I think that the theme of this movie is to understand the consequences of your actions, and to accept responsibility for them. The theme is actively shown in this scene because Jules is directly discussing what he's learned throughout the course of the movie, and that itself is the theme.
The lines in this scene reinforce that the while theme of the movie is being stated here. In this scene Jules is saying how he's learned that he can't let himself be used as a tool for evil men. The lines in the scene tend to point right at his face. The line from his gun forms a path right to his face, as does the line from Bunny's gun. The line form the diner seats also tend to lead back to Jules. The lines, mostly the lines from guns, help to give focus to Jules and in turn focus on what he's saying, as he's giving the whole theme of the movie in this scene. It also leads back to the fact that his shape is in contrast with the rest of the scene. His afro is a very rounded shape compared to the rest of the characters.
The rhythm of the scene also gives importance to what Jules is saying. The rhythm is mostly Jules talking then allowing someone to comment, then coming back to Jules. This rhythm gives even more importance to what Jules is saying, which is important because what he learns is the whole theme of the movie.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Blog Assignment 7
The lighting from each image is very similar. The only place with shadows in the first image is the background. There are no shadows at all on the character. This means that the source of light for this image is most likely directly over the characters head, and it contributes to the fact that he is very evenly lit. The second character shares the same lighting as the first. His lighting is very even with no shadows coming across his features. The symbolism of both images in a direct contrast. The first image has the character happy and smug. The second image has the character very angry at something. This is mostly shown through their facial expressions and how their body is positioned. The first character has a very relaxed pose about him while the second character has both his fists raised in a righteous anger. The mood for both images is shown by the colors of the characters. You can tell the mood of the first character because of his even coloring and facial expressions. The second character has an entirely red face in contrasts to the rest of his body. This shows the extreme state of his mood.
Blog Assignment 6
The director broke a lot of rules when making this scene. The rule of 180 degrees was broken multiple times. It was broken when he was approaching the bathroom as well as multiple other times in the scene. I think it was broken because he was the only character in the frame at the time. Another reason for breaking the rule is that the director wanted to get reactions from the character, so we know how he felt about what was going on without directly telling us. The look of suspicion on his face after the camera zoomed in on the door handle directly show us what he was thinking. There were some times when the rule was followed. One instance where it was followed is that the rule can be broken when another character enters the scene. When the zombie comes out of the bath room the camera passes the 180 degree mark, so that was following the rule. The rule of thirds often comes into play here. The director often uses the ground, the actor, and the building to appeal to the rule of thirds. In the opening scene dark ground in the first third of the frame, the gas station, with the actor, is the second, and the dark background is the third part of the scene. Many scenes are also set up so that the building is the back third, and the ground is the first third. The director often follows the rule of thirds. The director also likes to break the 30 degree rule. Oftentimes, the camera shifts are seemingly random and often go over 30 degrees. I think this is because the director uses the placement of the gas station itself to let people know the positions of the actors, and doesn't believe the shifts will be too jarring. I think the director broke these rules for two main reasons. The first reason is that for part of the scene there is only one actor, so the director is allowed to break the 180 degree rule. The second reason to break these rules is that we are shown the position of the gas station early on which gives us a reference for where things are in the scene, allowing him to break the 30 degree rule.
Blog Assignment 5
Listening Phase 1
Tempo-
Medium
Source-
The cello, drums, and bass.
Groove-
The groove is a driving, yet mellow, melody.
Listening Phase 2
Instrumentation-
Cello, bass, drums, and vocals make up the song.
Structure/Organization-
The song is mostly a cello repeating a cord structure while the bass and drums support it.
Emotional Architecture-
The emotional structure starts in the middle, rises to a climax, then goes down into a low point, rises back up to a climax, and then fades out.
Listening Phase 3
Balance
Height-
Bass is the lowest frequency and the cello hits the highest frequency.
Width-
Balanced the entire time.
Depth-
The cello and vocals are at the forefront with the bass and drums supporting them from the back.
