Making A Change Myself

I have invested this past year in learning and writing about a controversial topic in America. I chose to explore transphobia.  If you are unaware of what that is, it is “intense dislike of or prejudice against transsexual or transgender people.” In my first essay Transphobia in America I wrote about the percentages of mistreatment and unequal treatment against transgender individuals. In my second essay Change Is Still Needed I interviewed two people, a transgender male and a doctor at CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia) who educated transgender people on safe sex. I then explored the murder rate of transgender people.

Since my last article there hasn’t been any activism for transgender persons rights, but that doesn’t mean the fight is over. Although there has been no activism, there has been more deaths since my last essay (March 18th 2018). Only days later on March 26th 2018, Amia Tyrae Berryman was shot to death at the Shades Motel in Baton Rouge, LA at the age of 28. Sasha wall, 29 years old, was found shot to death in her vehicle in Chesterfield County, S.C on April 1st. Carla Patricia Flores, 18 years old, found strangled to death in her home in Dallas, Texas on May 9th. ALL transgender women of COLOR. The rate that transgender women are murdered is one of the highest in the country. Nino Fortson, 36 years old, transgender man found shot to death in Atlanta May 13th. These are just a few reported cases. Many are not even recorded.

Since there has been no activism fighting or educating anyone about the transgender people, I decided to go out and do it myself. Tuesday, March 6th I was on a panel in the Mutter Museum hosted by CHOP. I was accompanied by my mother and four other transgender males. We answered questions to feed their curiosity and to educate. Here is the panel I was on, fast forward to 1:11:00 if you want to see the panel part. I answered questions about my life and my visits at the hospital. I decided to go about my activism this way because I am offered to do things like this all the time, of course I accept. So I figured I can use these opportunities to educate.

Throughout my year of doing this project I learned more about myself and community. My community is at danger and nothing has been done about it. No acknowledgment from law enforcement, no help just “thoughts” and “prayers.” Those are nice, but they don’t help the people in need. I learned more about myself than ever, I need to start being more open minded and exploring topics that I usually don’t. It is up to my generation and I to right the wrongs everyone has made.


White Chicks.....of Ryan Coogler

Analysis 

Nicholas Shaw and I chose the film White Chicks because it shows the millennials of race, and how that specific race encounters beauty, wealth, power, and authority. Something that other races don't particularly have. Specifically minorities. The main point in the movie is to show the viewers what it would be like if one of those minorities would somehow transition to that one specific powerful race. From that point of view, the movie shows dominance and a sense of humor, What it does not show are deep thought and a hard process. The movie is meant to bring joy and laughter, a situation that could go in any form but only leads to laughter. When we look at this movie through style, we look at beauty, feminine, sass, fear, and confidence. Looking at the director, we would transition by not looking at the opposite of beauty, but looking at the opposite of race. Significantly looking at the standards of what white people like versus the standards of blacks. It brings a huge difference whether if youŕe defining actual race and what we wear and like. There's not much of a similarity. The choices we made were made differently and we find them to be pretty accurate for the difference between white culture and black culture. One of the examples was the 2 protagonists Marcus and Kevin, instead of wearing suits, they’re wearing dashikis. The people that help them transform into white chicks, instead of wearing white lab coats, they can wear black lab coats/garments. We rearranged most of the design in clothing and texture, but not rearranged much of their knowledge and what they say. When you see the storyboard, you see the texture and what defines the movie based off the director’s perspective. Not only does this storyboard shows the race differential and each cultures design, but it also shows how well the scene correlates between races and how something that’s different can bring people together. The scene also only includes a short script in the beginning and from there, is just the background music and the texture and style. The song we chose (for a change) is Ride wit me By Nelly. The song talks about the difference in what wealth and power can bring to people. It can bring them joy and happiness apparently and it makes them feel good. In the film scene we selected, the characters can basically change from a dilemma of one race to another, feeling the difference in the standards of each race and the expectations they’re supposed to have. The original song in the scene was “Shake it (Like a White Girl) By Jesse Jaymes. The title is easy to predict that it correlates with white people in the film adding on that Marcus and Kevin are transforming from black dudes into white chicks. We thought that choosing a song that has the opposite meaning was the way to go. One that doesn’t necessarily have to talk about black people, but in what black people like to do (for who they are) based on what society judges by it.

Print Making/Element Tin

This is my print that I made.
This is my print that I made.
The element that I had was Tin and the atomic symbol is Sn. The atomic number is 50. Tin has been around since the ancient times. We do not know who discovered it. Even back in 3000 BC there are artifacts with tin in it. Tin has many uses; Tin can be used on boats and ships to prevent having barincles, glass is made on molten tin to create the flat surface, it can also be used to prevent corrosion on object. Tin can be combined with fluorine can be found in toothpaste, tin is also makes up many soda cans. The idea of how I wanted to make toothpaste was from some research I did. I found that a tin alloy can be found in toothpaste, and that no many people know that. I did not want to do a tin robot or tin can, because those ideas are too basic and I wanted to do something unique. The first thing that I did is that I made my design on a 4" by 6" inch of paper and then made my toothpaste bottle and toothbrush. I then had to transfer that design onto my "tracing paper" so I can have the same design on the plate. To make sure that the plate would print in the right, I had to trace the design onto the plate backwards, so when it printed, it was printed the right way. I used all of the colors and I ended up with my blues and reds looking the best because they were bolder and looked better than the other colors. If I had to print another time, I would make the design bigger and more clear and also print better and make it look cleaner. The part of the project that I enjoyed the most was the printing. It was so satisfying to pull the sheet of paper off and see the clean, crisp design underneath it.

