Dark Days

          I was awed at how my opinion of homeless people changed after watching this film. Before, I had sort of felt bad for people in their situation, but this actually made me realize that a lot of their living situations were their own decisions. The people that live down in that subway are very proud of the situation they have made out of relatively nothing. Obviously each person represented in this film has reasons for ending up where they have, but the ending provides hope for the character. One says the he will “never ever ever ever never ever go homeless again. Being homeless was a nightmare.” After moving into their apartment, their attitudes changed. One evident example was the woman cleaning her room and making her bed. These people care about themselves, they were just in too unfortunate of a situation to do anything about it. I commend this director on his ability to show the change in these people over the course of the movie.

           As far as the film was actually shot, I really enjoyed the black and white view. It worked especially well in the subway, because it didn’t really matter what everything looked like. The purpose of the filming was to make us familiar with the people that we don’t’ know much about. Yes, we were supposed to notice the terrible living conditions they stayed in, but the black and white camera view made us focus more on their words rather than their surroundings. It provided a more meaningful purpose to the film. The dark contrast also provided eerie moments in the subway. In many of the scenes, the darkness fades out the walls of trash that are placed behind the people who live down in the subway. Again I believe the filmmaker wanted us to notice how it didn’t seem to bother them as much as one would think. Of course they noticed and hated the trash, but they still carried forward as if it was almost in the darkness to them.

           I would have really liked for the filmmaker to have switched to color at some point during the filming. It would have been very effective had he switched to color once everyone had moved into their apartments. I feel like I could have become more attached and personal with the characters, had the last ten minutes or so been shown in color. Color adds a sort of personality to a person, so when the video is only shown in black and white it keeps a side of the viewer in the dark as well. I can see why the filmmaker would have wanted to do this, I just don’t agree with it. I wanted to get to know the characters on a deeper level that I believe only color could have done.

Essay Remix

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWUNXoNq1is&feature=plcp

Video Games are Art

          Aside from the video being very difficult to understand with her constant stuttering and rapid changing of topics, I agreed with her statements overall. I can see video games as a form of art, but not entirely in the way she described. When I think of art, I think of the great portraits made by Michelangelo and Da Vinci, or the beautiful cathedrals and buildings of old Europe. Art always begins with an idea or statement that the artist wants to be known, which relates to Santiago’s idea or art being a form of communication. All the ideas presented above required time, effort and ultimately had the same goal in mind: to display the artist’s ability and to awe the spectator. When art is described as this, I find it very easy to call a video game art.

A video game always starts with a storyline and a main objective. In other words, the game designer has an idea for the game and he or she wants the world to try and tackle his or her idea through an interactive form. It’s almost like attempting to “play” your way through the Sistine Chapel using a controller. When playing a video game, we are trying to play through what the designer wants us to accomplish. We have to think abstractedly in order to complete the levels of the game. This type of thinking is what we do when examining a piece of art.

The man hours it takes to produce a video game is simply mind numbing, as well as the talent it takes to bring the conceptual game to life. Any artist will agree that every great piece of art requires a vast amount of time to correct mistakes and perfect their work. With so much time spent into a creation, it’s almost an insult to not define video games as art.

 As far as the articles concerned me, I was that baffled Ebert was attempting to call something that he had never experienced firsthand a non-artistic form of expression. If he does not have the desire to even play one entire video game, I don’t see how he is qualified to criticize their creation. That would be like me telling you that the food you made for me was not up to my standards without even trying it. To me, he seems line an arrogant asshole that doesn’t appreciate our generation’s definition of art. He would rather sit on his pedestal and judge what we love as unacceptable art.  I have no respect for this man as he has no validity to be arguing this subject. All is not lost though, as his follow up article he for the most part went back on his earlier statements because of all the negative feedback he was receiving. At least he can accept other people’s views. Other than his ability to change his point of view, I still believe wholeheartedly that Roger Ebert is an absolute idiot that needs to spend his time criticizing he actually knows something about. Burn in hell Ebert along with your narcissism.

Song Choice

I chose the song Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley because it was played at my friends funeral and it's a very powerful song. I also chose The Circle of Life that is played in the Lion King because we are all apart of the experience of birth, life, and death. Even after our death out life is not over, so the circles continues.

Hallelujah

         When I think of a music video I tend to think about three or four minutes of flashy dancing and singing along with sexual movements and bright lights. I had never really thought about what a music video could actually mean until I watched “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley. It is one of the simplest videos I have ever seen. All it contains is a microphone a guitar and him, yet it is the most powerful music video I have seen to this day.  

          The video begins with a blank screen and it then fades into view showing Buckley playing his guitar with half his face covered in shadows. Throughout the entire video, the viewer never gets a clear look at Buckley’s face. This is made all the more powerful because he died of an unfortunate accident 15 years ago. It’s almost like he is this shadow that used to exist that lives on through his music. Deep stuff. Moving further into the video, Buckley begins to sing. He never looks at the camera or makes any notion that he is being filmed. He seems to be totally unaware that there is a camera watching him. The way in which he sings is almost as if something deeper inside of him is singing, not just him. His soothing voice says the words in an angelic way. The camera moves back and forth from his face to full body shots in rhythm with the music. This could resemble the different views that everyone has when looking deep into music. Everything can have multiple methods of interpretation, just as the camera showed. By far the most emotional part of the video is when it comes to its peak; the pace of the music builds and builds while the camera slowly gets closer and closer to his face. The music then stops and he belts out what I believe to be a trancelike note. What adds to the emotion even further is the cameras shot onto his teeth. They are crooked and imperfect, yet his voice is beautiful. The faded color of the video and the occasional missed guitar notes also correlate to the fact that we struggle every day. The symbolism here is magnificent as he is trying to display that there is so much more to someone than their outer appearance; we are all imperfect.

