Dark Days response

This documentary was very good. It had an edgy feel to it and brought me into a world I had no idea about. Everything the director did from shot choices, color, audio and plot were very well thought out and super effective in bringing so many emotions from the audience and making the audience think about their own lives in perspective. This documentary showed us the life of homeless people in New York, but the director chose to speak of a certain group in an old tunnel. It helped the audience build a relationship with these people by only focusing on these few people, which helps play on the people's emotions.
First thing that caught my eye was the choice to make the entire film in black and white with poor quality.When I checked the date, it was 2000 so I figured the director chose this on purpose to make it feel a bit darker and sadder of a film. It also goes with the theme of poor people, having a bad quality of video. Even if it was hard to see in the darker scenes, it turned out well.
The director also chose specific scenes throughout that were very important to his meaning. The most memorable for me was the two men digging through the garbage and finding food to eat. They were literally eating it right out of the bags. It then immediately shoots over to two rats finding food in a discarded bottle and eating it. It was showing how low their quality of life was. Another scene that was powerful was when the woman cried over her children dying, but then went straight to smoking crack a numerous amount of times. It's just powerful things to see like that.
The scene orders overall was also very well done. He made a story line out of it. It helps play on the audiences emotions to see these people go on a full journey and not just see them go through a bad time. It starts with them introduced. Then, it is no way happy, but a bit more upbeat feeling when you see how they are managing to survive, like the one man making $70 on a weekend, and when you see they can eat and have homes. While still less than our standards, they still seem proud of making it by. Then tragedy strikes them and makes it seem depressing, first with the fire, then their own personal stories of jail and their families and finally their eviction. But at the end the director brings us straight up by showing them with apartments, food and excitement for what the future holds. The director's emotional journey really makes the documentary.
A few things I have taken away from this that I will try to use will be the use of different emotions, a story line, and frequent examples, like all the people he used with all their own personal touch to the topic. This will go along with how important sound, specific scenes power, and effects like fading out and having someone talk off screen. It was a good example to learn from.

3 ideas

1. How big is social networking in your life?
2. Why do people use twitter?
3. What makes up people's social identity?

video remix

Video games article response

     Within this article, the author speaks highly of the art of video games. He speaks of the world of sounds in video games, like the original games incorporating appropriate sounds for certain objects. He also talks about how this use of audio has grown over the years and how he hates it. He dislikes how video game editors use audio for commentary in games to script the storyboard around. The author seems to like this free world that you can control idea behind video games better than a puzzle with key concepts you have to look out for and listen for, telling you how to play. These ideas summed up the author view as stop thinking, and start rocking.
      This made me think and I do believe video games are art. They are inspirations of creativity that is unique to one person's mind. This creativity and this ability to dictate every part about a video game does make video games a better story teller than an oral presentation, literature, or film. The reason being an unlimited realm of ideas. The designer can make the game however he wants and he can grant the player as much control of the story he wants to be in as the designer wants. If the designer wishes to be more like a film with a strict story line you must follow, he can. More importantly, if the designer wants to make the player in control of the story he sees, he can do that, too. That was one of the points the author made: video game with little dictation make for better stories. I know from my experiences, playing a game with multiple endings is a lot more fun than one with a strict scenario.
     Another great thing, that other forms of story telling can't do, is the fact that your graphic designer is the limit of what your image will look like on the screen. You have free range of making whatever you please as long as your software can make it. You do not have to worry about how real it looks, like in films. Just bring your image to the screen and let the story continue with your idea. It is amazing to see what they come up with. I know I enjoy seeing what the designer thought of for things like landscapes, characters and plot twists.
     I think the most effective part of this form of story telling is the fact that the player is able to experience the story in a way. By playing the game, you are living the story with all the sights and feelings as the character would have (except for something like pain or extreme emotions). You are in control of the game and so you are the one experiencing the story. In other forms of story telling, you hear about other people's experiences. In a game, you complete these experiences. It's your life in a nerdy kind of way.
     It is weird thinking about this idea. While I wrote this whole essay, I though about what it was that I liked playing video games. I just kept thinking about my experience playing mortal kombat.

storyboard

This will be my first picture of me on one of my first Christmases in New Jersey. It shows how young I was there and shows how at home and how long I was in New Jersey. 

I use this because it will come on when I say I got the news about moving. It is a lonely box and shows where I am at. 

This was me during my first couple days at schools. I was just on my own listening to my mp3 player. Staying in my own zone. This shows my loner status. 

How I felt when I was on my own. I would be alone after school and this is sad and lonely.

This is the universal picture for Facebook. I am using this for the picture for when I discover the solution of Facebook. It is good because it had the word connect right on there.

This was one of my first friends when I moved here. I talked to her a lot through Facebook and eventually became very close with her. It shows me when I was younger starting to branch out. 

This is one of my closest friends from New Jersey. We met up again a year ago. We kept in touch from Facebook and it helped us plan out meeting up when I went back. 

This shows me and all my new friends here. It is important because I am smiling in the picture. It shows my happiness here

This one is of me at a huge party set up through Facebook. I am smiling and it shows me involved with all my friends, doing what they are doing, and also looking like them.

