The Playground Battle

The

Lord of the Rings Reflection

From what I saw of the cometary of Lord of the Rings I found a few things interesting. One of the things I thought were interesting was that they had to make a lot of double sets so that the hobbits would look smaller than all the other characters; like the bar and Bilbo's home. They also do a lot of long shots to show how big of a place Middle Earth is. These shots give people watching the movie an better understanding of how long of a journey this really is. I remember seeing parts of this movie from a few years back so while I was watching the commentary I would get lost in the scene behind what they were talking about making me want to just watch the movie. I think that if we ever saw a commentary again we should watch the movie first and then watch the commentary.

The Lord of the Rings Paper

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers directed by Peter Jackson have a huge variety of screen arrangements, framing, color and lighting, movement and positions of the camera, points of view, and music. These two films are also perfect examples of an epic. There are several epic points to this movie, but I’m going to cover three of them, courage, supernatural, and vast setting.

Courage is the first epic point I’d like to talk about. For me courage means to find something deep down in yourself to do something that takes a lot of bravery. Frodo is the main hero in this series because he is the one carrying The Ring. This itself shows that Frodo has a lot of courage. No one but Frodo would or could take it. Then later on in The Two Towers Frodo goes off alone with Sam who chose to go along because he didn’t want to break his promise to Gandalf. Sam also has an abundance of courage for the fact that he stands by Frodo through everything; he is risking his life time and time again to be a loyal and true friend to him. In almost every screen shot the camera is moved to show Sam just behind Frodo’s shoulder. Sam also has the courage to look beside the bad and find the good in all situations. Sam accepts Frodo’s decisions and tries to make the best of everything.

The second epic point I’m going to hit on is Supernatural. My definition for supernatural is a quality or material item that the ordinary world doesn’t possess. The Ring is like a spirit that can see and draw others to it, this is supernatural. Watching the movie I noticed the camera zooms in on The Ring showing its point of view giving it a sense of power. When Frodo puts The Ring on he goes into a different dimension seeing The Eye see him. Everything goes into slow motion and is either light blues and white with the Ring wraiths or black and red showing a close up of the fiery eye. A prime example of supernatural is in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship when Gandalf and Saruman have their battle using nothing but their staffs and magic. Gandalf also brings the King back to normal with his magic in the second film, The Two Towers. Watching Gandalf bring the King back was very interesting. First he is this old man and slowly his eyes begin to clear, and his face becomes young again; transforming him into his normal self. Not only are the wizards supernatural beings, but the elves are as well, they are immortal, meaning they will never die of natural causes or old age. They also have material gifts that are extraordinary. Sam’s rope is one of those gifts, the rope won’t untie until its owner wants it to let go. They also have robes that the elves let the entire fellowship borrow. These robes have the power to making the owner become invisible.

Most every epic story has a vast setting with mountains, rivers, valleys, and several different towns. In the very beginning before everything is dark and evil, The Shire is a very peaceful, ideal, fairy tail-like place. When Frodo goes to leave The Shire, there are high angle pannings of the Middle Earth showing the mountains, rolling hills, and waters. Rivendale is where the elves live and it is a world of silvers with a feeling of calmness. In contrast to Rivendale and The Shire is Moria that is the dark and scary. Moria is where the fiery demon (Balrog) tries to kill Gandalf. In this scene the camera is at a high angle looking down throwing his tail into slow motion for a dramatic effect. In The Two Towers, Helmsdeep is where the major battle is with thousands of orcs are. There is a long shot showing all of the orcs file in and then the camera switches to Aragorn showing his determination with a medium close up. Frodo is on a long journey having to travel over all of this land, this vast setting.

As one can see The Lord of the Ring films have characters full of courage, several supernatural incidents, and a huge setting. Not only is this movie a great entertainment, but also it has many good characteristics and moral aspects to it. Peter Jackson did an exceptional job of bringing different lighting techniques, musical emotions, and viewpoints within the film. This is an amazing movie that I would suggest to anyone.

Lord of the Rings

In The Lord of the Rings there are a lot of effects with the camera. When the ring falls on Frodo’s finger everything goes fuzzy to show how unreal it all is. I think it is interesting how they would make more than one house for each person or how they’d make 2 bars, one to make the elves look small and one to make the people look bigger. There are a lot of different angle in this movie I like how when Frodo is lying down and looking up at Rubindale. Rubbindale looks like she is glowing and fuzzy to show that Frodo is slowly fading away. There are interesting sound effects too I especially liked how when they are running through the woods and all u hear is the music and the sounds made by the horses.

Rocky Paper Scissors

In the Lawrence High School Focus Film Festival video "Rocky Paper Scissors" I like the way they do the freeze shots at the beginning to introduce the people who took part to make the movie. The beginning shot is good to how that he still loves what he used to do and misses it. It is kind of weird though how the coach comes around the corner every time he speaks, and that’s just editing problems, or they could have done it for comedy. The way they switch screen shots with the beat of the music is very creative, and it keeps the audience’s attention. I like how they change from color to black and white on the stairs. It’s funny how the coach waits around forever to go to save Rocky. The music choice in the fight makes the scene more intense and dramatic. All in all a very creative and entertaining video.

