TV Shows

 

The "it" thing to do now is watch whole entire TV shows, from start to finish. It all started when Ms. Fillman showed us "Lost" in class. Then all of CAP 10 started watching it, all six seasons of it. I've recently started watching "Heroes", as has Cherie.

I think it is sad and disappointing that children now bond over what shows they like. We watch them together and talk about them when we're together. There is so much more we could do and/or talk about, yet we choose to talk about crazy ridiculous TV shows.

For the record, they are SOOO addicting. We live vicariously through the dramatic, plot-twist-filled TV shows. Our mediocre, unadventrous lives cannot compare to a exotic island with magical powers (Lost) or people who can paint the future when high off cocaine (Heroes). Well that's at least why I personally watch these crazy shows. I get really into the plots and the characters. I often find myself wishing I was them, even though I know their world is impossible.

Anyways, I know it's not the best way to be spending our time. But watching TV lets us closely analyze the things that make people human. We see weaknesses and strengths that we couldn't see in our everyday lives. Plus it's all so entertaining.

Spending Life with Technology

I've given a lot of people lots of crap about watching videos on YouTube  My brother spends half his life on his iTouch watching YouTube videos. But, I've been watching a lot lately for some reason. There are probably a million videos that are a waste of my time, but there are definitely some really cool videos out there! The thing is, that you have to spend a lot of time searching for and finding the cool videos. 

There's plenty of time to do that, what with long bus rides, slow coffee shop lines, and weekends filled with nothing. It's really easy to access YouTube too. So many people have smartphones and more and more teenagers are getting their own laptops nowadays. It's  become a social norm to see people on their phones everywhere. It doesn't surprise us and we don't notice it. There are times when I look up and realize that so many people are on their phones. 

People do a lot of other stuff, like work, on their phones. YouTube is just an example. But with this easy 24/7 access to technology, there seems to be so much more time to spend with technology. 

I'm not going to be completely idealistic and say that everybody should throw their phones in the trash, but I think it's reasonable to say that people should spend less time on their phones. 

We can wait in a line for 10 minutes or sit on the bus for an hour without using our phones. People-watch in the store or look at the scenery out the window. Technology has caused us to live faster; it's created a giant rush inside us as we go about our day. Everything has to be done immediately because it can with smartphones. It's not even like we're running through life anymore. We're leaping and bounding to the important landmarks, missing the baby steps in between. Those baby steps are important because those are things that can't always be replicated. They are things that will be left, even when all the big accomplishments have dwindled. 

So, I don't ask that you smash up your computers and laptops and phones. But just take a second to look at life as it's happening, not as it happens on your smartphone wallpaper. 

If you like watching people smash technology up, here's a video of that. These guys are my favorite YouTubers. Not only do the smash stuff up, the light things on fire and shoot balloons with BBs. All in slow motion. They're really cool. 

"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.

"Bowling for Columbine" Review

This is the cartoon from Bowling for Columbine that depicts the American history of fear.

For the documentary review assignment, I watched Bowling for Columbine, which I've seen sporadically throughout the years, but never the whole way through. I decided to watch it because it talks about the American gun culture, which is extremely relevant now after the Connecticut shooting. I want to give my condolences and prayers to the families of the victims and the community of Newtown before continuing on.

Bowling for Columbine opens with archival footage of various things, such as bowling and automatic guns. Michael Moore goes into a bank that also sells guns and gets an assault rifle, showing what little effort is necessary to obtain a gun. The first 30 minutes or so of the film talks about the lack of gun control in the country and the large gun culture that exists. Moore returns to his home town of Flint, Michigan to interview local militia about gun ownership. Moore continues his description of violent culture by using archival footage to show U.S. military actions in other countries, such as Vietnam and Chile.

Moore transfers to telling the story of Columbine by cutting to black and overlaying an audio track of calls to the police department during and after the shooting at the school. He then uses archival footage from the security cameras of the high school of the shooters and the chaos. Moore spends time talking about what happened and why it happened. Immediately after, he shows footage from the Gun Expo the NRA held in Denver just 10 days after the Columbine shooting. Simultaneously, he shows the protest held on the same day that included family members and friends of victims. This whole segment of the film introduces the problem that exists regarding gun culture and violence. 

