Archival Footage

So, this is a short film about the telephone system, from the early 1950's. This is for a dystopia trailer about a world based around standardized testing, so most of the film doesn't apply at all; however there are some short clips that might work. Anything from 7:51 to 8:12 without the audio could be used when talking about how people's lives are controlled by test scores. Although the dotted roll of paper are actually phone data, we could use it as people's test scores or the answer key for the test, or something. This would be put at the beginning of the trailer during the voice-over describing the society.

I don't think that we're really going to use that much archival footage for our trailer. What we really need is footage of a large room with people all quietly hunched over desks, preferably in black and white; however, I haven't managed to find that anywhere. Also we might use numbers flashing across the screen, either to show that the people are just numbers in a testing system, or to show how test scores control the citizen's lives.   

5X5 Triathlon

1. Green caps running into the ocean
2. Gold caps running into the ocean
3. Transition area
4. Bikers
5. Finish line

I was inspired to film my 5X5 while at a triathlon that my dad was doing. I borrowed a friends iPhone to film it. I used WeVideo, a web-based video editor to edit my footage. This was my first time ever editing anything, so I had a bit of a hard time at first getting used to the software, but I caught on pretty quickly.

I like the way that my 5X5 turned out. I wish that the shots were a bit more steady, but generally, I think that it turned out well.

I honestly don't have any big idea's for our next project. It might be fun to make something based on a similar idea to the 5X5 but maybe with a less strict format, that was unifies by a common theme or emotion.

In Time---Director: Andrew Niccol---2011

In Time is set in a world in which everyone stops physically aging at 25 and time is currency, the rich living indefinately while the poor have to work to survive each week. When 28 year old factory worker, Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), meets 105 year old Henry Hamilton (Matt Bomer), Hamilton transfers his remaining time to Salas, and Salas is launched on an adventure to avoid the authorities and redistribute time.

The trailer for In Time gives a good, comprehensive, overview of the plot of the film, while using colors, dialogue, some choice pieces of text, and recurring images to create a strong dystopian premise. The trailer includes short clips of important parts throughout the movie. This allows the viewer to have a relatively good understanding of the premise and basic plot of the movie without ever having seen the actual movie. Instead of just using quick cuts, the trailer uses clips with pieces of dialogue. This gives the viewer a better feel for the actual mood of the film. The dialogue also helps to establish the plot and setting. The trailer uses mostly bland colors like browns and yellows, establishing the twilight feel and surreal nature of many peoples lives. The exception to this color scheme is in places such as the headquarters of the timekeepers who are technologically savvy and in control of the society. At this point, the colors become highly contrasting and harsh. Also, the text in between clips give the viewer the basics of the world which can't be portrayed by only short chunks of the film. The text lays the framework for the viewers understanding of the trailer. In addition, throughout the trailer, the recurring image of time codes on people's arms are used. This enforces the importance of time in this society. 

In the article, "World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others," Will Richardson writes about the access that teens and kids have to information, and their ability to share it, using technology. Richardson describes how in the "collaborative age", an amazing amount of information is available on the web. He talks about how people are able to learn with others who have similar interests. The article discusses the importance of teachers and adults guiding kids and helping them to navigate the amazing network of online connections because on the Internet, there is so much information that it is often hard to tell what information is reputable or applicable. It also points out that even without adult guidance, kids use online networking, so it behooves everyone if they are helped by adults to learn online constructively.

In the article Richardson writes, "we need to rely on trusted members of our personal networks to help sift through the sea of stuff, locating and sharing with us the most relevant, interesting, useful bits." To me, this quote is really interesting because it recognizes that at times, the information and spider-web of communication online is overwhelming. I think that its important that people aren't alone in trying to make their way through all this. It is helpful for anyone to have people upon whom they know that they can rely for accurate information and sources. You always need to have a starting point.

In this article I was surprised by the actions of Laura Stockman, an eleven-year old who uses her blog to come up with community service projects. I was surprised that she was able to so effectively communicate with people around the world, but I was even more surprised that she was able to take the information that she learned from blogging and turn it into something real and productive.

I think that in out media class, connected learning has the potential to be very successful. I really like the idea of being given free reign to learn about something that I am genuinely interested in. At the same time, I am a bit daunted by how many sources there are out there with which to interface.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm interested in the directing aspect of film. I think that it would be cool to use this to learn more about directing techniques and directors.

Here's a link to an annotated copy of the article.

Review of Movie Review

The movie review "Freedom Fighter in Life Becomes Potent Symbol in Death", written by A.O.Scott is a review of the 2008 film, "Milk". This review had a bit of an odd structure, giving historical context for the film and the authors critique of the directing and overall film, interwoven with pieces of a summary. The summary was not at all linear, so unless you had already see the movie, you would have to read through the entire review to get a good idea of the plot.

This review focuses mainly on the literary aspects of the film. The majority of it is either a summary or the parts of history that the summary fits with. The historical context allows the reader to further appreciate the summary and to understand the context in which the story takes place. The film has also has a paragraph about the dramatic aspects of the film, but only talks about Shaw Penn, the lead actor.  There is really only a sentence in which the cinematic aspects of the film.

Scott seemed to love the film and have a lot of respect both for the film and its namesake. He writes that in his opinion, "Milk" is the best live-action mainstream American movie of 2008. He praises the director, script, actors, cinematography, and musical score.

For our quarterly movie reviews, I think that we should have to touch on certain key points and meet certain criteria, such as setting a clear tone, and writing about all three aspects of film. That said, I think that the general structure of the review should be left up to us. For me, what makes movie reviews interesting is that often, they're unique, written in their own style with their own structure. Basically, there should be certain points that we have to cover, but we should be allowed freedom in the way in which we cover these points.

The links to may annotation wound up on two separate pages because the review was two pages long:
Page one
The second page link is currently not working. It will be put up shortly.

Hello! My name is Becca and this is my CAP blog. In case you didn't get that from the title. I'm a sophomore at Blair. I love to read. I'll read almost anything. That's actually my main hobby at the moment.

The parts I most enjoy in filmmaking  are directing and cinematography. I hate actually being on camera. I go out of my way to avoid it. Also, I never learned to edit, so that's not really my thing either. The only experience that I have with filmmaking is the required photography and media production class that I took last year. 

Out of the film projects that I've done, my favorite has probably been an interdisciplinary project in which a group of friends and I created a film review in the form of a TV show. I was the director.We used a TV studio setup with three cameras to shoot it. I learned a lot about how to multitask and how important it is to remain calm and collected under pressure as I tried to communicate with everyone during our shoot. I also enjoyed a project in which my partner and I created a short film to explain the role of the producer of a film. We created the story of a terrible producer as an example of what a producer shouldn't do. I helped to write the script and filmed most of it. I was also the voice of the narrator, which was a good compromise for me because I never had to be on camera for it.

We could use these blogs to:

• Keep our group members posted on our progress for our change project. We can also use it to keep others informed about any activities or events related to our project.
• Share opinions about projects or class discussions or continue conversations that we've had in class online.
• Share our work and opinions with our peers

Image Credit: Harry Potter Series Books