Documentary Review: Man on Wire

A few nights ago,I watched the documentary "Man on Wire" directed by James Marsh. It was a fascinating movie about high walker, Philippe Petit's journey which led him to walk across the twin towers. The movie captures the long years of preparation for only about 45 minutes of routine on the wire.
It really showed how determined Phillipe Petit was to complete his dream, he knew it was illegal and extremely dangerous, but he wouldn't give up.  From the time he saw an article in a magazine about two huge towers in NYC being built, he was determined to walk between them. He encountered many obstacles. For example, he and a few other people had to rig the wire in complete darkness with high winds and in only a few hours. His friends told him to give up, it's impossible to rig this in such a short time,but Phillip didn't give up. And finally it was a majestic moment when he walked across the wire between the towers.

I really liked that is it had a lot of different footage and it kept cutting back and forth between all of them. It had archival footage of the building of the World trade Center,present day Interview of Petit and all the other people involved, reenactments by a different actor who played young Petit which portrayed the preparation and ideo and still images of the performance between the Twin Towers. All these different shots made the documentary seem so much more real.

I enjoyed how they would cut back and forth between shots of the preparation of the performance ( practicing, discussing how they'll do it) and sneaking up to the top of twin towers.

The filming was great because it made it seem like an older film. In particular the reanactment scenes, were either in black and white or had a color tone that is used in many old movies.

I barely noticed the music in the movie. I found it odd because it used calming, soft music even in the more exciting parts like the walking between the towers.However,it somehow worked.

I really enjoyed the movie, it was was well told, creating a lot of suspense. I defiantly recommend this movie.


Here is the trailer for "Man on Wire":

BARCODE

A few weeks ago, we finished our dystopian trailers. Ours was called Barcode and portrayed a society with citizens who lacked a identity. Everyone dressed the same, they had earpieces to stop them from hearing, to communicate they had only a few cards with words on them and to identify themselves they had a necklace with a barcode necklace. Our main character fell and broke her earpiece and was then able to hear. She then realizes how much the government is hiding from them and wants to end this dystopian society.

What really set our trailers different from the others was the fact that the first half of our trailer did not have music, only a low drowning noise in the background. When the main character falls and her earpiece breaks, intense music starts playing to signify the upcoming battle she will go through. Another thing that made our trailer unique was our costumes. All citizens wore the same thing: A white shirt, jeans, the bar code necklace and a paper bag over their heads. On one side of the bags were two eye holes and a drawn happy face and on the other side was the two eye holes and a drawn sad face because the citizens only had 2 emotions. 

I enjoyed the project a lot, but it was very time consuming. To film we had to work on weekends and for editing, my group and I went in many days after school and during lunch. However during the project, I became more familiar with the editing software that we used, Final cut. 



I am really proud how our trailer and I hope to use some of the tools I learned about while making the trailer, in the upcoming documentary project.

Capture the Fall

For my Capture the Fall challenge, I filmed a park in Virginia last weekend. It was a great place to film because it was close to water and surrounded by trees. It really portrayed the beauties of fall For example, the leaves were all different colors. It was a beautiful view. In addition to the amazing view, it was a great day to film. The weather was an amazing fall afternoon, not too cold and not too hot.

I filmed this using my friend's DSLR camera, which was a great in comparison to the Iphone that I used to film my  last 5x5. The DSLR's shots were wayy better quality than the Iphone's. It really helped show nature's beauty.
For this project, I used 10 different shots:

1.  The first shot was the trees that I shot on a trail.This was a great show in my opinion because you can see all the different colors of fall. For example the leaves were brown,yellow and green.
2.  The second shot was of my friends running to a tire swing that we found on the trail.I included this one because it showed the joys of fall and I found the house behind it adorable.
3. The third shot is of them playing of the tire swing.
4. The fourth show is another shot of trees. The camera starts at the roots of the trees and moves up until it is pointed at the sky.
5. The fifth shot is more trees and the front of the adorable house that I spoke before quickly moving by. I shot this in the front passenger seat of my car, I held it right out of the window as my mom drove out of the park.
6. The sixth shot was zoomed in on the leaves. In the middle of the shot, you can see my friend come in the shot to play with the leaves
7. The seventh shot is a shot of the water surronded by trees. The view is absolutly amazing! Than the camera zooms in on the leaves on the tree.I included the second part because I loved the way the sun is seen through the leaves
8. The eighth shot is another shot of the nature trail. You can see people enjoying the fall weather.
9. The ninth shot is really short, but I wanted to include it because I loved the lighting and the water in the background that is barely seen, but creates a nice view.
10.  The final shot is of my friends walking away on the trail

The hardest part of this project was finding good music to put in the backround. It really wanted it to signify the joys of fall weather. I used a creative commons website, www. jamendo.com, and I settled on the song "Built to Last" by Fall Walk Run. It's upbeat, but not too crazy.
I used Wevideo to edit my video.It wasn't too hard this time because I used it to edit my 5x5. However, it took me a while to figure out how to upload the song, but finally I figured it out.

I hope this video captured the fall!

Later Start times for schools.

I have recently read an article about starting schools later in the morning. I completely agree with the article.
Most high schools start about 7:30 in the morning which is completely ridiculous. I personally wake up about 5:30 am every morning to catch my bus and go to sleep at about 11 pm- 12 am every night, depending on the amount of homework I have. According to the article, teenagers my age are theatrically suppose to have about 9 hours of sleep every night ,but I get only about 5 and half or 6 hours every night.
According to the article sleep  deprivation can lead to alcohol/ drug abuse, social problems and depressions. Personally, my lack of sleep reflects on my grades and attitude at school. Last week, I did not get much sleep because of homework and other activities which lead my whole week to become miserable. For example,i had a couple of tests last week and even though I studied for all of them really hard, I knew I did not do as well I could of done. In addition, the whole week I felt pretty sick which was probably due to my lack of sleep.
If school systems would simply push the start times back only an hour, I feel results would be extremely beneficial. The article talked about two studies done by Center for Applied Reaseach and Educational Improvement  in two different schools districts in Minnesota. In "Minneapolis-area school district—Edina, a suburban district who changed their high school start time from 7:20 to 8:30, and the Minneapolis Public Schools, who changed their start time from 7:15 to 8:40." After CAREI recorded data  on grades and school habits of the students and the data  "showed that there was a significant reduction in school dropout rates, less depression, and students reported earning higher grades."
 I think school systems around the country should follow the example of the these two districts. 
Click here to see the article

Bake Sale

This past week at the CAP open house, my change project group had a bake sale. It was a great experiment and very beneficial. We raised almost $200 dollars which is way more than we expected to.
Every member of our group had to bake something. We had many bake goods including brownies, different types of cookies, muffins and homemade granola bars.
I decided to make snicker doodle cookies, ginger cookies and chocolate chip cookies.I ended up making more than enough cookies. Today, a week after the bake sale, I still have many containers of cookies in my freezer. However, the cookies were very popular, especially the chocolate chip cookies.
It was hard deciding what we should charge for the bake goods. We wanted to charge enough to get a substantial amount of money in the end, but not too much because than no one would buy. We settled on $1 for everything except for the smaller cookies and muffins which were 50 cents.
I learned that if you told people your cause for the bake sale, they are more willing to buy something.
Many people bought things,but when you told them that all proceeds were going to the Children's Medical Center, they usually bought more. A few people just gave us donations without even buying anything which was very thoughtful. Thank goodness the meeting were for teenagers because those we our best customers.
It was a good thing that we had  5 people in our change project group because at times our table became very chaotic, especially after the CAP meeting finished. After the meeting at times we had 10 customers at our small table.
If we are to do another bake sale, next time I feel that we should include a beverage. Many small children came up to us asking if we had anything to drink.
In conclusion, having a bake sale was a very fun and helped a lot towards our change project goal. We hope to raise about $300 in the end and because of the bake sale we've almost reached our goal.