This last one is of my girlfriend and I happily together. It is the most important relationship I made here.

My song will be 21 guns by green day. It is the instrumental and will play until the part where I start making friends from Facebook. The next song is Clocks by Coldplay. It is a bit more upbeat and exciting because it is an exciting part for me.

song choices

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I chose this because of the guitar and the pace. It is not to exciting but it is nice and steady. Then, it gets a little bit louder with more instruments which is good for the turning point in my speech.

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This second one is good for the ending because it gives it a summed up feeling and is up beat. It all works well with the guitar from the first part.

My video I choose to analyze was Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. Like I said in my last blog post, this song was about his want to escape the stresses of his life and go to a place where he could be at peace, but the rockstar life keeps pulling him back in.

This first image, he is completely out of his mind due to excessive use of drugs. His manager barges in with a medical crew trying to get him conscious again so he can perform right now. This scene is dark and hectic with the visual of the people not wanting him to be "happy" in his world, but back in reality. The room is also trashed in the background making it seem just overall gloomy. 

Now, in his reality world, the sun is out, he is free in an empty field and he is an innocent young boy again. This world gives off the feeling of peace and bliss. With the sunset in the background, it gives it a warming feeling to. It has exact opposites to the dark and gloomy room from the world he is trying to escape. 

He now finds a rat in this scene. The rat is the directors way of representing what the state of the two worlds truly is from his paradise. Here, he takes the rat home and cares for it. He looks concerned and has the true innocence and ignorance of a child. He does not realize what diseases he can get from handling a stray and sick rat. 

Now the director flashes back to the real world where he is desperately being worked on. Everyone has their hands on him and are slapping him awake. They put a air machine on him to get him oxygen and this is the beginning of the doctors waking him up and bringing him back. 

As the doctors save his life in the real world, his paradise begins to fall apart. His childhood persona gets sick and is scared. He is forced to lay in bed. The doctor is yelling at his mom. Most dramatically, the room is dark, instead of bright and feeling happy. His paradise is catching up to his reality as he is awakening. 

Once he is conscious, Everyone leaves in a dusty fog, like a war fighting ground. There, he sees his dad, who is dead and he is caring the rat. The rat is dead here, showing his paradise is over with the rats life. Everyone begins to file out and wave good bye, giving it a sad and longing feeling. You wish he stays there, but it's leaving him. 

Now in the real world, he is awake. He is thrown around and people are cleaning him up and dressing him. He is treated like a doll here, looking dead and lifeless, but forced to do what they want. That's what he wanted to escape, but you can see he is forced right back in by the people "in charge of him." It shows why he wanted to leave. 

This scene, he is out of his room and is dragged down the hall. The hall is very foggy and eerie looking with the dim lights and rotating camera angle. It is dizzying and sickening. It makes you feel like he does. 

At the same time as you see the hallway, constant flashes to the picture of maggots keep occurring. This quick flash just leaves your stomach turning. It reemphasizes the degree of his sickness. Its gross, but effective to make you feel uneasy about his state at the moment.

It ends with this very disturbing scene of him melting, being drug to his limo. He is a monster at this point in a dark hallway with very creepy noises ans creams going on. It feels like he is gone and dead, which is his point. It comes with a strong feeling of just  death and fear. You have to imagine he dies very painfully after this. The drugs just completely took him over and destroyed him. 

These many creepy scenes contrasting with his paradise make an effective view of his original point. He goes through a rollercoaster of life before his horrific death. 

Comfortably numb

I chose to analyze the video "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. It was the symbolic videos I have ever seen, just like any of their other videos. They usually have a lot of weird art and odd scenes in them. This video comes from the Wall album and movie. It is a great song about the lead singer's, Pink, emotional journey through his life as he is in a drug related malaise from his addiction to heroine and many other drugs. It is full of dual meaning and symbolism.
The video starts off with him in a very disoriented drug- related state in his hotel room before a concert. His manager busts in and forces the doctors to try to get him ready to perform for a concert that he was suppose to put on right now. This starts showing his struggle, and his main meaning of this video. He wants to escape this world he was thrown into and go back to his inner paradise. The only problem is the rockstar life keeps pulling him back in until it causes him to go over the edge. So, as the pandemonium is occurring around him in his room as they try to bring him back to consciousness, he visualizes his childhood memory of him rescuing a rat. This feeling of bliss and comfortableness comes from his memories of a simpler and a much more innocent time. It is much brighter of a scene than his dark room. This is also where the music begins to lighten up.
The video then shows him developing an illness as a young kid and switches back to him as an adult. As a kid he is forced to stay in bed and rest. As an adult he is slapped awake and injected with a syringe of a drug counter-active. The doctor warns him he will feel sick and immediately you see an image of maggots. It is shocking and gross to convey the sickness. This is followed by him screaming from the sickness. It's very important that you see him as a kid getting sick and him being forced awake. Its dark in both worlds now and his paradise of innocence is beginning to crumble as he is forced back to reality. The rat he rescued dies and he is seen scared as the doctor comes. The visuals begin to makes the viewer feel uneasy and show his displeasure as he returns.
Once the crew have Pink conscious, they begin forcing his clothes on him and cleaning up. At this point he leaves his paradise and the people of his past walk away to give you the feeling of a sad good bye. You see his dead dad, his evil teacher and his doctor just leaving and walking by. Now, he is stuck in the real world and is being drug down the hall. The camera angle is turning and twisting and Pink begins to have his skin melt. This is scary because it is moving very wildly, has constant flashes to maggots and he looks creepy in a dark hall way. This expresses his end because he is far from his paradise and feels like a dark place to be in. This was his death and him losing his comfortable numbing.

