Final Project

Final Project Movie compressed from Aaron Seeger on Vimeo.

Blog Assignment 4

For this blog assignment, I have chosen to analyze the video “Dont Hug me, Im Scared.” It is a video on youtube which subconsciously criticizes the two political parties. There are lots of different shots and cuts in this film, which is completely done with animation and puppets. To start off with closeups and Long shots, there are usually closeups on the paper book character when he/she is stating something about creativity. However, when the paper book is speaking as if it were teaching and engaging the other puppets, there is a more long distance shot which shows every character being engaged. In terms of the sounds, there is a lot of voice over since we are dealing with puppets. The soundtrack throughout the video changes drastically. In the beginning of the video, the soundtrack consists of a lot of happy sounds and what almost sounds like children’s music. At the midpoint of the video however, there is a 360 animated shot of the camera around the characters. This is also where the soundtrack changes drastically from preppy and happy, to an off key playing of what sounds like a violin in a nightmare. Between these two points in the video, color also changes a great deal. In the first half, colors are mostly bright and comprised of whites, light blues, beige, and yellows. In the second half however, you see a lot of blacks, reds, and dark purples. Overall, the video is very well done due to seamless cuts, the color pallets, and the soundtrack.     

Extra Credit Blog (Sharon Hayes film)

Before coming to this event, I didn’t really know who Sharon Hayes was or what she did. When I heard that she had a screening of a new documentary at hunter, I didn’t really know what to expect. To be honest, before I actually attended the screening, I was a little worried that the screening would be boring and about a topic I wouldn’t really care about. However, when I attended the screening and found out that it was about interviewing homosexual woman about what its like to be in their shoes, I was pleasantly surprised. With that being said, due to the fact that I am a heterosexual male, I could not directly relate to their experiences. Throughout the documentary, you see Sharon in front of a group of college woman, asking them a bunch of questions. These questions ranged from “what do you think about sex?” to “What it’s like to attend an all female college?” Hayes got a range of responses from woman that come from different walks of life. Some woman appeared to be heterosexual who casually experiment with woman, while others went as far as a complete sex change. I liked some of the documentary techniques Sharon uses throughout the film. Some of these techniques include having complete silence towards the beginning of the movie and showing others girls reactions while a certain girl is speaking. Some of her questions were very thought provoking as well and even allowed room for a somewhat heated conversation about woman in society towards the end. Overall, I learned a little more about how to conduct an interview with a group of people and the energy the interviewer should have.     

Blog Post 3: Museum Trip

Aaron Seeger

Media 160

Blog assignment 3

Our trip to the Museum of Moving Images was very interesting and exciting to go through. We saw all different types of props and activities to go through. The one that caught my attention the most was the activity we went through when we went into a room with a big screen with titanic sound files on it. The tour guide basically played each sound clip for us which showed just how much sound editing is put into one scene. I found it really interesting that the sound production of certain scenes didn’t even contain straight forward sound bites. For example in a scene where a man is swimming through the ocean while the ship is sinking, there is a sound clip of a lion roar being played just for dramatic effect and to add fear to the subconscious mind. Another part of the museum involved seeing the different types of cameras used overtime for filming. The moving picture has changed a great deal due to the fact that it started out as almost a flipbook to having 4k high definition camcorders. Something that was interesting to find out was that in the early days, in order to add color to film, artists would literally paint onto the film strip to wherever they needed color. I did not know that they even attempted to do this before as I only thought that color didn’t officially show up till the Wizard of Oz. Overall it was a great learning experience and I would definitely consider going back in the near future. 

Project 2

Link: https://soundcloud.com/aseeger/project-2-aaron-seeger

Blog Assignment 2

What I Hear 

For this blog assignment, I decided to walk around my neighborhood near the Brookdale dorms. I figured that it is a good area to walk around due to the fact that there is quite a few construction going on around the area. On top of that, there are always plenty of people and cars out. I started walking from twenty fifth and first and ended up at St. Marks Place in order to change up some of the setting and sounds that come with it. A lot of the background sounds I heard while walking down from twenty fifth were pretty varied. I did hear some construction in the distance. In terms of sounds in the foreground, the wind played a big factor in this since it is usually very windy in the area. Besides the wind, a lot of foreground sounds I heard were cars passing by along first avenue.

When I passed an area near fifteenth and first, there were multiple guys that were gathered around a boom box. There was hip hop music blasting from the box as the guys around it were just talking and having some fun. The sounds of hip hop music and near by people laughing combined to make an interesting yet joyful noise. When I finally got to St. Marks Place, I heard a lot of different music coming from different shops. I heard different people having different conversations as they were getting something to eat at one of the outside tables. Overall, the sounds I heard from the walk down were of the hustle and bustle of New York City.   

Project 1

Here is the link to my video on the Vimeo website:
https://vimeo.com/88732191?utm_source=email&utm_medium=clip-transcode_complete-finished-20120100&utm_campaign=7701&email_id=Y2xpcF90cmFuc2NvZGVkfDk3ZWM5Njc2MjA1MTE4ODY2ZGFmZGQ0MGFlY2EyYjRhNjgwfDI1ODM2OTE3fDEzOTQ1MjMwOTB8NzcwMQ%3D%3D
Staircase from Aaron Seeger on Vimeo.