Fireside Chat

            I don’t think the finished product showed the effort I put into it. I’m a little disappointed. Most to blame is likely my fear of performing and my fear of editing. I’m afraid of both for the same two reasons, I don’t enjoy the process of either (unless its film editing or editing other peoples writing) and I’m afraid of the dishonesty that feels somewhat inherent to both. “Listening is an Act of Love” appears to be candid and therefore un-manipulated. Its just people talking with no prompting and the animations just are them and what we here is in order, nothing omitted, etc. It’s overly cynical and fearful of me in this specific context, because the video is awfully kind and it’s not nefarious at all. I just feel hesitant, especially as soon as I’m the one doing the making.

I like Mark a lot. What he’s done to fight the trafficking of children is incredible. But, I think that making documentary and activism palatable via narrativization and entertainment infusion and cool packaging is dangerous. By heading down that route, I think we put a bandaid on the problem which is Errol Morris’ claim that people have a stake in not facing the truth. Entertainment as the deliverer of information and donation of funds as the action performed in the face of domination, power, and oppression keep people passive. It makes activism a commodity, a bartering of money for an eased conscience. The world can’t be permanently bettered, opposition in all things, utopias are impossible. But I want to be on the right side of all of this. People need to be made uncomfortable and not in a comfortable way.

None of that really makes a strong argument for why I had a lackluster performance. It was an assignment and I should have just sucked it up and tried my best to perform like I did for the Webspinna Battle. Instead, I tried to write a script that fit information, that I think changes the world if people accept it and act accordingly, into a time limit. I should have tried to be creative in the scripting, in the punctuation of the information by images, etc. There are documentaries like Luc Moullet’s Origins of a Meal, which present information in a strange manner, with performance of some sense involved, in order to further discomfort rather than generate comfort through entertainment. Some of the other students in the fireside chat pulled that off and I’m really proud of them. I wish I’d done more.

Concerned Citizen

Video Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NDAAsb8KzqPclFNkgixk5qLejNOEvkeM/view

A few years ago, Brennan met AB while eating at Johnny Rockets in Lehi. After talking with him a bit, he realized that this was someone who was incredibly special. When the prompt for this project came up we talked in our group about many different subjects we could have for our documentary, but in the end we all really wanted to learn more about AB.

As we talked to him on the phone before the shoot and during the shoot, he told us that when he was offered arm transplants at 15 he decided to turn them down because he knew he could do more for the world that way. He has intentionally worked in the restaurant business his entire life (even though he’s had offers in other industries) because he knew by doing so he would be face to face with people all over the community every day. By showing them that he was able to function as well as he can without arms, members of the community would leave their meals motivated to push through their trials with the gifts they have been given.

For our film, we learned a lot from watching episodes of Beehive Stories and the States Project. We clearly learned functional, structural lessons. We emphasized our subject above all else, letting him speak, keeping our voices out of it, developing visual interest in a back and forth with images that showed illustrated the point of what he was saying. AB’s concerned citizenship is his active presence, and we showed him in that active state. His words were meaningful, but by showing what he meant, showing him helping people and interacting with them in his disarming way, we helped to show the audience what AB really does. In another sense, we invert the approach of Brad’s film projects, making location very secondary. It’s clear that we’re at a restaurant and if you’re paying attention you’ll see the signage. But we don’t open with it. And we don’t hammer it home.

       Our film has a degree of the quality that the NFB documentaries headed up by Colin Lowe and his compatriots had – a simple emphasis on the concerns of a voiceless person. In those films the images are composed and rather beautiful, and yet they are simple and plain and almost naïve. The films get out of the way so that the people can speak to an audience. I think we headed a little in that important direction.

The technical aspects of the project include two cameras (A camera and B camera). Camera A was the camera AB was looking at. It was a close up from his shoulders. Camera B captured a wider shot of AB with a view of the restaurant. B-Roll included footage of the restaurant, both interior and exterior. Footage of AB working at his job was integrated as he was talking during the interview.