Nick & Nate Reel Reading

Nick and Nate chose the film White Chicks because it shows the millennials of race, and how that specific race encounters beauty, wealth, power, and authority. Something that other races don't particularly have. Specifically minorities. The main point in the movie is to show the viewers what it would be like if one of those minorities would somehow transition to that one specific powerful race. From that point of view, the movie shows dominance and a sense of humor, What it does not show are deep thought and a hard process. The movie is meant to bring joy and laughter, a situation that could go in any form but only leads to laughter. When we look at this movie through style, we look at beauty, feminine, sass, fear, and confidence. Looking at the director, we would transition by not looking at the opposite of beauty, but looking at the opposite of race. Significantly looking at the standards of what white people like versus the standards of blacks. It brings a huge difference whether if youŕe defining actual race and what we wear and like. There's not much of a similarity. The choices we made were made differently and we find them to be pretty accurate for the difference between white culture and black culture. One of the examples was the 2 protagonists Marcus and Kevin, instead of wearing suits, they’re wearing dashikis. The people that help them transform into white chicks, instead of wearing white lab coats, they can wear black lab coats/garments. We rearranged most of the design in clothing and texture, but not rearranged much of their knowledge and what they say. When you see the storyboard, you see the texture and what defines the movie based off the director’s perspective. Not only does this storyboard shows the race differential and each cultures design, but it also shows how well the scene correlates between races and how something that’s different can bring people together. The scene also only includes a short script in the beginning and from there, is just the background music and the texture and style. The song we chose (for a change) is Ride wit me By Nelly. The song talks about the difference in what wealth and power can bring to people. It can bring them joy and happiness apparently and it makes them feel good. In the film scene we selected, the characters can basically change from a dilemma of one race to another, feeling the difference in the standards of each race and the expectations they’re supposed to have. The original song in the scene was “Shake it (Like a White Girl) By Jesse Jaymes. The title is easy to predict that it correlates with white people in the film adding on that Marcus and Kevin are transforming from black dudes into white chicks. We thought that choosing a song that has the opposite meaning was the way to go. One that doesn’t necessarily have to talk about black people, but in what black people like to do (for who they are) based on what society judges by it.     
20180524_123840 (1)
20180524_123840 (1)

Ajanae + Ryan Reel Reading BM #2

For me and Ajanae's project, we decided to create a storyboard which showcased “The Florida Project.” This movie was directed by Sean Baker, a director known primarily for creating movies that are drama or comedy titled. This movie was titled as a drama and so we decided that it’d be interesting to convert it to a western movie. The movie would include features that typical westerns like those created by Sergio Leone included. Through research, we found out that Sergio Leone likes to include lots of long shots and high angle shots in his films of the scenery in the Wild West, along with close up shots of character to build suspense during character conflict. Western movies also tend to include black and white imagery, rattling and loud music and lots of emphasis on treasure and violence. The scene we decided to storyboard is one that depicts the brutality and violence that occurs in Western films. This violence is something that is idolized and something people look for when watching films like these. 

In the Florida Project lot’s of tensions rose between characters like Hayley and Bobby, Jancey’s grandmother and Moonie but one of the most intense beings between Hayley and Ashley. Throughout the movie, Hayley and Ashley were portrayed to be best friends along with their kids, Moonie and Scooty. But soon the children’s mischief in a nearby neighborhood ruined the parents’ friendship. The kids started a fire in an abandoned condo which burned down the neighborhood’s projects and hell broke loose. Ashley felt as if Hayley’s child was endangering Scooty’s life and decided it’d be best that she cut off Moonie and Hayley altogether. In the scene that we converted, Ashley and Haley have a huge fight. 

We are going to start with the first scene on the storyboard. The scenery is inside the “saloon”, it is a long shot of the hallway on the floor in which Ashley lives. The next scene over is the start of their confrontation. Ashley is peeking out of her door and has come face to face with Hayley who has a cowboy hat and dirty skin: characteristics of some folks in Western movies. In this scene, Hayley is asking Ashley to spot her rent although they’re no longer friends. Obviously, Ashley says no and as the scene goes into an argument transpires about Hayley’s prostitution choices in her hotel room. Ashley starts screaming and going off on her and this leads us to our next scene on the storyboard. An extreme close up of Hayley happens and she has a very angry look on her face. Fumes around her are bright red and her face darkens in color. Her eyebrows furry as Ashley continues to bombard her with insults. An attack happens which brings us into the next scene. A wide shot of the fight is filmed by directors and Hayley sends 3 fearless blows to Ashley’s face. After the fight is over, the camera zooms out to film a high angle shot of the entire saloon. Silence falls and the scene is officially over. 

IMG-1118
IMG-1118

Film Conversion Project- The Hunger Games

For the film conversion benchmark, we were tasked with remodeling a scene of a movie into a different genre or through the style of a different auteur. The purpose of this being to test our knowledge of cinematic and theatrical elements, and how they play a crucial role in deciding the kind of film that is created. My partner Siani and I focused on the 2012 blockbuster Hunger Games. The film centers on a young woman, Katniss, in postmodern North America, as she participates in an annual event entitled “The Hunger Games” which calls for teenagers to fight to the death until only one survives.

Written as a dystopian novel, and produced as a science fiction and fantasy film, we aimed to take the core aspects of danger and the will to survive and adjusted them into a new setting. With the usage of cinematic and theatrical elements, we adapted the film into a western. The scene we focused on, common titled, “Career Pack chase Katniss” shows the main character Katniss being hunted down by a group of fellow participants in the games. In order to make transform this scene into that of a western, we needed to employ and highlight the various techniques that are commonly found in westerns, techniques that would give the scene the smooth yet intense style of westerns.

