Boo.

Fear has always been a mystery for humans. What causes fear and why are we so interested in this? Fear is a negative sensation from a perceived threat. It is hardwired in our brain with the "Fight or Flight" response. Fear has been within the human condition as long as any other emotion.

This is a really odd reference but I like it anyway.

As much as we claim we hate being scared we still go to the movies to watch these heart wrenching films. It may be because of our morbid fascination to these things, our curiosity to the grotesque and the unknown. Stephen King explained that we love horror movies because it gives into our cruel impulsions.

We know why we find horror movies interesting but why are they scary to begin with? What makes a guy in a rubber suit scary or someone's arm being ripped off a hair raising experience? Instead of searching the internet for an answer I am going to try my best with my own explanation. Horror movies show us something that we usually do not see everyday, and sometimes shows us things we never want to see. The idea that a creature can enter your house at night while you sleep to drain all of your blood is terrifying. However even though the emotional side of our brain is paralyzed with fear our logical side can ease our mind with a rational explanation that vampires and werewolves do not ex

ist. That is why I think the more recent horror films do a better job with causing us fear. Movies like Hostel are scary because of a strong chance of them happening...well stronger chance than zombies knocking on your door for tea and cerebellum. What is scarier, a creature that can not physically survive in the real world due to scientific reasons or getting kidnapped in a foreign country then tortured to death?

Travel the world they said...

Just like anything else in our world, horror movies have evolved in order to keep up with viewers today. Our concept of fear has changed. Or maybe we have just become desensitized by traditional horror due to its over use. I think a crucial element of horror is the shock factor of some of the scenes, and the frankenstein monster can only be created only a certain amount of times before it becomes stale. As I stated earlier these new grotesque horror movies like Hostel or Saw show the viewers what they normally do not see, people getting tortured in sick ways. Thanks to special effects we can see a more realistic and brutal gore scene now without hiding in shadows and claymation.

Horror movies scare me for more than one reason, besides me being easily scared the future of horror movies can take an interesting turn. If what I said is true about the desensitization of fear than in the future we will see movies that will make Saw look like Nosferatu.

Now that's a scary thought.

8 1/2: Breaking the Rules and Paving the Way for the Future

For this week’s blog post, we were asked to read a chapter from Closely Watched Films by Marilyn Fabe. In the chapter it focuses on Federico Fellini’s film 8 ½. This unusual film broke a lot of the “rules” of cinema and helped pave a road for creative pieces of entertainment in the future. Overall after reading this chapter I came away with that certain “rules” of cinema could be broken with good reasons and intentions like how Fellini broke many of them in his strange and baffling film 8 ½.

8 ½ is a film about “director’s block” and tells the story of Guido Anselmi, a film director, who during the filming of his latest film, suddenly loses inspiration and worries he will not be able to finish and fail. One of the first “rules” Fellini “broke” was the non-linear story. The linear plot is constantly interrupted with Guido’s dreams, fantasies, and childhood memories that are triggered by present problems. This helps create a world of fantasy and makes it clear to the audience that this film is not about life but the make believe world of film. When first reading about this it reminded me of Christopher Nolan’s film Memento. That film is about Leonard Shelby who has anterograde amnesia searching for the killer of his wife. The film’s events are told in two separate narratives. One is told in chronological order in black and white and the other is told in color in reverse chronological order. As each sequence begins the audience is unaware of the preceding events just like the main character. Finally at the end the film’s narratives converge and everything makes a lot more sense. Memento in comparison seems a lot easier to understand and follow than 8 ½ and since I was confused during Memento I can’t even comprehend my level of confusion if I watched 8 ½.

Another “rule” 8 ½ breaks is with editing. For example objects in the background and the orientation of people in the room move from shot to shot. This disrupts the viewer’s illusion of “reality” because in real life these kinds of things would not happen. However it makes perfect sense in the film because it helps capture the disoriented process of recalling memories, which the main character is doing. Try it yourself. It is hard to pinpoint the exact location of people and objects when recalling memories. In other words “rules” are meant to be broken but only with good reasons like Fellini had.

Like Memento, 8 ½ reminded me of a lot of other movies and television shows I have seen. First it reminded me of Six Feet Under when sometimes Fellini creates dream sequences or fantasies that are not really happening. Six Feet Under would use this method all the time to show what was really going on in their characters’ heads. Overall the plot of the film reminds me of two movies; Adaptation and Tropic Thunder. Adaptation is a Charlie Kaufman film about Charlie Kaufman’s difficult struggle to adapt The Orchid Thief novel into a film. It turns out it is based on upon his actual struggle when hired to write the film’s screenplay. Tropic Thunder is about a bunch of prima donna actors who are making a Vietnam War film based on the fictional novel Tropic Thunder. When their director becomes frustrated he decides to skip the script and drop them into the middle of the jungle to survive real action and danger. In the end the making of the film becomes the actual film in the film’s reality and is a worldwide smash! Sound familiar? Between these four movies and shows it is clear to see that Fellini’s movie paved the way for future strange and creative projects. It can take just one person to change the way we think and Fellini was definitely one for many people.