Listening Phase 1
Tempo-
Medium, Fast.
Source-
Pizzicato cello with drums and bass driving it.
Groove-
Driving sound with folk rock architecture.
Listening Phase 2
Instrumentation-
Guitar, bass, cello, and drums drive the song.
Structure/Organization-
The song is guitar following a constant cord structure with the cello playing a melody while bass and drums keep the rhythm going.
Emotional Architecture-
The song starts off pretty high then comes up to a climax which quickly drops lower than the beginning, then drives back up to a climax where it remains until the end.
Listening Phase 3
Balance
Height-
Bass is the lowest frequency while guitar and cello are the highest.
Width-
Balanced the entire time
Depth-
The guitar bass and drums are all fairly repetitive in the background while the cello and vocals are at the front.
These songs are very different, but they do share some characteristics.
The lyrics from both of the songs talk about very different things. The first song, Foxglove, is talking about the singers love interest, while the second is talking about his brother. The lyrics for the first one are often soft, and repeat in sections where the singer hits high notes. For the second song, brother, the lyrics are faster and the singer sings them with much more intensity. For Brother the singer tends to focus more on lower sounds whereas in Foxglove he tends to hit higher notes. With Foxglove he is also going into repetitive lyrics more often than Brother.
The melody from both of these songs are very different. Foxglove has a very disjointed melody that is mostly conveyed through the vocals. For Brother the vocals do give away the melody, but it is mostly presented through the instruments. The melody for Foxglove is also very slow and even while Brother has a much faster and more intense melody. With Foxglove the melody is much more similar to a ballad. It's slow and steady and doesn't really change much throughout. The melody of Brother however is much more similar to a folk rock song. It is much faster and more intense than the Foxglove melody, while maintaining a rigid structure.
The musical quality for each song has some similar characteristics. Both songs have the cello at the forefront, and with both songs the cello is constantly changing its playing style going from arco to pizzicato and staccato to legato. The bass in both songs serves a similar purpose as well, it mostly stays in the background playing the cord structure while keeping the rhythm. Foxglove has a much slower rhythm while Brother is much faster. The intensity of Foxglove is also much lower than Brother.
I like Brother better because it has a better melody and I enjoy the lyrics more. I also enjoy the playing techniques that the cello utilizes to get the sound they do. I also like Brother more because of the faster rhythm and melody, while Foxglove is much more mellow.
Tempo-
Medium
Source-
The cello, drums, and bass.
Groove-
The groove is a driving, yet mellow, melody.
Listening Phase 2
Instrumentation-
Cello, bass, drums, and vocals make up the song.
Structure/Organization-
The song is mostly a cello repeating a cord structure while the bass and drums support it.
Emotional Architecture-
The emotional structure starts in the middle, rises to a climax, then goes down into a low point, rises back up to a climax, and then fades out.
Listening Phase 3
Balance
Height-
Bass is the lowest frequency and the cello hits the highest frequency.
Width-
Balanced the entire time.
Depth-
The cello and vocals are at the forefront with the bass and drums supporting them from the back.
Listening Phase 1
Tempo-
Medium, Fast.
Source-
Pizzicato cello with drums and bass driving it.
Groove-
Driving sound with folk rock architecture.
Listening Phase 2
Instrumentation-
Guitar, bass, cello, and drums drive the song.
Structure/Organization-
The song is guitar following a constant cord structure with the cello playing a melody while bass and drums keep the rhythm going.
Emotional Architecture-
The song starts off pretty high then comes up to a climax which quickly drops lower than the beginning, then drives back up to a climax where it remains until the end.
Listening Phase 3
Balance
Height-
Bass is the lowest frequency while guitar and cello are the highest.
Width-
Balanced the entire time
Depth-
The guitar bass and drums are all fairly repetitive in the background while the cello and vocals are at the front.
These songs are very different, but they do share some characteristics.
