A Better Ending

 

      When I was considering what to blog about, my mind jumped back to the ending of my favorite movie, The Lord of the Rings. Then I was reminded of our talks about comedy and tragedy, and I made the connection between tragedy and a sad ending, and comedy and a happy ending. I think, however, that perhaps the best type of ending, and the most realistic type of ending, is neither of these, at least viewed from the perspective of Christians on this side of eternity. I think perhaps the best type of ending is the one that is least used, and that is the bittersweet ending.

I think that, in general, humans tend to always go to one extreme or the other, oftentimes forgetting that the truth many times lies in the middle. This is why there are so many people who either consider only tragedies to be "realistic" stories, and so many people who won't watch movies in which the main character(s) die at the end. The funny thing is, this is exactly how are lives end, is it not? We die, and yet are frequently afraid to die. Yet we must, in order to get our happy ending. Or what about those who die saving others? There is much tragedy there, yet their sacrifice means that another will get to experience more happiness. The funny thing about bittersweet endings, is that they are also the most complex of all endings. A happy ending will only give you joy, and a sad ending usually just makes people frustrated. But a bittersweet ending makes you feel a little of both, and is therefore in many cases more fulfilling. Have you noticed that nearly every book that people never want to end, always end with a bittersweet ending? Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia. What about movies? The Lord of the Rings (again), Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, the Dark Knight trilogy, Toy Story 3. I think that deep in our hearts is a belief that the bittersweet ending is the most truthful ending, and perhaps that is why it is so rarely used. But you will find that oftentimes the most wonderful stories have bittersweet endings, and if they do not, then they still understand the beauty of such things. Even Winnie the Pooh did when he told Piglet : "If you live to be one hundred, I wish to live to be one hundred minus one day, so that I will never have to live a day without you."

Below I have included a recent wonderful (but sorely unheard of) 2D animated short film by Disney that beautifully illustrates the bittersweet ending.

 

 

     



 



Operation Foggy Hedgehog

I’ve only ever seen one example of cut-out animation that I can remember before this week’s class, and that’s South Park. Needless to say, South Park, while distinctive and funny (not for everyone, of course), is not the best example of animation (a fact the show seems to happily embrace) with cut-out images. I’ve seen Flash animations done using ‘cut-out’ animation, but, again, I rarely see truly amazing examples of this.

Then we saw Hedgehog in the Fog in class on Thursday.

I have praised many of the films Professor Leeper
has shown us, both in terms of content and in technical feats. Hedgehog in the Fog is just…astounding. The animation is incredible; I think some people would have difficulty believing that the film was animated with cut-outs. While the film was certainly supplemented by other effects, primarily the titular fog, the quality of the film is only improved by those additions.

The characters themselves, outside of the Hedgehog and the Bear, are mysterious and alien to our main protagonist, just as the fog that seems to have summoned them. This gives the film an interesting concept; the Hedgehog regularly visits the Bear, so he is familiar with the area, but the mere presence of the fog wipes away that familiarity. With the changing of only one variable, the entire scenario is drastically altered. Even the simple task of walking to a friend’s house is suddenly made all the more intense by this one variable. One event can change everything.

I’d love to see more artists take on this style and try to experiment with what they can do. I wouldn’t recommend it to the South Park guys, not when they’re under a tight schedule to produce episodes, but for animators with time on their hands and the flexibility to experiment this would be an interesting project.

Entertaining

I am really the wrong person to post on this subject but: Art is Entertainment.

I've kind of been stuck when it comes to trying to decide what art is: it's undefinable because art is opinion. I think the same goes for entertainment.

When I think of art though I automatically think of entertainment too. In class we talked about movies made solely for the purpose of entertainment, but to me, that's why every work of art is made. Even the stupidest, most pointless, violent movies are art to me. Movies, shorts, blocks of color on canvas,  are all works of art to me, even if there's nothing about them that evokes any emotion from me (which is hard to do). 

