Capstone Video

Hello faithful followers and people who didn't know this existed until now!

I just wanted to share my "Capstone" video project with you. It is intended to be a little more 'artsy' than the other films in that I want it to give the impression of how Oxford FELT to me as I experienced it. You will have to follow this link to my Gallery to view it because it was about 40 seconds too long for YouTube (it's a little under 11 minutes so it isn't EPIC length... just a little too long I guess).

Here I am also copy/pasting the explanation of it I wrote as an assignment for the International class at Elmhurst, I hope you enjoy it - feel free to comment (cause I worked kinda hard on it for no one to say anything at all... does that sound pitiful?  Well too bad, its true.)

Purpose

            I chose to go with a video presentation – with the generous permission of Alice – because I did not take static photographs on my trip.  I had purchased a Flip camera to record my memories; the capability to take full video with the option of removing still frames to use as photographs seemed more functional to me, and I had worked with this camera and its software in an Educational Technology class at Elmhurst, so I was familiar with its capabilities.  In that same class, we worked on blogging and I wanted to bring as much ‘back’ from my England trip as I possibly could to friends, family, and future students who would follow me.  I felt so fortunate to take this trip, when I never thought I would be able to study abroad, that I felt a strong drive to share my good fortune in a productive way.

            I published many videos of my trip on my blog, and anticipated being able to pull out still shots when I returned home for this project.  Unfortunately, the software package that enabled me to pull still shots out of the video footage seems to have been damaged, incomplete, or defunct in some way and this left me without the raw materials to complete the Photo Essay portion of my assignment.  I had always planned to do a cumulative video for my blog, a ‘capstone’ if you will, and I am very glad that I may submit this project in lieu of the prescribed material.

Music

            I must say a few words on the selection of music for this video.  It is one continuous piece of music titled “Dancing Mad” composed by Nobou Uematsu.  I believe this version was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, although other orchestras worldwide have performed it.  It was composed for a video game originally, as the bulk of Uematsu’s work was, that I enjoyed in my adolescence. 

            The selection of this piece happened when I was listening to my iPod one afternoon outside the English Faculty Library in Oxford, approximately three weeks before the end of my program.  As I reflected on the music and the nearing end of my time in Oxford, I began seeing bits of my videos in my mind flowing with the changes in tone and tempo of the music and the project began to take form for me.  

            There are several mood changes in the song, which I feel represents the mood changes that I experienced during my study abroad experience – very much like the graphics we viewed in class with great highs, great lows, and plateaus. 

Arrival and Awe

            The first portion of the video features both majestic architecture around Oxford and some street shots.  They represent my first days in Oxford, wandering around town getting lost.  There are overtones of apprehension in the music, which is accurate because I was apprehensive as well as awed by my surroundings at this point.  Many of the images seen here are, in fact, video taken in my first week as I walked around exploring the town (and getting very lost).  They are some of my “thoughtless” camera work, when I was taking footage of simply what I happened to be looking at, when everything was new, before a more selective filming tendency took hold of me.

            The point at which the music softens, approximately 55 seconds in, shows an image of the rotunda of the Bodleian Library.  It is an iconic image of Oxford, and I made occasion to walk through the courtyard it occupies many times for its beauty and serenity.  Sadly, I did not have much occasion to use this particular building of the library, but since the building I did use most was fairly non-descript (the Sacker Library) until you got inside… and of course no filming was permitted indoors… I use this image multiple times to represent the libraries – storehouses of knowledge.  This transition to a period of more reverent, softer music, represents the awe of my new environment and delight in being there.  I feel there is an ethereal quality to this segment – a ‘floating’ feeling, if you will, before one looks at the ground below.

Second Wave

            At approximately 1:22 in the film, there is a shot of the sign for St. Michael’s hall, where we stayed and had classes in Oxford.  I choose this to represent the reality of my trip to contrast the imaginative awe that accompanied my acclimation. 