The lyrics from both of the songs talk about very different things. The first song, Foxglove, is talking about the singers love interest, while the second is talking about his brother. The lyrics for the first one are often soft, and repeat in sections where the singer hits high notes. For the second song, brother, the lyrics are faster and the singer sings them with much more intensity. For Brother the singer tends to focus more on lower sounds whereas in Foxglove he tends to hit higher notes. With Foxglove he is also going into repetitive lyrics more often than Brother.
The melody from both of these songs are very different. Foxglove has a very disjointed melody that is mostly conveyed through the vocals. For Brother the vocals do give away the melody, but it is mostly presented through the instruments. The melody for Foxglove is also very slow and even while Brother has a much faster and more intense melody. With Foxglove the melody is much more similar to a ballad. It's slow and steady and doesn't really change much throughout. The melody of Brother however is much more similar to a folk rock song. It is much faster and more intense than the Foxglove melody, while maintaining a rigid structure.
The musical quality for each song has some similar characteristics. Both songs have the cello at the forefront, and with both songs the cello is constantly changing its playing style going from arco to pizzicato and staccato to legato. The bass in both songs serves a similar purpose as well, it mostly stays in the background playing the cord structure while keeping the rhythm. Foxglove has a much slower rhythm while Brother is much faster. The intensity of Foxglove is also much lower than Brother.
I like Brother better because it has a better melody and I enjoy the lyrics more. I also enjoy the playing techniques that the cello utilizes to get the sound they do. I also like Brother more because of the faster rhythm and melody, while Foxglove is much more mellow.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Blog Assignment 4
I enjoy the sound design from this scene in Zombieland. I enjoy it because it clearly sets up the listener with semantic listening to prepare them when zombies jump out at multiple times in the scene. The scene also uses referential listening when he is first in the car, as the score cuts out and only the car radio can be heard. Speed and loudness were also used well. When there wasn't any imminent threat, or when Columbus thought a threat had passed then only soft background strings would play. As soon as there was danger the music would move much faster and become much louder. It also made use of habituation as when the music was intense the actor was doing something strenuous or intense. Another reason I like this scene is that the sound itself seems to break the fourth wall a bit. When the rules would appear animated on screen they often came with a little sound effect announcing them or drawing attention to them. I also thought the idea of the zombie running into the rule and making a sound was a creative move.
Blog Assignment 3
Part 1
Acknowledging the Lizard means accepting the fact that your brain is telling you not to take the risks needed to succeed, but if you acknowledge that it's there you can look past it. Make Art tells the reader that whatever they do it will most likely involve an element of risk, but that's okay because risk is a good thing. Fail says that you will fail, and that when you do you must do it with grace.
Part 2
The layers stated here are connected to the blog that I am creating this quarter, however I think that there are much better ways to have the students experience the lessons taught in these layers than having them post in a blog where they most likely don't even care about what they are publishing. There are two reasons why I believe the layers could be better taught through other methods.
The first is that not many students would actually care what they put up on here. These assignments are just that, assignments. And I don't think that most of the people participating in this class really put too much of their creative talents towards making these blog posts. Most will start a few hours before the due date and then just rush through without any actual thought as to the quality. Eric himself told us in class that "if you do the blog you'll get the grade". If we actually want to learn the lessons from these layers then we need to do something that we actually care about, and that leads into the next argument.
Not many people care about what they put on the blog for another reason, NO ONE WILL SEE IT. This blog is not a public venue to receive criticism, or even a presentation to the small disinterested lab groups, it's a blog linked through a side bar of our TA's blog that the TA will just look at for the word count before giving the grade. People don't care about their work if they know no one will see it. Even the class presentations cause people to put some aspect of thought into their work (usually) that just wouldn't be present in these blog assignments. To learn these lessons we actually have to experience them though being judged on our work in relation to them. To learn to ignore the lizard, we actually have to experience ignoring it, and to experience failure we might have to present a failure to a lab group.
