New website!

Nanoramas has officially moved to a new site: jenniferproctor.com. All feeds will remain the same; just the URL has changed. See you there!

Birdwatching

At least someone's getting some use out of this chair.

By the way, if you're in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro, NC area, my film "Alternative Forms of Energy" (excerpt here) will be playing at the Hi Mom! Film Festival, June 17th at 4pm at the Carrboro ArtsCenter. Lots of other great stuff playing too. Check it out!

From Filmdom to Vloggercon

I haven't posted in a little while as I attempt to wrap up my semester and finish my film. I'll post more soon. But I'm really looking forward to Vloggercon '06 in June. See some of you there!

Reflections on tornado aftermath

Recovery efforts are underway, and Iowa City is doing its best to return to business as usual.

Blogging the tornado

Damage at St. Patrick's Catholic Church on Court Street in Iowa City, from the Press-Citizen.

As Iowa City begins its recovery effort from the tornados that hit last night, a number of area bloggers have been offering firsthand accounts of their experiences. It's good to hear that so many folks made it through OK. I'm still waiting for my Audioblogger posts to show up here. In the meantime, read and watch the stories of other Iowa Citians:

Daily Iowan (YouTube video)
PATV (the only station offering local coverage into the night)
Kenyons
Bells and Blades
The Yin Blog
Draegonhawke
Mouse's Lilypad
Socchan
Callirhoe
2 Hot Chiks

Here's a particularly well-made and rather accurate portrayal of the way things went down: Appropriate Safety Actions (Video by Josh Eklow)

Tornado Aftermath in Iowa City

One of many onlookers photographs tornado damage at a building in downtown Iowa City (corner of Clinton and Court, just north of the courthouse). Tonight, Iowa City was hit by twisters that caused extensive damage throughout the downtown area. My Audioblogger posts of the tornado damage and aftermath should become available on this site soon. In the meantime, see some footage of the funnel clouds on Aaron Valdez's site. Luckily, injuries were minimal and there were no deaths in this highly unusual occurence.

Ava Su Work-in-Progress

It's Videoblogging Week Day Seven!

Last day!

Technorati Tag: videobloggingweek2006

A sample of a treatment of a snippet of a film I'm working on. Includes hand-processed 16mm film slowed down using an Analyst projector and transferred by shooting off the wall. Yeah, it's a work-in-progress. Features the great Ava Su Ganwei.

Here's another video featuring Ava Su (by Aaron Valdez).

Brain Awareness Day

It's Videblogging Week Day Six!

Technorati Tag: videobloggingweek2006

BRAINS. 'Nuff said.

Wheeeoooo!

It's Videoblogging Week Day Five!

Technorati Tag: videobloggingweek2006

Today, Aaron and I went spinning. No, not like at the gym. I mean the real thing!

Takin' it higher

Videoblogging Week Day Four!

I'm still in the game!

Technorati Tag: videobloggingweek2006

It was a long day. I was tired.

Ink and optics

Videoblogging Week Day Three!

Technorati Tag: videobloggingweek2006

A short lesson in unconventional film techniques (actually, I screwed my film up the first time around, so now I'm redoing it). Yeah!

Some bad news and some good news

Videoblogging Week Day Two!

Technorati Tag: videobloggingweek2006

Bad news about the new film I'm working on. Good news about my most recent film.

By the way, if you're in one of these areas, check out "Alternative Forms of Energy" (Super 8/video, 2005) at:

Iowa City Documentary Film Festival
Wednesday, April 12th at 6pm (Iowa City, IA)
Englert Theater

Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts (DIVA)
110 W. Broadway (Eugene, OR)
Tuesday, April 18th at 8pm
The Power of the People Don't Stop!
Short Political Documentaries Curated by Marc Moscato

Portland Documentary and Experimental Film Festival
Sunday, April 30th at 8pm
NW Film Center's Guild Theater (Portland, OR)
(playing with Bill Brown's "The Other Side"!)

The Yashica Arrives

It's Videoblogging Week 2006!

Day One. My new (almost literally) Super 8 camera arrived today. It was $20, including shipping. Thank you, eBay.

Technorati: videobloggingweek2006.

Iowa Geese in Winter

Walking along the path that borders the Iowa River earlier this winter, I came across a couple geese who were making their way across the half-thawed water on foot. Soon, they were joined by a flock of their avian compadres, who chose a spot within feet of me to gather. It was a quiet, beautiful moment. These videos are silent.

Groundless

Groundless (2004, 5 min) It's no Snakes on a Plane, but it is the worst plane disaster I could summon by collaging various scenes from feature films. It was actually designed to help me get through my own fear of flying; I figured if I could intimately create and experience my worst fears through sound and image, I could get over them. It actually helped. Others, however, have not found it so calming.

