Matt Johnson 302-003

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." "I don't much care where –" "Then it doesn't matter which way you go.” ― Lewis Carroll , Alice in Wonderland As expected, things didn’t go as totally expected. Which I totally fine. I know that a certain level a planning is needed, but I a certain amount of spontaneity and chance encounters goes a long way.                 My initial plan was to see Mr. Roosevelt for my first film of the festival, which I did with some other classmates. Walking into CFCC Union Station I thought that I was early for the film but there was already a screening going on. Quietly taking a seat in the corner of the theater I sat through the rest of what turned out to be a really great (though the name escapes me) short. A quick Q&A followed the short and I offered a question or two of my own. It was ...

      Looking at Martha Colburn's work, one can definitely see the influence of Harry Smith, in the way that she uses cutouts that morph into different shapes and dance about. Her animations are, indeed, animated- in that she seems inclined towards rapid editing and plenty of explosions.        It was interesting to know that Colburn was so involved in various experimental music scenes. I feel as though this had an definite influence on the quick rhythm and expressivity of her work.       Also, that fact that she went dumpster diving to recycle old footage is so cool. Shannon was right in mentioning that in the 1990s folks were getting rid of old reels and stock, as the video recording became more common and economically feasible for burgeoning filmmakers. Unfortunately, this isn't so common today.       I was happy to know that she drew the attention of Jonas Mekas and Geogre Kuchar, as I'm sure she was.   ...

      Well, we have yet to officially meet as a group, so any of the following ideas are just being offered up into the air at this point. Though I do know that we have projector screens available for our group, so we have that to use. At the same time, I wouldn't be opposed to crafting some kind of makeshift screen, out of a translucent bed-sheet or cardboard boxes stitched together.  Perhaps we could project footage on a translucent screen, having the image diffused into a background surface (i.e. fence, side of the cabin, etc).       Lights too! A lot of string-lights would be a good thing to keep in mind. I feel like it would give a good ambiance to our space in the backyard. Especially since it will be at night. We probably won’t string up meat, which is be a good idea for several reasons…. Consideration for vegetarians that it.       Something in the way of statues, figurines, or cutouts might also be interesting to pl...

Hey guys, it's that time of year again to buckle up and enjoy in the enchanting quirkiness and sheer strangeness that surrounds our town's humble film festival! Last year was my first year volunteering for the festival, so my course of action, sofar, is to follow up with volunteer work and catch some screenings in  between shifts. I've been lucky enough to have a solid set of volunteer hours and have been in dialogue with the various volunteer coordinators and Dan "the man" Brawley! I've meet a lot of great folks so far, and I'm really excited to spend the weekend with all of these great folks. One thing that I wish to do differently (compared to my last year) is to make it to more screenings. I only made it to a handful last year; one of which, though, was the seminal The Shining (Kubrick, 1980)!  Talk about a great Q&A! With that in mind I'm really looking forward to branching out and utilizing my time as best as I can to see as ...