Make Me Care

Last year I remember watching the bird installation of Chris Milk and being fascinated by it, how it had a meaning behind it but it didn't try to confuse the audience it involved the audience. Using the Microsoft Kinect the camera tracks the audience and gives them the power to control the projection, immersing the audience and making them into birds.

Set up as three separate screens the first screen represents the birth of an idea, the initial conception, the lightning in a bottle.

The second the critical response to the idea, the people tearing it down, showing it's limitations.

Then finally you have the third screen showing the freedom of collaboration between the work and the artist making the idea work.

This is the kind of work I enjoy because it leaves the audience in awe of the creation, they go away talking about the idea and the technology behind it they don't leave feeling uncomfortable or stupid, they leave having enjoyed themselves.

I say this because when I am procrastinating from doing work like this unlike most people who play games, or look at cat videos apparently I watch TED Talks. I love TED Talks the idea that all of these people coming together with different fields of interesting but a collective intrigue to learn. Today I found the playlist 'The Power of Film' and I set it running.

The first video that came up was this, Andrew Stanton: The clues to a Great Story.

In the video he goes through his own work and pinpoints the moments he now realises he learnt something about story telling.
 Something that stuck with me was the 'Unifying theory of 2 + 2', a theory in which he suggests that the audience like working for the story, but they don't like knowing they are working for it. I think that's why I had such a hard time understanding the appeal of the videos we saw last week was because these artists didn't just make the audience work to understand, they didn't give them the puzzle pieces to begin to understand.  They also didn't 'make me care', they didn't give me a reason to be attached to what was happening nor the person involved, as an audience member I felt obsolete.

The next video was by Rob Legato: The Art of Creating Awe, this is what I want to do. I want to create the illusion that I'm not there but the audience doesn't get confused by trying to figure out how it's done. I don't want my audience thinking I'm crazy because they don't understand whats happening, I want them to think I'm crazy because my work takes what they understand and makes it into something they've never seen before.

For me a good experimental film is something that takes one aspect of a seemingly 'standard' film and plays with it, experiments with it, but doesn't distract from what the narrative is; because if it doesn't tell a story then I'm sorry to say you've already lost me.

Find What You Love

A great little video from Tucker McDonald compiling speeches from Steve Jobs and Martin Scorsese.

I love finding videos like this, motivational speeches are actually useful for me as I found out years ago. I remember sitting in an auditorium at an awards ceremony for Durham Universities Aim Higher scheme - bored out of my mind. It was the night before a huge school trip to France so me and my friends were overly excited, we had just had our taster day at Sixth Form which had further confused me about life in general because A Level Physics suddenly didn't seem as fun as it had seemed on paper and here I was sat in a room with a guy in front of me just pacing up and down, silent.

No-one in the room spoke, they just watched this guy pace. Sometimes he would make eye contact mostly he wouldn't and then suddenly he started shouting at us. He started shouting at us about life, and what we wanted to accomplish and how we were going to do it, where we were going to study, what we were going to study and how that would eventually effect our lives. Then he just stopped and started pacing again.

I wish I could tell you why he did that, and he did give us an explanation that I've since forgotten, something about waking us up to reality? All I know is it worked.

When he started speaking normally we all couldn't take our eyes off him, we were hanging on his every word about his life growing up in a rough area of London where most people had written him off. He told us of how that chip on his shoulder spurred him to make his life what he wanted despite all odds being against him and that's exactly how we should approach life. His speech was articulate, he spoke in a manner that demand respect and attention and I don't know I just remember going home and researching everything I could about sixth form and my different options. So whatever he set out to do worked for me.

Ever since then when I need a bit of motivation I research my favourite actors/writers/directors and see if they've ever given a commencement speech, sometimes a motivational speech needs to be given at the beginning of your degree as well as the end. At the moment my favourite is Christian Borles not the most well known actor off broadway but a well rounded one at least.

