http://www.lauraelaynemiller.com/#/reading-a-wave/

Reading A Wave is a body of work inspired by Italo Calvino’s novella Mr. Palomar as simply said as Laura herself states on her website. It began with a film and described the impossibility of isolation. If you want to watch the film you can find that as well on her website above. After the film there was a dance performance with extended smooth movement such as a wave is. In the background there is also an art piece that hangs in Building 10, Art Project Area 105. The free exhibit event was held on Friday, November 10, 2017, 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Now let’s dive deeper into experiencing this body of work. I personally found it intriguing because I definitely haven’t seen anything else like it before. But as an overall experience, I would give it B. I feel like this kind of work has a super hard target audience because of the different medias she uses. Even though her piece included a film, dancing routine, and gallery art I think it went well together and achieved their purpose in the exhibit. This isn’t the artist’s fault but at the event it was a different kind of seating arrangement and some people had to stand. Now I know what you’re thinking, you think that I’m about to say that I was glad to get a seat because I went a few minute early. This is where I let you know that I sadly didn’t get a seat and had to stand for the entire performance. I feel that a larger gallery with more room for seating might be a better fit for this kind of exhibit but I don’t want to complain about a free event.

I am glad to let you know that the event wasn’t all negative. In fact, most of it was positive and everyone around me seemed to be enjoying their time. After the dance performance was finished people were allowed to roam the gallery and talk with others with a food table. This is the part where you are thinking that I enjoyed some food and talk with other people. To your dismay, I had eaten dinner before going to the event but I did in fact see a few faces that I recognized. This is where this sort of exhibit is positive, it allows you to think and socialize with others around you. It creates a sense of community and trust in others.

This body of work did impact me in the end with inspiration; that is the inspiration to do what you enjoy doing and to be able to share it with others. Because when it comes down to the end of it all that moment of isolation is the birth of a new idea that inspires new ideas. Laura became inspired by a writing and she has inspired me to inspire others. I could tell Laura had put everything she could into her body of work because that is what she enjoys to do. And this is the sort of thing I like to see around me. It is like moral that keeps giving you the motivation to do something. If you asked me if going to an event like this is a good idea my answer would be yes. Here’s why, you should never be afraid to try and experience something new and different because you never know what may inspire you in the end to do what you enjoy in life.

I interviewed Lisa Godare from Freeflow Digital. She is a Drupal Developer. More specifically she is essentially a lead developer. She works with their clients to find out what it is the client is looking for and then sets up estimates on how long the project will take for them. She then assigns work to team members.

Lisa told me of how when she was in the process of being hired she likely would not have been hired due to a lack of experience in what they were looking for. What caught Freeflow Digital’s eye is that she had a specific certification. She had the Acquia certified Drupal developer certification. That is something that is really hard to obtain unless you know what it is you are doing. I asked her how important that certification is. She first said that it used to not be important because it used to not even be a thing. At the time of her acquiring the certification it had only existed for about six months. The person going through the resumes knew how hard it is for someone to obtain the certification. All because of that he went to the CTO and said that they needed to interview her. She got hired because of a skill she just happened to learn along the way of her career.

Lisa says that individual technology skills can be, and usually are, better than an actual degree. It helps to have a degree. It ties all the skills you might have together. She also says that it can be a big help to have a degree when you don’t have any real experience. Lisa then goes on to note that when she was my age there weren’t any degree’s out there in her field and everyone had to learn on their own.

Freeflow Digital exclusively takes clients that are non-profit organizations. Sometimes they take on government agencies. Often times their websites are developed towards fundraising. However, their sole focus is not building sites for fundraising. No matter who their client ends up being they always make sure that they agree with their cause. In addition to that, when choosing a client they make sure that the client would even be able to afford their services. The work that Freeflow Digital does is really expensive.

Lisa never specifically said this, but I have inferred that as you get your name out there you really get to pick and choose your clients. You have the ability to only take on clients that you want to take on. That is something to look forward to as a beginning artist.