Found: Socks belonging to Ryanne Hodson or Jay Dedman

The great vloggers and newfound friends Ryanne Hodson and Jay Dedman and their feline companion Battlecat came to stay with Aaron and me on their trek west from New York to California. Once they had left, we discovered these socks left behind. Ah, to be in the presence of the feet coverings of greatness. Wanna learn more about vlogging? Check out Ryanne and Jay's fantastic initiatives, freevlog and Node 101.

Found: 80s Mixtape

Once again, Houseworks does me right. For fifty cents, I became the proud owner of this unlabelled 80s mixtape, which features Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" about five times. Here, I offer a couple samples of some of my favorite segues on the tape.

Hickory Hill

Hickory Hill (2004, 2 min.). A meditation on spring, in its beauty and harshness, at Hickory Hill in Iowa City.

A different kind of geoblogging

This multimedia project is a work-in-progress, as I struggle to figure out what it is and what it's about. Incorporating elements of this blog plus new audio and video, this map represents a bird's eye view of friends, strangers, and inanimate objects throughout Iowa City. Tentatively titled "Community," it's kind of a blog using a map rather than a map of blogs. It will premiere as an interactive site this Friday as part of the Open House presented by Intermedia, a program of the University of Iowa's Department of Art & Art History.

Please feel free to explore this project. Comments and (constructive) suggestions are appreciated. I know this project doesn't work in all browsers or platforms, but I've had the best luck using Firefox and a very high speed connection.

Thanks especially to the awesome Mapbuilder.net, without which I could never have built a map like this.

Infinite Chai is infinitely delicious

It might not be as cuddly as the Infinite Cat Project, but it's more tasty (I hope). It's the Infinite Chai Project, created by Bonita Sarita. Brew yourself some delicious homemade chai from this recipe, then take a photo of yourself enjoying it while observing the previous drinker's enjoyment online. It's a kind of virtual coffee--er, chai--klatch. It all started with this video. Who's next in the chain?

Chai recipe

Bonita Sarita suggested I post the recipe that accompanies my video, "Chai," which is an excellent idea. I received the recipe from the proprieter of an Indian grocery in Boulder, Colorado, and he assured me that once you make your own Chai, you will always insist it is the best. He's absolutely right. Here's the recipe, adapted to my liking (and I often approximate these amounts):

Pour 1 1/2 cups water and 1 1/2 cups soy milk in a pot and heat on medium-high heat
Add one tablespoon Jivraj 9 C.T.C. Leaf Tea* (or a black tea of your liking)
Add one tablespoon granulated sugar
Add two whole cardamom pods, crushed
Add about a tablespoon of fresh ginger, cut into small pieces with skins on
Add two fresh mint leaves

Stir to create a beautiful, rich brown color. Heat until boiling, being careful not to scald the milk or boil over the mixture. Boil down one cup's worth (about ten minutes). Strain the tea and enjoy. Makes two cups.

*I've had difficulty finding this particular brand of tea again. Perhaps you can find it at your local Indian grocery. It's a delicious, rich, flavorful tea that I find particularly lovely in this recipe.

Cha cha chai

Chai (3 min., 2005) A meditation on the making of homemade Chai tea. Made for Iowa City Microcinema's Video Race 2005, which required the inclusion of a plastic toy flute

somewhere in the movie. I'll let you figure out where it is.

Low Angles in Unrushed Time

Low Angles in Unrushed Time (5:30, 2005) A journey through the banalities of the everyday existence of a cat, from his point of view. Thanks to Mr. Petersen.

Anna wants to sing a song, Christmas Eve, 1984

"Kids Do Cartwheels," an original composition by Anna Proctor, age 7. A song that was the bane of my existence at age 10, but is now one of my very favorite sounds. I'll spare you the unbearable family rendition of "Jingle Bells," however. Audio only, 1:30.

Lost is found

A story so unbelievable I must share it:


Aaron and I got married this past July. The night before our wedding, we had a great party--Texas-themed, of course--at the Mill in Iowa City. We drank, we danced, we hollered, we drank, we played practical jokes, and we drank some more. At the end of the night, my parents caught a cab back to the Alexis Park Inn to get some rest and enjoy the oddly wonderful paintings of airplanes that adorned the walls of their room.

Morning comes, and my mom discovers that her camera is missing. Her prized possession, the inspiration for much of her work as a printmaker, her "little child," as she calls it. We search everywhere, we hound Old Capital Cab, we investigate every nook and cranny, but it's gone, and all of the pictures from the previous night's festivites with it. We give it up for lost, and my mom, devasted, throws away her battery charger, her cables, all the vestiges of what once was, and returns home to California.

Flash forward to January--six months later. My mom receives a call from a guy named Dan, a driver for Old Capital Cab in Iowa City. He found a camera wedged in the seat of his van, and could it be hers? Two days later, Dan dropped it off to me, party pictures and all, having survived the worst of the Iowa summer and most of the winter. This shot is one of my favorites.

Still life with scruffy

Found photos, from a roll of now-obsolete Kodak 126 film purloined from an old camera at Houseworks. They all seem to be taken from about child-level, of interesting child-like things. A big shout out to Dwayne's for continuing to process old, discontinued, and otherwise oddball film.

