The Man Who Planted Trees

The man who planted trees was very good and was in a way peaceful with how that one man planted acorns for trees to grow.  By doing this he created a peaceful place for everyone to enjoy.  The man didn't speak except for a few lines, but he didn't need to. He let his actions speak for him which made the most beautiful words of them all about what he was doing with the acorns and why he was doing it.  It connects with the Adam and Eve story in how the Lord created man to take care of his creation, so by planting the trees the man was fulfilling that role that was given to man since the beginning.

Short Beautiful Animations

Personally today in class, I loved all of the films. They were all very beautiful colored, animated, just gorgeous! But the one that stuck out to me was the Hedgehog in the fog. At first I wasn't sure on what it was supposed to be about but then I just gave up on trying to figure it out and just watched it. Personally my favorite part in that short film was when the hedgehog meet the dog for the first time. How the way he reacted towards the dog obviously thinking that it would hurt him but actually he was the one who found his pouch for him. Another part was the owl in the beginning, at first I thought that the owl was actually going to hurt the hedgehog but he was just rather curious on what the Hedgehog was doing. After all he copied whatever the hedgehog did. Giving it a sense of humor and lightheartedness.

  

exploring is fun!

The films we watched today in class were some of my favorites that we have watched this year. As an animation major I am just lovingggg the 'master of animation' track we have been on. It's so eye opening to see the way that animation has been done in the past, and how differently it can be done. Not just style wise, but also just how different countries interpret the art form, too. Animation is relatively new, if you consider all the other kinds of art out there like painting and sculpture, which I find to be pretty interesting. It's also not all computers, either. Watching the clips we have been watching makes me really think about how much of this medium I don't really know about. I grew up with Disney movies and the cartoons off television. All I've ever known, and really most of what our generation really knows, is computer-generated animation, and some claymation. I didn't even know about paper-cutouts until just recently, and I love it. Watching Yori's work with cut outs has been astonishing to me. My personal favorite piece of his we watched had to have been The Fox and the Hare. Seriously stunning. I loved the idea of it being in the format of a children's storybook, and the dialogue was so adorable. To watch the richness of something like that really makes me want to keep exploring the medium of animation and to see what else is out there that I haven't experienced, especially foreign films. The most I've gotten is really between different American companies, and some Hayao Miyazaki, of course. Which makes me feel really uncultured and just like oblivious to all the amazing little wonders other people have created. It's really important to me to get a taste of all different kinds of things so I can draw my inspiration from them and learn from the true masters of the art that I want to pursue. I don't know about the rest of you,  I'm really excited to keep watching films in this class! Even if sometimes I don't get what's going on, the fact that I'm being exposed to all of this amazing work is really inspiring as artists. :) I feel like an animation explorer.

The Wire

     I recently finished watching the HBO show The Wire. I have very mixed thoughts about this show because it went from being so good to just mediocre and at times bad. The first season is what really carried this show and that is what caused me to endure the other seasons. What made season one so successful was the way they developed both sides of the drama. On one end you had the Baltimore Police Department and on the other end you had the drug lords of Baltimore. You got to know the stories of both sides which made their interactions with each other all the better.

     The entire first season is the story of how the Baltimore PD is able to set up phone taps and monitor the drug dealings of the top drug dealers. The first season is so strong because you are getting both sides of the story and you can see that not all of the criminals are as bad as you would think and that not all of the police officers are as good as you would think. The problem with the later seasons is that they not only get repetitive, but after the first season, the major head of the drug scene is put in jail and the show never really makes a full recovery. It’s a shame that they couldn't keep the momentum from the first season going because if it had then this could be the best show that HBO has made.    

Community

     Over the past several weeks I have been watching the NBC show Community. The first season started out kind of slow for me and I wasn’t sure how much I would like it. As the first season progressed and I got into the next seasons I really started to enjoy watching the show and getting to know the characters. I love watching funny shows like this and for me the type of humor was a pleasant change of pace. The show is centered around a lawyer who has to enroll in a community college in order to get his bachelor’s degree. It was found out before this that he had forged a degree in order to take and pass the bar exam.

     While he is at community college he develops a close friendship with a small group of people and that is when the real humor follows. Most of the episodes of Community take a satirical approach to other popular movies and tv shows. For example, they have done episodes based off of Django Unchained and Law and Order among others. I had seen this concept done in spoofs on other shows before, but never quite with the regularity and effectiveness that Community has done it with. Although I am not quite finished with the entire series, I am still really enjoying it and it continues to go up on my favorites list.  

