Final Project

Movies have changed a lot since they were invented almost a century ago. Starting out as simple, shaky black and white 15 minute shorts that played in double speed with piano music played in the theater itself for a soundtrack, the industry evolved and grew with incredible speed as people ate it up. Film evolved into the era of sound, real-time speed, and with it into the age of Bogart, Hitchcock and Sinatra. Then, it continued into color and more mature content with directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorcese putting out groundbreaking film after groundbreaking film. Currently, we're in the age of CGI and astounding special effects. We can do virtually anything that the mind is capable of imagining with film now. It's come from black and white into vibrant color, silence into swelling soundtracks and from men in rubber gorilla costumes into realistic CGI. This evolution took decades, but an evolution which rocketed forward in the last 20 years has been the way that people watch film. I don't mean how they sit down and interpret a film, but rather the way that the film is delivered to the viewer.

Before 1976, if you wanted to watch a movie, you went to the theater, or made sure to watch it on television. This worked just fine for the movie business, studios were raking in the cash and their films were in high demand. Then, a company named JVC in Japan developed the VHS videocassette tape, which would change forever the way people got to watch movies. It launched an entire new concept surrounding movies, one we take for granted today, and that is watching movies at home whenever you wanted. A new and lucrative type of business, the video store, was spawned from this development, and the VCR sold like wildfire. Studios made even more money, and were still happy about it. People could take their movies home for the first time ever, and watch them whenever they wanted to. The VHS tape enjoyed huge success until 1995, when it was phased out by the DVD.

The DVD boasted many significant upgrades over the VHS tape. Better quality of both sound and picture and the ability to skip to scenes, and the smaller design gave it a huge advantage over the bulky VHS tape. DVD versions of movies often had special behind-the-scenes features and subtitles too, and this upgrade eventually completely replaced the VHS tape and the VCR. From there, the disc-format film progressed into Blu-Ray, which boasted even sharper picture and sound, and simply claimed to be better as a whole. And the studios keep making money.

But now, the film medium is starting to move beyond the physical format. Films are now being transferred from disk to computer in a process called ripping. The movie itself is saved to the computer as one long video clip. This method has pros and cons of its own. Usually, ripping results in a decrease in video quality and there are seldom subtitles or special features included with a ripped movie. However, watching a movie this way is as easy as going to where it's stored on your computer and double clicking the icon. It's virtually instantaneous. This format also takes up a tiny amount of physical space. You can store hundreds of movies on the average computer's hard drive this way and accessing them is effortless. And, in the past couple of years, quality of rips has gotten better and better. With an encoding system called x264, Blu-Ray quality can be achieved without a Blu-Ray disc. Now, video ripping isn't something everyone does. In fact, the great majority of people never rip their own DVDs. Instead, they rely on a process called torrenting. In this process, the film is downloaded through the internet by an interconnected system wherein up to thousands of people share a single file. To do this, a .torrent file is downloaded from a host website such thepiratebay.org and then from other computers you "leech" or download the file from "seeders" or fellow downloaders who have already finished downloading that particular file and are now reuploading it bit by bit. The more people that seed a file, the quicker it downloads for everyone else. This is where the studios stop making money. You know all those FBI warnings at the beginning of DVDs? Well, this is one of the things that they're talking about. But, it's become too big to possibly shut down now, and people are only getting more enthusiastic about it.

The biggest drawback to getting your movies this way is that it can take hours to download the file, especially if seeds are sparse. As we know, we live in a culture where instant is best, and thus we have Netflix. Netflix boasts one of the most efficient and flexible ways to watch movies ever. In a nutshell, Netflix gives you unlimited watching time from it's extensive database of films and TV shows for about 8 bucks a month. It takes seconds to choose your movie and begin watching it. You can use Netflix on a computer, on an Xbox 360, on a Playstation 3, on a Wii, and on many other devices as well. The only real con to Netflix is that if you have a slow internet connection, you'll experience problems with quality and smooth video playback.

So, to say the least, the medium in which film is presented has changed a great, great deal. And it's going to keep evolving, too. At some point in the next twenty years, maybe we'll come up with a way to instantly watch movies in perfect quality with no hitches or problems in playback. Maybe we'll make the perfect Netflix. The whole industry has come forward by leaps and bounds. Who knows where it'll go next?