If I'm not feeling much about a film or am contemplating my life because of it, it's entertainment. I might walk out of the theater and never think about it again. But it was entertainment, and it was art. 

And in historical hindsight, "art" originated because of humans' love for entertainment. Caves with the first little drawings scrawled on the inside of their mouths are art. But maybe to the aspiring film students back then they were just cruddy entertainment. Oh wait...

Greek theatre originated on threshing floors with nothing but imagination and people's love to just watch and turned into the astounding plays we have today with crazy special effects and film. 

Not a movie, but a story in itself. Titled, "Wonder Boys," it has hardly anything to do with Superman but a lot to do with superheroes. It's art that's entertainment.
http://michaelo.deviantart.com/art/Wonder-Boys-273699837

Maybe art is really refinement, taking entertainment at it's face value and infusing it with these wholistic ideas that only beauty and the dragging of nails across heart strings can evoke. 

Movie not many people are too fond of...(and it's a superhero movie!) Entertaining? Perhaps not your cup of tea. Art? Definitely. But might not be your artistic cup of tea.

I don't know. All I'm saying is that I believe art, whether it's the ill-composed, cheesy movie you paid too much money to watch in the theater, or that 6'x8' canvas splattered with utmost technique, is entertainment, even if only for the artist. Art tells stories, movies tell stories, stupid tells stories, and I think stories are entertainment.

Looper

Time travel in films has been for decades but recently a new spin has been put in the new Bruce Willis movie Looper.  The movie takes place in 2044 in Kansas where Joe, an assassin who kills people sent from the future.  He kills them and then cremates them.  He seems to have a very repetitive life.  First kill, then breakfast, then taking acid and hanging with a showgirl throughout the night.  However he won't do this forever because he will eventually kill his older self (sealing his loop) and then flee the mob.  However when Joe's older self arrives the two get into a confrontation and the older one escapes.  They meet at a diner with Joe's older self telling him that he has come back to kill the man behind the time travel known as the Rainmaker.  For the rest of the movie he is trying to protect the Rainmaker while finding interest in his mother.  Along with some good old action and fighting, I found it fun but only after about 30 minutes of the movie because I didn't understand it.  Maybe a little too much violence and unnecessary nudity.  However I enjoy the little things that get payed off and how a lot of the movie get's explained through dialogue.  Not necessarily the best thing but hey it happens. 

Volver

     Volver is Spanish for return, and it is the name of the movie that was shown at Signs and Wonders last night. My opinion of the movie: it was pretty lame. It just doesn't stand out to me as a unique movie, except for the twists where you thought it might be a story about ghosts, and then it turned out there were no ghosts at all. However, it is pretty much a story about ghosts, in a figurative sense.
     Now that I've looked up the translation for "volver", I'm wondering why exactly that name was picked. Was it because the grandmother returned from the dead, (although she actually was never dead) or was it because the grandmother symbolically returned from the dead (she had been gone for about four years, and everyone had thought she was dead) or was it because the abuse that had happened to Raimunda almost returned and happened again to her daughter, or was it a mixture?
   But the thing I would most like to know is, why was this movie picked for Signs and Wonders? Like I said, it seemed pretty lame to me. What is there to learn from this movie? What is there to enjoy except a few funny moments from the grandma? Sure, you can learn about loyalty from Augustina, and how she wouldn't talk on the t.v. about her friends' family, and you see the loving mother-daughter relationship returned (gasp!) to Raimunda and her mom, but you can see loyalty and mother-daughter relationships on tons of movies. I'm not saying this movie stank, I just don't think it was very special. Except for the ghosts that weren't ghosts.

