American Movie is a documentary that follows the life of Mark Borchardt, who is desperately trying to create a feature length film. I had heard about this film from a friend and was excited when I saw this was one of the assigned films for my media and studies class.
I found the film inspiring, it is a story that is heart wrenching in it's desperation. Mark Borchardt is truly driven to complete his dream despite the seemingly hopeless odds against him. His family and close friends all seem to have some role to play in helping bring Marks dream to life.
It is inspiring to see how determined a person can be when trying to complete their creative vision. The hunger can be immense when driven to fulfill their dream. I feel I can relate to that hunger to an extent, I am sure some of my close friends can as well. The drive to create I have felt along with my close friends through music and film. Mark Borchardt is an extreme case, but I feel we can relate and grow inspired by the determination this man has to follow through with his vision no matter how many obstacles come his way.
I highly recommend checking out this documentary, I found it inspiring, heart wrenching and hilarious all at the same time.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Messages from Water
I read about some research being done from a website called messages from water
here is the link for anyone who is interested http://www.life-enthusiast.com/twilight/research_emoto.htm
I found it fascinating, basically it is an experiment done by a man named Masaru Emoto that shows through the vibrational frequencies of our words and thoughts, the molecular structure of water changes. The website shows pictures to how the different words affected the look of the molecules. This was also done by playing music which also changed the molecules. The website goes further into details.
Now what is interesting to think about is that we have about 70% water inside of a person. According to the experiment, this shows how the interaction we have with others and the feelings we hold within ourselves could be creating a physical change in the molecular structure of the water that is inside of us. I find it really interesting in giving new perspective to how much communication can effect us in such a major way to shaping molecules running through our bodies.
I am very interested in hearing your opinion on this research, whether you can believe it or not. I think this research gives us a deeper understanding and awareness of how much we affect ourselves and others through communication.
here is the link for anyone who is interested http://www.life-enthusiast.com/twilight/research_emoto.htm
I found it fascinating, basically it is an experiment done by a man named Masaru Emoto that shows through the vibrational frequencies of our words and thoughts, the molecular structure of water changes. The website shows pictures to how the different words affected the look of the molecules. This was also done by playing music which also changed the molecules. The website goes further into details.
Now what is interesting to think about is that we have about 70% water inside of a person. According to the experiment, this shows how the interaction we have with others and the feelings we hold within ourselves could be creating a physical change in the molecular structure of the water that is inside of us. I find it really interesting in giving new perspective to how much communication can effect us in such a major way to shaping molecules running through our bodies.
I am very interested in hearing your opinion on this research, whether you can believe it or not. I think this research gives us a deeper understanding and awareness of how much we affect ourselves and others through communication.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Sci-fi and Fantasy popularity
I recently heard a statistic that the science fiction genre is more popular in the Western world, while the fantasy genre is more popular in the Eastern world. I think it is interesting to think about this, though I am just speculating to the reason. So what is the reason for this?
I feel that the reason for the popularity of the two can be linked to varying cultural mind sets. In our part of the world, the United States in particular, our culture is more rooted in scientific proof to explain our world, while the Eastern culture by tradition is more accepting of the supernatural and the spiritual realm. These traditionally focused mind sets could be linked to the popularity to these genres. Science fiction gives us a look into worlds that are based in technological and scientific advances based from our world in the present. Giving us a glimpse at possible futures and alternate realities. Fantasy on the other hand accentuates the mystic properties of our world to let the mind run wild.
I am a fan of both genres, a little hard for me to pick a favorite side. I am curious if anyone has any theories as to why these varying popularities may be I am very interested in hearing them. This again is just my speculation of why one genre may be more popular than the other.
I feel that the reason for the popularity of the two can be linked to varying cultural mind sets. In our part of the world, the United States in particular, our culture is more rooted in scientific proof to explain our world, while the Eastern culture by tradition is more accepting of the supernatural and the spiritual realm. These traditionally focused mind sets could be linked to the popularity to these genres. Science fiction gives us a look into worlds that are based in technological and scientific advances based from our world in the present. Giving us a glimpse at possible futures and alternate realities. Fantasy on the other hand accentuates the mystic properties of our world to let the mind run wild.
