Blog Assignment #8 Scene Deconstruction

Slumdog Millionaire - Boys on a Train

I think that the theme of Slumdog Millionaire focuses on prejudices of the lower class in India. Even in their poor living conditions and struggles they still manage to find joy and love.  It displays how resourceful and clever these young boys are when it comes to surviving and finding food on this train. In one sequence, they try to steal some cooked food from the upper class cart from the outside of the train only to get caught. I believe that this is a active theme because the audience is constantly bombarded with images of struggle.

As the train makes its way across the Indian countryside it begins with movement from left to right. The scene then cuts to the inside of the cabs to show action taking place from within and the audience has no clues of movement. When we cut back out we see that the train is moving in the opposite direction, right to left, but then it starts to turn into the background. The camera flips around  and we see that the train is coming towards  us going left to right again. This makes the audience conscience that the train is still going forward to whatever destination it is taking the boys. In this scene the director also makes good use of line. In a majority of the shots, the camera is tilted to turn straight lines of the visual plane into diagonals. This gives the audience a sense of movement throughout the scene because they are on a train that is always moving. This is a good way to show that they are still traveling forward on the train even though we see a shot on the inside of the cab and creates tension until we reach our destination. Curvilinear lines are also prominent within the scene such as train as it travels through the hilly countryside and the balloons the boys are trying to sell to the riders. I believe that this displays a sort of freedom and happiness that the brothers possess even in their rough situation. All these aspects relate to the theme in some way and the cinematographer did a great job choosing his shots.

Blog Assignment #7 Animation Deconstruction

In Toy Story, the animators chose certain color schemes to create contrast between characters. In the first picture, Rex, a dinosaur, is a primarily green hue but plays with darker shades to give his skin a scaly texture. Pig is completely pink, a tint of red hue. Mister Potato Head on the right has a brown body but his accessories are all very saturated colors. In the second picture, Woody has a light colored skin but pure brown hair as well as his hat. His clothes are duller colors of yellow and red but his vest contrasts with black and white. Little Bo Peep has fair skin but has the pureness of pinks on her dress and yellows in her hair. These bright hues help relate these characters as toys to children and are visibility separated from other elements of each scene. It is apparent to me that the deeper you go in the scene in each of these pictures the colors get duller which shifts the focus to the foreground and the bright characters. Other toys in the scene also follow the set rule of bright hues.

Each scene in these pictures has excellent lighting techniques. In the first picture the characters are back lit from it appears to be a lamp on the table. It gives the characters a warm highlight around them which separates them from the background. It gives a nice late afternoon or early evening mood to the scene which in my opinion is laid-back and relaxed and this definitely contrasts with Mr. Potato Head's attitude. In the second picture both Woody and Little Bo Peep are well lit but the background is under exposed. There is also a blue tinted back light on these subjects. Both of these lighting elements help the audience's eye go right to the characters and the action in the scene. The light bounces of the material of the characters giving them a plastic appearance which is really important in a movie about toys. I think that the primary purpose of light in both of these scenes is to give the characters texture and bring them out from the background.

Blog Assignment #6 Storyboard Imitation

Storyboard for Hot Rod's First Jump Scene

Director Akiva Schaffer follows the 180 degree rule smoothly in this scene. The first action axis takes place between Rod and his friends who are sitting on the side of the road. The first cut swings 150 degrees on the same side as before to get a reaction shot of Rod. The same then switches to a medium shot of his friends as Rod is preparing to make the large jump. Then the action axis switches to Rod and the ramp he is about to fly down toward it. We get a good behind view of Rod and his bike as the camera pans up to reveal his intended path down the road. The camera makes another 180 degree swing to the front of Rod to get a good image of his face of determination and then pans up to reveal his inner thoughts of the spirit eagle. With all these large degree changes the director follows the 30 degree rule. In this scene however, Schaffer does not make good use of the Rule of Thirds. Shot 1 puts Rod's head in the upper left hand corner of the shot but puts his friends in the center off and to the right. Shots 2, 4, and 5 put Rod in the dead center of the screen giving the frame a visual vertical axis. Shot 3 puts all three of Rod's friends in the same shot but I believe this follow's the Rule of Thirds because the most important of his friends Kevin, Rod's step-brother, falls into the upper right hand corner. The director probably wanted to create a more dramatic feel as Rod prepares himself to hurl himself off the ramp by creating visual symmetry. When he puts Rod in the dead center of the screen we know that this movie will center on him.

