I’m sitting here at 3:55 AM (what? last time I looked it was 3:15!), pondering on the futility of life and the arts while waiting for my video to export.

The video, which will be up on the website in just a bit, is a (more or less) raw documentation of the protests at UC Riverside on January 19th. I had the privilege of attending and witnessing student solidarity – no, community solidarity. Together, we came together and fought privatization for a day. We fought the budget cuts that are forcing classes to become larger and larger, for more and more Visual Arts classes to be cut (which directly affects a lot of the people involved with Triton Television), etc. etc.

Some of the rhetoric and language thrown out at these protests is depressing. It sucks that we can’t let more students come. It sucks that the Regents are stealing money, forcing people to cut back while they get richer. The imposed austerity measures are taking a huge toll on us, and it can get really depressing.

But, when I come to Triton Television, I see a blossoming community. I see 20 new interns coming through every quarter. I see staff and producers that I don’t even recognize – and that’s a great thing! It means TTV is growing extremely fast. In the past quarter and a half, we’ve put out more videos than during the rest of TTV’s existence. That’s amazing.

Let’s keep that momentum going. Keep telling your friends about Triton Television. Get them to the Channel Launch Party on Thursday at Porter’s. Tell them about the channel they can watch student-produced videos on.

And speaking of those videos, let’s start putting out videos left and right. Let’s make videos for everyone. Let’s get teams of people to cover the walkout on March 1st, while another team goes to get Pi Phi’s Surf Classic. One group can cover a Red Bull event downtown while another can get the water polo game on campus.

This is the path towards an amazing career. Building step by step – learning the camera, assisting on countless videos, all the while making connections, getting to know the artists and collaborators on campus, until we have our own thriving artistic community. That vision is in sight – now let’s make it happen!

Sean Estelle

I am currently in possession of a video that I desperately want to release but can’t until February 4^th. It’s a video for UCSD’s Indian dance team, ZOR that will premiere at their first dance competition.

My involvement in this video began the week before finals in fall quarter. Out of the blue, a girl named Sita contacted me knowing I had experience making videos. She wanted to see if I was interested in making this video for them that would be shown before every one of their competitions. It would tell a story leading to their well choreograph dance performance. Part of me wanted to just reject her so I could focus on finals and enjoy winter break. But as a TTV producer I knew it would be morally wrong to not help someone with their video related needs. And honestly this project really caught my attention. I love making videos with interesting plots where I get to work with actors. So I agreed to meet her at our studio the next day. Funny tangent- I didn’t know that ‘Sita’ was a girl’s name when she first messaged me and she came to studio with the lead male actor of the video. I shook his hand and said ‘you must be Sita’. Embarrassing mistake.- During the meeting she explained the plot of the video for me. She wanted to showcase a man’s life in San Diego, his relationships with others, and his involvement in his dance team. Right of the back, I imagined what the video would look like and we started planning each scene. It was fun because what I love to do most is create content which I was given the ability to do in this video along with directing it.

Over Winter break, me and Sita finalized the script and started planning out the shoot. I insisted on doing all in one day because it would be hard to get people together after classes started. The shoot was planned for the Sunday before Winter quarter started. My next task was to assemble a team. Victor has been my DP for my previous personal projects and I’ve always felt really comfortable working with him so he was an obvious choice. I also needed another person to be my assistant director which I offered to Raman. I literally ran into to Raman after my first meeting with Sita and told him about the project and he expressed interest (and him being Indian was the selling point, since we were working with ZOR).

We started the shoot at 10AM. I planned out every location of the shoot and projected we would be finished by 6PM. I was very wrong. Throughout the day, Victor worked the camera, Raman did sound and lights, and I spent most of my time yelling at a large group of Indian actors. We shot in front of Geisel, at Scripps, in downtown SD, took a lunch break, shot in residential neighborhood as quickly as we could before sunset, inside someone’s apartment, and finally at the price center ballroom. Oh and then we recorded audio back at the studio while skipping dinner because food was not my priority that day. But at around 10PM, we finished and I hugged everyone around me because of the relief I felt at that moment. I truly appreciate my crew for sticking with me throughout that exhausting day.

