Reflection on "Exit Through The Gift Shop"

Exit Through The Gift Shop is a documentary made on Thierry Guetta who was a family man with a vintage store in LA who was obsessed with the video camera and filming the world around him.


Which elements are believable? (Specific examples)

There were elements that were believable as the information being giving was always backed up by visual evidence. One of the examples what seemed real was when he talks about street art, there is evidence of that in the video showing a lot of other peoples work except his nephews work. Another is when he talks about shooting the nephews friend from dangerous heights, he is actually at the top of a building shooting the artist.

Another of the really believable aspect was the way the scenes were shot, it felt like they were the actual clips that Thierry must have shot as they are shaky and consistant throughout the zooming in and zooming out.
The person who talks/narrates throughout the story sounds very formal just like a news reader which seems he is authenticating the events.

Which elements are not believable? (Specific examples)

The elements that seemed unbelievable throughout the documentary was the background sound and effects that were usually over dramatised. 

Another of the biggest concern was the blurred out face of Banksy, you could not tell whether it was really him or his real story or someone else altogether.
He would talk to his so called friends or artists in his own language which made it seem a little unbelievable  and that they all belonged to the same region, but how did he find so many artists in LA.

Sometimes when Thierry was a part of the camera shooting something else that seemed like a set up just for the documentary.

What is the morale/ purpose of this fictional documentary?

It was to highlight the world of secret struggle the street artists go through that goes unnoticed by people who appreciate or look through the art. Thierry try's to capture the world of street art. People use the street/ building walls to portray their art and Thierry has tried to show.

Poject 6. Sound.

For the sixth project in my time class we were supposed to record several sound clips also known as fossils and then combine and edit them in Premiere pro. We are supposed to have a inspiration for the sound piece.

For my sound clip that I have named - Nostalgia
Are recordings of sounds and events that I associate with the time I spent with my younger sister.
The recordings are :

-Sound of a music box that she owned
-Filling water in a glass, as I would always have her bring me water
-Clicks of the phone keys while texting
-Humming of a lullaby my mom sang to her
-The sound of her dance wearing her payal (anklet with bell beads)
-Sound of her wearing my heels and struggling to walk

I have used Premiere successfully by layering clips, editing them by adding effects like chorus, delay and dramatic, shortening or lengthening the speed, used the volume control, used the pen tool to place with the pitch in between the clips, used crossover for blending, fade-in and fade out effect with the help of pen tool again.
This project was very exciting, as the topic is very personal to me. My critique went extremely well, people liked the choice of sounds and the overlaying of each clip with another, the transitions worked well. My professor pointed that I had some sounds that weren't explicit as opposed to some other very clear ones.

Project 5. Animation.

And could you guess making 100 drawings could make something so much fun in the end? 

For my fifth project in my time class, we were supposed to choose an action and make 100 drawings each one progressing movement. I choose a ballerina dancing. I chose large-small-large movement pattern in it as I wanted to have her move across the page and show the exaggerated movements in comparison to the smaller ones. 

I used a tripod and camera to capture all my drawings, each picture after each drawing. I used primer to put all the images together and make a stop motion animation. I used tittle and credits as well. 

In my critique I was told that it was pretty good and my professor like the linearity I kept constant in all my images and that makes it work for the video as it flows better. The students seemed to like it too. 

Project 4. Graphic Novel.

For the fourth project in my time class we were supposed to make a graphic novel. It was supposed to contain only 4 pages including the front and back cover. We had to come up with a concept. The concept I chose was inspired by the movie enchanted but I tweaked the story line a little bit:

First slide : This is a story of a princess who was happy in her fantasy land and suddenly one day she is transported to this alien world for her that was New York. The image of the princess who has fallen from the skies which is actually her castle.

Second Slide: Shows her walk through adjusting and finding her place in the new world, as there was no other option. So the huge staircase shows the transition of the princess into a professional city women who finds her peace in her work and family.

Third slide: This shows the end of the stairway that leads to the fashion runway where she walks down the ramp wearing her own design. She was very happy, but the twist in the story was now that she found her peace in the city as well as she walks her dream the runway is cracking up and she's going to fall right back into the fantasy land (which was not her home anymore, not where she wanted to go back too)

Fourth slide: Shows her falling back into the fantasy land and the quote "But you belong where you came from.."

This was actually personal to me as we take time to fit into the new places we keep travelling to, and then its already time to leave that place you start to call home. Happiness is unstable so cherish it till it lasts.