A New Animation Medium

Caroline Leaf had a very interesting start to her animation career. Unlike many of her peers in the animation community, she never had a career goal to be an animator. She says that she did not really much drive, until she took the animation class in college. It was one of the only two film classes offered at their college. She talks about how she had never really had drawn before, and never really learned how. In her animation class she learned how animation is more about the movement of the objects instead of the actual drawing. That was what convinced her to take up animation, because she did not think of it as drawing. She was a thinker and an innovator, she was one of the first to use sand in her animation. She also was one of the early users of glass. She found ways to use a new medium in a way that was easy for her understand. Her work eventually took here to the Canadian National Film Board. She continued to make great films for the Canadian National Film Board, and had a very successful career. She was a great innovator and had a very important role in the development in animation. 

The Fall of the Movie Poster

 

 

      Let us simply be honest. The movie poster has long since passed its heyday, in many ways like the movie trailer. Rather than give us a short, beautiful look at the movie, both trailers and posters tend to either bash us over the head with the entire plot in a grand total of 3 minutes (which says more about the movie than it does the trailer, but still), or they give us so much pointless, mindless foolishness that you want to puke (a.k.a., the poster above). Rarely do posters seem to elicit much interest these days. If we are honest, it is not the artistry of the poster that elicits interest in us very often, it is the fact that the movie has our favorite actor or is a part of our favorite series that intrigues us. This is a shame, since I think that posters, just like editing, composing, directing etc., are a great opportunity for the artistic side of movies to come out.

 

 

 

 

     A good poster should preview something about the story, but not give it away. If it is collage (which far too many are), it should showcase the characters, not the actors playing the characters. If possible, it might even be best to leave out the director's and actors' names altogether. This will allow the artist to catch the viewers attention by the content of the movie, not those involved in making it. A few modern films (especially the Dark Knight) got this right. I would humbly like to suggest that anyone interested in seeing some truly spectacular posters check out a group called Mondo Posters. They take movies and make beautiful posters for them, although they are not the official posters for the films (goodness only knows why). I have included a small sampling below.

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa

After reading tonight's homework assignment about Caroline Leaf, I was really interested to see exactly what sand art was about. So, I looked up her film "The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa". I have to say, that the idea of sand art, is not at all what I imagined it to be. I thought it would be a much more simple concept than what she made it look like. The idea of sand art seems like a really complicated medium to use, after watching this film, however, she does a very good job with using sand.

The story of "The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa" was interesting as well. This man changes from a person to an insect, and when his neighbors and friends see him as a bug they are frightened and run away from him. They all turn away from him because he is different now, and they were looking at him from the inside rather than the outside and what his personality had to offer.

Baysplosions

^___^ I really liked the rooster in 'The Fox and the Hare'. He was the coolest, don't you agree!?

 

So, I want to start off with a profound statement by the illustrious Michael Bay (If you can't understand my sarcasm...)

In response to Hugo Weaving commenting that his voice role of Megatron in the live action incarnation was 'meaningless', Michael had the gall to say:

"With all the problems facing our world today, do these grumbling thespians really think people reading the news actually care about trivial complaints that their job wasn’t ‘artistic enough” or “fulfilling enough”?"

To be honest, I totally cared. I tipped my hat to Mr. Weaving for acknowledging the artistic value and the characterization of the Transformers movies to be 'meaningless'. At least someone in the cog of that wrecked machine had the wisdom to ascertain it. Unlike Michael himself, who also recently stated that he decided to direct Transformers 4 (yes...there is going to be a fourth one. Let the booing commence) because  "someone could come in here and screw it up".

First Transformers...next up, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...does his evil know no end!?

 

I could go on a really big Transformers fangirl-esque rant (I won't deny it, Transformers is something I'm a huge fan of. Not the live action movies, but the other, much better incarnations) on how Michael Bay messed up so-an-so character (aka all of them), made crazy plots, only cared about hot babes and explosions, etc, but that's not the point I was trying to get at.

Michael Bay, I think, is a sad picture of where Hollywood may soon end up. I mean, his movies are wildly popular, Dark of the Moon (by far the worst in the series) being the fifth highest grossing movie in history, and the other two in the series both ending up in the top 50, and nothing seems to stop him from doing more bad films. What's worse is that he is, at least how I see it, openly mocking things I believe in, such as the artistic value in a film. I like to see hints of beauty and true pain in movies.

