Presentation Responses

Marlon Riggs Presentation:

I loved the presentation on Marlon Riggs. Lovely, black, homosexual, federally funded Marlon Riggs. I always think it’s wonderful when artists find the perfect way to express their personal ideas and creativity using a specific medium, and Marlon did just that. His films were his pulpit, so in a way, he really did become a preacher. I also appreciated his outlook on life, and his claim that we should appreciate who we really are, not just the part of ourselves we think is acceptable to society.

Martha Colburn Presentation:

Watching Martha Colburn’s films made we want to experiment with animation. Usually, animation only holds my attention for so long, but I felt like I could watch Martha’s work for a long time. The first film we watched by her, Join the Freedom Force, was especially fascinating. It’s focus on more than one political issue made me realize that it is a collage both visually and conceptually.

Guy Maddin Presentation:

I’m usually not a huge fan of surrealism, but I am now very interested in Guy Madden’s The Saddest Music in the World (2004). I love musicals, and honestly after watching the film’s trailer, I really want to see it. It reminded me of another film I watched, reviewed, and interviewed the filmmaker of for Film Matters called Spidarlings (2016), which is also a musical. I also loved his collages. They were relatively simple, but interesting so I wanted to look at them for a longer amount of time.

Aaron Koblin Presentation:

The presentation on Aaron Koblin was mildly intimidating because he is so technologically skilled, artistically inclined, tech savvy, and still so young! However, I loved to see his websites and I will absolutely explore them in the near future. I have seen the Johnny Cash one before, but I believe I will spend much of my winter break watching sheep being drawn and the VR version of Netflix.