Final Project - QW & CB

Profile of Hunter College artist Kevin Cruz

MEDP160 FinalProject from Qasim Warraich on Vimeo.

BLOG 4: MOMI Reflection

Qasim
MEDP 160
Betty Yu
Blog 4 - MOMI Reflection.

Our tour of the Museum of the Moving image was very interesting and thought provoking. Our “Educator” started the tour by showing us things such as props and mask and costumes used in popular movies. We then started moving through sections that had walls lined with old and outdated camera/recording/displaying equipment. This was my personal favourite part of the experience. The antiquated, overbuilt and incredibly expensive looking equipment was a great way to put in perspective the advancement in technology and it also served as a great exhibit to nerd over. One demonstration that particularly intrigued me was the massive scale Zoetrope that was installed in the museum. At first the large spinning sculpture looks abstract and nonsensical, but then suddenly the lights in the room begin to flicker at a consistent rate. This alters the viewer's interpretation of what's before them and a much clearer scene with bombs dropping becomes apparent. The flickering then ends and the piece returns to its earlier difficult to understand self. This demonstration reinforced the significance of shutter speed and how it affects the images presented. The other fascinating thing about the exhibit is that it educates the viewer beyond the realm of production techniques. It teaches you things about the way your eyes work and how your brain perceives these images and how a simple play of lighting can give birth to clean motion. It also serves as a demonstration for what the shutter in a film camera does which is an even further added bonus of the demonstration.

Blog #3

Blog #3

Editing Analysis: Flight (2012) Crash Scene (Link)
(sorry it’s a little long, but I really wanted to analyze this)

The crash scene in the movie Flight is an extremely well crafted piece that focuses on the dynamics of what's going on in the cockpit and supplements it with sort of reaction shots and drama from the passenger cabins. The pivotal character is obviously Captain Whip (played by Denzel Washington). I found that the scene was extremely fluid and displayed the fluctuating tension throughout very well. The editing and sound mixing contributes  immensely in creating tension and making the proceedings seem extremely convincing (minus the barrel roll at the end).The editing makes the scene feel far shorter  than it actually is and there aren’t any moments where the viewer loses interest.
The scene kicks off extremely quiet with a soothing humming of the aircraft engines and slight wind noise. Captain Whip is sleeping and the Co-pilot and Cabin crew head ,Margaret, are speaking. This medium shot repeats it’s self a lot when later in the scene both the pilots are conversing and when Margaret is running in and out of the cockpit. The action in the scene is instigated when there is a loud clunk and jolt. The camera zooms into the pilot's control yokes as they shift violently upwards initiating a dive. The audio suddenly gets louder. The engines sound more straining than soothing and the wind noise is much more concerning now. The Captain is now awake, he maintains a calm demeanour throughout the scene all the way to the end, which contrasts with everyone else who is panicking and shouting. There is a calm back and forth almost constantly going on between the Captain and the Air Traffic Control (ATC)  for the rest of the scene. As soon as the plane began to dive there were no more stable camera shots. Every shot from now one is shaky and every shot had gotten a little closer in. As Whip begins issuing orders to the terrified co pilot the tension momentarily defuses and the shaking becomes a little less violent, the audio also becomes a little softer and the aircraft warning sounds subside momentarily. This relief is quickly taken away as the aircraft's engines begin to fail and they lose altitude. The wind noise gets very loud and passengers are heard screaming. Whips voice gets a little more frantic. The camera gets shakier and shakier. Right before the climax of the scene Captain Whip manages to get the plane into a slow glide with both engines now dead. There is an ominous silence, this slight noises as the aircraft's fuselage drifts through the sky accompanied by the autopilot counting down the increments of feet they are off the ground. Then there is a crash and fade to white.

Audio Portrait SoundCloud Link

AUDIO PORTRAIT OF KRISTIE DOUGLAS

Blog 2: Sound Walk; Bushwick,Brooklyn, Evening.

I live in Bushwick. The neighborhood is commonly associated with terms such as up and coming and gentrifying. My area is mainly low ride apartment buildings with the occasional house occupied by a native family here or there. Perhaps the most outstanding thing I noticed in my evening sound walk was how I lived in the intersection of so many different forms of transportation. I live directly under the LaGuardia Airport approach patter so there is a humming of jet engines above at regular intervals. In addition to that there is the jangling sound of the J or M train every ten or so minutes as the line runs parallel to my neighborhood. Theres the obvious roaring of cars as they pass by intersections but theres also the softer rumbling of bicycles and E-bikes commonly used by delivery personnel. In addition on my sound walk I would cross the occasional bodega which always offer an array of sounds. From the sporting event on the TV inside to the two gentleman having a pound conversation in Spanish outside to the sounds of plastic bags being filled with goods. Other sounds I encountered in the “city symphony” of my area include the sounds of dogs barking at skateboarders and children playing around my local laundromat. Some unexpected sounds are  when extremely loud commercial used trucks like sanitation trucks or dump trucks come up really narrow streets making a lot of noise. It certainly creates an uncomfortable amplitude compared to what the general sound of the atmosphere in the neighborhood is. 

Defining a space.

Link to video project!

Artist Statement

With my art I intend to produce media in a style which is instantly understandable and significant but extremely simple. Personally I am a huge fan of things that do not be explained, like an image that just captures every essence of a moment or occurrence in a single frame. I want those thousand words that a picture holds to be loud and clear. I am interested in developing my media through utilising elements of photography and filmmaking but I  really want to branch into the realm of digital media creation.  I intend to make media using a range of mediums. I have never considered myself someone who is capable of producing art through traditional means such as drawing or painting. My handwriting sucks, my sketching sucks and my graffiti sucks too. This is why I feel that media creation and capturing is the way I can best produce art that isn’t corrupted by lack of talent in the traditional sense. 
A stylistic approach I have considered covering is that of spot photography or photojournalism, capturing moments of great emotion or activism that seem as to tell an entire story with minimal material. I have always had in interest in representation of surroundings and capturing moments in real life that I feel need to be saved forever. Mostly I want my art to be a something I myself really like. This may seem like a weirdly selfish or wrong thing to say in an artist statement but there are so many aspects of our lives that we don’t get to have complete say over, rarely do you get to do something completely from scratch. Creating art and media affords you that opportunity and the product of this opportunity should be something that satisfies the creator entirely.