Moviesssss :D

Russian Icon

This was a very creative setting and way to produce this film. The people looked kind of like cut outs of paper.. but they were also extremely realistic in design. The war scene reminded me a lot of other wars such as the Civil War. The sound effects fit really well into this plot as well. I personally like watching most animated films with dialog better. I think it keeps me more interested in watching them; however, this film is keeping me pretty interested with all the transitions to different scenes and sounds. It also had sort of a sad and beautiful ending at the same time with a woman all dressed in white almost looking sad as she is bent forward.

The Fox and The Hare

This film was very cute at the beginning.. and then the fox barged in and stole the hare's house. Then the wolf came and it was very touching. I like how enlightening the wolf made it.. but of course then he backed out and did not help the hare anymore. I felt sincere feelings for the poor hare as he cried. I wanted to get into the film and personally help him myself. I felt so bad for him. I really liked how there was dialog in this, of course :)

Sand Castles

I think it's easy to look at this video and say that it has a sad, depressing ending since the wind covers over everything the sand people made. But isn't that how it all came about? From nothing?

I think it speaks to how it can be scary to make art and to make something new and dear to your heart because what happens when no one likes it? Or even cares about it? It becomes a question of how much do we care about it if all that's gonna happen to our hard work is being viewed and appreciated by ourselves until it gets demolished.

Sometimes it's not even ourselves that say it's not worth our time sometimes the audience will come out and tell it to you in your face. Isn't that why we don't make art for the church? Which is truly sad because that kind of art can be really beautiful. I mean God made a creative people so why is the church afraid of us being creative? So what if you don't like it; you don't have to view it. There's a lot of other media out there.

Cheap wine among the best

 

An old wine maker was walking around town with his cart of okay selections he was fairly proud of. He got frequent clients the whole day, and people who had not tried his brand gave their honest opinions about it that allowed him to become a better maker of drinks. After a while he said to himself “I will go to a place where they make fine wines, so I can learn better how to craft my own”. He went cheerily with his cart all the way past the mountains until he reached the fields of those who knew more than he. It was fantastic he learned so much from all the greatest teachers, and friends who enjoyed life’s most precious elixir. The old man improved greatly over time, but he noticed something was wrong… nobody enjoyed his drink because they were so far ahead of him, when back in town people admired his humble red joy. This greatly depressed the man, he all but gave up his efforts, because among everyone else they were useless even though they would never say an unkind word of him, nor even think one. Soon he longed for that little town where people did not know the names of the great wines, or the importance of their location, but he couldn’t leave. He had to master his craft, even if it no longer inspired him, because he had turned away from the reality of it. That it was a good thing that brought joy. So he withered and died inside, his body soon to follow.

 

I don’t think Christians were meant to live like this, huddled together not seeing the evil in the world. I learn more and more about so many things, even God, but know him less and less each day I am here. My wine is sweet and young, it has not acquired that strong wonderful taste that I see people my own age have, but especially older have. I am no chateauneuf de pap, I am a cheap bottle in the back of a gas station, but at least there I can be of use to some, poor needy soul.

Does anyone else feel this way?

I come from an Italian home, could you tell?

 

This is children's media?!

Wow. I can't believe The Man Who Planted Trees is considered a children's piece. I feel like I was robbed during my childhood! I never watched anything like it before or even knew that it existed.

Which raises an important question: why. Why does this video come to be such a shock to us that it is a children's media piece? I feel like to our culture (and to me before this class) when the phrase "children's media" is spoken we immediately think of SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer.

Wouldn't parents enjoy watching videos with their children a lot more if they had options like The Man Who Planted Trees? I know I would! I could watch hours of this stuff. Dora the Explorer? Not so much.

And it's sad because to production houses which kind of children's media makes more money? Dora and SpongeBob, or The Man Who Planted Trees? Until we can convince them otherwise or make enough good, high quality media Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob will always get top billing.

Preference and Passion

So we've taken in a good bit of things the past few classes. We've watched a lot of different animations, talked about children's media, and thought about what our children should be watching. My thoughts were really scattered and I wasn't sure what to write about, what subject to really focus a blog on instead of rambling a little bit about everything. So I decided to focus on something after reading through some of the blogs - why I chose the film track and certain aspects of it.

