Thursday, December 14, 2017

Self-Evaluation


Working Critique I
Sha Huang
Self-Evaluation 

I had two project this semester, they both are video work, the first project was shot by myself, and the second one is reproduce from a Japanese movie director called Kitano Takeshi.

A 5 minutes documentary based video was my project I, I recorded them as a bystander. As Music Underground New York already gave some information about the heat station to see their performances, I thought I would be able to find them at certain time. But that was not smooth as I imagined. The focus of my videos was instrumental and vocal performers. 

Watch again at my project I, I feel there are couple things I need to pay attention to in the future works.

  • ·       Audio recording. Even though noises can not be completely avoided, especially metro related topics, extra device and equipment is always supplement to make my work more complete.
  • ·       Shots transition. Maybe think about transitions between full shot, medium close up will give my content more information.
  • ·       Relationship. As my proposal was about the topic about performers and passengers, and my intention is the harmony of them. But I need to think about their relationship and perspective.

On the other hand, I feel like I spent time on my project, even I did not make a quite good project on this. The time I spent looking for the performers and edit my video, revise again and again, will be my precious experience.

Learning from the first project, I needed to think about more for my project II. Start from what is my violence for this project, I thought behaviors no matter including body touch or not, involving physical force (including weapon) intended to hurt, damage or kill someone or something. For my project on this topic, I collected violence movies by Kitano Takeshi. Considering of time, I focused on 5 movies of his. The first version I made is the moment right before hitting each victim, the second one is scenes that hitting the victim, and the last one is scenes that visual will fade into black leaving the audience in audio only environment for couple of second. For these clips I made them in sequence of violent method, punch, blunt, knife, and gun.
Listing some points I need to focus in the future.

·       Point of view. I feel my point of view of doing this video clips collection is sort of weak. I had a feeling about violence topic, and also showing this with materials I collected. But I think I could make my topic deeper and more detail.

·       Audio only version. If the audio only clip is showing by itself, would it still be understand by audience?

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Project 2 Complete

B2210 Workinig Critique
Project 2 
Kitano Takeshi’s Violence Movies 
Sha Huang


Abstract

This project is a violence scenes movie clips collection from a Japanese movie director named Kitano Takeshi. He has directed 18 movies, most of them are violent movie talks about Japanese mafia, he also has movie focus on ancient Japanese swordsman. In this project I have three different versions of his violence scenes, one is clips of the moment right before hitting the victim, one is hitting moment, and the last one is longer violent scenes with visual at first, and then fade into black with audio only for couple of seconds.


I read an interview from a magazine called BRUTUS (10/15/1997), journalist ask Kitano Tateshi that “What do you think about violence movie effect on audience? Making violent person?” He said “I don’t see thousands of beautiful movies about human personality making a better world.”
Kitano Tateshi is an actor, director, producer, TV presenter, poet, journalist, one-time stand-up comic and sometime recording artiste. His films, often violent, gritty yakuza gangster movies veined with grim humour, have gained him a following abroad, with Hana-Bi winning him the Golden Lion at Venice in 1997. When acting, he goes by the name of Beat Takeshi. When directing, he's Takeshi Kitano. "My core activity is trying to avoid being pigeon-holed by the public," he explains." I am Takeshi Kitano, I am Beat Takeshi, and you can't tell what I'm going to do next. It keeps the public interested."

Personally, I like Beat Takeshi’s movie, by the way he created violence movie, there is a lot meaning behind his movie. His violence movie always go with Yakuza which means Japanese mafia, back to modern times, mafia helped build Japan government, and that makes the relationship between government and Yakuza is more complicated nowadays in Japan. To some point, Japan might be the only country in the world which has legally existed mafia. From his movie we can see mafia’s daily bedrail, loyalty, brothership. What is most important is by the violence medium, we still see moral in personality, such as honesty, faith, strength and beauty.

What is my violence for this project, I think behaviors no matter including body touch or not, involving physical force(including weapon) intended to hurt, damage or kill someone or something. For my project on this topic, I am going to collect violence movies by Kitano Takesh. Considering of time, I am focusing on 5 movies of his. The first version I made is the moment right before hitting each victim, the second one is scenes that hitting the victim, and the last one is scenes that visual will fade into black leaving the audience in audio only enviroment for couple of second. For these clips I made them in sequence of violent method, punch, blunt, knife, and gun.