With Michael Bay all I get are explosions.

This post didn't go where I originally intended, and for that I'm sorry ^__^; Hopefully I won't let the fangirl in me post like this too often..
...oh...and by the way...WRECK-IT-RALPH COMES OUT NOV 2
(Okay, ending fangirliness...now)

Russian Cartoons

After watching all these Russian cartoons in class today I felt a bit nostalgic towards the cartoons I had seen growing up in Russia.  And when I look back to the cartoons almost all of them have a twin cartoon in America; let me show some examples.

The first example is the Soviet’s version of Winnie Pooh.  Made off the original stories, there were three short films made by Sovuzmultfilm, which translates into, Union Animated Film.  The three films followed the chapters 1, 2, 4 and 6 of the book.  Interestingly enough the Russian Adaption of Winnie the Pooh varied from the Disney films, staying closer to the actual text of Milne’s work. 

The next example is a cartoon series called Nu, pogodi, which translates to “Well, Just You Wait”. It is about a wolf trying to eat a rabbit.  This cartoon can be closely related to the Tom and Jerry series we know and love, as the wolf always tries to eat the rabbit but never quite can.  These cartoons where made by the same company as before, Union Animated Film, and was created in 1969

A third example is called Buratino, Russia’s Pinocchio, and was first made into a novel by Aleksey Nikolayevich, in 1883. The story goes that Aleksey had read the story of Pinocchio as a child, but lost the book later on and just decided to retell it into a story of his own.  This story is beloved by all Russians. 

Even in more resent animated films, it is evident that there is influence from the American animated films.  For example an animated film Alyosha Papovich which seems to take some hints from Shrek, with an annoying talking horse in the movie and a big man as the main characters.  Although it is also very steeped in the old Russian tradition.

I feel like even though Russian may take from some of the American’s ideas, they make it fresh and steep it in their own tradition which helps distinguish itself from the American counterpart.

Media in Culture

Hm. Blog posts. xD
I feel the need to say, once again, that I have so much trouble with blog posts. It's not really the problem of expressing myself through written language, (which is actually so much easier than speaking) it is more of a issue with knowing what to say.
It seems so arrogant to presume that simply writing down your opinions is okay, but then again, I suppose that is how ideas get out there. And no one ever said their opinions were the only ones, so in that context I suppose it makes it okay.
The films we saw in class were sort of amazing. I wish I could do more cultural comparisons of media. Particularly children's media. It's really fascinating to see the different types of media that are used, as well as the variety of messages that are being sent out, via tv screens. Like how that lullaby we heard would never makes it into children's media in american, and yet is completely culturally acceptable in Russia.
It makes me wonder how much shaping it actually does to the person. We all know that media is a fundamental part of how we view ourselves and others around us, but it's difficult to say what other factors contribution to this.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghb6eDopW8I&feature=g-vrec

Once and Done

I can't watch that, I've already seen it! 

Random Movies from the Internet

For a long time, I fell under the category of "Once and Done" when it came to watching movies, films, and shorts. However, over the last year or so, I've been slowly attempting to find enjoyment out of watching something a second, third, or even fourth time. During my "Once and Done" motto, I never gave a second showing a chance. I said to myself: How could I get any more out of this than I have already?  How foolish.

Throughout the year, as I began to watch films more than once, I realized how much I enjoyed it and how much I got out of it as a film maker. If the movie is really good; the first time I watch it I will be focused on the plot, the conflict, and just the movie as simply a form of entertainment.( A Zombie) The second time, I'll focus more on the technical aspect of the film. After that, it depends on the movie, however I know I will get something out of it. Good or bad. Sometimes I find things that I don't like, some things I love, some things I didn't notice the first few times or I realize something I didn't understand at first.