The Beauty of Soap Operas

In an industry where Showtime and HBO television series get all of the spotlight (with good reason), sometimes we forget how to appreciate all of the “bad” television there is out there. More specifically, I am talking about soap operas. Yes, you read correctly.

Now, I am not an avid soap opera watcher, in fact, I think I may have seen only one episode of General Hospital and that was because James Franco was on it—but I must admit that over the summer, I became obsessed with a Spanish soap, una novella called “La Casa de al Lado.”

This is not an entry about the differences between Spanish and English soap operas, but rather about soap operas themselves. With so much fantastic television out there, soap operas get the short end of the stick and don’t get as much recognition—particularly by us students who are preparing to enter this industry or some variation of it. I believe it’s important to take a close look at soap operas and see why sometimes they’re so good, and sometimes why they’re just so darn awful.

Here is what stands out to me:

1. One of the best things about soap operas, in fact the most admirable—is the short amount of time that it takes to put on the production of one episode. Usually, it’s one day per one episode. Now that is just crazy! When you think about it in context, it is quite impressive. After all, how long does it take us to shoot a scene that is merely five minutes?

This creates an atmosphere of constant pressure because of the lack of time. This is the reason that a lot of soap operas aren't that visually exciting or impressive. A lot of their scenes are shot once, using three cameras so the lighting has to be able to work for all three angles simultaneously. Also as a result of the quick production time, the settings aren't always as believable as they could be if it were a production on a larger budget. Take a look below at the hospital scene and awful car crash in La Casa de al Lado.

2. The actors on soaps of course may not be the most groundbreaking actors to ever have been on television, but, they are very good at what they do. Since soaps have such a short production time, the actors are usually in the position of having to memorize their lines in an incredibly short amount of time-sometimes a day before the actual episode or scene is shot. This presents a huge challenge to the actors and it is highly respectable that they take their craft so seriously. After all, how many times do we hear of “serious” actors in Hollywood showing up to sets and not having their lines memorized?

Also, soaps feature up and coming actors quite frequently, usually giving a completely new actor their first role. Many times, great actors have had their start acting in a soap opera. Some examples include: Demi Moore who worked on General Hospital, Meg Ryan (As the World Turns), Christopher Reeve (Love of Life) and Susan Sarandon (A World Apart) – all of these actors have had successful careers after their initial soap-spot. They are just a few of many.

3. The best aspect of soap operas in my opinion is the writing (yes, I really did just write that.) Now, let me explain myself. When I say writing, I am well aware that there is far better writing on television than what ends up on One Life to Live, but that’s not my point. Soap opera have absolutely no limitations. None whatsoever. There is nothing impossible within the realms of a soap opera. Characters can die and come back from the dead because in fact, they were never really dead at all. Characters have shady pasts and can end up being evil even when they’ve been pretending to be good. It must be pretty fun to work in a writers room for a soap opera. Anything you suggest or think of can actually happen.

Granted, not much of it might logically make sense but that’s why it’s fun—it’s creative.

Like I mentioned before, I do not watch soap operas, however, I think it’s important to take a look at the shows that we truly admire and the kind of series that we don’t because we can learn a lot from both. Soap operas are extremely popular all over the world, with even their own award shows (Daytime Emmys). They last for years, even decades so even if it’s not something that you ever want to get into, it’s still interesting to know their production process.

101 Acting

After watching the video today, I realized that acting is not so much a talent, but more of an art. Michael Cane went on to talk about how simple you have to look in front of the camera and that less is more, especially on close ups. I did some researching of my own and found some other helpful tips that might help the rest of the class with their replication project.

1. If your scene has dialogue, tell your actor/actress to make sure he/she knows the character they are playing. if the character is serious, then the dialogue shouldn't come across funny or sarcastic. IF your having trouble keeping your actors from laughing, go through the scene a couple times until the laughter dies out. It is too easy to spot out on screen actors holding in their laugher, and it only ruined the shot.

2. If you have characters in the background or just simply not speaking, give them something to do while on camera. What I mean by

that is to make sure he/she isn't doing something to just get T/V time. They should have a purpose to the shot and should be doing every day kind of things.

3. Last, be aware of overacting. Make sure you understand what the scene's purpose is and that you don't exceed or miss the point. A lot of the time, beginner acts feel like they need to stand out from the others so they feel obligated to try and make more of what they are suppose to do. This mistake is easily avoideable and shouldn't be seen in any of our projects.

