What I Learned in This Class

This will probably be one of the easiest blogs I've been asked to written! For starters I can say that I definitely learned a heck of a lot about the media in the digital age! In class we've covered so many topics and over the course of the year I learned alot about the transition from analog to digital, the emergence of computers, graphics, animation, the internet, and so much more. I think this class would have been a lot easier for me if perhaps I took a computer science class before hand. I completely respect the world of computer science, and software engineering, and web developement but I will never understand why would anyone in their right man want to do such a thing! Understanding those topics had to be the absolute most pain staking things Ive learned in college ever, it is probably the equivalent to learning a new language. I am glad I made it through alive, and I am more glad this semester we had the opportunity to do more hands on work with animating, cameras, and editting. I will definitely be taking the skills I have learned in this class and continue to work on them!

Avatar & Animation

Working with Flash and Illustrator I have gained a whole new respect for the animation world. I am constantly looking at animation movies and wondering how in the world was this animated. Animation can be done in so many different ways, especially now in that we are living in a digital world, and can be made into 3-D. I think the movie Avatar is a perfect example of the evolution of animation. There are other movies in which animation is used with real people, for example "Cool World" but I think Avatar is a major advance for animation because of its use with 3D computer graphics, and didn't the director build an entire uniquely designed camera for the movie? Thats awesome in itself!
Avatar is filled with beautiful colors that add to the visually entriguing story. I think Avatar shows how far animation has come because in all elements of the movie, writing, filming, and acting, it reaches audiences of all ages expressing massive amounts of global issues that this blog cant even begin to describe! The colors are very illusionistic and very pleasing to the eye, it is something very unique to the "big screen" and thats why I think it was such a huge hit. The characters are neither mechanistic nor lifelike but they are so well developed that the audience can connect to a whole universe of aliens, or in this case Avatars.
The use of 3-D brings the movie to life and really engages the audience making it more visually enticing. It allows the audience to really connect with the story and feel what is going on in the movie. Avatar has earned my respect, as far as animation goes, but critics will be critics!

Blog #3 Production Notes

For our video assignment me and my partner decided to do a mock 1980's hip-hop video, and luckily to our luck I have a brother who is an aspiring rapper!

The most important concept I learned from this video assignment is how crucial the pre-production stage really is. When my lab instructor demanded our class to do a storyboard, I thought I was going to throw up. I am the absolute worst artist but the creating the storyboard allowed me and my partner, Amira, to make sense of our ideas, and organize them in a way so that we knew exactly what needed to be shot and in what order. Story boarding also made the time-contrainst a no-brainer, we actually had extra time left to continue shooting new ideas which would have never been the case had we went into production without story boarding first. We would literally have been like chickens with our heads cut off!

As this was the first time I had ever attempted to film a music-video some things I wish we would have put more time into the camera work as far as getting more footage to cover the verses of the song. During post-production I realized that we didn't have enough footage to cover the entirety of the song so I actually had to cut out some of the verses and incorporate a lot of random b-roll which actually turned out pretty cool and catered to our idea of the 1980's style music videos.

I think my partner and I did as best we could to capture the spirit of 80's style hip-hop videos and we definitely had a lot of fun doing so. I have probably watched the video close to 100 times and noticed so many things that I would have done differently or wish we could have done better, but Im happy about the final product. It was a lot of fun!

Editing Analysis: Natural Born Killers

FILMP/MEDP 160

MIRANDA/Lucas

Spring 2010

BLOG POST #2: Editing Analysis

The editing in the movie Natural Born Killers(1994) is by far some of the coolest, mind boggling, and entreating editing I have seen in my

The editing in the movie Natural Born Killers(1994) is by far some of the coolest, mind boggling, and intriguing editing I have seen in my lifetime. I don't watch a lot of movies and although I am about 16 years late in seeing this movie I loved it! In my opinion the entire movie is unique, but the editing is what makes this movie something viewers will never forget. I think the editors did an excellent job displaying continuity through parallel editing, shot selections, shot angles and montage. I can talk about the entire movie for hours and I could build the argument that this movie beholds a little of each editing technique such as montage (using flashbacks of Mallary Knox '[Juliette Lewis] childhood for example), continuity, impressionistic (the continuous use of random flashes of demonistic images within scenes, and the way the editors toy around with the colors of shots), and also a verbally-driven style documentary approach (the reporter Wayne Gale [Robert Downing Jr.] who is broadcasting a live interview of the prison riot scene), but for now Im only going to focus on the prison riot scene in the movie, the goriest scene of them all!