Beginning with the cinematic elements, framing is one that played a critical role in capturing feeling. Often in western films, employs close ups to capture the emotion and facial expression of the character as well as to highlight important aspects. Similarly we used many close up shots on our characters faces along with their weapons to show the importance of feeling in the person and of their object, in this case their guns which were very much so apart of them. Long shots, which are used to show the character entire body, usually from a distance, were employed in instances where multiple characters were in the scene so that the audience could see everything that was happening in the scene. Medium shots, which shot from the waist up, were used in many of the scenes to show the characters while also keeping some of the background in view of the reader. Two angles were used in our storyboard. High angles, which are when a character is filmed from above, was implemented during scenes where the Career Pack chased Katniss, to emphasize the danger that she was in. The second being eye level, so that the audience could look at Katniss directly and see the emotion that she is trying to relay. In most western movements, dolly/tracking is used. This is to show the movement in the scene. We used this form of camera movement and included a few slow shots to build up tension as the scene goes along.

In the form of editing, we used two types, eyeline match and cut. A cut edit is when two shots are pieced together to make the illusion of an instantaneous shot. This was evident in scenes of action/confrontation where dialogue, bullets, and the overall action was taken place from different areas of the set. Eyeline match is a technique used to allow the audience to see what the characters are seeing. We used this, during dialogue between the characters to make them reader feel they are in the scene.

When it comes to sound, many westerns are absent of outside music, instead opting for diegetic sound which is sound that originates in the scenes of the movie. In westerns these are often things like the wind, footsteps, bullet sounds, cactus rolling etc. We used diegetic sound to emphasize the sound of the weapons and to catch things that would match the environment. Lastly, rounding out the cinematic features is lighting. In terms of lighting, we aimed to remain true to the time that a western would have taken place. This means natural light in the outside scenes, and dimmer in the indoors.

While cinematic elements are important to a movie’s conception, theatrical elements are just as necessary. First off, one of the most important aspects of a film is the set. This is where the movie takes place and ultimately provides a backing to the film. The particular scene in was taken from the arena, which showed a forest of sorts. Western’s usually take place on the American Frontier, so we made that the new set for our scene.

Like set, costumes also play an important role in distinguishing a film as a western. You will often find things such as cowboy hats, boots, vest, loosely based clothing in warm or earth tones. Instead of the modern clothes as seen in the movie, our characters wore cowboy hats and boots to make it clear they are in a western. In the Hunger Games, weapons such as arrows and knives were the main props utilized throughout the movie. To make it fit the time period, we traded in the arrows for guns, as big portion of westerns are the epic shootout scenes. Acting choices can set the tone of a movie, as it is the characters that the audience is following. We wanted to keep the same tone for the modified clip from the original as it the choices made emphasize the desire of fighting to stay alive. Overall, a lot of things go into creating any specific type of movie. These are the ways in which we were able to transform the Hunger Games into a traditional western movie.


Storyboard%2FElements (2)

Ajanae Mills Capstone

In March of 2018, I and 9 other amazing girls traveled through the jungle of Yorkin, Costa Rica. In this jungle, we encountered some of the most humbling experiences that inspired me enough to produce an informative presentation on it. Through my experiences with the loving indigenous people of this community, I've learned to be humble and giving. Giving my time, my effort and my thoughtfulness to the community and world around me not only creates a safe space for me but as well as my people. Giving in that community gave children and families water and other human necessities, such as insight on education. 

My process started in a classroom. As I dove deeper into the history and current issues in Costa Rica, I began looking at what specific issues I could bring awareness to. My attention was drawn to education, an important privilege I have had in my life that I sometimes take for granted. My belief in a global education system that gives everyone the opportunity to be educated made me want to find ways to help and get involved. 

So I did through my journey in their village and through my journey in this Capstone project. 

Link to Annotated Bibliography:

Link to Costa Rica Presentation:

The Florida Project

For me and Ryan’s project, we decided to create a storyboard which showcased “The Florida Project.” This movie was directed by Sean Baker, a director known primarily for creating movies that are drama or comedy titled. This movie was titled as a drama and so we decided that it’d be interesting to convert it to a western movie. The movie would include features that typical westerns like those created by Sergio Leone included. Through research, we found out that Sergio Leone likes to include lots of long shots and high angle shots in his films of the scenery in the Wild West, along with close up shots of character to build suspense during character conflict. Western movies also tend to include black and white imagery, rattling and loud music and lots of emphasis on treasure and violence. The scene we decided to storyboard is one that depicts the brutality and violence that occurs in Western films. This violence is something that is idolized and something people look for when watching films like these. 

In the Florida Project lot’s of tensions rose between characters like Hayley and Bobby, Jancey’s grandmother and Moonie but one of the most intense beings between Hayley and Ashley. Throughout the movie, Hayley and Ashley were portrayed to be best friends along with their kids, Moonie and Scooty. But soon the children’s mischief in a nearby neighborhood ruined the parents’ friendship. The kids started a fire in an abandoned condo which burned down the neighborhood’s projects and hell broke loose. Ashley felt as if Hayley’s child was endangering Scooty’s life and decided it’d be best that she cut off Moonie and Hayley altogether. In the scene that we converted, Ashley and Haley have a huge fight. 

We are going to start with the first scene on the storyboard. The scenery is inside the “saloon”, it is a long shot of the hallway on the floor in which Ashley lives. The next scene over is the start of their confrontation. Ashley is peeking out of her door and has come face to face with Hayley who has a cowboy hat and dirty skin: characteristics of some folks in Western movies. In this scene, Hayley is asking Ashley to spot her rent although they’re no longer friends. Obviously, Ashley says no and as the scene goes into an argument transpires about Hayley’s prostitution choices in her hotel room. Ashley starts screaming and going off on her and this leads us to our next scene on the storyboard. An extreme close up of Hayley happens and she has a very angry look on her face. Fumes around her are bright red and her face darkens in color. Her eyebrows furry as Ashley continues to bombard her with insults. An attack happens which brings us into the next scene. A wide shot of the fight is filmed by directors and Hayley sends 3 fearless blows to Ashley’s face. After the fight is over, the camera zooms out to film a high angle shot of the entire saloon. Silence falls and the scene is officially over. 


