Well, the course is coming to an end, we only meet one more time, and I got to say, and I think I can speak for the majority here, this course absolutely rocked my socks. I loved watching all the films, and the course material was great. I came into this course, not expecting all of the crazy and fascinating films we've watched. From the hilarity to Pfffirate to the tragedy of World of Glory, all of the films we watched were awesome, and I couldn't have asked for a better class. Leeper completed his goal, he confused the heck out of me, but the confusion was in a way that I want to chase the answers and discover new things. Even if we spent a lot of time on animation, I think the live action films were better, and that may just be being biased, but even still, the course was great. I liked the idea to have the blog too ( even though I scrambled to desperately catch up at the last second) and Leeper is a pretty cool teacher. In the end, I'm excited to see what's next in my Film Production pursuit and ultimately want to thank Leeper for all of the good times and all of the super cool films!
I've been wanting to talk about this film for a while, so here's my chance! The Grey is one of my favorite films of 2012 and possibly one of my favorite films of all time. It stars Liam Neeson and the basic plot synopsis is that after a plane crash in Alaska, he has to lead the remaining survivors back to safety while being hunted down by a vicious pack of wolves. Now there are a lot of mixed opinions about this film, tons of people hated it and tons of people liked it, so what's the verdict? The main problem is this, a lot of people came into this movie expecting "Taken in the arctic" or "Liam Neeson punches wolves". Oh buddy, is it so much more than that. The film is about the inevitability of death and how we humans face it and what we do when it finally closes in. It's about the will to live and the question " what's the point of living? we're all going to die anyways". It's super deep and intellectual, and throughout the movie, every character faces this tragedy in a different way, much like any human that faces death will not react the same. The atmosphere in this movie is incredible, and unfortunately many people did not like this movie because they weren't expecting such a deep message about the fate of every living soul. People walked into the theatre expecting to rot their brains with some good Man Vs. Wild action, but instead got something entirely different. The movie is awesome, I love it to death and I really think everyone should give a view. It has some language, but I highly suggest you get over it and share your thoughts with the rest of the world.
This may be a little late, but hopefully if you can snag a ticket to a dollar theatre and see Argo, you should do it. This film is amazing and definitely worth the price of admission. The best part about this movie was the historical accuracy. This movie is based off of a real life event, but it took scenes and elements from the Iranian hostage crisis and almost completely recreated them. At the end credits they did a comparison shot of some of the photos taken back in 1980 to some of the stills used in the films, and quite honestly you can barely tell a difference. The film is based entirely around suspense and the suspense will literally keep you hanging on the edge of your seat. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but make sure that you don't read what actually happened or else you will ruin the movie for yourself. Ben Affleck does an amazing job and all of the characters are pretty well developed. This is definitely one of the best movies of 2012, and I highly recommend seeing it. I wish I could show you some of the comparison shots from the end of the movie, but I can't seem to find any, which gives you more of a reason to go check out this film!
I like the rating system that the MPAA uses to rate movies. This way I can know exactly what I'm getting into, but sometimes, people get skeptical. There are a lot of awesome and insightful movies, but a lot of people tend to skip out on these movies just because they are Rated R. People tend to instantly turn away from a movie just because of the rating. With that being said, there are a lot of crappy R Rated movies, but there are some good ones like The Shaw shank Redemption and Inglorious Basterds, these movies may not be insightful as foreign films by independent artist, but they are still very entertaining. People shouldn't just turn away from a film just because of it's R rating. If you are really sensitive to foul language, or just can't be in the same room as a screen that is projecting a sex scene, by all means, don't watch the movie, but don't take a quick look at the rating, see that it's R and then proceed to say "Aw man, it's rated R? what a piece of crap". I absolutely hate it when people do that, and if you are one of the people who do that, you need to do your research before you go bashing the very premise that is the R rating.