Bringing us together

     When I was 3 years old, the military moved my family to Camden, New Jersey. I live there for a majority of my life. It was where I grew up and for a while, all that I knew of. My friends were all people I had attended school with since elementary school. We grew up together. All of my childhood memories were with them and I thought these were going to be the people I would be close with my whole life. So, when my 7th grade year came around, I was devastated when I heard I was moving across the planet to Kentucky. It was a shock for me. All I knew about Kentucky was the stereotypes that come from cartoons. I was not prepared to change my life in such a drastic way and lose all my friends. I did not know how I was going to do it.
     I moved here during the middle of my 7th grade year, which meant I had to go to school fairly close to when I moved in. This was one of the hardest things for me to do. I felt like I was being thrown to the lions. But, when I arrived at school it was the exact opposite. Everyone just either ignored me or forced very awkward small talk. That didn't make me feel any better, though. I was still without all my friends from New Jersey. I still felt very alone. I just wanted to hear from them, even if I was making friends here.
     By my 8th grade year, my solution changed from trying to get myself kicked out of the house by running up the phone bill  to creating a Facebook account. It began like a small tree and as my friends list grew, so did the trees branches. I could branch out to people in the area that I kind of knew and get to know them better. The part I loved was the fact that it allowed me to keep my roots planted firmly in New Jersey. My roots stayed strong in New Jersey by being able to hear all their news, staying in contact with them and using it to plan trips back. But as the years came, I gained more friends here, or longer branches and more relationships. My tree had strong roots and was full of strong branches. Through these connections, I was no longer sad and alone. I felt strong, again.
     I believe through interactions I became a happier person. I no longer felt alone in this world. Making friends and keeping friends kept me from falling into a dark place. I still keep in touch with my friends from New Jersey, but I find us all drifting apart, like any other relationships. The upside to this is I have made strong relationships that I could not of imagined when I first moved here. I believe it's these bonds that brought me happiness. Knowing that there were people close by interested in what I was doing made me feel appreciated and happy. I think branching out and making these relationships while still holding onto my roots was the smartest thing I could ever do for myself and I encourage others to do it too. Let your tree grow. There are too many people on this planet not to.

This I believe Part 2

It took me a few tries, but I found a "this I believe" speech that I could not connect to. I listened to the "God is in her hands" essay by a preacher in St. Louis. I stereotype preachers as great speakers so I had high hopes for it. I was sadly disappointed. He was not a bad talker, his pronunciation and rhetoric was very good and had a soothing tone. His message was not that great though. It has nothing to do with my religious views. I just thought his word choice was to repetitive and his message had little support. He kept talking about a class he taught where he said prove to me that your hands are real. This where he said he saw god. Then, he made an uncomfortable amount of references to his wife and his hands. It was a bit awkward sounding. He also continues to repeat his hands and how that's how he knew god was here. I had trouble picking up the connection between the two. I also was lacking a story to really prove why he believed this. It  was mostly him repeating what he could do with his hands to see god. This is a good way of driving a point when you are preaching, but did not work well for me here. I just could not get on board.

This I believe "The Presumption of Decency"

I connected to this essay, but I feel he is a little to harsh on people for unnecessary actions. I agree with his claim. He says we all become infuriated at random people for little things and assume they are the worst people ever when we do not give them a chance. He gives the example of the cab driver going to slow. He gets back at him by giving him a less than intended tip. Then, he continues his day by ill talking the driver and everything about anything relating to him. All for taking his time, or maybe for a reason he does not even know. It is similar for maybe a waitress who makes us a bit irritated. His claim is that we need to make a point of remembering most people are decent. People are not always like that. I agree. I think people hate complete strangers for unimportant reasons. Maybe like, causing a slight inconvience or just slowing down our day more than expecting or even just doing something that annoys us, but they don't know that. I have become aware of this. I do not let people make me mad for things when I don't even know their lives.  It's just common human courtesy to think past ourselves. There are worse people to get mad at. On the other hand, I do not agree with his claim that people naturally hate for everything. I can see him saying that people naturally become very angry over minuscule things that do not really matter, but not hate. I have a different definition of hate then him, and this may be why he wrote this. I believe hate is reserved for those who have done things to us that we could not see doing to others. We can hate someone like Hitler or the Joker, but, I believe, we can't  just through hate upon any person for doing something to inconvience us who we will never see again and will very likely never be seen by us again. Hate is too strong of an emotion for every day use. But, for the most part, I agree with him.