Update: Last class we used our footage that was filmed in the previous week and captured it onto the computer and used a program to chop up the footage and put it together as a montage. This was just an introduction project to our actual montage assignment and gave us an idea of what we will be doing and also got the creative juices flowing. I can definitely say that our group as some good ideas for our assignment now that we have our foot in the door with how to capture and use this movie making program.

Our beginner montage will be posted on this blog shortly. We called it "a day at school". It starts with a clip of the door opening to the class room, then a text book being flipped through, to notes being written on a piece of paper, and then the door closing. The montage symbolizes how fast a day goes by at school and how routine it can get.

Work, work, and more WORK

I really like the idea of not having people in our video montage assignment. Even during last class when we were shooting a few scenes for our group video, I was thinking about the absence of people. We shot a few scenes of doors, a pen and paper, and some papers shuffling - no people. It just seems like the more technology we use, the less our physical presence is needed.

This is actually one of the few courses I've taken on campus in a while. Since I've been working full time for a few years, and with my entire program being available online, I can now finish school at my own schedule. No face to face interaction required for the most part, except when I go to write an exam, and even that can be written with just a proctor present. Is that the way everything is going to be? Since when did human presence no longer matter? And more importantly, where was I? Likely sending a message on BBM...

For my own video, I thought about the absence of people in my day-to-day work. Working from home, emails, or calling-in to meetings seems to get the job done, and done well. Even though my work revolves around what people want in terms of their telecommunications, I don't have to see these people; I don't even need to talk to them. I can ask them some questions on a survey and still understand their wants and needs. I began thinking I could use clips of my daily routine; typing, sending emails, reading emails, writing reports, calling into meetings, etc. I basically feel like a computer sometimes - though not nearly as efficient. However a computer may feel, I'm not quite sure - but I'm hoping to translate this idea over somehow through my hip hop montage. I'm still brainstorming though as I make it through each lecture, so more thoughts to come...

J.Kohls: from Fri January 7th "Arcade"

When O'Gorman started talking to us about arcade games I was reminded that I happen to work at one of very few (to my current knowledge) establishments in KW that still have arcade games. Yes, there are the occasional stuffed animal claw machines, or whatever you want to call them, and that hateful game Stack 2 Win at almost every Wal-mart where you try to match the blocks on top of each other as they increase with speed after every line. I think that it plays on the time it takes for your brain to react to your vision and then send the signal to move your hand. So you think that you've won but really its moved before you've processed that reality. Cruel. Then there are the theaters with Dance Dance Revolution or "D.D.R." as quoted from Russel Peters.

What interests me, and what identifies the establishment that I work in as unique, is that its not only in a restaurant but that the machines are so old. Instead of D.D.R., Buckhunter, Pro-Golfer, or any other modern video gaming, we're dealing with Pinball, Sega, Atari and PacMan. The O.G.'s of arcade. They aren't extremely popular either; remnants of a more fruitful past. Its funny to think that at one point people probably lined up for their shot at beating scores. Now the games are tinkered with occasionally but most often act as casters for guests to put their condensation laced glasses on while shooting pool. They are kind like the mummies, suits of armour, and samurai swords of the Kunstkabinett.

Its a bit ironic, or appropriate, that we are tasked with transforming these shells of arcade games into kunstkabinetts themselves.
Imagine the number of hands that hit those buttons; what those people had experienced. The dates, the entertainment, and other things going on around the machines. I wonder what stories lie in existence swirling around these artifacts of entertainment.
Im getting curious about the Kunstkabinett- and I like saying that word!

Walking through the hall,they stand as silent armies; mummified by time