            The sequence that immediately follows includes shots of the Unicorn Tapestry that I saw in the hallway carrying up my luggage my very first time in CMRS (which gave me comfort, because I love unicorns), my bed in my dorm room (neatly made… which also foreshadows how little I would get to sleep in it!), a fast moving shot from above of Oxford (again, some foreshadowing of the pace of this program when it gets going) along with a shot of library books to signify the academic portion looming, flowed by Alix, Claire, Lady Katherine, and some of my other new friends – who appear later in still shots once our friendships are solidified, but moving here because this is intended to represent the hectic nature of meeting new people and making new friendships, which is usually somewhat turbulent, so I did not remove the shaking from the shot – and finally the destroyed Dr. Scholl’s inserts that I brought with me from America which wore out from all the walking on field trips in my new shoes! 

            Then, the reverent tones of the music reassert themselves at aprox. 1:52 for a long shot of a latticed ceiling in one of the cathedral’s we visited on those field trips.  This one is wholly white and represents a purity and at the same time it is imposing as it is majestic and the shots that are grouped with it follow a similar vein of being pure appreciation of being in England and the opportunity before me.

Friends and Whimsy

            From aprox. 2:30 to 3:05 my duckies and other friends at CMRS are featured.  I think these pictures (most of which I borrowed from their Facebook pages with permission, because I don’t tend to take pictures of myself) represent the camaraderie that we all shared on different levels while we were at CMRS.  St. Michael’s hall was really like a big family after not too long; perhaps best to describe it as a collection of cousins, some being closer than others but all of us being part of one thing together through thick and thin.  I sort of fell into an amalgamation of the big sister/mamma duck/Crypt Keeper role among the family, but I liked that, and I think it ultimately helped that I didn’t have any assigned authority by being a Asst. Jr. Dean because it kept me in the mix on equal terms and meant that any weight my words carried was my own.  As mentioned earlier these shots are more stable and still which represents stability in the friendships that developed over time.

            There is also a shot of a very whimsical latticed ceiling that I feel contrasts and compliments the previous shot of the white ceiling by showing a more colorful and ‘fun’ side of our trips and activities together.  I also believe that that jaunty nature of the music contributes to the understanding of this overall feeling of frolic.

Weight Looming

            Splitting the previous portion and what will follow with more enjoyable jaunty spirit is a cut to four angels, the first of which is holding a skull.  Ominous, perhaps even a little over the top in symbolism, but they represent – in their own beautifully carved and sacred way – the obligation that accompanied all of this frivolity.  The drive to do well, the hours of study, the time friends spent apart to allow each other to be productive in their own studies, and all the serious situations that some students of CMRS found themselves in as they faced homesickness, personal demons, and the consequences of students getting a lot of freedom all at once (read: hangovers and/or trying to bring drunk strangers home and/or use your imagination).

Notes on this section

            I want to note, specifically, that the burning fire image that directly follows the angel sequence is the night I got dragged out of my room, slightly ill with 2 hours of sleep after 40 something awake, to watch the effigy of Guy Fawkes burn on what I am SURE was the opposite side of town (but I just followed the crowd once I realized I’d never make it back alone since I was lost).  It seems like a severe image, but it represents a friend-based outing and how much I did love my friends there to let myself be carried off in the middle of an evening. 

            Another note to make relates to the food shots in this section.  Lisa Rose, one of my duckies, had a passion for food photography and making her own baked goods and other items.  Shown in this section was my first High Tea and a ‘wine night’ with fresh baked bread and various cheeses at CMRS that Lisa Rose organized. 

Shifting Gears

            At approximately 4 minutes a major transition begins between one “side” of the experience and another “side” of it.  I think I’ve already demonstrated that this trip was too multifaceted to have simple sides, but for the sake of simplicity we will call it the difference between the “abroad” side (shown more or less exclusively to this point in the video) and the “study” side (which will feature prominently coming up). 

            I used the long shot of the dramatic, and quite a bit larger than the previous, stained glass window to express a respect for the importance of the academic rigors I experienced in Oxford.  Ultimately, they are what I was drawn to the program for, even though I received so much more from the complete experience.

            Following that, the two-faced maiden statue illustrates the change in sides described above.  It was a really interesting statue that is on the same tomb the angel footage came from (would that I remembered which one that was, but there were so many!) and I knew even as I filmed, somehow, where it was going to fit in the yet to be conceptualized final film sequence of my travels.

