Art Project: Cool

Cool: A Silent Film from Esther Dionisio on Vimeo.

For my cool ‘art project’, I worked with my sister and Esther (two really creative people – good pick, I know).

I definitely think part of being cool is not only grabbing everyone’s attention while standing out, but being able to grab the attention that makes others want to be like you. In the video, there’s this lost soul (me) who is desperate for attention. I end up trying to change who I am to gain acceptance from my peers (mainly Esther) who doesn’t mind ‘helping’ me change. Also, like both Lauren and Esther stressed, this video is about trying not to lose touch with your own style (or at least the style you like), and character (who you are vs. who you’re trying to change yourself to become). *In general I think people are always going to change, but some people ‘act’ while others ‘become’. I don’t think people should do things they don’t want to for attention. I think people should think for themselves about what really matters to them and why.

I hope people realize just how much they dress like their ‘friends’ and that it’s not a coincidence. I also hope they realize that it’s not cool anymore. If you’re trying to stand out .. you should try dressing differently.

We started off with a few hours of planning. Then when we were ready to start filming, we realized we needed more people than we had this weekend. We thought a lot more and realized that we had so many ‘cool’ ideas for a video but not really a video that said anything about being cool. Then I started thinking about t.v and commercials and really wanted to do something like a commercial I saw a while back. In the commercial, it was some guy standing there and people were changing his clothing, making him do things like smoke, and even shaved his head bald. After a lot of quick changes, the guy stops them all and walks away. That’s what we tried to do. We also talked about how we wanted to show not tell .. so we didn’t want any talking in the video. So lovely Sandy suggested a silent film. And that’s how that came to be. We did a lot of filming, because Esther wanted more angles, and the whole disappearing thing came from an earlier idea of a film we thought we were going to do. We decided to include it anyway in this one for both special effects and so that people can perceive it any way they want to. I contributed ideas for the project and acted.

Making art has always been challenging for me. I’m not a very creative person. It’s never been my area of expertise. Do I think it’s cool? That all depends on what you’re defining cool as. If cool is fun and admirable and ‘standing out’, then yes this video is very cool. Why? Because it was so much fun to make this video – we had to do each part over and over again, and for a while Esther left the camera on record without telling us and thank god she didn’t put those parts in the ‘bloopers’- we did some silly things. We made friends with the guy at the front desk – and yes that was the first time we met him =D. Plus – this is very admirable. I mean I wish I had Esther’s editing talents. And I definitely think this video stands out… I mean come on – who else made a silent film?