Similarly Crazy!

For all who dug that last post about the yellow bird camera, and also the X-Men. "The AlloSphere Research Facility is differentiated from conventional virtual reality environments by its seamless surround-view capabilities and its focus on multiple sensory modalities and interaction." check it out

WO this is crazy!

Emulation 3 Vittorio Storaro

Hello it's been awhile, but here is the latest short from my emulation series. This series is a chance for me to learn about, and interpret the work of some of my favorite visual artists.

Last week I focused on cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. In Storaro's long career he has explored many different techniques in order to turn light into an active character in his films. He shot films such as The Conformist, The Last Tango in Paris, Apocolypse Now, Ishtar, The Last Emperor, Dick Tracy, Goya in Bordeaux, and many others.

Though there is a seemingly endless amount of techniques and themes that Storaro evoked in these films, I confined myself to two or three that I found interesting. The overarching consept that seems to resonate in all of his films is the attempt to have light and color dictate the tone, emotion, political climate, or historical moment in almost every shot.

for instance in the conformist Storaro and Bertolucci use light and architecture to create a geometrically rigid feeling throughout the portion of the film that takes place in fascist Italy. Their intent here was to visually imprison their characters in these cages of light and order.

As the story progresses the Italians make there way to Paris. The city is portrayed as a land of freedom of thought, politics, trade, and sexuality. As they make this transition, the entire color scheme of the film changes into a beautiful deep blue dappled glowing tungsten bursts. Storaro says that this blue is to sooth and invite the viewer into this enticingly free society.

Also to note is the transition sequence where the protagonist and his fiance make love on the train to Paris. The scene starts out with obviously warm tones and then rapidly shifts to these deep blues.

This was the main concept behind my interpretation along with the confused haze that is created with colored smoke in Apocalypse Now.

Hope you enjoy it. We had a great time doing it. Thanks to the amazing musicians Gabe Pollack (Trumpet) and Cory Rogers (Drums) and other helping hands Sam Lawrence, Eli Steltenpohl, and Sashi Conway.

Emulation 3: Vittorio Storaro from Jake DeVito on Vimeo.

Juxtable's New Spot

Hello Hello,

for those who don't know Juxtable and the Dirty Dog Brothers is my radio show on WOBC. I play lots of crazy sounds from across time and all over the world. So check it out! My new time slot is 4-6 pm EST every Tuesday at 91.5 fm in Oberlin or go to wobc.org for a live feed. I will also post old show's right here on my blog so feel free to download and groove out while perusing the pretty pictures! here is the first show for ya. enjoy

Conrad Hall

Conrad Hall is one of my favorite cinematographers and my first subject for my emulation project. He shot films such as The Professionals, In Cold Blood, Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke, Fat City and American Beauty.

When I started this project one of the first quotes I read of Hall's was that, a cinematographer should not have a style, they should be able to be invisible. This was a discouraging thought at first, but it soon became clear that while this may be the case in an ideal world where the director knows exactly what they want photographically, that in reality many of the films that Hall worked on had directors who sought him out particularly because they wanted to collaborate.

so some sweet techniques and bits of knowledge that I learned from Hall last week were:

he was originally trained as a black and white filmmaker and so focused much of his attention on edge liners. Bursts of light coming from reflected surfaces that put a rim of light around a subject in order to dileniate them from the back ground. He did this even in his

While his mentors tended to promote lighting a scene from scratch, Hall preferred to use existing light and tweak it to where he saw fit: (note in this shot those bulbs in the background are deffinitely a higher wattage than normal)

Also Note in this shot the bleeding haze coming off of those lights and the desaturated colors. this is because Hall shot almost this entire movie while Push-Processing the film 3 stops! This is one of Hall's most exciting stylistic choiced that reoccurs in most of his films. Hall gives a number of explanations for this in the interviews I read and watched. One I like the most was that we all see life differently and that he kind of walks around in a haze all of the time. Thus he tried to get this Hazy distortion in his images. Also however comes in the argument of audience-subject seperation. where the audience is put in a position where they must question the film stock's accuracy and thereby placing the subjects in some sort of unreal realm. this trick allows the audience to gain emotional and as time passes cultural perspective on these films.

One of the most succesfull techniques that Hall uses in Fat City to make a sharp juxtaposition between interior and exterior shots. the Film is about a drunk amateur boxer whose life is going down the drain. Hall wanted to accentuate feeling that one gets when walking in or out of a very dark bar, in the middle of the day. he did this by overexposing the outdoor transition shots and underexposing the interior transition shots. It was this particular tactic that I focused on in my emulation below.

