Jen Epstein’s blog

http://webspace.newschool.edu/~epstj355/

The links do not work and like Jamey, my JPEG's are not visible. The link to to Dream Deferred in You Tube works though!  Also like Jamey, my text is visible. I'm bringing my flash drive and laptop to class tomorrow if it's not raining. I'm also not sure why I can't get the site to link to vox. I tried clicking on the link tool, but that didn't work.

http://webspace.newschool.edu/~epstj355/

• Memorable class highlight: There are so many. This was truly quite a unique entourage of people to work with and critique every week, but I really enjoyed screening When the Day Breaks.

• Preferred medium before the course: Documentary Film Production

• Preferred medium after the course: It is still documentary film production. However, I would love to integrate still photography, and if I can become a little bit more comfortable executing applications, photoshop into future film projects. I also really enjoyed working with literal sound and plan on applying techniques explored in this course to my own work.
  

• A topic/theme/question I would like to explore in my next project is: I'm really fascinated by people who spend endless voyeuristic hours screening YouTube. I'm amazed at the inane things that people will watch. I would like to interview the cult of YouTube watchers, find out about their backgrounds, and just what draws them to observing other peoples lives rather than living their own.

• Something I learned in this class that I can teach someone else: (non-technical) ten different synonyms for the word battered, and to recognize that everyone in this class comes here with a different story and level of experience so don't compare yourself to them.
  

• Something I learned in this class that I can teach someone else: (technical) How to create layers in photoshop and  tables in dream weaver.

• Something that I will try to do next semester that I have never done before: Not negate or diminish accomplishments no matter how little the triumph.

• Something I will try to do everyday that I did not do before this course: Carry a digital camera and voice data recorder wherever I go.

• A creative project I could do with a restriction-free budget of $150 million: I would like to do a project on child prodigies, but not your typical prodigies idiot savant's, children with learning disabilities who have exceptional talents. I would like to shoot and interview on a global scale and purchase the rights to footage. Travel would be costly as well as licensing footage. I would also add after effects and key frame specialists if appropriate for the theme of the project, this too would be probably be costly.

• How I could do the same project with a budget of $15: Well I want to produce so I guess I would have to apply for grants and raise the money. I would shoot around the city, borrow equipment, and interview kids who attend free or non for profit programs.
  

The dog runs but he does not get anywhere. No, that is not an ancient proverb. That was my first experience with Fetch. The dog ran and ran, but he would not connect to the server. And then after trouble shooting, he did. This was my experience with many projects during this class.  It was a process. I had to allow myself to become frustrated, battered, sometimes even weep to get results. In the end though it was always worth it.

This class was exactly the thrown into the fire scenario I was looking for. As I've mentioned before, this was my reason for applying to graduate school, to be removed from my comfort zone and asked to take on challenges.  While they were exhilarating, they were also terrifying. Since completing my under graduate work almost nine years ago, I have taken a few continuing education courses here, completed a few treatments there, taken a few courses at not for profit media organizations, like DCTV, to alleviate some of the banality and stagnation of working full time, but it was never enough. I was yearning for the opportunity to collaborate with other students and see what mediums my peers were producing. I got that and whole lot more out of this course.

Though in the last few weeks since beginning Flash and Dream Weaver, I have staggered into class looking exasperated and exhausted. I accept that this too was part of the process.  When I take Media Film Form in the fall, I'm going experience this all over again, and I'm glad because if I shied away from these challenges.  What would be the point of attending graduate school then?  As one of my good friends has reminded me time and time again whenever she has seen a pained expression or look of dismay creep across my face, "This is graduate school. It's supposed to be hard".

So a critical constructive self-evaluation of my work this semester?  This is easier said than done. I am my own  worst critic. From a Wabi Sabi perspective, it is important that I recognize the beauty and wonder behind my imperfect projects. I'm sure their are qualities in the work I have produced over this semester that expressed something wonderful and unique that I was unable to see but others were. All visual mediums are subjective and offer different meanings and interpretations for each person. My work is no exception.

Beyond quality and execution of technical applications? One aspect of my work where I did achieve exceptional results was by throwing myself (literally) into every project. I immersed myself in every process and after the subway/faceless portrait assignment I became determined to carry a camera around with me and take photos outside of controlled environments, like my office and my surrounding neighborhood. I did just that. I observed people on the subway and became adept and capturing them in their most vulnerable moments. When we studied sound, I recorded conversations inside stores and coffee bars, and entire conversations between surly MTA workers and commuters haggling over reimbursement for damaged metro cards, and I LOVED  IT!

When Von and I worked together on Dream Deffered, on Virgil's recommendation I screened all four parts of the Karen Carpenter story on You Tube. I looked for techniques in lighting and visually storytelling that could be applied to our narrative.  We were able to apply some of these techniques to our own story line which included clean titles and a nice still photo opening montage.  Even though in these past few weeks I felt stymied by the precise steps involved to create a motion tween in Flash and working links in Dream Weaver, I worked very hard. And even though I've felt frustrated and battered, I've enjoyed myself. Writing a fable about gluttonous hurling lasses and choosing Oscar and Hammerstein's The Lonely Goat Herd to tell their story was fun. Quirky, like me.  I took the bench marking and site map assignment very seriously. And If I can master Dream Weaver over the summer, which I plan on, I will definitely take this vision to the next step.

I've always been fascinated by architecture, I especially enjoy the row houses and brown stones in New York city moldings, gargoyle statues and ornate doors. I had hoped to get to the West Village, but due to inclement weather I had to settle for Sutton Place and the Upper East Side. Here are some of the better images.

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I got outside to take these still images just before the monsoon hit.

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