Digital Video -Senior - Herman Public Feed
September 11 Shorts
After watching the different short films from class, I mixed with different emotions. In the film with the little kids who seemed so innocent in the beginning, this has a reoccurring theme of death. The kids seemed comfortable with the fact that people die extremely often where they live. Most kids around the age of the children in the film have a hard time understanding death at such a young age. The teacher in the film wanted the students to understand something larger than just death. When the attacks on the US happened September 11, 2001, those kids obviously had no idea what was going on. It took some time to get them to understand what had happened. I was 6 years old in the first grade, and had no idea why I was being sent home early.
Observing the film about the deaf couple was different. The absence of silence added more dramatic effect to what was going on between the two. After the argument the couple had, the guy storms out. The female starts writing a journal on the computer about the things that are driving this couple to breaking up. The entire time the tv is on tuned into the news, and the news is reporting what is happening to the Twin Towers (World Trade Center). Because of the fact the female was deaf, she had no idea what was going on until the room around her starts shaking, then her boyfriend shows up covered in ash. When the female opened the door, and I saw her boyfriend standing there, I was amazed. Knowing what was going on in New York that day, would have lead me to think the police was showing up at the door to report the boyfriend's death. The film took a turn, and fooled me. All of the films were mind blowing, but those two were the ones that stuck with me the most. If I was the age I am now at the time, I would love to know how everything would have a different affect on me.
Observing the film about the deaf couple was different. The absence of silence added more dramatic effect to what was going on between the two. After the argument the couple had, the guy storms out. The female starts writing a journal on the computer about the things that are driving this couple to breaking up. The entire time the tv is on tuned into the news, and the news is reporting what is happening to the Twin Towers (World Trade Center). Because of the fact the female was deaf, she had no idea what was going on until the room around her starts shaking, then her boyfriend shows up covered in ash. When the female opened the door, and I saw her boyfriend standing there, I was amazed. Knowing what was going on in New York that day, would have lead me to think the police was showing up at the door to report the boyfriend's death. The film took a turn, and fooled me. All of the films were mind blowing, but those two were the ones that stuck with me the most. If I was the age I am now at the time, I would love to know how everything would have a different affect on me.
9/11 Short Film Response
After watching the different films based on the event of 9/11, I'm oddly conflicted.
In this film, a deaf woman has an intense argument with her boyfriend. At the end of the argument, the boyfriend storms out of the apartment and leaves his girlfriend home alone. While he's gone, everything around her shakes and she has no idea what's going on outside. Soon after the shaking stops, the boyfriend comes home covered in dust and crying.
As a director, I was inspired. The entire film was silent, minus the vibrations of the shaking apartment. It made me think of the many different kinds of people that experienced 9/11, and how only one perpestive is told. It's always able-bodied men or women that can hear and see. I didn't even think of any other perspectives until I saw that film.
As an American, I was speechless. I was in first grade when the attacks happened, and as far as I could tell, that was a pretty good day for me. I got out of school early, and my family was all at my house so I got to play with my cousins. It wasn't until later when I was told the actual story did I understand how horrible that day was for Americans everywhere. And every year it's a reminder that we as a country are stil not over what happened.
9/11 Video Response
The film about the teacher trying to explain the significance of 9/11 to a class of refugee children resinated most with me. Because we first watched the film without subtitles, it was difficult to figure out. There seemed to be a lot of set up to create a full picture of the world that these people were living in. The beginning scenes where the children were making bricks for what I assumed to be houses, were adorable. At first, I thought that the teacher was trying to get the children to recognize that some short time ago 9/11 occurred, but she was unsuccessful because the children were too wrapped up in their own small world. I thought that the message of the film could possibly be that in some parts of the world, the impact of 9/11 was not felt and that it is simply impossible to make someone else truly understand and feel another's pain.
