Benjamin Brandt's Miracle Cure-All

I couldn't find a way to embed the code for this video (sorry about that), so here are two links for it, which I shared with Ms. Giknis. The story I told is a collection of journal entries telling the tale of how a doctor uses genetic modification to create a miracle cure-all that essentially ends diseases worldwide.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5LIfR6xx4NZdURoazVhemd0Y00/view  
Link for part 2: chrome-extension://mmeijimgabbpbgpdklnllpncmdofkcpn/app.html#/files/3cbd4f39-f027-436d-y0a8-9a57460917b6

DC Presentation

Two recent projects. One from Pre-Calculus, modeling with transformation of trigonometric functions using two sets of data. And another one from English, showing the science fiction present in the book, War of the Worlds, and how it influences the theme.
Pre-Calculus Benchmark
War of the Worlds

How bad catcalling is

Catcalling is a form of street harassment that should not be tolerable, it is impolite and rude.

When women get catcalled they think that it’s vulgar and it is degrading. However some women like the attention. Unlike women, most men think that it is a compliment and when they don’t answer back there are a slut. When men do this they are looking for a women with low self esteem and problems so that they can get sex. My goal is to inform men what they doing to women and open there eyes to see how wrong it is.

An anti-harassment group took a survey about women and the age they were first catcalled. Sometimes they said over the age of 17, however most women said they were first catcalled between the ages 11 and 17. This is really foul not just because that it’s catcalling but that they are saying these things to teens. It scares them and makes them really nervous of what might happen. When a man catcalls it mainly means that they want something sexual from them. And when they do it to teens it makes it even more vile because they are saying they want something from the teens sexually.

20170601_201621.jpg

Catcalling has been around for centuries and dates back all the way to 200 B.C. However it wasn’t called catcalling but the wolf whistle. This term is carries a predatory connotation which acts as a symbol for wolves which is an example of male lust. The actual word catcaller started in the 1700s which was a way for people in the theater to express the disapproval for the acts on stage. They would sneer and whistle and the actors to show this. The way the catcalling is used in a sexual manner didn’t actually start until the 20th century.

20170601_201108-01.jpeg

A reporter from Australia named Eleanor Gordon-Smith is interviewed by a woman named Ira. Smith talks about her experience with being catcalled and her stories when she confronted the men about it and got there thoughts. Her goal was to find out why these men did what they do. One of Smith’s story is about how she confronted her catcallers Mike and Zack  and how she tried to convince them to not catcall ever again. During their conversation Zack says that he does it because it makes women feel good while in reality it doesn’t. He also admitted to smacking a girls ass if they are in a group but only in a group, never alone. She keeps trying to convince him that women don’t actually like it and the only reason why the smile and act like they like it is because it is a defense mechanism. They do it to prevent it from doing anything physical to them such as rape. In the end she convinces them to no longer smack a woman's ass.

Screenshot_20170526-120730.png

Throughout the years catcalling has been happening everywhere and dates back to 200 B.C. However it has been used in different form, it was first used to show male lust, then it was used to show anger at the actors at a show, and finally it is used to call out at a girl to show interest in her. It is happening to people as young as 11 years old which is very vile. Men typically do this to complement a women and to say hello or it means that they want sex from them. They get the feeling that women like it because they smile but this reaction is only a defense mechanism to keep anything violent from happening.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Exercising the public



Exercising the Public

 

So last time I talked about the general idea of exercise and why it was important. Now I have done some research of my own. I have sent out a survey to get everyones opinion on exercising. If you didn’t read my last blog or you’re just generally confused on what I am talking about or the purpose of this post read my first post. It’s really informative and will explain my topic well. You can also check out my annotated bibliography for all of my research and websites.

Screenshot 2017-05-29 at 11.45.25 AM.png

As you can see, out of the 86 responses I got a majority of my responders are female. From that I can make educated guesses of of what gender said what in all my questions. So for rest of this blog I make guesses based on the amount of answers to question and my outside knowledge.

Screenshot 2017-05-29 at 11.46.10 AM.png

 

Also, the age of my responders will also play a factor in my educated guess. If you have any thoughts on my opinion please let me know in the comments section of this post. Well I think I have explained how things worked enough now let’s get to these questions.

Screenshot 2017-05-29 at 11.46.33 AM.png

Screenshot 2017-05-29 at 11.48.16 AM.png

As you can a majority of my responders are active but a big portion is not. Judging by the average age of my responders I conclude that it's the more older people who are less active than the younger, which is not surprising. As you age you start to gain responsibilities and new ways to occupy your free time. Eventually if not committed to having that perfect body you start to lose interest and stop exercising. I believe that’s one of the reasons that obesity is more common in adults over 20 then in the age groups under it. Obesity is the condition of being grossly fat or overweight. Obesity often results from taking in more calories than are burned by exercise and normal daily activities. Obesity occurs when a person's body mass index is 30 or greater. The main symptom is excessive body fat, which increases the risk of serious health problems.The mainstay of treatment is lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise. For more information on Obesity go to this site and read up.

 

After I received my response I used my results and made my conclusions about people  in general. As you age exercise becomes less and less of an everyday activity. I’m a very active person and I’m 16 and I don’t see that part about me changing so that’s not true for everybody. For those of you it is, please join a gym or try to get into some type of regular exercise. If you need help starting one or just need a jump start please let me know and stay tuned for my agent of change which should aid with that.


Adil Shamsuddin poema

Adil shamsuddin

yo soy el hijo de una madre árabe y padre negro.

Tengo 7 hermanos y 3 hermanas de todos juntos. Mis padres han estado juntos durante 5 años.

Mi hermano asistió community college por 2 años, y mi otro hermano no ir.

