48 hours...

I'm intrigued by the idea of working with a mystery prop to create a short film. I am, however, intimidated by the restriction of not being able to use any sort of video camera or even the video mode on a digital still camera. Technology and me are at constant odds, and always have been. I've never worked with a scanner or copier except in the usual ways, and although I’m interested to try to use these machines as film making tools, I’m scared that some simple technical problems will come up that will drive me insane. Problems such as converting the files to jpgs or importing them into final cut or after effects, or even exporting to quicktime. I guess it will be a learning experience but I would also like my final product to be something I'm proud to have my name on, and I'm scared this might not be the case. Its a good idea to use a cell phone camera, but I have no clue on how to get such videos onto a computer to begin with. While writing this I'm realizing that maybe I need to go back to some older methods of image capture. Even something as simple as animating jpgs can turn out really well if I spent enough time on it, but I want to include something more original. Taking pictures of a flip book is an interesting thought as well. I’ve also considered making something like the phenakistoscope, but I don’t know if I will be able to do this. Hand drawing intricate animated scenes will be time consuming but it seems like the rest of it wouldn’t be that hard; making a spinning disk with slits in it. I would have to bring a mirror to class for people to be able to watch this, and would have to include some other type of film to make the whole minute. Maybe I could have different stations set up to where the viewer could watch the phenakistoscope for like twenty seconds and then move to watch the rest of the film somewhere else. Or maybe I could just take still images projected on the mirror, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. The time constriction on this project I think will actually be helpful to me, because I usually only work well under pressure. The mystery prop will have a lot to do with helping me determine how to attack this project. For example, if it’s a sound clip I might have some issues including it with anything that’s hand drawn, but then again I’m sure this is somehow possible. Either way I’m happy that I get to work in this way, I just hope that I can come up with something that looks great and is created in a unique way.