Job Applications is about my other job, filling out job applications.
11 thoughts on “Job Applications”
once again, very nice
The FCP filters are pretty funny (or lame depending on how you look at it). The effect on the last portion of the video, “overdrive” I believe, is one I swear I’ve seen used on Sci-Fi originals. Maybe they even used it big Hollywood productions, like The Core. I’d go back and rewatch The Core to find out for certain – but I think complete one viewing of that movie is all that any man, woman or child should ever have to watch. However, if anyone else out there wants to check The Core for me though – please let me know.
There used to be a really lame fire filter that was somehow associated with Quicktime. Might not have even been in FCP. It was horrible.
Keep ’em coming.
brilliant
The reddish flickery filter was pretty nice. Though as you know, as a general rule, I’m much more interested movies with a more traditional narrative content (or maybe characters that move). This was a bit more “Garry’s class” than I generally prefer.
I’m not sure I get the job-related symbolism though. Is the manikin you and the hydra the collective of all businesses rejecting you?
And re: The Core: I remember you recommended it before for some reason and I watched it. I thought that crystal cave was pretty fascinating visually, but other than that none of the special effects really stuck in my mind.
Agreed. I am a bit more attracted to narrative. However, there is a lot to be said for experimental films – if for no other reason than they afford the opportunity to learn and still produce a work unrestricted by narrative concerns. Narrative can be quite exhausting you know.
I went to a Berks screening last October and Gary showed some of his works. Inevitably, people in audience asked him what the films meant and Gary said they didn’t have any intended meaning. I assume this isn’t to say they “couldn’t mean something”, it was just to say he wasn’t consciously inserting a meaning. When he was making a video, he explained, he worked intuitively until he landed on something that, for whatever reason, he liked. I thought that was really interesting. For me this explanation likened his films to some forms of poetry, where the point isn’t have to have a point – but more to create an effect, sensation or feeling.
I guess that’s how I would classify Job Applications and Vent; as video poems not really meant to mean anything. I’m sure there is meaning there… but I didn’t intentionally insert it. So it isn’t like Spoon Test Factory, where I did intend for the act of testing spoons to represent something. When I selected the title for Job Applications I did so because I was filling out job applications the night prior. And when I wrote the description, I just went off the title. I guess that was a bit leading of me – but the title and descriptions really weren’t the point of the video. My criteria in creating them was more to use my camera and software and then have something to show for those efforts. I kept the result of those efforts short so it wouldn’t be too daunting to watch. In the end, I think that Job Applications is ultimately weaker than Vent. Vent just sort of happened and there wasn’t a whole lot of thought that went into it. I spent a little longer with Job Applications, searching for imagery I liked.
Very nice. I particularly enjoyed the “shimmering” quality of the music and the red filter at the end. I also like how the mannequin is posed in a Michael Jackson-esque position. Bravo.
Let me add something to my above comment.
Feeling that Job Applications was the weaker of the two videos, it also struck me just how hard it is to make a really good experimental video. When Gary showed his work, every piece he screened was completely distinct and managed to create a different sensation and feeling in the viewer (or this viewer). That is an achievement – especially if you are making works of art with no narratives and slippery meanings at best. I on the other hand felt I was perhaps trying recapture the free-form feeling of Vent with Job Applications. And this is why half-jokingly and very seriously I was soliciting short scripts for experimental videos in the comments on Vent. I’d like to break free of the experimental rut I felt I was on with Job Applications. I can’t simply use awful FCP effects to differentiate every experimental film I make.
I’d like to explore a little more creating a good experimental video with the question in mind, “what is a good experimental video”?
As the frequent job application sounding board, I immediately connnected with the visceral imagery of the searing, consuming, beastly three-headed dragon.
I loved it. A bunch of my friends and I are all about to graduate from college and we often speak of how trying to find a job is like a wooden model fighting a three-headed dragon. The red filter at the end felt like the interview process.
