MEDIA DESIGN

Fall 2019

[anjalin400]

Soundcloud

Probably should partition this from my class tumblr but 🤷🏽‍♀️ I’m putting out a bunch of demos over the next few weeks and idk I just want more people to check it out. Two of them are up now. https://soundcloud.com/navel-grazr

Follow @navelgrazr on insta but I am terrible at social media ugh.

[anjalin400]

[anjalin400]

[anjalin400]

WAAAAAAAAAAA!

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personal flag

[anjalin400]

Credits:

Poem by me

All images by me, except:

Window / Lamppost by Mark Rabe

Guy sitting on bed by Joel Overbeck

VO by Billie Seeland

Other audio clips sourced from Freesound.org

[anjalin400]

monday on nj transit

squeak

rumble of wheels on track

“hello...?”

rumble (slowing)

clack “the next stop is Princeton Junction, change here for...”

slowing, ventilation, wind

rustling

a groan, “noo...”

doors open

someone sits

whazoooom (goes Amtrak, I can tell by the speed)

ding dong

distant talking

the low rumble, a squeak

clacking

baby crying 

clack clack

paper rustling

sqqueaking wheels and rumbling 

rattling

rumbling, paper rustling

continuing rumble

ringtone

my book falls (thump) and I open my eyes

train horn

squeak

click clack 

cough cough

rumble, rattle, jingling keys walk by

whoosh outside, another train

ding dong, lurch, rustle

thump of someone sitting down on me (i am now self-conscious)

achoo!

cough cough

crunching wrappers

distant jungling

whoooosh outside

a horn and a whistle

exactly how long is twenty minutes?

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Visit Original Link

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Visit Original Link

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3-Figure Photos

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3 still shot storyboards

Image 1 inspiration:

(Primavera, Sandro Botticelli - via Wikipedia Images)

[anjalin400]

gestalt photos

Closure / Good Continuity:

Good Continuity:

Figure-Ground Relationship:

Similarity:

Proximity:

Uniform Connectedness:

Common Fate:

Bonus! 

I feel like might be a bunch of things, but I’m not sure (continuity? similarity? proximity? uniform connectedness?)

all photos by Anjali Nair (me)

[anjalin400]

frank film

You weren’t kidding when you said this film will “wash over us”. It was a lot to take in! I watched it a couple of times and the thing that struck me first was the shifting of background and foreground throughout the piece, i.e. the perpetually moving figure-ground relationship. Both the sound and visuals are layered such that certain phrases (visual or audio) take come into focus over others at certain moments. The narrative soundtrack, in which Mouris is retelling his life story, is definitely prominent in most parts of the film. I think it’s interesting how I tend to gravitate towards the story as the thing that organizes everything else that’s going on or as the most important thing. However, the other soundtrack pops into the foreground at certain moments, especially when you can hear a significant connection between the items being listed and Mouris’ memoir and you start to pay attention to the list. 

I was reminded of McCloud’s discussion of fragments as being the only things that make sense. The listed items are fragments and at times the fragments are really vivid in revealing the themes of the story, in contrast with a linear narrative. For instance, when Mouris is discussing his family’s middle class roots and how each year they kept getting better, the other track starts listing  snippets of classic consumerist advertising like “fully guaranteed,” “fantastically functional” and “finest materials.” I’m assuming this was in the 40s/50s  when commoditization was really beginning to boom; the fragments in this case painted a visceral image of the era and a middle class upbringing under these circumstances. 

Speaking of images, the visuals, too, operate as fragments, stacked on top of one another to create what must be an overwhelmingly tall pile if spatialized. They both follow the narrative of the memoir and anticipate it in some moments, bringing up images before the themes are discussed through sound. There’s a lot of use of closure, continuity, and similarity. We sometimes see a zoomed-in shot of an image before the whole thing is revealed or vice versa. Lines veer off the page to create direction and movement; an example that stuck out to me was the American flag. And of course, the iconic shots of many many eyes and lips uses similarity create rather mesmerizing patterns and a sense of one-ness of these multiple women being listed in the itemized sound track (in Mouris’ mind that is). A side note, I thought it was pretty f’d up when he was talking about his desire and obsession with women being partly about wanting to change and shape their features/fashion/selves into the image he had of them in his head.