Hablo árabe, inglés y un poco de francés.

Mi padre nació en el norte de Filadelfia, donde mi madre nació en ultramar en Marruecos.

Mi papá estaba en el ejército, luchó en algunas guerras y ha viajado por todo el mundo en barcos. Mi padre también saltó de aviones fueron aterrizó seguro y listo para moverse.

Mi familia es propietaria de una casa de playa en una ciudad en África, me voy a la playa casi cada 3 años, lo que es realmente divertido.

Me enseñaron árabe a la edad de 3 años, fue difícil al comienzo mi mamá me dijo, me quedé en Marruecos durante 2 años. Fui a la escuela y aprendió árabe

tengo una familia muy linda, me encanta.

Payton McQuilkin Poema

E1 U5

 

Payton McQuilkin

Soy yo

La hija de madre e padre

Los padres estar separdo

La madre el niño la hermana e el hermano

 

Veo el abuelo vacaciones casa

Saboreo la abuela cena

Huelo la madres galletas

Oigo el padre gritante

Toco la hermana ropa

 

Vengo desde Filadelfia

Me gusta comer

Me gusta ir de compras con mi familia

Me gusta escuchar música

 

Somos producto Filadelfia

Somos irlandesa

Vivimos en America

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Work for no Reward -blog post 2

When I gave out the survey I thought  people would  go more towards the popular opinion that  students athletes should not be payed. But from what I got from my survey I was wrong. Most people thought college athletes should be compensated for the money they earn for the NCAA and colleges. I think this happened because for students taking the survey they can understand why for the athletes with no steady source of income and still putting in the same work as professional athletes why compensation would be needed. Something I found surprising is the people that took the survey didn’t realized how big the NCAA is and and how much of the income comes from just the athletes.  Another thing I found interesting is that people though the athlete got at least 10% of what they make for the NCAA back in but this isn’t true the college student athletes that make 12 billion dollars for the NCAA make 0% back. To clarify the NCAA isn’t an evil organization that is hates the college athletes, the money goes to an assortment of other things but still for a major source of income to not get anything in return is not fair in any form.

As a student athlete myself people that don’t play sports may think that it is just you running around on a field for an hour  but it is something that is hard and takes lots of time and effort to get good at the sport. So for college athletes the work they do is triple what normal student athletes put in so I can understand what they have to go though and the importance of them getting something for all the blood, sweat, and tears they give to their schools. I want to get more people to take my survey so I can get more detailed responses but from what I read I think that the topic of student athletes getting compensated is a fight worth fighting and is something that needs to happen.


Camp Rock: A Film Noir

Just imagine, Joe Jonas as a teen detective, and the love of his life (Demi Lovato of course) goes missing. Yes, we know, we just might of made your childhood a tad bit better because yes, we made Camp Rock a film noir.

To begin, we will explain why we chose to create a trailer. Our goal was for our viewers to imagine the entire movie as a film noir, and the only way to do that was through a trailer. A scene would only allow our viewers to enjoy a single segment of the movie, prohibiting their imagination to go beyond that one part. What a trailer does, is touch many parts of the film to create a visual story with little to no detail. That not only intrigues viewers to watch the whole thing, but it is also a way to leave the movie up for interpretation because everyone has different viewpoints.

A film noir cannot be described with just one thing. What makes noirs so magnificent is that they are filled with the unexpected, whether that means the storyline, or just the question as to why it rains 365 days out of the year. When making the trailer we made sure to include one aspect that every noir has, and that aspect is no color, just black and white. After changing the color of the film we watched many noir trailers, and found that light music played in the background the entire time. We chose the song we chose for our trailer because of how soothing yet mysterious it was. We also made sure to use a limited amount of dialogue because emotion, reaction, and expressions are important in noirs. Sometimes a reaction can say way more than just a simple “Wow!’. Let’s not forget the love interest too. We get a glimpse of that love between the Detective and Mitchie, but we’re careful not to show too much because we still want some of it to remain a mystery. Unfortunately, we couldn’t add the magic 365 days a year rain. What we did instead, is make the film a bit darker so viewers can at least get the feeling that it was about to rain in every scene. At first, the trailer might seem too dramatic, but what film noir isn’t over dramatized?

In our opinion, our noir trailer is much better and more entertaining than the regular Camp Rock trailer. In the regular trailer, you are given several story lines that you have to follow in just the trailer. It becomes unclear as to what the main character is looking for. In this trailer, you are given one story line, Mitchie is missing, and only one person can find her, Detective Gray. Also, let’s not forgot all the different songs that are played in the original trailer. In our noir trailer there’s only one song that plays in the background the entire time. The goal of a trailer is to leave you wanting more. We add mystery and excitement in our trailer. So many questions are left unanswered and people have to watch it if they want the answers. It’s just as simple as that.

 

Trailer Link: https://www.wevideo.com/view/933996725


Addy Gonzalez and Hanna Dunakin


Rockets Power Comeback for 4-3 Walk-Off 9th Inning Thriller; Win AAA Championship & Advance to PA-State Playoff Tourney

Screen Shot 2017-05-31 at 10.17.35 PM
Screen Shot 2017-05-31 at 10.17.35 PM
Nearly a year ago a horrendous series of events unfairly ended the Rockets second consecutive undefeated season prematurely. For all involved time has stood still, but the family that started crystallizing four seasons ago never stopped working. 

A Top 4 finish in the Public League's most talented division had everyone believing 2017 was the year of the Rocket! Yet, after an early exit from the City Tourney, courtesy of a team fired by an almost identical will to win, the Rockets took the field in search of redemption, a crack at an elusive AAA Championship and a bid into the PA State Post Season Tournament. 

