Lauren Farrington Revisions and Citations

[0:00] Shows the program where she put all of the video footage and digital audio together

Lauren: This is my citation version video for my “Making a Fist” e-poem. The only revisions I made was cutting off a little pop-up in the corners of some of my videos, video clips I clipped from YouTube, and also aligning the text to match the rhythm and the music better. 

[0:32] Going through a couple of different scenes, this one landing on the [0:05] image in the video.

Lauren: Particularly at the end, I wanted the clips to align perfectly with the music that text, I mean

[0:42] Image of [4:33] mark, the star formation cloud with text across the screen: “one”

Lauren: You can tell especially right here. 

[0:45-0:49] Playing that scene of the clip, letting the audience hear the music align with the text

Lauren: Let me replay that one more time

[0:52-1:02] Replaying that scene

Lauren: The text pops up right as the singer speaks, and that’s what I wanted to parallel the rhythms.

[1:10] Goes back to the beginning of the video poem, and then back to the image of the ladder at [3:30] 

Lauren: And then the last revision I made was to change the placement of this one clip here, so that when the text separated. 

[1:24] Music starts playing; shows scene at [3:37] where the woman is standing over a ditch/grave

[1:31] She pauses and talks

Lauren: Before I had separately separating on a black screen instead of with the hands falling apart.

[1:45] Image of boys playing in street, at point [0:24] 

Lauren: So, to start my citations, all of the scenes, like here [0:24] with the children, and everything but the candle and the smoke in the middle of my, and the galaxies, in the middle and at the end, all of the scenes with people in them are from the movie “The Tree of Life” by Terrence Malick. 

[2:07] Opens new window to Google, searches Terrence Malick, then goes to Wikipedia page for Terrence Malick

Lauren: Terrence Malick is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Many of his movies are called Art House Films because there’s an (advanced?) cinematography, that he uses cinematography mainly (to lull?) the story rather than having a storyline with a lot of dialogue.  But, in my opinion, this is what makes his movies so beautiful to watch.

[2:36] Changes tabs to YouTube, searches “The Tree of Life,” chooses The Tree of Life Movie Trailer Official (HD)

Lauren: My first Malick film was “The Tree of Life,” which as I said was the clips I used through my video, and I absolutely hated it. I thought it was pretentious, and I thought the story wasn’t there. I didn’t try to see past the surface. 

[2:57] Music starts playing from the YouTube video. She lets the video trailer play after saying the one sentence. 

Lauren: I got bored and it just wasn’t doing anything for me. 

[3:23] She starts speaking over the video, and then shortly pauses it.

Lauren: Which is basically the movie. There’s hardly any speaking; I hardly even remember any speaking. Definitely a little bit; definitely laughter and crying, but dialogue does not drive the movie forward. It’s the visuals and, I guess the first time I watched it I just got bored, and I refused to watch any other Malick films. That I really love watching, and he’s a film major so we watch a lot of movies together and I do respect his opinions about them.

[4:01] Types in “Badlands” trailer, chooses Badlands - Original Trailer

Lauren:  And that’s probably why in the end, even though I had sworn off Malick, I eventually watched “Badlands,” which was Malick’s debut film. And I ended up loving it. 

[4:15] As video starts to play, Lauren still talks.

Lauren: It has more of a tangible storyline. Less(?) cinematography, even though it’s definitely there. 

[4:45] Pauses video and starts talking again.

Lauren: Already, you can see the difference between the two trailers which really implies a difference between the two movies. So after watching other Malick films, like “Days of Heaven” and “The New World,” which I also liked, I decided to rewatch “The Tree of Life,” and I found out that I saw more of the beauty in it than what I took as Malick’s arrogance towards his audience. 

[5:12] She switches back to her program where she created the e-poem. Starts to play some of her clips, mainly the smoke section.

Lauren: In the end, I think Malick’s other films acted as a lens for me to see “The Tree of Life” in a new way, kind of like how our poetry walkthroughs helped the audience see our e-poem in a new light because you have new knowledge of the work and the meanings behind them.  So, “The Tree of Life” was very complex to me. I think that’s what compelled me to use it in my e-poem. Not only is it beautiful to look at, but the storytelling is on the bejewels(?, there’s no way I heard that right, but I played it several times). If you don’t look closely at the actor’s faces, small details of the set or screen, or even how Malick transitions meaning can be lost on you. 

[5:56] Starts playing scene from story where sun/moon image becomes cut-out footage of boy’s face at [1:21]

Lauren: I wanted scenes in my e-poem that alluded to the complexity of individual lives as stories. I think “The Tree of Life” was a perfect choice. 

[6:07] Stops playing her e-poem, goes back to the beginning to point out music at [0:01], then just lets the video play to let the audience hear the music. 