            Books, the CMRS logo stained glass window in St. Michael’s hall, and my bedroom door all  give a hint at where the video will soon be going, but before it does there are a series of images that represent the beauty of Oxford – the serenity I was able to tap into during breaks from my writing because of the extraordinary nature of the city itself, and the strength that those things gave me during the all night writing sessions and the sleep deprived library hours to carry on through.

            At 6:10 this bridging sequence enters its final stage with a shot of a sunset taken out of one of the dorm’s hallway windows.  The obvious beauty paired with the ominous glow of sky is completed by the double image of the sun as it sets reflected off the buildings to represent the double nature of my trip.  The music gives hints of the building tension, but then lapses into a gentle phase with the tolling of a bell – this is important to me because I could always hear the bells of the church in Oxford outside of my window, and the sound of such bells will probably bring this time of my life to my mind for many years to come.  They were absolutely beautiful at any time, but seemed to have a special, even magical, quality in the wee hours of the morning when I was outside in the still air of the pre-dawn morning breathing a sigh of relief after completing another essay.

Yes, it was a lot of work!

            For all of the majesty and the holistic attributes of the CMRS program, it is still a great deal of work.  The sequence that begins at 6:41 is intended to give the impression of that frenzied, relentless, repetitive yet challenging, seemingly endless amount of work I put into my academic products at Oxford.  I want to make a note that many of the shots (Typing, Redbull, Page Turning) were filmed after my trip for the sole purpose of being used in this sequence.  I think it should be obvious that I was not pausing in my work to take footage while I was on a deadline with no sleep, but I still wanted to show the idea of that in this film because it was a substantial part of my experience. 

            The first shot is my work desk in my dorm room as it was on any typical night.  Following that are some shots of English snacks (I had a huge snack stockpile, not just for myself but to uplift my fellow students with a bit of chocolate or what have you – because everyone worked hard and pulled all night sessions).

            The music, the speed of the shots switching back and forth, and the effects I have used on the video (x-ray, antiquing, etc.) all come together, I believe, to give a fair impression of the feelings I associate with those strenuous studies.  I realize that the sequence is long and a bit repetitive, but that was what it was like and I chose to arrange it the way I did because I think its length and repetition contribute to the understanding of the amount of work that is involved in writing two major papers a week and working on a third throughout. 

            There is one interruption in the musical pace where a moment of calm is given, and I struggled with what to put in that brief time.  Eventually I settled on a shot that won’t be easy to identify by my audience, but is snow falling in the night with the streetlamp on the corner lighting it.  I chose this because one night, while we were all pulling late night writing sessions, it began to snow a bit.  Some of the students in CMRS were from California and did not often see snow; Lisa Rose, in particular was very excited about snow falling and hoped for snow, so when I saw it falling out my window I alerted her.  We all took a break (me and all the duckies who were awake) from what we were doing to watch Lisa Rose enjoy the snow, and enjoy its beauty ourselves.  Brief as it was, maybe 10 minutes, it was one of the few times we all took a work break together in those late night situations not to go out for provisions to continue, or run for food, or complain about our situation to each other, but just to enjoy a moment.  Thus, I felt it deserved that small space here, despite its apparent lack of context.

A note on sounds

            This sequence has the only video where the sound that occurred during filming has not been dropped out in favor of the musical backdrop.  I left the sound in two of the three “supplied” shots – Page Turning and Red Bull – because I feel they offer something to the experience of the footage.  I dropped the sound out of Typing because we all know what keys clicking on a laptop sounds like already and because the pounding was intrusive to the rhythm of the music in ways the fizzing of the Red Bull and the flipping pages were not. 

            I would like to note that the sound of the can clicking against the counter is something I would have liked to have dropped out – it is somewhat mood breaking in my opinion – but my video editing software (iMovie) was not exact enough for me to pluck that one sound out and I preferred leaving it to sacrificing the fizzing noise at the end of the pour.