The Rockets quickly found themselves down 2 to a fiery String Theory squad on a couple of unearned runs. But Captain Lukas Supovitz-Aznar came in to pitch in the 3rd, shut down the Knights and helped claw back into the game with a Double in the 4th, plating Ijustice Avery to make it 3-1. 

Aznar shut String Theory down, striking out 8, surrendering just 2 hits and 1 unearned run over 5 innings to keep it close. 

In the 6th a scary moment turned the tide. 

Senior Leon Finney was drilled in the back of the head with a wild fastball by Borgesi. After coming out of the game to see the trainer, the Rockets manufactured. Avery got another hit, Ben Simon drew a walk to load the bases and Senior Jason Greene drew another walk to make it 3-2. 

Aznar and the defense worked out of a jam in the top of the 7th as the Knights stranded the bases loaded, setting up magic hour. 

Senior Aaron Watson-Sharer battled and eventually laced a single to right field, then Sophomore Avi Cantor ripped a monster Double into the gap in right center. Sharer came in to score all the way from 1st, tying the game at 3.

Sensing the game slipping away, String Theory's coach intentionally walked Tony Brown and Avery after Leon Finney came back into the game to move Cantor 90 ft away from a win. The gamble worked for the Knights as the Rockets weren't able to get the winning run to cross, forcing extra innings. 

Finney struggled with control in the 8th, loading the bases by hitting three batters. Suddenly the momentum was in Theory's corner, but Finney reached down and found some electric stuff and struck out the side, keeping it knotted 3-3.  

SLA had another chance after Senior Arsenio Gomez worked a huge Base on Balls, but Theory's reliever Pratt got out of the jam and pushed the game to the 9th. 

Finney was dialed in. Striking out the first batter on three pitches, he then induced a slow roller to a charging Aznar at Short who made a smooth back hand and fired across to Sophomore Leo Cassel-Siskind for the 2nd out. Finney fell behind the next batter but battled right back, striking him out on three straight laser beams.

And so the stage was set for another chance to walk off their home field in Mt. Airy as winners one last time. With one out Junior Tony Brown smacked a hard single to right field and stole 2nd two pitches later. Ijustice Avery, who had been intentionally walked in his last at bat, came through with his third hit of the day, sending Tony Brown to 3rd. Avery stole 2nd on the next pitch, and the Knight's coach intervened again by intentionally walking Aznar to load the bases and pray for a double play.  

Having finished his pre-at bat ritual of wiping both hands in the dirt, Ben Simon stepped into the batter's box and locked in. The next ten minutes felt like a hundred as Simon dug in for one of his signature battles, fouling off pitch after pitch and working a full count. Then disaster struck when Simon popped up sky high along the first base line. The ball disappeared into a blinding gray sky and the Rockets bench erupted when Theory's First Basemen lost it. As the ball harmlessly landed on the grass just foul, Leon Finney screamed "They don't want it!" and Junior Alex Gomez declared "My man here, he's gonna get a hit. You watch!"

Simon stepped back in.

This is what childhood dreams are made of. 

Bottom of the ninth. Tie game. Bases loaded. Full Count. Championship on the line. Both benches screaming. An outfield of Mt. Airy Little Leaguers chanting "SLA, SLA, SLA!"

Pratt delivers the pitch and everyone takes a collective gasp.... 

The crack of the bat. The ball screaming toward the outfield. Simon punching the air as he sees it reach the wet grass. Tony Brown crossing the plate with the winning run. SLA's bench clearing and mobbing Ben "Big Daddy" Simon half way to 2nd.

As he disappears beneath a pile of humanity, the dream is reality. 

A Walk-Off Win. 

AAA Champions. 

An official bid into the PA State Playoff Tournament. 

But most importantly, Seniors- Arsenio Gomez, Jason Greene, Leon Finney, Colin Pierce, Ben Simon, Lukas Supovitz-Aznar and Aaron Watson Sharer- get a chance to wear the Rockets blue as a family again. 

After gaining composure, lining up to shake hands with a solid String Theory squad, talk almost immediately turned to getting ready for States. 

But First, "No matter what happens next, no one can ever take this away. You earned this. This is yours. This is yours for life!!!" 

VIDEO HERE

THE MOTIVATIONTHE HIT and THE WALK OFF

Next Up: District XII Championship vs AAA Catholic League Champ Conwell-Egan (Thurs, 6/1 @ Archbishop Wood HS, Warminster, PA- 1st Pitch 1pm).

El Blade Runner: A Western

By Colin Pierce, Ali Driggers, and Ben Fink.

Our original script

The goal of our project was to reshoot Blade Runner as an Italian spaghetti western, since we saw both Blade Runner and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly recently. We thought that both movies had flexible enough settings and plots that we could combine the two easily.

We chose the scene where Deckard is infiltrating the nightclub towards the beginning of the movie, trying to determine whether or not Zhora is a replicant. It wouldn't make much sense for an android to be hiding in the old west, so instead we made Zhora into a generic outlaw who is hiding from Deckard, who is now a sheriff, by posing as a bartender. The scene starts with Deckard bluffing his way into Zhora's dressing room by pretending to be from an organization that helps performers, and he starts checking the room for holes and cameras. We thought that the most likely comparison to the wild west (without getting too lewd) would be having a health inspector check a saloon for health problems. Deckard also asks if Zhora's holographic snake is real, to which she says "Of course not, do you think I'd be working in a place like this if I could afford a real snake?" The closest comparison we could find was the price of wood in the old west, so we had Deckard ask about the quality of the wood in the saloon instead.

