Media Burn

There are many ways to interpret a film like "Media Burn". It could be seen as bashing modern television and entertainment; mainly what most of America wants to see on the television to keep their attention. In that respect it could also be the fact that so many Americans care what can keep their attention on the television that they are speaking up about. More specifically the fact that television wastes life away. Instead of perhaps doing something creative, like say, making your own film, you sit and watch the television and consume other peoples creativity. They could have also done it for the fact that driving a car through a wall of burning televisions would be amazing, but I doubt that. I think that it is a combination of my first two ideas and more so just a strike against mass media in general. Based on how much of an American's life revolves around the television in some way, it is right to speak up against it. I don't think the car was necessarily important to the process of destroying the televisions, but it is the easiest and it gets the point across. What they seem to be getting at is that America needs to get out of the television trance.

Negativland

Negativland is a experimental music and sound collage band from around the San Fransisco area. The experimental music is based on most of the electronic and computer-altered beats that they produce by themselves. Along with this, they use found footage to create a collage of a certain topic or person of interest. This found footage is usually something that the subject in question wouldn't want anyone to see. This creates a much more welcome response from audiences and can only be given the cold shoulder by those whom they are about. After listening to some of their work and its content, I can say that it seems to me that the only reason why they make their music how they do is to entertain. Purely to entertain. The content that they use usually shows a bad side in one way or another to a good person and it is usually all in good fun. They get the material they use, put some beats to it, practice a bit then they have their mock up of found footage collages. Along with this, they also put their own visual effects in their videos, which are clearly fake; and lyrics, which compliment the predominant messages from the other people that they mock.

Natural Features

After listening to Frampton's Lecture, it's hard to not try and describe a film on what you see most often in it. That is what happens most of the time, whether you realize it or not. We all describe films we see on trends that we notice throughout the film. After watching Nelson's Natural Features, I can't help but call it a film about painted features, specifically in faces. I thought that maybe it could just be a film about faces, as that is what is shown most often; but the title gives a little insight into something more. Most of the faces that are created aren't completed, so the film is more about certain features created multiple different ways using the paint. This makes me think that the film was made specifically to emphasize the beauty in everyone's natural features, no matter what they are. Whether this was the intention of the filmmaker or not, I can't be sure; but using Frampton's logic, this is what I have come to. The use of paint instead of some other medium also makes me think that Nelson was going for beauty throughout all natural features. Paint can be very unpredictable in how it will look and I think is very useful in this film because it helps show all the differences in natural features. That is why I chose the film to be about painted features instead of features or faces. The paint is very important in showing the variability in the features. I don't remember much of the sound from this film, but I don't think it was very important in this case. The visuals were enough to keep me intrigued the entire length of the film. Frampton was right when he said in his Lecture that the film would stimulate one, possibly two senses; in this case, only the first was necessary.