Project 1 mise-en-scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjZeN7ahX5Y&feature=youtu.be

Blog 2- What I Hear

     In Harlem, New York a lot of sounds are present, especially at night. There are the obvious sounds of cars, cabs, and buses, and even the 1 train above 125th and Broadway. Underneath the traveling noises of New York, one might hear obnoxiously loud music of people's IPOD's as they walk by and even some music blasting from the cars. A lot of times you can hear the people rapping and singing along to whatever they're listening to as if no one is around. As you approach the outside to restaurants or bars, you can often hear many people talking and blowing smoke out from their cigarettes. Doors are opening to closing to bodegas and other stores. A jingle may even be heard on the doors. Just then, 3 cop cars with their sirens wailing screech to a hault. The policemen get out of their cars and approach passengers in a car parked on the street. You hear the people surrounding get very quiet, in trying to listen to what is happening. You hear the cops talking to the driver, while another pats down a passenger. You hear the cops talk amongst themselves as they begin to get back into their cars. The people watching start to whisper to each other, discussing what just happened. The cops turn their sirens off and you can hear their tires K-turn to drive back with the traffic. Slowly, the volume of talking begins to pick up again and the sounds go back to normal on the street. You can also hear the swishing noise of people's jackets as they walk down the street.
     A night in Harlem can be very loud and exciting if you open up your ears to listen. I find all of the sounds to be meaningful to me in some way because they represent the 2 1/2 years of the time when I lived there. Memories of different events, such as Tuesday nights at Patrick Ryan's bar, often come to mind and make me smile. Things seem to be quieter in the day, just people traveling and going about their day. The screeching noises of the cop cars surprised me this night because the car being approached did not seem suspicious in any way. It really happened out of nowhere. Now living on the Upper East Side, I can definitely tell the difference between neighborhoods just by the sounds. On my street, I often hear a lot of kids, construction and cars. Overall, it is a pretty quiet area. I am glad to have experienced both neighborhoods in the 3 years I have lived in New York. Although, different, both still make me feel at home.

Mise-En-Scene- Blog 1

The sequence I have chosen to analyze is the first 3 and a half minutes of "SAW" by director James Wan. Through this sequence the audience not only gets introduced to the main characters, but is introduced to the location in which the majority of the film takes place. Adam and Dr. Gordon are chained in an old bathroom. At first, there are no lights. Everything is kept dark so that the audience is experiencing waking up in this room just like the characters. Finally, Dr. Gordon turns on the light where you finally get a better feel for where they are. Close-ups of Adam squinting and hiding his eyes, and the blurry, out of focus POV shot from Dr. Gordon, lets the audience know they have been in the dark for a while and the fluorescent lights are blinding them at first. As the tracking shot of the lights pulls back, the audience is now aware that this is not just a normal sized bathroom in some one's apartment, but rather a large room. The first wide shot you see is after they first see the dead body. This shot gives the audience an idea now of how big of a space they are actually in. Everything in the bathroom itself is old and dirty. In the middle of the floor lies a dead man bleeding from his head holding a gun in one hand and a tape recorder in the other. This indicates that they have been placed there for a reason and will now be going through something that has to do with each other, being chained in the bathroom, the dead man, gun and the tape recorder. In the beginning of the sequence, a close-up of a key is seen going down the drain of the bathtub. You are shown this before you see the characters are chained, however, you do not find out what the key opens until the end of the film. Other than the chains, gun, key, and tape recorder, there are no props introduced in this scene. Adam's wardrobe is simple, jeans and a t-shirt with an opened buttoned-down, while Dr. Gordon is in a buttoned-down shirt and suit pants. Throughout this sequence many kinds of shots are used to establish location, emotion, and the state in which the characters have been put in. Below is a link to the sequence. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAWK9V9Hk_A

MOMA- Cindy Sherman

I was very surprised to see how Cindy Sherman's work resembled so many forms of art, such as film and paintings, although it was all photography. Aside from one set of work, she is present in all of her pictures. She creates different characters for her to portray almost to the point of the viewer not recognizing they are all her. However, she does not consider herself to be a photographer, but uses the camera as a tool. Most of her work is very erotic, sexual, and have a violent feel to them. Her expression, positions, and locations resemble women in vulnerable, threatening states. A lot of her "Film Stills" resemble stills from Hitchcock movies and other films of the 1950s and 60s. Through her art she expresses how women were portrayed by the media. One collection of work were photographs for magazines with her wearing very expensive clothing. The photographs I found to be very contradictory, for her appearance herself did not fit the luxurious clothing she was wearing. The set of photographs where she was not present were extremely sexual. She used dolls and put them in awkward positions to create a uneasy, erotic feeling. Her pictures that resembled paintings were done to look like painting that you would see hanging in an old castle. She completed this set of work while living in Italy. Some of the pictures in this set were also sexual, revealing women's breasts. The last set of images I saw were extremely colorful and violent, like portraying someone with sharp teeth. As a horror fanatic, I found her work to be very inspiring. You do not need a video camera to portray violent, scary images. She can still achieve that tone with photographs and paintings without a chain of events that the viewer is watching. I recommend the exhibit to all people that can appreciate art without judging the fact that you will not get a happy feeling from the work.

Class Reflection

Although I have gotten sick a few times this semester, causing me to miss certain classes, I definitely enjoyed taking the course MEDP 150. I have enjoyed the labs more than lecture because I tend to learn more when I'm working hands-on, then sitting in a classroom listening to a professor and reading a textbook. Blogging has been a new experience for me and as the semester went on I have gotten used to it. My favorite project was our Photoshop project. I have definitely learned a lot about how to use Photoshop and loved making my stamp. However, I do wish we would have used Final Cut to teach editing. My main focus is on film and television and I definitely need to work on Final Cut more to advance my knowledge. At my previous school, Brookdale Community College in New Jersey, I learned Avid and am much better at editing when working on that. Many companies use Final Cut though, so I would like to be just as good when editing with that program. HTML was the hardest for me. There were a lot of problems I encountered that took a while to figure out and fix, such as uploading my images to fit in the space on my page. I also found the codes to be confusing and it would have been easier to make a website using Photoshop. In the end though, I was able to do it. I give people who design websites for a living a lot of credit, it definitely is not easy. The MOMA field trip was fun and I loved watching the film about the events going on in Bahrain. I do not usually enjoy documentaries, but I enjoyed watching this one very much. Not only did we get to view an amazing film, but we also learned about something going on in the world today. I know I was not aware of these events and I assume a lot of the other students did not as well. Overall, this was a great class and I look forward to taking MEDP 160 in the Fall.

HTML Site

http://fmundergrad.hunter.cuny.edu/~silversteina/index.html

Film Exercise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjyAUSM0WXU&feature=youtu.be