Horror Film: Post 3

I was surprised and pleased with the reception that the film received yesterday in STAC.

Throughout the filming and editing process, it's easy to become numb to your own work because you become so used to it. I figured when I saw the movie during class, I wouldn't have a strong reaction to it. That wasn't the case. As Jessi walked into the kitchen and the music started playing, my heart actually started racing, even though I had seen that scene at least 20 times. I don't know if it was the environment of watching movies in the dark, or feeling the anxiety of the people around me, but I was scared again. To me, this was an amazing phenomenon, because I didn't think that it was possible.

I predicted that I would receive some criticism on the inconsistencies of the film, because I had noticed it, my dad criticized the film for it when he saw it, and the movies we saw before and after my film were quite cleanly cut (maybe I just didn't notice?). There were almost no comments on that. Instead, most of the concern was with the plot holes at the ending, mainly that the ending didn't make a lot of sense. While I was not immediately expecting the comments, I am not surprised that I received them and I think they were completely justified.

The problem with the ending is that it was not very well thought through, even from the very beginning. Our first idea for an ending was that the sister would break the glass with her sister's walking stick, and that would trap the sister in the mirror. However, once I had the pole in hand and I tried to explain the plan to my dad, he told that the backward flinging motion of preparing a hit would not have the physical capacity to shatter a mirror. After smacking my giant bean bag chair with the stick a number of times, I agreed.

So the only way the mirror could be broken would be voluntarily. The issue with that is, there isn't much logic for why the sister would destroy the mirror. If her sister was in the mirror, she wouldn't want to break it. If her sister wasn't in the mirror, how would she know? We devised the idea at the end where the demon was tricked into running into the mirror, and that she was directed there by the stick being a talisman. Yeah, that wasn't very clear, but once we were already in the filming process, we didn't know how to change it.

I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the film. Not the film itself per say. I don't have much of an issue with the concepts. It's simply the long and tedious process of editing that makes the process difficult and unpleasant. When I created the final cut of the film, I thought, "My goodness I need a break from making movies." After watching it in class though and seeing all the ways I can improve it, my instinct was to think "Again again! I can fix it! I can do this!" It was clear to me all the things I needed to do to fix the movie, at least technically, and I think that if I had the time and resources, I could do those things. On the other hand, I would need to establish the environments again and convince the actors to reflim. They might be sick of the movie, even if I'm not.

Perhaps this is something I could approach later in the year. For the moment though, it would probably be better for me to take a step back and celebrate the fact that my friends and I were able to write and complete a movie with a beginning, middle, and end; that brought fear to the people who watched it; and generated a favorable response.

Horror Film: Post 2

I'm glad that I decided to refilm the movie on Monday The footage looks even better than it did before, and because I was able to plan out the filming time so effectively, we got it all done in one day.

On Tuesday, I began editing the film and adding music. I rediscovered the album Onionnoise by The Vegetable Orchestra on iTunes. The Vegetable Orchestra is known as such because all of the instruments are made out of vegetables. The music has a very eerie and unnatural feeling, which is a bit ironic because vegetable instruments are theoretically more natural than a structured instrument. But I digress.

When I added the music, it had such a powerful impact. Before it felt like I was making a movie, but when I added the music, it started to feel like horror. The music brought me back to the original concept of the project, which I had almost lost after being distracted by technicalities.

I was also surprised by how the music fit the film so perfectly, even though when I was filming, I had no song in mind. There's one part of the film where the villain turns her head, and in the background, the music starts ticking. It looks as if the villain's head is being cranked.

On Wednesday, we filmed most of the conclusion of the film. The night before, my dad told me that shattering mirrors isn't such a great idea, so we came up with a new ending to the film that was even better than the one we had before. When I introduced the new ending spontaneously to my group the next day, they all accepted it. I was very thankful. The people in my group are very cooperative and I deeply appreciate that, because I haven't had a great history with group projects in STAC. Usually there are too many people fighting to have things their way without considering if their ideas will practically move the project forward. But this project has been a good one.