Outro

            The video for this sequence comes largely from two places: a day in my final week at Oxford that I took a walk alone specifically to capture images I wanted not to forget and use in this portion and the trip to London that I enjoyed with my now fiancé (who proposed in Oxford when we went there for a day!).  I hadn’t intended to include video from that in this presentation, but as I worked on this I decided that I should, because it was such an inspiration for me – looking forward to seeing him and enjoying some time in London (which I didn’t before because I was so busy) that it really was part of the leaving process for me.  This portion of the video was probably the most difficult for me to decide, running out of music to put things in was a little like running out of time in Oxford all over again, so I would really like to let the images speak for themselves… with a few notes.

            The CMRS logo stained glass window makes another appearance, this time representing my attachment to the program and the people.  Another white lattice ceiling appears, this time panning down into a white lit window at the ‘end’ of it.  The pictures of major images of architecture are interspersed with repeated pictures of the friends from CMRS, representing the interwoven nature of my memories of this trip, which will always include both.

            Finally there is the image of the plane (taken from somewhere random on the internet, because I obviously couldn’t film myself flying from outside the plane) and a generated image of the trip from Oxford back to Chicago.*

*Yes, it is the wrong ‘labeling’ of Oxford slightly, but… the program I am working with didn’t want to do exactly what I wanted and I felt like the flaw was small enough, at this late stage of the video, that I wouldn’t obsess over it since I couldn’t fix it anyway.

Little Update

Hi all - I meant to finish off my blog the week I came home (well, after Christmas/New Years anyway) but I got sick twice in January and am just now feeling better enough to be working on all of this.

I got the Windsor castle footage edited - and I put together the film from when my fiance and I were in London - Yes, you heard me right, he's really my fiance now I got a ring and everything.  I'll put a picture of that up with the capstone video project I am still polishing up in the final post - then I'll add a table of contents for easy use if anyone ever visits this thing for advice before they are going abroad to CMRS and we'll be done.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone, but since I am still just getting back to work I am going to leave that for another day - enjoy the videos!

Final Days

It's been a blast to have been here, and to enjoy the experience of a lifetime, but now it's time to think about going home.  I've been so busy I really haven't been able to put updates on here - but when I get home and settled I still have another couple of videos to share with everyone and I'll be setting up an Index page for the blog to make it more navigable for those who are looking for specific bits.

I really can't express how much of a relief it was to be finished and have the final paper turned in - but it was also an indicator that the end was just about upon me and my time in Oxford would be coming to a close.  I do have the trip to London with my sweetie to look forward to (picking him up at the airport tomorrow, yes I will share video if we go anywhere awesome).  Sadly, I pushed myself pretty hard to get that last thing in and almost missed the little party we had to see some of the books that the Book Binding Class had done (which were completely amazing), but I made myself get up for it - then skipped the 'after party' which turned out to be a good thing if I judge by the hang-overs everyone else had the next day!

So now I'm all packed up!  Space Bags are super helpful - and yes, CMRS has two vacuums so you can use them coming and going just as easily.  Of course, they do nothing to reduce the weight of what you're taking in your luggage, but they are still great to save space in the luggage and make it easier to rearrange things as you're packing.  You have to clean and vacuum your room before you go anyway, might as well make it all part of the same process.

Anyway!  Just wanted to toss something up here, let everyone know I made it through and am alive and well and going to be in London for a few days - don't worry I will avoid the riots and the protests (students here are in an uproar about the removal of the tuition cap) and I'll be flying back in with my sweetie on the 16th of December - cookie making, visits, holiday cheer, and reconnection with the world at home to follow!

Oxford Dusting

Well half of CMRS is having fits of joy this morning; it snowed.  Not what WE would call snow in the midwest - actual accumulation of annoying white barrier between home, work, and school that is going to turn black in a day or two and make you remember how much you hate ice - no, this is more of a bit of fluffy rain clinging to the walkways and building tops for decoration.  Seriously, it has to be less than 1/8th of an inch here.