After this point we kept the basic outline of the scene almost identical to the original. Zhora becomes suspicious of Deckard and fights him with some kung fu moves before running away and eventually being shot by Deckard. In our scene the same thing happens, except Deckard has an uzi since it was all that we could find. It is still an older gun than what Deckard had in the original Blade Runner, so the idea still stands.

While we were recording, we realized that the phone we were using wasn't recording any audio for some reason. At first we were going to use another phone, but then we remembered that many westerns were originally recorded in Italian before being dubbed over by English voice actors. Because of this, we decided to to keep our old silent footage and dub over it.

A Dogs Purpose: Horror Film

A Dog’s Purpose directed by Lasse Hallstrom is a fantasy/drama film that follows the story of a dog who is reincarnated several times until he ends up with his original owner. This film definitely falls under the umbrella of a feel good, family movie. We decided to recreate its trailer as if it was a horror film that could make even the strongest and fearless person scared of a chihuahua.

The first choice we made was to start the trailer in color and change to black and white when the scary and evil side of the dogs started to come out. This choice was made based on how older horror movies were made, like Psycho and Night of the Living Dead. The black and white gives the previously colorful trailer an eerie and lifeless vibe. The color change alone helped make this children's movie a lot spookier.

We used shorter shots when showing the dogs to confuse the audience. This way, there would always have something to look at but not enough time to completely react to what they just saw because the next shot would already be on the screen. By having these quicker shots, people aren’t focusing on the details in the shot as much. This gives a sense of urgency and suspense. Horror movies are known for being liked by “adrenaline junkies,” so that’s what we attempted to do with this. Some shots of the dogs were also reversed to mess with the audiences head. Even the slightest change, although not noticeable, could still catch someone's eye and be the shot that is remembered.

We also decided to keep the original song but gradually slow it down. This made it sound like the slowed down childrens lullabies used in a lot of horror movies. In general, deeper and more negative sounds increase the fear in people. The gong like sound that occurs when the audience first sees the dogs become evil is used throughout the trailer to bring the viewers back to that original fear of when they first heard it and didn’t know its meaning. We did the same thing with the line, “Maybe you should teach him some manners,” but instead made it come back in a more echoey sound so that it was like a memory. Having the change of shot on beat with this sound as well, connects what the audience is seeing and hearing. We added extra dog barks over top of the slowed down music to make the dogs seem more ferocious and gruesome because they originally were not. It makes it seem like there is more of a threat and something to look out for.

Our final product can be compared to many horror movies like The Birds or any zombie movie. It follows the trope of “attack if the killer whatever,” which in this case are dogs. The color and sound effect change makes it so that this originally light hearted movie hits you heavy and has you second guessing the saying, “dogs are a mans best friend,”

Link to trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O5ZgryzstY

Zoe Andersson and Indee Phillpotts

Eraserhead as a Romantic Comedy

For this project, we cut scenes from Eraserhead into a trailer one might see for a more traditional romantic comedy. Our take on the surrealist classic was very much inspired by the trailer for the classic De Niro vehicle Meet the Parents, a romantic comedy wherein a hapless fellow (Ben Stiller) meets his dearly beloved’s rather quirky parents. The trope of the “love interest with a catch,” often found in romantic comedy, lends itself well to Eraserhead, particularly in the organization of the dinner scene. The catch in Eraserhead is that the love interest has birthed a mutant; for the purposes of a romantic comedy, pregnancy itself was enough of a catch, and so simple fatherhood was an angle we chose to magnify. This scene also contains shots similar to those used in Meet the Parents, with cameras placed to fit whole families sat at a dinner table in frame, as well as rom-com appropriate lines like our protagonist oh-so-awkwardly stammering to Mary’s mother that he loves her daughter. 
In our conversion, sound reigns supreme. Cheesy canned voiceovers provide setup to scenes that are in fact, quite unlike what is described. Obnoxious voice over work is a trope of the genre’s trailers and even of trailers in general. Though it’s near-impossible even for us to tell, Harry and the writer of this sentence actually alternated each voiceover segment. When coupled with the Hyrule Castle Courtyard theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the voiceover work creates an (in)appropriately whimsical and cheery atmosphere for the story. Another trope of the rom-com trailer is the sudden rock song, and it usually comes into play when a central tension of the plot is first revealed. We cut off our Zelda music with a cheesy record scratch, only to have our sudden rock song drop in the form of Fugazi’s “Waiting Room.” The recurrence of “Waiting Room” is used to frame the trailer, as snippets are played at the beginning, middle, and end.
Yet another rom-com trailer trope is emotional music that indicates the characters in the film will have character development and emotional experiences. Modest Mouse’s “Workin’ on Leavin’ the Livin’” fit the bill perfectly, as the majority of the song is based off of the “Lady in the Radiator Song,” originally composed for Eraserhead itself. It is perfectly ironic that a song about suicide and drunk driving should be used in the place of an uplifting song here, as it is totally conceivable that a rom-com trailer editor would expect so little of their target audience as to include so dark a song in this role.
In this trailer, what was originally played for discomfort or general oddness is played for laughs. For example, Mary’s father Bill’s quirkiness makes him seem like a classic sitcom dad instead of a lunatic who makes squirting chickens and makes sure pipes don’t grow [or makes sure that people know that pipes don’t grow. It’s left up to interpretation]. His more peculiar lines are edited out, and his quip of “This dinner’s getting mighty cold!” serves as an entertaining callback to the beginning of the trailer (when Mary first says “dinner’s almost ready”) rather than a bout of acute tone deafness. In a romantic comedy, directors are expected to keep things light and playful, and small jokes like this serve to maintain that tone. Our group not uses that trope and also subverts it by including the surrealist imagery of Henry tearing apart his offspring and being torn apart. Henry’s introduction to Mary’s parents is a cordial, if awkward, welcome, appropriate for greeting the parents of a love interest, whereas in the original film, bleak silence could occupy minutes of time before statements were responded to. Now? All that is left is rom and com.

