"Our Lives in a Car"

Cherie and I decided that our independent film project would focus on the rides we take to get to Blair. Both of us live relatively far from Blair, so we spend a lot of time in the car, hence the title "Our Lives in a Car". My bus ride is almost an hour and I can't drive yet so hanging out with people in Silver Spring is a hassle. Cherie and I hang out a lot and I think we became friends because we live so far from everybody else.

For this project I used the online video editor wevideo. I don't have any video editing software at home, so I use an online one. It's difficult to use because the webpage gets hung up a lot and it took a long time to upload the videos. It also requires me to pay in order to export the video in HD and without the watermark. (I didn't pay so that's why there's the little wevideo mark at the top.) I'd imagine it'd be really good to pay for  real video editing software or shell out the 5 bucks for the online editor. But if I'm only going to use these less than 5 times more in my life, I don't think I really need it. (Sorry Mr. Mayo.)

Overall, I'm pretty proud of our project. I know the video quality could have been better and I would have loved to have used the song "I'm Gonna Be" by the Proclaimers. But, I really like the song I found and I think it makes the video better and more upbeat. It reminds me of one of those fun car commercials where they try to convince you that by buying this car you'll have way more fun than in a normal car. Our video is like that so it's basically trying to convince you that if you live far from Blair your life will be 10 times better! (Not actually, I'm just telling myself that.) So, overall, our video really shows what it's like to not live in Silver Spring.

If the video doesn't work within the blog, then here is the link.

The Impossible

This past weekend, I watched the movie, The Impossible, with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts. It is a movie about the worst ever recorded tsunami which hit South East Asia in 2004. The movie follows the story of a family who gets separated and is trying to find each other.
The cinematography was fantastic and really enhanced the suspense and drama of the film. Throughout the film, it cuts to black for a few seconds at a time with just sounds. The viewer never knows what's going to happen next. The camera shook a lot during the scenes of the tsunami which partially gave me a headache but it really made me scared of the tsunami. I felt as if I was really there, being swept through the water alongside the mother.
The plot line of the film kept the viewer guessing. You never know if the family will reunite, although you hope against all odds that they will. The actors are all fantastic and draw every ounce of emotion out of you.
The cinematography enhances the film so well by putting you into the actors shoes. You are trudging along in the swamp lands with the mother and boy. You are feeling the pain as the mother suffers from extreme blood loss. The culmination of the terrible things that happen make the happy things a hundred times happier. This is a very intense movie, but it is a must see!
Here is the trailer.