Screen Shot 2018-05-24 at 12.30.20 PM
Screen Shot 2018-05-24 at 12.30.20 PM

Element Print (Cadmium)- Michal Czapla

My element was Cadmium, which has the atomic number of 48. Cadmium is a natural metal that is toxic heavy. It is commonly found in batteries, TV screens, and cigarette smoke, which is what I based my print on. I got my idea from billboards that I see on the highway and advertisements in SEPTA trains that smoke pictures of people smoking. I found the shape of the smoke to be very interesting and thought it would make for a good positive/negative space project. 

To make my print, I first made a sketch of what my print would look like on paper. Next, I used a piece of styrofoam that was 4x6 and indented in my final drawing. Then, I painted over the styrofoam and placed it under a piece of paper, rubbing it with a spoon so I could eventually stain it nicely. This was my favorite step because it was fun trying to get the right amount of paint and using the spoon for long enough to make sure it looked good. I repeated that step several times before I got 3 solid prints. I then cut the edges by placing a ruler along the sides and ripping the paper to get some nice cuts. Finally, I glued the print onto a 5x7 piece of construction paper. If I did this project all over again, I'd use a bit more paint and be more patient with the spoon step because I think I rushed on that part, which is why you can see some white dots on parts of my print. Overall, it was a fun project to work on. 
IMG_0121
IMG_0121

Printmaking - elements

Screenshot 2018-05-29 at 1.16.19 PM
Screenshot 2018-05-29 at 1.16.19 PM
My element was radon. Radon's atomic number is 86. Radon is a colorless, odorless, tasteless element that is most commonly found in gas form. The most common place you will find radon is in a basement. Normally people will do radon level testing once a year in their basements, the gas is very dangerous and lethal. I got the idea for the imagery I chose, because radon is also found a lot in water wells, I thought the basement would be too easy, and obvious, so the well required research and more thought. The process I went through to make this print was to first do a rough sketch of a couple different ideas I was having for my element. Then I finalized the a whole well, with poisonous gas emerging from it, I sketched out another rough draft with small tweaks from the one before. From then on, I re-did my sketch on the piece of styrofoam like paper. The number and letters had to be printed backwards in order for them to be going the right way in the final product. I engraved my sketch into the styrofoam so the outlines of my drawing were clear and marked, paint then covered every inch. I took a piece of paper and layed it overtop of the paint covered paper, and pressed out every part onto the paper. After peeling off the paper, the styrofoam was almost like a stamp of paint and copied my engraving onto the normal paper.  If I were to print again, I think I would engrave my picutre stronger and use more paint of the paper. The part of the project I enjoyed the most was researching and thinking out of the box for my idea for the sketch. First I did an initial google search on my element and was underwhelmed when I saw how bland it was. The first result was "Radon - colorless, tasteless, odorless", but after investigating in the environmental impacts and how it's commonly found, it was clear, there needed to be more digging and endless ideas for my sketch.

Printmaking

IMG_2500
IMG_2500
IMG_2501
IMG_2501
IMG_2502
IMG_2502
-My element is scandium. It's atomic number is 21 and atomic mass is 44.955.
-Scandium was first mined and prepared in 1937, it was a rare metal that was hard to prepare. It was not first used in production until the 1970's. It is now used in objects such as baseball bats and bikes that need to be sturdy but lightweight.
-The idea of a baseball bat was a very easy choice once I found out that baseball bats are made of scandium, I am a baseball player so it was a no brainer on what I wanted to draw.
-The process I used was fairly simple, I followed the simple steps and then found that my numbers were backwards to went back and re-drew them and then started using the paint. My lined were extremely shallow so I had to make them deeper many times until the shapes and numbers came through.
-If I could do this again I would use something thinner to make my lines to the numbers could come out clear.
-I liked seeing if the print came out clear when I added the paint, it was easy to see what I needed to change which I liked.

Nisa and Kara: The Wiz trailer

For our final film project, Kara and I decided to take on a classic, “The Wiz”, and create a horrific rendition of the original plot through a storyboard trailer. To do this, we had to incorporate things that are mainly seen in movies under the horror genre. This meant finding parts of the movie that had a lot of bottom angles, eerie non-diegetic sound and scenes that either foreshadowed or included the main characters encountering danger. This was a challenge considering the original nature of the movie, but knew that there were still sustainable parts that would be effective when put together. The majority of the movie uses high key lighting, colorful setting and upbeat non-diegetic sound. We were able to take the scenes that embodied darkness with the menacing costumes, emphasizing the horror in Dorothy and her friends’ faces while connecting it to the harrowing causes. Camera angles and techniques that are commonly used in horror movies include the birds eye/high angle shot, which makes the subject seem small and vulnerable, Close ups to display the emotion and capture detail, tracking shots during chases, a handheld camera shot and point of view shot to give insight to what the character is experiencing. We found a lot of these techniques in the scenes we chose, even before doing more research on what was commonly used in the genre. Depending on the character, There will be more of one technique used than the other. For main characters such as Dorothy and Evilene, there were many close-up and eye level shots, or establishing shots when they would change setting.