Rockets Power Comeback for 4-3 Walk-Off 9th Inning Thriller; Win AAA Championship & Advance to PA-State Playoff Tourney

Screen Shot 2017-05-31 at 10.17.35 PM
Screen Shot 2017-05-31 at 10.17.35 PM
A Top 4 finish in the Public League's most talented division had everyone believing 2017 was the year of the Rocket! Yet, after an early exit from the City Tourney, courtesy of a team fired by an almost identical will to win, the Rockets took the field in search of redemption, a crack at an elusive AAA Championship and a bid into the PA State Post Season Tournament. 

The Rockets quickly found themselves down 2 to a fiery String Theory squad on a couple of unearned runs. But Captain Lukas Supovitz-Aznar came in to pitch in the 3rd, shut down the Knights and helped claw back into the game with a Double in the 4th, plating Ijustice Avery to make it 3-1.


Stitch has a glitch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOzopgptO24

For our final English project Lilly, Vilma, and I chose to recreate Lilo and Stitch 2: Stitch has a glitch. We chose to do Stitch has a glitch because we wanted to take a child movie and turn it into something scary so they can see that their is a deeper meaning. The original movie goes for a more loving, caring, and gives a very valuable life lesson. The life lesson that we learn about is to not take anything for granted and to appreciate what we have because not everyone has the same thing we have.

In the first part of the trailer we decided to use the first time stitch started to glitch, because it shows that something is going to go wrong. Then we go into the scene where Jumba ( Stitches creator) is in the final stages of creating him. Jumba is sent away to a prison for illegal genetic testing, so he does not have enough time to let Stitches’ molecules form fully. Those two scenes are important to this trailer because it gives background information on why Stitch is now glitching. Stitch is now aware of the fact that he is glitching so he starts to act out. While he is acting out it is clear that Lilo is also being affected by his actions. We included the scene where Stitch glitches at the hula competition and hit Lilo. Throughout the glitches Lilo has been there for Stitch even though he is jeopardizing their friendship.  

As we got towards the ending of movie we made it so it ends with Lilo holding stitch in her hands crying as he is no longer breathing. This shows that Lilo really cared for Stitch and did not want their friendship to come to an end, but even the good things must come to an end. We created  this strong ending we wanted it to show that every story does not have a happy ending. We feel like showing that in a kids movie is better because the sooner they know that everything does not always end good it is better so they are more prepared for the real world. As kids we were always taught that everything has a happy ending or good thing always last. No one was there to tell us the truth until “we are old enough to know” so we had to wait and be surprised by it to randomly happen and not be prepared for how to respond to it. With this it gives them a sneak peek of what can happen and how one might respond to it. Kids should start taking things more seriously even though they are young they should see things for how they really are and learn how to accept them and that in the end everything is going to be okay, life will go on. I guess you can say we are trying to mature them at a young age but the sooner they know the better and the more prepared they will be.


Horrific Alice In Wonderland

By: Michaela Peterson and Kara Heenan

Movie: Alice in Wonderland into a Horror Film Trailer 
 
 
Walt Disney’s “Alice In Wonderland” is an animated classic known for it’s psychedelic, artistic story and visuals. The film was aimed at younger audiences, however, the overall nature of the film hints at inspiration of drug use. The overall trippy scenes and the fact that Alice wanders into a world in which she did not choose to go into and that she knows nothing about, made it quite fun to turn this musical fantasy-comedy film into a horror film. 

Our trailer for the film makes it look as if Alice wishes for a world of her own, hence the song we chose to use, “World of my Own”, which we re-recorded ourselves so we could change the tone and feeling of the song. She follows a white rabbit, drawn to it by curiosity, but falls down the dark, scary rabbit hole by accident. The world she fell into is like the one she wanted, but much darker.  At first, she seems to enjoy herself, but the clips slowly get darker as the trailer progresses. She enters a world unknown and it is clear by the look of her face that she is not happy, we made sure to include scenes where she looked frightened. 

She comes across many of the scary characters as she ventures through the land. The characters and what they put her through really are what make the film a horror type, as most often in horror films, the main character tries to escape from a monster of some sort. The terrifying monsters she encounters include: the pink-eyed stressed out white rabbit who leads her into the world in the first place; the March Hare and the Mad Hatter who shove Alice into a cup of tea and chase her; the creepy flowers and their attacks; the angry Queen of Hearts as she yells at Alice, screaming, “off with her head!”; the mysterious smoking caterpillar that blows pink rings on to her and surrounds her in clouds of suffocating smoke; and the pack of cards that chase and try to stab her with pitchforks.

The rough nature of the characters towards Alice, the overall setting, and Alice’s emotion towards it all in a lot of the movie made it simple to convert the genre. We just took the clips that could easily be interpreted as bad, took away most of the dialogue and put them all together to make a horror-filled trailer. The general mise-en-scène is the monsters’ looks and special actions they do, and the trippy settings. We put our own non-diegetic song over it, an eerie version of the song in the movie, as it added to the mood. We downplayed the original bright, happy colors as dark colors tie in with the horror genre. The off center camera angles are also generally used in horror films, as they add mystery and suspense to scenes and is used a lot in Alice in Wonderland, as well as our own editing. Alice definitely got the world of her own that she always wanted, be careful what you wish for!
 