I am a fan of both genres, a little hard for me to pick a favorite side. I am curious if anyone has any theories as to why these varying popularities may be I am very interested in hearing them. This again is just my speculation of why one genre may be more popular than the other.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Kwedit
I don't know if anyone else has heard about this website kwedit.com, I heard about it from a segment that Stephen Colbert did recently. This site is incredibly strange. Basically it is credit for kids so they can play online games. Play now, pay later is the slogan. This is really disturbing when you find out what the games are. Foo Pets is a virtual pet game where you have to pay real money for food and other virtual products for your virtual pet. If you don't pay to keep your virtual pet happy they will take it away. I can not even completely express how messed up I think this is. To get kids to borrow money that they have to later pay back in order to keep their online virtual pet.
I personally don't think that kids at such young ages in which this site targets, should be dealing with credit especially in such a manner. This kind of media technology is supposed to teach kids about credit, but what is it really doing? The kid is going to get in debt buying virtual products and the parents are going to have to pay their debt for them. They even explain this as "passing the duck", this means that if you don't have the money you can ask someone else to pay for you taking the responsibility off of the kid. This kind of media technology seems sketchy to me for a young child to be responsible for. I think the idea of this being an educational experience seems odd to me as well. I feel there is other ways to teach a kid about credit without having them buy virtual pet food.
I personally don't think that kids at such young ages in which this site targets, should be dealing with credit especially in such a manner. This kind of media technology is supposed to teach kids about credit, but what is it really doing? The kid is going to get in debt buying virtual products and the parents are going to have to pay their debt for them. They even explain this as "passing the duck", this means that if you don't have the money you can ask someone else to pay for you taking the responsibility off of the kid. This kind of media technology seems sketchy to me for a young child to be responsible for. I think the idea of this being an educational experience seems odd to me as well. I feel there is other ways to teach a kid about credit without having them buy virtual pet food.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
John Carpenter's The Thing
One of my favorite monster movies The Thing by John Carpenter is a remake of the 1951 film with the same name. The basic plot is that a group of people stationed at an Antarctic research base come in contact with a faceless, nameless alien. It acts as a virus and disguises itself as the prey in which it killed. What I find so interesting and terrifying about this creature is that it poses itself as the creatures it has killed. Isolated from rest of civilization, the group does not know who amongst them is still human and who has become part of the creature.
What this film does brilliantly is play upon the fears we have of trusting one another, do we ever truly know someone? The group begins to grow paranoid and communication becomes more and more hostile. The once friendly group is now ready to point a finger at any one of the other members that they may have turned into the Thing. It is an omnipresent creature that plays upon our fear of the unknown. This film at it's core depicts what happens when fear takes hold of us and shows the way we treat each other when we are not sure if we can trust anyone. This film shows communication between the team of researchers as a vital tool for survival. They must communicate with each other to stay calm and calculate what they must do to survive.
I highly recommend this film to anyone who hasn't seen it, it is pretty freaky but if you like horror it is definitely worth checking out. It's from the 80s but I will say right now I think the puppetry/animatronics in this look way cooler than any cg used in modern day horror. It is absolutely crazy. This film is horror on multiple levels, it is quite psychological in playing upon our fears of trust and isolation while at the same time being one crazy monster movie.
What this film does brilliantly is play upon the fears we have of trusting one another, do we ever truly know someone? The group begins to grow paranoid and communication becomes more and more hostile. The once friendly group is now ready to point a finger at any one of the other members that they may have turned into the Thing. It is an omnipresent creature that plays upon our fear of the unknown. This film at it's core depicts what happens when fear takes hold of us and shows the way we treat each other when we are not sure if we can trust anyone. This film shows communication between the team of researchers as a vital tool for survival. They must communicate with each other to stay calm and calculate what they must do to survive.
I highly recommend this film to anyone who hasn't seen it, it is pretty freaky but if you like horror it is definitely worth checking out. It's from the 80s but I will say right now I think the puppetry/animatronics in this look way cooler than any cg used in modern day horror. It is absolutely crazy. This film is horror on multiple levels, it is quite psychological in playing upon our fears of trust and isolation while at the same time being one crazy monster movie.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Bridging the gap between video-games and the film making
The gap between movies and video games has shrunk. I have thought about this for awhile in the relationship between the two. As the technology for video games has been rapidly evolving so has the story telling. I believe there has been great examples of story telling in this format for a long time. For me the super nintendo was the first gaming system I ever owned and there are games with truly unique stories I have never seen anything quite like since. The lack of graphics and voice acting forced a narrative driven game to depend on it's personality alone. If anyone has played Earthbound for super nintendo, the game is incredibly simple in presentation, but in terms of personality and story, it is unlike anything else.