2nd Weekly Post

 I babysit a lot to earn money. And every time I babysit, I am amazed about how different little kids are from teenagers and adults in the way that they think. Some times I babysit for a 8 month old boy and I every time I say anything his face will light up, as if he truly appreciates the magic of words. When we speak we don't think about how amazing words are, how they roll out of our mouths and is our manner of communicating. If only we we were as amazed with words as the 8 month old.When I babysit for children a bit older, mostly aged 2 and 3, I love how curious and interested they are about the world around them. Once I took a walk with a 2 year old girl and she asked me many questions about the environment, such as " Why is the sky blue?" and " Why do birds move together?" When I couldn't give her an answer, she would think for a long time and offer her own. For example she would say " it is probably blue  because the rain turns it that color" and "they move together,so they won't get lost." Although these may not be the correct answer, just the thought that she was so interested and almost concerned proves how determined and intelligent young children are. If you hand a young child a simple toy, they can play with it for hours without getting bored. Just the other day, I gave a 4 year old girl some bubbles and we played with them for 3 and a half hours. As teenagers we are exposed to so many different forms of technology and even with all that we still get bored. It is pretty sad how I get bored with a phone and laptop, but the 3 year old is entertained for hours with just some bubbles.  Adults tend to doubt the intelligence of young children. Although adults may know more things, young children are intelligent and posses character traits that many people, including myself, can learn from.

Weekly Blog Post # 1

 Last night, I watched the vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. I thought Joe Biden did an amazing job, but i thought he could of brought the attacking down a bit. At some points he was overly attacking Paul Ryan. Even if I agree that what Paul Ryan was saying was ridiculous, Joe Biden should of not interrupted him every time. However,  Joe Biden gave the impression that he knew what he was talking about. He spoke with the tone of authoritative, but spoke in a manner that that felt like many people could relate to him. Unlike President Obama's performance at his debate last week, Joe Biden called Ryan out when he was giving false information. Biden did not let Ryan get away with lies. Joe Biden was filled with emotion and power which I felt was very convincing and a job well done.  I hope President Obama learns from Joe Biden at his next presidential debate. Although President Obama should not completely attack Mitt Romney, he should not let him get away with lying to the American public.

Music and Sounds for our Trailer

 Our trailer describes a society where the government has taken taken away all speech and hearing from the citizens. I found two music options that we can use for our trailer.

The first one is: Survival Theme  
This music will begin playing soon after the main character gains hearing. It shows the dramatic and suspenseful tone which I hope our trailer will keep. It starts off slow and soft and then begins to crescendo and become louder, so as the  music gets more dramatic, we will show more dramatic shots.

The second one is  Peaceful nature
We will probably play only a little bit of this music. It will be played when the main character becomes able to hear.  This piece portrays nature, for example you can hear the birds and crickets. As the piece is being played, the character is confused because of this peaceful noise she is now hearing.

5x5

 5x5
I filmed my 5x5 at the Sligo Creek Trail.
The clips are..
1) Sligo Creek itself
2) A man riding his bike
3)A squirrel in the tree
4) Two people playing tennis
5) A girl playing in the creek.

I filmed the clips on an iPhone. I filmed 6 or 7 clips of about 10 seconds, the cut it down to 5 clips of 5 seconds. I used the web-based video editor, Wevideo. After I got a hang of it, it was not too hard, but the hardest part was figuring out how to use the editing software.

I am pleased about my 5x5 because it was my first one, but next time I will deifantly use a actual camera to film.

For our next independent video challenge, I feel like we should be able to add music because that would make the project more challenging, but more enjoyable.

Dystopian Trailer

Dystopian Trailer

Title: V for Vendetta
Director: James Mcteigue
Rating: R
Release date:  March 17, 2006 

Synopsis: A young women named Evey ( Natalie Portman) meets V ( Hugo Weaving), the man who is trying to overthrow  the tyranny of England. Evey works with V to convince the citizens of England not to be in total fear of their government.

