It's Never Too Late

Never Too Late from Sofya P on Vimeo.

For this project, Vanessa came to me with the idea of interviewing students that had gone back to school since she had gone through this experience. I instantly loved the idea and was genuinely interested in what motivated a lot of people to come back to school. We started visualizing the project with what questions we wanted to ask these students, I asked Vanessa what questions she would be interested in asking since I knew that she could relate to these students. Once she came up with a few, we narrowed them down together.
When it came to the actual production part, we both took turns filming and recording audio. We discussed how the shots were going to look and saw that we both had a very similar vision. Editing was really fun because there were times when I was confused as to how to place something and Vanessa helped me out and visa-versa. We both were editing together the whole time and frequently looked to each other to make sure that we were both on board with all the changes.
This was my first time having to do every phase of production with someone else and it was a great learning experience. It definitely took some time getting used to it because I was so used to going with my first instinct and not having to think twice. However, I think this project was stronger because of how me and Vanessa worked together. One thing I found very interesting was when I had an idea and then she had something different in mind and I realized that it worked much better than what I originally planned. It was moments like these that showed me that with creation, two can be better than one.

Museum Visit

The Museum of the Moving Image offered a lot of useful insight of behind the scenes of film production. Although I didn't get the chance to interact with as many exhibits as I would have liked, I did get the chance to experience one computer-based interaction. This was the flip book section, where a camera records your movements for a few seconds and then turns the video into several images that you can print out and make into a flip book.
I found this interaction fascinating for a few reasons. The first, being that in lecture we learned about how flip books were inspiration for a lot of film makers. The ability to see how a series of images can turn into motion became an interesting thought that lead to things like animation. Similarly, a series of shots make a scene. Small sections, when put together, make a story come to life and I think that was what the flip book originally inspired.
The ironic part of this interaction was that this time it was a computer filming a video and then turning it into images, the opposite of the original flip book. This shows just how far technology has come and what it is capable of doing. To create a flip book today, you don't need to take a series of images, all you need is a computer and five seconds of motion. It seems so simple to us now that we don't even think about how many years of experimentation and invention was needed to get to this point.

Blog #3: Relationships Between Shots

The scene I'm going to discuss is in a 2010 movie titled: "All Good Things." I have the movie on amazon so I can't provide the clip but it starts one hour and twenty three minutes into the movie. In this scene, the main character, David, gets his neighbor to fly out to California and kill his best friend, Deborah, who now threatens to expose the fact that he killed his wife.
The scene starts out with a long shot showing Deborah arriving to her house in a taxi. Right away, it switches to a medium close-up shot of Deborah where we see her face form a surprised/confused expression, giving us an idea that something important is unfolding. From this shot, we switch to a close-up of a Texas license plate on the car parked right in front of her house. We don't actually get a full shot of Deborah looking at the license plate but the switch from her face to the close shot of the license plate let's us assume that that's what she's looking at. The obvious detail on the plate is the Texas name, letting Deborah assume that David has come to visit her.
The next shot is her walking into her house and this time the camera is very shaky as it follows her throughout the house while she looks for David. The shot has a very continuous feel to it, not much switching except for one quick shot of her dog barking on the floor. The shakiness and continuity of this scene gives off a very nerve racking vibe, both the audience and Deborah are eager to find David as she walks through the house. The shot, along with the noise, of the dog barking only add to the nerves on the scene, with the barking overlapping with Deborah's constant screams of David's name. We then hear the extremely loud sound of the TV and the second Deborah kneels down to turn it off, background music comes on and it keeps building and building. It is the sort of music we hear in horror films just as something bad is going to happen.
From here on, we get a close up shot of the neighbor with a gun in his hand and the shot switches to his POV of the gun being pointed at Deborah's back. We can piece together that he is looking at her with the intention of killing her. As the music builds, the shot switches completely to David, in his home in Texas, approaching a fly on the wall with a newspaper, intending to kill it. As David hits the wall with the newspaper, we hear a gun shot instead of a squatting noise, and then a close up shot of Deborah lying on the floor with blood coming from her head. Here it was very obvious that the neighbor killed Deborah, although we didn't actually see it, and in a metaphorical sense, the way the shots were placed together gave us a feel of that it was really David behind her murder.

What I Hear..

Walking in Union Square during the middle of the day, I heard a variety of keynotes. No matter how far I walked, there was a constant background of beeping, tires screeching, and footwear hitting the ground. I have never really noticed not only how constant these three sounds are, but how they mesh together to form a sort of blur when I'm walking in a neighborhood as busy as Union Square.

I think there are definitely a variety of sounds that, when heard together, make it clear that you've entered this neighborhood. These sounds are: birds chirping, people yelling, and music blaring. So far, Union Square Park has managed to provide this every time without disappointment. As I was listening, I took notice how expected all of these sounds were to the visitors of the park. It was common knowledge that someone would be there with a boombox playing techno music while they juggled, as that happened today. Giving a specific realization to this made me see how unique this park was and why it attracted so many people at all hours of the day.

As I wandered to the benches, I heard the familiar sound of several people chatting among each other all along the wooden row. This sound was more familiar to the park scene but seeing how calm and intimate all of these conversations were when there was a jungle of activities and sounds all around them made the whole scene look funny to someone who was an observer.

Define A Space

East to West from Sofya P on Vimeo.

Artist Statement

People are my constant inspiration. People and relationships. I am deeply interested in the everyday rituals and relationships of the average person. Everything from mundane tasks to heartfelt interactions. For me, the base of any interesting piece of art is the focus on the connection of what people go through and who they go through it with. I tend to gravitate towards art that romanticizes everyday life.

I find that visual mediums such as film and television best portray this topic meaningfully, as well as writing. My interest in people carries me to explore aspects of subculture in my art. I am interested in how people react to taboo topics and hope to make art that normalizes them. I have found myself inspired from movies about the mafia, shows about outlaw life, stories of drug abuse, along with violence induced scenes.

 Lastly, I hope to be an artist that deals with public issues. I am particularly interested in highlighting that which is unknown to the public. This may include types of activism, political issues, and world events. I think we can tell a lot about a person based on how they react to these situations. For me, it has always been sarcasm and satire and therefore I have related better to people who share this view. I plan to use these tactics in the characters and scenarios I create. I do not wish for my art to relate to everyone, but I wish that those who do relate to it, to do so deeply.