A lot of the websites that Lisa has worked on has been building them from the ground up. As far as designing them the client often already has an old site with design ideas they want to keep. Lisa and her co-workers are then tasked with building a new site using their tools to build something similar and more to their liking. Many of their clients are what she calls retainer clients. They have already come to Freeflow Digital and have already gotten a new site from them. The retainer clients are the websites that get updated from what Freeflow Digital already created.

One of the pieces of advice that Lisa gives is to make sure you are in a company culture that you like. For her and many of her co-workers, they get to work from home 100% of the time, and they love that. She loves the environment that her and her co-workers have created.

Another piece of advice that Lisa gives is to get a GitHub account and to post code samples there. That shows that you can do the job even if you don’t have any professional experiences. Being able to show that you can do the job is hands down the most important thing when searching for a job. As far as web programming goes GitHub is the best way to do that. Fill it up with stuff that you’ve done even if it doesn’t seem relevant. She goes on to say that this is important for any job in the media world. Have a portfolio that employers can look at.

Lisa’s final piece of advice is to network with people. For her specific Drupal certification there are Drupal meetups that happen frequently in most big cities. Networking is a great way to learn new things about the field you are in. For her job networking is really important and she goes on to say that it can even be more important than having a nice resume.

By: Tevin Goddard

The event I attended was the called “The High school Yearbook Project” by Evan Baden. The event was held in the art gallery in building 11. The event lasted from 4:00pm to about 5:00pm. The event was held on a Tuesday November the 14th. Evan Baden is a professor at OSU and has had a great career in photography. He showed of three of his projects and the technology he used. The first project was people on their cellular devices. The photos were only lit by the projection of light coming from the phone. These photos were took when the very first Iphone came out. He wanted to show how everyone has access to the internet and how that consumes you and pushes the rest of the world away. The second project was about the act of sexting. In this project he wanted to show how the media affects youth and how the media portrays sexuality in youth. The portraits showed naked or near naked models in the everyday lived in room. He stated that he had to tell people not to clean or touch anything in the room they were using for a week to get the genuine, visually looking room he was going for. The third project was the one on display. “The High school Yearbook Project”. The prints were blown up to life size and some were even bigger. These photos were of high school students with very great use of lighting. the colors on the photos were bright and interesting grabbing the viewers eye right away. The camera and tech he used was extremely interesting. He used a old film camera with a digital camera attachment with all the digital hardware attached. The camera only allowed him take small portrait sized pictures. So he would capture a photo of the subjects feet and legs then he would take multiple pictures of the upper half of the subject in different poses. Then he would capture the background in segments. Once he has all the shots he photoshops them into one composition. The artist talk was very fascinating. I gained a lot of information and sparked my interest more in photography. Being in a photography class and seeing the show, showed me that no matter your skills and interests are there is always room for improvement. Photography is not my strongest skill in media arts, but the more knowledge the better being in all these classes will all intertwine with each other and combine into your own skill set. I learned how important lighting is to take a good portrait photograph. The show makes me want to go out and photograph everything and try to master the craft. Photography and camera skills will help later on down the road. Especially in film and how to use the tech to portray the best story. What I gained from this is that now matter how good you think you are at something, never think you’re the best. Allows push yourself to learn new things and find out what you’re good at and what interests you.

For my professional practice, I interviewed my good friend Ian Alvarez, who is the touring Video DJ and Visual Content Creator for Seven Lions (International Electronic Recording Artist/DJ). Currently, he is on a 64 stop tour across 23 countries, so he has been on a very opposite schedule than most of us here in the U.S.

Basically, his job is to projection map the stages before the show starts, and then he DJ’s video content live during the performance. Although it seems pretty simple, his job is actually quite complex and takes a lot of skill within a wide variety of programs and user interfaces. He designs all of his own video in Cinema 4D and Resolume, while also using After Effects and Premiere Pro to put the clips together and organize them, because each clip is specific to an individual song to help tell the story of each song during the performance. His creative process consists of a lot of planning and budgeting with both Seven Lions and his tour management.

