Creative Critical Reflection

I can't believe CrAzYtOwN won't be apart of my daily schedule anymore. For timing reasons I had to shorten my original script for the CCR, but I finished it all up this morning and am happy to submit it as the final log of this journey!

CrAzYtOwN is finished!!!

My hands are officially tied...can't believe I won't be editing or writing weekly blog posts anymore :(. Hope you enjoy :D!!!

Becoming a snooty French hand puppet film critic?

I voice-typed (is that what it's called? technology's too crazy sometimes) my script for my CCR and here's what I came up with! I'm going to print this out, highlight key points, and use these answers as a basis for my CCR which I will be filming tomorrow. Just to keep you guys in the loop, I'm letting you know that I've decided to make my CCR an interview between a snooty French film critic, who is of course, a hand puppet interviewer. His name is Salvatore Champagne. Champagne's parts are in blue, in French pronunciation of English, and my responses are in black. Click on the link below to check it out:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L4Zj5k16t0bLcMPKtI7wkUfetCnYxU6AhaKg2VVP6qw/edit?usp=sharing

Speaking of hands, can someone please use theirs and knock me out until I fall asleep? Sincerely, the girl who just wants to sleep. (It's me).

Today. has been. so. long.

Sooooooooooo. long.

SOOOOOOOO LONG.

It doesn't really matter though cause it's blog post time-WOO! I just got back from voting for the nominees and award winners for this season's Cappie shows. If you haven't read my past blogs (*cough* shame on you) you might not know that I'm a South Florida Cappie Critic, which basically means I get to see high school productions for free, get served free food, (it's usually baked ziti. guess it's a trend in the theatre world that I just don't know the origins of) and write reviews on said show. At the end of each season all critics in the program vote for the nominees and award winners for a bunch of categories including tech such as Lead Actress, Lead Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Set Design, Costume Design, and more related subjects. I've been on my laptop all day editing, doing an online course (so I graduate on time hehe), and just spent the last hour voting on a laptop, and here I am, of course, typing on a laptop. Woo Hoo. (That was a sarcastic Woo Hoo). So I kind of despise this device right now. I really want to take a nap but the girls are heading over tonight for the final night of filming...we were supposed to finish last night but Sammi had to stay at work. Hopefully everything runs smoothly tonight and we finish before 10:00 PM!

On Monday I told you guys I'd go more in depth on the design of the hand puppets, so here goes! Sammi's hand is named "Tequila". I think the one eyelash and the blue mouth gash correlates with the name choice. Here's a close-up!:

Alexa's hand is the narrator. We picture his name to be something simple that doesn't necessarily make a statement, like "Jeremy", or as I like to call him "Scaredy Cat who looks Constipated all the time". Here's a close up!:

Kamelya's hand isn't completely visible in this picture, but she's got two different colored lips and two protruding snaggelteeth. Her character's name is "Agatha". For some reason that's name I think of protruding teeth. I also thought of naming her "Nanny McPhee" but as I got to know "Agatha" she just became the "Agatha" we know and see today:

 Isa's hand is named "Aldolpho", inspired by the character of the same name from one of my favorite musicals called The Drowsy Chaperone. He has a question mark tattooed in the low center of his forehead because he used to be Hindu, but is questioning his faith at the moment, and before you say anything, yes, I did use a fake eyelash for his mustache. #Creativity:

Editing is taking longer than it took for me how to tie my shoe laces without the bunny ear technique. (It took me several years ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

Editing just the first twenty-seven seconds took me about an hour...good thing my seventh hour teacher usually forgets to teach for some reason. No shade. But also, so. much. shade. Anyways, thanks for letting us have free time so I could work on editing at school--which leaves for more nap time at home. Word. Here's the first twenty-seven seconds that I've compiled so far; the last four seconds still have to be timed correctly but the first twenty or so seconds are basically done and paired with the timing of the background track!:

Reshooting...Wa Waa Waaaa

Michael wasn't able to make it to school today so I'm going to have to re-shoot everything we did on Friday, which was about a good forty-five seconds since I won't be able to use Michael's hand for the rest of the piece. The girls just left and all I have left to do as of now is to clean up, even though I really would rather just drown in a sea of googly eyes and drift away because they're just too cute. Anyways, I also had to change my filming location to my house because there was an AP mock exam in the auditorium. I was a little nervous with how the shots would turn out at first but I ended up liking today's footage way better than last Friday's! I used my projector to act as the red spotlight we used on Friday and the lighting came out clearer and more tinted on camera. All I did was search up 'red spotlight' on google images and Voila! I got this beauty:

The finger laser lights also paired a lot better with this red backdrop than the original red spotlight. One annoying issue with the projection was that the shots and angles I could get were somewhat limited because my shadow reflected onto the wall. I am happier with the way the visual appearance and color appears on film though, despite the minor changes to my shots.

Something I particularly enjoy is the overall production design, which will give me a lot to talk about in the CCR. I don't want to get into too much detail but the hands look like wonky arts and crafts and that's exactly the look I was going for! I'll go over some more "hands-on" thoughts about the way the hands look tomorrow...it's time to start editing what I have so far!

Started filming today!

Here's what happens when some of your actors don't show up on time :O...

Shadow Puppet Inspiration!

This week I've been learning about artist, Kara Walker, in my art history class. The work we've been dissecting is called "Darkytown Rebellion"; it is comprised of color projections and silhuottes that recall the 1960's liquid light shows projected with psychedelic music to heighten the surreality of the scene. The work interacts with it's viewers being that participants walk around it and engage in all of it's elements, becoming a part of the history of the piece. More specifically, the installation emphasizes how real the suffering of the African American people was and how it's effects are still resonating around us to this day.

Overall, Walker's installation challenges visualizations of race within popular culture. My work with "CrazyTown" strives to create the same kid of intimacy and connectivity Walker's works exude. Studying Walker, I learned that she also creates shadow puppet films! Here's a gif I found of one of Walker's shadow puppet films:

  

Watching some of Walker's hand puppet films showed me that I like the "spotlight" atmosphere she creates such as in the gif above. Working with the finger lasers has been kind of a struggle so I'm going to try working with the spotlight at my school's auditorium and my projector at home to see what brings the best lighting results!

How to Become a Musical Genius in a Class Period:

Here's what it looks like when you can't find sheet music and you have to pick out a couple voice parts on your own...