A major thing that we focused on in terms of zoom was the scenes of wear the lion is hanging, scarecrow is being attacked, and Dorothy is in the hurricane. When zoomed in on these scenes, it gives suspense and excites the crowd on what might happen next. This was included with darker lighting to exaggerate the whole idea of it being a horror film since darker lighting represents fear and suspense. The costumes do not change, only because we are directly using scenes from the movie, and it would serve no purpose to have the characters in different costumes otherwise the audience wouldn’t be able to identify the characters. We chose to use the main characters who were featured throughout the scenes to alter what is actually happening. The majority of the scenes are bad things happening to each of the characters and pulling just those images make it look scary when you just highlight the bad parts. The flashbacks are used through long shots that give the audience a feel of the surrounding and sound throughout each of the scenes. Lastly, the title was made with blood dripping off of it to illustrate the fact that it’s a horror movie. We didn’t really want to alter the title, because the scenes that are drawn actually happened. So instead we had blood drip off the letters to give a darker feel.

fullsizeoutput_12f5
fullsizeoutput_12f5

Element Print

My element is mercury with the atomic number 80. Mercury is used in many objects such as mascara, neon advertising signs and most famously thermostats. Not to get confused the element mercury is a metal that unlike most is liquid at standard temperature conditions. My design is based off the tomb of the first emperor of China. Although more famously known for the terracotta warriors he was buried with to protect him his tomb was also surrounded by rivers flowing mercury on a model of the land he ruled, representative of the rivers in China. 
To make my print I started with a sketch. It took multiple tries to get it right but eventually I had a sketch I was proud off on normal paper. Next I transferred the image onto the stencil. In order for the print to come out right I needed to flip the image (letter and number coming out backwards). Then I applied paint to the stencil and pressed it onto paper to create a print. I repeated this multiple times until I had a fair number of prints I was proud of. Once I had prints I used a ruler to rip the image out. I matted 2 of the prints on colored paper. If I did this again I would print more and try to get more good prints. I liked the printing process the most because it was something I had never done before and taught me alot. To take this to a larger scale I could see myself using these techniques or similar ones to print t-shirts in the future.
1000x1000
1000x1000

Film Conversion (Joseph and TK)

For our project, we decided to recreate scenes from the movie “Moonlight” using the film and style techniques of director, Wes Anderson. Anderson is an indie movie director who’s most well known movies include “Isle of Dogs”, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Moonrise Kingdom”. Throughout all of his movies, Anderson’s directing style stands out very vibrantly in tone and acting. Some recurring cinematographic elements of Anderson’s style include tracking shots, zoom, profile shots, symmetrical framing, overhead shots and whip pans. Some of Anderson’s theatrical elements include warm and cool color palettes, non-diegetic plinking harpsichord music, one or more childish adult characters, smoking, characters explaining elaborate plans, action, violence, stylish attire, foreigners, a vintage/ old timey aesthetic, shots of writing, and an assortment of recurring actors and actresses. We chose to incorporate Anderson’s style to “Moonlight” because we loved the concept of revamping a dark toned movie into something more vibrant and lighthearted. To accomplish this goal, we chose some scenes from “Moonlight” that we thought had potential to be reiterated through Anderson’s directing style. We then looked at Then we drew these scenes and placed them in a storyboard panel. We also were deliberate in our camera angles and essentially eliminate dimensions to give our scenes a very “flat look”.

These cinematography decisions echo Wes Anderson’s emphasis on aesthetic rather than the actual plot. Since Moonlight deals with a lot of important and heavy topics, changing the scenes to make it seem as if they are right out of a coloring book definitely in some ways dilutes the message. The overall design of his shots, including bright color palettes and fixed camera angles helps readers to disassociate from the societal context and instead pay close attention to the story unfolding between the main characters and everything that surrounds their situation. For instance, during the Grand Budapest, the audience was oftentimes too distracted by the bright colors and whimsical characters to remember a war being the backdrop. Even though the storyline was nothing spectacular or ground breaking, the attention to detail truly compensated for a somewhat lackluster plot. At the time of the creation of the  Grand Budapest, Wes Anderson utilized the advent of the anamorphic lenses to capture wide scenes within a single camera frame.

With Moonlight, we decided to use Wes Anderson’s style of directing to take the audience’s attention away from the harsh backdrop that is Chyron’s neighborhood, school, and home life, and instead focus the attention on the better parts of Chyron’s coming of age story. Through color and framing, we used our storyboard to communicate just that. In each panel, we drew pictures that involved vibrant colors and our desired camera angles. We drew a lot of wide/ medium shots, zoom, and made the backdrops pop with warm and cool colors. In terms of positioning characters, such as Kevin, Juan, or Chyron, we drew them face to face to highlight whatever intimacy they may have. Through these changes, we hope to help audiences remember the better and pure parts of “Moonlight” rather than just the harsh backdrop of Chyron’s life.


IMAG0063
IMAG0063

Q4 Benchmark: 2012 as a Horror Film


For my Q4 benchmark I decided to recreate a movie trailer for the big studios who have agreed to give me a shot. I decided to recreate the movie 2012 into a horror movie. The main reason why I chose this movie is because I thought it would be interesting seeing what the end of the world movie could be with a horror twist. I feel like this different perspective around it will give the movie trailer a new element around it as well. I thought that this would be an interning concept for this benchmark. I found different scenes from the movie and I used the software iMovie on my computer. I needed to find five scenes from the movie 2012 that I thought would fit best in a horror movie trailer. I also needed to find sound effects, I could use to add more suspense. I used the music and the cut ins and cut outs to my advantage. From this experience I was able to turn the movie 2012 into a great movie trailer.     

