5x5 Project

Making Pizza

1. Washing hands
2. Shaping the dough
3. Spreading sauce
4. Putting on the cheese
5. Putting the pizza in the oven

 Fun fact: The pizza that we made actually fell off the thing in the oven that it's supposed to cook on and burned. Then, we tried to make another one, but that one wasn't cooking fast enough, so we put it in the microwave and burned that, too. And so I spent my Friday night cleaning up burnt pizza from the oven and making pasta. I know, I know. I'm awesome.

But I digress. 

This project was pretty easy for me. I used my (admittedly very cheap) point and shoot digital camera to film and iMovie to edit. Once I decided what to make this project about, it was simple to film and edit.

I think this turned out okay- the only problem is that my washing machine is on in the background, and at least, to me, it's kind of annoying. And, of course, we couldn't use a clip of the pizza being eaten because of reasons explained above, but I had the clip of washing hands, so there were enough scenes. As far as the actual action and things, I'm pretty pleased with it.

For the next independent video challenge

• We could have to film a few shots of motion so that it is all one movement, for example, a car drives through the frame from left to right and then the next shot is of a person running as though picking up from where the car left off, and then maybe a ball rolling across the frame, and so one. I'm pretty sure that didn't make much sense, but I don't really have a better way to explain it. A thousand apologies. 
• We could do a short stop-motion video!

 

The Matrix

Trailer


The Matrix. Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski . R. 1999

Thomas "Neo" Anderson (Keanu Reeves) discovers that what he thinks is the world is actually a virtual simulation called the Matrix designed to enslave humans. He must discover what the Matrix truly is and free the world from it once and for all.




The trailer for the movie The Matrix is exemplary because it develops the dystopian premise of the movie through artfully arranged clips, well-chosen words, and music. The director uses different speeds to illustrate the intensity and contrast of different clips. For example, when showing how unreal the world of the Matrix is, there are several short clips featuring the impossible feats that one can accomplish in the Matrix. These clips gradually increase in speed until they are incomprehensible, creating a very dramatic build up effect. This effect is repeated just before Neo breaks free from the Matrix, which also helps add to the intensity of the story. In contrast, at the end of the trailer, there is a clip of Neo dodging bullets by manipulating the Matrix that goes very slowly. The speed captures the audience's attention to this clearly illogical thing and draws them in. These elements are important to the premise of the story, because The Matrix's plot is based on the fact that what Neo perceives as the real world is not real. Another element that helps this is the director's choice of lines from the movie. The only words in the trailer are a few lines from different scenes in the movie that perfectly capture the essence of Neo's society. For example, Morpheus' line, "the Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth". This shows that the world Neo lives in is not the truth without going into too much detail, which keeps the trailer understandable and straightforward. Another line is one of the evil Agents', "Human beings are a disease. They are a cancer of this planet. And we are the cure." This demonstrates that their are the antagonists, and they reinforce the dystopian society of the Matrix. Lastly, the music and sound add to the clearness of the trailer. The music starts out relatively simple, and is mostly in the background. As the trailer gets more intense, the music builds and becomes more dramatic. It also punctuates important lines with rhythm and pauses. In our dystopian trailer, I would like to use different lines from the movie instead of a voice-over to convey the premise of the dystopia, as I think this makes the trailer more enticing. I also would like to use the music as this director does to create a build-up effect and punctuate important lines and actions.

Self-directed learning

Hey y'all!Yes, I said y'all. And you can't do a thing about it. 

The article I read for this assignment was called "Preparing Students to Learn Without Us," by Will Richardson. It described self-directed learning and how it can work its way into the classrooms. What it came down to was this; self-directed learning is the student finding their own way to meet the school's set goals, where they can learn about what they want and learn it the way they want to learn it, and teachers can play a big role in bringing this about and guiding the students through the process.  One quote that stuck out at me from the article was this:"The ability to learn what we want, when we want, with whomever we want as long as we have access creates a huge push against a system of education steeped in time-and-place learning." Self-directed learning will be difficult to institute in most schools because it is so out-of-the-box and unorthodox; however, sometimes, breaking tradition is necessary for important change. Overall, I think self-directed learning, like socialism and bacon chocolate, is a fantastic idea in theory, but it will be extremely difficult to make it work in reality. Students may take advantage of the lax structure and do absolutely nothing, and some children may not get where they need to be in the appointed guidelines; however, I think the principals of self-directed learning are important, since each child has his or her own learning styles. Structure is important, but too much structure can make things oppressive and boring. In our class, I think that sticking to the curriculum with one or two self-directed learning projects on the side is a good compromise, and one that could be effective for this year.One of the problems that I have with self-directed learning is that it would and will be very difficult for me to choose a topic, but I think I might be interested in the actual editing of video, since I know very little about htat. I would also be interested in the history and evolution of film-making. 

Diigo annotated page link: http://diigo.com/0sy20

(This post's formatting might be a little strange, but I can't figure out how to fix it. I apologize wholeheartedly)

Hello again!

Welcome to post numero deux of this utterly delightful CAP blog.

I read the movie review 'Beasts': Taking Southern Folklore To The Next Level  by David Edelstein on the NPR website.  It was about Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild. This review starts off with a basic description of the overall movie, and then a more detailed synopsis of the plot. Throughout the summary, which discusses the literary aspects of the film, Edelstein alludes to the other aspects of film. For example, he mentions the "catch-as-catch-can" style of the hand-held camera while describing the chaotic personality of Hushpuppy's, the main character's, father. By far, however, he covers the literary aspects of the film much more than the other two.

After Edelstein gets the descriptions of the movie over with, he criticizes the  almost amateurish style of the shots as well as the insistent underscoring music, but evens it out by praising the powerful performance of Quvezhane Wallis as Hushpuppy.

The review ends with a description of one of the more powerful scenes of the movie and ties it to the theme.

I think we should use this basic model for our class reviews, with an introduction, summary, the author's opinion, and conclusion; however, I feel it is very important for us to have some freedom as well. A basic, flexible outline would most likely be best for this assignment.

The link to the article with annotations: http://diigo.com/0su9d

Salutations. I'm Sarah. This is my CAP blog.

It doesn't get much more exciting or interesting than this.

Here are things about me: I'm a sophomore at Blair.I like the color green. And purple. I like to read books, especially Agatha Christie's Poirot and other murder mysteries. I like dinosaurs. I hate people. I act. I'm not good at talking about myself.  The end.

The main aspect of filmmaking that I'm interested in is the scriptwriting and acting part. Mostly the acting part. I enjoy acting. The other parts are sort of confusing to me.

My only experience with media is the Photography class we took last year. It wasn't my favorite  class, but it had its fun moments. One of my favorite projects we did last year was the infoflow show open we did last year, which was fun because we could pretty much do anything. Me and my partner created a script about a spy whose mission was to find all the letters of the word "Infoflow", and used the Mission Impossible theme song to make it dramatic. I was the spy who had to find all the letters. It was fun to shoot and pretty easy to edit.

Another project I enjoyed was the live news project. Basically, we wrote and shot an entire live news show. I learned a lot about live TV and operating all the complicated equipment. My favorite part about that project (besides being a news anchor) was operating the switchboard, because I got to press a lot of buttons, which, if you ask any three-year-old child, is awesome.

We can use these blogs to:

• Help our change project by announcing upcoming events related to what we're doing
•  Help teachers assess how well we're learning through our reflections on projects we do

This is a picture of a movie slate. I chose it because I like acting, and I think it can also represent the return to high school- sort of like, "Year 2, take 1. action!"