I hope this helps to all that read. Give me any feedback you got or anything else that I should maybe add to the list.

Steve Kinslow

The Music and Script of Inception

After talking about the spinning hallway in Inception during class it got me thinking about this complex and intriguing movie. Underneath the effects there are many other great things this movie has including its music and story.

First for those who have not seen the film, Inception is a 2010 film written, directed and co-produced by Christopher Nolan one of my favorite directors who has done movies like The Dark Knight and Memento. It was also nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. Leonardo DiCaprio stars and plays Dom Cobb, a specialized thief. Instead of robbing, banks he steals ideas from the unconscious minds while they are asleep and dreaming. This is called extraction. Cobb has been on the run and unable to go home to America to visit his children because he is wanted for his wife's murder. Cobb is offered a chance to go home and have his old life back if he could perform the impossible task of inception; the planting of an idea into someone's subconscious. That is Inception in a nutshell. It is a lot more complex and a definite watch for anyone who loves science fiction, action or heist movies.The music from Inception is just beyond epic. Hans Zimmer, who has worked on movies like The Lion King, The Dark Knight, and Rango, completed the score. Now the score is described as a very electronic score but the coolest part about Zimmer's Academy Award nominated score involves Charles Dumont's 1956 song "Non, je ne regrette rien." In the movie this song is used as a "kick" to wake up them up. To know they are running out of time in the dream the song softly starts as headphones are placed on the dreamer's ears. The music builds and then they are awakened.

Now as explained in the film, time moves differently when people are dreaming or when they are dreaming within a dream. ("It's a week the first level down. Six months the second level…"). Zimmer used this information and incorporated this into his soundtrack. Listen carefully to "Non, je ne regrette rien" and then to Zimmer's "Half-Remembered Dream" from the soundtrack. Do you see what he did there? When slowed down the song, like it would be in the dream world for the characters. Check out this video for an audio comparison. Another user also did the opposite and sped up "Half-Remembered Dream" to have it sound like Dumont's song!

Two final points, one small and one large, I want to bring up involve the story and the script, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Let's start small first. Nolan was so detailed when writing the script that some of the character names are allusions. Ellen Page's character Ariadne is an "architect" who creates the various dreamscapes, which are designed like mazes. The name alludes to a princess in a Greek myth who aided by the hero Theseus by giving him a sword and a ball of string to help him navigate the labyrinth, which imprisoned the Minotaur. Ariadne in the movie aids the hero Cobb and the rest of the characters on how to navigate the dream mazes.

The other point I must bring up when talking about Inception is the ending. The ambiguous and controversial ending involves a spinning top wobbling. For the characters in the movie they each have a totem that allows them to find out if they are dreaming or in the real world. For Cobb if the top stays spinning he is dreaming but the ending fails to show if the top falls or not because of the abrupt cut. In other words the audience is unsure if the final sequence of the film is reality or just another dream. While many of speculated and even came up with theories involving Cobb only wears his wedding ring during dreams and that is your clue to look for, Nolan has denied this. When I first saw the movie I was a little confused and looked for clues to find out what happened but after my second viewing I realized how it doesn't matter what happened. Whether he is dreaming or not, Cobb is not looking at the top for the answer but is looking at his kids. If he doesn't care, neither should we. Nolan has backed this in interviews but the audience is free to believe whatever they want. Maybe they should sleep on it and dream their own ending to this wild movie.

'Epic Meal Time:' Paving the way for internet-to-television success, one bacon strip at a time

"We make your dreams come true, and then we eat them."

Epic Meal Time is doing what a lot of us wish we could do: get paid to eat food, guzzle booze, and make television.

For those of you unaware of the Youtube sensation, Epic Meal Time is an extreme cooking show that features extraordinary meat-laden meals, covered in bacon, and soaked in alcohol. If Jackass and Man V. Food had a baby, this would be it. The show was co-created by host and narrator Harley Morenstein and cameraman Sterling Toth. From its tender beginnings, a video in which they create a fast-food pizza, the team of rowdy, drunken college kids make monstrous concoctions that push the boundaries on caloric intake and blood-alcohol levels. Take a look at this fan-favorite, "Chili Four Loko:"



The show was an instant success, the first video grabbing 100,000 views. Soon after, the show was featured on multiple big-name viral trending sites (like buzzfeed), signed up with Youtube for their own channel, and snagged the 2011 Shorty Award in the Food Category. After they established themselves as a web show that was going to stick around with the statistics to prove it, the guys signed on with two talent agencies, The Gersh Agency and Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, and an internet television network, Revision3. As of February of this year, the rumor is that Epic Meal Time is currently being pitched as a long-form television show to major TV bigwigs, including Comedy Central, Spike TV, and the Discovery Channel.

