The Making of "A Dog's Life"

The Making of "A Dog's Life" from The Preface on Vimeo.

The Making of "A Dog's Life"

The Making of A Dog's Life from Ryan Lohman on Vimeo.

Narrative poster

The barrel script

“They found him in a barrel, and when I seen it on TV, I said, ‘Goddamn, I know him,’ ya know?”

I heard this phrase while at my in-laws’ house in North Liberty, Indiana. The speaker was Kirk Beaver, a friend of the family who had just learned of the death of an acquaintance on the news.

“Craig! You’re not late. Technically, you’re almost on time, but close.”

I heard Student Government Association Vice President Leah Klopfenstein say this to an SGA justice before an SGA meeting started Friday.

“It’s not only helping the community and environment, but it’s also helping the IUSB community too, because it’s the river that we see from campus.”

I heard SGA Senator Andi Trowbridge say this to a student who was at the SGA meeting Friday to request money for an event during which her group would clean the river.

“They’re, like, sending somebody to teach us what we’re doing. So, like, we’re not just going to, like, pick up trash. Like, they’re going to teach us, like, what we’re seeing.”

I heard that student, Breezy McCall, say this during the same conversation.

“Well, I got home yesterday, and had to go take my daughter running her errands. Then I came over and got something to eat, went to the pep rally, went to the volleyball game, and then she wanted to go go-carting.”

I heard this phrase while waiting for a source to meet me in the Grill. The speaker was Rhonda Redman. 

The Barrel

by

Ryan Lohman

EXT. A BACKYARD BONFIRE – NIGHT

KIRK, sitting, reaches for a pack of cigarettes in the left breast pocket of his flannel jacket while the others, grouped in a circle around the bonfire and all staring at him, wait quietly for him to start talking. He pulls a cigarette out of the pack with his lips, lifts a lighter to his face and starts talking. The cigarette bounces up and down as he speaks.

KIRK

They found him in a barrel, and when I seen it on TV, I said, “Goddamn, I know him,” ya know?

GRETCHEN

Who? Who did they find in a barrel?

KIRK lights his cigarette, takes a drag and squints his eyes as he responds, pointing the two fingers that now hold the cigarette at Gretchen.

KIRK

You knew him, too. The auctioneer, ya know? The guy at the sale barn who’s always been there since we was kids.

GRETCHEN

I never knew an auctioneer.

KIRK

Well, maybe you didn’t know ‘im as an auctioneer, and all, but you knew him. He was way older than he looked, had jet-black hair and perfect teeth, but they was both fake.

GRETCHEN nods furiously while holding her right hand up with her palm facing KIRK as if batting his words from the air.

GRETCHEN

Yeah, I know him. Well, I knew him now, I guess. How in the hell dee end up in a barrel?

KIRK

They don’t know. Just found ‘im that way tonight. Gonna go lookin’ for his car. It’s missin’.

Ride of the Valkyries

Documentary subject: David Blodgett

David Blodgett is an artist, and South Bend, Indiana, is his canvas. He’s a muralist. He paints on the sides of buildings and inside on their walls. Drive a mile in any direction in the area, and you will see one of his murals. But just how he became to be the South Bend’s resident muralist was a bit of an accident.

Blodgett chose to study art; that much was on purpose. It would have been hard not to. Both of his parents were artists—at 94 years old, his mother still is. He studied under the legendary Harold Zisla, the founding director of IU South Bend’s art department. He certainly intended to do that too. But murals, he just sort of fell into.

Two years into a job as the Johnson County, North Carolina, resident artist—he swears that use to be a real job title—Blodgett thought he had better do something.

“Nobody gave a freaking rat’s ass that I was there, that I was an artist,” Blodgett said. “So, consequently, we did nothing. But all of this money kept flowing from the state, so we started to get nervous.”

Blodgett and his wife, also a resident artist, found a blank wall in downtown Johnson and got to work on a mural depicting that town’s history. The rest, as they say, is history.

Blodgett is full of anecdotes, colorfully related and humorous. I’ve interviewed him in the past and have always enjoyed it. I am sure any audience would get a kick out of the story of how he became a muralist.

For Blodgett, you just have to point him in the right direction and he takes off with a story. So here are some questions—or more likely suggested topics—that I will offer during the interview:

1. What is a mural?

2. What do people like about murals?

3. How did you become a muralist?

4. What is art?

5. What was it like to study art in the 1970s?

6. Where are you from originally?

7. How were you affected by growing up around artists?

8. How many murals have you painted in South Bend?

9. What’s your favorite mural in the area that we could get footage of?

10. What do you want your legacy to be?

Happiness from Ryan Lohman on Vimeo.

Happiness

This music video uses a combination of stop motion animation and live action footage to tell a simple, linear narrative.

The artist used muted colors and stuttering rhythm--those are the two elements that stuck out most anyway--to give the images a natural, innocent vibe.

All of the shots in the video are mid-range to closeup. So the space within which this narrative takes place is cramped. It gives me the sense that it all takes place within the pages of a children's book.

The most jarring change happens when it switches between stop motion felt cutouts to live action with few visual cues that the two scenes are even supposed to be one in the same. Yet, it does get that idea across, so I guess it was effective enough. They convey it by the wardrobe, if nothing else.

The narrative portrayed in the video could be said to loosely relate to the content of the song, at least thematically--the theme being love. At one part the two merge: Oberst sings, "Your eyes must do some raining..." as the character drains water from her eyes.

My instinct is to say that this video was shot with very little concern for the way it looks, but I know that that means much care was taken to achieve that effect.

Self portrait and biography

I don't have a favorite movie anymore. When I was young, I liked Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. But for the past decade or so, I have enjoyed Coen Brothers' movies, and I have never seen a Stanley Kubrick movie I didn't like.

I used to play music in various bands. I play guitar--who doesn't?--but not much anymore.

I write, mostly, and with some frequency. I am the editor of The Preface, IU South Bend's official student newspaper. I freelance, occasionally, for The South Bend Tribune, after having completed an internship for course credit there last spring. The Tribune pays $60 an article. So I wouldn't call that my career. The Preface pays more.

IU South Bend has no "J-school," but instead, has a journalism track with the mass communication degree offered by the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts. There are only a few journalism classes to take there, but that's OK because it leaves room to diversify. That's what the editors at the Tribune wanted: diverse media capabilities. They said the journalists they hire in the future will be able to write, shoot video, edit it, post it to a website and various social media platforms, and do this many times a day, too.

If I could produce any media, I would produce magazine articles with references to additional content on a website where the reader would find my multimedia accompaniments to that article--things like podcasts and mini-documentaries produced from the material I generated when reporting the main article.