Question Response

In response to Christie's question, I do believe that people have become desensitized to images. This however is not the fault of the viewer, but rather a natural outcome of the concept of photography. We have all seen the power of repetition, which goes the same with photography. We see an image over and over, and we become use to it maybe even comfortable with it. This imminent outcome of photography has its negative aspects, however there is a crucial factor of importance. These images make us remember. For example, when thinking of the JFK assassinaiton, whether you were alive at the time or not, everyone pictures the same image of the motorcade and president slumped over. Therefore, due to photography and our desensitization to images, a compilation of history is catalogued forever.

Shawn Kepfer

NW Film Fest

The movie I saw was entitled Selfless. It was a very entertaining movie to say the least, filmed in Portland and Seattle. Highly recommended.



-Bryce VanHoosen-

NW Film Festival

On Friday I attended Shorts II. Although it started off promising with Smile, it was overall a disappointment with videos that made little sense, and did not present any idea with enough power or conviction to move the audience. That is, aside from Little Pleasures, which was powerful, even if it was disturbing. It showcased a girl who force fed herself gum until she was gagging and eventually vomiting. Although it was mentally and physically unsettling, it's critique of destructive behavior, such as drug use, was very powerful.

NW Film Festival

I went to Shorts 2 at the NW Film Festival, and was disappointed. The first film called Smile was the only decent one, because it was the only one that had a storyline. All the other films where random and tried way too hard to be "artistic". My least favorite was probably one entitled The Tourist, it was a excerpt from a film that Jack Nicholson was in and it was him played in slow-motion. It got worse because the "artist" had edited out all of the background, and replaced the audio with the sound of a wind gust. I sort of expected films like this to be at the festival but Shorts 2 was judge favorites, so I hoped for more and didn't get it.

Derek Klayum

NW Film Festival

I attended Shorts I on Thursday night. It was at nine and after another film.
I liked the longer ones that told a specific story the best.
The one I was most excited to see what the one about the restaurant, because I work at a restaurant, but it turned out to be a lot less exciting then I thought.

Mania drama

In reading my write up you'll see why it was drama(running late, traffic jams being lost and no cash). I enjoyed the film and it gave me some insight into the history of the Blazers. I was a big fan in the 90's when they were making their run for the championships. Then stopped following when they would fall short later on. Now with the new blood I am starting to listen to the games and starting to get the "mania."

The Power of YouTube

YouTube is something that I don't use very often, but I am starting to more. It really is a great site because it emphasizes free speech. I think it's wonderful that anyone can put their own material on the space for millions to see. It supports individuality while creating a form of social networking at the same time. With the creation of this site, everyone now has the power to create what they want and post it for all to see. I only wonder what will happen when YouTube begins streaming live video. This could be a great new feature or it could be potentially dangerous. For now it is a very useful tool, whether it be for fun, professional, or even for research.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whmp5yRnABs

Shawn Kepfer

NW Film Festival- The Politics of Sand

After reading through some of the blogs it was nice to see that I wasn't the only one that went to this film. Very much like Nate's blog, I didn't choose to see this, it was the only one I could fit into my schedule. I was quite surprised however with this film which impressed and humbled me. Focusing on the beach bill of 1967, the film highlights the key players and the lengths that people went through to keep Oregon beaches free and open to the public. At times the film was a little slow, since it consisted of countless interviews. However, after watching it I have a new found appreciation for the Oregon coast and the sacrifices people made. Just think, the Oregon beaches could look like California beaches which are fenced off, commercialized, and littered with people. The decision to not privatize the beaches was based off of the idea of tradition as law. People have been using the beaches for over a century, the public has always used the beaches and therefore own the beaches.

One final note about Koyaanisqatsi. I realize most of you hated it and your entitled to you opinions, but I don't feel that the wording of some blogs was quite necessary. I'm sorry but calling it a turd is not a mature critique of art. When researching it online, almost every website praises it and many consider it one of the most important films of our lifetime. In fact the U.S. Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant". I just had to defend it one last time.

Shawn Kepfer

NW Film Festival

I attend on November 12, 2008 the NW Film Festival to see “She’s A Boy I Knew”. This was a good film to go see for me, in the fact that this type of subject matter I do not know a lot about or have ever really cared to know about. I learned that this film had a lot to do with self expression more then dealing with the fact it was a guy going through sex reassignment.


By Sarah Richards

Drop, cover, and hold on....but keep the camera rolling

Question from the blog

This response is from the question that Christie Hougham asked:

"Do you believe that images have lost some of there intended effects due to the desensitization that people have acquired from media and tragedies?"

I do believe this statement is true because people will always look at images through their own life experiences. Artist have always used images with their own visions of what is being said to them, and hope that others will view it in the same way.

Wanda Francis

Jonestown November 18th, 1978....response to Mander question

Chad Miltenberger asks this question in his reading response to Jerry Mander

Is it really possible to erase images from your memory?

