The Myth of the Week

     The film today was interesting to say the least. I myself was extremely tired and therefore towards the last ten minutes began to drift in and out of conscientiousness. While the interview was going on I couldn't help but notice how not Campbell but how the other guy would say a phrase and then say it again and again twenty different times. It made me think about high status and low status which I do tend to think about quite often. It lead me to believe that the interviewer felt less intelligent while in conversation with Campbell and was trying to make himself look smarter. It started to bother me and while the topic of the interview was inspiring I couldn't help but want to maul the interviewer for distracting me. It could've been my imagination but regardless, it was irritating.

     My favorite part of the film was when Campbell said, "Life is not about finding meaning. Life is about the experience." This is something I identify with. I live everyday looking for something different to do, a new place to go, or talking to new people. This past summer when I went on my cruise a group of kids (believe it or not) went on and on about "Why do we both see the color purple the same? How do we know your purple is not my red? Why is the sky blue?" I continuously rolled my eyes because I hate trying to find the meaning in things. I take them for what they are, why bother dwelling on things that I most likely will never know the answers to and fry my brain in the process? Experiencing events makes my day to day life full of meaning. There's no need to go and try to find it. I take the little experiences and the big ones and try to focus on the positives of what is going on in my life. I move with the moment.

10,000 hours

I've had a Youtube beauty channel on and off for three or so years. My cousin and I have recently decided because we sometimes get bored of just talking when we hang out that we should create a Youtube channel. It all started when my cousin was looking at the list of most downloaded free apps for the week and came across the iMovie trailer app. We had four hours to hang out one day and she suggested we make a film trailer. This app has all of the shots and allowed time for these shots in the presetting's of the possible trailers. Then there are a few word screens you use for necessary captions. It took us about an hour to draw up the storyline of the trailer. We had my cousins house as the set and anything that entailed. We used the iPhone 5c to record. At first we thought it would be a good idea to having the trailer be about searching for food around the house and finally finding it in the fridge. We threw this idea out after realizing there was not enough of a struggle to get to the fridge. Instead because she had regular and golden oreo's we decided to make it about that because the original goal could be to get to the golden oreo's but after struggles realize that we might have to eat the regular oreo's instead. Overall it was easier to make because the only thing we had to come-up with ourselves was the story, because everything else was provided. It made the process much easier. I am already brainstorming ideas for short films because we hang out usually once a week so we set the parameters to be 2-3 people in the film and the longest it must be is 3 minutes in length. We are also making these videos mostly to entertain ourselves but we are going to document it on Youtube to show our evolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozti9SqM500

My Achilles Heel

Freshman year of high school I was obsessed with television. It was my drug of choice. I used to go on Netflix, pick a show, and watch every season until I finished the whole thing. Sometimes I would watch up to 7 episodes of 40 minutes each night. It didn't matter whether it was good acting, plot, or filming because I needed to fill up my time with something. Of course if it isn't obvious my grades dipped somewhat during this time. Now my drug of choice is reading. On average I've been reading about 6-8 books a week. The reason for this switch is because after a while I realized that one, I don't like to watch the same thing twice, and two I needed something that took up much more time. As a result during this summer I turned to reading as the alternative. I love stories about bad boys so I used my trusty friend Google to find material. Now I use this website "goodreads.com," and I just scroll down the list of books under the category of "popular bad boy good girl books." I have come to realize the difference between a good book and a bad book, is similar to a bad show.

A way I can tell if a book is bad is by first and foremost which it language uses. If there isn't sophisticated language it is usually a sign I could be reading something better. If the author gives away hints to the plot but not enough for me to figure out exactly how things are going to pan out for the characters, that's a sign I should continue reading. When the author makes the action sequences so that I cannot understand what is happening and I have to reread the section more than once it is a tell that I will not be reading the sequel.

Overall I think I am going to start writing book reviews on my blog to make a daily practice of actually writing because its taking something I already like to do and adding some work aspect to it.

Monkey Tell, Monkey Tries to Do

We're all afraid of something. Today my fear was seeming fake while reading my monologue. At first while reading it I decided instead of trying to act I would just read it as I would read something aloud for English class. It came out monotone. BIG SURPIRSE. I didn't realize my fears where preventing me from getting to the desired result. After watching Sabrina deliver the monologue a few times and analyzing what I can steal from her, I realized I needed the basics such as emotion. The monologue was also very frustrating in that it had such awkward phrasing and so many dot dot dot's. Some of these needed to go because it was so choppy as Sabrina pointed out, but the main problem was with my delivery. As soon as I started acting, my face made the monologue look terrible. I tried to keep my face under control as I talked and Sabrina said it made the piece so much better. This was one of the most difficult tasks for me because as I was talking the way my voice would change and the emotion I would portray would be connected somehow. At least if felt as if that where the case. Another thing we figured out is that in the monologue there were a series of "plot points" as we called them which were crucial in delivery. If you messed up those lines or they seemed fake, so would the rest of the script. You also have to take the viewer somewhere you can't stay in the same emotion the whole time. I want to become a better actor so I can make that little voice in my head that says "you suck" to shut up.

