Fireside Chat

It took a while for me to figure out what I wanted to do for this assignment.  The assignment description was so wide open that it was difficult to narrow my list of ideas to one that I actually wanted to do.  To me it the Fireside Chat seemed similar to the remix assignment in that we were supposed to choose something about ourselves, a physical trait, a belief, a personality trait or something like that and explore that.  However, the fireside added an aspect of performance that just didn’t exist in the remix and I think this performance added a lot to the assignment.

Since I couldn’t actually decide what what I wanted to talk about I decided to make something that I knew I could use as a media example first.  I had seen many times before the videos on Youtube of sped-up Photoshop projects and thought that it was something that I could do and had always wanted to try.  To do this, I took an old photo of myself and altered it as I had done once before to make it into a Na’vi alien from the film Avatar.  I recorded the process of this using the screen recording function of Quicktime.  I then sped it up in iMovie and added soft music to it that I thought sounded like a song that was gradually building to fit the visuals.  I now had a piece that I could use to inspire me to wit rite the words that I would speak.

After having created this Photoshop video piece, I thought of how much different I looked at the end and thought of this in the sense of life.  By that time I had read Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” which told stories about the authors childhood or earlier life.  While reading this piece, I started thinking of stories that I could talk about for this assignment.  I then began to think of myself when I was little because I used to try to change my appearance all the time with clothes and hair products and by other means; but now I don’t do things like that because I’ve learned and grown over the years to understand myself and the things about myself that I might not have been okay with before.  This was something I felt was a good experience and belief that I could share and one that I wish everyone would know.

I crafted my performance to match the video that would be playing while I talked.  I didn’t want to be extremely formal in my speaking but I didn’t want to be too colloquial either.  I tried to aim for somewhere right in the middle.  As I was telling the stories about me trying to change my appearance, the Photoshop video behind me was making big changes to my picture.  At the end when I was getting to the more gooey part of the chat, I flipped from the completely Na’vi-ed me to the actual me to represent the coming to terms with oneself that I was talking about.  It seemed to be somewhat symbolic to me and it went rather smoothly.

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Concerned Citizen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYHggsb9tJM

This project was the most frustrating so far.  Firstly, it was pretty tough to think of something that both of us wanted to do.  We both had different ideas that we thought would be worth pursuing but it was tough to reconcile these differences at the beginning.  However, once we really began to look more closely at the ideas we settled on the idea of a look at a volunteer at the Humane Society.  I felt this would be something a little different as most people think of helping in their community as helping people.  The Humane Society helps both people and animals by finding homes for orphaned animals and helping a family find a new member.

Something from the reading by Goldbard that really stuck with me was “We understand that anyone who wishes to make significant headway on a social problem or opportunity must engage with people’s feelings and attitudes about it.”  When I read this, I thought of Sarah Mchlachlan singing “Arms of the Angel” over the faces of the injured and sad-looking animals.  The ASPCA wants to make significant headway in solving a problem so they are engaging with the emotions of the people. This is one of the reasons I thought of shooting at the Humane Society.  Though this was an inspiration, I wanted to show more of the good sides of being at the Humane Society.  I wanted to tell people about the good things that can come of it instead of just the sad because that is usually all people hear.  Also, I helped organize pet food drives in my hometown and I had always thought about volunteering but could never get myself to do it.  I really wanted to hear what inspired others to do it and why they continued to do it. 

Secondly, the process for this project was rather hectic.  I first began calling different animal shelters in the area to set aside a time for me to come in with a camera and talk to someone who volunteered with the animals.  However, many shelters told me that I could not get footage of the animals or that they did not have time for me to come in.  In order to get the footage I had to drive to Murray on Sunday and just walk in a talk to someone.  Once I did that, I was golden until I realized that the mic equipment I had rented didn’t work and I only had an hour to get all my footage.  This presented a problem to get good sound on the interview and I kind of had to rush everything to get through it in time.  

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Protest Poster

Hopefully, the above picture is clear enough to communicate my position on a topic.  If not, I believe that government should not be involved in the marriages of the people.  I believe that requiring a marriage license is unconstitutional since it is a private agreement between people.  Now that you know my stance on the issue, maybe you should go look back at the poster to really get it.  