Now, where were we?  Oh yes, climbing the last hill of papers to sight the final days coming up fast from the distance.  As some of you know, my Classical Mythology tutor was advised to take the rest of the term off for health reasons, so I am meeting his replacement today.  Since class was so sporadic and disjointed in terms of when we met and what was assigned, I may have to do two papers more for this rather than the one.  This is a considerable difference given that I have my Seminar paper due this Friday and my Integral paper due on the 8th - so getting 1 more paper in there would be not so bad, putting 2 in might be straining the capacity just a bit.  We shall see though.  Meanwhile, I just turned in my last Viking Literature paper today at tutorial, huzzah!  I also donated all of my books for that class with the primary material to the Feneley Library here at CMRS, so anyone who is taking that class after me - the books are available and you will not have to buy them.  ^.^  Really, I couldn't take them all back with me anyway - luggage space is going to be at a premium - and I think they are much better off here being used and taken care of than being put away in my basement for some distant possible future reference.  When I'm a big, growed-up teacher person I'll treat myself to a handsome leather bound set or something perhaps.

Everyone is getting down to their last batch of papers around here and for the first time this place really is like a hive of academics all buzzing busily away trying to get everything done before the final week so they can party or explore or just relax for the last few days here in Oxford.  I am, of course, extending my trip for a few days to be with my love in London for five days and looking forward to seeing him is the carrot right now at the end of my "get it done" stick.  It seems like I just got into the rhythm here and have a good flow going between working and more working and now it is coming to an end.  Ah, such is life I guess.  I am very much looking forward to coming home as well and making cookies and doing the Christmas thing with family and friends, showing off my England swag and making people watch my 'home movies.'  Wow, that sort of makes me feel a little old right there... Hmph.

I think the fact that I am coming home to the holiday season makes leaving here a little easier.  It would, I think, be harder to want to come home (I've pondered a second term here about a billion times, but I just couldn't do that to my sweetie or my family or my bosses who've all been awesomely generous letting me go on this trip as it is) if it wasn't such a deep desire in my heart to be home for Christmas.  Hm... maybe this tiny bit of fluffy rain that people keep calling snow really is making me a tiny bit homesick - scratch that, not homesick just excited about seeing home again.

Awwww ^.^

Then, just before I started my paper and went for tea in the kitchen - a few of my little duckies and some of the outer flock had little encouraging notes for me!  Claire has this awesome pad of "Pep Talk" notes and each of them filled one out for "Crypt Keeper"

I am touched.  Thanks all!  <3

Tick Tock

I haven't written in awhile... mostly because there just are no words.

Brief summary: My Classical Mythology class - which I do the most work for probably every week - has gone from "challenging" to "yeah, no."  My tutor had a bit of a moment, and now I am getting a new one.  Whatever the first one's issue is, his doctor has advised him to take some time off.  In the aftermath of this, I am rather despondent.  I was doing fine, but now I have a paper due tomorrow at 9 am, or at least I think I do - I really haven't gotten a confirmation on that yet, things are in progress - which is normal, but all my energy to make such a thing happen seems sapped by the drama of it all.  This is unhappy.  On top of that, I am going to meet someone entirely new, so it is "First Paper" time all over again just when I was getting the hang of what the first guy wanted.  This is three weeks from the final day if anyone is counting.  I'll have one assignment from the new instructor for sure, which will hopefully be alright - and possibly a second one which I've asked NOT to have, because it would be due the day before I go to the airport.  That, for me, is not really OK.  I wasn't the one who dropped the ball; I am not the one who should be made to make up the slack.

Meanwhile, I continue to have papers for the other class which is tooling along to its last meeting on Tuesday (thank goodness that stayed on track!) which will lead into the paper for 2nd teacher at the end of the week.  In between that, I need to pull the Seminar paper out of the research I managed to do last weekend for Arthurian Legend (3 or 4 thousand words worth) due the 3rd and get some type of jump on the Integral paper that is due on the 8th.  So if I have yet another 2nd teacher paper due on the 10th, I may have to find an active volcano to start sacrificing virgins to in order to gain the favour of the gods that I may not sleep for these next few weeks to get all of this done.  Huzzah.

