Blog #3

              With the right editing, a good film can tell its story by how it arranges the images and which sounds to particularly focus on. One great example of this is the Get out of the Water Scene in Jaws. How the suspense in this scene slowly builds up by having a sequence of shots of a seemingly normal beach day lead to a horrific shark attack that stuns the beachgoers.
              The scene primarily focuses on three aspects: The expectation of something happening, the false sense of safety, and the dramatic buildup to the attack. The expectation of something happening in the first shots is seen by how the shots are arranged. There is a back and forth between Police Chief Brody and what is happening on the beach. The sounds of a teenage girl screaming in one shot brings him to immediate attention. His complete ignorance of what the mayor is saying to him also brings out the focus between him and the beach. He is searching for something and the girl screaming alludes to an uneasy feeling of a bad thing possibly happening. This is followed up by the shots of false sense of reality the beachgoers feel. The laid back music in the shots, the sounds of children playing in the water and splashing around, everyone on the beach feeling relaxed. It creates a sense of paranoia that the audience feels of Police Chief Brody and of their own expectations of what will happen. However, the buildup of the shark attack starts to happen right when a boy calls for his pet and the following, stark image of a stick floating in the water gives an immediate sense of danger and brings back the uneasiness of something not being right. Interestingly it also juxtaposes the few shots before. Where the sound in the shots before were getting louder, these following shots were becoming quieter. The suspense and tension is immediately with the underwater POV shot and the focus being on the children swimming. The iconic, tense music starts to play and get louder, giving the impression of seeing through the predator’s eyes and motive. Once the shark attacks a boy there is an immediate climatic climax. The boy is violently being attacked and thrashing about with the red blood flooding the shot, everyone is escaping and running out, the beachgoers are rushing to the shore to help the kids out. Eventually the commotion starts to die out and you see the poor mom looking for her son in desperation. The sense of dread kicks in and the fear of the shark feels very raw and alive.
              This scene works well, even without the context of the whole film itself, because the relationship of the shots give a clear and concise story of the situation at hand.

Blog #2

In my neighborhood there is a spot I always go to whenever I need to clear my head and just relax with nothing to bother me at the moment. This place is not necessarily isolated but rather detached from where I live, as it is connected by a small bridge over the highway that connects that side of the world to mine. Sitting at a bench I usually take in the warm sun as it sets into the horizon. I hear the sounds of the waves gently crashing along the beach and the soft wind blowing past my ears. The whooshing sound of the cars flying by in the highway, rushing to their destination.  These sounds were always put together into just a noise to me, never an isolated part that caught my attention unless it was the occasional honk of the car horn or a big wave crashing along the rocks. Instead my attention was always caught by the seagulls cawing on the metallic barrier, where they perched looking out into the sea. Individually the cawing was loud but quickly faded into the background, however once a couple more of them came by it became a piercing sound that made me wince a bit once I paid attention to their activities. It was short lived, however, as they flew away once people walked by. The sound of footsteps and conversations of people slowly passing by as they stroll along. Their voices blending in except for the occasional yell by some children that broke through the hidden veil of the surrounding noise. These outbursts only lasted for a moment and soon faded away as soon as they appeared. Hearing the symphony of noise, I turn my head to another familiar sound of a bell ringing. The sound of a bike quickly riding through, warning those who were obstructing their path to move. The wheels sounding like little gears whispering, their soft clicks hiding beneath everything else is just loud enough to hear them incoming. Just like with everything else though, they fade away and the sound of the waves hitting the rocks, the cars whizzing by, and the wind gently breezing is the lullaby that always remains in the end. The lullaby that eases everyone’s troubles away for those short brief moments that last as long as they sit on the bench.  

Defining A Space

A Torn Page from Peter Maryniak on Vimeo.

My Artist Statement

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been influenced most by the varying forms of entertainment that was available to me. From playing Donkey Kong on the Super Nintendo to watching films not appropriate for my age, such as Jaws and Pulp Fiction, I’ve always been astounded by the reality escaping world of entertainment and wanted to partake in one of the many art forms that are involved in the creation process.

At first I got sidetracked and became a serious jazz musician throughout my teenage years, wanting to perfect my skills and become a renowned figure such as Miles Davis or Charlie Parker. Those two artists pushed the boundaries of jazz music and always strived to create something new and different, never following the trends of their time, and instead created them. After high school I realized that even though i enjoyed music it was more of a hobby than a passion. This is when i started getting into computers and became interested in its ability to create dynamic applications, where anything you create can be changed into something wildly different than what it started out as. Instead of creating content like a movie or a painting where you eventually finish and present your art form, computer applications allow you to evolve with yourself. It can either be finished when you want to or be kept anew with fresh ideas that you come up with. One way computers do this is by creating websites that allow you to express your interests and combine them in ways that are unique to yourself, yet can capture an audience who share the same type of tastes as you. Just google “lolcatz” and you will understand that I mean

As I am not proficient in many forms of digital media, specifically working with film cameras and photos. My goal is to learn to use film and photos to chart the evolution of my website designs and computer applications. To use static forms of media to represent a present state of being and then morph it into something completely different as time passes.