Clips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHte24GGHD4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msvOUUgv6m8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4fHre-yRPY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0lbfEb8MMk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=979s7YgpNos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di7dZwidXZU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh0k8q_OXzA 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzjvVOpYpIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O0f0yviZSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj09dkOy3IE

The Lion King Reimagined

Created by Rifah, Ben and Kevin
The purpose of our trailer was to transform a fun, famous children’s film into a dark, frightening and suspenseful cinematic adventure. While the Lion King is a movie of hope and eventual happiness, the film looks scary and nerve wracking. We did this by using the techniques of the auteur Alfred Hitchcock, who is widely considered the master of suspense. We based our trailer off of his Psycho trailer and his skills as a famous director of suspense. While we took a slightly different route, thanks to our use of an animated movie that was not initially produced in black and white, the trailer was created to simulate what the Lion King would look like with Hitchcock type features. The differences between Lion King and Hitchcock films were made up by using the ongoing tropes often found in his movies.
 
As previously stated, we employed the same skills that Alfred Hitchcock used to attract viewers to his movies. Through multiple methods, including the actual creation of Hitchcock's trailers to his film’s overall ambiance. From the get go, we tried to set that feeling of suspense. The trailer opens up with the sun rising and nice music, but it quickly turns to screeching music (from Psycho), with the animals quickly looking up and running away, as it seems, at the non-diegetic sounds. We also noticed from the Psycho trailer that Hitchcock was very straightforward and worried more about giving the viewers a good sense of the story more than anything in his trailer. We also tried to replicate the same kind of deep, creepy voice that he has to try and physically make the trailer as similar to him as possible. Outside of connections between our trailer and the Psycho trailer, we tried to make the preview suspenseful. Slow, methodical narration, a black and white backdrop, a fast pace of clips, and a beating around the bush of the plot line all contributed to the Hitchcock feel of the film. The black and white theme not only represented Hitchcock’s depiction of Psycho but also provided a grim feeling to the trailer. The music also played a major role in that aspect. We used the creepy soundtrack from Psycho to add emphasis to the suspense. The music is matched up with the visuals to make the trailer even more appealing to the viewer. A fast pace of clips, most noticeably at the beginning of our trailer, also added to the feel of a horror film. It makes the viewers head spin around and heart beat faster. While dishing out the plot line with basic speech in a trailer isn’t the most effective way to attract viewers to a film, it was exactly how Alfred Hitchcock went about his trailers. He provides blatantly explanations of the film, giving away details of the story line, accompanied by non-diegetic music, as the way to build suspense before the film even begins. Finally, the trailer ends on a note that makes the viewer want to know more about the story. The trailer is specifically designed to end at a point that will leave everyone at the end of their seat begging to know more. 

Link To Video: https://drive.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/file/d/0B_W9Hi30VobXVDhtRm0xM1ZnM3M/view?usp=sharing 

Austin Powers: Film Noir

Made by Juliana Concepcion, Cacy Thomas, and Ellie Kreidie

Drama, crime, and secrecy are all part of the game. As a staple of classic Hollywood film, film noir is unlike any other genre. With long complicated plots, dark and dreary sets, and cheap budgets, it is it’s own entity. Traditionally this genre is used to portray the characters in a film accepting their fate. They are solemn and sarcastic with a flare for static drama.

The theatrical conventions of film noir as well as the cinematography are born from the same origins. Some staple cinematic elements used in this genre are low-key lighting, hard shadows, black and white, and dramatic scoring.

Some well known film noir directors are Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, and Billy Wilder. Each man has produced a multitude of crime dramas using the cinematic techniques of black and white, sad and dramatic music, as well as dark shadowy settings.

Austin Powers in Goldmember is a groovy, tiedye blanket of a film. Mike Myers only adds to the mojo as a crime fighting, 70’s possessed spy trying to stop the adorably malevolent Dr. Evil. Evil has teamed up with Goldmember, a gold obsessed Dutchman, in order to kidnap Powers’s father and send him back in time. Along the way, Powers receives help from unlikely allies and scattered clues to find his father and return back in time.

With an all star cast beside him with the likes of Beyonce, Seth Green, Britney Spears (briefly), and Michael Caine, Mike Myers characterizes both Dr. Evil and the infamous Austin Powers. Known for its silly humor and constant laughs, Austin Powers in Goldmember is one of the most celebrated and treasured comedy blockbuster hits of the early 2000’s. Released in the US on July 22nd, 2002, with a box office intake of nearly $300 million, Austin Powers in Goldmember is the perfect parody of a classic film noir motion picture.

In order to create Austin Powers in Goldmember as a film noir we changed the entire physical look of the film as well as the feeling of lines spoken. We incorporated the key theatrical conventions that make noir what it is. This includes deep shadows in black and white, rain, jazz music, narration, smoking, a hard boiled detective, and a femme fatale. Each of these elements instantly transformed the action comedy of Austin Powers into comedic film noir. We also took lines from the original trailer and changed the style in which they were spoken so that it fit a mysterious film noir tone. The blocking was directed in a way that allowed for Austin Powers to sometimes be seen through an obstructed view, because we wanted to display him in as much shadow as possible. When compared to the original trailer, our version has much slower pacing and longer shots. We wanted to keep the sense of humor from the original Austin Powers’ personality, so we kept some of that, but also made him a bit of a tougher and more stern character. All of this mixed with the shady bridge location and ideal rainy weather made for the perfect Austin Powers: Goldmember film noir transformation.

