My Final Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EsBKe5IXdE&feature=channel_page

Feed Back for first draft photostory

My first draft was all about the right pictures music and timing of my voice and placement. All combined I knew it would culminate into a story that seems well organized. Because Organization of all aspects of storytelling, I realized, it is the key to drawing in the viewer.

So sound transition was way to high for me. My voice was not loud enough to hear from the speakers.

So with those 2 things I need to adjust I also noticed that my photo transitions were to redundant so I will be mixing and matching for the photo transition to be less repeated.

I also need to enlarge my Credits for easier view and there are many pictures with black spaces on the sides. This was intentional so that the picture is given more of a pop with the color saturation I changed for each photo to give it the mood of how I wanted to present my story.

Question of the Week 7

Every digital film entails some kinds of ethical decisions, especially if the stories they tell involve people other than the filmmaker. What ethical issues are you facing with your film and how do you plan to deal with them?

In my case I involved people as much as I could because representing my mexico mission experience was primarily to evoke emotion towards the situation for the viewer. In that I let them choose what ethical approach they want to continue with. Because my story involves me dealing with people less fortunate and for the viewer, who has or has not experienced what I have, it gives them an open mind to either except it while doing something about it or letting it go through one ear and out the other. Its a question of true importance and whether or not a difference needs to be made.

Question of the Week 6

What is the story you want to tell in your digital film and what is the "big point"--the bigger issue you want to express through your story?

I want to talk about my experience in Mexico. Not a vacation but why I went there. I went to mexico for this mission trip i signed up for. I want to give this message of problems that needs to be payed attention to but also I'm explaining how it made me into a different but hopefully better person today. So the Big Point would be me explaining myself of finding my identity where the culture I was so used to delayed me from it.

At this age as a person you are pretty set on your beliefs. And conforming into an idea that sparks interest are all going to compile making you the person you truly want to be.

Week 5 Question of the week

How does Frederick Wiseman try to convince the viewer that The Titicut Follies (1967) is "true"?

In this mental prison institution Wiseman attempts to provoke the public about a hidden issue that's been going on with no one doing anything about it.

But for him to make us aware let alone take action he makes a disturbing yet thought provoking documentary. He himself and his voice is not in any part of the video but he is the one filming every scene and putting everything together for the purpose of "letting everyone know".
I thought with himself cut from the film this alone draws the audience to primarily focus on what hes filming rather than going back and fourth from his bias to what hes filming. In a sense what hes filming is a indirect approach to his bias but he seems to try to minimize it as much as possible.

so using certain techniques and the angle and a whole lot more considerations are involved in shooting one scene. He characterized himself as a view point of society by looking into the peep hole of a inmate. This symbolizes the society looking at them not society looking out. I don't know his complete intention for this part of the video but he tries to show that there is a problem with society and he shows this intentionally by focusing in the room.

The Night Watcher

Based on your experience in watching The Night Watcher, what benefits do you see in the genre of theater for telling “true” stories?

As these stories in their own respective way try to reach out to us I realized the subtle yet unique method of how each genre does this.

Watching a live theater performance is probably the best time to heighten the senses to which you will be using for engaging in the play. It is because you are preparing yourself and seeing to it that you are analyzing something that is in action rather then seeing or just reading. Watching live theater extracts different conscious thoughts, and those instinctive thoughts manifest into something you would of never realized with simply seeing, or reading something.

What makes a good storytelling? It is not simply learning all the styles of presentations and use of power point but also letting yourself engage in different perspectives; areas of knowledge. It is with your different perspectives along with effective techniques of storytelling which coincide to become something new and different, something with meaning. And it is with Charlayne Woodard’s powerful performance I saw the "pointers" of Ira Glass.

Woodward demonstrates sufficiently the use of anecdote. Like Ira Glass has said, the use of anecdote allows for suspense to happen and in effect brings out the innate desire of a close or how Glass put it "feels like something's going to happen". Not only is this more the reason to concentrate harder but it draws questions to the audience and the answer shortly comes as the play progresses. Another method I saw being used was Moment of Reflection Glass talks about. So the whole play was about how Woodward encountered different children in her life, non of her own. So from the start it is pretty clear that she is telling stories of her live with different people but what is this all accumulating towards? And that is the question that Glass stressed heavily. If there are interesting sequence of events happening but the end doesn't reveal anything new, then the key point becomes dead along with the events prior to the ending and vice versa; if we understand the central question and the reflection part but have trouble putting the sequences together, then the meaning is dead.


So by having a effective anecdote that can be followed by the audience along with a key point that is revealed at the end = engaging and thought provoking story.

Persepolis Q's

a) From the book, "Persepolis," Discuss a page or frame that you find especially powerful. Describe the scene and explain to the best of yourability how and why this scene speaks to you.

Pages 150-151 weren’t necessarily the most powerful but it was the most insightful. Persepolis left us with an open ended ending leaving us with different images and thought provoking understanding. But to continue on about the ending with her grandmother, it was really a culmination of everything she stood for to become finally rooted deep enough for her to feel content for who she was and where she truly belonged to. As Marjane's mother was her support for emotional and physical needs, her grandmother was the support for her intellect and spirit. These Frames helps us to understand that and how the grandmother was even more than just support it was her role to pass on the culture, art, and history to Marjane. The ending showed a mutual fulfillment in that her grandmother was able to leave Marjane without feeling empty and the same with Marjane. This helped me to understand the gap between a child and an adult and their style of communication in a different country and how similar we all are even though we live in completely different places.

B) Compare your experience of reading the book and watching the film. Ifyou were the filmmaker, what scenes would you choose to magnify or omit and why?

Of course watching the film influenced the emotions and even gave an adrenaline rush at certain points but above all the film gave us more of an attachment to what was actually going on rather than reading, where we tend to give a moment to think allowing time to interfere with intuitive judgment. What I mean by that is if we are in a situation where we have to think on the spot that is our subconscious mind telling us what we believe what we stand for but reading gives us more time to analyze what we just comprehended but the difference is that our subconscious mind telling us what we believe in allows for us to analyze ourselves. Everything that I would magnify/make emphasis on, such as the party situation where boys are in the appartment and their running from the police, was already done.

Graphic Novel

I thought that this Graphic Novel would be interesting.
Title: Street Angel
Author: Jm Rugg and Brian Maruca
Call Number: PN. 6728. 5774. R84. 2005 V.1

Alphabet Photo: F for Fustration

Here we wanted to portray a

"fustrated" (our letter was F) situation so in the hopes of doing so we decided that one person would have a blank stare, another pulling his hair, and lastly Randy getting thrusted with a chair. Didn't mean to ryhme. We had our photo taken by the schools photographer so the angle was something we didn't have to change.














Obviously this one is the photoshoped. The photo itself was already set so making our setting of frustration seem more apparent was what I was aiming for. So I mainly played with the light setting, gradient, black and white image, and sharpening of the faces. Using these functions, I tried to center the expression of everyone in the middle by making the bottom and top have the same sort of brightness and everything in between would be more attention grabbing. We chose the word Fustration because of how college students have to deal with so many things at once and sometimes it could be more than just stress.