Well, that Worked Well

As the title says. Yeah, that last post is from March. Hmm. It's October. I just never remember to actually get on here. Anyway, I'm posting now cause it's something to do. I just got back from working in the 2D design lab finishing my assignment for tomorrow. I lifeguard at 6:00am in the morning. Why go to sleep? I probably wouldn't wake up to make it to work. So, I'm blogging, then I'm gonna go shower, then I think I'll read some of the novel I just started - The Prestige by Christopher Priest. It's the book the movie The Prestige is based off of. That movie is amazing, so I thought I'd try the book. (I highly recommend the movie by the way) I just finished another James Michner novel a day or two ago. The Source. All 1078 pages, or something like that. I like Michner's stuff, they're just so long. Even for an avid and fairly fast reader like me. It still took me 3 months! Anyway, in case your interested, The Source is basically the story of Israel and Judaism, from the caveman days on up to 1960-something. I guess you have a right to have that long of a book if you're covering that much history.

I love to read, in case you hadn't figured that out yet. Here are some other books I highly recommend:
The Chronicles of Narnia (I recommend reading book 2, then 1, then the rest in order)
Centennial (also a Michner book - don't judge it by the first few chapters - the story really doesn't start until the Indians show up; why he thought he had to spend page after page talking about migrating land masses I'll never know)
Grimm's Fairy Tales
CSI novels by Max Allen Collins
Captivating by John and Staci Eldridge
Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell
just about anything by Dean Koontz - my personal favs are "From the Corner of His Eye" and "Velocity"
Liz Curtis Higgs books: "Thorn in my Heart," "Fair is the Rose," "Whence came a Prince," and "Grace in Thine Eyes" (it's a series)

Well, enough randomness for one night. I think I'll go shower. Too-del-oo!

It's Been Awhile

Well, it's been a while since I posted on here. I'm not in Intro to DMA anymore, so I kind of got out of the habit of posting. Hopefully I can start posting again soon. School's been a little crazy and I kinda feel like a need a sounding board to write thoughts on. Anyhoo, be back soon. (hopefully)

Wrapping Up

Whew! I can’t believe class is over except for finals. Javon and I had a lot of fun making our board game and it was great to see and play everyone else’s on Thursday. This whole class has been great. It’s probably been one of my 2 favorite classes (the other one would be Chorale, and it’s always been a fav no matter what). I think the only part I didn’t like was –I Wanna See Some of those Films Again!!!!!! Once isn’t enough! I know, time constraints. Oh well. That’s the only complaint I have. This class really taught me how to look at films in a different way, and helped me realize I need to get out of my Christian box and form some judgments about my world. I’ve never really gotten to voice my opinions until now I think I realized that I don’t have very many or that they’re not very strong. Anyway, I also KNOW now that I chose the right major. I went into this basically seeing and liking the end result and thinking I’d like to be part of that end result. Sure, I had a 1-week crash course in 3D Studio Max, but that was the ENTIRE EXTENT of my experience. One Friday night I was bored and lonely because there was practically no one on my floor, so I decided to try something. I decided to try to make an animation using vine charcoal. There’s a CSI quote from the pilot episode where Catherine is telling Holley reasons not to quit and she tells her: “Stick with it. At least until you solve your first. And after that, if you don't feel like King Kong on cocaine, then you can quit.” I don’t know what exactly THAT feels like, but I was actually really excited when I was attempting this short film. I guess I finally realized I can do this. Now there is no doubt in my mind this is where I should be.

The Micah Challenge

The Forester lecture on the Micah Challenge was very interesting. The Micah challenge is based off of the scripture found in Micah 6:8: “He has showed you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To ACT JUSTLY, LOVE MERCY, and to WALK HUMBLY WITH YOUR GOD.” So true. What problems could be solved if everyone lived by that verse! Anyway, Peter Meulen also related the Micah Challenge to a promotion of the new Narnia movie: Real World. Real Lion. Real Church. To this he added =Real Integral Missions. He talked a lot about the idea of integral missions. Integral missions are the “proclamation and demonstration of the gospel. It is not simply that evangelism and social involvement are to be done alongside each other.” Basically, we have to SHOW the message of the gospel as we present it. This is the key to ending social injustice. I think this is something a lot of churches struggle with. Yes, most churches sponsor missionaries, but a lot of them get too comfy in their rituals and traditions and then don’t work on reaching out in missions in their own community – except maybe during the holidays with various food and gift drives. We need to get out of our comfy box and really try to demonstrate what we say we believe. That would certainly have huge consequences – I mean, I know several people who will not believe the gospel because the churches and the people in the churches, the “Christians,” are not doing what we say were suppose to be doing. I need to work on that myself – I think we all do in some way or another.