But the lab group leads into another issue that we actually have to have people tell us if our ideas or good or not. Having a class of kids, on Facebook, tell you something is good is not going to help people grow as creators. People need to hear that their ideas sucked and they sucked for these reasons. Nothing would make me happier than someone in class raising their hand and saying "I thought it was too X" or "It felt like a rehash of X". Creators need honest feedback, which is just something not present in these exercises.
To solve this we need just two things. Make us show ideas or projects to groups of people, and make those people tell us why our ideas are bad. I think that would make us grow much more effectively than an unread blog.
Thank you for not-reading.
Acknowledging the Lizard means accepting the fact that your brain is telling you not to take the risks needed to succeed, but if you acknowledge that it's there you can look past it. Make Art tells the reader that whatever they do it will most likely involve an element of risk, but that's okay because risk is a good thing. Fail says that you will fail, and that when you do you must do it with grace.
Part 2
The layers stated here are connected to the blog that I am creating this quarter, however I think that there are much better ways to have the students experience the lessons taught in these layers than having them post in a blog where they most likely don't even care about what they are publishing. There are two reasons why I believe the layers could be better taught through other methods.
The first is that not many students would actually care what they put up on here. These assignments are just that, assignments. And I don't think that most of the people participating in this class really put too much of their creative talents towards making these blog posts. Most will start a few hours before the due date and then just rush through without any actual thought as to the quality. Eric himself told us in class that "if you do the blog you'll get the grade". If we actually want to learn the lessons from these layers then we need to do something that we actually care about, and that leads into the next argument.
Not many people care about what they put on the blog for another reason, NO ONE WILL SEE IT. This blog is not a public venue to receive criticism, or even a presentation to the small disinterested lab groups, it's a blog linked through a side bar of our TA's blog that the TA will just look at for the word count before giving the grade. People don't care about their work if they know no one will see it. Even the class presentations cause people to put some aspect of thought into their work (usually) that just wouldn't be present in these blog assignments. To learn these lessons we actually have to experience them though being judged on our work in relation to them. To learn to ignore the lizard, we actually have to experience ignoring it, and to experience failure we might have to present a failure to a lab group.
But the lab group leads into another issue that we actually have to have people tell us if our ideas or good or not. Having a class of kids, on Facebook, tell you something is good is not going to help people grow as creators. People need to hear that their ideas sucked and they sucked for these reasons. Nothing would make me happier than someone in class raising their hand and saying "I thought it was too X" or "It felt like a rehash of X". Creators need honest feedback, which is just something not present in these exercises.
To solve this we need just two things. Make us show ideas or projects to groups of people, and make those people tell us why our ideas are bad. I think that would make us grow much more effectively than an unread blog.
Thank you for not-reading.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Blog Assignment 2
The story of Mumon the wolf is one of finding yourself. In the story a wolf raised in captivity is dropped into the wild and has to find his howl and instincts in order to survive. Mumon experiences the freedom of the wilds and finds that finding his howl would be the hardest thing he'd ever do, but would be worth it. What Flaum is trying to say with that story is that finding yourself will be the hardest thing you will ever do, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
The story reminds me of a favorite quote of mine.
If there was any quote that speaks to me as a creative person, it is this quote from Ira Glass. Before reading this quote I had come to a realization, and I knew for certain that working in media was what I really wanted to do with my life. It hit me quickly, like I had leaned too far back in my chair and felt that rush of adrenaline as my brain screamed at me that I was going to die, but instead of oncoming doom I felt happier, and more certain, than I had ever been in my life. It was a great feeling, and I walked around in a haze of excitement for days. Then came a second realization. This one wasn't like the first. The first hit me hard and fast, but this one creeped up on me slowly and gradually. It felt like I had been driving to something really important, and I was halfway there. As I was thinking about where I was going I thought about what I had to bring there, and as slowly as possible it dawned on me that I had left something really important at home. It was too late to go back, and I wouldn't be able to get where I was driving without it. Well where I was driving was my life's dream, and what I had forgotten was the skills needed to achieve it. Oops.