I liked the presentation of Webcomics by Kayla the other day. It reminded me of my favorite comic series "The Far Side" by Gary Larson. These weren't originally started on the internet, but you can do a google search and find literally hundreds of hilarious single picture comics. That's one of the things I enjoy about these, is that most of them consist of one panel and they are funnier than any Garfield or Family Circus comic. Gary Larson is also a genius, while there are some panels that are flat out hilarious just by sight, there are some that require just a little bit of thinking. To me, there's two types of comedy, a funny hilarious on the spot funny, and a more complex, punchline based funny. I personally prefer the latter, because if you have to think about it, and when it finally clicks and you get it, it's even funnier than just a straight up joke or in-your-face kind of funny. I also like the distinct "art-style" so to say, and that is something that I notice with every single type of newspaper comic. They are all different from each other and some art styles I like ( Charlie Brown, Foxtrot, Calvin and Hobbes) and some that I think look disgusting ( Pearls Before Swine, Non Sequiter, Hagard the Horrible). Gary Larson, however, has made me laugh out loud, and the most I get out of any of those other comics is a slight chuckle. They're great, they're funny and I wish they kept making them, but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Here are some good ones, and some that you kind of have to think about to get.
" If you don't remember this, you had no childhood". You've probably heard this at least once in your life, whether it be on Facebook or from an actual person. The point is, according to anyone who's ever said this, certain decades are better than other decades. I was born in 1994, so I couldn't exactly relate to EVERYTHING in the 90's but there were a couple things I caught onto, so naturally, I was more of a 00's kid. Nostalgia flows through all of us, and whenever something from our childhood is brought up, we sometimes tend to glorify more than it should. I'm not saying the 90's were bad or anything, but you have to understand that opinions are opinions, and there will never be a for sure answer on which decade was best to grow up in. I remember things from the late 90's well, and I can say that a lot of those things were better than things that were around in the 00's. Some examples include the N64 compared to the Gamecube. Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network back then compared to Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network in the 00's. It's all just a factor of nostalgia, and when the kids of today are as old as us, they'll look back and say " If you didn't say YOLO or SWAG, you had no childhood." That was a joke, because if anyone ever said that, they probably deserve a punch in the face, the sad part is, that will probably be said about 10 years in the future.
That video we watched on Tuesday was pretty cool, I only have one problem about it though. The pacing is too slow. I mean I get the point, he found the special thing at the end, and that's supposed to be the big surprise, so you watch the next episode to see what it is, but quite honestly, I think that was a cheap movie. Clearly the amulet he found at the end is pretty significant, but they could've just sped up all of the things that happened before that. I know they were trying to build up the character and his daily routine and the environment he lives in, but about 5 minutes in I completely understood. They could've just advanced the plot so he discovers the amulet about 3/4th of the way through and then maybe added more material and have a different surprise ending. This is just me nitpicking, but the beginning to me was a little slow, it might be my short attention span, but hopefully I'm not the only person who thinks this. I love to nitpick, and I'm not bashing this series or anything. Thank you to whoever posted it and sorry I forgot who you were!
It's that time of year again, switch to any major channel like NBC, ABC or even Hallmark, you know what to expect! Every year it seems that new christmas movies come out, be I'm sure everyone can agree, nothing will beat the classics. The classics like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Story and Santa Claus is Coming to Town all have this innocent and genuine christmas feeling to them, and I guess that's why they are labeled as "the classics". Along the way many other modern christmas movies like Christmas Vacation and Elf have in some cases earned their right as "not exactly classics but still movies you watch every year". I think it's weird to watch Christmas movies any other time of the year, just because of the fact that these movies were specifically made to be watched in December, that's just my opinion though, because I actually know some insane people who watch Elf anytime of the year. You've also got your share of unknown/kinda bad christmas movies like The Happy Elf, Jack Frost and Shrek the Halls ( I'm sorry if you enjoy of those, but Shrek the Halls? seriously?). All in all, it's the most wonderful time of the year, what else could I say?
Like everyone else, I enjoyed George Lucas in love, ( even if it did have a reference to the abomination known as Howard the Duck). What I really wanted to talk about though, was George Lucas and the Star Wars prequels. Now when the prequels came out, I was still a kid, and I thought they were the absolute best movies ever. Now that I've actually watched the movie with intelligent insight, I can't stop but think " What was Lucas thinking"? I'm not opposed to technological advancement in visual effects, but the dependency of special effects in this movie doesn't hold up to the story and actual intelligent plot of the original trilogy. I think the main problem with the story of the prequels is the fact that all three movies are centered around the transformation of Anakin into Darth Vader. As a result, we got an annoying kid actor in episode 1, and emo teenager baby boy in episode 2, and FINALLY we got the Anakin we were all waiting for (6 years after the release of episode 1) the psycho hellbent and slaughtering people. There were way too many vague references and it felt like alot of these extra things that were thrown into the story were just thrown in to make an extra action figure. Can you tell me what kid would even want an action figure of Jocasta Nu, the librarian that had a total screen time of 15 seconds in episode 2?