Video Game Presentations

Last Thursday's class certainly was interesting. Germinal and Kaitrin did really well with their presentations. I think Germinal had a very interesting take on things. I can’t say that I’ve really had video games teach me that much, although maybe on some level I have and I haven’t realized it. I can see more eye to eye with Kaitrin’s presentation. I will admit, I definitely fit the generalization about women liking the more puzzle-type games. I’m online a lot playing all kinds of puzzle games. What can I say? My dad and I use to put jigsaw puzzles together on a card table in the living room (this drove my mom nuts by the way). I don’t mind the action-violence thing too much, although I will admit I can’t play Doom anymore ‘cause it freaks me out. I do like stuff like Unreal and Halo, even though I’ve really played them very little. I’m more of an “old-school” computer and Nintendo games fan myself. Especially computer games. Give me Lemmings and Crystal Caves any day (I know, go ahead and laugh all you hard-core gamers). I guess my take on this thing is that I prefer and wish there were more entertaining games that also made you use your mind to figure things out. I definitely think its worth it to get Christians involved in the gaming industry – there’s a way to make games that are entertaining, “intellectually stimulating” (I wish there was a less cheesy way to say that), and that have a message behind them- without beating the player over the head with a contruyed message that isn’t what you even intended in the first place – we just haven’t figured it out yet. Or have we? It kind of goes back to that thing about how even art that denies a God is actually confirming a God.

Christian Video Games

I can'’t believe that Left Behind game trailer we watched the other day. It seems to me that Christian companies are having trouble getting into the gaming industry. I mean really, it'’s ok to shoot people in this game because they're damned anyway? I understand the need of an enemy for the hero, but please! I think the Christian companies' problem is that they can'’t figure out how to have a message in the game without completely hitting the gamer upside the head with it. The problem is that in trying so hard to make a game out of a specific message is that it construed. That C.S. Lewis article on 3 ways of writing applies here too. If you'’re trying to make a genre or type of media FIT AROUND an idea it'’s never going to be as good as if that particular genre or medium was just the BEST WAY to portray your message.

Music Videos

We watched some pretty cool music videos in class the other day. They used some pretty nifty techniques. I can't say that ever watched MTV when I was little, because, like most of my classmates confessed, it wasn't really allowed. I did grow up on music videos though. My dad and I use to sit around and watch CMT all the time. There also used to be a wonderful channel that had Christian music videos - that's how I was introduced to Michael W. Smith and several other artists I now really enjoy. I suppose it's a little hard for me to comment on current music videos - one, because I don't get cable at home, and two - I stopped listening to most secular music a while ago. All this talk about music videos kind of makes me miss them though. In some cases they really put pictures with the songs, and in other cases they were just fun. There were some pretty good ones. The TV isn't really a very reliable source for them though, all the music channels have too many programs on them now.

Art & Fear

We have really just begun to read out of our second textbook, "Art and Fear," and already I like it. The last chapter we read, Chapter 2, actually gave me some insight and some hope. The whole chapter was about the doubts and fears an artist faces while creating art, and that those who succeed are those who choose to except those fears and not quit. Allow me to share some quotes. "Art making is dangerous and revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might be." So true. I know this because for a while now I've been trying to write a novel of sorts and I can't help but step back and wonder where on earth this plot idea came from. Next quote: "Lesson for the day: vision is always ahead of execution - and it should be." Whew! What a relief! I'm always imagining the whole story before I've ever written the first word, and it is often hard to put those racing thoughts into words. I also can envision these fabulous ideas for paintings and other things that I'm never able to actually execute because somehow I think it could never match it up to my vision. "The truth is that the piece of art which seems so profoundly right in its finished state may earlier have been only inches or seconds away from total collapse." This thought is comforting. I just recently started rewriting that novel I'm working on because I didn't like where it was going, though it may very well end up there again. I got a lot from this chapter, I guess more on a writing level than on a digital media level because I'm not far into that yet. I can certainly see where it applies though. I suppose I need to embrace the fact behind the last 2 sentences of Chapter 2 - "Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding."