Did you look?  Good.  Or bad if you said no.  Alright.  So now that you get it, this is a perspective that is rather old but one that many people do not consider in the present day because most are too worried about the legality of gay marriage.  During the numerous gay marriage debates that have occurred I had often wondered if there was a solution that could satisfy both parties and this is the only one that I see as viable. I began to think that laws didn’t seem to fix questions of morality , it was talked of by some candidates for the republican primary like Gary Johnson and Ron Paul.  I found it to be a thought-provoking idea that I had not really thought of before so I did research on the history of marriage licenses and I have become very interested in this issue.  Ron Paul wrote about this idea of separation in his book Liberty Defined.  He talks about marriage being a religious or private institution so there should be a separation from the government.  There are news stories and articles that I’ve found on the internet that also support this.  John Fund’s article in the National Review titled “Why Not Separate Marriage and State?” talks about how this idea would end some of the social warfare having to do with marriage rights.  This is one of the main reasons I support the idea. 

I went to my old reliable Photoshop to create this project.  I actually got the idea of using a wedding topper from images I saw supporting gay marriage.  Many of them had two men or two women as the toppers and they became very iconic so I wanted to use this type universal icon in my poster.  The color scheme is obviously just the same as the color scheme of the  American flag.  This I did because in my experience people seem to accept something easier when it is seen as patriotic.  The decay I added to the poster is something that is just reminiscent of old propaganda and protest posters I’ve seen so I decided to add that in.  The wording I used was intended to be somewhat clever, hopefully it came out that way. I liked the psycho shower scene poster we saw so I wanted to use few words that would be topical but somewhat witty as well.

After posting it on Facebook I got quite a few comments with a number of them being from me as I was having a discussion with our very own Seth Owens.  I was hoping for more feedback from people who were not involved on this project in class because I wanted to know an outsider’s perspective.  Though some people did comment and say they liked it or disagreed it would have been nice to get more participation.  I think if I would’ve timed it better I could’ve gotten better results.

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Webspinna Reflection

This was probably the most challenging assignment we've had this whole semester.  It was something that we are just not used to.  Each assignment we've had before is something that we present after it is is finished.  We are able to make it look how we want and show the rest of the class a finished product.  The Webspinna was just the opposite.  We were showing people the creation of the product.  The product wasn't the important part.  It was the creation of it that was important.  I have to admit that it was a very frustrating project just because I was pretty unsure what I was going to do and I didn’t know exactly what my partner would come up with either.  

To start this assignment, Brandon and I first had to come up with personalities that we could use to inspire the sounds that we would use for the Webspinna battle.  After watching the fire and ice example in class I first thought of dark and light.  They are polar opposites that are general enough to allow for a lot of different soundbites and songs to be used in the battle.  Once we had the different identities to use, we both did separate research to find pieces to use.  It was tough to get much time to practice together and work out our sequence because we were both quite busy.  We were able to work out a few things like the sequence of our songs but we wanted to leave a little bit to simply be improvised.  This is why we left out the soundbites and quotes in our practice.  I thought that this would really be in the spirit of the assignment as it is very nearly an improvisational art form.

Inspiration for this assignment came from a lot of different places because everything I used in the project was used for inspiration.  Harry Potter was a big influence because of the use of the name the Dark Lord for the villain Voldemort.  Star Wars was also very influential because of the existence of the dark side in the series.  The reading we read by DJ Spooky was very interesting in its progression as it didn’t have a clear beginning, middle and end.  Brandon and I didn’t want to be this ambiguous with our project so we decided to start with something that would introduce both personalities and to end with a soundbite that would act as a good closer.  We also wanted some parts to be able to flow together better than other parts that cut together just to experiment with the different feel in the sequence.  I found this project to be a teaching project.  I found that I had to let go of control and be comfortable with it which is something that people wanting to be filmmakers don’t want to do.  I just wish there was more time to really get a more concrete identity to portray and to practice more in order to create a better battle.

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Webspinna of Darkness!!!

Thriller

Embrace The Darkness

My Songs Know What You Did

Darth Vader

Killswitch

Dark Lord Shall Rise

Voldemort Scroll down to Going to Kill you

Better with the Lights Off

Star Wars

Sith Lord

Excorcism Song

Grudge

Golem

Not Nearly Frightened Enough

Learn the Dark Side

No Mercy

Halloween

I Love the Dark

Saruman - Oppose Us

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Wizarding World

"What if we were all wizards?", the fact that wizardry has already been popularly covered in recent years due to the success of the Harry Potter series, we really wanted to put our own spin on it. In Harry Potter the world was divided between muggles (non-wizards) and wizards, this would become the defining difference in our world, we are "all wizards". So there is separation, magic thus would be the norm in such a world. We looked at it historically first, this is when we realized that if everyone were a wizard and had access to magic, the need for technological advancement would be null and void. Who needs a car or airplane when one can simply fly, walk through walls and in theory teleport. In reality a magical world would seem to not need to advance their architectures or anything. When thinking about this we realized that this would also likely have an effect on style, aka fashion.