I could go on for a while about In Cold Blood, but some of the things that I picked up on most while watching the film and in interviews, was that Hall sought to use darkness as a Character in this film. Also that the film was shot at the actual murder scene location was pretty incredible. the shot that I attempted to emulate in this film is perhaps Halls most reviered and talked about cinematic moment. That is when Robert Blake's character is stairing out of the prison window, moments from going to the gallows and recalling a time he spent with his father in Alaska. In this moment rain falls down outside the window and the harsh lights outside project the drops of rain onto his face. Showing the inner emotions of the character while his exterior remains cold and still.

here's some of what I came up with. I still have a few images that I push-processed that I've yet to upload so stay tuned for those:

Be sure not to miss the full effect of the In Cold Blood Shot which occurs after Jing's playing, at around 1:22. I plan to reshoot Jing's shot so that she has the full effect that Eli got on her face while she is playing.

Conrad Hall Emulation from Jake DeVito on Vimeo.

Lucy in Leaves of Grass

Lucy (The Sheeter Con Beeter) DeVito got a mention in this LA times review for her roll in Edward Norton's film Leaves of Grass! check it, and see the movie too.

Requiem for a Stroop Waffle

nough said

Requiem for a Stroop Waffle from Jake DeVito on Vimeo.

MA wrote an article!

Hey my mother wrote an awesome article in the Huffington Post!

Emulation

Hello again. The school year has come again and so let the photos commence! So get ready for EMULATION! A weekly study of my favorite cinematographers, directors, photographers and artist through recreation of their specific styles, themes and techniques...

Interrotron

I want one. Errol Morris's ultimate interviewing machine! lets the subject look interviewer in the eye and look directly into the camera lens at the same time!. pretty dope

Allison Schulnik

Forest from Guernica Magazine on Vimeo.

Hobo Clown from Guernica Magazine on Vimeo.

Russ & Daughters

bomb-beets

this thing's pretty sweeeeet

I'm not trying to market for Lomography or anything but, you've got to appreciate this thing. 360 panoramas on 35mm! sounds like a lot of fun. check it out here.

Body and Soul

Yo yo, So I had a show at Oberlin a couple of weeks ago with my dear friend Sook Hyung Jang. It was lots of fun and we only almost burnt down the building once! Here are a few images from my end of the hall.
Soon to come Sook's end of the Hall!! also we had

story of my name

mirror camera book

Nandotraits
photos taken by Freddy Scialla
Printed by Gracie and Jake DeVito

Hayley Morris and Curious

Hello, hello. hope summer is treating everyone well. So I've somehow landed the sweetest job ever aka watching amazing animation all day long at Curious Pictures. So I anticipate a sudden shift towards an animated realm of Jux in the weeks to come. Here is a beautiful piece by Hayley Morris, an animator who works with Curious.

Undone from Hayley Morris on Vimeo.

Alternative Processes Sites Project

This is a video I put together of one of the most fun projects of our Alternative Processes class. All of the projects were to be site specific, so we ended up driving around all around Oberlin and even to Wellington to see each others projects. It was such an amazing experience that it felt wrong when we moved back into the Lab for our next critique. Unfortunately I was having a little too much fun enjoying these projects and couldn't manage to film many of them completely or some at all. so think of this video as more of a montage of the general energy and experience of the projects and not necessarily a documentation. (To see it in HD please go to the vimeo site)

Alternative Processes Sites Project from Jake DeVito on Vimeo.

Mirror Cam

With this I will rule the world!!! Muhuhahaha! Just keeeding. this is a camera that I built, and am still grappling with its connotations and purposes, but it's lots of fun. For lack of a better name I call it the Mirror Camera. as you can see a Mirror is placed in front of the camera's lens so that the subject can view themselves while the picture is taken. This has a few different effects.

1) The subject is able to contort their face into the perfect shape that they desire for a portrait.

2) (and more importantly) the camera is able to glimpse that most private moment when one looks into his/her own eyes in the mirror.

I origionaly built it for my trip to the Coachella Music festival in Indio California.

My first attempt was rather clunky:

this devise was intended for an SLR camera. it worked well and I think it will come in handy for the future, but was rather cumbersome to be carried around a 75,000 person party filled with crazy drunkards.

so I switched quick to a slightly fresher approach. I call it the ipad mirror cam.

here is a short segment of the images that I aquired over the weekend:

Chickens!

Kim's Grocery Sore

I forget who told me about this place, but it's amazing!!! I think she should move to Oberlin!

View Larger Map

spring break

Spring Break oh yes the bliss. here's a snippit. more to come: Gracie and I printed lots of sweet pictures.