5x5 Project

This is my 5x5, it is me making scrambled eggs.

Shots:
1. Washing hands
2. Cracking eggs
3. Butter meltimg in the pan
4. Eggs in the pan
5. Eggs on the table

For this project I used a Canon point and shoot and the Youtube editior. It worked pretty well because it's simple, but it was a little slow.I think with the constraints of this project I am pleased with what I made because I managed to shoot it how I envisioned it, but with more freedom as  to editing there would be more things I might have wanted to do to the film. For our next independent project I think we should have to make a music video about 2 to 3 minutes long.

Dystopian Trailer

Blade Runner Ridley Scott, R, 1982
Set in Los Angeles, 2019, Blade Runner is about four robots, or replicants, escaped from interplanetary colonies. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a retired police officer, is enlisted to capture and "retire" these replicants.

This is an exemplary dystopian trailer because it depicts a generally realistic future and subtlely displays dystiopian characteristics. The trailer shows a huge city, with a ground level very similar to something one might see today, but above there are soaring pyramids, flying cars, and constant cloud cover that spits rain day and night. This shows a banished natural world replaced by sprawling and impoverished urban areas. The premise is then revealed when Deckard is on the trail of the replicants and goes to see the head of the Tyrell company which produces them. From the short clip it is revealed that this corporation is controling society, and one can infer that the general poverty displayed in other parts of the trailer are due to underemployment because of the replicants. The final, and most disturbing aspect of this dystopia is that when the replicants appear, they look exactly like humans, and one wonders whether there is any difference between those born and those manufactured. This shows that in a way, freedom is restricted because these replicants are prohibited from living on earth and live in a state of slavery.

For my groups dystopian trailer, we intend to show some of the aspects of the dystopia through events in the trailer, similar to Blade Runner, rather than text or voice overs. We also want to show a very bleak setting, in Blade Runner this was the rainy, dark city, but in our trailer we will use a whitewashed correction facility where everyone is dressed in the same color and must hide their faces.

Online Learning

I read the second article linked on Mr. Mayo's blog entitled "A World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others." It opened with an example of a middle school girl who has a blog about her community service projects with readers from around the world. It goes on to discuss how tool s like blogs, and wikis could change the ways kids learn for the better. The author discusses how teachers in schools could become the middlemen and women between kids and experts online, instead of teachers serving as the primary experts for their students. Of course, the author also shares anxiety about online predators among other drawbacks to online learning.

According to the author, Will Richardson, "Experts are at our fingertips, through our keyboards or cell phones, if we know how to find and connect to them." This summarizes Richardson's main point, that that legions of knowledgeable people can be found through the internet. Maybe so, but for every one true expert there must be uncounted numbers of people who put things out on blogs or wikis without knowing what they are talking about, or even worse, whop will fake credentials to seem credible. I think this is very pertinent to our filmmaking class, because this kind of learning is exactly what Mr. Mayo is encouraging us to do, however, his version of this is relatively enclosed. It's pretty clear that the only people reading these blogs are other CAP students, so we benefit from interdependence by using these blogs, but we are not going out into the unknown of the worldwide web as the article suggests would be the new path for learning. I am interested in learning more about how government works and how it pertains today.

On an unrelated topic, there's a relatively new band out of Montgomery, Alabama called The Alabama Shakes. You might've heard the single "Hold On" on the radio, that's them, and they're quite good and play roots rock type music. You should listen to them if you like Creedence Clearwater Revival or some of the Blakc Keys early music.

Isaiah's Song Lyric: "It's better to burn out than to fade away." -Neil Young "My My, Hey Hey"

From his album Rust Never Sleeps which is essential Neil Young. The above line might be an advisable course for punk rockers, but not for regular people (if you know who the song is about you probably got that).

Summer Theatrics

I have not seen Beasts of the Southern Wild, but by all accounts it is a marvelous movie. It also happens to be the subject of the movie review I have chose to annotate for Mr. Mayo, to view it click here http://diigo.com/0su9j.

This review, written by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone and entitled simply "Beasts of the Southern Wild" is not very long, it weighs in at just under 400 words, but it is direct and to the point. It focuses less on the plot of the film, but on the general idea and setting as well as the poetics of the script and the cinematography. It also devotes a paragraph to the director, Benh Zeitlin, and one to the lead actress, six year old Quvenzhane Wallis. Lastly, it points out a very important fact: this film was done on a miniscule budget, and shot on location (the Louisiana Bayou) with locals in most of the roles. The reviewer, unsurprisingly, has nothing bad to say and reccomends this movie with a passion.

As to the quarterly movie reviews, I think there should be general perameters as to the movies chosen, such as a particular genre or decade. On the other hand, doing one review where each person watches the same movie could be interesting because the reviews would be comparable.

Recently I watched Moonrise Kingdom. Besides being a truly excellent movie about coming of age and about love, from my viewpoint, having seen trailers and read reviews of Beasts of the Southern Wild, the two movies seem similar in some ways. They both star inexperienced, young actors who are captivating in their roles, and they both seem to be magical in nature, almost two fairy tales. This is an interesting trend as these two movies seem to be the only outstanding specimens of the summer.

Isaiah's movie quote: "As the leader of all illegal activities in Casablanca, I am an influential and respected man."
-Ferrari played by Sidney Greenstreet in Casablanca.

Too many love Casablanca for the romance, although that is a very important part of it. Just as important are the witty quips made by Ferrari, Renault, and Rick. Those lines are why I love the movie.

I Have Returned

Like most TV shows, the pilot of my blog was quite bland. That, frankly, was because it was an assignment and I was not in the mood for creativity within the boundaries. Mr. Mayo, benevolent overlord, has mandated the changing of this blog's name as Isaiah's Blog is much too generic. So, as you may have noticed, this blog is now called Isaiah Speaks. It sounds ultra-serious, but really it's a dumb biblical joke (sort of). In other news, I am reading 1984 for the second time. This time, being so much more learned and worldly, I understand that although Orwell was interested and invested in his broad dystopian world, the far more important and interesting aspect of the novel is Winston's personal struggles and reflections. Both his uncertainty about the world surrounding him and his early interactions with people who are essentially automatons are what truly makes this novel a horrifying vision. More to come on 1984.

Isaiah's Word: Pungent- Sharply affecting the senses, biting or stinging.
Personally, I love this word. Just the way it sounds makes me think of moss and mushrooms. Of course the meaning is rather unpleasant.
    

Pilot- About Me and Filmmaking

Hi, my name is Isaiah, thus this blog is called Isaiah's Blog. I come from Maryland. My interest in film revolves mostly around the watching aspect, but because I enjoy being an audience, I assume producing film could be just as interesting. I am most intrigued by storytelling and scriptwriting because it seems to be one of the more creative and least technical aspects of filmmaking. I am also interested in cinematography. I think these CAP filmmaking blogs could be used to brainstorm and get feedback on script ideas, as well as sharing interesting and appropriate work from outside of school. They could also be used to chronicle progress in each group's change project, the upshot of this would be that struggling groups could get advice from peers.

 

Photo Credit: Qisur