Documentary Review

Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine examines America's culture in relation to guns and the atmosphere that could be behind the Columbine shooting, and other acts of such gun violence. Moore uses no dramatic aspects only using interviews and other a-roll, b-roll, and archival footage. He uses few cinematic aspects, and when he does use them, they are not easily visible to the viewer, such as a couple scenes where he had to of shot multiple times, but was passed off as being taken once. The one aspect of film that Moore uses heavily is the literary aspect.

Even though none of his characters are fictional, he chooses either very interesting characters. Some are very emotionally poignant, such as two survivors of the Columbine shooting he takes on an adventure, some are made off to be ridiculous or antagonistic, such as the Charlton Heston, the NRA president, and James Nichols, the brother of one of the bombers connected to the Oklahoma City Bombing, but all are interesting.

Although Moore uses other points of view in all of his documentaries, including this one, his documentaries have some aspects of propaganda that impact the theme and overall message.

I would recommend this documentary, but I would recommend it with caution, making sure that the viewer is prepared to see more than Moore's view and try to see more of the issue, which is important, particularly lately.

Bowling for Columbine, 120 minutes, rated MA

A Terrible Thing

Friday, December 14th, 2012.
The Sandy Hook shooting will not, and should not be easily forgotten.
This should be a time of togetherness, a time for community, and support, but instead there have been people turning it into an opportunity for debate.
People have been using it as an emotional argument against gun laws.
The man responsible for this tragedy did not just up and go on a shooting spree simply because he had the access to firepower. But that is not the point.
Ryan Lanza, did commit a crime. He committed an atrocity. But he did this because he was he was suffering. Because no one was there for him. Because something was wrong with him and society only amplified this.
Now, people are calling him a pervert, a monster, and countless other things. Isn't this, in a way, just perpetuating the hate that in some way played a part in this tragedy?
If we are to learn anything from this terrible event, it should be that we should try our best to accept everyone. Try our best to help everyone.
And in this awful time, try to remember, "The world is a good place and the number of hugs per gunshot victim is very, very high." -Hank Green

The Holidays

I've always loved the holidays.

Christmas was honestly the most wonderful time of the year when I was a little girl.

I would begin singing Christmas carols on December 1st, sometimes even on the day after Thanksgiving. I would anxiously wait for the snow to come and create a beautiful and pure winter wonderland. As December wore on, I became more and more excited to go to my grandparents house.

Christmas at my grandparents house was always so traditional. A bit because of our own traditions, and a bit because of the classic traditions my grandparents followed.

What I consider Christmas started at around 5 o'clock on Christmas Eve. As a family, we would drive up about 45 minutes to my Dad's grandmother's house. We'd spend the evening trading presents, playing board games, and generally playing around with our first cousins in the incredibly crowded house. My grandmother had 8 children who all got married and had multiple children of their own, and so on, resulting in a HUGE family gathering.

At about 9 o'clock we'd drive home. Every year I would fall asleep in the car, and even though I would wake up when we got home, I would pretend to sleep on, so my dad would carry me into my bed and tuck me in.

With the morning came presents. I woke up relatively early, excited for the long day ahead. My parents had taught my sister and I about St. Nicholas, who Santa was based off of, so we always knew the truth about Santa.

After unwrapping presents, we'd go to church for the nativity service, and quickly leave after to get on the road. The Christmas day road trip to my grandparent's house in retrospect wasn't that long at only 3 hours, compared to the current 10, but boy did we dread it every year.

Exactly at the half point of the car ride, we would stop at a Waffle House in Wapakoneta, OH. Every year. Without fail. The waitresses that were stuck with working Christmas day, always remembered us, and our single annual appearance.

Finally, after 3 excruciatingly long hours of sleeping and staring out the window at the corn fields covered in snow, we pulled up at my grandparents house.

My sister and I would run up the walk surrounded by snow to see who could use the knocker first. Of course our family could always hear a loud clunky van coming from a block away, so their surprise was always ruined.

One of the best parts of Christmas for me was the entire atmosphere. It was as if my grandparents house was doused in magic from the 24th until the 31st. My grandparents live in this fabulous cozy little home with the best backyard and a magnificent garden.

Every year, without fail, my grandmother goes through the pains of decorating the entire house with stocking and dolls, right down to the little light up villages that ran along all endges of the rooms, decked out with little figurines and tons of fake, sparkling snow. My two favorites I can picture clearly: one with a little ice rink that had automated magnets underneath it, perpetually dragging three smiling ice skaters in looping figure eights, and the other with the none other than Mr. Scrooge spinning in circles in the top room of his office with the ghosts of past, present, and future. These were more entrancing than the tree and even the little automated train running around it (although I had my fair share of playing with that).

