On Yoko Ono's website, there are assignments anyone can do to explore their world, and the resulting media is pretty entertaining. My favorite assignment was "Make a documentary about a small child." My Star by Roger Scott is about his son, Dylan. It has a great soundtrack that actually makes the baby exciting, maybe giving the audience a sense of the astounding amount of discoveries the baby makes each day. There is a hilarious shot where Scott zooms out and we realize that Dylan is lying in a dryer, which his mom programs to start like the liftoff of a space ship. This short and sweet style of documentary is like a yummy after dinner mint.
I also enjoyed exploring the guest curators' (or Ono's friends) choices, presenting some very interesting portraits generated from the assignments. The effect of taking a tour through the assignments allowed me to see the greater vision of the website coalesce into a jagged collection of artists and everyday people. This was probably the best example 201 students could get of daily practice, or personal filmmaking.
I was amazed at the amount of work put into some of these, especially the neighborhood field recording from Erin Thompson and Hanna Vachs. They took time with each person who accepted to draw their portrait and record their musical talents or performances. It wasn't especially entertaining--the bad musicians were very boring, but i did enjoy the first performance by the acoustic guitarist. The drawing allowed me to listen to the fingering and picture the performance in my mind.
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