Later, when we watched the film with subtiles I realized that my thinking was somewhat on the right track, but I found a completely different messages. While the adorable children were making bricks for a bomb shelter they were having conversations about death as if it were ritual in daily life. The children's comfortably with death shocked, and even bothered me. What types of circumstances desensitize children to death? When the teacher finally rallies the children for class and is attempting to explain to them that they will have a moment of silence for those who died in 9/11, one girl says that God does not have airplanes so he couldn't have destroyed those people. Other students respond by mentioning other ways that people have died and all of them except one (flood) are man made. This then made me think about the difference of God's power and the power that man posses. Are they different?
Later, when we watched the film with subtiles I realized that my thinking was somewhat on the right track, but I found a completely different messages. While the adorable children were making bricks for a bomb shelter they were having conversations about death as if it were ritual in daily life. The children's comfortably with death shocked, and even bothered me. What types of circumstances desensitize children to death? When the teacher finally rallies the children for class and is attempting to explain to them that they will have a moment of silence for those who died in 9/11, one girl says that God does not have airplanes so he couldn't have destroyed those people. Other students respond by mentioning other ways that people have died and all of them except one (flood) are man made. This then made me think about the difference of God's power and the power that man posses. Are they different?
september 11th
In general it takes some sort of personal connection for a movie to move me. I didn't have any friends of family involved in 9/11, and I had no sentimental connection to the world trade towers. So when I began to feel uncontrollable empathy for a woman who had lost her son I couldn't make the connection. I'm not muslim, I dont have children, and I'm not a minority. Then it hit me. Ive experienced losing someone. Pretty much everyone has at one point in their lives lost someone close to them and it doesn't really matter how they lost that person it still hurts. Losing someone doesn't nessicarily mean they died they could have changed or moved... but their gone. I felt empathy for the muslim woman who lost her son and I wished I could have helped her. I felt worse for her then I did for the dead son. Ive never died so its harder for me to make that connection. The film maker did a great job of not only showing the mothers pain but the entire families pain. To make things worse the community outcasted them and labeled her son a monster only to flip and then call him a hero. The use of time and emotion moved me in this film and I think the scene where she is screaming and banging on the train door "thats my son" will be something I take with me forever wherever I go.
Msanders 3rd movie Analyst.
I believed the third film about the deaf lady made me experience a different feel of a movie. For the most of my life I have seen movies with dialogue and I relay on dialogue to explain parts of the movie. This movie for the most part relay on emotions and feelings. You can look at the woman's face an see emotion to it. For the story the story really interested me. The plot was a romantic-drama plot. The woman knew that on 9/11 that something bad was going to happen and her husband will get hurt. But she never knew what exactly happened. You could get the 9/11 message from her face and her concern will she was typing on her laptop. She was also very hostile towards letting her husband leave.
The writers could of left it at she was going to not see him again but she had hope. She had hope that she will see her husband again. That hope was probably enough to save him at the end. You could see the husband was hurt by all of the stage propped debris. Also the guys crying look on his face that he was hurt not only from 9/11 but also leaving her when she warned him about the day. The funny part was though the deaf wife had the tv on the breaking news but never watched the TV after 7 and never knew that the towers were falling.
The writers could of left it at she was going to not see him again but she had hope. She had hope that she will see her husband again. That hope was probably enough to save him at the end. You could see the husband was hurt by all of the stage propped debris. Also the guys crying look on his face that he was hurt not only from 9/11 but also leaving her when she warned him about the day. The funny part was though the deaf wife had the tv on the breaking news but never watched the TV after 7 and never knew that the towers were falling.
Rough Cut Video Response! 9/11
I
am going to talk about the video with the widower in it. The video started out
with those dead flowers on the screen. To be honest I did not think those were
dead flowers. I thought that the image on the screen was an image of the twin
towers that were crashed into. I thought that was a good connection between the
flowers and the towers.
I can’t lie that old guy was confusing the crap for the most part. I at first thought he was crazy, but then I realized he missed his wife that passed away. Then I got confused again because I thought his wife died in the twin towers. She didn’t though. I didn’t realize that until the attacks actually happened. I did notice that he was complaining about it being to dark, and that’s why the flowers wouldn’t grow.
Then the towers were attacked, and the flowers grew. He realized his wife died I think. He just started crying. I thought he was happy because the flowers grew, but he was crying. This is another point where I was confused. I liked this video though it kept my attention unlike the other ones.