It's a shame what happened to Star Wars, and now the new trilogy is this series only hope... I can only wish that Disney knows what they're doing, and knows what's on the line.
I really enjoyed the presentation yesterday about Video Games. I'm sorry I can't remember who it was but you did a great job! Anyways I love video games, and I hate the controversy surrounding the statement "Video Games cannot be art" they can too! Roger Ebert once said " Video Games can never be art" and quite honestly, he is the prime reason why this controversy even started. Roger Ebert was probably in college in the 1980's when video games first picked up, so basically he never got to experience video games, not back then and not back now. Of course I'm not claiming to have been alive back in 85' but the point of the matter is, you can't make statements like that without having prior experience. I'm not saying he can't hate or criticize video games, but it would be more like if I said "Movies can't be art" if I myself have never seen a movie. There are plenty of games whose sole purpose is to rot your brain and shoot people in the face with an M16, but then there are games like Journey and Limbo (note that both of those are indie games) that have a deeper meaning behind them. People also tend to get worked up when people claim that video games can be art, then they basically say "well if something as trivial as video games can be art then can anything be art?". No, not EVERYTHING can be considered art, it's just how something is interpreted and expressed is considered art.
The Walking Dead is my favorite show on T.V. right now. If you haven't seen this show, I highly suggest it, it is amazing. Aside from some pacing issues, this show soars in almost every aspect. Plot, Character Development, Visual effects they are all so good. The show is more than just killing zombies however, there is a bigger meaning behind the whole show. Although based after the graphic novel, The Walking Dead title does not refer to the actual zombies ( walkers if you're familiar with the show) but actually the humans. That's right, the humans are the real walking dead, because let's face it, most characters on the show, no matter how major or significant to the plot, have end up perishing. It's more than a show about survival, it's a show about how these people have to adapt to this new environment and in the end they ask themselves " are we really living" ? The characters in the show have to give up all humanity to survive, and to give up all humanity, is that really living? The show is great, right now it's in its midseason break, and I can't wait for it to pick back up in February. Take this time in between to get caught up, trust me you won't regret it, this show is amazing!
This is something I've been wanting to post for a while, and why not now since The Dark Knight Rises just came out on DVD. Back in 06' when Batman Begins came out, I had no idea how fantastic this trilogy would be. Even with Leeper's special criteria for super hero movies, this trilogy is not just your average comic book hero trilogy. I think we can all agree on how genius these three movies are, but in regards to the last one, I have to stay Nolan tied up the series very well. A lot of people disagree with this, saying SPOILERS " Oh man, I really wanted to see Robin do something" or " Oh man, I can't believe Batman survived the nuclear blast" or some garbage like that, that's not the point. As much action as these movies pack, it's about the message behind them. "It's not what under the mask, but what I do that defines me". I think this could be one of the greatest movie quotes to live by. A persons actions speak louder than words, the point of The Batman was that anyone could be him. Not in the literall sense, but in the sense that any citizen could stand up to crime and that any citizen was stronger than the thugs and crime lords that scourged the city. It was the perfect message for an amazing trilogy and you better believe I put the 3-disc trilogy combo pack on my christmas wish list. These movies will never be forgotten.
"Powerpoints are the Peacocks of the business world. All show, no meat." -Dwight Schrute 2012
With the discussion of Powerpoint in the air, I would like to give my two cents. Although the program itself is something extremely simple, many people know how to use the program in fascinating ways and create some of the best slide shows of all time. It's an interesting thing what powerpoint has become. Many people claim that powerpoint is the best way to teach anything about any subject. Just make a powerpoint about it and people will understand, that's what almost everybody has to say, and Powerpoint is obviously the quintessential windows program to use for presentations. Why is it however Powerpoint is the greatest tool for such a task? My answer is that throughout the course of our primary and secondary educational careers, we have grown so used to the program that any time we see a PowerPoint file open up, we can rest assured that the following information will be extremely organized. At the same time, however, there is this radical group that can't stand the sight of a Powerpoint and immediately lose attention just at the hint of a Powerpoint. There are many slideshow presentation applications throughout the internet, but Powerpoint is clearly the dominating force, just like people use Word for papers and Excel for Spreadsheets.
