Celebrate films

[celebrator]

application here. I tried the best I could to follow instructions. Alrighty. thank you.

I spent maybe a few minutes on the site title it's nothing hard
Celebrate. my username correlates to the title:
celebrator just meaning, I celebrate, becoming a celebrator!

e-mail: foundation.lava@gmail.com

My site description:
A website to entertain the hears, mouth, and eyes. Films to be humorous is what I set out to do, is to put a smile on somebody's face, or least get entertainment out of someone 10 to 7 job. Either you hate my work or love it.

Plan:
I don't have a website layout, not a good impression so far, but I have Mac. (hard to get HTML to work properly) becuase the family PC just got dull with editing, and been wanting one for ever since my laptop. but main layout, simple.
I plan on having a frameset look, so you still have banner and links. easy <div> tag tables. If you give me time I'll have a post on here with the site ready. It's hard from school to job, so i'll try the best I can do all I can!

How to persuade you:
Before I start pre-production in a film is, "What does a person want to watch?" but then I ask myself, "what do I want?" and I take my question more over then what they want because for me there both similar, WE WANT SOMETHING GOOD AND ENTERTAINING. So I don't have to ask both of those questions. I want to make people laugh, or to say, "that was complete random."

I have my own ideas and from a bit of some inspiration, I make films, and I want them out there.

If you need more information I'll be happy to do the "The Challenge" that is presented if you need more.

For some of my work I post on youtube, you might think why does he need a website here? Well websites now-a-days represent alot of different things, and I want to present it through a website then on a mypace type looking profile. Nah not what I really want to get out there.


Some work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26J6KduHdmY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcYGhx2DX3w

[Xepher]

Well, a good start would be giving us links to the example movies that actually work. You can't embed raw HTML in a post.

[celebrator]

I would also point out, i will have some more work later. Got the links redone.

[Xepher]

Righto, you fixed the links I see. I watched 'em and, well, not really sure what to think. 2 minutes of eating toast? It does bring to mind a song from one of my favorite bands... which conveniently has a video made for it by Homestar Runner. http://www.homestarrunner.com/expfilm.html

Super Secret Bonus: Reload the page, and click the title/credits right as it starts to get the commentary track.

As for this application, it'll have to wait at least until I get back from vacation. Hopefully some others will weigh in on it while I'm gone.

[griever]

He wasn't even eating toast for 2 minutes...he was making toast...or really, an open-faced PBJ.

In regard to the application, I don't love or hate it...I'm just not that impressed with technique, statement, or delivery in the videos.    Your "artist' statement" does not support your output.

[celebrator]

well what do you consider an artist then?
being an artist is to express yourself.

Isn't that what you do?

I don't mean to snap back, but you really got to look at something, just can't judge on how well good it was edited or how bad the idea was thought up. Those videos were just little projects, nothing major.

[griever]

I'm not an artist so, no, I don't do that.

I don't mind snapping back but to pull out the ping-pong paddle, what is left in the film to look at if the emotional, technical, or intellectual is not to be judged?  There's nothing left to look at!

[tickyhead]

I have to agree with Griever on this one. I subjected myself to watching all four of your movies on youtube, and I have to say that they are not very artistic in any way, they're just boring.

You say you don't want it to be judged on the technical aspects or content, but that is what makes a movie. These "little projects" are all you have to show us, and they may as well be absolutely nothing! We are forced to judge your application on what you show us, just as it will be with the rest of the world. If you expect that your "art" will not be judged on what it is, but some other "level" that, since you don't want to inform us as to what it is, must be beyond human comprehension, then you are a lost cause already. Nevertheless, I will judge you against your wishes because it's my unofficial job as a xepher forumite.

To start, there is nothing special on the technical side of your movies; the camera angles are the usual fare, there is nothing to look at that makes you say "wow, that was a cool shot!" or "gee, that's such a strange effect, I wonder how they did it?" There is nothing special within the subject matter itself, either; it's just you. Going through daily motions. Complaining about the cold over and over again. Et cetera. As I said before, it's boring. Is there anything great or poignant you have to say? Or do you just want to talk about the weather?

You say that being an artist is to "express yourself." So express something! This is like abstract art that is nothing but a blank canvas; you can talk on and on about the "inner workings within that simplicity" or how it is an "expression of your art," but in the end it is still a blank canvas, something that required no skill at all to create. I would much rather have a picture that an artist spent hours of labor upon that is really nothing special in the end, than the blank canvas that the "artist" claims is fine art; just as I would much rather watch a movie that is interesting, than a boring one that you claim is "art."

