Project Name:
Fountain (working title)

Project Description:
A stop motion animation dealing with water culture in California.
The piece will be an animation using dirt in the shape of the William Mulholland Water Fountain on paper. Using glue I will create a line drawing of the Mulholland water fountain and sift dirt onto the paper, allowing it to stick to the glue’s lines. Later, I will use more dirt and stop motion animate it as if it were the water from the fountain. After creating the animation I will watch it and create sounds to accompany it that are informed by the piece itself.

Conceptual Concerns:
Water fountains have become a common part of California’s landscape. Found in public parks, plazas, business districts, malls, schools and shopping centers, fountains are generally an accepted use of water resources. These decorative waterspouts make a place look nice, calm and refreshing through their allusions to naturally occurring water sources. Its no wonder that we want them around. They bring a hint of the natural and serve as a place to relax at in even the blandest of environments.

At times though, it seems that the original intention of the fountain is lost. Some fountains run throughout the night, others in the most remote of places and even more peculiar are the very ugliest, run down fountains. About these I wonder if the owner sees any fountain as better than no fountain at all. Also strange, are the most extreme and gaudy of fountains, fountains on steroids, some which shoot hundreds of feet into hundred-degree air. I never stopped to think much about fountains at all until I starting noticing these odd types.

In a state which imports most of its water and has nearly dried up its own aquifers, in a state where every river, save one, is dammed and water is sent thousands of feet over mountain ranges to get to our cities, oddly, we find that water, after its long and arduous journey, coming out of water fountains.

Thanks to William Mulholland’s efforts Californian’s are privileged with an abundant water supply. Without the hundreds of reservoirs and miles of aqueducts that he helped put in place, Southern California could in no way sustain the enormous population that it does today.

How long exactly has it been since the last rain?

The last time I remember I was in downtown Los Angeles. It had been more than a month since the rain before that. The rain sprinkled and I was happy to have it falling on my face. Then I remembered acid rain.

Technical Skills Covered
It will be difficult to get the dirt to mimic water motions and to find the appropriate amount of shots to get this type of motion across. I will be shooting JPEGS since RAW would be crazy to process with so many images. I’m concerned that there will be inconsistencies with white balance between the shots and will have to find a way to figure this out. I am also concerned about the final projection of the image because the projector shifts the colors, contrast and brightness of the image. I am going to work on adjusting these things in final cut to deal with the projectors inconsistencies.

Formal Guidelines:
This project will consist of digital images used to create a stop motion animation, which will include sound and be projected in its final form.

I find I like works the most when I go through drafts of them.

So I set up a series of progress dates.
mock up due Sept 26
first draft due Sept 30
(if there is going to be any major fixing or change in direction i would know here. for instance, i might find that there is no way to make dirt animated as a fountain look good. i might realize that I can't create the image i see in me head. so i would need to reevaluate and continue to work the project out)
second draft due Oct 12
final project due Oct 19


Artistic References

Blake Gumprecht
Bradley Monsma
Elizabeth Rossof
William Mulholland
The Owens Dry Lake Bed
The Eel and Russian Rivers
The people of Southern Humboldt County
FOER
Natasha Elliot
Regina Spektor
John Nichols
The Sespe

Readings
Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner
The River Why by David James Duncan
Fish Story by Alan Sekula
Dictionary of Water by Ronnie Horn

Grade
The project is successful if people walk away from it thinking a bit about the significance water fountains.

Goals List
1. Learn about water, culture, history and people’s connections to the land
2. Push beyond my normal tendencies in art making and grow, by using new materials and processes while dealing with something close and important to me
3. Figure out how to make the best of a poor projector