I'm a Film Production major, and I have to admit, I just truly enjoy live action over animation. I really do like animation, but certain types and lengths. Sometimes full-length animated movies can be hard for me to watch, but some are really spectacular. I really loved Spirited Away, and I don't enjoy anime, like, at all. It's all preference, but I do appreciate it. The work behind Sandcastle and Tchou Tchuo must have been astonishing and pain-staking! I would never ever have the patience or drive to do something like that. One of the funny things is though, I've always had a fascination with VFX, but once again, I could never have the patience to stare at a computer screen and animate like that.

I'm definitely a bigger live action fan. Practical effects, being out there in the field, getting down dirty run-and-gun camerawork. Watching explosions, working with props, and even a tad bit of acting. Yeah, that's what I like. I wouldn't want to necessarily be cooped up in a studio all the time (which I know not all animation and VFX is, but it feels like that to me).

So, I'm not entirely sure what individual film track I want to focus on yet, but I will tell you that there will be things that frustrate me, but I want to do them because I am passionate about them. Writing? Frustrates me a lot of the time trying to come up with stories, but I love writing scripts. I'm not an animator, but I am a graphic design artist. I love graphic design! I know Photoshop like the back of my hand. I also love working hands on with cameras and props and rigging. So, whatever I end up doing, it will be something I have a lot of passion and drive for, which I just don't have for animation as much as I do live action. If I don't passion for something, then it only becomes frustrating.



Hoedeman's Vision

Hoedeman (this name is awesome because in Dutch it’s pronounced “who da man?”) is one of the best children’s animators of our time, not only because of his beautiful and original work, but because he had a mind like that of a child. He wasn’t afraid to retell the stories that we often keep away from kids because he knew that a child is one of the greatest theologians of our time.  Hoedeman uses stories from the past and retells them in his own creative and original ways; ways both children and adults can enjoy together. It’s a terrible feeling when a parent has to drag their feet to take their child to go see a dumb movie, but it’s wonderful when the whole family can sit down and enjoy a movie because of the wonderful story-making that has gone into it. Good stories just draw people in. Adults get pretty stuffy about their literature; that’s probably why they make children’s books for parents and children to enjoy together. When books and movies have good, entertaining, solid, stories behind them, people are just drawn to it, no matter which demographic it may be for.

Christians get really overprotective of their stories- with understandable cause, but Hoedeman pulls off his lovely adaptations of Bible stories in creative and inoffensive methods. I love how in Tchou-Tchou he had Adam and Eve represented as little children and Satan was the dragon. But it wasn’t a clear Biblical story, it just had implications of it. When the children chose to see the dragon as an object of play rather than a threat, the story changed voice. Same with The Sand Castle. It had many references to the Bible but it was not a direct story pulled from the pages. It had parts of creation, maybe some parts from Noah, I even thought of the tower of Babel... there are just so many connection. And to top it off, Hoedeman uses objects like sand and blocks as his animation tools. It’s like he himself sat down in a sandbox and just started playing and creating his own world. I think the world needs more things like this. 

"Don't play with your food!"

I was going to write about "The Man who Planted Trees," but then I decided not to. Oh, well.

I actually meant to write this blog earlier this week, but things happen and because midterms are coming up, I got all busy with stuff.

Anyway, over homecoming weekend, my mother, stepdad, and I all went to Outback Steakhouse. They had music playing, which is relevant. So, my steak gets there, and it's medium rare just like how I always order it. I have a tendency to touch stuff with my fork sometimes before just eating it, so naturally, I tapped my steak and that's when I learned that... it jiggled. It slightly bounced when I tapped it with my fork, so I began repeatedly tapping it to the beat of the song that was playing to make it "dance."

I was incredibly amused by my dancing steak to the point where I tapped it almost all the way through the song. It made me think about how when we're little, people tell us not to play with our food. Food is for eating, not for playing with.

I mentioned to my mom that playing with my steak was a childish thing to do, and she told me not to worry about it. She said, "I think adults tell kids not to play with their food because the adults are jealous. Secretly, the adults want to play with their food, too, and if they can't do it, then nobody can!"