This may be a little late, but I gotta say I am so glad that I stayed longer to watch the entirety of Passing Hearts. This little short film is just absolutely amazing. It's quite honestly one of my favorite little short films that we've watched in this class. There is something about the simplicity of the film that is awesome to me. This doesn't really look or even feel like a high budget film, but it's amazing what these short 15 minute films can do compared to a 2 hour movie. Short films like these tend to leave a bigger impact than a big budget full-length movie, and that just goes to show how much perfection and work is put into these short films. The cinematography and score were absolutely phenomenal, and I'm pretty sure that some of the shots in this short film were better than some shots in big budget full-length movies. I'm just going to be honest, if this movie doesn't strike any kind of emotional chord deep within your soul, you are an emotionless robot. That may sound harsh, but the twist at the end was one of the most emotional moments I've seen in a short film. This could be the equivalency to a positive impact where World of Glory had a negative impact, yes I think it is that great. If you were one of the people who skipped out on this, I suggest you check it out right here. I loved this film and this will definitely be one of the many films I remember from this class.
I just got done reading chapters 1 and 2 of this book by David Bayles and Ted Orland. The first two chapters have a ton of great quotes and insights about making art. I like the idea of becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself, to create your own distinctive style. Society tells us that artists are just people with extreme amounts of talent. Talent is not necessarily a bad thing to have, but what society has told is basically the amount of success and fame you will have in the future is equivalent to the amount of talent you posses. This is not true I believe that anyone has the skill to become a famous artist, it just takes dedication and practice, practice, practice. I'm also not saying that the sole purpose to be an artist is for the fame and fortune (which unfortunately a lot of people aim for when they first pick up the paintbrush or the camera). The ultimate goal behind being an artist is to show the world the way you see it, to create your own unique style and if the world disagrees with you, then so be it, you're an artist you don't have to take the crap from the mainstream!
The Climactic Death of Dark Ninja, this film really says
something to me. The film is so simple it’s ridiculous. I really like it when
short films can bring me the same amount of entertainment and are extremely
simplistic, compared the big budget HD CGI short films or some of the sort.
This little film kind of hits my heart though, because I can honestly relate to
grabbing a camera, some buddies and some props, going into the middle of the
woods and filming a 20-minute action movie...probably because I have done that! It’s pure genuine fun, and the punch
line at the end is fantastic. I could remember myself as the director
behind the handheld camera complaining to my friends about how good this next
shot needs to be. Seriously, the likeliness is incredible ( I don't really sound like that kid though). I can even remember having my friends dress up in multiple
costumes to portray different characters that die. Watching this film, the
whole time I kept chuckling to myself, because it brought back such great
memories of doing quite literally some of the exact same things the kids in
this film were doing. The point is, this mini film is a shout out to all the dreaming
underage moviemakers that can’t stay in their seat and have to go and film
something… Like me!
If you want to check out the cheesy action short film that I made, here's a link. Just a reminder, this is pretty amateur, and the plot doesn't make a whole of sense, but hey, that's why I'm here at H.U. to improve!
E.J. Park
brought up some fantastic points in the reading for this weekend. Do we really
want a Messiah that prefers suffering to ass kicking? E.J. brings up great
points about how Neo is reluctant but not cocky and isn't afraid to get his
hands dirty with a little kung Fu. Although Neo is clearly one of the greatest
fictional heroes of all time, Jesus will forever stand as the greatest
non-fiction hero of all time. It does not seem that way however as Jesus is
also the most pacifist when it comes to conflict (unless you count that
instance in the temple). Part of the problem I believe is what the media has
told us. The media has told us that our hero should be somebody who can defeat
swarms of minions and guards, defeat the evil mastermind, gets the girl and tops it all off
with a rooftop jump off of an exploding building. E.J. defines it fairly well
when he says, “ Hollywood Messiahs are more fulfilling”. Unless you’re completely
against action/adventure movies or suspenseful thrillers, you can’t really
disagree with that statement. Most of us would unfortunately go see SkyFall or
Argo then read Bible. I’m definitely not saying that watching those kinds of
movies is bad, but we all know where to set our priorities. These big screen
heroes only fill the cinematic part of our heart of what we define as a “Hero”
or “Messiah”, but Jesus Christ fills the entirety of our heart. Tell me how the
story of the human soul ends if he misses out on seeing the Matrix or misses
out on the salvation of Jesus?
