Happy

           For my documentary review I watched a really inspiring, interesting documentary called Happy, directed by Roko Belic. The documentary talks about happiness. It delves into what we consider the definition of happiness, and talks to people all over the world, both people who are happy and those who are unhappy. The film starts off with talking to a man who lives in India. He is a rickshaw driver, meaning he carries people around in cart all day through India. This is his house:

      Although people are rude to him everyday and he caries them around in a cart and lives in a hut made of tarps and ply wood, he says he is the happiest man in the world. The film then steps back and talks to psychologists about what "happy" is. This is the general format as it goes back and forth between psychological explanations and personal stories.
        The documentary includes the three aspects of film: literary, dramatic, and cinematic aspects. The literary aspects include themes and mood. The theme of the film is happiness, and what it takes to achieve happiness. The film develops a sympathetic, kind of sad yet happy mood when it tells the story of a woman who in her youth was considered one of the most beautiful women in the state she lived in. But, when she was in her twenties, she got run over by a truck, which crushed her face. She has had over thirty surgeries, and her face still looks like this:

            However, she says she is much happier than she was before the accident. The film does include a bit of dramatic aspects because there is reenactment of her accident. It more includes cinematic aspects such as unique camera angles. There is a good example of interesting cinematic effect when the documentary focuses on an island off the coast of Japan where the most old people live in one place. A large amount of their population is over 100 years old. The film makers explore the happiness between the 100 year-olds and the young children, by putting the camera from their point of view.
            I really enjoyed this film and would highly recommend it to anyone who has an hour to spend watching a truly interesting movie. I watched it on Netflix Instant Watch. It was made in 2011. Here is a link to the website for the movie Happy.

Happy. 75 minutes. Not Rated.

Documentaries!

             For this weeks blog post, I figured I would write a little bit about our newest project in media class. A week or two ago, Mr. Mayo assigned us a project where we, in groups of three or four, have to create our own two to three minute documentary on a topic of our choice. My group, which is me, Grace, Samantha, and Sarah, chose to make our documentary on DC street musicians. We are just starting the research phase now, but I'm excited to see how things turn out!

            When doing a little background research, I stumbled upon this video:

          Although this isn't exactly what we are going for in our documentary, this video has a lot of things that I like. The first is the way that the film maker incorporates the street musicians actual music throughout his documentary. Something else that I like about this video is the way that the cinematographer uses split screens. In my opinion, he uses them a little too much, but the idea of splitting the screen in interesting and dynamic ways to show multiple things at once is a good one.
        This video also brought up the popular DC musicians: the gogo bucket players! This made me laugh because it reminded me of last year when Mr. Bustillos told us about how he was currently learning to be a gogo bucket player. I can totally imagine Mr. Bustillos doing this.
         I also really like the other shots of just general DC prettiness. In this video, there are a lot of short little interviews with people about their favorite street musicians, which is an interesting component. The interviews with the musicians themselves are also really compelling. This whole video is just a snippet of what the film maker is creating, but already says so much about the street musicians, and answers peoples basic questions. The video even delves into the rivalries between the different musicians.
        I hope that our video can at least come close to answering as many questions as this video does, and is just as compelling. Watching this made me a lot more excited to get to work on our project!

Belated Thanksgiving Post

                  So, I had the idea over Thanksgiving Break that for my blog that week I would share a short, 30 second video of my Thanksgiving. But, as I was importing footage, I realized that we didn't have a blog post due that week. So I decided to post it now. I was going to make a 5x5, but then I got an adorable shot of my three year-old cousin singing a song she learned in school, and the shot was longer than 5 seconds. Instead it's just basically a video including a few things from my Thanksgiving. Here it is:

The shots:
-My three year old cousin Lucy singing "Turkey Dinner"
-Our turkey (it was 22lbs... I'm actually not sure if that means it was really big or average)
-Family at the table
-Another shot of everyone around the table
-Dessert!
-The candles... I was trying to be artsy but it didn't really work since I was shooting on my iphone

                    To me, Thanksgiving is really about spending time with family. Every year I can remember we've always gone to my grandparents house for Thanksgiving. This year, however, my aunt, uncle, and cousins were coming from Colorado so we decided to have Thanksgiving at our house. It was a little bigger than usual, but still really fun. I got to see a few of my dad's sibilings (he has seven) and their kids, as well as my cousin's grandma. It was a really relaxing break filled with ping pong, yahtzee, walks, and just hanging out. Unfortunately our next break isn't for three more weeks, but I'm counting down the days!
                   I'm going to try to get back to posting about once a week, and next week I'll probably write about our new documentary project, we're filming street musicians!

Capture the Fall!

            A few weeks ago Mr. Mayo gave us the "Capture the Fall" video assignment. I thought that this sounded like a fun project, and I was excited to see what I might do with it. After receiving the assignment, I slowly started filming for it. I got a few shots here and there on the weekends, including a few of me riding my bike and helping my dad rake leaves. I liked my shots, but I couldn't really think of a common theme. Yes they all represent fall, but nothing more than that.
             So, when my mom told me today that we were going to go walk among the memorials in downtown DC, I decided to bring along my phone and film our walk. I was really happy with my different shots, so I got rid of all my other ones and decided to make my video about the fall in Washington. Here's the video:

                Here's a quick description of each of the shots:
-Trees we drove by on our way there
-A pan of the Teddy Roosevelt memorial
-My family walking by yellow trees
-The Tidal Basin
-My sister blowing a dandelion
-A waterfall at the Roosevelt memorial
-The sun
-Walking by the changing leaves against the water
-The sun and a branch on the water
-An airplane flying over the Jefferson memorial

           I edited my video using Wevideo, which was relatively simple. For my 5x5, I edited on youtube editor, and wevideo was a bit different. There were a few more tools and option than on youtube editor, which made me happy. I liked using the transitions to make each shot flow smoothly. I also found the music right there on wevideo in public use. I thought that the music went well with the video, and makes it better.
        My personal favorite shot is the last one, where there is an airplane flying over the Jefferson, creating a silhouette against the colorful sky. I think my video captures the great weather that is present during the fall, and the changing leaves, which are what most people think of in the fall. Overall I'm happy with my video and I think it came out well.

