:: Way Down East ::

A spontaneous divine intervention happened today--the day before my 3rd year Thesis Presentation...  I got editing help!  Thanks to Joanna Leitch, I am one step closer to having a film that makes more sense.  She also gave me the 1920 silent film Way Down East [D.W. Griffith] as reference for the snow scenes in ACT II of my film.

:: L’heure entre chien et loup ::

"The hour between dog and wolf, or the time between dog and wolf. I'm told it's a common expression in French, referring to the hour between the end of the afternoon and the beginning of the evening. More simply, the twilight hour.

The hour when the dog and wolf are indistinguishable. The text implies that symbolically, good and evil (dog and wolf) are lost in the gloom of twilight."

At twilight the world burns red. There, a shadow creeps down the hill. Is it a friendly dog? Or a vicious wolf? This is the hour when I can't tell... L'heure entre chien et loup.

Translation © 2008 D. Bannon.

Jean Genet's Prisoner of Love

"...the expression entre chien et loup [literally, between dog and wolf, that is, dusk, when the two can't be distinguished from each other] suggests a lot of other things besides the time of day. The colour grey, for instance, and the hour when night approaches as inexorably as sleep, whether daily or eternal. The hour when street lamps are lit in the city, and which children try to drag out so that they can go on playing, though their eyes, suddenly active, are closing in spite of themselves. The hour in which - and it's a space rather than a time - every being becomes his own shadow, and thus something other than himself. The hour of metamorphoses, when people half hope, half fear that a dog will become a wolf. The hour that comes down to us from at least as far back as the early Middle Ages, when country people believed that transformation might happen at any moment." (p. 254) Referenced Site

:: Visual Artist Looks ::

Over the past week, I had a really hard time with my film and the look of winter.  There were three illustrators that I thought would be good to look at for ACT II of my film.  I chose the scene of LUMI trying to cautiously feed the Wolf.

This first still is in the style of Seth Fitts:

These second stills are in the style of Junyi Wu:

This last still is in the style of Tom Keating:

This was the first time I copied the look exactly of a specific artist, and although it's a good exercise to expand one's styles, I don't know if I will be doing this again any time soon.  Thank you for the inspiration, though, illustrators.

:: Stills and Composition ::

The snow and ice in the first 30 seconds or so is something to look at for a possible feel of my film.  The rest of Amasia turns from peaceful, to chaotic, which is a direction I'm NOT ruling out from my film as well.

:: Kiki Smith ::

My thesis instructor told me to look at Kiki Smith's work because she does women and wolves a lot.  I really need to educate myself on artists out there.

:: D0CUM3N74R135 ::

After watching a few documentaries on Youtube and Netflix, I understand wolves a lot better on a natural living level.  The following are the links to the websites of the documentaries:

Living With Wolves
BBC Wolf Battlefield
National Geographic A Man Among Wolves
Montana PBS Wolves in Paradise

:: Slow Summer ::

This has been the slowest summer I've had yet, creatively.  I've travelled and had new exciting experiences, so my input has been quenched; but my output has been disappointing.  I've been watching new things from movies, to tv shows [online since I don't have television], to cartoons, to live dance and music, and animations on Vimeo.

These following animations resonates with my thesis, even though style, story, and meaning are all different: