Cinematic Inspirations: 2016

Thursday, 24 March 2016

Weekly Challenges: At an end

So, I thought the weekly challenges would be fun and interesting, but in reality, I'm finding that they are stifling my desire to pick up the camera. It's a concept I still like, I believe the way I was going about it was wrong, but for now, I am stopping - I'm not going to be taking up week 3.

I do have another idea though...

Bucket List - Les Vampires

Les Vampires is a six hour long film, split into episodes of various lengths, from an hour to only 15 minutes. I shall update this post as I watch further episodes.

As of 20th March 2016, I have watched Part 1 only.

Weekly Challenge - Week 3

This week the three challenges are:

1) Dogwood Weekly Photography List

Artistic Red. Shoot whatever inspires you. Red should be the focus of the image. Don't be afraid to be creative.

2) The Daily Post: Photo Challenges

Dance. There's rhythm and motion all around us, let's capture some of it.

3) Photochallenge.org

Still Life. Focus on capturing every day scenes: flowers, food, man made objects like glasses, pitchers

Weekly Challenge Bailout - Completed

Well, my pic wasn't featured on the liveshow, even though they said they looked at them all, Boo, but I still like it!

Weekly Challenge Bailout

I'm just not going to get a chance to do it properly this week, thanks to an ill child, a dentist drilling my teeth with no anesthetic, a school trip, a hospital appointment, an ill wife and my storage unit not being avaliable to me as they shift locations. And some other things as well!!!

Bucket List - The Birth of a Nation (1915)

The Birth of a Nation. With much trepidation I sat down to watch this imfamous film.

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Just.... wow...

Weekly Challenge - Week 2 Completed

This weeks challenge was to take a traditional landscape on the theme of harmony, and using a shallow depth of field technique. The above video is the result.

Weekly Challenge - Week 2

This week, the three challenges are:

1) Dogwood Weekly Challenge List
Traditional Landscape - Dogwood makes it clear that the term landscape is a broad definition, including urban scapes, and any other environment, as long as the environment is the focus.

2) The Daily Post: Photo Challenges
Harmony: The combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords having a pleasing effect; the quality of forming a pleasing and consistant whole. Not necessarily about music, this challenge is about showing something that feels harmonious.

3) Photochallenge
This weeks was supposed to be the Brenizer Method, which I like, but is firmly a photographic technique, so I looked back at the most recent post I hadn't already used to find "Dominant Depth of Field Blur". The challenge is to keep only the subject in sharp focus with both the foreground and background thrown out of focus.

Bucket List - The Great Train Robbery (1903)

When I watched The Great Train Robbery, I did not know what to expect. In trying to pin down a genre, I found information that called it the first ever Western, and information that said that it wasn't a Western. As is normal, I suspect the truth is that neither of these statements is entirely true. Whatever it is, Edwin S. Porter's film is truely a great movie, and I'm happy to have seen it.

Weekly Challenge - Week 1 Completed

This weeks challenge was a self portrait showing my state of mind in decay. I was immediately limited to a photographic challenge as most of my cinema gear is in storage, and so I choose to portray myself suffering from anxiety.

Weekly Challenge - Week 1

I've bookmarked a trio of "weekly challenge" photography websites. I intend to try to adapt them into one weekly challenge which I will either try to tackle with a photograph or a video. This weeks challenge is comprised of the following:

1) Dogwood Weekly Challenge List
Self Portrait - Start things off with a "selfie"! Explore the self timer section on your camera

2) The Daily Post: Photo Challenges
State Of Mind: This week, let your inner world and the outside one converge in a photo (or film)

3) Photochallenge
Entropy in Black and White - Get into a mindset of chaos and disorder and find things that are falling apart

Bucket List - Le Voyage dans la Lune

The first film in the book "1001 movies to see before you die" and the oldest it deemed a must see film, Le Voyage dans la Lune by French film maker Georges Méliès was released in 1902. It is widely regarded as the first sci-fi movie ever made.

Bucket List - Introduction

I recently found, in a bargain corner of a bookshop, a thick tome called "1001 movies you must see before you die", an attempt to catalogue, in age order 1001 of the greatest movies ever made. I'm sure that it's not the most illustrious list of must see films, I'm sure it's left out some greats and included some strange choices - but that doesn't matter, because it's inspired me to watch the greats and the classics from the history of cinema.