The goal with the current tour was to tell a story during the whole performance using fantasy art themed content, but the hard part was taking the cinematic approach. Ian didn’t want to do the usual “trippy” visuals that every other artist in the festival circuit does, but rather he wants to truly depict a story that progresses as the set progresses.

Ian’s favorite part of his job is seeing peoples reactions during the show, and hearing feedback from the show attendees afterwords. As someone who has attended hundreds of music festivals and events, Ian believes that he has a very solid understanding of what types of content will engage and connect with people, and make it a memorable experience.

I asked Ian what skills and qualities he believes a good designer and content creator must have when taking that leap into the professional media world. His response to me was “Be proficient within a wide variety of software. It’s also good to be consuming other art as much as possible, it helps keep brain fresh and constantly keeps you working toward bettering yourself and growing as a visual artist.”

Most importantly, I asked Ian what his favorite part of his job is, and he said “During the one or two hour set, nothing else matters. It’s just me and the massive production stage to have fun with and express myself to thousands. None of my problems matter, nothing else matters except right here and right now.”

This is exactly the type of response I would expect from someone who gets to do what they are truly passionate about. Throughout the interview, he kept telling me his job hardly ever feels like a job. He loves it, every aspect of it. From the Creative Planning process, all the way to the live performance, He truly loves what he does, and his passionate attitude has a lot to do with why he has made it to the top of the live video DJ and content creator totem pole. His dream is to someday be a CGI creator for massive budget hollywood style films.

All in all it was a great interview, and was awesome to hear from a longtime friend who got his start right here in Eugene, mapping visuals at the cuthbert theatre for our very first Life In Color set!

http://pipeworks.com/

For my  informational interview  I decided to go with game developers pipeworks studios! this company has been located downtown eugene since 1999 and has worked on, developed and been involved with some pretty well known video game titles!

I managed to get an over the phone interview will  lead developer PETER KING that was pretty cool and informative. I had a few questions written down  and will give you his response to them (in a nutshell) in a Q and A format.

Q: how do you go about choosing the next project to work on?

A: It’s normally a business decision between two company’s, a publisher like Microsoft might reach out to developers and pay them for there time or for a certain task like converting controls to different consoles or starting and finishing an entire project. which is great for us because we have a clear picture a to b  of what we need to do and when. compared to us creating  a game where it’s out time and our money on the line.

Q: How often does the tech/software change and where do you think its heading?

A: Alot! Almost yearly we have some new software to learn about and with new consoles coming out we always have something new to learn. This is cool because things never get stale and the job doesn’t get repetitive as easily. Basically every month we take time to catch up on new technologies.

Q: How do you feel about ” pay to play” games

A: referring to downloadable content at a price for free games I feel its up to the user how to spend their money. we have a poker game that’s free to play but you can pay for additional  content. most people rationalize about there spending habits especially when it comes to entertainment. paying 1 dollar for something small like this isn’t much different then renting a movie. It has been an upward trend lately and i don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Q: Whats the hardest part about finishing up a project?

A: The final collaboration between departments and debugging the programs to ensure a clean product can take some time. everyone enjoys working on there craft but is looking forward to completion. If we are working for a client sometimes there is disapproval of the final project in a certain area and going back to fix that for them can be tedious. but in both situations ( working for a client or creating a project)  sometimes getting started can be more difficult then finishing.

Q:What credentials do you look for in new hires in development?

A: For development in general its really about the portfolio. we look at what kind of schooling you did and previous work experience but for the most part its the level of art skill you have and a demonstration of what you can create and if your a good fit for the position (easy to work with availability etc.)  Our engineering  dept. on the other hand is the opposite, they deal with server issues and the software we use. Technical Engineers are in high demand, normally someone with that skill set we will welcome with open arms at any opportunity.

Q: What different teams make up Pipeworks?