Today we are seeing advances in the way we can tell stories in this format, voice acting used to be a rarity for games and now it is found in almost every title. The Metal Gear Solid series to me was the first time I felt I was experiencing something that had a cinematic style that felt like I was playing a game and at the same time, experiencing a film that had an incredibly deep and complex story. We also see the development of motion capture through out this series, the first one had top notch voice acting but pixelated unmoving faces. With the 4th installment, we see how motion capture can give these characters facial expressions and actions that are mapped out from a person acting out a scene. This gives the character emotions and depth unlike anything we have seen before.
Video games seem to be coming closer and closer to blending with the art of film, while it has been successful for games to adapt facets of film making into itself, the video games that have had movie adaptations have failed miserably. There have been multiple flops when attempting to adopt a games story and style into a film yet people are still trying to successfully accomplish this.
I would love to hear examples of games that you have loved, that you felt adapted film like narratives and techniques into the experience. I would also like to hear your thoughts and opinions on video game adapted movies.
Today we are seeing advances in the way we can tell stories in this format, voice acting used to be a rarity for games and now it is found in almost every title. The Metal Gear Solid series to me was the first time I felt I was experiencing something that had a cinematic style that felt like I was playing a game and at the same time, experiencing a film that had an incredibly deep and complex story. We also see the development of motion capture through out this series, the first one had top notch voice acting but pixelated unmoving faces. With the 4th installment, we see how motion capture can give these characters facial expressions and actions that are mapped out from a person acting out a scene. This gives the character emotions and depth unlike anything we have seen before.
Video games seem to be coming closer and closer to blending with the art of film, while it has been successful for games to adapt facets of film making into itself, the video games that have had movie adaptations have failed miserably. There have been multiple flops when attempting to adopt a games story and style into a film yet people are still trying to successfully accomplish this.
I would love to hear examples of games that you have loved, that you felt adapted film like narratives and techniques into the experience. I would also like to hear your thoughts and opinions on video game adapted movies.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Franchise Reboots
Hollywood has been in a pattern of reviving old franchises, for example the batman movies. Christopher Nolan reinvented what Tim Burton started by directing Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. This was a franchise reboot and one that was creative and made sense to make. This is not always the case with films though.
Spiderman has gone through 3 films and Sam Raimi was going to be directing number 4 but when Raimi was being pressured for a summer release and didn't feel he could deliver a quality film by then he dropped it. WIth Raimi out so was Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. So what does the studio do? Gets a new director and plans to reboot the franchise.
Now with Batman the reboot made sense, Tim Burton made his films back in the 80s and they were very stylized films. Nolan needed to restart what had been built to create his vision. This Spiderman reboot is a back up plan for the fact that they cant continue Raimi's vision without him so they are rebooting it. It seems to be purely for a profit to push box office sales by having the Spiderman brand attatched to it.
This reboot is just feeding the audience the same thing they have been given before. I am worried that the popularity of rebooting franchises may lead to feeding the audience the same tasteless mush over and over again. This is a prejudiced rant I know, because I have not seen this new Spiderman franchise, but they are just restarting what was already built by films that were made not even 10 years ago. It hasn't even been a decade and they are sending Peter Parker back to high school because they can't think of anything else to do with him.
I hope that franchise reboots stay appropriate like some films have. Does anyone welcome this reboot for Spiderman? What do you think of the idea of rebooting film franchises?
Spiderman has gone through 3 films and Sam Raimi was going to be directing number 4 but when Raimi was being pressured for a summer release and didn't feel he could deliver a quality film by then he dropped it. WIth Raimi out so was Toby Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. So what does the studio do? Gets a new director and plans to reboot the franchise.
Now with Batman the reboot made sense, Tim Burton made his films back in the 80s and they were very stylized films. Nolan needed to restart what had been built to create his vision. This Spiderman reboot is a back up plan for the fact that they cant continue Raimi's vision without him so they are rebooting it. It seems to be purely for a profit to push box office sales by having the Spiderman brand attatched to it.
This reboot is just feeding the audience the same thing they have been given before. I am worried that the popularity of rebooting franchises may lead to feeding the audience the same tasteless mush over and over again. This is a prejudiced rant I know, because I have not seen this new Spiderman franchise, but they are just restarting what was already built by films that were made not even 10 years ago. It hasn't even been a decade and they are sending Peter Parker back to high school because they can't think of anything else to do with him.
I hope that franchise reboots stay appropriate like some films have. Does anyone welcome this reboot for Spiderman? What do you think of the idea of rebooting film franchises?
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