This brings me to why I am actually writing this post - because there is no point in attempting to vent the stress and the general exhaustion I am suffering at present, as I said before, there just aren't words that make any of this all better.  Not that I haven't heard a lot of words on the matter - most of them go along the lines of "Well, you wanted a challenge right?" and that is what you, my fellow future comers, will probably hear when this (or something like it) happens during your term here.  The people not here just aren't capable of understanding exactly what you're going to be up against and their words of encouragement, however well meaning, are going to come across as "Well you asked for it" instead of what they are really trying to say which is "I don't understand, but I want to help."  So, be prepared for that if you can be, and understand that no one back home who you reach out to is going to be goading you or brushing you off - they just won't know what you're dealing with exactly enough to make a difference.  Your best bet is to talk to some of the people at CMRS who - even if they are not having their own crisis moment that second - will have some idea of what you are up against.  The downfall there is that these aren't people who will know you intimately well, and so that itself is a limited option.

Basically - it is about just making it through to the next day and the next at the end of the tutorial/seminar cycle.  The Spring comers are the ones I am envying right now, because you guys get to finish with the Integral - so not only will you NOT have that 1 extra paper due in your final tutorial/seminar rotation, but you'll have a month of 'cool down' time to bounce back, treat yourself to some of England, and so on.  Then again, you get thrown right into the tutorial/seminar cycle without a warm up, so maybe it is damned if you do and damned if you don't on one end or the other?  I don't know - you'll have to meet up with me when you get back and tell me how it went (I'll be recovered by then!) ^.~

Oh yeah, it is also Thanksgiving... so happy that to everyone.

The JCR committee is doing something on Saturday that is supposed to resemble a dinner for all of us.  I think it is an ill-concieved notion, but I hope it goes well.  I might go and I might not go - it depends on how much work I have and how much I want to avoid drama (because drama tends to crop up at such things).

Keep it Light

Friday evening me and a bunch of the CMRS crew decided to hit our new favourite watering hole, Que Pasa, for a few 2 for 1 cocktails after a long week.  This was all well and fine and everyone was having a good time until a joke got perceived as something serious by another person who hadn't slept the night before and took it into a serious conversation about a seriously divisive issue.  Things were said, the flow of chatter became a current of argument, and in the end hasty wording combined with too many voices to the detriment of what had been a fine outing.  What was said and the abrupt departure of those it was said to could have arisen out of any such topic, and today it is a new day - wondering if there will be a sharing of drinks again, or the common room for that matter, in the happy camaraderie we had.  I am sure things will work out, but we've only got a few weeks left and it would be a shame if some people find themselves not enjoying that time for something that just happened that way.

The conversation can turn from jovial to serious in a hot minute here when everyone is under a great deal of pressure to perform and to think about things seriously and scholarly - and yet a bar is not a classroom and people don't mind how they say what they say as well as they might without that atmosphere to guide them.  My advice is: keep it light.  There are 30 some students here who have 30 backgrounds, 30 points of view, 30 ways of thinking, 30 reasons to believe what they believe - and to imagine for a second that they will always agree and will always be what everyone can decide together is perfectly right is just plain impossible.  My fiance's father once told me: when people live together, no matter how well they mean or how much they care about each other, sometimes they are going to fight.  It as true here as it is at home - but here you don't know the people around you well enough to make assumptions about why they think what they think or know when you are going to fall into a minefield during happy-hour.

So what I'll say is: try to keep it light and when you can't, when the fight that is inevitable comes up, have grace and remember that it is very unlikely that anyone intended to cause it or hurt you in it - quite the opposite in fact, no one wants these sort of disagreements to become barriers to getting along in close quarters - so apologise or accept an apology or find it in yourself to let it go if you possibly can.  Life is too short - and this program so much shorter - to let a slip of the conversation put a cloud over your stay here.

In other news:  I had another good tutorial and I might be taking a trip to Cambridge in the first week of December with my tutor and another of his student's from here.   I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my sweetheart and the completion of this program, and yes, I know I signed up for the work but coming into 7th week it has been a sprinter's marathon and I am not the spring chicken who can pull double all nighters that I used to be ^.~ !  Now, with the end in sight, however distant it may seem at times, I am aware of how much being over here and doing this has broadened the way I think of the world and the people in it, but also shown me that no matter where I go and who I meet patterns emerge that are familiar and that gives a degree of comfort to the idea of the world being so much bigger than it was this time last year.