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Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Happenin'
Saturday, October 27, 2007
What's Happenin' ?
Monday, October 22, 2007
The Takoma Park Film Festival
The Gym is going to be featured in the Takoma Park Film Festival in Takoma Park, Maryland at the Takoma Park Community Center! (7500 Maple Avenue, Takoma Park MD 20912) It will be part of a screening on November 17th at 5pm entitled "Moving Through Space and Time". If you are in the area, please come and support!Labels: Film
10.25.07 and Brick
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Fist in the air for (Kweli) (Herzog)
This week seems to be the week for meeting artists, what with both Werner Herzog and Talib Kweli coming to Wheaton. For those who don't know Werner Herzog he is one of those filmmakers that is a living legend, his name being up there with Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Igmar Bergman. His films include: Aguirre: Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and (more recently) Rescue Dawn. So, when I was told that I was going to spend approximately five and a half hours with him: I found my legs shaking uncontrollably.
Herzog is a director that, when you first meet him tells you that you must learn how to steal a car, forge a document, fake a permit, and pick a lock. "These are the essential tools that you don't learn in film school." he told our class of twelve people. Our response was laughter, but he was dead serious. One example that he kept coming back to was that a group in 'Film Production I' was filming a scene in the middle of a field, when the owner of the property came out and shouted at them for disturbing the cows. What was so humorous about the situation was that there were no cows at all. Herzog talked about how this is one of the many situations you have to deal with. How, as a filmmaker, you won't always have a permit to film on land and you often have to work around it. One time, he faked a permit from the president of a small Central American country, and after presenting the permit to the army, was saluted and allowed to continue on his way.
Above is what Herzog signed in my sketchbook. A statement reading "Every man for himself and God against all!". Herzog is full of these statements, in the beginning of a screenplay he wrote: "Incandescent in their wrath, insects sting glowing stones." This, he said, sums up the entire film. The man has clear confidence: he believes that his films are good, but he is not at all egotistical. He just simply believes in what he does: "I have no profession, I only have life." But out of all the statements that I have recorded in my sketchbook, the most profound has to be: "You have to watch Anna-Nicole. I love Anna Nicole-Smith." Now, before writing off the man as insane (either that or a fucking genius), let me put the statement in context. He finds it incredibly hard to watch good movies, there's no way to look at how the director has perfected the pacing, there's not one thing that ties it together. If you can figure it out, you are not watching a good movie. By watching bad movies, you learn what not to do. "There's a reason America's culture is so confused, just take a look at Anna-Nicole, you have to watch Anna-Nicole."
The second artist that came to Wheaton, is none other than Talib Kweli. While, I wasn't able to speak to Kweli, I was able to enjoy an absolutely amazing concert. For those who don't know Kweli, he is among one of the best hip-hop artists working. He has worked with Kanye West, Common, Mos Def, and Danger Mouse. During the performance he sang most of his singles, from the most well known ("Get by", "Definition", "Hot Thing") to the lesser known ("More or Less", "Beautiful Struggle", and "Old School"). I highly recommend his music to those interested in learning about real hip-hop and not most of the crap that is on the radio. His most recent album is Eardrum.Labels: Film, Music, Talib Kweli, Werner Herzog
Friday, October 19, 2007
Herzog
Thursday, October 18, 2007
League of Extraordinary Artists
Tonight was the first night that we had a true Student Art League (SAL) event. It was simply this: let's make a banner and screw around. This has to be one of the most relaxing things that I have done at Wheaton. It was just this: a bunch of great people drawing, painting, and doing whatever the fuck we felt like. There was no pressure at all and we just expressed ourselves.
Labels: Student Art League
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Train Station
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Tammy is the Devil
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Boston Subway
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Film Society
New Sketches
So I was going through the sketches section while updating the site today and I realized that many of the sketches are really old and just don't represent what I've been working on lately.
Now, taking into account that it is 12:03 Tuesday morning, I've only scanned three recent sketches:
The first is a sketch I did of a friend slouching at work. The focus of the sketch started out as the belt; I remember really enjoying the fact that it was tied over her shirt. Though, I feel it shifted to the wrinkles in her shirt.
The second sketch is one of those sketches that just comes from putting pen to paper and watching your hand move. It started out with the right eye and just formed around it. As for the shirt and tie, I seem to be addicted to drawing figures with these outfits. Whenever I draw these cartoony figures, they tend to start with the face and move to the body. And, for some reason, the body usually ends up wearing a button-down shirt, with the top button undone, and a loose tie. This probably comes from my school uniform of 6 years, those outfits seemed to have been burned into my mind. We were always forced to keep our "top button done-up", so whenever we had the chance, we would unbutton our shirt, loosen the tie, and take a breather.
Finally, the third sketch is from an excursion that I went on with the Student Art League at Wheaton College. The group ended up going to a national park with an old small mansion. While the mansion was fascinating, I ended up wandering around it's gardens until I found this little structure. I only had an hour to sketch it and most of that time was spent trying to perfect the perspective and get the vines to look naturalistic (the lighting was really bad). So, this sketch is "unfinished".Labels: Sketches
Monday, October 8, 2007
Took Long Enough
I have finally added a blogging program to the main part of the site. Took me around 4 and a half hours to install it, but it was worth it. More later.
Please update your RSS feeds.Labels: Site Design
College Time!
So, I've almost been at college for 3 weeks. I'm still starting to get into the swing of things, but I'm really enjoying the numerous ammount of opportunities that seem to be availible here. After the initial shock of finding out that there isn't a film club, I've decided to start one from scratch. My goal is to show one film a week that people would find artisticly appealing. I say this because it can be anything from In the Mood for Love by Kar Wai Wong to Hot Fuzz by Edgar Wright. Anyway, I've been able to get some updates up of some work I've been doing lately. The first is a sketch I did after going to a party:
And the second is a photo of a train going by me at night:
As for the film "That Color Red" color me lazy, because I haven't even started on the next scene. I'm thinking of just putting up the train scene right now, but I don't know when that will happen.
I have produced some other pieces at college as well. I wasn't able to get into the 2-Dimensional design course I wanted, but I was able to get into screenwriting 1. Which means I'll be working on a whole load of screenplays over the next couple of months. One example is this screenplay in which the assignment was to write about a dream, find the drama in the situation, and then write it in screenplay format. Hope you all are having a good time wherever you are!
- David Labels: Photos, Screenplays, Sketches
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