Blog #8

Please watch this scen from the movie "American Beauty" before proceeding in the reading of this post.

THEME

            Having seen this movie once before, I can comfortably say that the theme of this movie is to never take what you have for granted.  This scene shows that because it solidifies his thoughts of wanting to cheat on his wife even though they have a family together.  This particular scene is didactic because it is not really happening.  We know this because when the camera comes back to the real man, he is merely laying in bed masturbating to the vision of what we just saw in the previous shot.

CRITIQUE

            Two things that helped me to come to the conclusion of this theme were the way that the director used space and movement during this particular scene.  They use the idea of space by making it steamy from the bath which makes the room look smaller and draws our attention to what is happening between the man and the girl.  They also use the concept of movement by making the man’s movements very slight and jagged as if he is nervous about what is going to happen.  These two things allow us to recognize the theme because it shows us that he is not necessarily concerned with what he has going with his life at the moment.  He is searching for other things in his life.

            Two binary terms that are used to show the theme of this movie through this scene are didactic as well as objective.  I found this scene to be didactic because this particular scene is clearly in the man’s dream.  This shows what the man wants in his life other than what he has.  There was a very objective approach to this scene because obviously we have we can see that the woman is an object in which the man wishes he could “possess.”  We also see a common theme of the roses throughout the entire movie which is used to symbolize the man’s wants which is most often related with the woman in this scene. 

Blog #7

ESSAY

            Here we are looking at a still clip of the beginning scene of every Rugrats and King of the Hill Episode ever made.  In this blog post I will discuss how the hue, brightness, and saturation are similar and how they differ from one another.  Lets get this started shall we?

            Upon looking into the hue of these two scenes, I will begin with the Rugrats image.  We can see that there is a bit of a yellow tint throughout this image.  This may be because of the fact that the back wall is yellow as well is Angelica’s hair.  However, looking a little bit deeper we can see that even on the children’s skin there is a hint of yellow.  That being said, we can now look at the King of the Hill image.  Looking at this we can see that the hue is on the green side.  Obvious things are the trees and the grass being green.   However something that is not as obvious to see is the fact that there is a slight green tint over the entire frame.

            I will now look at the brightness of the two images.  In the Rugrats image, we can very easily see that this image is bright.  We can assume this to be used as a sort of symbolism.  This frame is very bright and we know that these children are living a life of Freedom and absolutely no responsibilities.  Switching our focus to the King of the Hill image, we can see that it is much more dark.  This may be viewed as odd seeing as how they are outdoors and it is clearly day-time.  This darkness, again, can be viewed as symbolism for the lack of excitement seen in these character’s lives.  We really see them doing on thing very frequently which is exactly what is viewed in this image.

            Finally, I will touch on the saturation of the two images.  The Rugrats image has a light saturation that makes the colors seem to be a little bit faded.  This affect also gives the show a grainier look.  However, in the King of the Hill image, we see a very heavy saturation that makes it easier for us as an audience to point out the different objects in the scene.

blog #6

ESSAY

            This scene I felt followed every rule that is set for movie directors to follow.  Clearly they have followed the 180 degree rule by showing the man on the boat as well as the shark.  They have set the 180 degree line basically along where the sunken boat is sitting.  They come close to breaking this rule multiple times as they cut from the shark and back to the man on the boat with the gun.

            This point brings us to the 30 rule.  I believe that they did follow this as they seemed to cut to a shot that was near thirty degrees from one antoher.  Not only this but they also seemed to shoot at a near thirty degree angle.  Both of these two items together made it very easy for them to follow the 30 rule.  

            One last thing that I would like to touch on is the fact that this director did not break the rule of thirds.  He did everything in threes from the lines to the cuts and also the theme song.  It was absolutely incredible what these people have done with this movie as a whole. 

            As I previously stated, the directors did not break any of the rules during this scene.  It is absolutely amazing to me that such a great movie can come about without breaking the basic guidelines set by filmmakers everywhere.  This is especially true seeing as how we live in a time where every movie breaks at least one if not all of these rules in order to make their film appear to be more realistic.  I tell you this, based off of the time when this movie was made and the fact that no rules were broken, makes this movie greater than most others made today in my mind.

Blog #5

Before reading this post, please watch the video for the song "Ass Back Home" by Gym Class Heroes as well as the video for the song "Back Home" by Tiffany Alvord (a cover of "Ass Back Home").

LISTENING FRAMEWORK

(VERY SIMPLIFIED)

Ass Back Home

Gym Class Heroes:

·      LISTENING PHASE 1

-       Tempo

§  Medium

                       

-       Source

§  The rhythm is coming from the Drums and Bass guitar.

-       Groove

§  It has an R&B feel as well as a pop feel to it. 

·      LISTENING PHASE 2

-       Instrumentation

§  Drums, Bass guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Vocals, and electric Guitar

-       Structure/Organization

§  C-V1-C-V2-C-B1-B2-C

-       Emotional Architecture

§  This song builds continuously as the song progresses. 

·      LISTENING PHASE 3

-       Balance

§  Height

·      Low

§  Width

·      The instruments drop out from left to right

·      The cymbal roll in the chorus Crescendos from right to left.

§  Depth [layers of instruments - via loudness]

·      After the instruments all enter, the song is loud and has multiple layers throughout the rest of the song.

LISTENING FRAMEWORK

(VERY SIMPLIFIED)

Back Home

Tiffany Alvord:

·      LISTENING PHASE 1

o   Tempo

§  medium

o   Source

§  Acoustic Guitar

o   Groove

§  This song has more of a pop/punk groove to it.