All in all, I enjoyed how the film’s many components played with each other and took on different roles, but merged together in certain memorable moments, creating harmony within chaos, before diving back into the deep end. 

[anjalin400]

vampires of poverty

When watching “Agarrando Pueblo,” the main feeling I associated with the camera work was a sense of coldness and detachment. There’s a voyeuristic quality to the film-within-a-film narrative, with many shots viewing the cameramen and their actions from behind or from a slight distance. Turning the camera on these exploitative characters, we both witness the harshness with which they treat the poor of Cali and observe the “filmmakers” themselves with a similar harshness. Their unethical conversations/practices are laid bare and there’s an uncomfortable honesty to the storytelling style, which really drives home the film’s criticism of those who enter developing communities with commercial gain in mind rather than any sort of respect or desire to let the members of that community tell their own stories. 

An interesting aspect of the film is its choice of black and white when viewing the cameramen and color when we see the actual subjects of the fake film. This seems to underscore the description of the outsiders as “vampires” who take advantage and drain the life force of people of Cali by capitalizing on misery and poverty. A couple of shots highlight that the filmmakers choose to focus on this, even while there are juxtapositions of high rise buildings and other symbols of opulence, because this is what will win them attention and praise from foreign countries. 

The last scene, in which the film’s satirical intent is revealed, the creative approach changes. The film makers are sitting side by side with Luis Alfonso Londono, who plays a cobbler whose house the cameramen broke into, and the camera is at eye-level. This stands in clear contrast with the approach depicted earlier on, as Londono is interviewed and discusses his views on the film in his own words.

[anjalin400]

likes & dislikes

some images i like:

Henri Cartier Bresson via https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/seville-henri-cartier-bresson/

Mischelle Moy via https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx2fSC3nzQL/

Masayoshi Sukita via https://www.johnmcdonald.net.au/2015/david-bowie-is/

AppleJam Productions (artist unknown) via https://www.facebook.com/events/393346490811500/

Andrew Fairclough at Kindred Studio via https://www.kindredstudio.net/art-vs-science-album

some images i dislike:

Gene Baker via Facebook Messenger

Guy Bourdin via https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/articles/2014/august/12/how-man-ray-helped-guy-bourdin-put-shock-suspense-and-surrealism-into-fashion-photography/

Simon Fowler & Richard Gray via https://ultimateclassicrock.com/queen-the-miracle/

Anjali Nair (me)

Ken Mitchroney via Marvel Comics

[anjalin400]

union sq on a hot thurs

Fresh orange juice, fresh orange juice

Boom ch boom ch boom boom boom

boom boom ch ch ch ch ch boom ch

bbbbboom ch ch boom boom

Hand drums on a bucket

Sirens wails

Waaaaaaaaaaa oooooo waoaoaiaiao

Boom boom boom boom boom

Yells

Claps

Murmurs

It usually gets me really fast

[faint] Fresh orange juice, fresh orange juice

Hello

Boom ch boom takatatakatatakata

Boom boom ch boom boom ch

[freestyle] You already know the film

I gotta go go roll I don’t know

I don’t really know the way...

Thinking about it I gotta rap

Shhhhhhhh

A sibilant water feature

Chillin on the track

Ok you gotta keep goin

Word up word up

Boom boom bo-boom

Siren wails

Yeah YEAH YEAH [ascending pitch]

Oyee oyee oyee

A Spanish Facetimer

Bicycle bells tinkle

Ha ha HA

Water bubbles

Honks at a distance

Baby coos

Wait to take over

Aaaaaugh

A man groans as he lifts his baby

Dad? says the baby & whines

Now a slower groove

I like love this stuff

Boom ba badadaboom boom boom boom [crescendo]

Fresh

Fresh oranges

Fresh oranges

To the beat

Water spouts

Subway groans underfoot

A cough

Pigeon wings

Flap

Wheel chair

Rattle

High fast sirens

Meet low yawning sirens

[Closer moving further away]

Juice press squeezes an orange

Lift him up

Shut the fuck up

ha ha ha

Out of this world like space jam

Siren wails

A whistle as traffic cops chat

Beep beep

BEEP BEEP in case ya didn’t hear it

[anjalin400]

Portrait // directed by Aaron

Still Life // by Anjali