RoughCut, Sept11, BlogPost1
I decided to write about the video of the mother losing her son. The film made me feel some what sad. It was upsetting to see how muslims were treated after 9/11. It was sad to know that most of them were seen as terrorist, even with those whom they had a relatively good relationship with, before the tragedy, an example of that would be the neighbor. Before 9/11 the mother and and the neighbor were on a speaking basis where they'd say "Hi" and "Bye" and wave at each other, but after 9/11, when the news was suspecting her son as a terrorist, the neighbor no longer spoke, and treated her as if they had never even met each other. The way the director made it obvious that the neighbor no longer wanted to associate with the mother, made it much more dramatic and you truly felt the pain, of the mother, because when the neighbor ignored the mother, you noticed in the background, that the other neighbors were on their stoop just staring at the mother and watching the man look her off.
Cecelia Baez, Short Video Response
Cecelia Baez, Short Video Response
My absolute favorite video that was viewed during class would have had to be the old man and his blockage towards reality. At first glance of the film, I began to think that his wife died during 9/11 and that his whole life he never knew what happened. Abe brought up that he realized it wasn't because of his wife dying, but the towers that fell in which helped him to see the light of reality. Aside from the sad love story of an old man, which touched my heart, I saw that the act of 9/11 opened the eyes of many individuals. It opened the eyes for truth, reality, and that doesn't mean for just terrorism schemes from other countries. I allowed people to value each others lives, and allowed people to actually LIVE, because you never know when something like that could happen again. It faced us with reality that we don't live in the best or worst country. That aside from our bubbles we are always in war being one… or the top country in the world. That there is more than the next party, or the next crush, but doing something with your life. That's what I felt towards it. I also believed that finally seeing the light, isn't always the high light of anyones day. Some individuals cannot take the truth. The old man wheeping for his love, that he finally realized was gone, it hurt. He could finally move on.. but it hurt. Some people are happier not knowing what happen. I take that example from the Children who were unable to grasp the true meaning of 9/11. I think of it.. would it really benefit them or hurt them to see how cruel or sad the world could be? Would I really want my children to know that terrible things could happen like that, or allow their innocent minds to learn things later in life. It;s touching.. and confusing :)
Short Films: Long Nu Nhan
Where do I even start? I guess I could say that I like all the videos but not all of them struck me in a certain way. But I can definitely say that each director used their brains very intellectually. To start off, I want to say that the video with the little kids was the most heart warming one because of the characters. I just want to point out that I think serious movies with little kids are more effective. The reason why is because it shows you that not only does the event affect us adults, but it also has a role in a 7 year's old mind and heart. When we first watched this video, no one knew what the children were saying so we started to use our visual techniques and tried to comprehend what was going on. When the children were putting mud into the bricks, I thought that they were just really poor and it was child labor. We can forget that the little girls were so cute and talkative. Not the point, but I thought that they were just talking about things that little kids do. Come to find out, I was totally wrong. The way the director used the children was so strong. When we were able to understand what the children were saying, it shocked me and made me giggle because all they were talking about throughout the entire movie was about someone dying. It was also a strong piece because they involve religion into the script. They were taught that God has a cycle. He creates the human beings, destroys them, and then makes again. I thought that was interesting because they're so used to people dying and whatnot. That's not how a kid's mind should be like. I think at this point, I didn't really care about the camera angles, I just cared about the script. And the script just took me to a whole different mindset.
I also like the video with the guy who was accused of being a terrorist because he's not a typical American and the way that the government treated him was not cool. I wasn't originally from America and I would be super pissed if the government did that to me. USA is known for their freedom, speech, and to bare arms. Where was his speech in this movie? They didn't even give him a chance to say anything. They just assumed that he was a terrorist because of his race and it just so happened that he was there during the attack. America was accusing him of something that he's not and created this big issue about him, and after 6 months, they want to act like nothing happened and call him a hero. I think that America should be less judgmental towards people because not everyone is a criminal. And ANYONE can be a hero. Just because you're white, it doesn't make you a hero.
DVSR-003
- Term
- 2012-13