Akrea

Lebenslinie, (a German word which translates to "lifeline") is the name of Akrea's first album, and the album art is deliberately surreal. The picture is one which shows a woman from behind who is standing in the palm of a giant hand, and on the hand is pictured a road, which the woman is standing at the beginning of. The way she stands seems reluctant, uncertain and a bit afraid of the unknown. Obviously, this is not a picture that was taken without being retouched. It seems that the hand is a real picture which has been retouched to fit the style of the rest of the picture, and everything but the hand has been illustrated/painted. The color of the picture is mostly earth tones (brown, tan, green) and inky black in the background. Interestingly, the hand seems to radiate light.

The picture uses blank space only in the background, which is completely dark and serves to bring the objects/subjects into the foreground. In the foreground, we see the aforementioned girl, hand, and road. The girl may symbolize innocence, given her body language and white dress (the white dress is a symbol which is especially powerful in western culture, usually used by the bride in a wedding). The hand is meant to seem huge and powerful, and it reaches down into the darkness, radiating light and lifting the girl up from the darkness. All around the hand and the girl fly huge black crows, which swoop and scream at the girl as she considers taking the road. It seems that the path is one that leads out of darkness, as the path is surrounded by decaying trees and dry dirt, and as the path stretches on the foliage becomes more green and lush, meaning a path out of corruption and decay into purity and life. Even on the greenest trees, the leaves are more yellow and rotten towards the edges of the hand, implying a safety only in the very hollow of the hand, completely seperate from darkness. The view of this scene is on eye-level with the girl and the hand, implying equality, which may mean that the option of moving away from darkness is also open to the viewer. The view is also from a distance, but this seems to be purely so that we can see the entire hand, as it is so large in proportion to the girl. As stated before, the lighting is such that we have a sense of dwelling in despair. Even though the hand is reaching down and radiating light, it is still in the midst of darkness.

The second track from the album is called Imperium, which simply translates to Empire. The reason for this is because the song is a historical story about an empire (presumably the Romans) that eventually spans the known world. The song, in essence, is like a song that a bard would sing hundreds of years ago, romanticizing the exploits of an army or warrior. So, in this spirit, the song praises the empire, talking about how it rose from a small group of nations to a grand conquering force, saying that "It grew, on the water as on land" meaning that they mastered both land and sea. The song attributes this dominance to the leader of the empire, stating that "He serves as a vital force" and the eagerness of the army to go forth and conquer "We would see new fields, And reap our reward". The entire song is a song of praise to the dead empire. It should be noted that when the Romans conquered a country, they "civilized" it by putting in structures like aqueducts and standardizing economy. This could be seen as a form of lifting the conquered country up out of darkness, which ties back in to the album cover.

Click for German lyrics.

My Role

I think that if I were offered a role in a movie/TV show of my choosing, I would choose a comedy similar to Modern Family or Community, one where the comedy is funny without a constant stream of canned laughter and the situations dealt therein differ from standard comedy fare. I think that I could play a straight-man type the best out of all the standard comedy roles, mostly because I can keep a straight face through almost anything when the situation calls for it. I can also pull off classic straight-man reactions quite well and can be extremely dry if I try to be. It's not hard for me to suddenly have explosive reactions or extreme over-reactions to situations. My voice lends itself to the character of a straight-man and I have good command of verbal tone, which is important in a serious character who relies on subtleties of expression and tone to be funny.