Carnival of the Souls

Carnival of souls was made by a crew of only five people because of this everyone had do play more than one role in the making of the movie like the director also being the custodian. The budget was only seventeen thousand dollars and because of this none of the serious companies would even look at it. Carnival of Souls was made because this guy got an idea of dead people dancing in an abandoned outside ballroom and the story formed around it. When this first came out in 1962 most children and young adults liked it, but the older adults weren't fans of it. Since the older adults didn't enjoy this movie it wasn't a good seller. Later on the movie was featured in best movies of the 60's and 70's, and shown on occasions on television. Carnival of Souls started being followed more and more and was finally let out in theaters almost thirty years later. The writer of this movie said, “Everybody gets ideas but what matters is when they get the idea." I think this means that a writer has to wait until the people are ready for the idea.

Moving Audacity Track to Garageband

After recording and editing your audio

1.) Make sure the audio isn't running anymore by clicking the stop button

2.) Open Itunes

3.) Back to the audacity track

4.) File: save as a .wav

5.) Name the project

EX (name).wav

6.) Save to desktop

7.) Find icon and drag it to the music folder in Itunes

8.) Open Garageband

9.) Drag audio from Itunes to the male or female voice line in garageband

I chose two photographs out of the Pulitzer Prize Winning Photograph book. One is The Little Red Wagon and Death (48). The reason this photo grabbed me first of all was the image. A body covered by a sheet in the middle of the road and a crushed wagon. The wagon told me right away it was a child. A police is standing over him taking notes and the rest of the world is going on with their lives. Next I read the story behind the image. The police was there just minutes before about to tell the child to watch out, but the kid stepped back onto the sidewalk. The police went on only moments later to hear about a child being hit by a garbage truck. The image is important because sometimes people just assume things will be alright when really you have to make sure they work out. Things could have happened differently, but they didn't, now we have to live with that.

The second photo I chose was Bangkok's Nasty Politics (119). This photograph caught my eye first because there were children huddled around two other children being hung. Second because they were killing them! There are two parties here the leftist and the rightists, the leftists are being beaten by chairs and poles by the rightists. The reasoning behind this is political beliefs. There are children here that would only come up to my hip, front row, laughing. This is important because if adults can't learn to live amongst other peoples view on the world, then how can we expect things to be better when our future, the children, are just as bad off as the adults.

Ethics

I think that the actual photograph of a man dying in war being shown is not necessary. The family of the soldier does not want the whole world to see the photo. I don't think it should be published. It would only be disrespectful to the family, and to the man, to publish it. After reading the article from The Joplin Post, that didn't have the photograph posted, I understood well enough what happened from the words that I didn't need to see the moment. In my opinion the photo does not need to be posted.

Photo Manipulation

This is a photo of Condoleezza Rice manipulated to make her look evil or demonic. When USA Today was asked about this photograph they said that it was completely and accident. What had happened was when they made the blurry effect on the background it covered here face as well, so when they went to sharpen that up it messed with her eyes. Obviously this is a complete and total lie. Condi, A photoshop user of five years, said that there is no effect on photoshop 5.5 that could have done this. This was done on purpose. Not only did they make the white of her eyes whiter, but they narrowed her irises, making her eyes look cat-like.

This was such a big deal because earlier a cartoonist made a comic that made her sound unintelligent. Rice was said to agree withe everything President Bush said, so when he said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq she was right there behind him. Later when it was found that were were no weapons of mass destruction she said she didn't know anything about them. In the comic there is a reference to the movie Gone with the Wind said by a black actress, "I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' babies." This is because in the 1930's a black actor/actress could not have an intelligent role in a movie. This is racist making it wrong.

The Lovely Bones Part 2

I'm half way through The Lovely Bones, and for me, I get so frustrated reading it. I'll read a chapter or so, and I have to put it away because it's just too much for me. Very overwhelming. So far everyone is just trying to deal with being the sister of the girl who was murdered, being the dad who just won't stop, and the mom who can't stand to be in her own skin anymore. I have been lucky enough to havn't had to go through a situation like this, or to know anyone else who has had to. I feel like the family and friends haven't had a good closure to anything. The writer's tone is frustration and loneliness. She is very visual and emotional. I can feel the grief the dad has for his murdered daughter. I can feel the daughter's frustration with her murderer running around and interacting with her family. I want to know how everything is going to work out. How will the family move on? Will Susie move on? Will he strike again?

Don't like your background?

So I was poking around and figured out how to change the template!

1. ) Go to bloggertemplates

2. ) Choose a category

3. ) Find a Template you like

4. ) Under the template you like click " Preview" to make sure you like it

5. ) If you like it click "Get the code"

6.) Copy the entire code

7.) Go back to your blog

8.) Click "Layout" or "Customize"

9.) Click "Layout HTML"

10.) Highlight the Template code already on your blog

11.) Delete

12.) Paste new code

13.) Save

The Lovely Bones

Kaaaaay, so I'm reading this book called The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. The main character's name is Susie Salmon who was murdered by a creeper named Mr. Harvey. I can't get too into detail or I'd ruin the book for y'all, but the book tells that in the very first sentence. Susie struggles with anger from being murdered, and wanting to be with her family. Susie is the narrator of the story but sees everyone else's perspectives as well. This is a great book and super hard to put down.

Desperate Housewives

I have a busy life so a lot of the time I miss my favorite TV show which is Desperate Housewives. I can go to this site any time I want and watch the episode I missed. Not only does this site show Desperate Housewives but any other show they play on ABC.

OMG

Something I like to Check up on a lot is OMG. OMG keeps up on the celebrities and the newest scandals. Another thing OMG does is comparing "now" pictures to "then" pictures.

Does it work?