A: Our developers are the artistic talent. they create how the characters, environment and other visuals like text/interface look and work together. Our design crew has a senior and Jr. department that makes decisions based on the software and gives information at the beginning and the end of a project like the original treatment and final look. Engineering  deals with the back end of set up and technical support with servers both our own facility’s and for when the game is launched to the public. Our production team  also has a senior and jr. department  that is tasked with debugging  the game and over all quality of the finished product.

Q: Whats your favorite game that pipeworks has created and your favorite type of game in general?

A: Terreria and our poker game is the most fun for me personally but since that’s my day job, games I enjoy  are adventure games like uncharted and currently I am setting up a virtual reality head set and cant wait to see what that has to offer.

END

Afterwards I thanked  him for his time and told him that it was cool  that so many creative company’s can be found in our relatively small town.  He agreed and said that he loves to hire local and rarely has to search else ware for a specific individual.

Overall  I really enjoyed the interview and learned a fair bit about what goes on behind the scenes. Its a great reminder that if you want to learn more about something you can go further then just google. most professional company’s get requests for interviews or field trips on the regular and our more then happy to answer any questions you may have. I recommend  learning as much as you can about what interest you have!

Thank you for reading!

Cliff Service-

Neil Hollander is a U.S. born independent filmmaker who moved to France as young boy. He was born in New York but has found the sea to be his home. He has lived in numerous places but loves his home in France. Neil spent 3 years on the water sailing around to different ports experiencing different cultures who still live on the water. He found a love to explore different cultures and telling their stories in an honest and respectful manner. 

On October 20th 2017 Neil Hollander and his producer Barry visited Lane Community College for an artist talk and to preview their new movie. They gave a 2 hour presentation where they told stories of the trials and tribulations of being an independent filmmaker. The ins and outs of large movie companies and how they try to conform you to what the sponsors want instead of telling the real story. Neil was a bit of a conspiracy theorist as far as that went. He lead off the presentation asking for a show of hands for people in the audience who wanted to do independent films and joked that you shouldn’t want to do it. He was just getting us ready for the door being shut in our faces and being told no and that we need to change what we want. It was a little discouraging but I also found it as a challenge because I would much rather be told that it’s to hard to be done so that way I know what to expect.

At the end of the presentation Neil and Barry answered questions and were very knowledgeable about the movie industry as a whole. The ways that different ideas would be dealt with and the different networks and what they looked for as far as content. He had a huge problem with social media and the internet, which coming from his time I completely understand because your work was yours and you protected it with everything. I don’t believe you can totally hate modern technology and be able to move forward. I believe the key is to figure out how to use tech to further your cause and get what you want done. Neil was very good at doing what he needed in order to accomplish an idea but in this one major area I believe he is tying himself up for no reason

Im very glad I went to this event. I learned a lot and got a good sense as to what it’s like in the travel and film industry. I’m looking forward to the challenge of getting in places and getting the shot. I’m a thrill junkie and a truth gatherer so this is going to be perfect.

Neil Hollander is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and director who works as a partner for the New York film company,  New Wave and currently lives in France. Among having worked many different occupations, Neil  has gone around all over the world shooting documentary films on a large variety of subjects such as sailing, world hunger,  opium production in southeast Asia, and even a film about the American hobo where him and his crew actually rode freight trains and slept under bridges for several months to film the movie. He says he likes to film what he calls “real society”. I went to a talk that Neil gave in the Media Arts building on Fri, Oct 20th before his evening world premier of his new film “Who Killed Jim Thompson” at Ragozzini Hall on the Lane Community College campus. Neil showed clips and discussed several of his films with a small audience and answered questions afterward.

Neil is an older gentleman who is born in 1948, but when he stepped before the small crowd in the room I could see a swaggering young man with a James Dean style of rebelliousness in his nature.  His first words to the audience were memorable: “My advice to you is do not become a film maker.”