For years I was really uncertain about what i wanted to do with my life. I knew I didn't want to end up like most people in the working world. I knew I couldn't do the schedule where you wake up, go to your job, pretend like you truly care about what your work in that cubicle is doing for people, go home, tell yourself you're completely satisfied with your life and that the size of your house shows just how happy you are, go to sleep knowing that trading in your dreams for financial security was worth it in the end, and then repeat for 50 years. I can't even hold a torch to those acting skills. Realization number one put away the fear of living that sort of life, when I realized that I wanted to be a story teller. Realization two brought back that fear ten-fold.
The second realization was that I was old, 18 and growing older, and that there have been kids working towards this goal since they wrote their first masterpiece in crayon. Looking at comics and other such free things on the internet made me see what was out there already. Thirteen-year-olds were putting skillful paintings on the web, fourteen-year-olds were making entire remix CD's out of whatever album struck their interest at the time, and fifteen-year-olds were publishing entire comic books of their own design online. Everything that I wrote made me want to burn the notebook after reading it again. When I was ten I discovered the joys of Halo (Xbox), when these kids were ten they were already getting lessons like they were going to be the next C.S. Lewis or Walt Disney. I was a good 15 years behind everyone else, and for the life of me I couldn't see how anything could make up for what I now saw as a wasted life.
Despondent, I turned to the only thing that could cure my sadness, randomly stumbling around the internet like a drunk in high heels. After clicking Stumble, a tool that takes you to websites based on your interests, for what seemed like a few thousand times, I came to this quote. I read it over and over again. I digested it for a while, and I came to a third realization. I hadn't wasted my years; I had been studying my whole life on what made a good story. I knew what separated LOTR from Alvin and the Chipmunks, what made the cartoon of Avatar: the Last Airbender so enjoyable while the movie was crap, and most importantly I saw what made Narnia inspiring while Twilight makes me want to light things on fire. This quote spoke to me, and it said that as long as I work my ass off I can do whatever I want.
A lot of paths guarantee a form of success if you're willing to work. Mine doesn't even offer that. But I know as long as I stay on the road, what's at the end is worth it.
The story reminds me of a favorite quote of mine.
If there was any quote that speaks to me as a creative person, it is this quote from Ira Glass. Before reading this quote I had come to a realization, and I knew for certain that working in media was what I really wanted to do with my life. It hit me quickly, like I had leaned too far back in my chair and felt that rush of adrenaline as my brain screamed at me that I was going to die, but instead of oncoming doom I felt happier, and more certain, than I had ever been in my life. It was a great feeling, and I walked around in a haze of excitement for days. Then came a second realization. This one wasn't like the first. The first hit me hard and fast, but this one creeped up on me slowly and gradually. It felt like I had been driving to something really important, and I was halfway there. As I was thinking about where I was going I thought about what I had to bring there, and as slowly as possible it dawned on me that I had left something really important at home. It was too late to go back, and I wouldn't be able to get where I was driving without it. Well where I was driving was my life's dream, and what I had forgotten was the skills needed to achieve it. Oops.
For years I was really uncertain about what i wanted to do with my life. I knew I didn't want to end up like most people in the working world. I knew I couldn't do the schedule where you wake up, go to your job, pretend like you truly care about what your work in that cubicle is doing for people, go home, tell yourself you're completely satisfied with your life and that the size of your house shows just how happy you are, go to sleep knowing that trading in your dreams for financial security was worth it in the end, and then repeat for 50 years. I can't even hold a torch to those acting skills. Realization number one put away the fear of living that sort of life, when I realized that I wanted to be a story teller. Realization two brought back that fear ten-fold.