While we as soon-to-be television/radio graduates may be screwed when it comes to landing jobs due to the current economic crisis, websites like Youtube are rays of sunshine peaking through the dark, debt-ridden clouds of the future. Networks are turning more and more to amateur works on social media websites for new television ideas. Current TV is a viewer-generated television channel that often features works from Youtube and Vimeo. Although these next two productions are, in my opinion, deplorable and obnoxious, they did both start as poorly-made Youtube videos. Fred, a show about the life of an annoying teenager, was picked up by Nickelodeon and made into a feature film. The Annoying Orange, an animated series featuring a whiny orange with a mouth and eyes, is getting the chance to film six episodes, directed by Conrad Vernon (Shrek) and written by Tom Sheppard (Pinky and the Brain), to be given to Nickelodeon.

Beyond TV, student and amateur filmmakers around the world are being discovered via the internet. The future is looking good for our generation of film and TV makers. If Fred can land a gig with Nickelodeon, anything is possible.

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Epic Meal Time deleted scenes:

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To read more, try these links:
Men gone wild -with food - canada.com
A Chat With Epic Meal Time: YouTube Gets Wrapped In Bacon - forbes.com
YouTube hit Epic Meal Time cooking a TV show - insidetv.ew.com
Epic Meal Time - cracked.com
Interview: Epic Meal Time: A Bunch of Dude, Just Making it Happen - eater.com
Canadian YouTube hit Epic Meal Time headed to TV - nationalpost.com

What does Gravity have to do with it?

We talked about this in class today. Defying gravity on the set from the simple to the complex, from the cheap to the extravagant!

Though a very simple solution, it has always caused wonderment on the eyes of the public. It is probably older than that but 1930's Blood of a Poet by avant garde artist Jean Cocteau comes to my mind as one of the earliest in which gravity was defied.

le sang d´un poète

More famously and better known by the American audiences is the 1951 Fred Astaire movie Royal Wedding by Stanley Donen .

Royal Wedding by Stanley Donen

That famous sequence of course inspired an even more famous scene, albeit more complex, in one of cinema's great modern movies, Stanley Kubrick's 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey

The "centrifuge" set used for filming scenes depicting interior of the spaceship Discovery

And of course...INCEPTION

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited

I really want to make something like this for a Park production. Unfortunately, this is a work of art and cannot be replicated. Don't even try. Stop now.

The Girl Who Waited is a perfect example of the direction that new-Who has taken. It's less of a "monster-of-the-week" or "sci-fi" show and more of a "space opera." That's not bad by any means, of course. In fact, the fans in both the US and the show's native UK have been welcoming to the backstories of the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River Song. While the show's main focus is still timey-wimey and spacey-wacey, it's nice to see three-dimensional characters and growing relationships.

Lots of tributes to the series here in both its classic and current incarnations. The title of the serial is a reference to Amy Pond's character, who as a child waited 12 years for the Doctor to arrive a second time. In one scene, Rory breaks the Mona Lisa over an android's head. This is a reference to the 1979 serial "The City Of Death." It's a story that will appeal to both classic and new-Who fans.

Technically, it shines. The cinematography and lighting are obviously great, so no coverage is necessary. What really stands out is the CGI in both the landscape and most of the characters. The Handroids, the main antagonists in the episode, were costumed actors whose faces were removed in post-production and replaced with sinister looking medical equipment. The landscape wasn't WYSIWYG; it was a mixture of tight set design and 3D. What comes out is a threatening facility with a sprawling labyrinth of halls and corridors.

Karen Gillan's older appearance was also a defining factor in this episode. Instead of using an older actress to play the part, Karen herself offered to play the part in prosthetics and aging makeup. This created a believable 60-year-old Amy Pond once it became mixed with Karen's subtle acting quirks and choices. It not only brings out the best in the show's production, it's a bright moment for Karen, who's becoming a big star with the success of the programme (alongside Matt Smith and Arthur Darvill, the latter of whom is doubtlessly the show's best male companion in years.)

This will be a memorable episode of this series, and maybe even of the Eleventh Doctor's reign. Next week: The God Complex, which involves more child nightmare shenanigans and perhaps a look into the Doctor's eventual fate... let's just hope the characters don't almost die again.

Foreign Invasion

I find the new trend in television of hiring foreign actors to be an interesting statement on the talent in the country. Many of my favorite shows have cast foreign actors or actresses to play characters that are clearly American. I don't just mean the stray Canadian imports, but many actors are now being imported from places like England and Australia to play American roles and are covering they're accents very well. Many people (including myself), if they have never heard of Hugh Laurie before watching House would never suspect that he is British. I did not realize that his flawless American accent was an impostor until I heard him except a Golden Globe Award several years ago for his role as Dr. Greg House. Other foreigners impersonating American accents in television include Yvonne Strahovski who plays Sarah Walker of Chuck, and several cast-members of True Blood who have the harder challenge of learning a Southern accent. This trend that has recently hit American television has been going on in the film industry for much longer. Although I believe there are many good actors in America, I think this is a statement on how actors are trained in other parts of the world. In American since we have the mentality that anyone who has a dream can make it come true there are many people who do not have as much talent, but still have a career because they were in the right place or knew the right people. In these other countries these actors had to work hard to train to have refine their craft.