The scene starts off when the interview with Mickey Knox comes to a break and the prisoners begin rioting. The scene consists of low angles and high angles, wide shots, close ups, extreme close ups of Mickey, the warden, and the prison guards. Than after the warden receives news of the riot we are taken to a quick preview of the riot that is occurring and then taken back to the place where Mickey Knox is being interviewed as he begins to toy with the prison guards. As Mickey begins killing the people in the room the shots are switched from black to white from killer to victim and so on so forth. Every shot switches within one to two seconds sometimes even less. As each bullet is fired the shot is changed. The camera is handheld providing more to the feeling of chaos. Than once again our setting is changed to the cell of Mallory Knox where she is being visited/harassed by the detective where the pattern of black to white, frequent change in shots, and expressionistic images are continued throughout the scene.

This style of editing works well with this scene because it is continuos throughout the movie. As tensions rise and violence strikes the editors mess with the colors of the shots, changing them from color to black and white to all red or all blue. The composition in each shot is all over the place, we are taken to extreme close ups, and crazy side-ways angles and this all works well for this movie and this scene in particular. It seems as if the editors were trying to quickly show what is going on from top to bottom left to right as quickly as possible. The movement between shot to shot is so fast and the cuts are so obvious, which is great because it builds on the feeling of chaos and destruction this scene is trying to express. There is no wrong or right place to cut for this movie, the cinematographers, editors, etc. were breaking all the rules and doing it profoundly! I think this scene contributes to the feel of the movie because it is consistent with the rest of the style of editing throughout the movie. Time and space are nonexistent in this scene, the fact that we are taken from one place to another and another and another isn't hard to follow at all thanks to the continuity of the editing. The editors are throwing all kinds of different images at the viewers and somehow it all just makes sense and goes together, nothing comes off as awkward or out of place as a result of the continuous editing techniques used throughout the entire film.

I wish I could embed the scene but turns out I would only be able to embed the entire movie, if this helps the scene I am talking about begins at around 1:22:00:00.

Blog#1: The Web and Me

MEDP/FILMP 160: Media and Film in a Digital Age Pt. 2

SPRING 2010

BLOG ASSIGNMENT #1

It is truly amazing to witness how enormously the Internet has impacted the world. I think it is great to live in a time where everyone can have a chance to express themselves in all kinds of unique, whacky ways. A few websites that have grown to become apart of my daily routine include, but are not limited to, Facebook, YouTube, and StumbleUpon. I visit these websites regularly to keep in touch with friends, network, listen to music, watch videos, see whats going on in the world, and the list goes on. I think the absolute greatest thing about a user-generated interface is to have the ability to access tons of information on demand. I believe these kinds of social networking websites are having a huge impact on the way people get their information because now instead of gathering information from a few sources, there are millions of ways for people to keep up with the fast-track world we live in.

I primarily use the internet as my way of keeping in touch with the world. Visiting StumbleUpon has allowed me to really grasp how huge the internet really is. There are so many sites with so many cool things to see, its almost impossible to keep track! I like going onto YouTube and watching all kinds of videos (educational, comical, etc.). However reading the commentary and seeing how people react to such videos is what interests me more. People are really taking advantage of the new speed and interactivity of the web and creating all kinds of wild stuff with it, from blogging to video production to graphic design. Im more of the observer than anything, I will on occasion use the internet as a mode of self-expression but I enjoy watching and learning from others way more. It seems like everyday I find something new and interesting on the web and it is all thanks to the immediacy of the internet!