On Friday we did some more filming, but we still have a few scenes left. Our hope is to film on Tuesday, and hopefully I won't be up until 2 AM editing.

The Crêpe Maker from Brittany Speaks the Gospel

Yesterday, my parents brought me and a couple of friends along to a Breton dance event in New York City. Breton is the culture of Brittany, a region in France with heavy Celtic influence. The dances are generally simple steps in a counter-clockwise circle, with bagpipes and drums playing in the background.

Of course, being part of French culture, the event had to feature some crêpes. And of course, my friends and I all wanted to try them.

The man working at the crêpe stand was tall and he wore a black turtleneck sweater. As he cooked our crêpes, he shared many words of advice.

"Life is like a crêpe. If you add too much, it spoils the flavor."

"Many people think cooking is about eating. But that's not true. The eating only comes at the end. Every part of the process is important."

I asked him a few questions. He came from Brittany, but he currently lives on the Jersey Shore. He's trying to teach his children the morals of "only a little bit." I wish him the dearest of luck. 

We enjoyed the rest of the event, and as we walked out of the building, we heard a voice. "WAIT!"

There was the crêpe maker once again. 

"I need to tell you something before you leave."

"You have to live life for yourself."

Pause.

"Don't wait for a man to come so you can follow your dreams. Pursue your dreams now, and the man will follow. The man will appear and he will say 'wow, it's so great how you follow your dreams.' And he will tell you to go even further with your dreams while he takes care of the children.

"Because you see, women are now the movers of society. The age of man has ended."

Was he wise? Perhaps. Was he intoxicated? Probably. But let me tell you, with the worries of college and the future at large, that's exactly the thing my friends and I needed to hear.

"One day, I would like to write a book to empower young women."

"Why haven't you yet?" I asked.

"I need a writer to help me."

"Anyone who writes is a writer."

He pondered this notion. "You are right. You are going to pursue your dreams!"

We thanked him for his advice.

"Goodbye! And just remember, it's good to try a bit of everything, but ONLY a little bit."

The HONY-KONY Effect

Today, I worked on creating a commercial for the MUN-sponsored Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF. Being a STACie, I felt the insistence to make this commercial creative. I tried to use cool looking clips, hip music, and speedy editing.

However, as I was working on this commercial, I realized that it was starting to look a lot like KONY. I felt like I was disrespecting the impoverished children by making a commercial more focused on its coolness factor than on genuine emotional appeal. It was as if I was saying, "Give money because this commercial looks awesome!" and not "Give money because it helps children in need." It seemed more KONY than HONY.

And thus, I created in my mind, the HONY-KONY effect.

HONY stands for Humans of New York. It is a street photography blog that includes brief quotes from people that someone manage to capture their essence as human beings.

If a cause is depicted in a genuine way that makes you feel emotionally connected with the people involved, it is HONY.

Humans of New York

"I'm going to be an inventor. I already have some good ideas."

"Oh yeah? What are they?"

"I had an idea for an electronic cigarette with a whatchamacallit in it that makes mist so you feel like you're smoking but you really aren't. And also a toothbrush where you put the toothpaste in the bottom and it comes out the top when you're brushing."

"Those are some solid ideas. Anything else?"

"A fart gun."

KONY is a Ugandan warlord who became famous through a thirty minute video created by the charity Invisible Children. The campaign has been widely criticized for being patronizing to Africans, politically outdated, and oddly focused on one individual in the scope of world issues. Not to mention, the charity's finances are questionable and the man who directed the video was arrested for public masturbation.

If a cause is depicted in a way that complete ignores the people involved and only tries to make the donors feel trendy and shallowly self-rewarded, it is KONY.

