Documentaries

The documentaries that we watched in class today were interesting and creative and what I liked the most is that everything was based on true stories that have happened that either we're not aware of or tells the story so everyone can remember what happened.  This reminded me of a few documentaries that I've watched and appreciated due to the fact that it was based on events that have happened and teaches us abut it.  My favorite documentary drama is The End of the Spear, which is about Operation Auca and the five Christian missionaries who were speared by five members of the Waodani tribe in Ecuador.  The story is really sad and hard to believe it actually happened, but those events eventually brought the Waodani tribe to Christ and they changed their ways.  The son of one of the missionaries that were killed and one of the tribes men who killed them formed a bond which has continued to this day.  Documentaries are powerful and can lead us to help others and understand someone's story.  Sometimes those stories are hard to listen to, but once we hear it and understand we sometimes want to help prevent the tragedies from continuing to others, which is sometimes the greatest thing that can happen.  If others want to help stop horrible things from happening, then the only thing to do is step up and do their part.  Documentaries can move us and do things that no one would have ever expected, and those things can help us change the lives of someone who needs it.

Blindsided by These Docs

Today’s class really caught me off guard. When I heard that we were covering documentaries, I somewhat let my guard down. Though I have heard of the influencing power of documentaries, rarely have I seen it in the ones I have watched. However, today’s films were exceptions. First off, the documentary on the Jewish photographer spoke to me in several ways. It showed the power that human attention can have. This photographer was making these poor people feel like they were actually worth something. Then, just the lives these poor people were living made me realize that there is an entire world that I don’t comprehend. Though I like to think I have a heart for the urban poor, I have not experienced what they have.

Then, the documentary made entirely in CG really affected me, and it was because of one particularly disturbing image. When the colored strands, representing an artist’s self doubt, wrapped themselves around the different artists’ heads, it really freaked me out. It made me realize that I probably will come into contact with this level of doubt at some point in my life. I don’t want to be like these artists and get choked by my doubting of my ability. If anything though, this fear has caused me to always hold value in myself. It is when we devalue our abilities that we run into problems.

Coach Carter.

Coach Carter is one of my favorite movies, because, it adds to the  long line of strong performances by Samuel L. Jackson, and some excellent basketball choreography, Coach Carter is fun, hopeful, occasionally silly and, what can I say, inspiring. I also like the movie, because Coach Carter has a big heart that doesn't shy away from challenging the American education system, the movie is more concerned with the characters than with the sport. So it's a movie for anyone to enjoy, and the charterers in the movie did a great job.  I would highly suggest that everyone to place this movie on your must see list and enjoy a truly uplifting sports story.

Telling The Story

When it comes to documentaries, they are my favorite type of cinema production because of their true ability to tell a story that will stick with their audience. There are also rules with documentaries that you can also find that you can stretch or even forget about as well. There are many different things that they can use to also help translate their idea and story as well. Some of the documentaries that I have watched that I feel like serve their purpose well are The World in a Day, Farmland, and The Men Who Built America.

 These all use different methods to portray their stories. Farmland is like a “traditional” style of film that uses the interviews and b-roll to drive the piece. Now comparing it to others like The Men Who Built America, they use historians and original photos to get the idea, but it uses a lot of reenactments to carry the storyline. It is a really cool idea to help show the story and you really get caught up in portions of it as well.

I always feel refreshed after watching a good documentary. I can only watch a certain number of Hollywood movies before I get bored. After many viewings of the same genre I feel like I'm watching the same thing over and over. All the superhero movies are the same to me. Whenever I feel the need for more stimulation, documentaries will always provide that refreshing movie-viewing experience.

The film we watched today, Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary, was a really insightful analysis on the effect of documentaries. The people in the film said that they aren't constructed, they are simply captured. They have the power to make an audience empathize with things they never knew they could. As well, anyone can make a documentary; there are no rules dictating how they are made. I got kind of lost in my thoughts after this. I thought about the final I have to write for this class. I thought about being a documentarian for my career. I know it would be difficult to make money, but it allows the freedom to make whatever I want. I like that idea. I hate being told what to do, and I feel like a job on a set in Hollywood would constantly be demanding of me. IDK though. A job in Hollywood would still be amazing. Maybe I could be a freelancer. IDK!!! There are tons of options and it's exciting but overwhelming at the same time. 

