J. Murphy Blog

In this project, I made a flip book out of a 208 page book. My theme that I drew around was the sky. I started off with clouds that leads to floating balloons. Once a balloon pops, a flock of birds enter the scene. As the birds exit the scene, the sun and moon are shown to show change of daytime. I end off with starts and my name in the stars because I hope to one day become a star. In post production, decided to use sound effects to suspend the disbelief for the audience. This creates a more natural appeal to watching a story. My story may be simple, but you can make whatever you want to make out of it. There are little details in this that show symbolism. To me, the green balloon is the lonely soul that is different from the rest. A side note that I would like to add is it was difficult to get all the pages while flipping the pages. I had to retake this a few times. Within the three days of making this, it took me a total of 6 hours to complete this flip book. Overall, I am satisfied...

Holly and I decided to pick my bedroom for this project since you can see the view of downtown. At first, I was a little skeptical how this would turn out. I have seen so many examples of this working but I couldn't imagine actually doing it myself. I put 8 garbage bags on my window with duct tape. In the center of the garbage bags I cut a hole and taped the end of the garbage bag box on the top layer to create a square shape. Cutting the holes out was an arm workout since there were so many layers but once I finished, the light came in and I was amazed. I never thought I could have created a piece of artwork like this in my own bedroom. The coolest part was seeing cars drive by and the picture would have movement. Overall, this was a fascinating project that I enjoyed.

This is a photo of myself that was taken a year ago in Los Angeles, California on the day of the Oscars. I aspire to have my own walk of fame star and win an Oscar award as a film editor. I bought this one in the picture as a souvenir to remind myself what one of my goals are in life. Last semester, I won a "mini Oscar" award at the Black Box Film Festival for best animation. I found it ironic that this was given to me as an award since I hope to receive one in the future. After college, I plan to move out to Los Angeles and find work out there. This has been a dream of mine since I was 15 years old.

Madama Butterfly was written in 1904 by the composer Giacomo Puccini. This opera has three acts ranging from 30-50 minutes in each act. The language spoken was Japanese, which was a struggle to follow along due to the language barrier. Although there was an issue with this, it's possible to follow along if paying attention. This opera told a story about love, sacrifices, and betrayal. The first ten minutes into the opera, you can tell that there is tension between a man and a woman. Watching the claymation version to this opera also helped with following the story. We tag along to this journey as the audience is faced with having the fourth wall broken. The fourth wall is broken multiple times during this opera. In order to break the fourth wall, the characters must make eye contact or talk to the audience. The fourth wall is broken within five minutes of the performance. It's clear that the audience is involved with the story because of the interaction of the characters. Th...

This 10 minute film made with claymation, tells a story that is unusual yet so powerful. Some may find this inappropriate to watch due to the sex scene but isn't this what most people experience? There is no dialogue between the two characters but the way the song and sound effects take over is still able to bring emotion to this film. I may have been a little uncomfortable watching the sex scene but it showed this woman's love life with this man. She was extremely happy in the beginning and at the end she is not. I feel empathy for this nonliving object which I believe was the goal of the film. There are some unrealistic moments such as the pregnancy of the fish turning into a baby but we understand the meaning of this newborn. Something I didn't understand was the kite that her and her daughter became. It did look like they were attached at the heart and when the father of the child breaks the line between the mother and daughter, I took it as a metaphor for breaking her ...

Out of all of the short experimental films that I watched at the FLEX Film Festival, I would have to say that Applied Pressure was one of my favorites. I feel like their was a deeper meaning shown without having to use any words. The audio used was a mixture of calm crashing waves with dark deep music in some parts. When using the darker music in some areas of the film, it appeared as if there was danger occurring. All these different women shown were getting massaged by men. They looked like they were enjoying the massage until the darker music played. I believed there was a metaphor for the darker music. The stop motion picture had a lot of aggressive photos during the darker audio that looked as if these women were being abused. The color of the film was tinted red as well which can symbolize danger. To me, this film can portray an abusive relationship. I might be overthinking this film's real meaning but this is how I analyzed it and I think it has a lot of meaning to it.

Raul grew up in a very poor lifestyle. He struggled with prejudice and being accepted in his culture. He ends up becoming a brilliant scientist and has a lot of concepts and thoughts that he brings up during this interview. Raul makes a point that creativity has nothing to do with art or being intellectually advanced but it in fact has to do with how you proceed with nature in relation with yourself. In order to do this, you have to be a good observant with nature. It has nothing to do with the lifestyle you have grown into. There is no advantage for those who are financially more stable. For instance, take a look at Raul. He struggled financially and became a brilliant man. Everything comes from nature. Ideas come from interaction from other ideas. The issue is the technology that people are using. There is no interaction with one another due to technology. Another important concept by Raul is doing everything with intensity. At first I was a little confused what this meant. As he beg...