Blog Assignment #5 Song Deconstruction

MIA's cover of The Pixies' "Where is My Mind" is a great example of a cover song with the artist's own creative twist. Each artist are two different and distinct genres but this song has crossed over these boarders because of its link to cinema and it is an excellent song in my opinion. The Pixies' nonsensical lyrics are just vague enough to have their own interpretations for each individual. It's inspiration was from scuba trips that frontman Black Francis experience during a trip to the Caribbean but it could also have tie-ins with a drugged out lifestyle. MIA took a more political twist to the song. She raps about wars in Africa and how the kids in the slums of major cities get by. She definitely has a more direct approach lyrically but her slurred distorted syllables are hard to make out and you could easily hear her words wrong. The only lyrics that are similar in both songs is the first verse of "Where is My Mind" which is used as MIA's chorus.

Both songs have a prominent and recognizable bass part but the timbre matches each artist's genre. MIA goes for a more hip-hop, dance feel with a deep bass synth and a faster tempo than the Pixies, whose sound is a more of an alternative grunge groove. Because of their different genre's, these songs have different emotional value. The Pixies give the song a hypnotic and creepy feel and do a good job of creating tension before the chorus. It has a similar style to Radiohead's "Creep". MIA on the other hand tries to make it more "poppy" with hip-hop drums that drive the rhythm. It has less of that hypnotic feel but it makes you want to move to the beat. Since these songs are similar in that they are covers, they have almost the exact same organization but MIA's verses are longer.

My favorite version of both of these songs is it's original by the Pixies. It is a timeless classic that I'm sure will be covered more in the future. I love the dreary tempo as it pulsates throughout the song and the vocals give it a spooky quality.

Blog Assignment #4 Reflections on Sound Design

Rod Rod - Rod's First Stack Scene

Hot Rod has one of my favorite introductions of any movie. It immediately sets the comedic tone for the movie by showing how Rod, the main character, always dreams unrealistically and can never accomplish his goals. It also displays good use of space and sound to further the audience’s immersion in the action on screen.

One good example of space is the frame where Rod is placed small on the left side of the frame and the ramp on the right with a large, empty distance in between shows a huge contrast in size between the two objects. It is an emotional clue that the ramp is too big for Rod to handle. It makes good use of casual tones such as the putting of the moped engine, the breaking of the ramp, and the moped slamming into the mail truck.

When the focus is taken to dialogue, the motor sound is "hidden" in the background but brought back up when the focus is back on the moped with another low squeal. This scene doesn't make very good use of deep semantic listening even though there is some dialogue because the tones and dialogue of the characters is casual and laid back with no complex, underlying meaning. 

Blog Assignment #3 Brainwashed

Seth Godin - Brainwashed: Seven Ways to Reinvent Yourself

As the title suggests, Godin brushes over ways to reinvent yourself to break free from a life as a compliant cog trained for an older, quickly passing society.  One important change one needs to make in their life is to "acknowledge the lizard". The lizard is a resistance in your mind that keeps you from stepping out of line. It is our fear that people will punish us or laugh at us that drives this instinct and as soon as one acknowledge's that that fear is there then they will be more willing to question the ordinary. Two other things that are important for reinvention are connecting and being generous. Having a large social circle and doing favors for those in it can help your ideas spread like wildfire. When you help out your fellow artist you will be greatly rewarded with trust and quicker movement of your ideas.


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I believe that this article does relate to what we have been learning in lecture and from our blackboard readings. We have been learning skills that transfers over to the real world as we pursue careers that are creative based. These layers from Seth Godin's article give us tools that break us free from normal expectations and that will let us flourish as artists. It is always interesting getting a fresh perspective on ideas that we have heard from before, it allows it to soak in more that we might lock it into our memory banks. He talks of networking and being quick to do favors for others and I think this is an extremely important concept for people pursuing a career in media to grasp. When I worked for a small video production company in Mt. Vernon, Ohio I met so many new people on the job that are heavily involved in the local arts community. After meeting them and working for them, I know that if I ever had a project in the future they would be more than willing to help me out. No one should be quick to say that these readings are pointless because it just isn't  the fact.