I could go on for ages and ages about her decorations, how their house looks out on the perfect snow, into the backyard where we even saw a bright red cardinal, many a time.

Christmas dinner was probably the most traditional part of the holiday with the exception of the decorations and atmosphere. We'd all sit in the beautifully lit dining room and go through our meal, with all of our plates and utensils (even the fancy unnecessary ones) and share a classic holiday meal together, with my added chocolate milk, of course.

Christmas was always the best time at my grandparents'.

Experimenting

This week I tried, for the first time, to make an animated GIF. I started by writing out one of my favorite quotes from John Green with a kind of typography. I ran into a challenge when my printer spazzed out and I couldn't scan my piece. Once I got past this, I used Pixlr to create a series of photos that I uploaded to My Space Gens, and created this gif.

Another challenge I ran into was just uploading my gif once I finished. You can't do it right through blogger. So I had to create a photo bucket account and then use the html code to put it into this post.

Capture the Fall

Books

Growing up, I was very shy. One of my favorite escapes was through books.

In elementary school I was always reading. I would even get in trouble with my parents because I would have my nose in a book while I was crossing the street!

Currently I regret not being able to read what I like or as much as I want to. Reading would be much more convenient if I had a mobile reader such as a Kindle. 

Call me a sentimentalist, but even though an electronic reader would be more convenient, I do not like mobile readers.

Books are wonderful, awesome things. Awesome in the sense that they are awe inspiring, capable of reducing people to tears, sparking deep intellectual arguments, and calling attention to the injustices of our society. Books are incredible tools of knowledge and communication. This is why it is such a shame that book stores all over are closing.

Books can be therapeutic, and part of that is the comfort of curling up on a chair with an epic book and losing your problems in the story. Reading a book is more than just absorbing the information. Reading a book is physically calming and relaxing. 

As the world continues to expand technology, electronic readers worry me. I want books to thrive, but I am afraid this won't be possible. 

The decline in popularity of physical books might make these amazing treasure troves, even greater.

Fabulous Website

This summer at one of my summer camps someone mentioned a website called Freerice.com.

What is Freerice.com?

Freerice.com is a website owned by the United Nations World Food Programme. The site both prepares students for the SAT, and donates rice to third world countries where hunger is a severe problem. For each correct answer a participant answers 10 grains of rice are donated.

This is a great website I hope more people will start using it!

A passion?

In order to write about your passions, you have to know your passions. In order to know your passions, you have to know yourself very well.
Like many 15 year old girls I have absolutely no idea who I am. Thus, I know very little about my passions. It's true that I can be very excited about a hobby perhaps, or quite emotionally involved in a certain tv show or fandom, but how am I to know if that excitement will last through my life and be a true passion? It's simple. I don't.
There are few people I know that are my age that truly know their passions. There a few people my age who don't know have found their passions, but have nonetheless. At the same time, there are people years older than me who are still looking for their passion, and still there are people years into their careers who find their passion to simply be an infatuation and are left unmotivated. I wish (more than anything! <- I've had the Into the Woods soundtrack hopelessly stuck in my head) I will be able to find my true passion before that happens to me, but whatever happens happens.
For a few years I was convinced that I wanted to be a child psychologist who worked with art therapy. This conclusion seemed natural because I love working with children, I love art, and I am so curious about what makes people act the way they do. It was only once I understood that despite my deep interest in the topic I wasn't passionate about what I'd being doing, and I would end up hating my job. So now I am left with the understanding that I must be passionate about whatever job I end up pursuing, but no identified passion (that would reasonably translate to a serious job).

I do think that I might be passionate about volunteering and theatre, but time will tell.

Dystopian Trailer- Propaganda Poster

I actually created the poster for our film this past Wednesday. I like to think it is bold in its simplicity. The poster is advertising the "Nurse Nancy"s in our dystopia, and are meant to be slightly creepy. We've already included the posters in our filming.

Giraffes

Hey guys, please go sign this petition.

One of my close friend's in Florida sent this to me saying that her local zoo, which is way too small, is trying to bring in a new giraffe. The cages are nowhere near as big as they need to be already, and this will make things worse.
This is important to me, please sign at the link below!

Help the giraffes!

Thanks!