Dogs and Cats

One of the films we watched today was "The Dog Who was a Cat Inside." It was a really cute story about acceptance. A dog was a cat inside and the two fought at first, until in the end he meets a cat who was a dog inside and everything was great. The reason I chose to blog on this one is I LOVE the different style of animation. It's 3D, but it's flattened. The colors are vibrant and I've read things where people said this style kind of looks like a moving postcard. It's true, it does. I've only seen this style of animation in one other film before: "Olive! The Other Reindeer" - a really adorable Christmas movie. I guess I never realized that "Olive" was really CG animation, but now it makes sense. I guess I like this style because it's so different, and it doesn't try to mimic real life. I think I also like it because somewhere in there I can kind of foresee getting my cows into this kind of format. :) I've wondered before how I might change them to 3 dimensional, but I really don't think their meant to be viewed in 3D - their meant to be viewed as flat. I really like the CG environment though. Overall, this was a really cute film!

This picture is from "Olive! The Other Reindeer."

The Cathedral

Wow. That's all I have to say. The detail of the animation in this film was so stunning! Every move the main character made seemed lifelike, right down to the wind blowing his hood. I will admit though, I agree with the fact that the closer something looks to being real without being real is creepy. There was this huge eerie feeling throughout the entire film. You definitely got the feeling of enchantment the way the "statues" of the "people" on the pillars moved. I wasn't really surprised when the guy became one of the pillars himself, but it was still spooky. There's a line in "The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe" where Mr. Beaver says "Whenever you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't; you keep your eyes on it, and you feel for your hatchet." I kind of get that feeling when I see these ultra realistic animated characters. They're just downright creepy, and I'm not sure anyone could ever animate a character that looked AND FELT really human. It kind of goes back to that article C. S. Lewis wrote where he said it's more believable to create a fantasy world for a story than to try to bend the rules of the actual world. I wonder if maybe this one should have been added to the repertoire of "spooky" short films that were shown on Halloween.
:)

Feathers

So last Thursday, we watched this film called "A Feather Tale." In a nut shell, the story starts with a woman crying who then receives a phone call from a man who seemingly orders a chicken. The woman boxes herself up (as a chicken) and is sent to the man's house. The man pulls the chicken out of the box, plays with it, plucks it, and then bites it. The next scene we see is of the woman lying in bed with someone next to her. She gets up and goes to another room and just sits there, completely naked and vulnerable; dignity lost. It was a very powerful story about abuse and rape. We talked a little in class about how animation can deal with some things DV Cinema can't - I think this is one of them. There's so much junk involving sex and abuse in our media I really think we've become desensitized to it. It's no big deal to turn on the TV or watch a movie and see this stuff. But movies and TV never show you the vulnerable and hurt side of the story. This film really expressed the loneliness and the complete loss of dignity of the woman. Sexual violence is a very real thing in our society, but most people have gotten to the point where it gets swept under the rug. This film took a very hard look at the real story.

Trees

"The Man Who Planted Trees" was an absolutely beautiful film. Leeper wasn't kidding when he said it was like a Renoir painting in motion. The color was fabulous. The sepia tones for the dry desert, the lush greens, blues and yellows in the trees, and the reds for the violent village. In case you haven't seen this wonderful film, it's about a shepherd who single-handedly plants thousands of trees; thus turning a dry, lonely desert, into something lush and beautiful. The beauty of the trees brings everyone together. At one point in the movie, the narrator ponders the fact that perhaps one man can do the work of God. I think this story is a lot about being the salt and the light to the world. We are to show Christ's love in all that we do and are, and this carries out God's work on earth. The shepherd never asked for fame or wealth or friends, but continued to plant trees in order to make his small part of the world better. In a way, his planting the trees became his way of communing with God. The forest he planted became a symbol of peace and beauty to all the rest of the world, much like how we as Christians are suppose to reflect the love and hope of Christ in all that we do.

Hill Farm

This movie was so cute! I love the hungry chickens, the square sheep, and how all of the animals "popped" out of the barn. Okay, so I really, really liked the animation. The story was good too. The farmer and wife and shepherd are just living on this little pleasant farm and everything is fine. Then the well stops working and these tourists and a hunting party show up and things turn upside down. Life is starting to be a little crazy, when a huge black thundercloud rolls in and destroys the shepherds house. On the other hand, it seems all is set right by the storm - the water starts working again and the tourists and hunting party leave. I'm not exactly sure what I got out of this one, except maybe that sometimes it takes a storm to set things straight again. I loved the animation and the light humor in the film.

Out of the Fog

"Hedgehog in the Fog" was really cool. It was definitely about the awe of nature and of life. While walking through the fog, hedgehog discovers the wonder and beauty of nature. I loved how intricate the leaves and the owl and the white horse were portrayed. The way hedgehog became curious, got lost, resolved himself to die, and then reveled in the joys of simple life speaks a lot about how we live our lives. We become curious about things of this world, wondering maybe if we would choke on the fog if we were to enter it. Our curiosity beacons us to enter the fog, and so we do. While at first, it may be beautiful and mysterious, we soon become lost and the world becomes a dark and scary place. Just when we think all hope is lost, however, God comes along and carries us ashore, much like the mysterious creature in the water carrying hedgehog to the bank of the river. We realize how wonderful life is once we've come out of that dark, doomed place.

little dog turpie

I loved this film. I was a bit disturbed until the guy put the dog back together though. It seemed a little "scary," or at least it might from a child's point of view, but how can there be good if there is no darkness or evil? I thought it was interesting how the film portrayed punishment for doing something "foolish." The dog kept barking for no apparent reason, so it was cut up and hung on the railing. Then the man got his reward for being foolish when his wife was kidnapped. Recognizing his fault, he put Turpie back together and sent it to devour the kidnappers and free his wife. Then, as sort of a twist of fate, the husband was cut into pieces and hung on the railing, by his wife. The man, in the beginning, had been too caught up in his own world and cares to even try to see what Turpie was barking about, and it cost him. We're like that too sometimes. Too busy focused on the now, whether it be good or bad, to see warnings or signs of what is to come, or to turn our gaze heavenward. Or to gain wisdom from others. Luckily, the husband could put Turpie back together thereby reversing his mistake; we have grace. God's grace and mercy redeems us from our mistakes, but sometimes we must still deal with earthly consequences - just like the man in pieces on the fence.

Children's Lit

I totally agree with the articles we read. Children's literature touches us in a way no other literature can. Tell me this - how many times have you read your favorite book from your childhood? Many, many times right? Now what about that latest New York Times Best seller for adult fiction you just picked up off the shelf last week? When you finish it, what is the likelihood that you will ever read it again? I have read the Chronicles of Narnia once and listened to the radio theatre of them too many times to count. I'm still moved by Aslan's death, the lilies at the world's end, and the shouting of "further up, further in!" However, many of the adult fiction books I've read, like novels by Dean Koontz or Nora Roberts, I will probably never pick up again. I know what happens, and there's no more mystery in them than that. I think movies can work a little like that too, at least for me. Though I love my disaster movies, dramas, and TV series sets, I am starting to collect films that I watched when I was a kid. There's just something more magical and believable about fairy tales, trolls, a little boy discovering the power of "Nightmare Land," and a big fuzzy grey squirrel-looking animal named Totoro. These films never lose their magic. Some of the most complex things in life are more easily understood if looked at through a child's eyes. Think of our faith. In the Bible, Jesus proclaims that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children. We must come to Christ with a childlike faith - our "grown-up" faith asks too many questions and has too many doubts when Jesus simply wants us to Believe and Follow. I think a passage I read in Luke last night sums it up rather well: "At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ' I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.'" (Luke 10:21)

Rocks and Chocolate

I really enjoyed this film. At first I thought the little girl was buying the chocolate bar for herself, but was pleasantly surprised at the end when she gave it to her father. I also thought the scene with the dad/daughter rushing home to save the eggs was pretty touching. Its always interesting to see how different generations work together to get to a common goal. Overall, it was a great story about generosity, that the little girl gave up money to be spent on her to buy a birthday present for her dad. She also gave up story time to set up the surprise of the gift. I think adult forms of media try too hard to look at the big picture. By looking at a small, very personal story, a great virtue is presented and given great value.

Space

So, about that space thing we were talking about. I knew before about flat space and deep space, but I gotta admit limited and ambiguous space are a little new to me. They make sense though. Some of those photos Leeper showed us were kind of tricky. Anyway, I thought the discussion of space would give me a good excuse to post some wacky camp photos. The first picture, I believe, is an example of limited space - there are three distinct frontal planes - the front row, the second row, and the back wall. There is overlap though, which prevents it from being flat space. The second photo (the mud one) is an example of deep space - there is overlapping, size difference, and aerial/textural diffusion.
Now for what's going on in the pics, in case you were curious. I work at a Girl Scout Camp during the summer and we do all kinds of wacky stuff. The first picture is of all of the "pieces" to our life-size Clue game. We tape off the floor in the main building as the gameboard and six of the counselors get to dress up as the characters or game pieces. Campers are then split into teams and take turns moving their character around the board trying to solve the mystery. I was thrilled that I got to play Mr. (or in this case Miss) Green this year. The second photo is of mud wrestling. That's right, we mud wrestle. I'm realatively clean in this shot because we had just started and Ana (the other counselor in the photo) was new at this whole thing and a lot smaller than me - hence, I won in about 2 minutes. You should see what I look like at the end of losing a match! Anyway, those are some examples of space for ya - feel free to ask me about camp too - I'll always bend your ear with a tale or two, or three, or . . . !