V for Vendetta's trailer is an excellent example for what our own dystopian trailers should resemble.  The trailer gives off just enough information to show how V's vengeance towards the government is an powerful tool for wanting to overtake them. The audience can tell from the beginning that Evey is working with V, and that she is very determined to not give the government what they want.
 The trailer shows the dystopian and totalitarian society that the movie is set.  Scenes of armies marching and the ruler speaking are shown as a voice over of V saying "There is something totally wrong with this country," is heard. In addition, the trailer shows the propaganda of the dystopian society. For example, recurring images of the posters that the government uses. Also there is a voice over that says "fear became the ultimate tool of the government," showing how the government gained and kept power. The powerful music plays throughout the trailer, creating an suspenseful and dramatic tone.At the end of the trailer, the music begins to speed up as 1 second scenes from the movie flashes in front of you, it crescendos until the scenes cut off and the title comes up the screen. The increase of speed and volume of the music, leaves the audience in awe and suspense, wondering what happens next. Scenes from the movie during the trailer are only about 5 seconds scenes,but shows the powerful scenes and quotes of the movie. For example, many of the violent scenes are shown. There is not much text in the trailer, but the one one sentence comes in the middle of the trailer saying " A uncompromising vision of the future," it is in bold and in dramatic red.  

We will use similar tactics in our own trailer. Everything we do should add to the tone we want our trailer to have. We will also use powerful music, to build suspense for our audience. We will also use a lot of propaganda to show how the government keeps power. Unlike V for Vendetta, we will use less color in our trailer to create a more somber tone

third post

I read the article " Preparing students to learn without us," by Will Richardson.  This article explains a classroom where the students come up with their own individual curriculum.  It allows a student to find a topic that they are interested in and explore it deeply. The teacher steers the students on the right path, giving them good resources where they can find information, but it is an mostly independent project. They use diigo and record their thoughts and readings on sources such as blogs or google docs.  I found it surprising how hard it must be for the teacher. Like they said in the article, instead of having one set topic for projects, they have 25. The teacher would probably have to change their rubric a bit for every students because every project is different. Richardson says "Students keep blogs, which Smith regularly comments on, where they archive their work, reflect on their learning, and connect with potential teachers outside the classroom."  This is relevant for our own film class because this is what we should be doing for our blogs. Our blogs are a place where we can dive into an interesting topic then use our blogs to reflect. Self-learning using blogs is a good way for us to learn about anything we want.  In most classes, everyone in the class is learning about one common topic, but here we have the freedom to explore whatever we are interested. Personally, I am interested in learning about Journalism.




The annotated link for the article: http://diigo.com/0sxz4

Movie review

Silver Chips: "Legacy" lives up to predecessors

Sam Lewando from Silver Chips reviews the movie , the Bourne Legacy. In the review he compares the previous Bourne trilogy with this new movie. He does a good job of explaining the plot in a informative manner, but never really explains a theme. He talks a little about the acting, for example,  how the character, Jason Cross, is portrayed in an brusque way, but that could also fit into the description of a character.  Sam Lewando praises the movie in an informative and serious way. He never mentions Sets, Costume or Make-Up. His main purpose was to explain if this new movie lives up to the success of the previous trilogy, so he doesn't really focus much on the Cinematic and Dramatic aspects of the film.






Annotated link to review:

http://diigo.com/0su5y

First Blog Post

My name is Martha. This is my blog for  Film class. I'm live in Maryland and I am in 10th grade. I am fluent in french and English  Instead of acting, my favorite aspect of film making is the filming.I like being behind the camera, rather than, in front of it. I'd like to learn about different types of cameras. My favorite film project was one we did last year in film class. We made show opens for info flow. Me and my group filmed us putting on makeup and  writing  info flow on another student's forehead. We edited it and sped it up then added music in the background, it was a fun experience.

We can use our blog's...

•  As a tool to help us with our change projects. 
• With our blogs with can record our process, and add pictures. 
• Also we can use our blogs to reflect on our projects throughout the year and write our feedback. Finally, we can use our blog's to record the topics we are interested in.

This a picture of a camera. This explains what we are going to do this year because it is a film class.
Picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sadiediane/4312944874/