Friday, April 15, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Finding Your Howl
Here you can find the the article that I am about to explain called Finding Your Howl.
The story that I enjoyed more was the story of Mumon. The basic idea of the story was a group of endangered wolves were taken out of the wild for protection then after having offspring were released. This was bad because they had forgotten how to howl, and they were forced to live in fear without a leader. Mumon, the main character from this point on goes on a journey to find his howl and become the alpha-male to save his pack from extinction.
Flaum uses this as a way of saying, the only way out of our prison that we place ourselves is straight through it. Or we must, “break the bars” if you will. Either way I think this is a good representation and I really enjoyed reading this article.
My Lyrics:
K’naan – Until the Lion Learns to Speak
“Until the lion learns to speak
The tails of hunting will be weak
My poetry hails within the streets
My poetry fails to be discreet
It travels across the earth and sees
From Somalia to The West Indies
It knows no boundaries, no cheese
It’s studied in parts of Greece”
These lyrics mean a lot to me just looking at the first two lines. I think this means that you have to find your voice just as Flaum said to become what you are destined to be. Though the rest of the verse is mostly just bragging it makes the point valid that he has found his voice and now it is heard everywhere. This is inspirational to me to one day have my work seen all over the world.
The story that I enjoyed more was the story of Mumon. The basic idea of the story was a group of endangered wolves were taken out of the wild for protection then after having offspring were released. This was bad because they had forgotten how to howl, and they were forced to live in fear without a leader. Mumon, the main character from this point on goes on a journey to find his howl and become the alpha-male to save his pack from extinction.
Flaum uses this as a way of saying, the only way out of our prison that we place ourselves is straight through it. Or we must, “break the bars” if you will. Either way I think this is a good representation and I really enjoyed reading this article.
My Lyrics:
K’naan – Until the Lion Learns to Speak
“Until the lion learns to speak
The tails of hunting will be weak
My poetry hails within the streets
My poetry fails to be discreet
It travels across the earth and sees
From Somalia to The West Indies
It knows no boundaries, no cheese
It’s studied in parts of Greece”
These lyrics mean a lot to me just looking at the first two lines. I think this means that you have to find your voice just as Flaum said to become what you are destined to be. Though the rest of the verse is mostly just bragging it makes the point valid that he has found his voice and now it is heard everywhere. This is inspirational to me to one day have my work seen all over the world.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Blog Assignment 1B
The first suggestion I want to discuss is the #3, which talks about the tolerance of ambiguity. In Media 205 we learned that many new TV shows come from old ones, with minor changes in the plot or focus. This shows how ambiguity is extremely important to the creative process. You can look at a show that was successful and find the parts of it that might have not worked, and then take those parts out and add some other ideas to make a whole new show. Just as the article discusses Edison saying he didn’t fail 800 times, he just learned what wasn’t right, we can learn from our past choices to make better decisions on the future. Another example of how to implement this would be in the writing of a film. In the process of writing a film, just as any other story, the ending can be the hardest. However, with the toleration of ambiguity you can keep trying different endings to see what works best, and ultimately come out with the best ending.
#8, perhaps, may be the most important part of creating, and I say this for personal reasons. When I’m writing a long paper, or doing a lot of math problems in a row, I get stuck; my mind starts to wonder, and everything I look at seems the same. The only thing I can do to get past this wall is to back away from it, and forget about it for a little. Whether this be hopping from piece of work to the other, or just forgetting about work completely to go watch some South Park. The point is, this break allows my brain to stop working and possibly find some new routes for the ideas to flow when the old ones are blocked by something. Before I discovered this idea of taking breaks I would spend countless hours sitting at my desk trying to force out ideas that just couldn’t find their way through. Though the ideas might be there and you can feel them coming, sometimes it’s a good idea to let your mind rest and calm yourself to where you can think more rationally. You’ll be surprised at how much easier problem solving is.
The last idea I liked was #12, Look for Happy Accidents. I believe that this is very important in any creative field, because it goes along with the idea of brainstorming, but almost puts fate in charge. If you go about your work and keep your mind closed off to ideas other than what you are expecting then you won’t ever discover something new. Now, that’s not to say that all new ideas are great, but like the article said, some of these extremely important items that people use daily came from accidents. I’m not a very faithful person, though I do go to synagogue for the high holidays, but if you wanted to look at it as “a higher power” telling you to follow that path, by all means. However, I believe that accidents just happen sometimes, and if you’re lucky enough to stumble across a good one, you should definitely take it. For instance, one time I was trying to come up with an idea for a commercial for my high school’s television show, so I went to the best place for commercial ideas, the television. As I flipped through channels I came across one of my favorite shows, Scrubs. This is important because I came in right as the opening was on, and that’s when I got the idea. I knew that we were looking for a new opener for the show, and why not something that everyone recognizes and loves like the Scrubs opener. This little accident, though hardly and accident gave me a great idea for a project that I wasn’t even planning on working on.
The last part of this blog entry asks me to choose one of the prompts, so I chose the one about making new connections. For #4 the prompt asks us to make 3 parallel lists of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, then look for intriguing connections between them. Here’s my list:
Nouns: Horse, Mountain, Car, Talon, Fountain, Book, Crystal, Skin, Cup, Goal
Verbs: Jump, Punch, Fly, Explode, Lay, Sing, Whine, Draw, Buy, Hold
Adjectives: Fluffy, Smelly, Loud, Bright, Vast, Old, Shiny, Greasy, Small, Bouncy
Using these 3 lists of words I came up with endless ideas, for stories, scenes in a movie, or just junk that didn’t make sense. However, like idea #3 said, you need to tolerate ambiguity and keep moving on. I think this prompt works really well for that.
