This video is arguably the coolest and the hardest of the collaborative projects we created this semester here in the iDEA lab. From concept to post, everybody in the Studio 1 class put in alot of work to make it happen. (Teachers too!)
The shoot: A Canon 7D with a zoom lens was set up on the roof of the Fine Arts Center Theater about 80 ft of the ground. Down in the pit, large quantities of tempura paint was applied using big paintbrushes on broomsticks, as well as dumped with buckets and splattered, then hosed down and reapplied to create the backdrop. Working very quickly, we ran in and out of the pit, applying paint and moving the puppets a little bit each frame, signaling the camera operator stuck on the hot roof as soon as the pit was cleared. It was hard work, climbing in and out of the pit! 5 hours and 250 frames later, we had about 7 seconds of footage..and a lot of cleanup. Wheew!
The puppets: Huburt (the baby lizard), Kokopelli, and ElectroGila Monster were made out of cardboard with hinged limbs. Christina designed Electro Gila, and Erika and Gabby created Huburt and Koko, respectively, and Christina did an awesome job of painting ElectroGila’s face. To see the Gila Monster in person, he is currently on display in the hallway of the Parotti building.
Post: Prof. Bill took of the editing of the animation, and stretched the footage to 1 minute, adding special effects with AfterEffects. Prof. Jun supervised the sound aspect of it, and everybody created sound effects and ambient noise using Soundhack, Audacity, and Sountrack Pro. The sounds were mixed in ProTools Add some rocking credits and we have a kick ass animation!
Peter Bill is an Artist, Activist and Educator. He has, since learning photoshop v. 1.5, been interested in connecting under-represented communities with digital tools so their voices may be broadcast. He has been involved with large scale video projections, guerrilla art actions, and community building since the 90s.
Peter Bill's award winning paint and video landscapes have shown in such diverse venues as The Kitchen(NYC), the Henry Art Gallery(Seattle), FILE Festival(São Paulo, Brazil), and other international venues. He continues in his Oil paintings and video work to weave the painterly with the digital, pixels and paint, indigo and 191970 blue. He envisioned and realized the first time-lapse film festival in North America, the Gila Timelapse Film Festival and has curated and directed shows on three continents. "Art must be realized on the streets, as an agent of change and progress."
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Much of my art has been about creating a vessel, a space for meditation. Through my painting and video installations I hope to create a moment of quietude, a contemplation of this world we have built.
In my mural and documentary film work I have balanced a certain transcendentalism in my heart with my didactic scots-yankee bones. In the public sphere arts role is to inspire and provoke. Therefore in my mural projects I have attempted to involve the local community in the conception and realization of my projects. In my animations and short films I have attempted critiques of the bathetic apocalyptic culture we live in, the false utopia of the California landscape, the contested landscape of New Mexico, and tried to get to the situation on the ground in war torn Bosnia, among other subjects. The world is a complicated, granular place. We cannot oversimplify with our stories, but we can in their telling change opinions, and thus change the world for the better.