Watching movies more than once is important as a film maker. It's a way to study whats already been done, a way to see what works, and a way to see what doesn't work. There is almost always something to get out of watching a film more than once, and to think you got everything out of it the first time is just...foolish.

Master Artists Helping Movie-Makers 4

 

     For my fourth (and likely final) post concerning master artists contributing to the movie-making industry directly, I have chosen perhaps the most unlikely collaboration of all. Destino is a short film that was created by Walt Disney and Salvador Dali, the very famous Spanish surrealist painter. The movie has a very interesting backstory. It was originally envisioned in 1945, and Dali worked on the concept, but with the coming of WWII, Walt didn't think that they had the money to take the risk of making such an unusual film. So, it was shelved for 58 years, upon which Roy Disney found it. He decided to move ahead with the film, and make it a six and a half minute short. What resulted is one of the most odd, yet visually striking films, there has ever been. It tells the story of the god Chronos, who is often the personification of time, and his doomed love for a mortal woman. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 2003.

 

 



Looper

A young assassin is chosen to exterminate targets that are sent to him from the future. The killing becomes ritual, at a certain time he goes and kills every single person sent to him without guilt or second thought. This all happens til someone shows up for him to kill and he can't. Something causes him to be unable to carry through with his instructions to murder. I won't elaborate further to ruin the viewing enjoyment for someone who hasn't gone to see it.

As many time travelling movies go, Looper has a sense of ming-bending confusion and intricacy. It's definitely demonstrative to what can happen when the imagination isn't being limited and bound. As you watch the movie, there's a definite feeling of uncertainty of what's going to happen, even til the end. This movie definitely has the sense of fairy tale, you must be willing to watch this movie being able to watch it with the mind of a child, knowing that the confsing, unexpected imagination is a good place to be, not dismissing it as impossible and trying to analyze it too much.

A Hatred for Film

What is it about films, movies, and television that is so entertaining? Why do people pay close to 10 dollars to sit in a movie theater for a couple hours? Has anyone ever declared: "I don't like movies".


A Hatred for Movies

I hate watching movies, short films, tv shows and anything having to do with film!

Has anyone ever said that and truly meant it? Ignoring the posibility that one considers films to represent witchcraft or demonic practices, I don't see a way where some human could regard every motion picture as boring, non-entertaining, a waste of time, or useless. I'll explain why.

Not liking a movie is understandable. Even hating many movies is reasonable and very understandable, however there has to be specific movies that are relatable for specific people. Films can not target every person on the planet as their audience. That's just not reasonable. However different films target different people, and with all films combined, every group of people is targeted. But what makes movies so entertaining? Why is it that the targeted audience feels inclined to go to a movie, pay to get in, buy drinks and snacks and sit in the theater for hours?

The Artist

For some, its the art. I would expect many of us have fallen under this category every once in a while. Observing a film from the point of view of another film maker, or artist. Film making is very much an art. Its relatable to the music industry, books, paintings, and any other form of art. For the same reasons we can stare at a painted canvas for a very long time and still get elements out we never would expect before, we can watch a movie as an observer of art. Even in the classic Hollywood movie, there is more to get out of it than what the baseline elements would suggest. The Artist looks for the most they can get out of a movie, often watching it many times, looking for more. They assess it as a work of art, not a form of entertainment. For some, that is all they want to get out of the movie, but for others, they want more. The best part is that film can offer that, and can often please both groups.

The Zombie

The Zombie represents everyone else. It can sometime include Artist's, but it doesn't always. The Zombie is the group that returns to the Hollywood Block-busters over and over and over again taking what they want out of the film (often the baseline elements) and then leaving. They only expect entertainment and if it wasn't very entertaining it automatically becomes a "bad" movie in their book. While the Artist sounds like the better option, the Zombie is fine with who they are. They are content with paying 10 dollars for some entertainment and even though they are often dissapointed, they return again and again for sheer entertainment.