The Brothers Grimm

Okay, so I'm a big fairy tale fan and I decided to go see the movie The Brothers Grimm. Oh my word! It is such an awesome movie! But anyway, I realized that I cannot just watch movies anymore (thank you Prof. Leeper!) At first, I kind of tried to notice things about the space, since that's what we talked about last, but something kept jumping out at me - red. Yeah, if you want to see a movie that REALLY uses the assigning color thing we were talking about, go see this film. It starts out as tiny pieces of red - on red riding hood's coat, on Gretel's blanket, on an apple, on the image of the mirror queen. When you reach the climax of the movie, though, there is a TOTAL ONSLAUGHT of red. There are even a few minutes where the only color you see is red. I can't quite get my head around what red was assigned to though. I kept getting a kind of "enchantment" vibe but I'm not sure - anyone got any guesses?

The filmmakers also played with other colors. Most of scenes in the town and in Jacob's world - a world where the fairy tales are really true - most of the colors are muted. It goes back and forth from golds and browns to grays and whites. Sometimes you are even smacked with a brilliant white background at the start of a scene. Memories, however, and the "real world" have more color to them, namely green. And the very end of the movie returns to color with lots of green grass too. Curiously, the soldiers and general also have some color assigned to them, though they appear in the scenes with the muted colors. Anyway, I posted a couple of pictures, one of the mirror queen, and a generic shot of the town. You can really tell the color difference (and notice the red on the queen). This film also has really fabulous visual effects. Gotta love the creepy crawly bugs, the moving trees, and the climax. (I won't tell you why the graphics in the climax are really, really cool - I don't want to spoil it for anyone) Anyway, if you get a chance, go see The Brothers Grimm. Oh, by the way, there's a really awesome story line too - hee hee! Check out the link if you want to see more photos or see more about the film.

Baby Got Tastes?

Let's talk about "Baby Got Book." At first, I gotta admit I thought it was funny, I guess in that twisted way that sometimes something that's making fun of you is funny. The more we talked in class though, the more I didn't like it. It's true, I would NEVER show this to a nonbeliever. I think part of what drives people away from any religious belief is when you dumb it down and make fun of it. I mean, couldn't that person argue that if that's all that religion was, then what's the point? It's also really dumb that it seems to say that the real point of Bible study is to "hook up."

The film "Gay Boyfriend", although slighlty odd, was actually pretty good. It has a catchy tune (I can't get it out of my head on occasion), and it looks like they had way too much fun making it. It does make a pretty good point about how strait guys have a bad habit of letting their eyes wander. I don't agree with homosexuality, but I think its a pretty good little film. The only thing that bugs me about it is that one of the girls sings off pitch the entire movie!

Ash Sunday

Time to be doing what I'm suppose to be doing. I really, really liked the Ash Sunday film we watched. At first, I didn't see the spiritual content of it. I did recognize though about the girl trying to break out of the box and that she couldn't do it alone. That's so true of our salvation too, isn't it? We can't save ourselves, or others for that matter, but only through the power of the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of Jesus Christ do we break out of the worldly box we are put in. I also appreciated the ending, where the girl outside the box (now consumed by the Holy Spirit) saw someone else trapped inside of a box of their own and went to share with them. That's what we're called to do - to share our love and hope in Christ with others. Overall, I thought it was a very beautiful film.

More moo

This is the magical cow fairy. It's the only cow I've ever drawn with horns. And the only pink one too. Except for that Easter bunny one . . . Anyway, I promise I will start talking about the videos we saw in class soon. Oh yeah - clarification - !Hero the Rock Opera (see pics below) is a SHOW not a rock group. I'll see if I can find the link to the sight so you can see what I'm talking about.

Intro

The stage shots above are from a show called !Hero the Rock Opera. The show is kind of a rock-broadway version of the gospel. It's totally awesome - you should definitely check it out if you haven't seen it. The cow is my beloved Mr. Moo-Moo. Yes, I draw cartoon cows. If you'd like to see more, check out my link to my new blog - totally devoted to my cows.