I was reminded of a certain video that Xepher posted in another topic in this forum when I watched your movies, except you didn't film yours while dancing around naked and wearing a horse mask. At least that video was interesting because it was scary as hell. I would never want to watch it again, mind you, but at least it made an impression on me.

A quick question or two about a few technical aspects as well, since I'm a stickler for being thorough: do you know how to use HTML and SCP at all? Do you even know what those are? because those are a requirement in order to make a website here. I highly doubt you will actually get in, but on the off chance you do you should at least know what you're in for.

Also, in your videos you seem to be fluent in English, yet your grammar and sentence structure here is...horrid. This has nothing to do with the application itself, but what could possibly be the explanation for that gap?

[celebrator]

Alright I'll work on some new projects that will hopefully grab your attention. I'll be back with a better application presentation, and some new videos.

I have some old videos here. There not a shocking wow that your looking for but it's better then presenting two videos.

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=17574585
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=17691833

In this one, I used Dan Govier's light.on band for the song.
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4241066

tell me if there better then the ones I showed you. thanks

[tickyhead]

These are indeed better than the previous showings. I especially liked the second one. I have to wonder why you would want to show us a video of you making toast, rather than these?

After seeing these I'd be okay with you being hosted here, I suppose. But is it possible for you to make a mock-up site to show that you can actually code a website? I'm sure you'll have time--these applications usually take a week or two at the least (unless everyone hates you, then it goes by fairly quickly )

[fesworks]

In the first post, the videos seem like you are trying too hard to be an "Ar-teest". Avant Garde for the purpose to BE Avant Garde, is my least favorite type of artistic expression... its like when people post videos of people basically looking at the camera to tell you what they could essentially have just typed... it's selfish and egocentric. Perhaps not really having any point to be entertaining, but moreso just having an excuse to say "look at me" and essentially waste people's time.

That is my general feeling towards things like that. I think I can see what you are trying to do, but it does come off as anything special to me. Amatuer, "look at me", sort of stuff almost.

now, myself, I have a few YouTube videos in which I am the main focus of the camera as well, but when I do it, I try to be informative to a point, as well as entertaining.... mostly showing my silliness and stupidity... almost in a sarcastic way... never serious like those G-F-D-Horse-S "Helio" commercials about "MySpace Mobile" and "YouTube Reply"... waste of human intelligence and space.

but this is turning into an off-topic rant.


but you can look at some of my YouTube videos and see what I'm talking about when I describe how I make videos with me as the focus.


And just for people to compare, here is my "Cooking with Fes" video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4A61OBsoSQ

In it I make a Spaghetti Dinner.... I post this with the intention of seeing how people would compare my "making food" video, to yours... Maybe it was what you were going for.... if it is even kinda what you were going for... even to a smaller extent... I think I get what you are going for in your videos.



I'm not sure if this is a negative or positive post about your application and content... since it is mixed with some generals feelings I have as well... I think I'm meaning to be more "neutral, leaning towards slightly positive, but cautious".... if that means anything.

[griever]

I have to agree with tickyhead on this...these older videos were much more entertaining. 

I'm not sure if your other ones were avant garde like fes said, but I do agree that they struck me as trying to be artistic in the most cliche way.  And that's okay as a budding filmmaker but if you're actually serious about the craft, I honestly believe it's better not to be trapped in that stereotype.  There's far too much of that stuff on YouTube and I have a hard time finding ramblings (your snow video for example) to be any artistically distinguished from a regular old vlog.

[celebrator]

yeah, fesworks and griever i agree, I should be myself then trying to say, "hey look I'm making video I'm better then you" i wasn't aiming for that but I got it. I wasn't trying to be cliche in the first films actually, I just wanted that since of random there, like for you to think toast, why toast? I don't know why but people in my town get a kick out of it but I have to think outside the box as I see now.

Yeah I'm working on the codes(fixing, tweaking), I don't really want you to think I can't code. I can, I didn't take web publishing course for nothing. I need that credit to graduate! 

[celebrator]

I got the template up, I just put it up there, few errors in my code, just the  text-align: center code did not center the table.
I'll work on that!!

http://celebratefilmstoo.bravehost.com/index.html

celebrator

[tickyhead]

Well, it proves you can make one....I have a little nitpicking to do, though.

First off, I'm sure it would look much better if the whole layout was actually centered (right now it shows up like this on my screen) this can easily be remedied simply by putting <center> right after <body> and </center> right before </body>, though I'm sure someone like Databits would think up some wonderfully complicated way to do that, too. Also on the subject, I looked through your website code and you've got multiple </body> </html> tags at the bottom. Just to keep it clean, you should probably remove any extra tags like that that you might have missed)