I began editing the piece the next day because I was really excited to look at the project. By the end of the day I had all the video cut but unfortunately it was about 3 and half minutes. I told Sita about this and she said the video needs to be less than 2 minutes. Later that week, she came over to my apartment so we could decide what to cut. Honestly I felt like I dismantling my newborn child, but it needed to be done. Throughout the next week, Sita gave me the music to put in the video. (I never heard so much Bollywood in my life). And after many draft of slightly altering clips, changing musical transitions, and adding subtitles, the video is finally finished. And to ease my anxiety to prematurely release it I wrote this blog instead. 

-Joseph

By: Jocelyn Coca

Just wanted to say that I’m so excited to start working on new projects and with new people (congrats fall ’11 interns!) for this new year. This past quarter has been crazy and fast paced but I definitely learned a lot. I hope to keep on learning but also have fun! I feel that something I learned along the way is to just have fun with a project because one never knows what one might capture on camera, it might turn out to be THE footage that makes the video memorable. Who knows, playing around with the editing features could make one’s video UNIQUE. Plus, with everyone at TTV, there’s never a dull moment! I’m definitely grateful to be a part of this family.

Everybody has that ONE show that they routinely watch every week, well mine is Beavis and Butthead, but that hasn’t always been the case. When I was a little kid I used to hate watching the show with a passion because the characters terrified me, especially with their weird voices. They were so strange looking and their laugh freaked me out. But now that I’m older and the fact that I’m kind of weird, I learned to appreciate their crude humor. From their sayings like “We’re gonna score” to the act of Cornholio there is always something going on with them that distinguish them from other shows. I also appreciate the show more now because of the fact that the creator Mike Judge graduated from UCSD for his undergrad career. It gives me hope since I’m a comm. major that a student who wasn’t a science major became really successful. Because of the show I will never look at shows or music videos the same, I tend to criticize music videos a lot now. They’re really critical of shows like Teen Mom, Jersey Shore and True Life which all appears on MTV, but the thing about their critiques is that they don’t even know what they’re talking about so it makes it funny. Now I analyze every little thing on shows even if they don’t matter. Even though the characters Beavis and Butthead can be really slow at times they remind me of the way that my friends and I act. I’m pretty sure a lot of people act like them at times. Basically BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD IS THE BEST cartoon in my opinion. If you want to know what I’m talking about tune into last night’s episode

http://www.mtv.com/videos/beavis-and-butt-head-season-9-ep-8-copy-machine-holding/1675620/playlist.jhtml#series=2211&seriesId=37392&channelId=1

-Jazmin Marquez

This is a television show I recently started watching. The show focuses on this character named Walter White. Mr. White comes to find out that he has cancer and therefore has been given a death sentence. Reflecting upon his situation that he is an overly qualified chemistry teacher and that will be leaving behind little money for his wife and two children decides to do something about it. Circumstances push him towards selling Meth as he sees it for quick profit in the little time he has left. The show jump starts into a fusion of intense crime and drama. Mr. White then follows down a dark path pushing him further into edge leading two lives one as a father who has terminal cancer and the other as a Meth cook.  

Anyone that is looking for a serious drama look no further. The story is well written for the most part and is therefore one of AMC’s top television series. I like what they have done in the organization of each show. When an episode airs, they show a small glimpse of the future. This sequence is usually very short but it really keeps the viewers interest. The rest of the episode will show you how they got to that point. The acting of Mr. White really gives the show its edge. He is really able to develop the character and show that he is capable of making the choices that he makes.

The actors name is Bryan Cranston. The cool thing is that the creator of the show Vince Gilligan had already cast Bryan Cranston because of a previous work they did together years back on a single episode he did on the X-files. He has now won 3 emmy awards for outstanding lead actor.

There are plenty of good shows out there and this is one of them. In addition the first 3 seasons are streaming on Netflix!