The downside to this approach is it only works well if you already have a goal you need to be motivated to fulfil and the flaw in my plan is I don't know what that goal is. One of the things the AimHigher scheme equipped me with was the ability to plan out my life, my plans ranged from being a chemical engineer, to being a rollercoaster engineer, getting a music scholarship and attending the Royal School of Music to being a playwright and director. Not having a plan is terrifying for a person who has literally been planning their life on paper in lovely colour coded tables and charts, yet the plan always falls through.

The upside to not having a plan is that you weigh your options, and the fact that plans in the past have failed even though you have given them full credence even if just for a day, just means there is one less misleading possibility in the world and you are one step closer to finding the right one.

So now I'm reading, reading about writing (The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth) a great book poking fun at Shakespeare and his methods, musical theatre composition (Sondheim on Music by Mark Eden Horowits) an insight to the technical composition of Steven Sondheim, composition for film (Soundtrack Nation by Tom Hoover) a compilation of interviews with top film composers. Watching movies and documentaries, The Sherman Brothers showing the lives of the top disney composers behind Mary Poppins, Jobs a Steve Jobs biopic, The Pixar Story an amazing insight to an incredible creative company, Waking Sleeping Beauty the story of Disney animation and Six by Sondheim because I need to keep the theme of Sondheim running here.

This is a very long way of saying I'm still here, I'm still working but right now I don't have much to show for it other than a fountain of currently useless knowledge about people who have already done what I want to do.

Long Time No Play

So I haven't posted in while, mainly because I've been preoccupied with doing other work! I recently went to the Fine Art Grad show at Teesside University as a friend of mine was exhibiting, I'll have a post on that soon. But mostly I've been having a bit of a crisis. It seems to be a common crisis of finishing first year and being met with the reality of when you enrol next year you're done, there is no turning back or switching courses because you won't have the funding available to you. As I joined the course through clearing with a last minute change of career plan it's always been in the back of my head that it could have been the wrong decision. After realising that I would much rather read and analyse plays or watch musicals doubt started to set in, in fact I've never wished more that I could take DFSA as a 50/50 course alongside theatre, or even major in DFSA with a minor in Theatre.

Finding out that I did pretty well with my grades did nothing by solidify my confusion because it turns out I did make the right decision on results day and I love the course, so I have to find a way to make theatre and film mix. When I came home from Uni the first thing I did was take advantage of having my DVD collection within arms reach, I proceeded to watch every musical DVD I had. I started thinking how theatre and film aren't actually that different, the major differences 1) In film the director controls the audiences view point 2) In theatre the audience feels a human connection to the characters, in film you need to pander to more senses to create that connection.

With more and more broadway shows being picked for the big screen I looked at the difference
between successful adaptations and the not so successful. Those lacking in dance numbers seemed to get the theatre goers approval rather than those that have them, Sondheim shows coming out on top. Now I love Stephen Sondheim (Award Winning composer/lyricist, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George to name a few), growing up I was never aloud to perform his songs because they were simply too complicated for me as a singer and the poor accompanist. So how is that the most musically complicated and challenging pieces of theatre are those that cross over the easiest?

Whilst Sondheim shows aren't know for their big dance numbers everything is still meticulously choreographed, movement around the stage is so fluid all a camera man has to do is look at the stage version and mimic the movements they do. Simply putting a stage show on screen isn't the way it works.

Now that came out a lot longer than I expected but it is something I want to look into further. But in other news I bought a piano. When I was younger my Dad taught me piano very briefly before he passed away, but he taught me by ear meaning by the time I had professional lessons I was just really confused as to why people were reading music and why they couldn't remember what they just played. Now today I can read music to an extent and I can play piano to an extent, the goal is to play piano by reading music by the end of summer. Maybe even start learning to compose music properly, mix some music tech skills and become the one person orchestra I had to be at A Level, in other words I'm still working on different projects... I'm just taking a longer route than usual.

Also I found one of my old 'Listening Diaries' that I used during Music Tech, it was the first time I recognised the technique qualibet being used in Les Miserable, it's also the technique that insipired the end of our last short film.

 

That was really ramble-ly and not really that progressive but it's just a sum of everything that's going on right now, hopefully I'll have some more blog worthy things soon.

The art of not being an Artist.