My main intention for this project was to design a suspenseful trailer that made people have more questions than answers. I know Giknis is going to be upset with me because she doesn't want follow-up questions but that was the point of my movie trailer. I wanted the audience to be left with more questions than answers. I made sure I included suspenseful music while working with iMovie. I also wanted the title sequence to start with a phone call because I feel like that's how most horror movies start. For examples I was watching the movie Scream before working on my benchmark to brainstorm some good ideas and I feel like the phone call aspect of the opening scene added more suspense because you don't know who the girl is talking to on the phone. I also decided to add the actually scene from the movie trailer 2012 to my trailer remake because I feel like it gives the trailer more character.






Bridesmaids as a Wes Anderson Film// Emily and Kaamil

We started with one of our favorite romantic comedies, Bridesmaids, and decided to change the genre to the style of Wes Anderson’s directing. The scene we chose was during one of the main character’s bridal shower where they begin by sitting and watching Lillian open her presents. From here, the scene escalates because her best friend, Annie, can no longer hold in her anger about Helen, another bridesmaid, trying to steal Lillian from her. This scene is done well by the setting, props, facial expressions, tone, and pace. Wes Anderson has a very different style of comedy, so there were many areas we were able to change.

Firstly, we researched Anderson’s style which involves scenes that are filmed using a wide shot and they are also always symmetrical which plays to his aesthetics. Our redone scenes were from a distance to make it more of a wide shot, and we kept the people centered and mostly symmetrical while filming at eye level, another tool he uses. Anderson is also known for higher saturated scenes, so we used backgrounds that were bright and high in color. In one section, we have a bright blue background to demonstrate how Anderson uses such bright, pastel coloring. We also filmed in front of windows to get a natural and bright lighting, again similar to his directing style.

Secondly, we decided to change a lot of our scenes to the style we believe Wes Anderson would do. One change that we made was to add a lot of cuts. The original scene in bridesmaids had very few cuts and more tracking shots, and when we filmed we decided that we were going to cut almost all of our talking shots, this way it would be more dramatic and show Anderson’s comedic style by switching back and forth to props and people. We also changed one of the characters to be male. In Wes Anderson films most of the characters are men, and he is even noted to only use women as tools for the lead male characters. Bridesmaids is an entirely female centered movie, so obviously we didn’t want to take this away but it added another layer by having a male play a lead female character. Kaamil’s character Annie is originally played by  Kristen Wiig , the film is also surrounded by Annie’s character so we thought it would be in Wes Anderson fashion to make the main character a man. We made things seem a little more fake in our redone scene as well. Wes Anderson films make some things seem very over the top and ridiculous based on the background and props, so we changed the big cookie in the original film to a bag of cookies and the chocolate fountain in the film to a carton of school milk. Wes Anderson is also known to have things in his films that are really weird and catches people off guard. We decided to change the dog in the original film to a human with a leash which is really strange but funny, again reflecting Anderson’s unique directing style.
The final things that we changed was the speed of dialogue. In the original film Annie talks really fast but we decided to have Annies character slow down which added to the comedy because of the ridiculous things she says, so the audience can catch is more easily. The pace of Anderson films tends to be very slow, even though a lot is going on. Overall, we were able to change many aspects of the original Bridesmaids scene to reflect Wes Anderson’s directing genre where we were able to analyze each component of the original movie and relate it to Anderson.

Film Conversion: 2012 as a Horror Film

For this project we plan to make a trailer for a movie that we had in mind, we planned to use the movie 2012 as the movie choice and we are planning to make 2012 into horror movie. The reason why we chose this movie is because we would like to see what a end of the world movie could be with a horror movie perspective around it and it will have a creative element around it as well. We thought I would be an interesting concept for this project. We are going to find scenes from the movie 2012 that look like something from a horror movie. we going to use 5 scenes from the movie and some software we are using are imovie or wevideo. What we need is scenes from movie, sound affects, change in scenery, contrast. We used the music and the cut ins and outs to our advantage. From this experience we were able to turn the movie 2012 as a horror movie

Video Link: https://www.wevideo.com/view/1155338169


Alfred Hitchcock Presents... Bridge to Terabithia by Liv & Sydnye

For this project, Sydnye and I decided to transform the movie Bridge to Terabithia into an Alfred Hitchcock film. To do so, we added his iconic elements of suspense that he frequently uses in his films. In this class, we watched Psycho and Rear Window and so in both of those films we can see evidence of his use of long shots to show a full frame of information for the audience to take in. Specifically in Psycho, we see he uses a dolly zoom as Arbogast falls down the stairs, it makes the audience feel like he’ll never hit the bottom. Another tactic to add suspense Hitchcock uses is low lighting. In the super suspenseful scenes the lighting is often minimal and it usually shines from below to cast a shadow on someone’s face to make them look more devious. The final aspect that Hitchcock uses is close ups. When a character realizes something or they have a different facial expression, in order to create suspense the camera gets super close to them. This creates suspense by eliminating background factors other elements in the scene that distract from the character’s face but also it may be placed where information would be received by the audience leaving them somewhat in the dark.

When choosing our camera angles and lighting, we wanted to make sure that we accurately reflected the horror genre and style of Alfred Hitchcock. The most iconic scene that immediately came to mind was from “Psycho”, when Sam Loomis is stabbed and falls down the stairs. We knew this was accomplished through a dolly zoom and was a critical identifier. This dolly zoom is present in our first box of our storyboard, but with our twist of being at eye level. Our third box is a long shot with low key lighting, much like establishing shots in Psycho. We wanted to make sure the forest appeared ominous, and the best way was to introduce shadows and a feeling of unease. We chose to make the fourth box a close up to establish the feeling of Jesse, much like in Psycho when they zoom in on the unwavering face of Janet Leigh and it becomes apparent to the audience that something terrible has happened. Similar to our scene, Jesse and Leslie have stumbled upon a giant footprint are alone in the forest. We chose to do a split background in our seventh box because we wanted to make the audience aware of the current setting. Hitchcock does this in Psycho, when the ever ominous house is present on top of the hill. We wanted the river to be present, so you have that imagine in the back of your mind for future scenes and know it is somehow important. Our very last box depicts the camera being semi submerged within the stream. We depict air bubbles floating up from the bottom of the river, leaving the audience in suspense. It is similar to waiting for a bomb to go off, because they know something terrible has happened but they do not know what has caused these air bubbles.