My Favourite Media

Despite the fact that I enjoy a good action movie, a fine piece of music or a sci-fi novel, historical fiction is far and away my favorite type of media, in any of its forms. This was probably due in part to HBO cranking out some of the most watchable things in the past decade. John Adams, Band of Brothers and The Pacific are probably the three best miniseries adaptations of historical fact to come down the tubes in the last ten years, and probably the most historically accurate. You have other gems as well, like The Tudors and Rome which are presented in 50-minute episodes and also allegedly follow the history books somewhat faithfully. Now, that's not to say that historical accuracy is imperative to my enjoyment a historical blockbuster. I enjoyed Gladiator to no small degree, and 300 and Troy both got more than one viewing from me even though none of these three films were especially (or even slightly) accurate. I find the concepts and realities that made up this world's past to be fascinating. I like that people have launched a path that history has taken simply by the fact that they did what they did, that they existed and achieved during their lives, and without the comforts and conveniences we take for granted. People survived and thrived and built empires and tore others down and did it all without electricity, industrialization or even simple hygiene systems. The world simply doesn't naturally produce such strong people anymore, people who can function completely at a level of existence that we would consider catastrophic. They lived in tiny, dirty, damp, smoke-filled huts and killed if they wanted to eat and stood face to face with another man and looked into their eyes as they defeated him in combat. I love to read about this lost part of our humanity and watch movies about people who existed then. We've gained much since then, but lost much as well. Some people don't like to be reminded of this fact, they are put off by the ugliness, dirtiness and brutality of our past, but in this past I find a purer kind of man, although he's filthy and mangy, because he has instinct. It's been bred out of us by modern society, and I relish any chance to be reminded of it. I like reading books by authors like Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell because they don't spare the details that may be unpleasant. Cornwell and Iggulden will describe a battle scene in all it's disgusting glory, the smell of blood and sweat and human waste that makes it reek, and the wonderful all-consuming joy and fear that control and direct a man in the crush of the shield-wall, and the everyday mud and sickness and toil of ancient life. It's this frankness that many people don't like about historical fiction. But the people that like it, love it.

Clip from Troy, embedding disabled by request. (Watch in 1080p, it's worth it.)

Conflict Resolution

The conflict resolution I have chosen is the Battle of Foy, depicted in HBO's Band of Brothers series. As it is a battle taking place in World War II, the characters depicted are young to middle aged, and exclusively male. Everyone in this particular conflict is either an American or German soldier, and this is essentially the basis of the conflict. The town of Foy is being held by German forces, and the 101st Airborne is sent to root them out. At first, the Americans have to cross a large open space made extremely dangerous by German artillery and sniper fire. They take casualties, but cross the space, reaching the outer perimeter of the town.

Here they run into a conflict within a conflict; their leader, Lieutenant Dyke is essentially useless in combat, unable to adapt to a changing situation and locks up completely when under the extreme pressure of combat. Due to the command lockup, the advance into the town stops almost entirely and the 101st begins to sustain heavy casualties. The Executive Officer, Captain Winters, orders Lieutenant Spiers, an officer in a company not currently participating in the attack to assume command of Lieutenant Dyke's company. Spiers takes command and swiftly pushes into the village, and the 101st take the town in a decisive victory, capturing many German prisoners and neutralizing the town. As they believe the battle to be over, one undiscovered sniper begins to shoot again and Sergeant Carwood Lipton is forced to run out of cover to draw the sniper's fire while Private Shifty Powers, renowned in his company for his accuracy, picks off the sniper, bringing a final close to the battle.

Obviously, violence is the main method of resolving conflict for both an attacking or defending force. To systematically destroy as many enemy as possible as you advance is the surest way to a total victory. For a defending army, a similar concept is true. The best way to win defensively is to set up a situation where the enemy has no choice but to move into your gunsights and hopefully be killed. We see both cases very clearly here.

Characters In Television

The IT Crowd (click for video) is a comedy made in the UK which follows the exploits and daily tedium of a billion-dollar corporation's absurdly small and completely under-appreciated IT department composed of just three people: Roy, a computer expert from Ireland, and Moss, a socially dysfunctional genius who can operate any piece of technology, but is painfully unable to function in everyday society. Finally, these two close friends are kept in check by Jen Barber, who holds (to her dismay) the IT department's third (and arbitrary) position as Relationship Manager.

The three share very similar cultural values, which are much what one would expect from an English show. The differences come at a personal level. Roy plays the average slob with a heavy sense of enmity and disrespect for anyone who works at a level higher than the IT department's crowded basement. He views almost everyone at the company besides Moss and himself as utterly helpless when it comes to computers, even going so far as to answer the phone with the phrase "Hello IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?" in a bored and exasperated voice each time it rings. Roy shares the limelight of the show fairly evenly with Moss and Jen, and exists as a foil to Jen's technologically incompetent and hard-working ways, and vice-versa. He is also very close friends with Moss, and supports him whenever he can, as seen in the given clip.