Trigger His Violence


Watch His Violence

Listen to His Violence


Installation





Reference:
Watching violent films does make people more aggressive, study shows, Keith Perry, 10/10/2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11087683/Watching-violent-films-does-make-people-more-aggressive-study-shows.html
'You can't tell what I'm going to do next', Sean Clarke, 5/29/2003 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/may/29/features.seanclarke
Known for violent films like Outrage, Takeshi Kitano is a comedian at home, James Mottram, 7/18/2013 http://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1281133/known-violent-films-outrage-takeshi-kitano-comedian-home

Budget

Purchase Movie copies
10.99 * 10 or more

Software, Adobe products
$19.99/Month

Working Schedule
Week 8 More research, movie and clips collecting
Week 9 Movie and clips collecting
Week 10 Selecting and decide clips I am going to use
Week 11 Start editing
Week 12 Over voice if need
Week 13 Revise
Week 14 Due

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Project 1-Sha

Working Critique Proposal
Visual Guide to Metro Performers
Sha Huang

Issues between subway performers and passengers have occurred in many cities: public space has been occupied, passengers have been disturbed, performers “force” passengers to watch their performances. This project will be a video collection containing multiple kinds of underground music performances. For people who live in cities that recently built a subway or have no subways, New York underground music performances could be a good way to show good relationship and balance between performers and passengers. At the same time New York underground music performance has already become a big part of this city and its city history. Via this video, I hope to give them a visual tour to New York underground music performance.

Not every city has metro transportation and not every metro system has underground music performance. A 5 minutes documentary based video will be my project, I will record them as a bystander. As Music Underground New York already gave some information about the heat station to see their performances, I will be able to find them at certain time. The focus of my videos will be instrumental and vocal performers. I will record and edit the video for this project.

To find out where the performers are and when they will perform will be a big problem, so this is a time consume work. With this project I hope to sharpen my skill at video editing and see how far cellphone can video goes.

Since New York City is home to all kinds of music, metro performance on the subway can be a symbol of this city. To study more about metro performance is a good way understand the harmony of this city too.

What I am doing is a video collection of different performers. As a personal goal, I hope to push my editing skill to the next level. In my final format, I will shoot as many kinds of performers as I can, I cannot give a number because it is a time costuming work to find and video the performers.

For this project, I will use my cellphone to shoot and PC to produce. Recording with my cellphone will give me the same video format to edit. This is a very popular way for people to record nowadays, so I want to see how far I can go with its capability.

New York has influenced almost every modern music performer. “If one music style could survive in New York, this music style could survive in the world.” I read this quote from a documentary about Jonathan Lee, a Taiwan musician. Simply put, I like to listen to all kinds of music, and once I moved to New York, I saw that there are kinds of music performance I have never seen before.

Metro music performance has its history. Issues between performers, passengers and station managers become news from time to time, especially cities which have built metro systems more recently. Now and then, we see news about performers who occupy public areas to perform and “force” passengers to watch. Some people think it is an issue between performer and government, others think it is problem between passengers and performers. Personally, I think New York is a good example to show the good relationship between passengers and performers: performers use a public area to play music and passengers have fun with them. A lot of video that contains individual performers on the subway have been shot by amateurs and uploaded to social media, many academic essays have been published.

For residents in cities that recently built a subway or have no subways, music performances in the New York City underground could be a good example of the relationship and balance between performer and passenger. Underground music performance in the New York subway is a big part of this city and its city history. Through this video collection, I hope to provide a visual tour of New York underground music performance.

Reference

Underground harmonies: music and politics in the subways of New York, SJ Tanenbaum


Subway dancer punches passenger for ignoring his show, Jason Nuckolls,

Subway dancers are entertaining until a passenger is injured, Pete Donohue, http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/subway-dancers-fun-hurt-article-1.1822223

Musicians: Street performer crackdown could mean competition for CTA space, Mary Wisniewski http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-subway-singers-getting-around-0206-20170205-column.html




Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Proposal Week6


Working Critique Week3 Expanded Proposal
Visual Guide to Metro Performers
Sha Huang
Issues between subway performers and passengers have occurred in many cities: public space has been occupied, passengers have been disturbed, performers “force” passengers to watch their performances. This project will be a video collection containing multiple kinds of underground music performances. For people who live in cities that recently built a subway or have no subways, New York underground music performances could be a good way to show good relationship and balance between performers and passengers. At the same time New York underground music performance has already become a big part of this city and its city history. Via this video, I hope to give them a visual tour to New York underground music performance.
Not every city has metro transportation and not every metro system has underground music performance. A 5 minutes documentary based video will be my project, I will record them as a bystander. As Music Underground New York already gave some information about the heat station to see their performances, I will be able to find them at certain time. The focus of my videos will be instrumental and vocal performers. I will record and edit the video for this project
To find out where the performers are and when they will perform will be a big problem, so this is a time consume work. With this project I hope to sharpen my skill at video editing and see how far cellphone can video goes.
Since New York City is home to all kinds of music, metro performance on the subway can be a symbol of this city. To study more about metro performance is a good way understand the harmony of this city too.
What I am doing is a video collection of different performers. As a personal goal, I hope to push my editing skill to the next level. In my final format, I will shoot as many kinds of performers as I can, I cannot give a number because it is a time costuming work to find and video the performers.
For this project, I will use my cellphone to shoot and PC to produce. Recording with my cellphone will give me the same video format to edit. This is a very popular way for people to record nowadays, so I want to see how far I can go with its capability.
New York has influenced almost every modern music performer. “If one music style could survive in New York, this music style could survive in the world.” I read this quote from a documentary about Jonathan Lee, a Taiwan musician. Simply put, I like to listen to all kinds of music, and once I moved to New York, I saw that there are kinds of music performance I have never seen before.
Metro music performance has its history. Issues between performers, passengers and station managers become news from time to time, especially cities which have built metro systems more recently. Now and then, we see news about performers who occupy public areas to perform and “force” passengers to watch. Some people think it is an issue between performer and government, others think it is problem between passengers and performers. Personally, I think New York is a good example to show the good relationship between passengers and performers: performers use a public area to play music and passengers have fun with them. A lot of video that contains individual performers on the subway have been shot by amateurs and uploaded to social media, many academic essays have been published.

For residents in cities that recently built a subway or have no subways, music performances in the New York City underground could be a good example of the relationship and balance between performer and passenger. Underground music performance in the New York subway is a big part of this city and its city history. Through this video collection, I hope to provide a visual tour of New York underground music performance.
Reference







Monday, October 2, 2017

Expanded Project Proposal

Working Critique Expanded Proposal
Visual guide to metro performers
Sha Huang

This is going to be a video collection contains multiple kinds of underground music performance. For people from other part on the earth, they may not have metro and Youtube or they just have built metro, New York underground music performance has already become a big part of this city and its city history, via this video, I hope to give them a visual tour to New York underground music performance.
Just like not every city has metro transportation, not every metro system contains underground music performance. As New York is a synthesis of all kinds of music, metro performance become a symbol of this city and have a place in music performance. I am going to show people who have no metro in their city and people who has hard to access Youtube how underground music performance looks like. My focus will be instrument playing and vocal. Format of this project will be video I record and edited. To find out where the performers are and when they will perform will be a big problem, so this is a time consume work.
New York influence almost every modern music performer. “If one music style could survive in New York, this music style could survive in the world.” I read this from a Taiwan musician. Simply I like listen to all kinds of music, as moved to New York, there are a lot of things I have never seen before. With this project I hope to sharpen my skill at video editing and see how far cellphone can video goes. On the other hand, I hope to show people without Youtube and metro the fascination of underground performance.
Underground music performance has its history, and even until now, contradiction between performer, passenger and station manager still become news time to time, not to mention for the other cities which just build metro recently. In this area, tons of video that contains individual performer have been shot by amateurs and uploaded to the social media, thousands of academic essays have been published. But what I am doing is a collection of differ performers. As a personal goal, hope to push my skill to next level. In my final format, I will put as many kinds of performers as I can, so far, I can not give out a number, because this is a time costuming work to collect them, I will try my best.

During this project, I will use my cellphone and PC to produce. Recording with my cellphone will keep me having same video format to edit, and that is also a very popular way for people to record nowadays, I also want to see how far can I go with its capability.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Project Update

From last week, I already found couple of video according to my topic about metro music performance. And my proposal will be updated with advice from class.



Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Week 2 Project Proposal

Working Critique
Visual guide to metro performers
Sha Huang

Living in New York everyday, we get used to street and metro station performers. These performers have excellent skills in various field, music, dance, imitation. What I am more interested in is music. I am going to spend days to watch these metro station performances and record them.
New York influence almost every modern music performer. “If one music style could survive in New York, this music style could survive in the world.” I read this from a Taiwan musician.
Simply I like listen to all kinds of music, as moved to New York, there are a lot of things I have never seen before. With this project I hope to sharpen my skill at video editing and see how far can cellphone video goes.
There are tons of article about street and metro performance. Open Youtube, there are thousands of video about these performance too. What I am going to do shot is a clip of collection of them. This is not new, but just as a personal goal, push my skill to next level.
I will go out and looking for these metro station performer randomly, record their performance and edit what I shot. This will give my audience a visual concept about how are street performance looks like.

My cellphone and PC will be my best partner during this project.