Special Effects

Here's a video that I like because I have no idea where to begin making any of the effects that are going on. It makes me wonder how this is created and if they have different programs than Vegas. What amazes me about all special effects is how real they look but also the lighting in places. The lighting looks so real.

Alex the Talking Parrot

It kind of makes me wonder about all the hamburgers and chickens I've eaten. I really think he's communicating and interacting on some similar level that humans do. I wonder if he understands jokes. Probably not. I also feel like documentaries and the news you can make them say what you want them to say, something to be careful of. You might look at all the positives but don't document anything that would go against your thesis. I think it's good to be as honest as possible and answer any limitations that come up. One limitation of this video is well, did he get a banana and if so did he eat it?

Air Cars

If they them build we will come. This is one of the coolest ideas I've seen. I was thinking about a car that runs on gravity and I'm having a tough time working it out but this a lot more practical. I just hope they also get going on the air motorcycles. Or, air helicopters. Or air F-16s that Fort Lewis can purchase and the students can rent them.

That's it That's all Teaser

Here's the teaser of the movie that I'm going to go watch at the Abbey on Wednesday the 13th. From the teaser there isn't much that I can tell. They're not really giving a lot of real video footage so either they're hiding the suckiness of the film or the goodness of the film.

Love Medicine

I'm reading this book in Reading and Writing Texts called Love Medicine. I went online to see if I could find something about the book and one of the main characters, June Kashpaw. What I found was one thing I've been looking for. It wasn't about the book but it was about filming in such a perfect way. The way this person films this woman is to me so perfect. I can feel the lady's emotion and I can see through the eyes of the person filming. It seems really laid back- the way of filming, but it's so personal that it helps to tell the story. The person holding the camera is telling the story at the same they are reacting to the story so I get the feeling of what the story is about but also what the other person is feeling and what that person wants me to know.

Humans are amazing creatures

I just think it's worth seeing.

Keith Jarrett

Here's a video my friend showed me of one of my favorite musicians, Keith Jarrett. The split screen helps to give attention to important things going on at the same time. It works really good in music videos and I think it could work really well in documentary film making. We're thinking about using it our documentary of Turtle Lake.

Ground Zero

After watching Brian Barnes' short clip of Family Guy I thought I'd watch this. I like it a lot. I think it's a really good idea to convey really serious decisions like going to war and the rediculous justifications for doing it in a humerous way. Using humor, in the form of stupidity, helps to emphasize the stupidity of decisions like these.

Grizzly Man Review

The movie Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog is about a man, Timothy Treadwell, and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, who have been killed by a grizzly bear. Treadwell has for more than a decade been living with Grizzlys up in Alaska. Treadwell's prime concern was for protecting the bears and increasing awareness of their lives in order to help protect them.


This movie does a great job of explaining who Treadwell was and why he was doing it. More than just explaining Treadwell's story through narration however, the director, Herzog lets the viewer see footage of Treadwell's own movie. This footage explain Treadwell's reasoning but also tells the story from a first person point of view. I really feel like I know something about Treadwell because I have seen him and also know a little about his past. That was another good thing- that Herzog interviewed Treadwell's parents and friends who told a little background about Treadwell's life. That helped me to understand Treadwell's background and even link together why he was the way he was.


One thing I didn't like very much was how close the narrator got to the friend of Treadwell, his older girlfriend. When Herzog listen to the tape of Treadwell's recorded death, it bothered me a little that he said that she needs to destroy it. he then goes on to hold her hands and though he's giving her support, and good adive perhaps, it makes me confused about the relatinoship of Herzog and his subjects. Also its just not fun to see bonding between people. That stuff is personal and I try to turn my eyes from it in real life and give it space but it just feels ackward to have to watch it and wait for them to hold each other. One moment in filming that didn't sit right was when he was interviewing the pilot and he just kept zooming and zooming in really slowly. The zoom didn't have any pupose and got too close to the guy's face. I felt that there were a few other instances of this throughout the movie. I found myself confused at the purpose of some shots.

For just a little something more- Treadwell makes me so mad. This movie really hit some emotions in me and I had to turn it off for a little while. What this guy did was not accurate. I'm not going to get all heartfelt for creatures that routinely eat their young, something that he knew was going on and even filmed the evidence. I've also seem footage of bears hunting their young. Bears are not happy play buddies. Anybody else feel the same way?

Melamine Tainted Cookies

Hey just something to look out for. Apparently the US has bought 2 million pounds of supposedly melamine infected food. The milk powder used in a lot of the candy that was manufactured in China has been tainted with Melamine. It's mostly a fear for small children under 2. It causes kidney stones and has killed 4 kids in China.

Alien landing

Here's a freaky video. It's funny too and it's made realistic enough that I can't tell whether or not it's real. I'm leaning to that it didn't happen but still it's a little scary. There is one thing from this video that I want to put into my documentary film and that's the seriousness of it. I want to do something that's not real-a bigfoot documentary- but I want the acting to look credible so that at the end you do wonder if maybe it is true.