The Purge as a comedy

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw-geQuGIPzmRjNJQm5QNi14X3c
Reel Reading Q4 Benchmark
Ebony Ream, Vaughn Matthews, Luke Risher
5/31/17
 
When we were thinking about the genre of comedy several characteristics to look for jumped out. First was the storyline should be a light-hearted drama, this would be important for giving the audience space and mindset to laugh at the humor. Also, one thing that we notice was a characteristic of the genre was exaggerating situations to make them seem preposterous to the viewers. A subsection of comedy that we also wanted to focus slightly on was a slapstick comedy. This is a kind of comedy that is less in dialogue and more based in action. 
Taking into consideration these factors and guiding points of the genre we set off to make a drastic, but also reasonable shift. We redid the trailer for The Purge to be a comedy. We started with changing the interpretation of the concept to be less violent. Comedy is often not violent so a thriller driven by violence needed to be slightly modified. This would basically change the horror intense drama into a light-hearted drama which achieved the first of our goals of comedy. So we kept the portion of the trailer that included criminal activity but changed the crimes to be less violent. We made the crimes low scale and pranks which made the film more slapstick comedy than a violent thriller. This fit perfectly into the slapstick style we were going for. Also, the idea of The Purge was already kind of exaggerated and unrealistic you could say because it’s not an experience people would normally ever have, so this fit well with the humor theme of over exaggeration. 
So when we adopted those changes, the trailer became more comical, but in reviewing it, we still needed to make other alterations. Another large difference in comedy and horror is the soundtrack, the purge trailer soundtrack was very menacing and built suspense so replacing it with an uptempo cheerful soundtrack, this lets the audience know that the vibe of the film was cheerful and fun as opposed to violent and suspenseful. 
We also highlighted more of the story of The Purge that was based on the family. In the beginning of the trailer for The Purge, there were scenes of the family being happy and loving life, in the redo of the trailer we tried to bring this out, even more, to give the story a happy and family feel. Some comedy is darker, but for this we wanted The Purge to appear to be accessible to the whole family so we wanted to bring out the lightheartedness and family aspects of the story. 
While we were making all these changes we also wanted to make the redo clearly related to the trailer. To do this we used some a main cinematic property of the trailer was sharp cuts and flashes of scenes. This is a feature of horror movies, but with different framing can also fit comedy. 
Another Cinematic thing we played with was light, we made the redo of the trailer have more light, especially more natural light. We did this by filming in the day and making sure the subjects were well lit. This took away the suspenseful and frightening element that the darkness added in the original trailer. 
Overall we kept the storyline and idea, but slightly changed the severity and intenseness of the concepts to fit the genre of comedy. We put the emphasis on different parts of the story to change the overall tone of the movie. We also changed the cinematic technique of light and audio to also set the mode to be more comedic and less scary. The result was a successful change from horror to comedy.

Scary Spiderman

For our project, we turned Spiderman 3 into a thriller film. The original movie was portrayed as a superhero action movie, with Peter Parker being the hero disguised as Spider-man. However with the intentions of increasing the intensity, the film created frightening imagery quite often. The scenes could be scary on their own but kept from becoming complete horror through heroic music and Peter winning at the end. The film could be edited down to clips where they only show Peter walking through creepy places, which could give suggestions this is the sort of place he likes to spend time in. It is even possible to make Peter into a monster instead of a hero as he deals with Venom, who was only created from using him as a host. This parasitic alien, known as Venom, caused Peter to act mean towards his love, Mary Jane. To manipulate the story from love to villainous, in a trailer we will remove scenes of Mary Jane and Peter kissing; we will keep scenes where he hurts MJ and others, along with any other acts of misdeeds. He cheats on Mary Jane and ruins her performance at the restaurant she works at. These scenes can be manipulated to make Peter malicious towards her. The origin of Spiderman could also be manipulated. When Peter is first bit by a radioactive spider, he awkwardly takes a picture of Mary Jane on a school trip as her friends try to pull her away. In a twisted version of the story, the spider bite could then have motivated him to go after her instead of save people. This can be expanded to having Peter weird out Mary Jane. This concept has been done in other school projects and been posted online so this would be portrayed as a side story by having little time in the trailer. When Peter first gets his powers, he gets into a fight at school. The fight has lighthearted moments. Peter impressively doing backflips and other stunts is met with cheers. His opponent comedically gets food spilled on him after Peter knocks him down the hall. Peter’s friend smiles at him. When these parts are taken out and edited to a faster pace, the scene is left with Peter twisting the other student’s hand as both their faces twist in either anger or pain, and their classmates watch in horror. This works with building fear of Peter in Mary Jane because she is in the crowd, gasping and staring at Peter as people back away. There are also multiple frightening scenes that show how monstrous Venom is. At one point, Venum has demon like teeth though it is no longer on Peter, we can edit it to still have a human like form giving the illusion of it being Peter. There is also a scene where Peter struggles to get rid of Venom, and the black icky goo which is the parasite swirls around Peter. If shown without the context of Peter successfully getting rid of Venom, it may look as if Peter is going crazy, especially if played backwards.

Changing Perspective

Responses and Feelings of Basketball Fans
 
Hey everyone, it’s Diamond and I am back with another blog post! In my recent blog post, i talked about how the WNBA doesn't receive as much recognition or attention as the NBA. Well, this time, I interviewed a few people who explained how they felt towards the WNBA and just women’s basketball in general. We are very aware that the WNBA does not get paid as much as the NBA. There is a huge issue with equal payment with the NBA and the WNBA. There is also an issue with equal recognition and publicity. Simply, the majority of sports fans simply don't crave women's professional basketball because they are women. If you want to know why, continue reading.
 
     A picture of a basketball going through a net.
 