Art; The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture , producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional  power:

When people call me an artist I feel wrong. To me what I do isn’t art. I’m not a painter or illustrator which is what, in my head, constitutes as art. Whilst this argument is more complex than I originally thought I still cannot shake the feeling of unease when someone calls me an artist.

To me art is a rather pretentious hobby that middle class people force their children to view because they feel the need to live a cultured life. Not a kid making Youtube videos in their bedroom to distract themselves from doing homework or studying. It may have been the way I was brought up, it may have been something that I’ve picked up myself but there is still some uncertainty I have with being under the same name as Picasso. (Bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea?)

I believe that whilst ‘art’ has seemingly similar intentions lugging everything from film to theatre to paintings somehow demean them. I personally get more satisfaction being called a filmmaker than I do being called an artist. ‘Artist’ being used as such a broad term, to me, looses its uniqueness - ironic for a sector that is built on unique interpretation.  I understand that society has a need to categorise everything and that ‘Art’ is simply a large container filled with many other smaller ones but art is supposed to be a very personal thing, why we don’t treat it’s name as such bothers me.

 

This entire thing entered my head because I got assigned my photo for Image Factory and it’s of a sculpture called ‘House’ by Rachel Whiteread – I know nothing about sculptures or how to interpret them.

I learnt a long time ago that some sculptures have meaning and other don’t, or they do but they may as well not. (A bit harsh I know, but it’s the truth)

A few years ago in Middlesbrough the council unveiled a new sculpture near the riverside and Transporter Bridge that locals assumed was there to promote the towns past. However when Temenos (Anish Kapoor) was unveiled I can safely say it wasn’t what people were expecting, even 5 years later as locals we are still unsure as to how and why the sculpture was built. It says a lot that in the suggestion box at the bottom of The Guardian’s article about Temenos there is a link to another article titled ‘Anish Kapoors Temenos sculpture shows how uncool Britain is’.

Temenos is described as a butterfly net, brilliant! What has it got to do with Middlesbrough? Middlesbrough has and always will be an industrial town, most people who live in the area work as engineers or somewhere in that line of work and it’s been that way for over 100 years. The area is even known for being the home of the first public railway – so why on earth do we have a sculpture of a butterfly net? What’s even better is the project cost £2.7 million to make, yet to my understanding none of the steel came from Middlesbrough’s steel works, it was all shipped in.

The point of that story is I am very much aware that an artist can have good intentions, just not for the community they are exhibiting in. Whilst what I have read about ‘House’ makes it seem that all intentions were pure I can’t help but think there is more to this story than meets the eye.

Therefore I have some books, some websites and an open mind.

I hope Whiteread is worth it.

Read at own risk. It's political and ranty.

It’s strange how daunting it is to make a controversial project, especially on a subject that shouldn’t be controversial. But I know it is and it just feels – weird.

I know I’ve spoken to people about it recently and they were against my opinion, when it was something as simple as theft. People were endorsing theft because it was online and it was seen as okay? I simply don’t grasp the concept of it being okay. Especially when you are dealing with someone’s sexual identity.

Tangent! I believe everyone had multiple identities that ultimately come together to make them as a whole. I also believe that people have a right to keep certain identities hidden from people (in the understanding that their identities are not harmful or dangerous – but that’s a given right?). I believe that a personals sexual identity is one of the most important because if a person does not give you permission, explicit consent, to view them it is illegal to view them. (Or it is illegal for you to act on it, if they are under 18 it’s illegal anyway (which isn’t the same for over 18s, it should be under 18 or if they say no but it’s all-legal stuff made years ago that people are to stupid to change)).

Now I’m going to give you an example/situation; you know a guy, this guy has a highly customised Bentley, this car is entirely unique – just not for the guy in question. You see this guy stole it from another guy but it’s fine he has more. Now this other guy doesn’t want anyone to have this car, he locked it in his garage, it’s his. But the original guy got it anyway and wants you to have it. Do you take it?

No. You see this is still theft, if you take something you know is stolen you are also stealing it. But the law says- I don’t care, laws have not caught up with the times; there comes a point where morals have to take over. (Note: Morals = Human decency) If a person does not give you consent to view or use one of their possessions you do not have permission to do so; you don’t do it. How much simpler can it get?