So the traditionalist would probably look something like Gandalf or Arwen from the Lord of the Rings, having lived thousands of years they know what they like, (kinda like our grandparents). However the younger generation would want to have their own styles as well, to kind of set themselves apart. Though they would still opt for the traditional hat and cape, they definitely would streamline them for comfort, such as these hip tights. On top of that, similar to the smartphone wielders of our world these young wizards would opt for a sleek portable solution aka wands, as opposed to the archaic staffs carried by the aged wizards of old.

We also asked ourselves what kind of social issues would the wizards face. We discussed some of the social issues we face in our world, one that's on the tip of everyones tongue is gun control. What if the 'Ministry of Magic' were to try and restrict wands as a measure to keep people safe? Then the people would need a protector so we unanimously agreed that the "NWA" (National Wand Association) would need to be formed to protect 'the right to bear wands'.

Like any good world sports must exist, otherwise what would the wizard men do on Sunday nights? So we discussed some entertainment opportunities, and came to the conclusion that everyone loves watching bull riders get thrown. So we decided in a wizard world we would up the anty a little. Imagine if being thrown included the risk of being burnt to a crisp and eaten...yeah I bet you would watch that. Thus Professional Dragon Riding came to be.

Obviously no entertainment medium would be complete with out some ad-placement to help break up the action. You would see ads like this...

We couldn't imagine a world without Denny's so we left it in.

In the reading it talked about swapping fact and fiction. This was very helpful for us because we already know what a real world looks like, we simply swapped things that are familiar to us make this imaginary world seem like a realistic option for wizards everywhere. We were inspired by fantasy stories such as The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Final Fantasy, Eragon the NRA and Denny's.

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Textual Poaching

This assignment was rather confusing for me.  At first, I really didn’t know how I should identify myself.  I thought of myself as an American, a libertarian, a man,  a Californian, and a few other ideas that I just didn’t feel were very apt at describing me.  I finally got my inspiration for this project when I was drying my hair one morning.  I now had a starting point.  Even so, I wasn’t really sure what to do with this as my identity.  I have red hair.  So what?  

One night I was watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and I noticed something about one of the main characters.  Ron Weasley is always the joke.  It’s funny to see him puke up slugs and have a broken wand.  He gets into these laughable situations because of his short fuse.  More recently, Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel depicts Clark Kent’s mean childhood bully as a redhead who grows up to be a dorky and rather unattractive worker at IHOP.  Both of these examples show redheads as hotheaded, quick-tempered, tools used for comic relief.  This use of redheads as jokes has been catching on a lot more in recent years but the short fuse of redheads has been a long standing stereotype. In Anne of Green Gables,  the redheaded protagonist is described as “having a temper to match her hair.” and in Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield says “People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily.”

To accomplish this project I knew I wanted to take a painting or picture of a famous redhead and alter it similar to the examples of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Queen.  One of the first people to come to mind was Van Gogh.  I thought it was pretty well known that he was a redhead but just in case I decided to take his self portrait and bump up the gingerness a little.  After I had my original image, I had to think of a way to show Van Gogh, a rather serious and melancholy person, in a more silly, comical light  Using Photoshop I was able to give Van Gogh a pair of Groucho Marx gag glasses to represent the silly joke that redheads have become in the media.  To represent the ill-tempered stereotype, I reddened the face a bit, scrunched the brows down and put a little bit of smoke coming from the ears, also working as a comic effect. 

It is interesting that media has shown redheads this way when I have never identified myself the same.  I’ve never been someone who gets mad very quickly and when I do get mad, it is often quelled pretty quickly.  I don’t see myself as the silly one to laugh at though I do tend to make people laugh a lot.  The way redheads are portrayed in the media is just not very accurate.  It seems that most have an average temper and I don’t think we like being the tail end of every joke.  Van Gogh’s self portrait is just him.  Nothing very evocative or crazy about the portrait and that is how I think of myself.  Nothing too weird or silly about me.  Just another person with red hair.

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