Aspects and techniques of documentary filmmaking were incorporated throughout the 3-minute video. Our goal was to attempt to tell AB’s unique and powerful story creatively and visually.

Textual Poaching

            First, I made a mistake. I forgot that the text we poached needed to be older than us. Princess Mononoke came out in ’97. Miyazaki is, however, an old man kind of guy and Princess Mononoke is a movie shaped by Japanese history that is much older than I am. It feels old, so at least there’s that.

            The identity I negotiated in my textual poaching comic is “boy” and “activist.” “Boy activist.” I’m a boy, so is Prince Ashitaka. He is struck with a curse and told that there is “evil at work in the land to the west” that he must confront with “eyes unclouded by hate.” In the modern world I feel struck with many curses. Depression, anxiety, alienation, eczema, maladjustment, addiction, etc. And lots of things tell me that there is evil at work in the west. Capitalism, consumerism, celebritism, hegemony, domination. I feel like I have some sort of call similar to Prince Ashitaka’s, a much vaguer call, to become an activist who does good in the world beyond my comfortable/understood home.

            But, where Prince Ashitaka immediately receives the call to act departing the very night he hears it, I get sidetracked by all the “things” I like and end up stopping before I ever really get started. I like, video games, candy, looking stuff up, buying cool stuff, thinking about what I’m going to do someday, etc. I like a bunch of gluttonous, selfish, consumerist stuff that I’ve liked since I was little, and I very often occupy a very traditional male role in which I forgot to do my part in my household because I’m absorbed in a game. I’m actively changing this role for myself, but it’s been a significant part of my identity my whole life until now.

            I negotiated the text by delaying Prince Ashitaka from his journey. He didn’t quite hear what the village priestess asked him to do. If she asked him what she said, he could probably repeat it, almost word for word, but he didn’t really internalize it. He’ll leave eventually, and when he does, he’ll probably do a good job. Delaying and playing videogames for too long will make him feel embarrassed though, so he might not be very polite when he leave. He’ll also need to rush and hurry which won’t necessarily stop him from getting the job done. It will, however, increase his stress and anxiety making him a pain to live with.

            I tried to do what Henry Jenkins described, performing “home improvement” on the text. I don’t usually do that, I think I feel pretty separate from texts. But it was a fun and productive exercise. In my case, it let me wrestle with what I feel is holding me back from developing my identity into what it could be. I’ve been thinking a lot about Early Cartoons, and Early Animation as well as Jan Svankmajer’s animation and Norman McLaren’s. They all operate on principles of transformation and metamorphosis, a principle which so seldom applies to people who are rather inert and dead. I don’t want to avoid facing a world that needs changing forever, pursuing consumerist pleasures that stick me to the same spot. I want to unstick myself and because active, an activist like Prince Ashitaka.

Historical Script

https://WriterDuet.com/script#QNTNE_72AKRQKVEEUFZ

Artist's Statement

In working on Jerry and Jimmy one of the priorities of the story that we wanted to highlight specifically was historical accuracy. This fairly mundane, humorous event is complete true. My grandfather still takes great pride in telling it, knowing full well how idiotic it makes him sound. While a few events have been modified slightly, including Glen being an amalgamation of two people that Jerry was actually there with, and some of the more humorous signs, the majority of the story, like Jimmy Carter’s visit, the botched handshake, the sign “Not Just Peanuts”, and Carter’s interview with Playboy (including the praying 25 times a day), is accurate. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter and my grandpa never made a 1980 run at the White House together, which is probably a good thing.

            While the story is already inherently funny, one of the reasons we went all-out in regard to comedy in the piece, something we both feel is an asset here, is because of a historical source found in preparing to pitch Jerry and Jimmy. A 1976 article found talked about three farmers trying to go to meet Jimmy Carter, whose likeness they had captured in an oversized papier mache peanut. Ultimately, they failed, but the bizarre nature of the story inspired our own, hopefully positively.