Overall, I found more meaning in this movie as opposed to Vent, and thus, I liked it much better.
once again, very nice
The FCP filters are pretty funny (or lame depending on how you look at it). The effect on the last portion of the video, “overdrive” I believe, is one I swear I’ve seen used on Sci-Fi originals. Maybe they even used it big Hollywood productions, like The Core. I’d go back and rewatch The Core to find out for certain – but I think complete one viewing of that movie is all that any man, woman or child should ever have to watch. However, if anyone else out there wants to check The Core for me though – please let me know.
There used to be a really lame fire filter that was somehow associated with Quicktime. Might not have even been in FCP. It was horrible.
Keep ’em coming.
brilliant
The reddish flickery filter was pretty nice. Though as you know, as a general rule, I’m much more interested movies with a more traditional narrative content (or maybe characters that move). This was a bit more “Garry’s class” than I generally prefer.
I’m not sure I get the job-related symbolism though. Is the manikin you and the hydra the collective of all businesses rejecting you?
And re: The Core: I remember you recommended it before for some reason and I watched it. I thought that crystal cave was pretty fascinating visually, but other than that none of the special effects really stuck in my mind.
Agreed. I am a bit more attracted to narrative. However, there is a lot to be said for experimental films – if for no other reason than they afford the opportunity to learn and still produce a work unrestricted by narrative concerns. Narrative can be quite exhausting you know.
I went to a Berks screening last October and Gary showed some of his works. Inevitably, people in audience asked him what the films meant and Gary said they didn’t have any intended meaning. I assume this isn’t to say they “couldn’t mean something”, it was just to say he wasn’t consciously inserting a meaning. When he was making a video, he explained, he worked intuitively until he landed on something that, for whatever reason, he liked. I thought that was really interesting. For me this explanation likened his films to some forms of poetry, where the point isn’t have to have a point – but more to create an effect, sensation or feeling.
I guess that’s how I would classify Job Applications and Vent; as video poems not really meant to mean anything. I’m sure there is meaning there… but I didn’t intentionally insert it. So it isn’t like Spoon Test Factory, where I did intend for the act of testing spoons to represent something. When I selected the title for Job Applications I did so because I was filling out job applications the night prior. And when I wrote the description, I just went off the title. I guess that was a bit leading of me – but the title and descriptions really weren’t the point of the video. My criteria in creating them was more to use my camera and software and then have something to show for those efforts. I kept the result of those efforts short so it wouldn’t be too daunting to watch. In the end, I think that Job Applications is ultimately weaker than Vent. Vent just sort of happened and there wasn’t a whole lot of thought that went into it. I spent a little longer with Job Applications, searching for imagery I liked.
Very nice. I particularly enjoyed the “shimmering” quality of the music and the red filter at the end. I also like how the mannequin is posed in a Michael Jackson-esque position. Bravo.
Let me add something to my above comment.
Feeling that Job Applications was the weaker of the two videos, it also struck me just how hard it is to make a really good experimental video. When Gary showed his work, every piece he screened was completely distinct and managed to create a different sensation and feeling in the viewer (or this viewer). That is an achievement – especially if you are making works of art with no narratives and slippery meanings at best. I on the other hand felt I was perhaps trying recapture the free-form feeling of Vent with Job Applications. And this is why half-jokingly and very seriously I was soliciting short scripts for experimental videos in the comments on Vent. I’d like to break free of the experimental rut I felt I was on with Job Applications. I can’t simply use awful FCP effects to differentiate every experimental film I make.
I’d like to explore a little more creating a good experimental video with the question in mind, “what is a good experimental video”?
As the frequent job application sounding board, I immediately connnected with the visceral imagery of the searing, consuming, beastly three-headed dragon.
I loved it. A bunch of my friends and I are all about to graduate from college and we often speak of how trying to find a job is like a wooden model fighting a three-headed dragon. The red filter at the end felt like the interview process.
Overall, I found more meaning in this movie as opposed to Vent, and thus, I liked it much better.
Glad you liked it 🙂