The second realization was that I was old, 18 and growing older, and that there have been kids working towards this goal since they wrote their first masterpiece in crayon. Looking at comics and other such free things on the internet made me see what was out there already. Thirteen-year-olds were putting skillful paintings on the web, fourteen-year-olds were making entire remix CD's out of whatever album struck their interest at the time, and fifteen-year-olds were publishing entire comic books of their own design online. Everything that I wrote made me want to burn the notebook after reading it again. When I was ten I discovered the joys of Halo (Xbox), when these kids were ten they were already getting lessons like they were going to be the next C.S. Lewis or Walt Disney. I was a good 15 years behind everyone else, and for the life of me I couldn't see how anything could make up for what I now saw as a wasted life.
Despondent, I turned to the only thing that could cure my sadness, randomly stumbling around the internet like a drunk in high heels. After clicking Stumble, a tool that takes you to websites based on your interests, for what seemed like a few thousand times, I came to this quote. I read it over and over again. I digested it for a while, and I came to a third realization. I hadn't wasted my years; I had been studying my whole life on what made a good story. I knew what separated LOTR from Alvin and the Chipmunks, what made the cartoon of Avatar: the Last Airbender so enjoyable while the movie was crap, and most importantly I saw what made Narnia inspiring while Twilight makes me want to light things on fire. This quote spoke to me, and it said that as long as I work my ass off I can do whatever I want.
A lot of paths guarantee a form of success if you're willing to work. Mine doesn't even offer that. But I know as long as I stay on the road, what's at the end is worth it.
Blog Assignment 1
June Sturgis- Hero
Image 1-Color
Image 1-Color
I chose this to represent color for June because it represents both her worldview and her family heritage. The grays indicate how she sees the world, that there are many different interpretations to actions. She doesn't believe that there is a fixed good or evil in the world, rather she believes that what some interpret as good can be interpreted by others as evil and vice-versa. Gray is also the primary color of her patched-together armor. The gold represents her eye color, which is a sign of her family heritage.
Image 2- Shape
For shape I chose the bastard sword, as I believe it best represents both what she does and what her personality is like. The bastard sword is June's primary weapon, although her sword is forged to be purposefully blunt. She received only basic training with it thus far so while she is able to wield it with some degree of skill she is by no means a master. It shows her personality because her first response to any problem is to hit it until it goes away. Often the hitting involves her blunt sword very much like this one.
Image 3- Light
I chose this image to represent June with light as I believe it shows what her focus and goals are, as well as how she handles internal conflicts. The image above shows a lit world with not much attention being paid to the person. This is how June experiences the world, she is often concerned only with what there is to see and doesn't pay much heed to what's going on inside her head. It also shows how she sees the world, as an overall good place that she just wants to go out and see for herself.
That Old Man Who Won't Tell Anyone His Name- Villain
Image 1- Color
To represent color for the villain I chose this black and white picture of scales. I chose this picture as I believe it represents his general world view, on just about everything from the nature of people, to the actions of a society as a whole. The villain believes that there are two absolutes in the world; that good people will do good, and that evil people will do evil. For him there is really no in-between and he judges everyone very harshly for their actions. Individuals are not the only things he views two dimensionally, as he believes societies are either good or evil as well.
Image 2- Shape
For shape for the villain I chose the picture of a broken shield. This represents both what he is doing, and what he is trying to do. The shield represents the fact that he is just trying to do what is right. He is trying to go around the world righting wrongs, and trying to help the people he feels society has forgotten about. The fact that it's broken shows what he is actually accomplishing. Due to his extreme views on morality many of the people he punishes or tries to capture are often petty criminals or innocent, although every now and then he does successfully get rid of bad people.
Image 3- Light
For the light representing the villain I chose this simple spotlight. It shows his own views on what he is doing, and shows how he views the world around him. The spotlight that he places himself in means that he always thinks that he is right, no matter what. His morality and views on justice are the only opinion he will accept, and he just about ignores any arguments to convince him otherwise. It also shows how while in the spotlight he actually isn't able to see the world around him that well. This means that he normally doesn't realize what's actually happening in the world as he tries to protect people.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Here Be A Post
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