Lauren: So, for the music at the beginning, right here. I used the song “Sleep Sound” by Jamie XX. Jamie XX is Jamie Smith who’s English music producer, remix artist, and DJ. He is more commonly associated with the group “The XX,” as Jamie XX is his solo stage name. He’s widely recognized as a notable electronic musician and received a Grammy nomination for his solo album “In Color,” which the song “Sleep Sound” is off of. I knew that I wanted a song at the beginning that seemed curious and not so much lighthearted as maybe naive. I had remembered the The XX had some good meaty sounds and that’s how I came across “Sleep Sound.”

[6:55] Goes back to the beginning with the tree at scene [0:01] 

Lauren: Here, you can see that I used a film damage effect over the scenes from “The Tree of Life” 

[7:02] Stops video, then plays after a few seconds. 

Lauren: Because the sense of “Making a Fist” by Naomi Shihab Nye is that the speaker feels distanced from her pasts and from her experiences. So the film damage effect creates that sense of distance and also creates a sense of nostalgia since videos aren’t created on film strips anymore and can’t be damaged in this way. I got the filter from 00JimboJen000 on Youtube. 

[7:28] Goes to scene where text is “s-l-i-d-i-n-g out of me” is on screen at [0:35], then cuts to scene of smoke [0:38]. Goes back to image of text “s-l-i-d-i-n-g out of me”

Lauren: I used another overlay about here, about a third into my e-poem, which is smoke. I got it from the YouTube user Shreds. I wanted it to emphasize the speaker feels from their own life. The smoke mirrors the speaker’s lines “I felt the life sliding out of me” and here...here, and you can see the smoke in the background. 

[7:58] Goes back to image of smoke. 

Lauren: So here in the middle of my video, I wanted it to sound like ringing in your ear, something annoying and that you might not notice at first, but you have no control of it. 

[8:03] Opens new window, looks up “glitch music,” goes to Wikipedia page, scrolls down to performers

Lauren: So, somehow, I came across the wikipedia page of glitch music. And I scrolled down to performers of glitch music, and I clicked the first name, which was Richard Chartier. 

[8:24] Follows wikipedia link to wikipedia page for Richard Chartier.

Lauren: After listening to some of his music on iTunes, I bought a field(?) for “Recording 3” 

[8: 31] Switches back to her e-poem program. 

Lauren: As it includes the segment with the perfect jaw(?) noise to act as ringing. 

[8:37] Plays the glitch music

Lauren: Glitch music actually surprised me as being really cool and as since(?) the performance of glitch music try to create songs that are intentionally mess-bad(?), inspired by unintentional glitches and mistakes that happen. Many of the artists create songs out of material around them, and Richard Chartier is one of them. 

[8:57] Music gets louder; Lauren still speaking:

Lauren: After finding Chartier, I figured glitch music might be the opportune genre to find some ambient sounds to fill in my e-poem. 

[9:03] Music stops

Lauren: I needed a piece that would be slightly disorienting and might even have a sloshing sound to make the listener feel like they’re moving around, or something is moving around them, 

[9:11] Starts playing the scene where sun turns into planet-like figure [1:21]

Lauren: In order to enhance the sense of uneasiness. So I went back to the glitch music Wikipedia page, and clicked on the second performer’s name, being Taylor Deupree. Deupree is best known for creating the 12k record label. His song I used here is called “Negative Snow.” 

[9:35] Plays video until it reaches the planet-like sphere with a ring around it [1:42]

Lauren: While halfway through “Negative Snow,” I have another song start playing. It’s “Obbs,” o-b-b-s, by Jamie XX once again. The pacing of the song went perfect with the wandering, questioning attitude of the speaker in the poem I used, and it starts right here.

[9:48] Starts playing the metal beat kind of sound; Carribbean sounding music

Lauren: And then, to create a sense of dire as the speaker feels when they think they are dying, I used a candle being blown out. I got this video from YouTube user DLStockFootage and it’s titled “Candle Flame Being Blown Out 1.” 

[10:15] Starts playing scene where three boys chase their mother out of the back door [4:05]

Lauren: For this last section, here, and for the piece of masking overlay in the middle of my e-poem, I used galaxy sequences from YouTube account JamieDauntus(?), using the video titled “Sliding Through the Milky Way.” The last song I had playing is “Her” by Rory. I first heard this song about two months ago. I loved it on the first play. I enjoy how it combines voices, dialogue, almost at the beginning of the song, which you can hear.

[10:45] Pauses other scene; begins playing video for specific song; [3:27]

Lauren: Here. 

[11:11] Pauses video

Lauren: It has a questioning sound intonation at the end of the sentence, which kind of gives you the questioning of life throughout the e-poem, and then also has the laughter, which is like the liveliness of the children in all of the videos. I thought it fit very well. It makes the song easier to interact with I think the voices do, and it also reflected the sense of community I tried to create in the last segment of the e-poem. 

[11:38] Pulls through video to images of galaxies [4:37]

Lauren: And that’s my citations and revisions.