Dystopian Trailer

Equilibrium. Kurt Wimmer. R. 2002.

In an emotionless society, heavily oppressed by the government, authority figures are resposible for destroying anyone showing any sign of emotion. This lifestyle is fueled by the daily dose of Prozium, a drug that suppresses emotion, and when government agent John Preston (Christian Bale) misses a dose, he becomes aware of his situation and realizes he is the only one that can change it.

The trailer for Equilibrium is proven to be exemplary of a dystopian society through the use of violence, suspense, climatic music and excellent editing techniques. This trailer focuses mainly on the climactic points of the film; the confrontations and the action sequences which assist in highlighting the clear dystopia. The sequences edited together using advanced techniques and high quality shots emphasize the intense action taking place on screen, as the trailer begins with shots of the dystopia and leads up to the actual action sequences. 

The film shots, including advanced techniques such as reverting from close ups to motion shots, etc, emphasize the importance and intensity of Bale's rebellion against the government. Text is also used in this trailer to highlight the different signs of a dystopia, including nostalgic phrases that remind the audience of a "better time", such as, "freedom is a thing of the past".

As for my own dystopian trailer, I plan on using the same kinds of shots, such as the motion shots that portray just how intense and suspenseful the climatic moments of the film are. I also plan on using text to illustrate the key messages intended for the audience, as it was successful in this trailer in creating sympathy from the audience. I also plan to include suspenseful music in my trailer, that will tie everything together. 

5x5 Challenge Thing.

Clip 1: Bananas being cut up for the smoothie. I used a regular, yellow banana. 

Clip 2: An apple being cored, using an old and sometimes violent apple core-er. The juice sprayed everywhere and hit my eyeball.

Clip 3: The putting of fruit into a blender.

Clip 4: The blending of the fruits in the blender.

Clip 5: The pouring of the smoothie into a glass. Which was then drank by my little sister.

I created my 5x5 video with my iPhone 4, which has an 8 megapixel camera. It's not great quality, but it's pretty decent, and it does the job. I edited my clips using iMovie, which is already on my Mac. It was pretty simple, I just imported the clips into iPhoto, dragged them into iMovie and voilá. There she blows. I think it turned out pretty good, it was fun to cut up fruit and make it into art. I don't really have any ideas for more independent video projects, but I'm sure my fellow Cappers will have lovely contributions to the group. Actually we could pick a random, individual topic and make a video about what that topic means to us. It'll give us a chance to express ourselves, and show people kind of what we like to do/how we are in that environment. 

Learning Styles: Social Media

The article I read discussed the importance of technological use in the classroom, and allowing students to communicate on various networking sites as a way to express themselves, and explore their interests in an educational way. Will Richardson quotes, "These are allowing us not only to mine the wisdom and experiences of the more than one billion people now online but also to connect with them to further our understanding of the global experience and do good work together." I think this quote really reflects how important it is, and how effective it could be if more technology and social media sites were used in the classroom. They allow students to be able to work together, give each other feedback, comments, etc. and communicate while at the same time exploring their interests and learning new things. 

I was surprised at the intensity and passion that came through in this piece, Richardson clearly strongly believes that technology and social sites should be a part of the school system, and that they're the most effective way for students to express themselves, and explore their passions. I think this could be useful in our class, as we use blogger already to express ourselves and at the same time, learn about cinematography. The idea also relates to our Youtube sharing, which gives us a chance to share our work with the outside world, and get feedback from people other than our teacher and peers. 

I'm interested in exploring different kinds of cinematography, and how to edit videos to make them really high quality, and nice to watch. My favorite kinds of videos are videos that are high quality, nicely edited and overall professional looking, so I think it'd be interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes of impressive videos like that, and maybe make one.

Annotated Article

Movie Reviews: Ted.

The movie review I read was one that, in the end, I really just didn't agree with. It was called, "The Lady or the Teddy?" and it was written by A. O. Scott of the NY Times. It was very opinionated, and didn't really address much of the plot or the acting, and completely left out the cinematography. The whole thing had a pretty negative tone, and having seen the movie myself, I feel like it should've been given a little more credit.

It basically just takes shot after shot at the humor, the plot and the "lack of originality" of "Ted" throughout the entire 655 word article, which is honestly just a waste of time. It wasn't even informative. Usually I don't rant about random things like this but honestly it was kinda ridiculous. I don't really know what triggered this apparent hatred for Seth MacFarlane, because I think he's hilarious. But whatever. I guess everyone has their own opinion.

For the quarterly movie reviews, we should be able to watch any film we want to, but the type (like documentary, different genres, silent film, etc.) should be assigned. Then the criteria should just be to talk about what you thought of the movie, and include all the different elements. That'd be interesting, and a lot more fun to write since it's not so structured, and we're more free to voice opinions.

That's just my take.

Thanks.

Annotated Review

My Life & Stuff.

Hey. I'm Harper. I'm 15, I'm a sophomore at Blair. I have 30 candles because I collect them all the days. I don't take myself too seriously because life's not fun that way. I have a 5 month old golden retriever puppy, and I love him more than life. That's why I chose a puppy as my picture. I babysit, and act onstage, and sing sometimes. Not that well though. This blog is for school/cap/media class. That's why I made it. But like. Probably other stuff will end up on here too.

My favorite part of filmmaking is performing, but I also like filming. I like acting, and being silly, and capturing fun moments on camera. I like actual filmmaking too. Especially with nice cameras that cost more than my house, because the videos are pretty and I like watching them.

I haven't actually done that many film projects, but I'm excited to make some this year. I want to actually film something. And go through the process of editing, and seeing the final product and knowing I accomplished something.

I think there's a lot of ways we can use our blogs this year. We can use them to communicate and socialize with our teacher, and each other. We can share ideas and information, and use them to work together on different projects. Change project groups can look at each others blogs for inspiration, and ideas.