American Remakes

I don't mean to keep up a streak of posts about British television but since I'm a little behind on the times, I recently heard about another popular British show getting an American makeover. I had to watch The Inbetweeners for my British Youth Culture class in London and was immediately hooked. The show features vulgar comedy as it follows four teenagers who are "inbetween" social groups, and puts an original spin on the obvious story lines of alcohol, sex and school. It has also just been made into a movie of the same name that came out inthe UK and will be out here very soon. Two years ago ABC tried and failed to give the show a pilot but now MTV is giving it a shot. However, MTV recently cancelled their last attempt at a remake after the small disaster that was Skins.

I understand that the stations are in a position to make more money if they remake these shows instead of just buying the rights to the British versions and airing them on their channels. But because the UK is much less censored when it comes to television, the shows lose a lot of their original comedy and it really simplifies the characters when they come to an American screen. British television is much more candid about sex and openly shows nudity and drug use to a somewhat young audience. But in America, I believe that parents are more involved in what their children watch on TV and seem to be more comfortable in protesting against shows that they fear are a bad influence on their children's actions. An MTV spokesman, David Janollari, is very optimistic stating, "The Inbetweeners is unique and simply hilarious. It will resonate immensely with out viewers". However, he later says that the show has a very authentic voice and in successfully adapting it to a US audience, they are making it into a "quintessentially American suburban experience" and therefore changing the show's premise.

While there have been successful remakes, such as The Office, I feel like shows that air on channels such as E4 and Channel 4 in Britain will not have a good survival rate in their American counterparts. I think it will be difficult for MTV to get around the main focus on sex and the language that is much more comfortably used in British television. I also think that the rate they are churning out remakes will hurt them more then help them. The cancellation of Skins in still fresh in everyones mind and The Inbetweeners should be out early 2012 followed by a remake of Misfits.

Sources: The Sun article

Deadline

WEEDS

Well, given that Dave already posted about Dexter... (rude) I'm making my post about my second favorite showtime show, Weeds. Weeds is currently on its seventh and probably final season . The first 3 seasons of Weeds are just amazing. The story is great, and the built up in the story arc is both interesting and fresh. I honestly can say that the season 2 series finale is one of the best season finale's I've seen on TV, because the climax reaches a point where all of the story lines crash together, raising the stakes for the lead character (Nancy).

One of the things that make this show pretty special is that it's a dark comedy, meaning that it combines both drama and comedy. So, If you are into both of these genres this is the show for you. Seasons 4 and 5 and 6 are not the best, given that the show takes a different direction which in my opinion, is not that smart to do in a Tv show. So you might wonder why I'm still watching this show if the first 3 seasons are the best, well by this point I feel really attached to its characters. As a viewer I am interested in knowing if they are going to make it at the end of the day, Plus I think the show it's funny. Also, I feel that this season of Weeds improved from its predecessors.

I love the characters of this show, and the casting for it is excellent. For example, Nancy Botwin (played by Mary Louise Parker) is the strongest character. She is the leader, and the one who decides how things are going to be. The decisions that Nancy makes put her, and her family in either funny or atrocious situations. I think it's entertaining watching these characters trying to clean Nancy's mess ups.

The Big Bang Theory

Here's a show that I've been nonstop addicted to. I always saw the previews before and never thought about watching it until two weeks ago.

It's about a group of friends who work together in the science department as physicists, astronomers, or engineers at a university. Anyways, Leonard and Sheldon live together and this girl, Penny, moves across the hall from them. While playing the clichés that the nerdy kid wants the hot cheerleader throughout this series, the whole series focuses on the development of these characters. All of them extremely hilarious and I don't think I've watched an episode without laughing out loud.

The writers of this show are complete genius' by staying completely true to each character . . . especially Sheldon. He is so proper like a robot that it is extremely humorous when he disagrees with someone or proves them wrong. Each time he brings in his psych out phrase . . . "Bazinga," it is so true to his character of him being intelligent but being funny towards the audience without knowing it.

If you haven't checked out The Big Bang Theory, I'm telling you . . . WATCH IT.

