Notes on a Scene
The Social Network
In the very earliest stages of this project, we were assigned to create an inventory of our internet usage. While it was only a small part of my inventory, I found a great deal of fun going through my different streaming platforms and reflecting not only on what I watch, but how I watch — when I watch a TV show vs a movie, how often I watch, with whom. While I do watch a lot of TV and movies on my own in a simialr relationship to most people with their music, it brought up memories of how much I watch with other people and how deeply I connect with certain people over media. This reflection on my love for media reminded me of a series on YouTube I like called "Notes on a Scene" produced by Vanity Fair. Directors and actors come in and walk through a scene from their most recent movie, stopping at times to annotate and give commentary or behind-the-scenes stories. Most are pretty plain with their annotations, but my favorite video features Taika Waititi and Stephen Merchant talking about JoJo Rabbit. They were comedic in their annotations, drawing polka dots and mustaches on the characters. My inspiration mainly came from that video and how the two collaborated to make a tense scene ridiculous.
Because we were to create a web interactive platform, I combined my initial idea the platform Teleparty, in which a multitude of people can use a link to watch a piece of media together. This way, all the drawing would happen virtually with ease. I was also confronted with the fact that film moves, and any drawings would be rendered obsolete once the movie is played again and the drawing is displayed. I then imagined a scenario in which the drawings would snap to whatever subject it is placed on, thus carried through movement.
Overall, I'm decently satisfied with the work I did. My first idea that I played around with for about a week was completely different and I never felt as connected to it as I did to this concept. My overarching idea is solid and seems like something I would use. My biggest regret is that I didn't have more time to work on the animation; I could only do two 4-second clips, so my idea doesn't seem to be displayed to its full fruition. When watching the final product, you can see me figuring out the best way to animate as I work, so the first scene isn't as smooth as the second one, which matches my vision much better.