Final Project 3

Final Project 3 from jamilla schuster on Vimeo.

Blog 5: Extra Credit: Flaherty NYC 17, 2014, at Anthology Film Archives

Jamilla Schuster

4/12/14

Media 160

Laura

Extra Credit: “Flaherty NYC March 17^th, 2014 at Anthology Film Archives”

     So, when I got to this independent film festival, I saw a bunch of unique films, most in which I could not even grasp the concept, but I did my best. The films that I remember most where “Four Boys, White Whiskey, and Grilled Mouse,” “Pigs,” and a film with no name by directors “Pawel Wojtasik, Toby Lee and Ernst Karel, which was about waste at a recycling plant.

    

     In the first film, “Four Boys, White Whiskey and Grilled Mouse,” the boys sat on a table playing some sort of game I think, and were all taking swigs to drink from this one little bottle of whiskey and were all eating the same one grilled rat. I remember this one specifically because they were having normal everyday conversations just like any other group of friends would, only they lived in the middle of some field, just this huge vast land of empty space, with this one lonely table and some kind of roof awning built on top of it. There were flies buzzing all around them and over the rat, and they were still eating it and sitting there like it was nothing. They looked like they hadn’t bathed in a few days and had no shoes on. They passed out and woke up with the same agenda, to do nothing but sit there and drink all over again for the rest of the day.

     After seeing the film “Pigs,” I’m not sure if I even want to eat bacon anymore. To be honest I’m not sure what the story was behind it, or if there was one, but I know there were a bunch of pigs hurtled together in this one pen, literally crawling on top of one another just to talk around. Some were sleeping and there other pigs were using the bathroom on top of them and just walking all over it like it was no pig deal. As the day when on the pigs just got dirtier and dirtier. Then the slop came, or their food, and it was like World War III. They were squealing their heads off, and pigs were standing on top of other pigs heads just to get some of the food, and some of the pigs didn’t even end up getting anything to eat. Ultimately, that film just grossed me out. Bacon never looked so unappealing after that.

And last but not least the waste film. I actually kind of grasped the concept for this film. My brief analysis of it was, this is were all our waste goes on a daily basis and it never even occurs to us, what the procedures are for its disposal, or if it even gets disposed of for that matter. I personally thought it was slanders consumerism is a way, but only slightly.  I don’t really have much to say about this film, it kind of showed the same clips over and over again, but it did make me become more concerned about where the hell my garbage goes now. When I go out to throw away my recyclable clips of that film sometimes pop into my heard and I ask myself, “well obviously recycled material can be reused to make new items which is great, but the why don’t they just burn the rest of the trash and just call it a day, or do that already do that, hmmmmm?”

     

Blog 4: Editing Anaylsis

Jamilla Schuster
5/12/14
Media 160
Laura                          



                                            Blog 4:  Relationships between Shots

     The piece I chose to analyze was a comedic skit called “Post Apocalyptic Hunt from the Comedy Central sitcom “Key and Peele.” The skit stars off with the main character Peele walking around an abandoned street after the word has ended. There are a few slow dissolve in the beginning of the clip, one from a close up of his legs, in which the camera then dissolved to a medium shot of his face and then to a desecrated stroller in the middle of the street. A slow traditional Hindustani song is playing in the background to give off a deserted “eerie” feeling for the skit. After the stroller, the camera pans upward and an extreme long shot is created, showing the entire scenery in the background. The many dissolves, the slow music and the characters slow lifeless walk give off the idea the idea that the world has ended and that he may just be the only other person left on the earth. And the close up tilt where the “solider” is sharpening his knife definitely give off the effect that he’s going to kick some serious butt if some new age post-apocalyptic zombies try to come for him.