Unfinished Works

Over the three years I've been in STAC I've written countless scripts. I've worked on so many projects and have work to show for it. The one thing that I've come to realize about myself is majority of the time I leave my works unfinished. I write script after script but never seem to make the music video, or preform the piece. Recently with the flop of my performance piece behind the sheet I have thought about my unfinished scripts. I really want to work on the piece incorporating the advise the group gave me. I also want to ask multiple people to perform in it because it would just look that much better and much more easier to understand. I want to change the piece so that instead of it starting behind the sheet it would begin with the doctors washing their hands and putting on gloves. Then after the doctors would step in front of the sheet. With using different people it will be clear there's more than who's who for example by the height difference in shadows and different voices. I am considering adding sound effects such as a beeping sound to further push that it is an operating room. I also want to take another look at my music video script. I want to see if I can make it work. It lacked flow the first time I started it. With a fresh set of eyes I want to see if I could make it flow and make sense to the audience. I also need have a clear view of what I want it to look like rather than a hazy view. If I don't know what the end product will be how will the actors or anyone else?

In other news, I am considering the possibility of making a short film every week. I want to contribute more to my 10,000 hours and keep my creative juices flowing.

Youtube

About two years ago I started a Youtube channel. It had a terribly embarrassing name that at the time I thought was a good idea. My videos were on a low quality camera and in a few of the beginning videos the camera even fell and I left it in the videos. I watched a few recently and thought I can't BELIEVE I ever thought these were good. As I started to watch more recent ones I realized that they got better progressively over time. My media is now a PC computer, Windows Movie Maker 7, and a Nikon Camera D5100. I used to have to verbally address the steps in my videos as I did them because the old movie maker didn't even have a narration option. What I meant to say is I've come a long way.

I needed a new start from my old channel because as I've changed over the years and matured I felt that my channel must as well. In STAC I've learned so much about shots and how to make videos have more flow. I was missing those aspects on my old channel. I've also learned how to cut down footage so that you only need the necessary film and are not watching any unneeded extras that will bore the audience. I also learned that from the statistics Youtube shows me on my videos that the average viewer will click the link to my video and watch slightly less than half of the video. This has brought to my attention in order to keep the viewers interest, have the best footage at the beginning, to hook them in and interest them. Youtube also works on PR and such. I started out posting my videos the summer of 8th grade and began with on average 40 views from posting the links to my videos on facebook, where as now I get about 80. Most people in school know about my videos and tell me they watch them which I find so humbling. I'm just doing what I love and I guess people appreciate that. Youtube in a way is sort of like STAC. I've in so many ways had to be creative, because in order to stand out, you have to have a distinct personality, creativity, and be unique. You need a distinct personality in order to establish a relationship with your audience To bring them into your life and make them feel as if they are a part of the life you live. For creativity, you need to come up with material that is your own. Of course they don't just materialize in your head and you steal ideas from others, but you need to be creative and you cant go around stealing other people's make-up looks because it would be the same video recreated. When Halloween videos role around you need to think of ideas that people will search and want to be. Once you establish a audience base you can basically come up with whatever you want, but until then you are trying to give the people what they want. Unique goes hand in hand with creativity, you never want to be the like someone else on Youtube, because why would someone be interested in something they've seen already?

For me the hardest part of making videos is the actual filming. Most of the time I have a very busy weekend with homework and social events so I try and film whenever I can. Trying to shoot videos yourself is extremely challenging. When I do make-up tutorials its so much easier because the cameras right in front of me and I can focus it myself and press the record button. In my last video I moved as away from my camera as I could but not far enough, so that from a sitting position I couldn't hit the focus button with my toe. On the other hand with fashion videos it is impossible to do singlehandedly. I cannot get the shots I would like by myself. I have to rely on others for that and you can't rely on others to follow through like you can yourself. I struggle with finding someone available constantly. I also struggle with getting rides to locations I intend to film at. I consider Youtube a side job from school. I try my best to put up videos every week or so because being consistent also makes a Youtuber great to subscribe to.

Youtube has taught me so much and contributed to my growth as an artist.

Orange is the New Black

I started watching this series after hearing great reviews about it online and Luke having mentioned it in class. I think that the whole show is about power. How to get it. How to use it. I am on episode three but so far none of the shots have jumped out at me. Which is what I was originally looking for,  but what I've taken from this show is how well they are able to portray a character with the simplest of actions. Also, the show isn't very over dramatic. Everything is so well written in and it is so much more realistic than most. For example, if you've seen the first two episodes you are well aware that they are trying to starve out the main character Piper. While during this starving out period, her ex-lesbian lover tries to give her food but piper throws it away. This shows Piper is stubborn and plays by her own rules. To top it off after that incident the ex-lesbian in the end of the episode isn't given food because the head of the kitchen was told about her giving food to Piper. No part of the show is left untold or goes unresolved. The highlight of this show is all the actions that are put in to show character. You can tell so much by how the person is handling themselves in jail. I also enjoy how the head of the kitchen Red is made out to be a terrible person because she tries to starve Piper to death but then there are flash backs to show that she too was once a regular human being with feelings. My favorite part of all though was at the end of the second episode where all the inmates are watching a movie and Piper does not have headphones, so all she can do is see the picture but then this one girl who previously helped her out sits next to her and offers her headphones. Little naïve Piper takes this as a gesture of kindness, when it was really Suzie's way of asking if she liked her. If she accepted her. It was a brilliant moment.