My favorite film from the past weeks was Sand Castle by Co Hoedeman. To be honest, I'm a sucker for stop-motion films, I couldn't imagine having to take on the extreme task of creating one, but boy do I love watching them. They are visually pleasing to me, I don't know why, just the way they awkwardly move and the sincere innocence of it all brings out the child within me. Most people liked Tchou Tchou more than this one, and I seriously have no idea why. Tchou Tchou was great, and Co had to use a lot of tricky animation techniques, which I admit were really cool ( seeing the block people jump was awesome) however I still think that SandCastle was a little more impressive with all the visual effects being made from sand. I stated this in an earlier blog post, but with the whole "wind" thing going on, it was super impressive. I was completely immersed in this world of crazy and silly creatures, and although after most films in this class I am upset when they are over, I felt like I wanted this film to go on even longer. Every film has it's appropriate length, but I wanted more SandCastle. I like the connection between "God" and the "Creator" in this film, I think it's an awesome interpretation, and I really enjoy Co Hoedeman, even if I'm a live action guy and not an animation junkie.
Hedgehog in the fog was super cool. The animation style is frill and very enjoyable. It was also very obvious how much hard work was put into this with the actual animation of the fog. The story is very simplistic, which is good for the children, but it also has a deeper meaning, primarily the question of 'how does the horse breath in the fog?' It's never really answered, what also isn't answered, is the identity of the thing in the water that brought the hedgehog to the shore. I really think a great simplistic story can usually be backed up with some mysteries that make you use your imagination. It was never explained what the thing in the water was, but you personally came up with something. Whether it be trout, snake, turtle, whatever, our imagination was put on the spot and we reacted accordingly. It is better when a movies leaves the 'fantasy' part to the viewer alone, not entirely, but enough where personal imagination can be used to enhance the experience. I know there are many examples of this, but one that really sticks out would be the idea behind Darth Vader. Yes, Darth Vader from star wars, before the prequels were out, when he first appeared within the first minutes of Episode 4, people didn't know what to think. His powerful entrance and mysterious disguise led people to many speculations to what was under the mask. Was is a human? a robot? an alien? and if so, was he a freakishly disgusting mutant or maybe a prince charming underneath that black mask? ( I don't think a whole lot of people thought of that last one. Before the revelation at the end of Episode 6, everyone was left in mystery, and used their own unbiased imagination to relinquish the idea of what lied behind the breathing exterior, and we did the exact same with the underwater creature in Hedgehog and the Fog. I think it's a brilliant technique, and I'd love to incorporate it into the films I will make in the next coming years.
I really enjoyed this film that we watched today mainly for two reasons. The first being the relation it has to creation that Leeper pointed out. Second, I know how hard stop-motion animation is ( I tried my hand at it a few years back) and this film looked really challenging to make. There were so many amazing effects and I think my favorite one was that one creature that blew air. It made patterns on the ground, and in that split second, I forgot that it was stop motion and believed it was real. They made that effect LOOK SO GOOD, and it blows my mind just thinking of how much effort the artist behind this had put into this. Does this mean that we generally appreciate things that have more effort put into them, or am I just really excited? Probably the latter, because a lot of effort put into something doesn't necessarily mean it is better than something else executed superiorly ( I think that sounds right ). You could argue that the other film we watched about the block children was better, but personally I prefer The Sand Castle. My friend TJ did the math and told me that this film took 19,000 frames to shoot. 19,000!!! The other film about the block children took somewhere around 24,000, but even still I think it was harder to work with Sandcastle...because the only thing in that movie is sand... lots and lots of sand. Besides that point, this film shows the creation story well, but I also think it showed the cycle of seasons even better. I don't remember who said this quote, but I agree with him, he said " Spring was the beginning of new life, followed by summer of hard work, Fall of prosperity and then the Winter of tragedy." Whoever you are mystery person, you literally took the words right out of my mouth, and I think the imagery behind this is pure genius. The idea behind the Creator being God is also something I agree with. The relationship between the pig and the snake character can be related to the general hostility of certain people in the world. The drunk character could just represent pure childish happiness. Overall this film had a lot to show and I absolutely loved the animation style.