     Then you get the good stuff. In mid skit the solider hears the voice of another person and he gets excited and decided to take a closer look as to where the noise is coming.  The guy he sees looks completely bizarre and like someone you would put in a crazy house. He has on tighty-whitey, drives up on a mo-ped, grabs a handful of Cheetos, has a clown wig on and starts jamming to some old school 70’s music while he’s sexually molesting a manikin. As this point in the skit the shots start to get a lot shorter to and faster to show the light-hearted and funny persona that the second character portrays, as opposed to the slow, dishearten, somber mood of the lonely, serious solider.

The shots within the skit originally go from long and slow to shot and fast passed as the scene switched between the two charters. The slow Hindustani tala represents the soldier’s loneliness, while the upbeat 70’s music shows that character is trying to be a bit more positive about being alone in the world. The colors are originally blue and cold as the scene begins and is then met with the brightly colored wig, and mo-ped and décor to show a warmer part of the scene behind character two. The order of the shots go from slow and long to fast a short to once again long and slow after character one decides he has no interest of being friends with character two and gives him a good quick shot to the head.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVX8wm_CONM

second project 2 again

Blog 3: MOMI!!!!!

     Our field trip to the MOMI was the first time I had ever been there, or had heard of the museum. Although I had a huge headache was battling through the remainder of my stomach virus I was still able to enjoy myself. Through out the tour of a several exhibits within the museum, there were a few that caught my attention in particularly.

    

     One display that caught my eyes, were the “Magic Lanterns.” They were the predecessors of the moving image, and were away of storytelling before the film was invented. They were similar to slide projectors. One person would project the image against a surface, while another person would create a narrative for the images. They fooled everyone. Some people thought they were old school vintage cameras, wand others thought they were zoetropes. I myself thought it was just an old school 19^th century camera or something. I had no clue what it the heck it was.

    

     I also found out that the cinematographer was the one who works closest with the director. Apparently they scout locations, approve costume design, pick out equipment and more. I thought all that was done by the assistant director. I didn’t know what a cinematographer was, or that they had so much “say” in the development of the film.  They can even decide and ask with whom they wish to work with. (Talk about taking control of a situation, that’s basically their entire job.)

     

     Another aspect I learned about was ADR, or “Automated Dialogue Replacement. It is similar to the process of dubbing, only difference is that you keep the image and change the audio with the voices of the actors. In other cases, directors will use ADR to ask actors to rerecord their audio, just in case of audio discrepancies occurred during the original recording. 

     All in all the museum was pretty cool. I give in two thumbs up, and I definitely want to revisit it again, hopefully when I have some more free time. 

Assignment 2: What I Hear

     So today on March 22, 2014 I traveled around my favorite area in NYC to do my “Soundwalk,” my neighborhood. But just to do a bit of exploring, I traveled a couple blocks higher around Avenue D just for a change of scenery. The sounds were pretty much the same though, which I liked.

          

      During the warmer weather, local businesses will play reggae and soca, both musics from the Caribbean culture, outside of their stores. I heard one my favorite songs playing, called “Who Jah Bless” by Isasha, in front of an essential oils and fragrances store. On that same block I went into a vegan Caribbean eatery called “Scoops.” I heard rastas talking amongst one another. One said his wife was sick while the other mentioned he had to get his dreads re-twisted soon. Then the one with the sick wife asked me what kind of ice cream I wanted. I told him rum raisin, I asked for the small, but he gave me three scoops instead, which is the equivalent to a large. We both said our good-byes, peace and love, and I went on my way.

     

     Aside from actual conversations I had with people and listening to the musical content of my neighborhood I started paying attention and focusing on sounds I never really considered important before. I actually listened to the wind blow. It felt weird at first because I felt like the only way I could listen to the wind was if it touched my ears. So every time I actually focused on hearing the wind gusts, I felt like it was kicking in the inside of my ears. Aside from that, there’s always the sound of the lovely car engines, the honking of car horns from those graceful drivers with road rage, and on course the multiple voices of the people up have to bob and weave through just to walk along the sidewalk. I think my favorite sounds definitely had to be my conversations with the rastas, and the wind trying to tell me to get my butt back inside my house. 

jamilla project 1

Jamilla Final QT from jamilla schuster on Vimeo.