Documentaries

I used to be so stubborn to the medium of animation, that I never took time to appreciate film or documentaries.  I used to think that the fictional element of animation was the best form of storytelling because real-life was just plain boring.  How wrong I was. . . .

...actually I still think animation is the best way to tell a visual story, BUT! I appreciate things like documentaries way more than I used to.  I think my judgement of reality being boring came from the types of things brought up in today's documentaries: reading the newspaper or watching the news.  But as I now see it, the news isn't really reality, because it often just states the facts and it doesn't bring up all of the emotion and story surrounding the subject.  That last part is what makes it reality - makes it feel as if this thing actually happened (and it did!).  And that's what a documentary does.  A documentary is the best way to tell reality, true reality, by creating a story around the facts.  So I think my initial perception of reality was wrong.    A documentary is a very powerful tool to change a person's life.  Literally change them.  I think that's incredibly fantastic.

Yeah, yeah.  I know.  I'm still an animation nut.  But don't worry, I do NOT list this one on the same level as real documentaries.  But it's still dang hilarious.  

42.

I was watching 42  again this past weekend, and it is one of my favorites, I love this movie, because  of how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball that would eventually transition to more sports over the years. This is a great movie for anyone. If you like baseball, great, but it's not really necessary. If you like movies set in the '40s, you'll love it. If you like well done bio-dramas, you'll love it. my whole family was engaged by this movie when we first watched it. There were many points of discussion about racism, tolerance, and self control in the face of stupidity. The acting was top notch. The story was well put together, with plenty of chuckles, along with the drama.It was overall a great film in my eyes. 

Documentaries

What I have learned:
Documentaries are ways to catch real things you are doing from day to day. Power plays a roll in documenting your life as you have control over the film process and everything else. Documentaries can literally be a possibility of anything. They are not meant as just fiction. Bits and pieces of reality are not handed to us as a whole through documentaries. They can plant questions in people's minds that normally may not be in their mind. Documentaries can be both an emotional and educational experience. This is about engagement and emotion more than just physical things. This can be taken from other great art forms. Not one documentary is really like another. Each one stands out on its own because they can be about anything, and not one person is the same. Documentaries catch things from a person's every day life that may not be captured outside of film. It shares special moments all the way to very serious ones. Ideas flow throughout documentaries, but curiosity is what truly sticks out in them. If it's not interesting then what makes the difference in just filming something boring that will not create questions inside someone. So what do we do if a documentary fails?

More Videogames

One video game I wish would really make a big comeback is Crash Bandicoot. I really loved the video game back when I was little and I could still play it to this day if I had the console over here with me. These games all had such great story lines along with the really tough mini games to advance to each level. The games I have played from this series are CTR: Crash Team Racing, Crash Bash, and Crash Bandicoot: WARPED 3. I also really miss the game Spyro. You basically control the little dragon Spyro and go around the world unlocking all the levels and freeing the dragons that were frozen by the evil villain. I own all three Spyro games and I love them all very dearly. I would never call myself a huge gamer, but I am definitely a bigger gamer than most girls. I also really enjoy the fact that video games give you the power to escape the real world and live in the animated world of the game. Video games do a fantastic job of pushing away time that needs killing as well as entertaining for long periods. Video games will always strive to get better throughout the years.

My Interstellar Review

Let me just start by saying I think this movie is arguably one of Christopher Nolan's best movie. Probably the best. Interstellar requires a higher level of thinking than most movies, but maintains a believable story. They don't stray too far from actual science making the immersion better. 

The VFX and sound were impeccable. I remember that right at the beginning of the movie there is a scene of a ship crashing, and you could feel yourself shaking and your hair vibrating from the sound. Granted I saw it in IMAX so that probably helped with quality of the experience. 

Overall it's an extremely good movie. I rate it at the best movie I've seen in a decade. In my opinion, this movie is a game changer. I think the film industry will be changed by this movie. Go see it if you haven't!!

