The Adventures of Lighoman

Scene 1.
Lighoman wakes up in the middle of the night in a start. He looks around only to find that his sister has gone missing. He runs out of the hut and into the forest looking in all of her favorite places, but all this is to no avail. Solemn, Lighoman returns back to his village. When he arrives he finds that all of the villagers have been slaughtered, he rushes to his father who is split in two, but tells his son that he must go find the forest god, and beg him to save the tribe. His father dies. Lighoman leaves the village for the last time.

Scene 2.
It has been days since Lighoman has left his village and he is tired and hungry. He has fought hard to get as far as he has. He has ventured into the Great Forest. In it he has faced strange and wild creatures and has almost forgotten about his tribe and his quest merely out of his effort to survive. One night Lighoman finds shelter under a giant mushroom-tree and falls into a deep sleep. Little does he know that he has fallen asleep on the trail of the Giants. Not long after he has fallen asleep two giants come waddling down the path. They see the little Lighoman and decide to take him and eat him for breakfast the next morning.

Scene 3.
Lighoman wakes up only to find himself bound and in a cage. He cries out for help but all he gets in response is a very weak voice telling him to shut up, if he wants to live. He turns harshly towards the voice to find the frail shell of his sister bound behind him. Upon this realization they both become ecstatic and immediately they fill each other in on their adventures. Lighoman tells his sister about the tragic fate of their village and how he was on his way to see the Forest god. His sister immediately suggests that they try to escape, and using a sharp rock they manage to escape their bounds. But as they were so tiny they could not lift the cage their captors had them in so they had to wait. When the giants awoke they lifted the cage and immediately after, Lighoman and his sister ran for their lives while in the process trapping the giants in their own cage.

Scene 4.
After weeks of wandering the forest Lighoman and his sister are becoming weak from hunger and exhaustion. In defeat Lighoman;s sister passes out under a tree. Lighoman moves her to a safe place and ventures out to find food for the two of them. He stumbles upon a small creek and he bends down to drink. But a strange dreamlike feeling overcomes him when he does this. He finds the nearest tree and falls asleep. He wakes up soon after to a blinding white light only to see his sister standing in front of him, smiling. Behind her walks her father, and behind him sits the Forest god. The father tells him that his journey and bravery to find the Forest god put the entire tribe in good favor, and so they could spend eternity under the cool shade of the cover of the Forest god.

End.

Notes on Refined Idea

The main purpose of this project is to create a narrative in the world of the miniature.

I think that it is important to have a visible main character in the narrative that the audience can see and relate to.

I want this world to be separate from our world but still set in a somewhat familiar setting.

The point of view will be third person following our hero on his journey.

The god at the end i want to be an actual person to make people think of how we may relate to the larger universe, just as the lego-man often wondered how he related to his.

Refined Concept for Miniature Piece

Early one morning our hero (henceforth known as "lego-man") ventured out from his village to find his sister who had disappeared from the village the night before. He searched all her normal hiding spots, but to no avail. In despair he returned to the village only to find that everyone in it had been slaughtered by an unknown foe. Forced to leave his home, lego-man ventures out into the great forest to seek out the forest god to return life to his village. On the journey he is faced with a ruthless world through which he fights his way, ever seeking the forest god. But one night in his sleep he is kidnapped by a couple of giants (army men) who take him back to their camp, where they hold him for the next mornings breakfast. While there he is found by his sister, who it followed the giants in hopes of stealing some of their food. With his sisters help he manages to escape the giants death grip under the blanket of darkness. Now running for their lives, both on the verge of death, lego-man leaves his sister in hiding to find some food. Out of exhaustion he passes out, but awakens to a bright light. He sees his sister, standing in front of him, with their father walking up beside her. Behind them sits the forest god, compassionately watching, the family reunion in the after life.

Concepts for miniature

1) Lego village destroyed by little giant dog.
2) A day in the life of a dust mite. Showing everyday life through the eyes of a dust mite being swept out from under and then out into the world.
3) I want to focus on what it was to be a child playing in the grass down at eye level with the bugs. Where grass became giant trees and the insects became monsters of a forgotten land. Where toy soldiers become the heroes only spoken of in myth.