CineSkates

I was looking around Kickstarter.com and came across a very interesting invention made by a student at MIT. He starts off with a statement that I really liked. "Video quality is no longer limited by resolution but instead by stabilization." Unlike 5 years ago, it is now hard to find a single camera at any store that doesn't shoot in high definition. Even the camera on my phone shoots in crisp 780p. And for under 1000 dollars anyone can buy a very nice DSLR that will shoot in 1080p with the ability to buy new lenses. At ICTV rush night I discovered that almost every field show was choosing to shoot on a DSLR rather than a traditional camera. CineSkates is perfect for DSLRs as they simply attach to a small flexible tripod and allow the tripod itself to act as a dolly. The whole video on kickstarter is shot using CineSkates and it has some impressive shots.


This is also a good example of how powerful kickstarter is when you have a good idea. This project was asking for 20,000 dollars and has already been given 240,000. It makes sense though because if you pledge 275 dollars you get the whole system. I thought about doing it myself.

Circular Replication

So for our first project, I decided to go against the rules a little for video production. The first commandment in shooting a movie to always follow the 180 rule, and for those of you who don't know the rule it states:

the 180° rule is a guideline that says two characters or objects in a certain scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line.

Know you ask how should i break this law. Well, for a thirty second time period I decided to leave the camera in one location and slowly pan in a circle for 30 seconds. To make this look good, I have to make sure something is going in each quarter of the circle. I wanted a challenge for this project and I definitely think this task will give it to me. If you have any question, comments, or suggestions please comment.

thanks

Steve Kinslow

The Lord of the Rings Extended Version

Recently I have undertaken a huge project... to watch the extended version of the The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Combined the three movies take 12 hours to watch. I have made it through the first two but have not gotten a chance to see the last one yet. So far the additions have been great. It is interesting to see what the final cuts were. Most of the additions in the first two movies have to do with Merry and Pippen, or are comical. The added parts add so much more to the movie and I thoroughly. There are many different clips from all the movies

The Fellowship of the Rings Extended Scenes Part 1

The Fellowship of the Rings Extended Scenes Part 2

The Two Towers Extended Scenes

These are just a few of the many scenes that were added to the extended edition.

Legends never die...just retold

Due to the massive flooding I have been watching a lot of television and by that I mean a lot of cartoons because I am twenty years young. While bingeing on cartoons I have noticed a pattern with some shows that I loved (and still do) and probably you guys and gals have watched too when you were little.

Let's see if you figure out which show I am talking about:

A trickster, a womanizer, a tough guy and a voice of reason travel great distances to collect X, be it for personal gain or to save the world. During their travels they stop at multiple towns to help the villagers out with their problems. They have a creature that they use for traveling and the trickster has a bo staff and can ride the clouds.

Give up? Obviously I was talking about Dragonball!

No wait! I just described Avatar: the Last Airbender!

Hold on! That kinda sounded like Pokemon!

What the hell is going on? Why are these shows similar to each other? Did they all just copy each other? Well kinda not really, to fully understand what is going on here we need to jump to 1590 in China.

Meet Sun Wukong...he is the inspiration for these show and many others that I did not mention. He is one of the main characters of the famous Chinese epic, Journey to the West. The basic summary of the story is a monk named Xuanzang must travel to India to recover Buddhist scriptures with the help of a monkey named Sun Wukong, a pig named Zhu Bajie, a water demon named Sha Wujing and a dragon king named Yulong that took the form of a horse. Along the way they encountered villages that required help or demons that are trying to steal Xuanzang and/or the scriptures.

Sound familiar? You can change certain key words like scriptures to dragon balls or Sun Wukong to Aang and you get the basic gist of each story. But why did these shows (and many others) use this story as a inspiration?

To give a really short answer to that question it is because Journey to the West is, at the basics, a pure adventure story. The story is about a group of people that go from point A to point B and dealing with challenges along the way; that is easy to use as a backbone for a story during any time, place or with any type of characters. The characters' personalities are simple tropes that can be molded into fleshed out characters with little effort. The story itself can be viewed as a basic skeleton of a adventure story that a writer can pick up and alter to fit the needs of the television show that they are creating.

I wanted to show the roots of shows that we have all seen as we were growing up.

The Office Looks to Make it Through Season 8 Without It's MVP

As I pass the time between seasons watching my old favorite episodes of The Office, I found myself wondering if this upcoming season will be a success. I have put off thinking about how Steve Carell is gone and how I hate the new actor that is replacing him because I am in denial. I can't believe that he is actual gone. Michael Scott. The reason the show was my favorite. Michael Scott. A comical genius. His absence raises the question, Will this show survive without their MVP?

If you apply this question to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, it would probably be a different answer. With the Office I think they will survive. The cast includes some great actors/esses that will be able to save the show. Although Carell, took the main responsibility of the humor surrounded by the office, his absence will allow Jim and Dwight's relationship to be a main focus.