5x5

• glass
• opening refrigerator
• getting cider
• pouring cider
• empty glass

I used a Nikon Coolpix L26 to shoot my 5x5 and I used imovie to edit my clips. I originally tried to use wevideo, but after uploading my clips twice it still wouldn't recognize that they were uploaded. My 5x5 is kind of plain, but I like that it's sort of simplistic. For our next video challenge I think we should shoot a silent movie.

Dystopian Trailer Critique

2081 . Chandler Tuttle . Unrated . 2009
In the year 2081, the government has created equality by handicapping those who excel. George Bergeron (James Cosmo) watches as his extraordinary son Harrison (Armie Hammer) rebels on live television.

The trailer for 2081 is exemplary in that it clearly sets up the premise through film clips, text, editing, and style and connects all of these by a pivotal aspect of the story, the handicaps. The film clips and text throughout the trailer clearly depict how the Bergerons live in a dehumanized state by showing George's handicaps and the pain they bring, as well as spelling out much of the premise in bold red text in simple powerful phrases such as, "No one is better. Everyone is worse." The editing also revolves around the handicaps in that the text flickers from the screen in time with the noise that the intelligence handicaps transmit. This underlines the premise by showing the effect of a handicap. The style of the trailer is rather dark, with the exception of the stark white costume of ballerina that Harrison involves in his rebellion. This bold contrast shows accentuates the line that, "But in a world where the extraordinary is outlawed, only the outlaws will be extraordinary."The style as well as simply the handicaps themselves show how Harrison and his father are trapped both physically and in their dystopia. I hope that I can pick a certain element of my dystopian premise to develop my trailer around. The focus on the handicaps in the trailer for 2081 creates a unity in the trailer and makes it very powerful.

Connected Learning

"World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others"by Will Richardson is a call of action to educators to begin incorporating the knowledge and technology of the online world. The article first makes the point that "The Collaboration Age" is about the important networks of communication the internet and new technology allows us to have. It continues on, explaining the importance of establishing a connection to "The Collaboration Age" and learning, and then lays out the possible downfalls, such as the relinquishing of traditional schooling.

The quote, "It's about solving problems together and sharing knowledge we've gained with wide audiences," shows both the importance of bringing the internet into the classroom and also illustrates how beneficial it can be to the students.

I found it surprising that the author acknowledge that when we are restricted from the internet at school, in some ways we are restricted from the things we are passionate about.

In theory I like the idea of connected learning, but I think it is difficult to find a balance of using the internet to improve upon our school work and learning without having too much freedom. But in turn, the amount of freedom we have dictates the amount of knowledge and creativity we glean from the internet. I also think that connected learning won't work as well in practice, because it's relying on the students to guide the learning and participate, and some students may oppose to it.

For the two topics that I would like to learn more about, documentaries and how media affects the american society, connected learning will be very beneficial.

Movie Review

In our last media class, we each read a movie review and annotated it using Diigo to experiment with Diigo and identify possible structure for movie reviews we will do in the future.

I read "'Brave,' Pixar's New Animated Film" by Manohla Dargis, published on NYTimes.com. The review had a paragraph of introduction with a bit of opinion before it quickly tied in a plot summary. The summary smoothly went into an analysis of the animation (which would also be the point of analysis of acting, costuming, and set in other movies) and then back to a little plot to wrap up with the theme. The review was peppered with jokes, creating a playful tone to fit the playful movie.

I think that our quarterly movie review should be very open to creativity. There should be a list of maybe 4 or 5 essential questions that we must touch on, including the 3 aspects of film, and then a following list of 6 to 7 questions that we should pick a couple from to answer. It would be fantabulous to have complete creativity on how we must answer these questions.

Diigo Annotated Movie Review

Introductions

I am Ravyn, a sophomore at Montgomery Blair High School in the Communication Arts Program, and this blog is a part of my media class. I am interested in theatre, baking, ASL, and I am passionate about volunteering. I am interested in the influential role of media on society, and I am also interested in learning about documentaries.
In the past my favorite film projects were at an acting camp where I was in a program called Acting for the Camera, which involved the complexities of adjusting acting to effectively convey through film. In the projects I was primarily an actor and film crew member, and I had very little to do with the actual editing process.
A few possible ways CAP students can use these blogs:
- To connect during group projects for collaboration, editing, and peer criticism.
- To share are completed projects.
- To share resources for projects.

This is a picture of hand decorated plates in a Peruvian market. This past summer I spent most of time time volunteering and learning about cultures around the world. Peru is one of the places I began to have a deep interest in this summer.

image source: Peruvian Plates