George Carlin- Death

Here's my favorite stand up comedian. He died a few months ago. IN this video he talks about death. I like this video most because of the content of the video- what he has to say and all is always funny. I also think it's strange that he would design the props around him as a room with furniture in it. He's probably being sarcastic. As for the video quality I think it's good but there are some scenes that are a little wiggly when it zooms or it just cuts in strange places.

Man travels to the future

Here's a nice idea for a documentary. It's a little short but funny and kinda makes me wonder if it really did happen. If it were to be a documentary he could have thrown some more clips of his life in and maybe some other wacky incident and his experience trying to find out what happened. I'm thinking about doing something like this for documentary film. It's got to be his dad though.

skateboard editing

About five minutes into this video I think the editing is really good. Reading a little in the Eye is Quicker I think the rapid editing in this video is exactly the concept that the book is duscussing. The idea is to edit in such a way that it's not noticable- it's just smooth and easy and you don't think to yourself, man this is really choppy and doesn't go together... it keeps the pace. I think one of the ideas the book talked about was cutting in action and the incoming cut is just about as action packed.I notice they use a fade sometimes when the incoming cut is slower. There also seems to be a rythme to the cuts that even includes the actions of the skaters. They land according to the beat of the music.
This can be compared a little later in the video when they hand the board off to another and then throw. Some of the throws are a little off- where when they cut the board comes in slower or higher in the next frame. Sometimes though it works really well. This section starts about ten minutes into the video.

A new perspective on the bible

Here's something I was introduced to over the summer along with the 9/11 conspiracy theories. It seems a little out there but why not possible? I like this video because it's simple. I also like the superimposed graphics. What stands out most about this video to me is my ability to learn from it. I feel like I can learn so much faster when I watch video than reading books. I don't think I could learn this much this fast if I were reading a book with all of the same information.

A LITTLE MORE- I see potential in this idea that aliens came down, mated with the humans, they're actually fallen angels, they have a huge secret symbolic language which is wrapped around our government and the "new world order" and the alien's (Satans) plan to destroy mankind. But this guy also believes that cows have been spliced by human DNA so we better not consume anymore dairy products. Pesonally I feel like Jesus is just part of this whole rediculous thing anyway and therefor this guy is actually getting duped. The sun remains still for several days at the Winter Solstice (that's in an encyclopedia in Reed Library), it's lowest point in the sky. On December 25th, "Jesus's birthday" the sun then starts rising north again. This sounds a lot like Jesus being dead in the tomb for three days and then resurrecting. Also Jesus was the Lamb of God and right around 0 AD we left the age of Aries, the lamb, and entered the age of Pisces the Fish. Jesus was a fisher of men and we put the little fish on the back of our cars to signify that we're Christians. Isn't this just the same symbolic stuff that's been going for thousands of years but people don't really get that it's all astronomical? The odd thing is that a lot of crazy stuff has happened to me, things that just don't seem like they're coincidence, mostly prayers being answered. It's tough to decide. Maybe Jesus is speaking about a common truth for us all that works whether you believe in him or not. Maybe he really did come and want to live a personified life of the sun that the our governement and major world powers wanted to steal. Maybe he's an alien. If you've got other information let me know.

My favorite commercial

The reason I like this commercial is the lack of dialogue. I also like it because the music narrates the story but indirectly. I want to make videos like this where there is no dialogue or less dialogue but body language lets the viewer know what's going on. I like when stereotypes are broken or things are represented as contrary to the norm as they are in this commercial- I like this because it can add new humor never thought about before or get you to think about something in a way you haven't.

Jesus meets the Terminator

Here's the movie I was looking for. It's a video about the Terminator going back to the time of Jesus. It's halarious. The reason I chose this video is because the special affects like looking through the Terminator's eyes might be something that we can get into with Vegas. I also chose it because it seems to lie somewhere between amatuer and pro. The special affects don't blow your mind and it seems somehow the picture is less quality than a big movie. I don't know how to explain it though. Maybe it's just youtube. But I think we can make videos this quality in this class.

da vinci code humor

This first time I saw this I wasn't paying attention very well until it really started picking up pace. I thought it was halarious. I think it stands out and is good for the class because there was a lot of editing that we'll be starting soon. I think it would be fun to learn how to edit like this. All the sound effects are great and the repition and climax make it funny. I like oddball special affects because they can start to say something that makes it funnier than just saying it. Some special affects can mock something. It's a hard feeling to describe but it says more than just saying it.

9/11 video

This is a video about the 9/11 attacks and I'm posting it on 9/11. It feels a little fatalistic. Coincidence? I don't know. I saw this video over the summer. It feels pretty realistic to me. There are so many videos about the 9/11 conspiracy online it's tough to believe it couldn't be true- that our government actually staged this whole thing. I'm curious about how I never heard about this until now which makes me wonder if it's totally a fake but as I look I wonder how it could be fake. The title just looks like the movie would have to be bullsheiz, and the words on the video don't quite match up with the mouths but on the online movie Zeitgeist the same scenes are played and the words match up. I want to talk about this video with others and wonder if I'm getting duped here. I feel like it's demolition. Tell me what you think. Seeing this and other videos online over the summer opened up my mind to the possibility of movies communicating and really informing people about stuff we aren't exposed to through the television stations. If this thing is true our public media really, really sucks.