Jen is in the IT department purely because she lied on her resume about having experience with computers and various other forms of technology in order to get hired at the company, expecting her personality and other qualifications to place her somewhere in middle management. Instead, she is now in the IT department where she worries consistently about her career advancement and the nigh-complete lack of work done by Roy and Moss on a day-to-day basis. She views her work as being one of the most important things in her life, whereas Moss and Roy hold a polar opposite view of their occupations. Because of these differences in personality, she holds a strange and complex relationship with the two, calling them "Friends... but in a special way that means... you can't come into my house"

Moss is made of contradictions. He is very socially awkward, although by nature he is very polite and courteous. He possesses a high level of natural skill when it comes to extremely complex electronics, but lacks a basic knowledge of self-reliant behavior (he still lives with his mother, depending on her to cook and clean for him). Moss loves order on an obsessive-compulsive level, needing to know at all times how many staples he has left. However, this really only extends so far, at which point it drops off completely. In the first episode, he has a nest of baby birds living in the open disk tray of his computer stating that "I don't know how they got there, but I don't have the heart to put them out, Jen" and letting the room which he and Roy occupy during work hours fall into an utter state of disrepair. He is in his mid-to-late twenties, as are Jen and Roy.

These three, as a team, play the role of heroes in almost all of the show's conflicts, commonly ignored and let down by a faceless company. They largely envy the lifestyle of the people who work on the floors above the basement because the company is comprised of, as the CEO puts it "Attractive people not doing much work... all having affairs." Their greatest triumphs typically go unnoticed by anyone outside the three, and their contributions to the company go completely unappreciated. They exist as the company's absolute bottom rung socially, with the exception of Jen, who is treated with a civility and respect not usually extended to Moss and Roy.

Bonus Clip: Roy and Moss tries to come up with an intentionally off-putting personal ad to prove the point to Jen that "women love ba****ds"

Commercials

The first commercial is a McDonalds advertisement that was made in Egypt. The ad opens with a young, attractive, obviously loving Egyptian couple that are most likely chosen to reflect what most young people would like their lives to be like; the two depict a very nice life. The affluence of the boat, coupled with the young man's retrieval of the rose suggests that the life they have together is desirable and to be coveted. We percieve them as an ideal of romance, and are led to believe that everything about them is valuable, with their love being the most valuable part of their lives. Then, as they enter the McDonalds, the woman attempts to take some of the man's french fries. Food sharing is often seen as a primal act of love, because on a primal level, we understand that food is one of the most important things to survival. Thus, to share a means of survival implies a very strong connection. Therefore, as we have seen the couple being very attached thus far, we assume that things will go as they appear. Instead the man grabs both her wrists and restrains her forcefully, she reacts violently, and he kicks the chair out from under her. The idea being communicated is that McDonalds is more important to this couple than their relationship.

Next, we have an ad for the new line of Honda Civics. In this commercial, it's vitally important that the characters are who they are. We have five distinctly different people, a luchador, a monster, a zombie, a lumberjack and a ninja. Obviously, each of these five are meant to be completely different from any of the others. The ad purposely focuses on the fact that these characters are very different, and the ad relies entirely on the differences between the personas. The tagline of To Each Their Own is meant to showcase the versatility of the new line. Without the varied identities, this is pointless.

The final ad is another foreign one, an Indian advertisement for Camlin permanent markers. This advertisement features an Indian couple in their 30's, and the man is close to death. This ad relies heavily on the Indian cultural practice of a married woman's necklace, bangles and vermilion spot on the forehead being a sign of her marital status (this is explained before the ad begins). When the husband breathes his last, the professional mourners rush in, stripping the woman of the symbols of her marriage to the now-deceased man. First, they remove her necklace and bangles, but when they attempt to remove the vermilion spot, the greatest personal aspect of the married woman's appearance in respect to her husband, it will not come off. The vermilion spot is said to be connected to the man's lifeline, meaning that when it is erased for a final time, they are truly separated by death. The advertisement shows the man making the spot on his wife's forehead with a permanent marker, which means that when he dies, the mark cannot be erased. Because of this, he springs back to life at the end of the ad. The fact that the actors/actresses in the ad are Indian is very important, given that without the allusions to Indian culture, the entire point of the ad would be lost to the audience.