#8, perhaps, may be the most important part of creating, and I say this for personal reasons. When I’m writing a long paper, or doing a lot of math problems in a row, I get stuck; my mind starts to wonder, and everything I look at seems the same. The only thing I can do to get past this wall is to back away from it, and forget about it for a little. Whether this be hopping from piece of work to the other, or just forgetting about work completely to go watch some South Park. The point is, this break allows my brain to stop working and possibly find some new routes for the ideas to flow when the old ones are blocked by something. Before I discovered this idea of taking breaks I would spend countless hours sitting at my desk trying to force out ideas that just couldn’t find their way through. Though the ideas might be there and you can feel them coming, sometimes it’s a good idea to let your mind rest and calm yourself to where you can think more rationally. You’ll be surprised at how much easier problem solving is.
The last idea I liked was #12, Look for Happy Accidents. I believe that this is very important in any creative field, because it goes along with the idea of brainstorming, but almost puts fate in charge. If you go about your work and keep your mind closed off to ideas other than what you are expecting then you won’t ever discover something new. Now, that’s not to say that all new ideas are great, but like the article said, some of these extremely important items that people use daily came from accidents. I’m not a very faithful person, though I do go to synagogue for the high holidays, but if you wanted to look at it as “a higher power” telling you to follow that path, by all means. However, I believe that accidents just happen sometimes, and if you’re lucky enough to stumble across a good one, you should definitely take it. For instance, one time I was trying to come up with an idea for a commercial for my high school’s television show, so I went to the best place for commercial ideas, the television. As I flipped through channels I came across one of my favorite shows, Scrubs. This is important because I came in right as the opening was on, and that’s when I got the idea. I knew that we were looking for a new opener for the show, and why not something that everyone recognizes and loves like the Scrubs opener. This little accident, though hardly and accident gave me a great idea for a project that I wasn’t even planning on working on.
The last part of this blog entry asks me to choose one of the prompts, so I chose the one about making new connections. For #4 the prompt asks us to make 3 parallel lists of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, then look for intriguing connections between them. Here’s my list:
Nouns: Horse, Mountain, Car, Talon, Fountain, Book, Crystal, Skin, Cup, Goal
Verbs: Jump, Punch, Fly, Explode, Lay, Sing, Whine, Draw, Buy, Hold
Adjectives: Fluffy, Smelly, Loud, Bright, Vast, Old, Shiny, Greasy, Small, Bouncy
Using these 3 lists of words I came up with endless ideas, for stories, scenes in a movie, or just junk that didn’t make sense. However, like idea #3 said, you need to tolerate ambiguity and keep moving on. I think this prompt works really well for that.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Blog Assignment 1A
I am aspiring to become a film director, and one person who inspires me as an artist is the director Quinton Tarantino. In my opinion, he is one of the most talented directors ever and proves it in every single movie he comes out with. Yes, a lot of his writing is gory and usually vulgar, but you can’t deny the artistry that goes into his work. He devotes so much time and commits himself fully to the screenplays that he writes. His trademarks are what really make me enjoy his films though. This goes along with the idea of Contrast and Affinity. His possibly most famous reoccurring theme is the use of the trunk and hood point of view shot in his films. A video of all of these upward angle shots can be found here:
This, as well as many others things seen before, such as his use of black and white suits, his long scenes with very extensive dialogue, and the use of very extreme close-up to depict the intensity of the scene, are used to create a sort of comfort that the fans of Tarantino have built up. He made it into a way to recognize him, and something that no other director really has. Even to the untrained eye, you can see the distinctness in the writing, acting and shooting of every Tarantino film, and that is truly special. It is this use of affinity and style that puts him in his own class. This is something that I would want if I ever became a director, because so many movies today are the same. The plots are all easy to follow, and there’s just nothing distinct about them. I want to make something that people can recognize me by, and Tarantino inspires me to do that.
Another very important aspect of Tarantino’s directing and writing is the use Tension and Release. The idea behind this is to have build up and suspense so the audience is bracing themselves for something to happen, and then all of it is taken away. Tarantino uses this in a couple different ways; my favorite is in this video:
I enjoy this because he plays around with the idea of tension and release a couple different times. First there is the tension of Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta’s characters getting shot, but the bullets miss. Then both of them shoot the man who missed all of his shots, which is the release. However, in the next scene it is shown that the tension for the character played by Samuel L. Jackson is still there and he is starting to talk about how he was protected by some higher power. As this builds up and becomes an argument between him and Travolta, the innocent person who we don’t really know sitting in the back seat gets shot. This is a release of the tension because it takes our minds completely off of the idea of divine intervention and immediately onto the more important matter of their car being filled with blood. He makes tension and release into a toy almost, never giving the audience a chance to relax. This is what makes a movie gripping and entertaining, and for me that is very important.
This last example is from his film called Jackie Brown. The actual plot of the movie doesn’t matter for this example, all that matters is the song that Jackie plays on the record player in this scene:
This song is so important because it defines the relationship with Jackie and Max, the other person in the scene. It is just a song that she decides to play, but Max decides to buy the tape and listen to it all the time in his car. This is the idea of Text and Subtext because it’s underlying meaning is the love between the two. Though this isn’t an important part of the movie, it does have a very powerful meaning, and I believe that music should play a big role in films.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)