When most men watch basketball, they look for aggressiveness and competition. Apparently, the WNBA doesn’t have neither. Fortunately, there is a small fraction of people in the world who supports the WNBA on the daily whether they demonstrate aggressiveness or not. This small fraction looks at basketball differently then others. They look beyond the flying 360 dunks and and focus on the fundamentals being played in the game. 
Youth coach, Maleek Griffin told me he “Hates the NBA.”
“I don’t enjoy watching the NBA because I coach basketball. It’s very difficult to coach basketball when my youth is turning on their TV’s and seeing their favorite player break every rule in basketball. From passing with one hand, to traveling, and launching threes resulting in not holding their follow through. Once the see that, they imitate them, and it is very hard to break them out of that habit.” Most youth basketball players think that if they can imitate what ever is on TV, that they are just as good. That is not the case at all. In order to be a great player, you have to practice the fundamentals of basketball. The WNBA may not have dunks and half court shots, but they do have good fundamentals.”
Most people can sit through a WNBA game, but they won’t be as astounded as they would be sitting through an NBA game. According to Douglas Williams, a former basketball player, the NBA is exiting and entertaining. Douglas has a daughter that plays basketball. When I asked him who his favorite NBA team was, he stated it with no hesitation. When I asked him who his favorite WNBA team was, he had trouble thinking of a name. I also asked Douglas if he supported the WNBA since his daughter plays girls basketball, and he hit me with an unexpected response. 
“No I do not support the WNBA on the daily. One, they don’t receive as much TV time and social media attention for me to know anything. You also need a WNBA subscription to watch WNBA games whereas the NBA comes on frequently on all sport networks. If my daughter makes it into the WNBA, i’ll get a description.” 
Maleek and Douglas had different opinions towards the WNBA, but they both said something very similar. “This world is sexist!” Both men explained how men think females can’t do anything as well as men. Women are expected to be nurses or teachers. When men hear things such as women's basketball, they automatically assume that the game is going to be less aggressive and interesting than an NBA game. That is what I want to stop!
I plan on raising awareness by making an instagram hashtag. With that instagram hashtag, I will send it to all my friends and tell them to post and share the hashtag, The person with the most likes, gets a prize. I believe raising awareness on social media is the best way for people to know whats going on. Most teenagers don’t watch the news or read newspapers. They gather information through apps like instagram and snap chat. I would like to see everyone receive the recognition they earn. People, especially women, work too hard to be underestimated and underpaid. For my annotated bibliography, please click here.

Boys Ultimate takes 7th at State Championships!

2017 SLA Boys Ultimate team
2017 SLA Boys Ultimate team
The Science Leadership Academy Boys Ultimate Frisbee team had an historic result at the PA State Championships over Memorial Day weekend! The boys placed 7th in the state - making the quarterfinals for the first time in the school's history! 

The weekend started with a game against SLA's crosstown rivals - Masterman. Masterman came out strong, taking a 5-0 lead on the Rockets. But there was no quit in the team as they started chipping away at the lead. Masterman took the first half 7-5, setting up for a classic finish. The second half saw both teams step up their game, with Masterman eventually taking a three point lead 12-9 in a game to 13. And then the Rockets truly took off. SLA made it 12-10 when sophomore Eli Zimmerman threw a score to junior Jori Gerveni. Junior Saamir Baker sparked the SLA defense with an end zone defensive block which led to an SLA goal when junior captain Eli Block threw the score to junior Johnny Saldivar to make it 12-11. A key Masterman turnover on the next point led to a Zimmerman to Block goal to tie the score at 12-12 to set up "Universe Point." SLA pulled out its zone defense, and Gerveni got a key layout block, leading to a Zimmerman to Baker score and a thrilling 13-12 victory!

SLA faced the 16th ranked team in the US - Pine-Richland HS. The team fought hard before falling 13-4. SLA rallied in the next round to beat Hampton HS 13-6 to take second in the pool and set up a pre-quarterfinal Saturday afternoon game against Methacton HS. SLA had lost to Methacton twice before in the spring, but Saturday would be different.

The team was determined to reach the quarterfinals, and they came out with an incredible intensity - forcing the Methacton team into uncharacteristic turnovers. SLA jumped out to a 5-2 lead, but Methacton proved to be up to the fight, tying the score at 5-5. SLA recovered, taking half 7-5 with Block throwing to junior Nate Little to take the half. At this point, the team looked in control of the game - one half away from making the top eight for the first time ever. But Methacton had other ideas for the second half.

The start of the second half saw Methacton play their best Ultimate of the game, scoring four straight points to take a 10-8 lead. But again, SLA proved worthy of the challenge, tying the game at 11 when Saldivar got a layout block, leading to a Little to junior Malachi Johnson goal. SLA took the lead 12-11 when Gerveni got his fifth block of the game, and Little threw the goal to sophomore Jason Chen. Methacton scored the next point, tying it at 12-12 and setting up the second "Universe Point" of the day. Again, SLA had nerves of steel, with Little throwing the winning goal to Johnson to put SLA into the state quarterfinals on Sunday morning!

Sunday morning saw a valiant effort by the Rockets, pushing the eventual state champions Radnor High School to 8-6 at half before eventually falling 15-7. SLA lost its next game to Franklin Regional 13-10 and then finished their state championship tournament with a 13-6 victory over Pennsbury HS - the first time in school history that the Rockets have beaten Pennsbury - to finish in 7th place in the state.

The 7th place finish was the highest placement the boys team has ever had at the State Championships, and the team played some of the best Ultimate in its history. The Rockets graduate two seniors - co-captain Kobe Nabried and senior leader Toby Mast. Congratulations to our seniors and to the entire team on a fantastic season! 
Top: Seniors Kobe Nabried and Eli Block with Coach Lehmann. Bottom: Captains Nabried and Eli Block with their coach
Top: Seniors Kobe Nabried and Eli Block with Coach Lehmann. Bottom: Captains Nabried and Eli Block with their coach