For my character, she was in the world where she grew up in and everything around her was perfect as the reason they called it fantasy land, soon she got a reality check and her comfortable life was snatched away and she was put into a city and place she had never been or heard of, an unknown world.
But slowly she learned the new ways of living she fought for survival, she found her pleasure in designing the clothes she was aware about, the clothes she wore at home. She found her true love yet again and he was someone else than the one before so that clearly meant you find love more than once. She juggled work, love and family perfectly. She was living the dream of hers but then as destiny has it, it was time for her to go back to her comfortable mundane life.

In my critique, students loved the concept and they appreciated the third page where I put in a lot of work. The only issue was that I should have tried to put a background in the second page and the pixilation on the prints should have not been there.

I was thrilled to do this project it made me learn to make stories in my head, use photoshop and in design. All in all, one of my favourite so far!

Project 3. Timelapse.

 

For my third project in my time class, we were supposed to make a time lapse video by using a tripod and clicking several pictures of a place, object or event taking place in time. These stills will later be put together in a form of a video on premier pro.

For my video, I choose two themes, The one I have attached above is my first piece done in Washington Square Park in the evening, where a girl is dancing in the cold, a lonely heart waiting for love to come across her way. Everything is a blur for her until she bangs into a boy, who felt like true love everything seems to be clear now, but before she could even hold him long enough he was lost into the darkness. Like always her life went back into a blur and that moment she felt the pang of love destroyed her belief that she would ever find love again that she could succumb too. Time passes so fast that some instances that are clear usually leave a larger impact on our life than something blurred that goes unnoticed.

Following the dancer back home, I capture her second dance piece that was initiated by her broken heart. Attached below is the video and a still from time.

The pain was clearly shown through her movements, they were slow, some were expansive and some were contractive. She danced for a long time, it seemed as if she stretched her entire body as they all were constricted because of the pain. This maybe let her release some of the emotions. This was the time she had just to herself where no one was watching her, just her body speaking.

Project 2. Event Map/ Short vs. Long Time

For our second project in my time class we were supposed to make something which followed the concept, short time vs long time. We were supposed to take something which is long time and juxtapose it with something which had been there for a shorter time as opposed to something which has been present for years.

I wanted to do something 2-D as I had already done something 3-D in my previous project. The first thing which felt long time to me was New York City and nature. So I drew a tree which depicted central park and from its branches came out some of New York's landmarks. As the city has been there forever and so has the park/nature in the city I wanted to find something which is short time in the city itself. So I thought of birds and migration, so I laser cut wooden doves and pasted them on top of the drawing in a pattern that they are flying out from the city. I wanted the birds to evoke the life in the city which keeps changing, as people are not here forever, they migrate and migration is a short process. But the buildings and nature stay.

I used transparent sheet that covered the landmarks keeping it a mystery was was underneath and once you opened the flap it had facts about the landmark and since how long its been around. This also made it interactive to the viewer.

Durning my critique people had several outlooks which agreed on the fact that the city is long term, but the short term was not clear enough so I had to explain. As opposed to others who's work clearly depicted the two different concepts. I was also told that I had too many ideas and somewhere thats what made my migration concept get lost. So I should have either elaborated on city vs nature or migration as a separate concept.

This project really made me think more about my purpose in the city that even I am just here for a short time and nothing for humans is ever permanent. Life takes you so many different paths and the paths may have been there long time that we probably looked right through. 

Project 1. Time Map.

This was my first Project in my time class.
We were supposed to take 20 photos of an action and assemble them in sequence.
My action was cooking risotto, I used small pieces of wooden slabs and stuck the first 12 images on each of the slab, later I 6 more images and stuck them onto two pieces of slabs each. For the last step I pasted small bits of the entire big image onto the back side of the slab so that it looks like a puzzle.

I made it like a game, interactive so that a person is physically and mentally try to solve the puzzle to be able to see all the steps clearly. I put numbers on the side of the each slab so that it matches with the other ones and a person can clearly see the sequence of the events.

My project seemed to have worked well, I was very happy with it. But yes the construction could have been better. I wanted to keep it raw so that it looks like a cutting board. In my critique people liked the idea and concept, but felt that it was a little confusing.
Maybe the use of colors on the sides could have helped the person put the puzzle together quicker.

I enjoyed working, and the first project was a success which set the mark high for us to keep performing better.