Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story

After watching the short film by Todd Haynes I must say that overall I really enjoyed it. It was really amazing how believable and convincing a bunch of Barbie dolls and some well done voice overs can make a movie come alive. At many points in the movie I felt completely immersed into the world that Todd created and really believed I was watching the interactions of Karen and her family even while staring at a static Barbie smile. The sound is what made this film and catapulted it from just a bunch of dolls into a serious and sympathetic plight of a young star dealing with a horrible eating disorder and ultimately losing. The film actually made me feel upset of how little her family members knew about the situation and even Karen herself. Only by the time it was too late did anyone realize that it wasn't just about skipping a few meals but a serious control problem, fears of gaining weight and a distorted body image. The fact that the dolls were always filmed like real actors would be between the positioning of the camera and the lights added to the reality. I still can't wrap my mind around some of the scenes and how the did them. I understand that any parts where a hand would have a appeared in the frame they just used wires, strings, and careful editing but some scenes were so impressively planned out that it made me automatically love this film; the party scene in Karen's new apartment was such a great part and it still blows my mind how they did it. The only aspects I didn't enjoy were all of the unreadable text and some of the footage of people in the middle of the film. The real footage at the beginning and ending were a nice sandwich but some of the ones in the middle broke the illusion for me. I see myself coming back a watching this film again and again.

Last Digital Cinema class we watched Maya Deren's Meshes in the Afternoon. Overall I thought the film is visually interesting if nothing else. It was much more experimental in camera techniques and story than I was expecting from a film from the 40s. I was confused about some aspects of the plot and I think some of the more subtle symbolism just went over my head. It is definitely one of those movies that needs to be watched multiple times in order to catch every single piece of information. I thought from a technical standpoint it was very impressive with its use of multiple figures filmed separately and complied together, Dutch angles, and use of close ups with the actors eyes. At times (I think mostly due to how old it is) I felt the music was too loud and in some cases was distracting from the movie but overall it set up a nice atmosphere. Again, the camera techniques were the most impressive and revival some movies today (especially the scene where the actress is losing sense of gravity and hangs onto the walls and staircase for support).

Pitch Project

I've been thinking about our society's relationship with food lately. It seems more unhealthy than ever and I was thinking about what we really put into our bodies and how they can affect us. My proposal is about a teenage girl, Lauren, sitting at home playing video games one night. She previously purchased a really cheap, brightly colored (and cleverly marketed) bag of chips at a store. While consuming said chips she starts slowly hallucinating, first with hearing some strange noises, the colors in her television changing drastically, and finally when she goes to the bathroom, she sees spots. After sleeping off the effects, she realizes that the chips were the cause of her problems. She finds a strange ingredient listed on the bag and looks it up online to discover that it has hallucinogen-like side-effects. While she's online a chat window opens up. A friend of hers that off-screen had been with her when she purchased the chips asks her how they were. Lauren replies that it "was only a $1.50 for the worst day of your life." and that to "next time read the label."

Elysium: Self Critique

Project Elysium

Main Idea: Our group came up with our portait project in our first meeting. We had similar ideas but our story was built on top of Joe's original idea, a terminally ill girl with expansions to the character such as the inclusion of a separated lover.

Source Idea: The source was Joe's original idea, that we all slowly added details to to make the character more complex. Not all ideas were accepted into the final idea and some people ended up with more of their ideas in the script than others but everyone was given a fair chance to have their input and vision heard. Also not all of my ideas we accepted into the story either but most of the ones that did tended to be what seem small ideas through the use of props but I felt they eventually became central to the character's identity.

Key Emotion: The focus of the project was on the idea of despair and longing of the main character. In the story as she's dying she dreams of her departed lover before finally finding peace.

Synopsis: Its the story of a dying woman who is distraught with her current situation who through a dream of being reunited with her lover is able the come to terms and pass on in peace.

Theme: Our main idea is the thought of forces beyond one's self being used as a means to help encourage or improve the life of a person.

Strengths: I think our strongest idea was in terms of lighting techniques because we really built around the idea of using different lighting sources (the lights included in the kit with blue gels and not, fluorescent lights, and even a flash light) to really set up the reality of the character and differences in plains of existence.

Problems: We started slow at the beginning of filming and we probably could have all had more practice with the equipment beforehand.

Journal Notes: I learned that I am much better at lighting and learned that each person in our group was good at different things. While we all had a hand at doing everything, I found that certain people were better at tasks than others.

Inspirations for upcoming project

Art Direction and Subject Matter:

The Lovely Bones (2010)

What Dreams May Come (1998)

The Others (2001)

The Crow (1994)

Art Direction:

August Rush (2007)

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Minority Report (2002)

Let The Right One In (2008)

The Matrix (1999)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Coraline (2009)

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)