Miniature Reading

- "Values become engulfed in miniature, and miniature causes men to dream."
- "Those that appear to be the humblest, often assume great authority in their homes."
-" Large issues from small, not through the logical law of dialectics of contraries, but thanks to liberation from all obligations of dimensions."
- "Detail increases an objects stature."
- "Miniature is an exercise that has metaphysical freshness... Here the imagination is both vigilant and content."

Artist Lecture

I found her discourse on the labor or rather the "work" of art to be very interesting. But throughout the lecture I could not help but think of the fact that society has the willingness to entertain the notionthat anything is art if the artist tells them so. While I greatly respected most of the artists work as art there were some pieces that I could not help calling bullsh** on. An obsessive compulsive person barely counts as an artist, unless of course their obsession is art. I think that I just failed to see the idea behind using the labor as the art. To me, why not just go build a house? Is everyone that labors an artist? The difference that she failed to mention was that all of these artists used more labor to create their art, but their labor was not their art, merely an effect thereof.

Overall, I thought she spoke very well and brought a very unique, and well educated opinion to the table.

Experiment 5b

Untitled from Andrew Lebowitz on Vimeo.

Big Bang

Big Bang from Andrew Lebowitz on Vimeo.

Assignment 2 write up

Ok, right off the bat I have to say that what started off as a seemingly easy assignment soon became the bane of my existence. I learned that it is very difficult to start a stop motion animation, use the camera for something else, have time to think about it, and then go back to the animation. It was frustrating as my original vision became more and more obscured. I lost motivation and eventually gave up on my original concept. Not, before much time and effort was wasted on little. I eventually worked on two or more animations before arriving at my final.

In essence this was purely experimental. I worked with manipulating images on a white board. I worked with showing the artist at times as the artist, at times as the manipulator; at times I even left the artist out entirely and let my art portray and evolve on its own.

I am not happy with this final piece as I arrived at a viable technique without arriving at an acceptable use there of. But with all the frustration that I endured I am happy to be turning in anything at all.

Stop Motion Music Video

Awesome Stop Motion

Three Ideas

In the spirit of my first project I would really like to continue with the hand drawn, or hand done, elements in my films. So my first idea is inspired by a short film that I saw called "pieces." I want to undertake a similar project focusing on the process of making a work of art. But through this process I would like to create a sort of narrative, leading the viewer on a "journey" (if you will).

1) Using cut paper and a camera on a tripod I will explore evolution. An animal rising out of a primordial blob and then evolving beyond humanity, into the cosmos.

2) Using a combination of cut paper and pencil drawings I would like to do an exploration of design in terms of stop motion. Showing the relationship between type and shapes and negative shapes. (maybe do a diagram of sorts blowing something up and examining the smaller parts, could be interesting.)

3) Inspired by a flip book and old school 2D animation I think it would be interesting to do a short story completely drawn by hand. Perhaps invoking some of the film techniques we have seen but in the realm of 2D. Focus on the abstract. Focus on how shapes can invoke emotions, and how their relationship to each other can change those emotions. Focus on how the violence or smoothness of a paint stroke can completely change the image on the screen.

I know that I should probably experiment more with the filming process, but the idea of making a 2-dimensional work of art come to life is very exciting to me.

3

Assignment 1 Write up

After dealing with numerous frustrations as to how I would handle the first assignment I watched a very inspirational stop motion movie on behance (a professional portfolio site.) I started to make a collage stop action film like the one I had just seen, however, I failed miserably and became even more frustrated. Then for some reason I started thinking about how I loved those animations that seemed to come to life from seemingly mundane circumstances. So I started drawing. At first it was more abstract dealing with shapes and lines but I got a little more bold and decided to make a little story. The result was "A Simple Story." I had so much fun making this little film and though it is not technically perfect (as I have no idea, truly how to make such a film) I think a lot of it's character is a result of this. In closing I hope only that it is as much a pleasure to watch as it was for me to make.