Film Auteur

The director I chose to look into was Wes Anderson. In the past I have had a couple of friends suggest his films to me, at the time I never knew he was behind them. After viewing his films I noticed that he has such a unique style in his visuals and also with his characters. I like that many of his characters are kind of odd and get stuck in very different situations. The first film I watched was Moonrise Kingdom, then I took a look at The Fantastic Mr. Fox and I finished with Grand Budapest Hotel. As I watched the films I noticed that he is very fond of warmer colors, interesting framing and odd characters. I noticed he also likes to use certain actors like Bill Murray and William Dafoe. Another interesting aspect of his films are his uses of one-point perspective. Many of his shots look very awkward and symmetrical which really helps the viewer get a good idea of what the character is feeling or how the viewer themselves should feel. His use of colors are also very well done. He uses many warm colors but they keep your eye right on point. Anderson can defiantly be seen as a film Auteur. After looking a bit more into him, I found that he writes his own movies. With that in mind and the fact that his style is so apparent, you can tell he has most if not all of the creative control over his films.

The Medium is the Massage

Media is almost everywhere you look in this day and age. One of the most prominent areas to find media is on the internet. There are all different forms of it. You may think you are alone in your room, but you really aren't. Today most people live in what feels like a glass room. Every little thing you do can be seen by others to some extent. With the rise of forum pages, blogs, Face Book, among other sites, people have more of a voice than ever before. Media can be shared in many more ways than it could have a long time ago. Information can be sent much more faster, people are becoming much more exposed to many new things. One can only think as to where our new form of media takes us next.

Assessment

In the story there are a couple of prominent symbols and themes. One major theme is the feeling of nostalgia. The boys constantly keep going back to the best memories that had at the theme park. They talk about how they remembered their favorite rides and attractions. Even some of the attractions are nostalgic, like the 1950's diner. One big symbol in the story is the earth quake attraction that the boys go and stand over. They were trying to get a better understanding as to what it looked like after the towers had fallen. The feeling of loss is also very apparent. The boys lose their favorite place to go to while an entire nation loses an architectural symbol.

              Some of the elements I can connect to in the story is the feeling of nostalgia. Looking back at something that I cherished when I was younger always brings back good memories and feelings. I was able to connect to the fact that the boys had lost something that they had loved. It is the worst feeling when you have such a strong attachment to something and in just disappears without much of a reason. The boys seemed around the same age as me when the towers fell. Though I do not remember as much, I do remember that something severe had happened. I just remember that we were in class and were told to go to the gym, they told us what had happened and the rest is a blur.

              If I were to adapt this story into a different medium, I might want to try and make it into an animated short. I feel like it would have as a similar vibe to Pixar's Up. That film was great because it struck a great balance of having a very serious and adult tone, but also kept a great sense of wonder and excitement. The short might jump around to the boys reactions to the attack, to their memories of the theme park, and to where they break in and revisit the park when it is closed.

One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest Comic

This is the scene where McMurphy just met the guys in the ward. Nurse Ratchet finds and meets him. She shows him around and takes him to the dorm part of the ward.

Audio Recording for Much Ado About Nothing

For this assignment we had to take a scene from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and try and reenact it. We chose to do act II, scene 2. We also chose to do an audio recording, it took us a few tries to get our voices ready but in the end we pulled it off.

Sixth Writing Assignment

For this assignment we were given the task at looking at Karen Russell's novella, Sleep Donation. The story is connected to today's society in many different ways. In some ways, one can read the story and get the idea that Karen may have been saying something about corporate companies. Some may read the story and think that she may be saying something about how we are being consumed by technology. Another person can look and make the connection that it is saying something about how the news tends to blow things way out of proportion. Another interesting theory is that the story can be connected with what is going on at this very moment, and that is the major outbreak of the Ebola virus than has been coming up in the news lately. Two things that I chose to take from the story that seem to be in many different works these days is the fact that technology is all over the place and the recent rise of female protagonists in many recent types of media. Though this story is the not the first, it does takes some jabs at the fact that we may be going down the wrong path with our use of technology. This especially starts to get scary when you think about the headset that the characters wear. It seems like every day we get slightly closer to something very similar. The only thing that kept popping into my head was the new Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. It is like having a whole new world being created right before your eyes. And it seems like that is going to be the future of video games. Even some new stories and films have been playing around with the idea. Another interesting aspect of the story is that the protagonist is a female. This seems to be a popular trend in new books and films. Even video games have started jumping on the band wagon. Some good examples are Katniss from Hunger Games, and Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. It is actually kind of refreshing to see these kind of characters break free from being a typical damsel in distress. They seem to be tough so that both genders can relate to them which makes a nice interesting balance. It also makes for some interesting scenes if there is a strong male lead character in the mix. Stories like this seem to be saying that there shouldn't be such a huge divide between genders. One can get as many things done as the other. 

Fifth Writing Assignment

            For class we had to write about Edwidge Danticat's The Dew Breaker. There were some things that I was able to relate to in the story, but there were also many things that in no way, I was able to relate to because I am just not in Ka's shoes. First off, I am not of the same gender as Ka. I feel that if she were a male, her story may have panned out a bit more different in some aspects. She also comes from a different culture than me. Ka and her family are Haitian's that live in New York. One small thing I can relate to is that I live there also. What is interesting is that they are originally from Haiti. So in her story, they come from a far away place to start a new life. When I was younger I was told that we were moving, this basically made my entire world crumble. I had to adjust to a new place, meet new people, and say goodbye to some of my old friends. Thankfully we only stayed in our new house for a couple of years, and realized that our family was just too far away. We decided to move back which made me happy, but at the same time I realized that I had to go through the struggle of reestablishing myself again. This is close to what Dany does in one of the stories, but the reasons are much darker and serious. By the end of one of the stories, Ka grows to have a bitter feeling towards her father because she feels she was deceived by him. Though I do not have any bad relations with my father, I can still relate to the fact that she felt deceived. When I moved back to my old town, I had to try and reconnect with some of my old friends. It was then that I realized that many of them had changed for the worst in my opinion. I had to go through many obstacles to try and find the right group to fit into. One of my best friends from past years completely changed when I tried to reconnect with him, another friend basically used me and never really cared about what I had to say, which left me feeling bitter even to this day. This though seems to be where the comparisons end. Parts of the story deal with redemption, murder and the loss of family members. Though there are small things I can relate to with those, they are on a much smaller scale than what the story holds.