ranking projects

1. Long Take-The long take was definitely my favorite. I really enjoyed the run and gun style of it, and how we only had a little bit of time to plan, choreograph, shoot, develop and transfer our footage. It really made things interesting and we got our idea for the take at the last minute. The raw nature of it made it so much fun, even though we had to come in on a saturday, and shooting with the Bolex was a great time as well. We even shot ours from a DSLR angle as well, just so we'd be able to see it right away. But it really was a great time, and the post production process was cool to manipulate the look of the film, especially with the contrast and textures of objects in our frame.

2. Cameraless

3. Crowdsourcing

4. Animation

5. Rhythmic-The rhythmic was a fun project. It was cool to have somebody shoot footage of me for a change, even if he chose not to use it in the final edit ;). Again, shooting on the Bolex was a great time. I think the post production process was hard for me to get a handle on at first, just because I didn't have any structure and it was hard to make it flow visually. I would not say this was a bad project by any means, but between this and all the other projects, this was my least favorite, mainly because it took me a little while to really get into the editing aspect, which is the most significant part.

I really enjoyed all of the projects, so it was hard to rank them. I think that the Crowdsourcing and Cameraless are really interchangeable, and the animation was fun too, but the class was just sooooooo long! But again, I have nothing against any of the projects, I just know that I enjoyed the long take the most.

I remember seeing this class listed on the UNCW Film Studies catalog when I was a senior in high school looking at places to go to school. I saw 6x1-Variations on the 1 minute film, and knew this was definitely right up my alley. This semester has essentially been a long time coming and I am super thankful I was able to take this class and expand my filmmaking horizons. It's given me an incredibly new perspective on art and expression, and I know this only benefit me as a filmmaker in the future.



It's been fun my good friends.
Thanks for an awesome semester Andre!



Peace,

Connor Haviland Buss

What is Rough Theater?

Man, if only I had recorded myself in class this day because I feel like I was spittin' some serious truth! So here shall be my attempt to recreate my various discourses. Wish me luck!

Rough theater is chaos. It is the sweat and agony and fighting and misdirection and madness and running around and disorganized nonsense that comes together in the end to create a final product that is truly art. Art cannot exist without the work that comes before it. That is what is truly beautiful about filmmaking and art to me, is that while the creative process may not be seen in the final product, as a filmmaker and a director, that process becomes the most rewarding part of seeing a final product. However, the final product DOES NOT EXIST without the work, chaos, sweat, tears and madness that occurs within the creative process to make art truly genuine.

Being in the production realm, I would like to think that Rough Theater comes into play quite often. Many times throughout the cosmic mess of a film production does the term Rough Theater apply. I think one of the most applicable for me was just a few weeks back. We were shooting a commercial for my COM 480 Digital Video II class, and rough was the without a doubt one of the best words to describe. A five hour shoot consisting of make up, costuming, set design, lighting, blocking, rehearsing, camera, sound and grip until we finally started rolling. What a hectic display of commotion and yelling took place. But in it and through it, I found art. And beautiful art at that. There is not a doubt in mind that the final product won't be sweeter having been through all of the craziness that was the shoot.

The bottom line is that to be a filmmaker, artist, storyteller etc. you must have a sincere passion for the creative process. Without that, you can never make true art.

Lovingly yours,

Connor Haviland Buss

Crowdsourcing as a whole...

…is just freaking gnarly. Seriously, after all the craziness we've watched related to crowd-sourcing, from the Johnny Cash music video to the Star Wars reimagining, this is a complete new side of filmmaking that I would've never known about. It is a damn fine display of artistic ability and creative expression, especially to take images and sound that would have no continuity or diegetic logic and blend them together in a pure form of "universal"cinema. I'm actually sweating just talking about it. Just think about the hundreds of films and videos that we see every week and how they could be redone and crowdsourced to create and entirely new film, both visually and emotionally.

Bringing into question the idea of my experience with crowdsourcing, it has been a truly universal way for me to create art. Not only have had I been able to create my own images, but I've been able to inspire others that may believe that they have no business in the art of filmmaking to create their own art because, conceptually, "crowdsourcing" doesn't care if you consider yourself an artist or a filmmaking or a sanitation engineer. Anybody can participate and in many ways, that is where the true art and beauty comes from. It comes from Joe Schmo submitting a random 5 second clip of video combined with a shot from Scorsesee's Raging Bull. It comes from a student filmmaker contributing what he believes to be one of his best shots blended with a tattoo artist drawing a simple animation.

The most important aspect I will take away is that crowdsourcing brings everybody together. Filmmakers of all skills and career levels, drawers, painters, animators, anybody and everybody can participate. As long as they have a passion for what they're creating, an internal vision of art will become an external expression of creativity.


I love you.

Word.

ConB