Dum dee dum dee duh?

I find it kind of curious where this class leads students. I mean first off we are left walking into trees with videos that shake our very beliefs and then we are shown things that implode our craniums. However, with all of this going on, I can't help but wonder one thing. I am kind of curious as to why the majority of the class is films. I mean there is nothing wrong with them, and I am in no way complaining, but I find it odd.
Let me explain. I was in a digital media arts vocational for the past two years and we tried to touch every facet of media. News, Music, TV, Broadcasting, Film, Animation, etc. I mean, yes, we read news articles as basis for some of the classes, and we do have a small video game and music segment. It is just that this class is largely centered on films and animations, and I was just wondering why we focus so much on those specific fields.
Just clarifying, I am NOT complaining, I mean I love animation and film, but for a digital media class; I just thought that we would cover more of the field. I am sure that I am wrong, as I am finding out more and more since I got here, but I was just curious.

Gaming

Well when it comes to video games I have honestly never truly got into them. I find them very fascinating and they are great, but when living on the farm, you discover you never have time for them. I have seen many people really get into games before and some that play them just to say that they played them. I believe that if you spend more than 4 hours at a time in front of that TV screen playing, you really need some help. I promise you if you set down the controller things will not run off on you, now go at least get up and move some!!! It drives me nuts when people do a hard core push on a game and then they are wining about how they don’t have any of their homework done or only got 2 hours of sleep. All I have to say is that you did that to yourself so don’t try to blame it on someone else.

On the other end of the spectrum, people have only played the game twice and they are trying to give pointers…now you tell me what is wrong with this picture!? I believe that if you can find that balance then you can really do well. 

Fire Flower

So, I thought I'd share a bit of what I've been working on this semester, and consequently what some of you animators may be working on when you get into stop motion.

http://vimeo.com/111270744 Embedding something from Vimeo doesn't want to work, so just give the link a click to see it.

This is a short animation that Kayla Mitchell (she runs Signs and Wonders on Thursdays) and I did on a set for the production class. The animation itself took about a week's worth of class time to set up and shoot, but the real time went into the set. This particular set took four people and over half of the semester to build; we finished it about a week and a half ago.

So, for those of you who want to work in stop motion, here's something that you could work on after you take the initial stop-mo class. I'm not sure how many more semesters it'll be worked on, but it's great hands on experience. We have a blog and a facebook group if you want to follow along with the project

Lets talk about Psychonauts

So since we are talking about video games I want to talk about Psychonauts.  This is a video game that was released on X-Box, Playstation 2, Gamecube and PC.  When it came out it did not get a whole lot of love and bombed commercially despite having high praise from critics.  The game has a cool aesthetic that feels an awful lot like a Tim Burton style.  The graphics now are a little out of date but still look nice.
The story is about a young Psychonaut named Raz.   He sneaks into a summer camp for young Psychonauts and joins them.  There he is trained by the camp counselors to home his skills to use in combat to help the world.  Unfortunately there is a conspiracy going on in the camp.  All the students are losing their brains literally.  So Raz teams up with some friends to find out what happens and meets his heroes.  Some of the greatest moments are when Raz travels inside the Milkman's, Fish's and some of the camp counselor's minds.
If you love fun games and have not played this game you should play this game.  It is on steam, Playstation store and X-box live marketplace.  It is rated E.  Go out and play it NOW!!

Yeah.

Like I've said before, I'm not one for video games; they just don't really appeal to me. I realize that I am a bit biased because the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions video games are ones like Call of Duty and Halo, and I have zero interest in those games. Just watching someone playing these games confuses me. The interface and multi screens make it hard for me to know where I'm supposed to be looking and the movements are jerky and too fast paced. 

Honestly, if you can play these games then props to you because it's a complete mystery to me. Maybe that’s why I just never even give them a chance. As cool as all the games were that Blake was talking about, there wasn’t anything that I could see myself playing until he brought up Dear Esther. I love that it is a narrative driven game that is more about the experience than it is a play-by-play task game. I would actually like to play this game at some point given the chance. For people who have played this game, what do you think of it?