And it made me realize that everybody has a childish side to them, no matter how much they try to deny it. I know that I'm still thoroughly entertained by stupid cartoons like Fanboy & Chum Chum. My favorite video game is anything from the MySims series, a kid-friendly version of the Sims in which rockets can grow on trees (which is, to be honest, the best part of the game aside from the adorable characters and interesting puzzles, I'm just saying). I still want to curl up next to my mom in bed, and when we went to Outback, I made my stepdad sit on the other side of the booth so that I could be as close to my mom as possible.

Being an adult is hard and scary, and I think that if we didn't retain the part of ourselves that makes us want to make our steaks dance, life wouldn't be any fun at all.

Animation Overload

Wow! I had never had the desire to watch so much animation before! What we have been watching in class over animation is almost causing me to rethink my major! Not really though...
But really, everything we are watching is sincerely grasping my attention and interests. Frederick Back's The Man Who Planted Trees amazed me. I was blown away. The artwork was phenomenal and the way it flowed with the story that accompanied it was breathtaking! I can't leave out Co Hoedeman out of this though. The whole world of Sand Castle had this interesting eerie sense of a unique world. I couldn't completely describe it. I think that was mostly do to the look of the animation and the sound of the music. The creation aspect that film had was very cool too. Could easily relate to the Bible. Tchou Tchou had a darker twist, but it was well needed I might add. It definitely made the film. I adored the animation in Tchou Tchou. I still don't even understand how it was done! Or at least not without hours upon hours of work put in. Childre's Media is turning out to be my favorite section by far. I wish I could attend the Festival in Chicago in a couple weeks, but alas I have a Cross Country meet that weekend....figures.

How Are Children Percieved?

The other day we read an article by Peggy Charren about the media children can view. This discussion made me think of when Mitt Romney said that he would cut funding to PBS, i.e. Kill big bird.

 

 

 

I know little about politics, and so that is not the central point of this blog, however I did love Sesame Street as a child. I agree whole heartedly that there should be certain restrictions on what children view, however, I don't think that it should be regulated by the government. Just because I don't want to see Cartoon Network disposed of.

 

Honestly, I am blogging to talk about something that was hardly mentioned in class. I wish to talk about the knowledge that we are endowed with at birth, and to do so I will reference a particular film called Baby Geniuses. Not only does the film pertain to the topic, but the film has the distinction of being the first full-length feature to use computer-generated imagery for the synthesis of human visual speech. (Fun fact)

Now, this film features children as having untold amounts of intelligence, until age 3. Then there brains are corrupted by the world enough that their IQ drops. Now, this might be a humorous film meant mostly for entertainment, but I have seen some aspects of this movie in my own life. My niece, who is nearly 2, can unlock my sister's phone, open the gaming app she wishes to play, and load her most recently saved game. This may be sheer luck, but I still don't know her password and I have seen her input it numerous times. So, this presents my question. How come none of us remember our early youth, why does our memory wipe away that part of our life? Are we potentially missing something in our own creation?

Now, this might all be on the basis of sci-fy, but if Adam and Eve were seen as children in the garden, and then they were corrupted, what if children actually do have untold amounts of knowledge and we, as adults, have no idea? I honestly have no idea, but all this talk of children and what they view has made me think. What if they are actually smarter than us, and they are just following our instructions to dump out that knowledge and insert our stupidity?




After the Storm

Hello all, I was going to post this a while ago but I feared for my life as I was going to be stuck in the middle of some serious crossfire. However, now that things have calmed a bit, I feel like now is the perfect time to post this. Now, a few weeks ago Professor Leeper brought up a very interesting point about Christian children who felt judged and so they sought a way out, however terrible that might be. I would like to put in my two cents on the topic, just ever so briefly, because this subject is very dear to me.

 

 

For the last two years I have worked at an establishment where of the 75 workers there, 90% where either lesbian, gay, or both. It was difficult being straight with those odds and I had to do a lot of thinking. Yes, most of them dated the same gender, but they were genuinely happy. My best friend became lesbian recently and I am ecstatic because her relationships with males have not worked out.

 

 

I am saying all of this to mainly state my opinion. Should people live in misery, end up in divorce, and hate their lives, just to be something that they are not? I am not saying that one is a lesser evil, or one is better than the other. But, personally, I would rather see two perfectly happy same-gendered people dating each other than a straight person who hates their life go through their sixth divorce. I am not saying it is either straight  or gay. I just don't care about sexual orientation as long as everyone is truly happy and in love.

 

This is the best song for this subject, in my opinion...