If you haven’t made the connection yet, yes this is dealing with the leaked celebrity photos that have surfaced over the past few months. It is my personal belief that people can do whatever they want with their body (I mean it is theirs.) and they should have full control over who views it sexually and non-sexually*. Mainly women, not going to lie, because in the first quarter of 2013 in America states proposed 694 provisions policing women’s bodies. You know how may mean had? 0.

If you haven’t guessed already I’m a rather political person, I have opinions on a lot of things but this seems to be around me at the moment. I’m kind of getting myself into a muddle though. I’m a researcher, always have been. I will dig as deep as I can into a subject before I make a firm opinion on it (Mainly because people who don’t know what they are talking about yet preach opinions on things annoy me so much). I also believe that art in any form is always better with an emotional connection.

So throughout my research you find little doodles of ideas and the further you read though my notes you see the idea develop. Because my opinion is developing alongside it, a trait I’m proud of. No matter how much I rant (Now conveniently labelled as it happens often) I will remain open minded because I know all too well about an opinion being formed without being educated.

Now everything I do comes with a chunk of text apparently so congratulations for making it this far! Thank you for reading and I promise when I sort out all this research in my mind I will have some photos for you to see!

* If a woman wants to cover her body because she doesn’t want people to see her neck, arms, legs ect she has every right to do so. Same with if they want to show people, you have no say in it. She does. Not you.

A Can of Worms - Release the Opinions!

So I did a self-portrait shoot, it felt awkward, narcissistic, self-absorbed and completely Internet generation. My goal.





Now that not only lives up to the stereotype of the ‘internet generation’ it is also opens a whole box of worms of what is the Internet generation? Who is the Internet generation? How safe is it? Will we regret it like we did smoking? Is it bad for us or is it genuinely good?

It is my firm belief that the Internet generation is the way forward yet for me the ultimate question is, are people becoming desensitised to legitimate problems because online they don’t seem real?

Online you can be anyone you want, a better version of yourself, a worse version of yourself or a completely different person. Something that in reality is almost impossible (or at least a lot of effort and who wants that, really?). Personally my internet self is someone I’ve aspired too and I’ve made no secret of it, for example my internet persona doesn’t wear glasses; it’s become second nature for me to take them off as soon as I’m recording a video or taking a photo that will end up online. Why? I believe I look better without them but in reality it’s not plausible for me not to wear them but online it’s no problem.

If I believed this and acted on it in ‘real life’ it would be seen as me having low self-esteem and confidence, it would be a problem. Yet online, no one bats an eye.

Returning to the question of desensitising problems, people blame my generation for a lot of things and for the longest time I have defended them saying that they weren’t to blame and I stand by it. I do, however, believe that if they were not a passive audience we wouldn’t have as many problems as we do.  But you cannot blame an audience for doing what they are being conditioned to do, you can however blame an individual for choosing not to acknowledge a problem when it’s pointed out to them.

I believe my project is going to turn into a political one - I'm not even sorry.

The internet isn’t as safe as it used to be. A rant on Feminism.

I live my life through the internet, there isn’t a day that I don’t check Tumblr/Twitter/Youtube so I’m constantly surrounded by people who have made a living off those websites, meaning they have a rather large fanbase but no real team around them, it’s just them.  Now I have always believed being in complete control of your own work on the internet is by far the best thing however in light of recent events I’ve began to reconsider.

Tom Milsom

Mike Lomardo

Since March 2014 stories about famous Youtubers abusing their position as role models for young fans have surfaced for 20 different people. This is outrageous and it’s starting to hit closer and close to home.

1 Tom Milsom

Accusation: Raping his 15 year old girlfriend when he was 22

2 Mike Lombardo

Accusation: Abusive in a relationship

Alex Day

3 Alex Day

Accusation: Abusive in a relationship, approaching underage girls, non consensual sexual advances

Josh Macdeo

4 Josh Macedo

Accusation: Non consensual sexual advances on underage girls

Kelly Montoya

5 Kelly Montoya

Accusation: Rape and sexual abuse

6 Danny Hooper
Accusation: Rape of 15 year old girl

Danny Hooper

Alex Carpenter

7 Alex Carpenter
Accusation: Non consensual sexual advances on a 16 year old girl, he was 25.

8 Adam Roach

Accusation: Underage sexual abuse, she was 15 he was 22.