Besides Carell, Jim Halpert and Dwight Schrute were also hilarious characters. What I believe will actually happen now is instead of always being at each others throat and playing tricks non-stop, Dwight and Jim are going to be forced to work together. Their common goal? To destroy the new boss, Robert California, played by James Spader. This will blossom into a new relationship with a hilarious new twist. This is just a guess, but it does sound possible.

I dont know enough about James Spader, but I have to admit my first impression of him was not at all a good one in the season 7 finale. Either way I will give him a chance and hope that he take this show in a positive new direction.

All Hail Steve Carell!!

Flooding?

I hope that no one was actually effected by the flooding I read about in that Ithaca emergency email beyond having classes delayed today. I thought I'd share what I did yesterday towards our first project. Today the rain cancelled class, but yesterday the rain made filming annoying. Had it been a nice sunny day I would've gone to the Commons and shot something. Due to the weather, anywhere I went off campus would've been a place of business, which could have caused complications when trying to replicate the scene. So I grabbed my Canon T2i and trekked around campus stopping at various interesting indoor locations.

The next obstacle was creepiness. To try and capture people doing stuff from far away is not a challenge. To get a conversation or interaction between people in the foreground was interesting. The first shot I got was in the campus center by the Park side entrance. I stood on the second floor overlooking the entry way and filmed for thirty seconds. I had a stairway on my left and right with the doors directly in front of me. Because it was seven o'clock I didn't get a rush of people. But I got several small groups of people coming and going up and down the stairs having small conversations.

The second location I tried was the rec center. I just sat myself down in a corner and filmed the 6 or 7 people in there playing pool and ping pong. I also went to the music building's foyer that overlooks the hill center and sat in a comfy chair. At that location I captured in frame two people working and one girl talking on the cellphone. My final stop was the pub where I found a friend to place in the foreground. Calvin Healy sitting there ripping his hair out over calculus 3. In the background there were 3 girls arguing about a group project.

I didn't get the chance to try a moving camera shot. Maybe with this rain day I'll get the opportunity over the weekend to set something up before class. But I think I got a few nice selections for my group.

Dexter: A Good Way to KILL Some Time

I love television but there is one show for me that sticks out above all the rest and that is Dexter. Dexter is a show on Showtime about Dexter Morgan, a blood splatter analyst for the Miami Metro police department. The first season was based on the book Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. Dexter is your average guy except for one small difference; he kills people. One of the reasons I like this show besides from the suspense it creates is how it makes the viewer feel for Dexter. Even though he kills people, he only kills bad guys and other killers. So in a way he is an anti-hero and the viewer almost roots for him to escape so he can rid the world of evil. It brings up a good question. Is Dexter a good person doing bad things or a bad person doing good things?

Besides from great storytelling and acting, done especially well by Emmy nominated actor Michael C. Hall who plays Dexter, the production team makes some interesting and great aesthetic choices. First off the color of red is everywhere. Dexter will drink red wine and eat red meat. Streetlights behind Dexter’s head will often be red. Red, obviously, is supposed to signify blood, which Dexter sees a lot of. Another example is what they do to show the different sides of Dexter. When Dexter is the good, average Miami citizen upbeat Latin music plays against the sunny Miami city. The colors are bright and the world just seems happy. However when Dexter is acting as his “dark passenger” the lighting becomes chiaroscuro. There is a sharp contrast between light and dark (which is a metaphor for the sharp contrast between his two sides). Soft and creepy music also plays as Dexter slowly lurks in the dark.

Harry Morgan, a cop and Dexter’s dead adoptive father, will interfere with Dexter’s life and remind him about the code they set up so he will not get caught. Whenever Dexter sees him the scene gets a little blurry and the lighting becomes brighter, especially around Harry. This could be interpreted like Harry is Dexter’s guardian angel, a mystical figure coming back to help Dexter when he needs it the most.

One of the greatest aesthetic pieces of Dexter is seen every week in the opening credits, which is Dexter’s morning routine. There are many close ups and extreme close ups that show Dexter getting ready for the day. All of these show his precision and his eye for details. It is also edited in a unique way. First it is edited into “choppy” segments (pun intended) and like a horror movie the killer is not revealed until the end (Dexter is finally visible in the last few seconds of the video). These shots, especially in extreme close ups, also look very scary and brutal. For example when he tightens the lace on his shoe or cuts into a piece of meat, it looks like he is strangling someone or cutting into a body. It’s practically his killing cycle! The audience will definitely know what they are getting themselves into as they watch these credits! Finally despite all of these scary images his morning routine is very similar to ours and is supposed to show no matter how crazy or demented Dexter is, he is still human. He shaves, flosses his teeth, and locks the door to his house as he leaves just as we all do every morning. In a way he is just like all of us (except he finds very different ways to use his free time).