Movies are an escape from reality. They provide a new perspective to life, to events, and to situations. They let you experience something you may never get the chance to experience and they let you observe things you many never or could never observe. Everyone enjoys movies at some point because of these elements. There are different ways of watching a movie, but everyone falls under either Artist, or Zombie. People don't hate movies because of the nature of the art. Thats just how it works.

Film is Art.

If I were to watch some of Co Hoedeman’s work randomly on the internet, I may dismiss it as a film created for a child, and I’d probably turn it off. The second someone tells me to watch it as an art from, I begin to notice elements that I never would have caught before. Society rarely looks at films as an art form. Because of Hollywood and all the “good” they are doing for the film industry, much of the population simply considers a movie a form of entertainment. Going to a movie is the same as going bowling; playing golf, shopping…it’s just something to do. We pay to get into the theater, expect a substantial amount of entertainment, and leave with our own opinions on whether or not it was “entertaining enough”.

                  The second you treat a film the same way you would a painting in a museum, you realize how much there is to get out of the film, how much energy it took to make the film, and how much a film truly is art. Unfortunately in today’s society, that is a very rare sight to see. Documentaries, animations, stop-motion, and anything other than the expected is looked down upon as boring, and a waste of time. What takes first place is action films with violent explosions, guns, cursing and killings. Dramas with unrealistic fantasy plots that convince the viewer that it’s reality. Comedies filled with sexual innuendos, crude humor, and overall stupid and cheesy “jokes”. People pay good money to go see these just to fill their minds with awful thoughts, ideas of humor, numbness to death, and believing in unrealistic realities. These same people wouldn’t waste a dime on some of Co’s work however because it isn’t normal and they can’t believe it could possibly be entertaining in any way.

                  Film is an art. It takes creativity, persistence, motivation, skill, and time. Co’s work, in todays world, is often dismissed as boring and useless, however there is much to take away from one of his short films. Whether the time but into the film is understood, the creativity is realized, or the story is relatable, something can be taken from the film once you sit back and think about ANY film as, simply, Art. 

Argo F!$@ Yourself

Well if you couldn't tell from the title or the giant picture I recently went to watch the movie Argo in theaters, oh and not because I got an email about. The movie was nothing real special on the way it was filmed or even in stunts or anything that usually attract viewers. The one thing that Ben got right was the story he chose to make a movie about was amazing. I knew about the Iranian Hostage crisis but had never heard the story of how they rescued the six Americans who escaped. The movie is one that I would recommend because it is truly an amazing story and whats more amazing is that its true, you talk about some film makers who God can use. These men to my knowledge weren't Christians at all and yet i'm sure the movie they are most proud of making was one that never was filmed and only a handful of people ever knew about. I think this is a great example of how God can use you where your at as long as your willing to be obedient. Ok now that the biblical tie is out of the way I thought the script and screenplay for this movie was absolutely brilliant. It didn't over romanticize the job of a CIA agent but showed it for what it was, a middle aged separated  man who probably lost his son and wife because of his job. He's not Bourne or Bond but just a regular guy who knows that he'll probably get fired trying to get the CIA to use his plan and he'll most likely die if its approved. The film was pretty darn good and after one line referring to the CIA agents as "Those old F@#!s off the Muppets" I knew it was going to be good. Whether you give a crap about my opinion or not doesn't bother me, but you should care about is Argo because those men Christian or not, risked their lives for people they hadn't even met and thats about as Christ-like as you can get.

Saw Them Twice

The article on Wikipedia for this film is less than 300 words long. The article for Madagascar 3 is over 1000 words.



I watched Frederic Bach’s films Tout Rien and The Man Who Planted Trees for the second time in our last class. I first saw both films over two years ago in the exact same classroom when I visited Huntington for the first time, and I remember walking away from the visit with those two films heavy on my mind. When I first set foot in Professor Leeper’s class, I remembered the room and I remembered those films. I remembered the awe I had felt when I saw those films two years before, and I walked away from class last week with that same feeling of amazement in my mind.

