What I learned in Class today

4/20

1. We watched the video "Empire" by Andy Warhol. Watching just a small part of this 8 hour video I experienced fustration. I was constantly waiting for something to happen. Eventually the blurry image of the empire state building wasn't the center of my focus, but instead I looked at what was happening to the film. The imperfections and decaying on the film was the only action or change. It made me question his intention. What was the purpose of this? Was there even a purpose? We also disucssed the value of entertainment. Was Warhol playing with his audience knowing what emotions he could provoke? Apparently "Empire" gave birth to reality tv.

2. We also watched part of a film called "Weekend". In this particular scene, a couple is fighting their way through a traffic jam with loud horns blairing in the background. I was extremely frustrated by watching this film. I felt involved emotionally in the film. At the end when we see that the traffic jam was caused by an accident and bloody corpses are strewn along the road, I felt angry at the director for putting me through such an emotional rollercoaster. Once again, this film like Warhol's piece plays with emotion and entertainment.

3. Today I learned how to use a video camera. I learned all the different aspects of the camera that I could control, and we used 13 important buttons including: P mode, On, Playback, Eject, Menu, Focus, AV jack, lens cap, wide ange, DV port, rec search, AE shift, and dial. We learned about the general way these cameras are set up, and experimented with the use of these buttons in our own film.