Rough Cut #1: Closer

Rough Cut #2: Water

Rough Cut #3: Tracking

Production Strategies

One. After many explorations through my trek area I seem to gravitate back to the same spot in the end. Each time I go out I end up wanting to go back to the plateau of train tracks where the view is incredible and the content seems never ending. Located near the end of South Water Street, Follow this link to see it from a birds eye view. Plateau of Tracks

Two. As I capture my images I intend to stay low to the ground (low angle), as well as focusing in on the action or specific movements that capture the eye in the allotted area I will be photographing. In a sense moving from a larger frame to a smaller and smaller frame of the same image, but repeated with many different images.

Three. As of sound, I plan to take general ambient recordings that include the main attraction of the area, the louder noises. While also recording that sound in a more specific intimate manner.

Ten Questions

1. Where will you go?
2. What type of weather will you be satisfied with?
3. What time of the day will you go to get footage?
4. More focus on capturing video or stills?
5. Will you go to multiple places inside your trek or just one?
6. Will you have camera movement or more of a static moving picture capturing style?
7. Will you try to capture still with a certain motif?
8. Will you go on multiple outings to capture footage?
9. Will your sounds be focused more on ambient noise or closer more intimate noises?
10. Will you try to match the images you capture with sound captured?

Trek Assesment #4

I found a place at the end of South Water Street, up a small hill lined with small trees onto a plateau about one football field wide and two long. Few cars pass by and a train maybe once when I am there. Close by there are buildings, industrial and mostly graffitied, and a junkyard, which doesn't seem to run much. Whenever I go to this place I never see another person, sort of. I do see the person conducting the train, or hear the one operating the crane in the junk yard, or driving their car down the road, but I never come into contact with a person in which I would have to open my mouth and talk. As our world is filled with communication in every corner, you can't go anywhere without having to participate, even your own home is filled; computer, phone, television. At times a break from that sort of constant commotion feels rather good. Every time I venture to this place I enjoy a good wander, where my thoughts are free as the wind and a simple wave can satisfy a conductors will for communication.

Trek Assesment #3

One. Something that mad me take in visuals somewhat slower was when we started to make our Silent videos. During this time we had the option of choosing a still image and creating video from that one piece. I then saw the vast amount of information that can be captured about the world inside the frame of one still photograph.

Two. One never really sits and just listens to his or her surroundings, something else is usually on the mind. While collecting ambient noises from different locations I was able to sit and just focus on the surrounding noises. In collecting these sounds I was forced to focus on the noises, because I had a goal, I wasn't just setting out for fun but fulfilling a requirement for a class which I paid for. Through this I found a peace in having an excuse to travel to a part of Milwaukee I hadn't been to and just sit and listen.

Three. While collecting images of train tracks, in a place I felt was peaceful and quiet, I was literally surprised when I looked up and saw a train was moving towards me about 20 feet away. I had become so immersed in my picture taking of the small leaves in-between the rocks in-between the tracks had had blocked out my sense of sound, or had simply become oblivious to my surroundings. It was then that I realized this place was not as peaceful and quiet as I had previously thought.

Trek Assesment #2

One. In a very loud industrial area just off South Water street I had a very unlikely and peaceful moment. I set up my mic next to an open space in the building where production of some sort was happening, what ever it was it was very loud, I could barley hear a car driving by even while listening through the mic. As I recorded I began not to notice the consistent loud noise. It was almost as if things became silent. About 10 feet to my left two men where having a conversation of which nothing I could hear. As I walked away from the area and the sound began to dissipate I felt as if I where slowly coming back to reality.

Two. I found a spot near the end of South Water Street where on the left is a junk yard, that is usually doing business on sundays, and up a small hill on the right is a large open grassy field crossed with multiple rails some of which are still in use. from this area you are able to see above the tops of buildings all the way to downtown Milwaukee. As you stared towards Downtown you started with the field, about a football field in length, then across the decrepit buildings of the industrial area through a mixture of new and old age structures to the modern ones which cover the upper sky line. As I would look across this scape I could feel the generations of people that have and will continue to survive in the city of Milwaukee.

Trek Assesment #1

One. While I was capturing sound for my Trek 01 project, I was most frustrated with the noises I didn't want to record sneaking into the recording. When I was recording sound in a hole by some train tracks I was forced to start recording over multiple times because of a car passing by. I would have a great strip of sound and when I finally felt I had enough to finish it off a car would go by. It wouldn't have been a problem except for the fact that a very few amount of cars passed on the road adjacent to the tracks, so the noise stood out to much.

Two. A similar situation to above accept that it dealt with the mic sensitivity. As I recorded sound I would adjust the level of the mic sensitivity so it wouldn't pop with a noise that was to loud. Many times I would want the sensitivity up high so I could get every little detail, however, when I did this there would always be a noise every 20 seconds or so that would cause the mic to pop. It was frustrating having to sacrifice the great detail in the smaller sounds because of a lesser amount of bigger sounds.