The Center for Social Media showcases and analyzes media for public knowledge and action—media made by, for, and with publics to address the problems that they share. We pay particular attention to the evolution of documentary film and video in a digital era. With research, public events, and convenings, we explore the fast-changing environment for public media. The Center was founded in 2000 by Patricia Aufderheide, University Professor in the School of Communication. As part of the School, the Center offers research assistantships, screenings, master classes and volunteer opportunities to SOC students. The Center also has fellows associated with funded projects, but has no stand-alone funding for fellows.
It’s always a pleasure to work with them, and with Professor Pat Aufderheide in particular!
I’m so pleased with what I wrote on my “Current Work” page that I’ll quote it here:
I’m making an animated documentary about Gustave Whitehead. He was a flier, and was largely forgotten. The reason why this is interesting is because he made a controlled, powered flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle two years before the Wright Brother’s flew! So, I’m making an animated documentary about him. Perhaps this work will inspire other people to innovate and push the envelope of human discovery, knowing that even if they never achieve fame, even if they die penniless, it’s possible that someone might make an animated documentary about them. Indeed, a chance at immortality.
Yep — I am indeed doing it! I’ve made the bulk of the artwork, which is charcoal pencil on heavy watercolor paper, and I’ve got it into After Effects. The voice track is done and I’m quite pleased with it! An original score is also underway. Exciting things!
Below are some low-res captures from my first renderings. I’ll no doubt do some general color correction and maybe throw a vignette on it and whatever other finishing is needed. Blah blah. Here are some stills!
Since when do airplanes cast shadows on the sky? Since I adopted a puppet show aesthetic for my new documentary! That's when.
Gustave Whitehead exhorts his assistant to stoke the steam engine!
The judges have spoken, and our noble effort garnered us (The Knights of the B) the prize “Best Use of Character”. Sadly, they are not referring to our personal virtue, but to the use of the specific character, Scarlett Johnston. The top honors go to a film I’ve yet to see, called “Of Mares and Men“.
I recently went up to Baltimore help my friends and colleagues Rob Benica and Brad Lambert in the Baltimore 48 Hour Film Festival. If you’re new to this – it’s a contest where you are given a genre and some mandatory elements (props, character names) to work with. 48 hours from that moment, you must write, shoot, and edit a short film and hand them a tape of it. It’s a fun and potentially grueling endeavor.
For us, the genre was Fable, the character was Scarlett Johnston, and the prop was Earrings. Rob is a great director, Brad is an amazing editor, and both helped immensely with actually putting the story down on paper.
Check it out here:
For an account of how the screening went, please read an email sent by our team’s lead, Rob:
The screening went great!!
The laughter started as soon as they saw Matt prancing through the field and didn’t let up until the credits were over. It was cool watching the laughter build to an overwhelming crescendo. Chuckles towards Matt carried into snickers at Marielle, to guffaws at the leering Rob. Big laugh at breaking the recorder back to snickers at Rosanna and Eleanor (kudos to the crunching as well). Huge – doubled over laughing at the eating of the ant. Back to chuckles during the race and ending with the biggest laugh of all – the reveal. In fact it was so overwhelming that you couldn’t hear anything Matt said while walking away. So for at least that night with that audience the ‘ending’ couldn’t have worked any better. It generated at least 30 seconds of uproarious glee finally settling down when the screen went black. I’m glad Brad inserted the graphic and audio breaks for as long as he did, because it allowed the laughter to die down so that the stories could be heard. We just never thought it would be needed for the ending. After the laughter finally died at the end we got heartfelt applause, cheering and whistles.
[W]e engaged the audience like no other film. We also had the best sound, writing and most importantly acting!
Perhaps the coolest and most edifying thing was how many compliments we got while walking out the theatre. At least two other team leaders told me how good they thought our film was, the lead actor from another team also sought me out. But the truly cool ones where the people from the audience. I ran to my car to get the DVD to hand out and I was stopped by four different couples telling me how much they liked it. Our film definitely created a buzz not only in the theater but also in the lobby after. If the audience votes their hearts we have another winner. No other film came close to involving or moving the audience like ours did. So everyone should be very proud of themselves. Thank you again for all your hard work. See ya’ll for DC in May.
This last weekend, I had the honor of winning the award for Best Animation: Narrative for my short, “Pac(hyderm) Attack!”. It was also a great evening because I was able to provide all the motion graphics for the awards ceremony — all based on the Visions 2008 Bumper. I worked alongside the talented David Laster, who put together the DVD for the awards ceremony, and Prof. Maher, who gave us technical and aesthetic guidance – generally ensuring that the project went well and that the evening was a success.
There were some other excellent winners, and you can view the work at the American University SOC website. Be sure to check out Brad Lambert’s “Rhinos Rock”. It’s really wonderfully done and extremely funny!
This was a mock commercial, shot on a stage with a Bolex 16mm camera. I was going for a cross between a DeBeers diamond commercial and 007. I’m pretty pleased with it! I makes me giggle when I watch it.
Produced this with a fellow classmate. A dark fairy tale about a garden. Working with children, interiors and exteriors, and the bolex camera was quite a challenge for someone used to digital video! However, given the challenges, I think we did well! I’m most pleased with the appearance of the Fairy. Just as I’d imagined it! Also, the sound mix was really fun to work on.