Could be from 1980--but could be from Grandma's house, last year

Scruffy's first close-up

The view from below

Scruffy's put on weight

Scruffy: the inspiration for the little dog(?) in Mr. Boffo?

Meditations on corn (maze)

meditations on corn (maze) (3 min., 2005) Shot in-camera on Super 8 Kodachrome in the Field of Fun corn maze just outside of Iowa City. You can't be a filmmaker in Iowa without making at least one film about corn.

My personal favorite corn maze is the portrait of Willie Nelson at Bloomsbury Family Farm ("Eastern Iowa's largest agritainment facility"). Want a corn maze of your own? You can hire "the world's #1 maze company" to create a spectacular one for you.

Junkspotting 2

Some old garbage, some new garbage, all spotted on the path that runs alongside Highway 6 in Iowa City.

Babies to Go

The trailer for Stephen Soderbergh's new movie Bubble reminded me of my own filmed homage to doll-heads.



Babies to Go (2 min. excerpt, 1989)
This montage comes from the opening of "Babies to Go," the video opus I made at age 15. Unlike the plot of Soderbergh's flick, this movie serves as a cautionary tale against the ethical perils of genetic engineering. It's a comedy.

Shot on VHS, dubbed a couple generations down, transferred to DVD, captured from DVD, then compressed for the web. The video quality is... interesting. The opening slate for Marin Community Programming (the public access station on which the video aired) is absolutely precious.

Ah, analog. How I miss thee.

Wanna see some really creepy dolls?

Through the Eyes of a Thrift Store Camera

Some frames from a roll of film I recovered from a cheap camera at Houseworks (the best consignment shop in Iowa City):

The only clue as to its previous existence


Its neighbors in the basket in which it lived


Its buddy on the shelf next door

I don't know whether anyone ever adopted this little pet. He may still be sitting in the basket, filmless, waiting to be reloaded.

Trainjumping

While on my walk to PATV today, I got stuck behind a slow moving train at an intersection.

Then the train stopped completely. Eventually I had to climb up and jump between two cars to get by. It was a good little thrill.

Found: Crumpled Up Check for $.50

A fifty cent check from the Johnson County Sheriff's Jail Account, found wet and balled up in a parking lot near the jailhouse. All names and numbers have been blurred to protect the innocent (guilty?).

Junkspotting

A short list of items of garbage spotted along my walk down Highway 6 in Iowa City. About 2 min.

Portrait by Self Portrait

Margo (2003, 1 min.)--Part portrait, part self-portrait. Image by Jennifer Proctor, Sound by Margo Greenlaw. Screened at FLEX and Aurora Picture Show's Extremely Shorts (curated by Craig Baldwin).

4:15 Lakeside Bus

Part experiment in Audioblogging, part sonic history of the Iowa City bus riding experience. Recorded by Cingular cell phone. Experiment conclusion: audio quality not so good. Reason: poor quality cell phone reception. Solution: To be determined...

Elmo reveals his true feelings

In one of my latest favorite warpings of consumer culture, Boing Boing reports an incident involving the "Shout!" Dancing Elmo doll, in which Elmo seems to sing "You make me wanna (shout!) Beat up Elmo! (shout!) Shoot his foot out!"

Check out Boing Boing for more on the Evil Elmo story and a link to the actual sound file. I haven't laughed that hard in days.


I'd hate to see what I'd make Embittered Dry Gulch Elmo want to do.

Found note

Front (back?)

Back (front?)

Part scribbly drawing, part grocery list. Found near the Mexican market on the southside of Iowa City.

Found photo

Iowa City's not the best for found objects, but occasionally something interesting pops up. This image came from a disposable camera found on the railroad tracks that was submitted to the first ever State of Iowa Found Object Championship at last year's Bike-in Theater. I processed the film and this was one of the gems. Still, my favorite Iowa City found film so far was the gay porn flick I found in a Super 8 projector that I bought at a consignment store last summer. Maybe someday I'll post an image or two from that.

(dis)placement

Just accepted to Resolutions '06 at Hallwalls in Buffalo, NY

(dis)placement (2005, 5 min, 8mm) A meditation on lost memories through the tail end discards of old 8mm home movies. Image by Aaron Valdez, Sound Design by Jennifer Proctor.

See the movie:
http://aaronvaldez.blogspot.com/2005/08/displacement.html

And a partial inspiration for the sound:
Virtual bubble wrap

Self portrait in bleach and ink

Surfacing (2003, 16mm and mini-DV, 2:30). With sound. Created with original 16mm slow motion footage partially bleached with Clorox, clear leader hand-painted with India ink, and a little Final Cut Pro to mix it all up.

Screened at Aurora Picture Show's Extremely Shorts (curated by Craig Baldwin), Dallas Video Festival, Ms. Films, Flicker Austin, and Flicker Chapel Hill.