Mike Maguire
Liz Ledoux
Media Production
November 18, 2009

Artist Statement

The two ways in which I approach video and music-making are: making something abstract that breaks away from the norm and creating a deep and understandable experience for the viewer even if they aren't necessarily there. In no way does music of film making need to be an earth-shattering experience but rather something that makes you think a little and break away from something that sounds or "looks right".

In music, taking sounds, musical progressions, or effects from previous styles of music can become an original piece of work if it is done in a unique way. I like to change the structure and speeds while keeping a general feel for alternative rock in creating my music. Using similar guitar effects and song structures of all my musical influences combined produces a unique but open experience. When I open up my mind to a certain piece of music and disregard any assumptions of the genre, I find myself increasingly more interested in trying something new and allowing it to create its own experience.

This is very similar with any kind of image making or video producing because leaving the topic open ended to the viewer allows them to create their own personal feeling towards the piece of art. Forcing the viewer to make connections and produce his or her experience towards an image is much more beneficial than a straightforward piece. It is also true that some of the best images and videos create a feeling of "being there" to the viewer.

In my project on media piracy, I wanted to create a fast-paced documentary with a lot going on in a short period of time with statistics, youtube videos, pictures, voiceovers and interviews. I used music from the bands: "Rise Against" and "Metallica" mainly because they are upbeat and heavy, and I feel media piracy requires a pace and tone of that sort. I feel like the music came in at the right time and moved the pace of the film forward.

One of the biggest issues in creating art for me is individuality. Sometimes you think you are on to something new and you realize how similar it is to something else, usually a direct influence to you. But, by taking in all of your surrounding influences and continuing to strive to an original new product, progress is constantly being made.

Media Piracy

So, after ditching the marajuana idea our group thought it would be a much better idea to go with media piracy. I thought this would be a much more compelling project mainly because I feel it is extremely relevant for most college kids with computers. Also, students would be much more apt to admit to stealing music as opposed to smoking weed. The first work we did on the project was on Saturday before presentation day. We picked up a flipcamera and immediately got to work on film ideas. We decided as a group we wanted to incorporate interviews, industry facts, Bentley student media piracy facts, with a newscast kind of feel to it. We knew that the film was supposed to be around 5 minutes but we figured if we condensed it well we could make an interesting film.

The preliminary work for the project seemed to flow very easily. We got about 75 people to answer our survey which gave us very favorable answers towards our project. We also got some real good industry facts, and interviews that first day of filming. When we met again on Sunday to edit and complete the project, it was evident early we were having a tough time putting it all together. I am a perfectionist with programs such as finalcut pro and snapz and this became very clear as we progressed through our project.

Eventually we thought of 2 solid ideas to mix together with our interviews. These were a newscast-esque kind of update on the industry along with 2 contrasting youtube videos on media piracy. In the end we definitely had some fun with it and produced a good project.

A Discussion on Pot

I think our group could make a cool documentary/story-telling video that talked about issues of smoking weed. 3 people would be discussed and interviewed for a good majority of the movie. The first one would be someone who is a full-blown pothead but does very well in school, the second would be someone who doesn't smoke, and the last would be someone who let drugs over their life and get the best of them. If we could mix these with different scenes of pot facts, celebrities issues from youtube, images of people in the act, while keeping a non-biased and racey feel to it, I think we could present an interesting project.

photoshop to .jpg

So, tonight after class I went into the lab and decided to work with some images to put into my scene of pearl harbor. Beginning with a goodyear blimp I realized that I wanted to put images in the sky that were first of all not around in 1941. The first issues I had which I'm sure most did was the best way to cut the photo out of its background. Often times the normal cutter was very hard to move around steadily and the polygon tool often left a line of background still attached. After brainstorming more ideas for images to put in the sky and receiving an e-mail back from liz that it can be funny, I decided to take it to another level. This is where I found superman, a flying dog and a man parachuting with balloons which I really wanted to add to the pearl harbor scene. Getting the hang of the magnifier and general organization of the different became difficult with more and more images added to the final product. By the end of the image I was starting to really get the hang of the program but using the wand to copy the image and using the eraser to make the image more realistic are some things I could use more work on. To top it off I put a man hanging out on a raft in the water to complete the absurdity of the scene.

The ups and downs of photoshop

Beginning this photoshop project for MC220 Media Production class might have been a bit easier if i did not miss the class the previous week when we got a tutorial! But, nevertheless I was able pursevere through my struggles. Yesterday which was Tuesday I met my roommate max in the media lab to watch him work on his project to see if I could get the hang of the program. Looking around in the media lab I noticed most kids were working with very American images which were unmistakable. I wanted to know if it would be aloud to maybe find a picture of some monkeys and give them mohawks and guitars. But, after surfing around google for way too long I found a reproduction picture from the scene of Pearl Harbor with planes, bombs and fire. I thought that this would be a good image to work with and in the meantime of the next day I would think of unnatural things to put in the sky to cover up the planes.