NY Times

Updated | Saturday | 12:13 p.m. As my colleagues David Goodman and Jennifer Preston explain, a viral marketing campaign to raise awareness of the suffering inflicted on African children by the warlord Joseph Kony has dominated social media conversations this week, despite concerns that the young Americans behind it might be spreading factual inaccuracies and wasting donors’ money.

While much of the backlash reported in the American news media this week cited objections raised by development experts in the United States and Europe, several African bloggers and activists have objected to what they see as more fundamental problems. Among them, the possibility that the “Kony 2012″ campaign reinforces the old idea, once used to justify colonial exploitation, that Africans are helpless and need to be saved by Westerners.

In the end, I created a generic commercial, but at least it is not offensive.

Horror Film: Post 1

School is about learning, and often when we learn, we make mistakes. And so I begin this blog post.

My group actually developed a reasonable idea for a film.
What it is: A blind girl switches places with her reflection, who tries to steal her life
What it's about: Coming soon

Everything was going quite well. I wrote out all the shots in boxes, rewrote them into a cleaner draft, and filmed most of it. Jessi, Emily, and Lex were excellent actors. Jessica did good makeup and script writing.

Then today I started to edit the footage and I realized a big problem. CONSISTENCY.

Let me give you an example. At the beginning of the film, the blind girl and her sister are eating cheerios for breakfast. They have a conversation where the blind girl asks her sister if she's attractive.

The conversation starts with a full shot including both characters eating cereal.

But when I focus on the blind girl, suddenly she is no longer eating cereal.

This issue occurred ALL over the footage. The issue of action inconsistency was a problem, but there was also an issue of lighting inconsistency because we filmed for two days, location inconsistency when the reflection morphs into its true form, and appearance inconsistency when the blind girl is wearing a necklace scenes where she shouldn't be. Also, there's a scene where you can see me with a camera in the mirror. And that ISN'T the scene where the blind girl is talking to her reflection in the mirror. We haven't even gotten to filming that yet.

Yeah, I'm kind of kicking myself right now, but it taught me a valuable lesson. When doing one camera film production, one must be wary of the way a character relays between shots. If someone is eating cereal in the group shot, they either have to be eating cereal in the close up, or a shot has to be placed in between them eating cereal and them talking in a close up.

Now that I've seen which shots worked and which didn't, I can create a new shot list that doesn't have these issues. The problem is, most of the footage has to be re-filmed and re-edited, and that takes a LOT of time.

The task seems big and it is somewhat discouraging. Though I think the project is fairly good, I wouldn't say that I am strongly passionate about it, which makes it difficult for me to find the energy to surmount the obstacle. At this point though, I can't really give up because I have a group that's depending on me, and I owe it to them to do my best. Also, it's a school assignment and I have to do my work.

I've taken a leadership role on the project and I've been primarily responsible for both filming and editing. Perhaps I should distribute these tasks so that I don't feel completely overwhelmed. Maybe I can film and Austin can edit.

Rasputin

How did Rasputin Really Die?

(from How Stuff Works)

Rasputin is probably one of the more unique figures in world history, a mystery to historians and a treat to high school students.Who was he? How did he become so powerful? And how did he really die?

He was born in 1869 in Siberia. Probably what's most notable about Rasputin's early history is that he was part of a religious sect called the Khlysts. This sect believed in the idea that in order to receive salvation from your sins, you had to perform that sin copiously, with the help of others. The usual group meeting would begin with one person flagellate him or herself, and which later culminated into a massive orgy to drive away the evil. This says a lot about Rasputin already.

In 1905, Rasputin met the Romanovs. The heir to the throne, Alexis, suffered from hemophilia, which at the time could not be medically treated. Somehow though, Rasputin managed to stop the bleeding.

Later in 1912, Alexis fell off a horse and suffered internal bleeding. Rasputin told the royal family in a letter that the son would survive. He did. Now, Rasputin became a well known name throughout Russia.

When the World War began in 1914, Czar Nicholas left his wife Alexandra in charge of governmental affairs while he trudged into battle. Indirectly, this gave Rasputin a large amount of power, as the czarina's top advisor. He participated in general crony politics, placing friends in high positions. 

