind of artist: Spike Jonze
In May, 2009, I launched my first animations into cyberspace.
The catch is to create a clip that is unique and original, that also has universal application. Unlike photographs and illustrations, which can be placed in both still and moving media, animations are limited to the Web and television. Who would use them and for what?
To find out, I watch television and browse websites that use them. At this point, I’m not in a position to expound about what they are used for, by whom, where, why, or how. Although I’m pleased that a few of my clips have sold, I’m also disconcerted by the fact that many have not. To scrutinize, analyze, examine, and ponder my own portfolio to look for a pattern is too myopic an approach.
I backed off to look at the grand scale in a story in the New York Times Magazine.
Spike Jonze, producer of movie hits, “Being John Malcovich” and “Adaptation” struggled for about ten years to get “Where the Wild Things Are” into theaters. Similarities to my small-scale operation: Who is the audience? Why would anyone want to see this movie? It’s a story for children, but during early test viewings, children screamed in horror for their parents to take them out of the theater.
Over time, Jonze and the movie studios arrived at a version that will be in theaters next month. I can’t wait.
It was fun to read about how Jonze inspired himself. Imagine the inside of a recording studio that contains a wealth of props and production equipment. When he and his collaborators, the Beastie Boys, got an idea, they produced it, the crazier and dumber, the better.
Jonze and writer Dave Eggers co-wrote the screenplay of “Wild Things”. To prepare themselves, they watched “Wizard of Oz” and skateboarded around Jonze’s house firing BB guns.
What do I have in front of me? A dog, a rural setting, a home, a car, a remote-controlled garage door; kitchen appliances; fans, standing lamps, a Mac Book Pro with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Flash software; a camcorder, and two Canon still cameras, a digital SLR and a mini.
Could the appliances fight one another? What would my dog dream about? Could the garage door bite off my car’s engine?
Jonze says: “Just come up with an idea and make it.”
So I’ll just come up with an idea. Just?
The catch is to create a clip that is unique and original, that also has universal application. Unlike photographs and illustrations, which can be placed in both still and moving media, animations are limited to the Web and television. Who would use them and for what?
To find out, I watch television and browse websites that use them. At this point, I’m not in a position to expound about what they are used for, by whom, where, why, or how. Although I’m pleased that a few of my clips have sold, I’m also disconcerted by the fact that many have not. To scrutinize, analyze, examine, and ponder my own portfolio to look for a pattern is too myopic an approach.
I backed off to look at the grand scale in a story in the New York Times Magazine.
Spike Jonze, producer of movie hits, “Being John Malcovich” and “Adaptation” struggled for about ten years to get “Where the Wild Things Are” into theaters. Similarities to my small-scale operation: Who is the audience? Why would anyone want to see this movie? It’s a story for children, but during early test viewings, children screamed in horror for their parents to take them out of the theater.
Over time, Jonze and the movie studios arrived at a version that will be in theaters next month. I can’t wait.
It was fun to read about how Jonze inspired himself. Imagine the inside of a recording studio that contains a wealth of props and production equipment. When he and his collaborators, the Beastie Boys, got an idea, they produced it, the crazier and dumber, the better.
Jonze and writer Dave Eggers co-wrote the screenplay of “Wild Things”. To prepare themselves, they watched “Wizard of Oz” and skateboarded around Jonze’s house firing BB guns.
What do I have in front of me? A dog, a rural setting, a home, a car, a remote-controlled garage door; kitchen appliances; fans, standing lamps, a Mac Book Pro with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Flash software; a camcorder, and two Canon still cameras, a digital SLR and a mini.
Could the appliances fight one another? What would my dog dream about? Could the garage door bite off my car’s engine?
Jonze says: “Just come up with an idea and make it.”
So I’ll just come up with an idea. Just?
Friday, January 09, 2009
Anonymous
"Anonymous", by Robert Flynn Johnson, is a collection of photographs taken by anonymous photographers. Most of these captured moments occurred sometime in the early twentieth century. Immediately I wanted to call the book a breath of fresh air, but that's too tepid. I’d say it’s more of a kind of hurricane that rejuvenates rather than destroys, leaving in its wake a clean, freed-of-human-junk landscape and upgraded homes.
The photographs were all taken for fun and/or someone's family photo album, rather than for commerce. There was not a trace of self-consciousness, taking me back eons to a time when I just drew, painted, and took photographs merely for fun. What’s fun for me? I looked for the photographs I wish I’d taken.
An African American boy of about seven or eight, a pacifier in his mouth, holds a rifle.
Holding a scythe like the grim reaper, a white-bearded elderly man on an antique three-wheeler bike, looks over his shoulder at a little girl standing next to her relatively “contemporary” model bicycle.
A middle-aged man, dressed like a lord of a manor, rides an ostrich.
An elderly man in a cart drives the team of pigs that pull it.
The most intense photograph for me was the scene of an automobile accident that decapitated the driver, his head lying on the road a few feet from the wrecked car. It looked as if a photojournalist or a police photographer took the image. I am glad not to have been that photographer. I probably would have fainted or vomited.
Out of all the images in the book, I wish I’d taken only four. Why those? I think that they are strictly first-class photojournalism, all telling a story literally or metaphorically. All other aesthetic considerations are limited by the amount of time the photographer has to take the photograph.
I recommend “Anonymous” to photojournalists.
Information:
“anonymous: enigmatic images from unknown photographers”, edited by Robert Flynn Johnson. Paperback edition published in 2005 by Thames and Hudson, New York, New York 10110.
The photographs were all taken for fun and/or someone's family photo album, rather than for commerce. There was not a trace of self-consciousness, taking me back eons to a time when I just drew, painted, and took photographs merely for fun. What’s fun for me? I looked for the photographs I wish I’d taken.
An African American boy of about seven or eight, a pacifier in his mouth, holds a rifle.
Holding a scythe like the grim reaper, a white-bearded elderly man on an antique three-wheeler bike, looks over his shoulder at a little girl standing next to her relatively “contemporary” model bicycle.
A middle-aged man, dressed like a lord of a manor, rides an ostrich.
An elderly man in a cart drives the team of pigs that pull it.
The most intense photograph for me was the scene of an automobile accident that decapitated the driver, his head lying on the road a few feet from the wrecked car. It looked as if a photojournalist or a police photographer took the image. I am glad not to have been that photographer. I probably would have fainted or vomited.
Out of all the images in the book, I wish I’d taken only four. Why those? I think that they are strictly first-class photojournalism, all telling a story literally or metaphorically. All other aesthetic considerations are limited by the amount of time the photographer has to take the photograph.
I recommend “Anonymous” to photojournalists.
Information:
“anonymous: enigmatic images from unknown photographers”, edited by Robert Flynn Johnson. Paperback edition published in 2005 by Thames and Hudson, New York, New York 10110.
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