Project Update - May 31st

Term advisement meeting; towards second year proposal

As I finalize last steps this term, I had productive meetings with my advisement team this week.

First met with Carolyn on the 26 for a post-paper discussion. In addition to personal update (just did pack out for move, and getting ready for states migration pattern in a few weeks), focused on the following items:

1. Presently focusing on script writing, and reviewing classical structure.

2. On the training front, I just completed Adobe education trainer certification that I have been working on the last few months.

3. I am preparing for an installation with Berlin Soup art festival. I am deciding whether to use augmented reality for the installation.

4. We discussed the fact that my book Transnational Horror Cinema has gone into publication cycle with publisher which will free me up further to focus on my project. Currently giving some feedback on the cover, but my responsibilities on the book at this stage in the cycle are very light.

5. We also spoke quite a bit about how I might best inform my story development with insights from Transmedia, how to sprinkle non-redundant plot points into other platforms. On this matter, Carolyn advised that while these thoughts of Transmedia discourse and practice inform my design, I do not need to be concerned at this point with directly realizing those aspects into the immediate project. I was very happy with this advice as I felt the existing film project already significantly challenging enough to place me in state of flow (optimal challenge/meeting ability set) and I am happy to keep these ideas to enrich my future palette.

With respect to Bordwell's Classical Hollywood Cinema follow up refuting theories of a 'post classical Hollywood,' How Hollywood Tells it, Carolyn recommended a book that sounds like a logical next reading, Art of Immersion by Frank Rose.

My follow up with Caroline explored several useful threads including:

1. Ways in which my work approaches the digital as sort of an "analog native" who discovers the digital always seeking connection with familiar analog territory. She noted feeling some resonance with John Berger's essay on Bacon with my latest series of images. She mentioned that the direction of the latest digital images was worth continuing to explore.

2. I mentioned how the fan project multi platform approach of Star Wars Unplugged seem to have some resonance with my own project and its intent. Namely, that project is dependent on redundant, explicit story structure in order to have these dramatic formal experimentations makes sense. Similarly, I hope to depend on explicit classical structuring and scaffolding to allow formal experimentation to be digestible by audience. Caroline suggested I view the film Francophonia (sp?), as a work exploring multiple "looks," modes of communication, foregrounding different modes of expression and different voices in the narrative.

3. Caroline noted the fact that much of the test shots of my work appear to explore female subjects where the story is ostensibly that of a male protagonist. I mentioned that this was in part due to my ecological use of my original test footage of the same subject in multiple iterations and forms. But also more broadly that I do see the work being the protagonist exploring, dialoguing with powerful feminine forms, directly with the character the Empress (the tarot being) and more broadly with feminine energy, ranging in these forms from angelic to grotesque, seemingly quasi-demonic entities.

Towards proposal for second year:

Continuing with project: Building on the exploratory test "objects" created and the extensive work on narrative structure as well as research on similarly themed dramatic work, the next year will realize the final portion of the film project.

This entails the following: moving from development stage to proper pre-production, namely finalizing script / then shooting script / finalizing casting / location decisions / finalizing gear / then production: filming, working with actors / post production / promotional groundwork.

Among my first order of business is to make revised project production timetable to ensure all necessary steps are plugged to calendar to ensure proper pacing of the overall project to meet my completion deadlines.