-Raman

The linked video is a scene from one of my all time favorite movies, Big Fish. The movie itself can be outlined as a series of events that have minimal effect on each other, yet they all feature the same eccentric main character and a vignette-like structure where each sub-story blows a real-life metaphor (is that oxymoronic?) out of proportion.

What blows my mind about this clip in particular is how the scene itself is all presented to you. You accept the poetry that introduces the vignette and then it becomes literal. The scene navigates through the fantasy of frozen time and is brought back to reality by becoming logical again. Ironically enough, that is done by combining the same fantasy that forced this scene with something more in line with reality; time will “catch up” to what should be the actual time after its done messing around. The story feels so real in your head, yet it is turned into a complete fairy tale right in front of you.

This is the type of juxtaposition that makes film such a cool medium. Your images don’t have to speak for themselves, they can be supplemented by music and strong writing to make an even bigger statement about what you think and, more importantly, provide insight into how you think.

-Gylmar

Since starting as an intern in spring quarter 2011 I have learned more about photography, cinematography, and the various fields of media than i have the previous 18 years of my life (granted the first few years I wasn’t quite aware of what the thing with the lens that was pointed at me was doing). Around this time I know that most folks are looking at finals and thinking that the world is coming to an end and all problems will be solved by a pot of coffee and some Sour Patch Kids, but what I remember most about this point of the quarter last spring was not how I studied for my Math 20E class or how many cups of tea I boiled to stay awake studying, rather I remember sitting in the TTV studio editing my intern project and finally seeing everything come together. Before Triton Television I had dabbled in a few video projects but nothing quite on the scale of creating and producing an original video. As such, I will say that I was a little frightened but the wave of gratitude hitting that export button was unnerving and awesome at the same time to say the least. So my message to the interns that have finally completed their video projects for the quarter is CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE MADE IT! In the years to come I hope that you look back at your video with pride because it was your first stepping stone into a group of people that will undoubtedly change your life. I know that I still have a few years left in this awesome organization and I can’t wait for the crazy adventures to come. Thank you to all the veteran producers that have educated me and welcome to all the new producers and staff!

—–Darren

Photograph Shui

If compared side-by-side, photography is a lot like feng shui. Feng shui, for those who have no idea about the eastern philosophy, is the aesthetic placement of objects in a region to balance and improve spiritual energy. Most of the time people employ feng shui in their bedrooms or living rooms in an effort to maximize and redirect spiritual energy towards an aspect of life they wish to improve—ranging from incredible sexual, romantic life to power and wealth. But how does this relate to photography?

Simple. The elements of feng shui in a room runs parallel to the elements of a photographic shot!

In feng shui the placement of specific colors in a room promotes harmonious energy. To illustrate, a cherry red lamp placed in the southern area of a room would promote ‘fame’ energy for its owner. The photographic equivalent would be color contrast of subjects and backgrounds. An isolated deep blue subject in a color contrasting orange background would promote attention of the subject—similar to the placement of colored objects promoting certain energy.

Drawing from another example, the type of objects placed in feng shui to promote spiritual energy is comparable to the type of subject selected for a photographic composition. The famed miniature waterfall used in feng shui is used to support and nurture the “flow” of energy. Likewise in photography, subjects that capture the viewer’s eyes result in “flowing” attention throughout the entire picture. The end result: a solid balanced composition and a better appreciation of the photograph.

Angles and lines in feng shui play a critical role in the direction of spiritual energy. The importance of lines and angles are so great that the Disneyland in Hong Kong shifted their front gate by twelve degrees to accommodate feng shui. In similar fashion, lines and angles are vital to the composition of photography. Lines may lead a viewer’s eyes around the work while sharp and soft angles escalate or de-escalate tension in a photograph.

At the end of the day, feng shui and photography go hand in hand. There are millions of other examples depicting this relationship. But perhaps, the more interesting question is this: If you take a picture of a feng shui room, would it be elements within an element?

By: Basil Trinh

Picture Credits:
Dan Tobin and http://www.ceastudyabroadblog.com/2007/12/take-great-photos-while-you-study.html