4-Wheel War Pony: Q&A

What did you think? Woah .. the world of abstract and experimental film is a place that pushes your mind to analyze and understand the stuff that is thrown at you .. you kind of have to force yourself to make sense of what you are watching, especially when you arn't provided with a background on the piece before hand. I think that this video was pretty cool, the director's intent was pretty obvious to me and it had an indie, home-video sort of feeling to it. 

What is Dustinn Craig trying to communicate with this film and do you think he was successful? With this film, Dustinn Craig was trying to portray the culture of the Native people. It shows how they have absorbed modern culture into their traditions, yet still managing t

o retain their way of life. 4 Wheel-War Pony uses skateboarding footage that was captured by some of the core members of the native community, to express how their culture is very much a culture in motion and transition. Due to the fact that I could tell what Dustinn Craig was trying to communicate, I would say that his project was successful. But even if I

 had no clue what this video was about, I still think that viewers would have some sort of empathy and understanding towards the feelings he was trying to project. 

What did you find interesting? What did you have trouble with? I found the whole thing pretty interesting, I guess something specific would be the use of split screening. I also liked the way they used stills to create a few sequences. I had trouble understanding the purpose of the random pumpkin-man graphic, but it added to the whole abstract-ness of the video.

I think one of the main elements of an abstract film (that is also used here), is the lack of narration, and presence of music underlining the film. I think it's really important for an abstract film to not have any dialogue or narration of any kind, because that way the audience can come up with their own ideas and perceptions, and the director can get more creative and symbolic in the way that he/she creates each shot.