My response....no, okay it is possible if you lose your memory...but without some injury to the brain (mental or physical), I don't believe you can fully erase memories. This question and Mander, got me thinking about memories I have of events I saw on tv as a child, namely the Jonestown massacre-sparked because of the CNN show this past weekend Inside the Jonestown Massacre. This month marks the 30th anniversary (sounds odd, like it is a celebration-which it is not). It's difficult for me to decipher what I thought was real at the time this massacre happened because most of what I recall about the event came from a docu-drama, taken from the real...a simulacrum of sorts. Watching the CNN show allowed me to blur that "fictional" memory I had of Jonestown, but it didn't allow me to fully erase what I believed to be true, because I saw it on tv.

Back in 1978, when Jonestown happened, we didn't have cable, in fact I don't remember watching tv at home on a daily basis, until I was about eleven. We didn't have CNN or other news channels to run 24 hour long coverage of dramatic news events, the only thing close was 60 minutes. My early tv experience mainly happened at my grandparents on their color Zenith console. On the weekends I'd stay the night there-the sleep over usually consisted of some heart stopping delicious meal and television after dinner. Typically my grandparents liked to watch cop dramas like Kojak, Barnaby Jones or Cannon. but they also gravitated towards docu-dramas (since there was no CNN to fill that gap with "real" drama). So a couple of years after the real Jonestown tragedy, this show comes on about Jonestown and I watched it with my grandparents. (You can see this clip, sorry...embedding is disabled.) This is where my memory of what was real, what was a simulation of the real, becomes grey-I cannot tell you what is fact or fiction. I don't know if I originally learned about Jonestown from the news or a tv movie. To this day, if I look at Powers Boothe, I see Jim Jones. Watching a made for tv movie was real to me, if not more, than the actual photographs and footage from the massacre (on tv news and in print).

I'm not a follower of Mander (and I love my tv) but he brings up some ideas that make me question how tv has shaped me over the years. I'd like to think I wasn't a naive television viewer as a kid, my Mom sold television advertising and I often watched the news being broadcast right in the studio. I knew how the magic worked inside that box and what supported it (ads). But I was just a kid and perhaps trying to analyse the horrible events of Jonestown was beyond my capacity..."what we don't know scares us". Here are the facts I know, I don't like Kool-Aid, I have no desire to go to Guyana, I don't care for 'leaders', and I've got issues about the tv movie Helter Skelter-this spooked me too, it took a long time for me to realize that Charles Manson was in prison and not living in my town.

Maybe in the long run, CNN has made us more sophisticated as viewers. We don't have to rely on those two hour tv movies-a dramatization of what may have happened. We can watch an event take place immediately and continue watching the talking heads analyze the event for weeks (or years) to come. Perhaps it is not sophistication, maybe sophistication is just a replacement for desensitization?

The Power of YouTube

I also thought the political use of youtube was the way to go this year. I wasn't alway able to catch all the Presidential speeches when they ran on TV but was able to catch up using YouTube. I found President Barack Obama's acceptance speech inspirational and find it amazing that through the power of YouTube anyone in the world can watch it at anytime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jll5baCAaQU

NW Film Festival

At the NW Film Festival I went to see Politics of Sand.  It was a film based on Oregon's beaches.  It was interesting to learn about Oregon's shoreline and also learning that Oregon is the only state in the US that has all public owned beaches.  Every other state has some privately owned shorelines where the public cannot access the beaches.  This was a huge war in 1967 to decide who owned what and government ultimately took shore property from private owners for all to access.

Koyannisqasti

I enjoyed parts of this film but could never imagine seeing it in a theater.  It was interesting to watch but I found it a little over stimulating.  

.:: The Power of YouTube ::.

The utilization of YouTube by our incoming president in a weekly official format demonstrates its power clearly. While YouTube has been widely praised for its ability to catapult just about anyone to temporary stardom I think that its utilization by the government is a true testament to its power.



P.S. Koyannisqatsi Kicks Ass. Philip Glass is brilliant in his composition. Perhaps comparing him to Mandy Moore creates a clear gap in musical prowess... I just personally find him to be on the preferential side of said gap. ;-)

Koyaaniquatsi

I can sum up in one word what I thought about Koyaaniquatsi, and that word is turd. I know that it may be harsh of me to be so judgemental but, I stand behind my initial response. I think that while it is beautiful and all, it is all that I hate about art. Trying to be high art does not mean that you are making high art. While I can't deny that it has been influential and all, I think the nail in the coffin for me was the horrible excuse for a soundtrack by Philip Glass. I think that it is fitting however that he did the music for that. Both the video and Philip Glass are pretentious and make me want to follow in Chris Burden's footsteps and shoot my self in the arm, or crawl across broken glass rather than have to watch that again.

Erin Wilkinson

The Power of YouTube

This is a montage music video that I did and am really proud of. I have tons of short films on YouTube and love that I have a place to be able to share my work with people for free.

Erin Wilkinson

Power of YouTube

Here is the link to the video I wanted to post. I don't know why, but my video wouldn't upload. It kept saying error on page. So here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VUQ-4Z17s4

Pretty hilarious.

Youtube

I thought this went along with what we are learning in class.

if this does not go through go to:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP5VWfv0hlk

Wanda Francis