Moore goes on to interview various people about the issue of gun control. He raises the question of why does America have such a high amount of gun use, even when other countries watch the same violent movies and play the same violent games as we do? Moore then describes the effects of the media in bringing attention to murders and crimes. Although the crime rates across the country have been decreasing, the media coverage of crime is doubling. Moore uses a brief cartoon (above) to show the American history of constant fear; fear of the Indians, the slaves, etc. Moore travels to Canada and finds that Canadians, although they have large gun ownership, are not as afraid of the world as Americans are. He interviews two Canadians whose homes were broken in to but they still do not lock their doors at night. Moore goes around Toronto testing home doors to see if they are locked and none of them are locked.

The recurring theme of the film is that fear is what leads America to be different than other countries whose cultures also include large amounts of violence. Moore does an exquisite job of explaining this idea while also making it entertaining. There are serious parts of the film, but then there are funny parts. This combination keeps the viewer hooked on while there is serious material being addressed.

I was not impressed with Fahrenheit 9/11, but I really enjoyed Bowling for Columbine. I would highly recommend it to anyone, but particularly those who think increasing gun control is the only solution to the large amounts of shootings. This film does an excellent job of causing the viewer to really think about American culture and reflect on what defines us as Americans.

Bowling for Columbine. 1 hr 59 minutes. Rated R for some violent images and language.

Documentary Idea

I had this idea for our documentary project when my group was talking about the cool things you can find and do in DC.

I thought we could do a documentary on the homeless people of D.C. There are so many homeless people I see on benches in parks, outside doors on the streets, and standing on the sides of the road. I'm sure many of them have extremely moving stories of how they got to be where they are. I'd also like to see their views on the future; if they have any plans or if they are just living day by day.

We could interview various people all around D.C. and maybe get some street walkers and see what they think. I would really like to have different perspectives on the issue of the homeless, I don't think the documentary would be complete with just interviewing the homeless. We could also find people who volunteer in soup kitchens or who lead community outreach programs to hear their perspectives. We could also find people who maybe thought the homeless deserved to be where they are. It would create a more dynamic documentary to have various ideas, even if they are controversial.

This topic could be easily turned into a StudentCam documentary project for the C-SPAN competition, if desired. We would just have to add footage from C-SPAN news or other programs. I would like that, but it would be a lot more work and if it our documentary didn't turn out the exact way I wanted, I wouldn't want to enter it. I'll just have to see where it goes and see what my group wants to do.

I've also played with the idea of doing a C-SPAN doc on education in this country, but I don't think I'd have enough time to do it justice.

Piano Dreams

This week, I decided to write about my long time desire to learn how to play the piano.

I think the piano is the most beautiful instrument ever. It's so amazing to watch one's fingers fly over the keys, creating such gorgeous music.

A few years ago, my family got a keyboard. For the first couple months I didn't use it. Then one day I was watching music videos on youtube and I found this guy David Sides who does piano covers on popular songs. I liked him a lot and thought it was so crazy, the way he recreated the songs.

After that day, I vowed to learn how to play the piano. I bought a learner's book for 3 bucks and taught myself the keys. I learned how to play a couple songs like Fur Elise and Boston by Augustana. I never knew how to read music in treble clef. I played the viola for 5 years and that has it's own clef. I never bothered to learn to switch over, so everything I learned, I learned by ear which probably isn't the best way to learn.

But when I got to high school, my dream to learn to play the piano was pushed aside. There was so much else to focus on with sports and school. I cut corners when I tried to learn, which probably contributed to the fading of my dream.

I wish I hadn't stopped, but I can't spend my whole life looking back and wishing I had continued to learn. I think I'm going to take some time to re-teach myself. I really want to be able to play an instrument. I think music is the key into a totally new dimension, one that I want to be able to control.

Learning an instrument can really help you understand your learning style and teach you that to be good at something, you have to work. It's really beneficial to your mental health.

So, this is why I'm going to learn to play the piano again. My first goal is to be able to play Apologize, which is the first song I watched David Sides play. But ultimately, I want to be able to play Variations on the Canon in D that George Winston plays. I have the sheet music for that, so it will be a good way to learn to read. I know that song is really hard to play, but I will push myself to succeed!