The number of things these films do that stun me also stun me. The almost watercolor style with the lack of solid shapes is distinct and beautiful to look at, contrasting greatly from the more solid style most animations use (Disney animated films, for example). The individual shots done one by one, without any cells being carried over from shot to shot, is a form of dedication that few modern or past animators can claim to have. There’s also the matter that both of these films were done by one man (though some outside talent is credited in both films), and then taking into account that The Man Who Planted Trees is over half an hour long.

I grew up on animation done by teams of dozens of artists produced by massive film companies and Hollywood. I loved all of those films, and I still love them today (mostly). But when I watch those films now, I just walk away with a warm, glowy feeling and forget about them in a few minutes. When I saw Frederic Bach’s work for the second time, I was in a state of sheer awe for well over an hour, and the lessons those two films taught me are still vivid in my mind as I’m writing this four days later.

When mankind leaves Earth in the distant future and we can only bring 100 animated films with us into space, Bach better have spots reserved for those two films. When one man can make you vividly remember a half-hour film days after you’ve seen it and teams of hundreds can’t make you remember their blockbuster hit an hour after you’ve watched it in a theatre, you know you are witnessing the art of a true master.

Film Riot

Film Riot

I've read one or two posts that mentioned Film Riot, and I have been ever so inclined to share it with you all. Film riot is a Bi-Weekly web-series run through Revision3.com and Youtube, and I must say, if you are interested in, majoring in, or just curious about live action film making, you should check out Film Riot. Every week, there are two episodes uploaded, one on Monday and one on Thursday. It's hosted by Ryan Connolly. This is one of my biggest resources for tutorials, tips, tricks, and often plain old entertainment. Film Riot is a (mostly) clean and fun way to learn film making techniques that everyone can watch. 

Ryan Connolly

Ryan Connolly is the host of Film Riot. He attended Full Sail University Film School and he has degrees from there...I just can't remember what degrees he has. He writes the scripts for each episode, directs the shorts that appear in many episodes, helps edit, and is in charge of Film Riot. 

Josh Connolly

Josh Connolly is Ryan's brother. They do Film Riot together, and he appears in just about every episode, often as an actor or test subject in an effect test. He has helped ryan with Film Riot since the beggining, over three and a half years ago.

Bruno Vieyra

Actor, editor and assistant, Bruno helps out with Film Riot and works with Ryan and Josh on everything else they do. He often runs camera, sound, and other tech related jobs of filming each episode.

Besides Film Riot, all three of them run a web-series called Film State, where the review movies, rumors, news, and previews. As well as Variant-Comics where comic related material is discussed. Ryan also created a production company named Triune Films.

Film Riot originated in Florida, but the crew recently relocated to Texas.

Monday Episodes

Every Monday, they relase their "Monday Episode". It's a lesser episode to the main ep on Thursday's, but its often just as informative. On the monday episodes, Ryan answers questions from the audience that are posted on his facebook wall or on twitter. These are often very informative and can help with little, specific problems. The Monday Episodes is also home to the....

Monday Challenge

 The Monday Challenge is a contest much like a timed essay. You are given the prompt on the monday episode, as well as a time limit to complete the video. (Determined by a due date). Once that is announced, any video that is created within that week or two can be submitted if it falls under the prompts or guidelines. Pre-existing videos do not count. Once the videos are submitted, the put what they feel were the best on their episode on the next monday and it helps those people out with feedback, video views, and ways to improve their video. 

Thursday Episodes

The Thursday Episode has been around since the beginning. Its the main episode filled with a skecth, a tutorial, and often random bits of humor and quick tips. Its very entertaining and you can learn quite a bit at the same time. An example of one of the most basic episodes would be this one here:

This episode is very simple and even kind of short, yet it clearly shows how simply you can learn from this web-series.

There is so much to say about Film Riot, yet the best way to learn more about the webseries, would be to expereinence it for yourself. To check out film riot, click here. Have fun, and enjoy!