Many people were already upset by the rule of the Czar, and Rasputin undermined their authority even more. Why was this sex crazed corrupt peasant running the government?

Later that year, a woman named Khioniya Kozmishna Guseva attempted to murder Rasputin by stabbing him in the stomach. Though Rasputin survived, he acquired a number of medical problems.

There are two theories of how Rasputin was killed.

The first involves Prince Felix Yusupov, the husband of the Czar's niece, promising Rasputin he'll get to see his wife if he comes over for dinner. The meal was laced with cyanide, but Rasputin ate his meal, completely unaffected. Next, Yusupov decided to shoot him in the head outright. Rasputin was then presumed dead, so Yusupov decided to go upstairs to the party celebrating his murder of Rasputin.

However, later when people came downstairs, Rasputin was still alive. He started to run away, followed by Yusupov and his accomplices. They shot him two times and beat him with a rubber club. Then, they wrapped his body in a blanket, tied it up, and threw it into a freezing cold river. When the body was discovered, one arm was sticking out of the blanket, and it is presumed that Rasputin did not die from any of his injuries, but instead from hypothermia.

Some have rejected that story as nothing more than ridiculous folklore. The second theory is that the plot was actually hatched by Prime Minister David Lloyd George in an effort to uphold the Romanovs, for if Russia were to leave the World War, Germany would stop fighting on the Eastern front and focus themselves on the Western Front with Great Britain. Some notes were passed between English secret service agents Oswald Rayner and John Scales, greatly hinting at their possible involvement.

It is also still debated if Rasputin was castrated after his death. His supposed penis has been placed on display in some museums, but some biology experts claim from simple visual analysis that the penis actually belonged to a horse or a cow, and not a human. Apparently it looks a lot like a baby arm holding an orange, but I'd rather not search and find out.

The Good Woman of Setzuan

The Good Woman of Setzuan

By Bertolt Brecht

The Good Woman of Setzuan is a play about a woman, Shen Te, who tries to maintain her moral integrity but struggles to do so. Three gods come to Setzuan looking for shelter, they discover Shen Te to be the only decent person in town, even though she prostitutes herself for meager pay. They give her money and insist she must always be good. She uses the money to buy a building and start a tobacco store. However, the people around her abuse her kindness for money, shelter, and food. Because her resources are limited and she's not strong enough to protect them, she creates a new identity for herself with a backbone. That person is Shui Ta, the supposed cousin of Shen Te.

I admit, I almost didn't finish this play. The only reason I read to the end is because Luke told me I had to. This is primary because while Brecht is a great writer and director, he was a despicable human being. First of all, he was terrible to women. He would find a female that was interested in him, live with them, devour their attention, take their money, and leave. Additionally, he was a vehement communist, and though I understand that many people did see communism as a viable alternative to the evils of capitalism at the time, I still oppose the ideology because it essentially eliminates individualism. It equalizes everyone at a generally mediocre level, instead of allowing those who are passionate and talented to achieve. But I digress.

It's a good thing Luke forced me to read the play, because I actually ended up quite enjoying it. The struggles of Shen Te reflect the struggles of the human condition. Shen Te wants nothing more to give rice to the poor, experience love, and live a decent livelihood. Nothing goes right though. There are too many mouths to feed, the man she loves treats her like dirt, and everyone tries to subvert her business. That is why she creates Shui Ta. He can deal with the dirty business of living and she can keep her soul.

As problems arise and the Shui Ta persona becomes more difficult to sustain. The gods think that Shui Ta is mean and they tell Shen Te to keep being a good person. Essentially they do nothing about her plight and they abandon her to suffer for her kindness.

Can we be truly good when we are desperate to survive? It's an interesting question to think about, and after reading this play, it seems to me that the answer must be no. But can there be levels of goodness varied against survival? That is something we must decide for ourselves.