Ben Bonham FST 302

Fist off, I know I'm a day late on this post and I'm sorry! Anyways, Cucalorus was amazing.  This was my first year and I had the peg pass. Unfortunately I didn't go to as many viewings as I had originally hoped to because I had a boat-load of school stuff to do. As of the ones I did get to see, Mr. Roosevelt, Knife Skills, and What Lies Upstream, What Lies Upstream was probably my favorite.  It was a documentary about the clean water crisis in the US and it was very educational.  Unfortunately, I thought they were going to discuss the water crisis in Wilmington, but they did not.  I also went to a uctail event and the Blind Elephant downtown and saw Dan there. I asked Dan how his day was going and he told me about his morning poop. Overall, it was a good experience but I am hoping to have much more active experiences in future Cucalorus'.

So Cucalorus starts Wednesday and I’m not so sure I’ve prepared myself.   The festival crept up on me pretty fast but that’s okay, it gives me a good reason to get away from all the school madness!   I’m very excited and a bit anxious for Cucalorus but I’m pretty sure it’s a good anxious.   I bought the “Peg pass” which gets me into all the events so I am hoping to attend as many blocks as possible and see as many films as possible.   I also am hoping to meet a lot of people with common goals and exchange information.   Although I do not know the chances of this happening, I am also hoping to meet Wilmington locals in the film community that I can reach out to because I would like to get more involved within the community.   By meeting local film lovers, I am hoping to be more aware of what is happing in my own town within the film community that way I can better see where I will fit best.   When I arrive, the first thing I am goi...

I had a lot of fun completing my self-portrait.  At the beginning of the project I was really excited and filled with ideas and then I realized I was having trouble sticking with a single idea.  I feel like my self-portrait represented me in the fact that it had elements of many ideas but couldn't just stick with one.  Sometimes less is more.  I really wanted to challenge myself production-wise which I did but I didn't spend enough thinking about the mise en scene.  I knew I wanted to practice using masking methods to include multiple "me"s at home with my girlfriend and dog but I feel like that was just a little random. I'm not really sure what my expectations where but I feel like it all worked out in the end.   For our up-coming music video assignment, I am very excited and confident our group can work well together and I also believe we have a lot of talent in our group.  As the producer for this assignment, I feel the weight ...

After reading From Art House to Microcinema it became clearer to me that local cinema society is important in the development of a progressive cinema industry.   To me, it seems that progress has to happen within a smaller group of people before a larger society adopts it in. I found this article to also be inspiring by the fact it talks about how “underground” cinema is important as well. Considering I am a senior and about to be thrown off into the world, I have been trying to create as many things as possible to practice and prepare myself for whatever lies ahead. Although my ambitions by seem a little far-fetched, I would love to prepare local screenings at my house and offer new opportunities for local film fanatics in my own town. I want to be a business owner one day and I believe this would be a good platform for me to practice as well. For the presentations, I think all three of the presenters did well.   Maggie’s presentation on Marlon Riggs was f...

I thoroughly enjoyed Dylan's presentation on Jan Svankmajer.  I thought Dylan's opening was entertaining and awakening (pun intended) and was also a good introduction to Jan Svankmajer.  I also thought it was ironic that Jan Svankmajer was the Filmmaker given to Dylan, possibly because he may be able to pronounce his name better than anyone else in the class.  Jan Svankmajer seemed to be an extraordinary person with a unique style and set of ideas. I took one sculpting class in high school. Although I thought I was pretty good at sculpting clay, it is definitely underestimated as to how difficult and time consuming it is to make a face look like a face. The detailed accuracy and intense reconstructions of the clay is very impressive to me.  This may be the reason as to what made Jan Svankmajer so interesting to me is because he was obviously talented.    Another aspect about Jan Svankmajer I found interesting was his interest in the grotesque and absurd. F...

Stan and Christian did wonderful jobs on their presentations today.   It is very inspiring learning about all of these amazing experimental filmmakers. Christian made a great point today about her subject, George Kucher.   She said that George talked about how he always has footage to work with because he has so many unfinished projects.   I think this can apply to a lot of people; we just have to always push ourselves to finish them.   Learning about Stan’s subject, Stan Brokhage, was also inspiring.   Stan Brokhage was a very intimate filmmaker, which reminded me the power of cinema.   It can reach the deepest depths of person’s soul and sometimes ITS PUBLIC! Having something so personal and to be public is extremely risky in my opinion but it is hard to say why it feels that way for me.   Stan Hankins said that Stan Brokhage did not mind one bit about having public personal films and actually wanted to make more of them.   “Shockingly” his wif...

Shooting on Film is awesome! I can only say that because I have done it now.  Throughout my filmmaking career, I have only ever shot on digital video.  I always knew shooting on film was a whole lot different but now I truly understand what is so different about it.  It is more of an appreciation of the way film came about and it evokes a certain way of thinking.  It was awesome because when my group and I were downtown Wilmington, an old man came up and saw that we were using film and told us to be very selective. To experience the feeling of having a roll of film that cannot be deleted and is permanently altering the picture was rather enlightening. Before digital technology, movies had to be shot on film. Film is where it all started, so in order to understand the movie making industry and process, film is an important concept to understand.  Maybe one day we will have another type of medium to shoot movies with. Who knows.