I also think that these exercises do make us a better person. Sure, they are time consuming and they are hard to fit in a busy college schedule, but the things we learn here will carry with us our whole lives. I like reading articles I otherwise wouldn't read if I wasn't taking this class because it gives me a broader knowledge of skills I can use to be successful. We learned how to deconstruct characters down to their most basic elements. After this exercise, I began to look for color, shape, and lighting in other media and found the symbolism to be true in almost every case. The second blog assignment let me explore how the creative process works and made me think deeply how I can access my own creative channels. This has been something I have always struggled with. In the past, I tried to force quality, polished, original ideas, throwing away half-ass ideas without even digesting them. Instead, I should have let my mind wander to pick out momentary burned images and use them as inspiration.

In my opinion, I have picked up a lot of useful information from these readings and blog posts. It has transformed the way I analyze all kinds of media and how I generate ideas myself to grow as an artist in media.

Blog Assignment #2 Finding Your Howl

Jonathon Flaum - Finding Your Howl

In the article, Flaum tells the story of the near extinct red wolf forced into captivity in hopes of protecting the species. Their offspring were released into the wild as an experiment but they had forgotten their howl. Mumon, one of the red wolves, knew he had to find his howl to lead his pack to survival. During his journey, he learned to hunt to end his painful hunger and through this act he became fearless, learning that the answer he was looking for was in him the whole time.


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Just as Mumon, we must all find our own howl or voice in ourselves. The only way to get there is by suffering through pain and uncertainty until we are reborn with a voice of our own. Another thing we can draw from this story is that Mumon couldn't have completed his journey alone. The deer provided Mumon nutrition that gave him a strength he never had before, urging him to run. Like the deer, we draw upon creative strength from various films, songs, quotes, books, or other forms of media that we use to push us forward as we grow as artists.

One piece of media that I draw from is a music video from the Spanish musican El Guincho for his song "Bombay". Completely in Spanish, it has a worldly quality that opens a window into a culture I'm not very familiar with and explores the wildness of youth. Quick, sporadic cuts go from a slow-mo action hero jumping into a pool to topless women doing meaningless actions such as smashing eggs on their head, licking a branch, or balancing laundry on one shoulder while trying to smoke a cigarette.

Despite the craziness throughout the video, the introduction is stuck with me when the video was over. It opens ominously with the artist walking among a backdrop of planets giving this coy narration with English subtitles:

"The cosmos is all there is, or ever was, or ever will be. The cosmos is also within us, we are made of stars. We are about to begin a journey through the cosmos, though the story of our planet, and the plants and animals that share it with us, it's a story about us. We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We are going to explore the cosmos in the ship of imagination. Perfect as a snowflake, light as a feather, the ship will take us to worlds of dreams and worlds of facts. Come with me."

This fantastic verse really made me ask myself deep questions about our very composition and how our imaginations play into what makes us up as people. The artist states that we are all made of stars and in a way that could very well be true. All matter recycles itself though the universe. If this is in fact true, there is a high chance that we could very well have molecules that once powered a once brilliant star making up the vessels that hold our consciousness. Our creativity is powered from essentially star power which is why I believe we can learn about ourselves by contemplating the great sea of space because they are connected. Our minds create ideas that sustain our society while stars create energy that fuels the universe.

To find creative answers or "howl" I need to take a journey into my own mind. Instead of focusing on a specific area I let my mind find its own way until I start to perceive images and clear sounds. Aimlessly it wanders from old memories to random images that seem to be burned into the front of my head until it hits something incredible. Images start to move and from perfect cinematography. Colors are brighter, lighting is absolutely perfect, and sound or voice resonates in all directions. I really couldn't follow this process until I understood that our mind is "the ship" and our subconscious is the unexplored "cosmos". El Guincho literally showed me this process with his music video and let me find myself creatively. The frame seems like scattered altered memories among wild dreams of sex and visual aesthetics. I felt like he was trying to show the world how his mind works when coming up with inspiration for a new song.

This video taught me how to explore the inner workings of my mind for idea. Now I am able to see my dream productions visually with perfection and takes me a step closer to sharing it with the world.