           This song was played after my friends funeral and to this day I still tear up every time I listen to it. After looking up the music video for this blog, I have realized the true power that this song holds. I respect Jeff Buckley immensely for the message he relayed by using this song. He was an artist that possessed a deeper talent than what outwardly appeared and more artists should take after his powerful example.

I Believe

            For me, high school was scary situation where all my best friends from grade school and I were moving forward into a whole new environment. I was intimidated by the new high school I was going to be attending, and weary of the changes in my life that would occur because of it. What worried me the most was losing the people I had called my friends since kindergarten. Just as I had expected, December of my freshmen year came around and I found myself hanging out with a crowd that I wasn’t proud to call my friends. Bad decision after bad decision led to me hating the new crowd I hung out with and missing the connection I had with my buddies from grade school. I came to the realization that if I didn’t straighten the road I was following my high school days were going to be filled with detentions and shameful conversations with mom and dad.

Over the summer heading into sophomore year, I continued searching for something to happen that would help change the way I was living my daily life. Little did I know what lay ahead of me. On January 10, 2010 the answer to my questions came in the most tragic event I have ever experienced. While sitting in my room, I received a call from Hans, a guy I couldn’t live without. Instead of hearing a friendly greeting, all I head were his words choking on his tears. After minutes of trying to form a sentence, I finally gathered from him that Vincent, our guitar playing, fun loving, happy as could be friend from grade school had shot himself and was no longer with us. I felt my heart drop as I realized that one of the guys I had spent so much time with throughout my life and had played basketball with not two hours before, had purposefully ended his own life.  

The next few days left me searching for the answer everyone was looking for: why? Close to three years have passed and I’m still looking for a reason. Because an answer seems impossible to come across, I believe there is another lesson to be learned.

I believe in celebrating a life rather than mourning.

Reunions and events remembering his life sprouted up all over our community in the weeks after his death. With no one else to turn to, I found comfort in the guys who were struggling with the same problems I was, my grade school friends. We expressed our sorrows as well as meaningful stories of Vincent all over his Facebook wall. His wall was our place to tell him the things we never could. It was where we went to commemorate, to share our feelings, and to celebrate his accomplishments. Vincent’s social identity allowed everyone that he knew to connect with him even after he had passed away. Not only did his wall connect myself with Vincent, it allowed me and my old friends to form a new bond; one that was and still is centered around his life. I am so thankful that I had Facebook to express my feelings with, and it ended up allowing me to turn my life around with my old friends by my side.

Second Look at TIB Essay's

           I was not a fan of looking up essays to say why we did not like them. I searched and searched for a speech that I could actually find some problem with. I found it so difficult because most of them were about very heartwarming topics that could not be disagreed with. I finally found that there was an option to look up speeches by theme so I decided to look up speeches about science since I figured these would be very boring and had to entertain an audience. I decided to look them up and turns out I was wrong. The science essays were surprisingly enlightening and brought new ideas to my eyes. I tried to find an essay that did not appeal to me so I could state why I did not like it, but I simply couldn’t find one. Although I really enjoyed the speech, I did have a few problems with it.

           The main point of the essay was to state “that a unique core self is born into every human being — the result of millennia of environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again.” In other words, she believes that a child is born with an inert sense of who they are going to be. Along with this, she states that every child is not born with a blank slate, and we cannot mold them into whatever we want. I think that her essay was overall thought provoking, but the actual presentation of the topics was poor. I didn’t think the story she used applied well to her overall argument, but it was interesting. Also her arguments sort of flew all over the page and it was hard to pinpoint which one she was truly passionate about.

I Believe Speech

SPEECH LINK: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/29294/

The story he began with was short and concise. I really like how it is short and to the point because it obviously displays the topics that he is going to cover in the rest of his speech. It also gives a very good example of how everyone does have a story, which is what his thesis states in the line below. I am not sure if actually stating the lines “I believe” is absolutely necessary in this sort of speech, but he incorporates it very well. It clearly states the overall purpose. From the introduction onward, I do not see his train of thought or organizational purpose. He goes from talking about how he loves to find out people’s story to explaining how he believes everyone deserves respect. I simply don’t see the connection. He needs to connect the two topics more and elaborate. After this confusing connection, he proceeds to rant on how internet arguments often lead to confrontation in person. Once again, I simply do not see why he feels the need to input this into his essay about respecting people. A part of me could see his point being that you can find out people’s stories and connect with them online. That makes sense to me, but where he loses me is when he begins to tell us how to use the internet responsibly. I feel like he has a good point, but it does not add to the essay. He also needed to expound his conclusion more. I don’t see why it is selfish to treat people with respect. Nothing in his essay prior to this backs up this claim and he kind of throws it upon us in the last sentence. Overall I thought this was a poorly done speech that had an interesting story, but was also all over the place, with no apparent organization.