For more information on Dexter, check out it's Showtime website. The new (sixth) season premiere is October 2nd!

Characters of All Colors

The other day I went with a bunch of friends to see "The Help." I ended up greatly enjoying the movie, but I must admit that I was a bit hesitant to go see the film, partly because I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend $8 on a movie that could be spent on groceries and partly because I didn't want to sit and watch another movie that dealt with race that might possibly offend me or to simply state it - piss me off. It's not that race is something that I don't discuss - in fact, it's quite the opposite. I deal with race as often as I drink coffee, which is every day. Granted, some days it's a bit of a more intense brew that is right in your face while other days are a bit lighter.

I just didn't want to be disappointed with the representation of people of color in film...again.

For as often as I have watched movies and TV I have noticed the pattern that appears when it comes to the portrayal of particular races. Generally speaking (and please not that I am saying generally, meaning often and not all the time!) stereotypes are attached to the character of color. Think about it for a moment. Really. Just sit back, take a breath and try to remember when you saw a television show or a movie that featured, or guest-starred or had a cameo played by a Black actor. How about a Latina? A Native-American? Asian? A person from the Middle-East? Now how did these characters dress? How did they speak? What role did they have within the film? Did they have an accent?

Mind you, I don't watch every movie that comes out nor do I keep up with every television show but I think of Eva Longoria on "Desperate Housewives". I think of Mindy Kaling in "The Office." I think of Sandra Oh and Chandra Wilson on "Grey's Anatomy." I think of Nelsan Ellis in "True Blood."Most of the characters that these actors play have a personality and story lines that don’t necessarily revolve around their ethnic background or color of their skin. Their race isn’t their only story lines which sometimes dictates the entire character. For example, how many Black men do you see on television that are lawyers or doctors on television? Think about that in comparison to how many you see as criminals and drug dealers. How many are even reoccurring characters? That’s a big gap, right?

Plenty of studies have been done analyzing the number of roles that people of color have in the media, as well as the stereotypes that they fall into. This topic is of particular importance to me because as a Latina who is studying television-production and who hopes to one day have a career in the media, it is overwhelming the lack of representation that minorities have in the media and even more so the way we are presented once we actually have a part. In a study conducted on the 2001-2002 Prime Time television shows (Latinos on Prime Time), it showed that Latinos accounted for ONLY 2% of characters that were reoccurring. This was out of 3, 172 characters that were examined.

Perhaps this isn’t of any concern to my fellow peers, but it is definitely a concern to me.

It's easy to watch anything and laugh and cry and feel for the characters that we are watching. It is entertainment - that's what it's there for, right? But as each and every one of us in this class are not just watching entertainment - we are studying it, admiring it, creating it and hoping that one day we get to put our work out there in the world. I say that we begin to critically analyze it as well. Let's take a look at how people of all races are portrayed as well as genders, and characters of particular ages and from different countries.

After all, media isn’t just about entertainment. It’s an incredibly large industry with many powers and functions. Sure, it can be used to make people laugh…but it can also be used to provoke thought, challenge norms and create change.

Night Terrors

Let's talk about what worked with this about. And really, there wasn't much that didn't work. So let's just talk about Night Terrors. This is not only classic sci-fi writing at its best, it's a wonderful piece of televised cinematography.

On the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction, which ranks believability on a scale from 1 to 6 (with 6 being the most believable science fiction,) this episode ranks a 4. Most good Doctor Who episodes fall in this category. A 4 on the scale means that there are only a few minor changes in reality that do not affect normal human life (or otherwise.) This ensures that the story won't be marred by wacky "facts", technobabble, or other elements that may confuse the viewers.

In Night Terrors, the story centers around a young child's fears and closet which he locks them away in. His plea of "Save me from the monsters" reaches the Doctor, Amy, and Rory, and the Doctor decides to make a "house call." But once they reach the child's flat, they realize that these fears are spiraling out of control, and that -- in true TARDIS fashion -- nothing is as it seems. The story is not too bizarre and not too boring; the resulting happy medium is just as exciting as it is creepy.

The cinematography really adds to this episode. The lighting is spot on, matching the scene of a child scared of the dark. Shots are blocked beautifully. The first shot after the intro of the TARDIS materializing in the puddle is perfect; CGI, color, and the atmosphere of the shot all work together. This theme continues throughout the episode. It keeps you on the edge of your seat; or, rather, behind your seat, as you might be cowering in fear of the dolls that turn you into one of them. As far as non-CGI makeup goes, the doll costumes were certainly effective at causing viewers to pee their pants.

This is a classic Who episode, hands down. Next week looks like a Doctor-lite episode set in a futuristic world. All I know from the preview is that Rory smashes the Mona Lisa over a robot. Nice.