Luke Conard

9 Luke Conard

Accusation: Abusive underage relationship, 7 year age gap

The list goes on…..

Recently Sam Pepper and Jason (VeeOneEye) have been ‘outed’ as rapists and sexual abusers but the difference with these guys are, they tried to cover it up.

Sam Pepper

 Sam Pepper made a video where he went around London pinching women’s butts for a ‘prank’, this caught the Youtube communities attention to the point people realised that his past videos (which include lassoing women in the street, forcing women to kiss him on the beach) are also sexual abuse. Sam Pepper however tried to cover it up by saying the entire thing was staged and proceeded to upload 2 extra to parts to his latest video, a behind the scenes film and a vlog in which he explains the entire thing was to highlight MALE sexual harassment. However it seems to be brilliant timing that these two videos appeared after the Youtube community had already blacklisted him.  When Youtube Feminist Laci Green posted an open letter to Sam Pepper she instantly got a huge 100,000 strong following including Youtube big names Hank and John Green. This then made Sam Pepper threaten Laci about making a video on the subject, which she thankfully did anyway.

VeeOneEye

With Jason VeeOneEye he acknowledged that what he did (as described in a video by a victim, Animagas) however he used his Mormon (Seen here in his unlisted, non advertised appology video) upbringing and social awkwardness as an excuse and still tried to act as he did nothing wrong.  However more and more people started coming forward with accusations of rape and sexual advances

Both Sam and Jason now have court cases against them and have been dropped by their Youtube Label.

Personally this hit home for me when a Youtuber I look up too a lot Evan Edinger uploaded a video in which he broke down because he was very good friends with Jason and had done nothing about the things he was doing.  Now I am very much aware that he is not a victim but something I want to bring to light is how people who manipulate people sexually also manipulate those around them.

Now this is about Feminism honest, I am so proud of the self proclaimed Feminists on Youtube standing up for what it right and blacklisting these people from what is essentially a very safe and loving community. Feminists (who seem to be the only social group talking) on Youtube and other social networking sites, who are ENGAGING IN THE CONVERSATION, have been getting hate from Youtube fans who don’t want to believe their idols are flawed or who, sadly, don’t see a problem in what they have done.

Personally I have received a lot of hate on the topic but I am in no way ashamed of talking about it and I can’t sing the praises of the big Youtubers who are also engaging in the conversation, at the possible price of their fanbase, enough. Taking about it is the only way it will be fixed and I urge everyone to learn and listen too as many people as possible on the topic.

A personal favourite, Consent, a Youtube music video by Comedy Duo OMFGit'sJackandDean

                                      

More video’s have been created by big name Youtubers on the topic

Video: Lex made a video about what CONSENT means.
Video: Hank Green made a video about CONSENT.
Video: The Science and Dangers of YouTube Celebrity.
Video: TomSka’s Guide to Gatherings.
Video: Charlie McDonnell: Sex & Consent.
Video: Bryarly Bisop: We Are Edited.
Video: Laci Green: Consent 101.

Video: Lidsey: What is Emotional Abuse? 

Video: YouTuve Abuse Recovery | Ann McGavin (thegeekyblonde).
Video: Sexual Abuse on YouTube | Pottermoosh.
Video: Tell Someone | abb3rz07.
Video: Wrongdoings and Growth in Our Community | Teryn Gray.
Video: UNDERAGE SEX & CONSENT | hayleyghoover

Video: Women on YouTube Panel at VidCon 2014

Video: Marinashutup’s video on the topic.

Now this isn’t a fun post but it was a post I was going to write anyway on my personal blog and I decided the more platforms this is seen on the better - it's also happened to be something that happened in September!

If you would like to read more, there is a Tumblr master post listing links to every accusation, acknowledgement, apology and video here.