Neil went on to support his argument by talking about how only a very small percentage of people get to choose what the viewing public gets to watch. He states that institutions such as Hollywood are extremely biased and selective and want to have complete control over the market. He puts much emphasis into this by using the term “picky snobs” to describe them. He says He uses his film “The Last Sailors” as an example. The film is about different sailors around the globe and narrated by the famous Orson Wells. In this example he talks the difficulty of trying to sell the film to different companies. He talks about one woman in France who would not show his film because she had a severe dislike of boats.

When Neil talked about his style and methods about writing and directing he head the enthusiasm of a child at play. “I profess that I like to use as little money as possible when I am making a film.” He states with candor. He continues to give examples of  how him and his crew would get into seemingly impossible places to get into with very little money by hanging out and making friends with the local people of wherever they wanted to shoot footage. They would also save money by renting filming studios in different cities in other countries such as Canada or Thailand.

Neil’s talk was lively and interesting. He had a lot of things to say about the media film industry and gave good advice such as knowing who your audience is, and how important it is to pay attention to good script writing. I had a good talk and connected with Neil after he finished speaking to the audience. It can be difficult to explain, but, there is a free spirited nature that is shared among artists that defies all boundaries and rules. A spirit that will not suffer to be put into a box, or cage, but has to be free to create. Neil Hollander certainly has that rebellious free spirit. We discussed our own lives and artistic endeavors for a good while before parting ways. Neil Hollander is an excellent example of an independent film maker making his own mark on the world of film.

By Jason dallas

My original Idea was a far better project than what I ended up doing. This project was nothing but a last minute scramble to just get it done. I know how to use Premiere Pro and actually enjoy ending, but when it comes to sound and using audition I fall very short. Because I had to work from home I was unable to use Premier and resulted to iMovie. Nothing but plug and play for the simplicity of my project. This summer I was supposed to go to Thailand for a trip, and ended up not going due to lack of funding. Before my trip was canceled I was gifted a GoPro. I used it a lot less than I wanted to by the end of the summer, but I still got a few good videos and some decent pictures from my iphone. I love to explore beautiful places and it’s an easy thing to do when you live in oregon. This video project is a completion of my top five adventures this summer. One of my favorites from the summer when my family and I went on the jet boat trip through Hellgate Canyon, and I assure you no matter how unhappy my grandmother looked she really did have fun.

My furry friends’ short silent movie is funny in a way. I was trying

to accomplish a short story about 4 cats and a dog with a common interest, milk. I found out animals are hard to take pictures of because they listen worse than a 4year old. Luckily, I got them in a good mood and in a restful state. The 5 animals are all friends of mine with a unique personality each. I had some major setbacks with importing sound and the free trial is more current than what is in the classrooms/labs. Sadly, I ran out of time to recreate the project, so I had to export as is. The featured friends are: Aeowen, Panda, Peaches, King and Moonshine. Moonshine is the matriarch of all the cats at my house and she had her 21^st birthday yesterday 11/05/2017. She is a joy to have around and still full of life. These animals are great to work with and talk to. King is a rescue from Greenhill. He always is up for a run weather we take him, or he decides to take himself. This project was a little daunting and I still worry about my grade due to technical difficulty. Overall, I hope you enjoy the film.

I had a lot of fun learning premiere. I started out a little slow but after a few youtube tutorials I figured out how to stop fighting the program and learned how it really does work for you. I wanted to do something with my girls since they were going to be around and I had this project to work on…….and I have a 5 year old princess! This is by no means perfect but I definitely know what its like to have to bribe a kid to do what you need and the joy of siblings. The end of the video and the project are when my daughter holds up 5, the rest was just fun and I wanted to do as many things as I could to try out the program. so the B role stuff ran 2 more minutes. I was just having fun. I can’t wait to dive into the more technical video work that premiere can do. We tried a few different ideas but this one seemed to stick. I filmed it over 2 hours and filmed around 10 minutes of footage that I cut down to the final 2 minute edit. I thought I would have plenty and it was close to not enough. Definitely film extra takes. Video production to go along with music and lyrics are something I’ve wanted to learn for a while and I’m glad to finally have done it……a little. Hopefully you enjoy and have a nice day!