IMG_2336
IMG_2336

Bridge To Terabithia...presented by Alfred Hitchcock. Sydnye and LIv

For this project, Sydnye and I decided to transform the movie Bridge to Terabithia into an Alfred Hitchcock film. To do so, we added his iconic elements of suspense that he frequently uses in his films. In this class, we watched Psycho and Rear Window and so in both of those films we can see evidence of his use of long shots to show a full frame of information for the audience to take in. Specifically in Psycho, we see he uses a dolly zoom as Arbogast falls down the stairs, it makes the audience feel like he’ll never hit the bottom. Another tactic to add suspense Hitchcock uses is low lighting. In the super suspenseful scenes the lighting is often minimal and it usually shines from below to cast a shadow on someone’s face to make them look more devious. The final aspect that Hitchcock uses is close ups. When a character realizes something or they have a different facial expression, in order to create suspense the camera gets super close to them. This creates suspense by eliminating background factors other elements in the scene that distract from the character’s face but also it may be placed where information would be received by the audience leaving them somewhat in the dark.

When choosing our camera angles and lighting, we wanted to make sure that we accurately reflected the horror genre and style of Alfred Hitchcock. The most iconic scene that immediately came to mind was from “Psycho”, when Sam Loomis is stabbed and falls down the stairs. We knew this was accomplished through a dolly zoom and was a critical identifier. This dolly zoom is present in our first box of our storyboard, but with our twist of being at eye level. Our third box is a long shot with low key lighting, much like establishing shots in Psycho. We wanted to make sure the forest appeared ominous, and the best way was to introduce shadows and a feeling of unease. We chose to make the fourth box a close up to establish the feeling of Jesse, much like in Psycho when they zoom in on the unwavering face of Janet Leigh and it becomes apparent to the audience that something terrible has happened. Similar to our scene, Jesse and Leslie have stumbled upon a giant footprint are alone in the forest. We chose to do a split background in our seventh box because we wanted to make the audience aware of the current setting. Hitchcock does this in Psycho, when the ever ominous house is present on top of the hill. We wanted the river to be present, so you have that imagine in the back of your mind for future scenes and know it is somehow important. Our very last box depicts the camera being semi submerged within the stream. We depict air bubbles floating up from the bottom of the river, leaving the audience in suspense. It is similar to waiting for a bomb to go off, because they know something terrible has happened but they do not know what has caused these air bubbles.


IMG_2336
IMG_2336

You & The World / #3

English 9

You & The World


Homelessness – A Deeper Look

Homelessness can happen to ANYONE.



Ending a perplexing problem such as homelessness requires commitment, patience, and faith. As a community, and a whole, we can, and we will do this.


In the homelessness community, people of poverty are stereotyped. For instance, people believe that Homeless people refuse help which is in the middle of true and false but being homeless for so long can build up a strong amount of fear, even towards the people that want to help you and some people of poverty suffer from paranoid disorders. Another stereotype of homelessness is that helping the people of poverty is a waste of me and in my opinion, this stereotype is very cruel. It’s not a waste of time, it’s more of a big responsibility and a moral duty.


In my first post regarding my you and the world project, I introduce homelessness and people's views on homelessness. I also include the rate of homelessness and how anyone can experience this horrific terror. I chose to base my project on homelessness because people without homes are no different from us, they are still human beings.


For the final part of my you and the world project, I decided to, along with my partner and I tried to get in touch with organizations but I received no responses. I donated bags of clothes that I no longer could fit to a shelter called Dignity & Fairness-Homelessness but, unfortunately, I was too in the moment and forgot to remind my siblings to take a few pictures. My main goal is to try and change the negative point of view that people have on people of poverty.


With my agent of change, I attempted to have a different mindset on people of poverty. I somehow understood where they came from as if I was in the same situation. A homeless life is not a comfortable life, and i’m sure a person with common sense can understand this. No one would choose a lifestyle that is unhealthy, dangerous to their health, stressful, and humiliating so we cannot act as if they chose to live like this, 96% of homeless people are uncomfortable with this lifestyle.


I decided to do this by putting myself in their shoes, how would I feel? The thing that people fail to understand is that we could be in their shoes today, tomorrow, or in a couple of years so we should remain humble. Being homeless is a condition, it is not a character effect or a character flaw so people that think just because intelligence and ambition, nothing that serious can happen to them and they’re wrong. Lawyers, nurses, doctors, teachers, many people have found themselves homeless. Anyone can find themselves in this predicament if they don’t have the finance that they need to have a normal life.


I learned so much while pursuing my goals for this agent of change.


I felt very much positive about this project and I had this strong mindset that I would make an actual change, but I didn’t.


For this agent of change, I could’ve been more interested. That was the main problem that I had during this project, I lost interest and fell off. I had negative energy after my first post.


I feel like me, and others, could still make a possible change for the people of poverty.