·      LISTENING PHASE 2

o   Instrumentation

§  Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Drums, Bass Guitar, and Electric Guitar

o   Structure/Organization

§  C-V1-C-V2-C-B1-B2-C

o   Emotional Architecture

§  The song continually builds all the way to the bridge.  It then drops out and builds again through the end.

·      LISTENING PHASE 3 (Sound Quality)

o   Balance

§  Height [high and low of frequency]

·      high

§  Width [stereo panning left/right]

·      None

§  Depth [layers of instruments - via loudness]

·      As the song progresses, multiple layers are added making the song very loud.

ESSAY

            As is expected, these two versions of this song seem to be very similar.  The words used in each song are nearly exactly the same as one another.  The tempo of the two songs was remarkably close.  I believe that these songs were right around 120 beats per minute.  Both of these songs contain similar organization, instrumentation, and emotions expressed throughout each song.  Both songs showed the same organization of verses and choruses, they both used the same instruments of guitars drums and vocals, and they both built up all the way to the end of the song.  However, Tiffany Alvord’s version dropped down low during the bridge then built itself back up again through the end of the song.  These two songs also have similar if the not the exact same depth with multiple instruments being added in throughout, making these songs fairly loud.

            This being said, there are also many things that were different between the two songs.  However, these things are much harder to spot than the things that were similar between the two.  One thing that is different is the source of the drive in the two songs.  In the original song, the rhythm section is driving the song all the way through.  However, in the remake, we see the Acoustic guitar driving the song to the end.   Another thing that was different in these songs is the groove.  The original song has a sort of hip hop groove while the remake has a pop feel to it.  The width is one last thing that is different between these two songs.  The original song had some width while the remake had none.

            In my opinion, Tiffany Alvord’s version is better than the original version by Gym Class Heroes.  I am not a huge fan of the Hip Hop genre of music to begin with.  Not only that but I am amazed at what Tiffany Alvord did to make this song her own.  It never ceases to amaze me what artists can do to one persons work and completely change the feel of the song itself.

imovie project

Man Vs. giant

Blog #4

During this scene, the camera angles give us an illusion of the space being represented.  The director shows the shark, Jaws, as an up close shot multiple times throughout the scene.  This not only makes the audience’s perception of how far the shark is from Brody become a little obscured.  But it also makes the viewer feel as though the shark is much larger in physical size than it actually is.  Not only do we have these things to contend with, but going along with the topic of space, we also have to decide what we believe to be the directionality of the shark.  Seeing the shark in an up close shot, makes us believe that the shark is coming towards Brody.  However, we can not be for sure of this until we see another angle.

The director also used the time of the scene to affect how viewer’s would view this film.  We can notice that as the shark came closer to Brody, the music was getting progressively faster and luder.  We can also notice that the music playing in the background had a tonal center.  As we listen, we can hear that the higher instruments within the orchestra are playing a sort of peppy beat while the lower instruments are playing the well known theme song for Jaws.

Blog #3

Before reviewing this particular post, please read this article by Seth Godin titled "Brainwashed."

http://changethis.com/manifesto/66.01.Brainwashed/pdf/66.01.Brainwashed.pdf

The Make Art portion of this article shows us the author’s definition of art.  It also shows us that in order to make art we must be willing to take the risk of someone not liking it or getting laughed at because of it.  During the Acknowledging The Lizard portion of the article, the author tells us that this concept basically is the little voice inside telling us that we will not succeed.  He shows us that this lizard is keeping us people as artists from branching out and finding our own creativity in the world.  During the failure portion of the article, the author tells us that it is almost necessary for us as artists to be willing to fail.  Throughout the years, it has been shown that failure leads to success in the long run.  With this failure, we are fighting the resistance and succeeding.

The three terms that I summarized in my last paragraph can be related to this blog in many different ways.  All seven of these terms that are talked about in that article are connected in one way or another.  This being said, the three that I chose to summarize were the three items that I thought connected the most.  These three items go hand in hand in with one another perfectly.

           

            The section titled make art can definitely be directly related to these blog assignments.  I feel like these blogs give us the opportunity to be as creative as we would like and be as artistic as possible.  More specifically, the making of art can be related to our first blog post that asked us to create a super hero and villain and deconstruct them to the most basic of forms.  This assignment really forced us to be creative in a couple of different ways.  One way in which we had to be creative was in the creation of the super hero and villain.  Another way that we had to be creative was when we had to deconstruct these two characters.  This challenged us to think outside of the box and make art.

            The section titled acknowledge the lizard also related to these blogs for me at least.  I can not speak for my other classmates, but the entire time that I was writing these blogs, I had that voice telling me that I was doing something wrong.  This is what is referred to as the lizard.  My lizard was definitely trying to keep me from finishing this blog.  It took all of my creative energies to defeat this terrible beast.

            The section titled fail did not relate to these blogs per say.  We were not meant to fail at these blogs for this is the only chance we get before receiving our grade.  However, it can directly relate to this class in a way.  We do multiple presentations throughout this quarter in this class.  This being said, we may fail at one of these presentations however that failure will push us to a point where we can succeed at the following presentations during the quarter.

            The bottom line is this: these blogs are a great way to use our out of class time.  They really give us a prime opportunity to be creative which is what this class is all about.  All in all, I think that these blogs are a great assignment and it is definitely not a waste of our time at all.