Election 2012

         The election is just two days away and I couldn't be more excited... or nervous. It can be argued that the Bush-Gore election was one of the closest elections in recent history. It can also be argued that this election may be just as close. Which, to some of us, is really worrisome.
         That is why I dedicated most of my day today to help GOTV (get out the vote). My dad and I drove out to Loudoun County and went door to door, gathering support but mostly making sure that people remember to vote on Tuesday, and know their correct polling place.

               Barack Obama will most definitely win Maryland. It is a blue state. In my entire neighborhood I have only seen one Romney sign, and it is in front of a house of a woman who is very outspoken and has radical opinions on almost any issue.
              Virginia is a swing state and a key state in this election. In the neighborhood where we were canvassing, there was a very clear division of support. We were in an area where there was clearly a majority of more well off white residents. There were many houses with large or multiple Romney signs in the yard. There were also, however, a fair amount of Obama signs as well. My dad and I were assigned to go to houses that were known to house Obama supporters. We were not surprised to find that every time, except once, that someone opened the door, they were a minority. The one other person was a woman. It is well known that white men are the most likely demographic to be conservative, but it was still very interesting for me to see this in real life.
              I have been very active in this election because I am interested in politics and I know that whoever the people choose on Tuesday to be our president for the next four years will have a large impact on my life. I hope everyone comes out to vote and that voter turnouts are higher than they have been before (although sadly I don't think this will happen). Wednesday, although it could be much longer depending on close this election is, will be a very interesting, exciting, and apprehensive day, no matter the outcome.

The Dead Have Something to Tell You

             Being that Halloween is on Wednesday, I decided to share an article related to Halloween. This article, The Dead Have Something to Tell You, is about how much our culture has changed over the years pertaining to death and the celebration of death. I found it while I was glancing at the New York Times website.

            The author, Bess Lovejoy, basically summarizes how people have been treating death since the beginning of time. She says that in the Middle Ages, cemeteries were actually town squares and that people often slept with corpses because there was no other room for them. She also writes about how we used to always die at home, in a natural setting, although for a while that changed. The hospice movement, however, has caused people to once again pass away in their homes. 

         I don't really enjoy talking, or thinking really, about dead people, and I chose this article not because of that but because the author is criticizing the fact that Halloween has drifted from its Pagan and spiritualistic roots. Although I agree this is true, I don't think it is a bad thing. I really like Halloween, and I think its a great holiday where people can have fun dressing up and eating free candy. And of course, scaring people. Sure, this is not what Halloween was once about. But then again, we no longer sleep with corpses. Just because something was one way a long time ago does not mean it has to stay the same now.

          If not intellectual or agreeable, this article was still an interesting read, and now I know a little more about dead people! Hope everyone has a happy Halloween!

              So I've been trying to think of what to write about for my blog post all week. Last week, I basically just talked about other people's blogs, and then an article that I found interesting. This week, I wanted to do something else, but I didn't know what. I still don't, so I think I'm going to share another article that I found really interesting. 
              This morning my mom was reading the newspaper, and was excited to tell me she found something that we might be covering in journalism class. There was an article about really rich people in Virginia on the back page of the metro section, and right next to it was an article stating that by the end of this year there will most likely by 2,500 homeless students in Fairfax County. My mom shared this with me because she thought that it was horrible juxtaposition. She pointed out that the two stories were conveying opposite points and did not work being right next to each other on the page. Although I found that interesting, what I found much more interesting, and saddening, was the article itself. 
It can be found here.
              The article basically says that the number of homeless students is on the rise. I had to read the article multiple times to decided how I felt about it. I know that the economy is not good, and that we are in a recession, and that unemployment is high, and that people are homeless. But it is still hard for me to understand that people in my grade, people my age, don't have a place to go home to. There may be students at Blair that are homeless. 
              When this sunk in, I realized that I take many things for granted. One girl in the article says that she has to lie when people want to come to her house, because she doesn't have one. If I want to invite someone over to my house, I don't think twice. My biggest worry is if I'll procrastinate too much and not have time to do my homework, while these kids don't even have a place to do homework. 
                A homeless single mother who is still in school said "“I hear girls say, like, ‘Oh, hey my life is hell,’ ” she said. “I want so bad to tell them, ‘Sweetie, I’ve been to hell and back. You don’t know what it’s like.’ ” This quote really hit me. I thought about it, and found myself guilty of saying something similar to that not just once, but probably once a day. I find myself thinking 'wow my life sucks' because my mom won't drive me somewhere, or I have a lot of work. But the people in this article have much larger problems. It opened my eyes to what other people are going through, quite possibly people in my own school.
                I think that I may continue sharing an article or something I find interesting or inspiring each week for my blog post, but I'm not sure yet. I like writing my feelings about things I read. But I don't know what I'll do for next week. We'll see.