An Informational Workshop and a List Longer than Gandalf's Beard

Industrial farming is an enormous issue to tackle - I knew that when I first chose it. I began with my passion post, diving deep into the issue and just generally trying to come to terms with what it was. From there I began my original research in which I interviewed three people of different agricultural and environmental organizations to widen my overall worldview as nothing is one-sided. Then it was time for my agent of change. I was a little lost at first so I spent the first week or so of my agent of change just brainstorming different ideas. Below are some notes I was taking while brainstorming.
IMG-0466
IMG-0466
I isolated industrial farming into 3 general issues - abuse of materials and animals in production, lack of protective and restricting legislature, and lack of consumer knowledge. As a high school freshman, I doubted that I would be able to suddenly stop farm animal abuse or pesticide use or write federal legislature, so I decided to tackle the issue of consumer knowledge.
When I mean consumer knowledge, I mean the fact that in order to understand basic information about whether or not your favorite brand uses GMOs or not, you have to do at least an hour worth of research. There should be more transparency in our food labels, but until we reach that point, I believed the best thing I could do to help was to educate students about the issues in our food production process and what the labels on their food actually mean.

There were a few things I wanted to do in order to teach people about consumer knowledge.

I wanted to hold some kind of informational workshop in which I could inform people of the issues, but I also wanted to encourage students, such as myself, to eat more responsibly and consciously and to care and understand what they were consuming. I wanted to do this by doing a week’s worth of free, pre-assembled salads as a lunch option for students while also asking them to sign a petition for fresh produce to send to the School District of Philadelphia. My goal was to push for a partnership between local farmers and gardens and the School District in order to encourage healthier diets for all students, especially as some families cannot afford wholesome produce and this would be an easy way to deplete food deserts across the city. For those who do not know, a food desert is “an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.” They are an extremely prevalent issue in America that is often overlooked and just by providing the students of these areas with access to fresh produce can be beneficial to the entire community.

However, there were a few issues with this plan:


1. I only had a few weeks to pull everything together.

2. Getting in contact with interested farmers and procuring the produce.

3. Making the salads and working with the cafeteria workers to pull it off.

4. Writing the petition.

5. Spreading the word and actually getting students engaged in the idea.


With what was turning out to be a year-long plan, I decided to hold off on this plan for now and instead stick to the idea of an informational workshop.


IMG-0467
IMG-0467

For the workshop, I had a few goals in mind.

I needed to:


1. Spread the word to students and the public alike.

2. Secure a space.

3. Plan and practice the workshop.


The original checklist seemed simple and, dare I say, easy at first, however the project continued to evolve and after a work or so of planning, this is what I ended up with as my overall checklist:


  1. Design flyer

  2. Make flyer

  3. Print flyer

  4. Post flyers

  5. Secure a space, a projector, and a teacher chaperone for the presentation.

  6. Actually write the script

  7. Make slides for the presentation.

  8. Practice the presentation.

  9. Do the presentation.


I also wanted to hand out pamphlets with information on them for people to post on their fridges so they could look at it before going grocery shopping, but in the end the checklist had grown longer than Gandalf’s beard and I was unable to pull it all off.  However what I did have planned as my presentation I believe, if presented correctly, would be effective at helping people understand the issues facing us today which is why I have linked both my script and my presentation in this post as well posting the flyer I made for the workshop below.


ZoeFlyerFinal (1)
And although I was unable to do everything I wanted to, I do hope that, sometime in my high school career, I will be able to complete both the informational workshop and the week of free, fresh produce in order to inform as many people as I can about the demon behind their dinner.

If you are a politically active person who would like to create change or at least know about what you’re eating, I suggest supporting organizations such as the PASA, the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency (they need all the help they can get), and animal welfare aware processing companies such as Rising Star Meat Co. I would also like to thank John Butler from the EPA, Aaron de Long from the PASA, and Helen Kollar-Mcarthur from Rising Star. All three of them were very cooperative and informative in their interviews and I could not have done what I was able to do without them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the link to my annotated bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VIiE6I16cLuFvx1XoQyid2KVUAP_JbK4xXDyd6ErbRc/edit?usp=sharing



Racial Discrimination: My A.O.C.

For my first two tasks for my Agent Of Change project, I had to research about Racial Discrimination, Ethnic Inequality, and etc. for my first post that i had posted,  I had talked about how we could change Racial Discrimination, and Ethnic Inequality, or try to. After interviewing my Mother, and my grandparents, I realized that Racism was a serious issue. Racism is constantly unexcused because of people not wanting to sometimes deal with the truth. In my second post, I was able to explain and go deeper Into the subject of Racism, and talk about sensitive topics. In order to justify something that's wrong, we need to talk about the sensitives first. 

My website, "Stop Discrimination Against Our Nation:" https://ksdavis21.wixsite.com/stopracism
I decided to make a change by making a website, because I feel as though that the message can be expressed visually instead of just being told. this took me a long time to make, because I had a lot of other things to do, but I also had to gather research and support for my agent of change. reflecting on my A.O.C. now, I till think about everything that I did. I wish I could've done more, and I feel as though next time I can do something bigger than making a website. 


My Essay, "What My Color Tells Me:"


Annotated Bibliography

Admin: N/A




Screenshott
Screenshott

Printmaking Blog Post & final steps for the element print-Sukainah Hasan


1.) My element is Lead. The atomic number is 82.

2.) Lead chemical symbol comes from the Latin word for waterworks, plumbum. Lead has been known since ancient times. Lead is used in cable covering, as ammunition, as electrodes, in solder and as roofing material.

3.) I got the idea for the imaginary that I chose by knowing that lead has to do with metal, and I know that nails have to do with metal. 

4.) The process that I went through was first sketching the nails. Next, I drew the nails on the plate. Next, I painted it, and put it on paper. 

5.) Something that I would do differently is cut it different. 

6.) Something that I enjoyed was sketching the of the nails in the very beginning, because I just love sketching simple things and this was something that was simple.