            The story itself features some pretty interesting commentary on the way that we perceive celebrity. The chaos of the crowd, plus the extremely embarrassed reaction that Jerry has to the mishap, is heightened by the presence of Jimmy Carter. We see Jerry is elated to speak with Jimmy Carter, envisioning a bright, if wholly unrealistic, future with the man. Upon realizing he’s speaking and shaking hands with Glen, he’s mortified. Furthermore, we’re constantly seeing how different people perceive the politician. We see signs that support Carter and signs that don’t. Jerry seems to be more interested in meeting Jimmy Carter than Glen is. Celebrity, like history, is just as much influenced by perception as it is by fact. Jerry and Glen, our protagonists, represent this ideal fairly well. Their behavior and actions are influenced considerably by the context of the situation.

             Writing Jerry and Jimmy, we started out with the desire to write something that was true and funny. As we wrote, we were pleased with the interesting ideas presented that we were able to work in between the humor and truth of the subject matter. While we could have written the script to be more focused on further examination of how context impacts action, we are pleased with the good balance we were able to work out in Jerry and Jimmy.

Process Piece

HOW TO SPEEDRUN Super Mario Bros (NES) - FIRST TWO STAGES

Like The Smokehouse, the process we depicted is essentially a recipe developed over time through experimentation into a refined form. Our process is speedrunning Super Mario Bros. for the NES (the first two levels of the World Record speed run as of October 20, 2017. The principle quality our work brings out is the tension between play and rules that exists in games. Eric Zimmerman’s essay Narrative, Interactivity, Play, and Games, defines play as, “the free space of movement within a more rigid structure.” Play is whatever you can do when you start up a game of Mario and start running/jumping around. Rules are the rigid structure which restricts play.

Most importantly, a game is a, “voluntary interactive activity, in which one or more players follow rules that constrain their behavior, enacting an artificial conflict that ends in a quantifiable outcome.” Mario is a voluntary interactive activity in which one player progresses to the right, running and jumping to overcome obstacles within a time limit and without the ability to return to the left after the screen has scrolled forward. The player must complete 8 levels, but they may skip levels if they find secret shortcuts. The player begins with 3 lives, but they may earn extra lives through accumulation of coins or discovery of 1-Up mushrooms.

A normal player would navigate the structure of rules with any of the following goals: winning, fun, or challenge. Playing to win is then interesting because the free play of how you play within the rigid structure lets the player try new strategies when they fail or when new challenges present themselves. Playing for fun is interesting because the player is engaging heavily in free play, making choices for their own sake, seeing what happens or enjoying the sensations in themselves. Playing for challenge is especially interesting because every option of play is weighed against the structure of rules, testing which options work or which options the player wants to make work. This is where a speedrun of Mario comes in.

Speedrunning Mario takes playing for challenge to its most pragmatic conclusion. It does away with style or goofing off. In the name of speed, it shaves away everything unessential. It hones play until play reveals the rules. Play and rules become just about the same thing.

There are multiple processes at work here. At the highest level, there is the process of us translating a speedrun into a recipe of sound cues. Down one level, a speedrunner executes a series of practiced game inputs more flawlessly than anyone else before him. Before that, he practiced Mario a mind numbing number of times with serious focus. Before that, a bunch of other people practiced Mario figuring out how to finish it as fast as possible through combined effort and experimentation. And finally before that, a team of Nintendo employees designed and built the game through a process of experimentation and technical refinement.

Speedrunning is a process of refining Mario down to a recipe of near perfection, exact inputs that lead to a determined result. The process of building a pioneer style smokehouse is similarly the end result of a process of experimentation and refinement that ended in a set process of smokehouse construction. Likewise, the recipe for fish smoking follows this pattern. Speedrunning Super Mario Bros. might appear at surface level a completely different process from pioneer survival methods, but at its core, it reflects the same larger process of refinement through free play in the face of rigid structures.