Documentary Review

Documentary Review - Bike Thief 2012 by Casey Neistat

Connor Smith

Period. 4

For my documentary review, I watched the Op-Doc "Bike Thief 2012" by Casey Neistat. Although it is only 3 minutes and 47 seconds long, it conveys the message of the documentary. I think that I can apply various aspects of this short documentary to my C-SPAN documentary in order to make it better; more so than a full length documentary, which follows a different style because of the change in length.

Here's the video:


The documentary takes place in New York City, and reveals how police, as well as citizens, do not seek out bike thieves, nor confront them, even when walking right by the thief, and in a public place. Neistat shows the absurdity of this by locking his own bike in a public place, then stealing it. He does not even try to be discrete about stealing the bike, he openly forces it out of chains. Many times he is able to get away with the bike. The only time he is stopped by the police is when he uses a loud power tool to break a thick, metal-pipe lock. Neistat explains the purpose of his documentary to the police, who then let him go. Neistat also asks the police if they have ever stopped or arrested someone for stealing a bike, to which they say no. Neistat does a very excellent job in conveying his point that the police should be vigilant about bike thieves, especially in New York, where many people get around by bike.

The literary aspects of the film, namely the dialogue, setting, and tone make the documentary great. The quippy dialogue makes the documentary funny, but also persuasive at the same time, because it makes the viewer think that the police's inaction seem ludicrous. The setting of New York city (although necessary for the documentary) also provides an element of "realness". Finally, Neistat's tone helps clearly establish his opinion that the police are not doing a good job and need to step it up.

The cinematic aspects of the film are less evident, but the camera shake and the long shots that are zoomed in give the feel of being there where the action took place, and the feeling of a real documentary. The text track also helps explain what is going on in the documentary.

I would recommend seeing this short Op-Doc because it was funny, but also conveyed a serious message at the same time. I will try to clearly state my opinion in my short documentary, just as Neistat does so wonderfully in his.


"Bike Thief 2012" is not rated, because it is a youtube video. If I were to rate it, I would rate it PG. It is now on youtube and playing everywhere with a computer and an internet connection.


"Document everything
for if we don't
we cannot share
we cannot learn
and we cannot be sure"

-ZZZephyr (I'm sleepy)

How to Make Colored (Holi) Powder

Hey guys, I don't really feel like writing that much today, so heres a video I made explaining how to make colored powder.



If you remember, a while back I posted this video to show you guys what I am going to do in the spring with the powder. Its a cool video.



"Change up the physical state.
Change up the state, like a revolution"

-Zephyr

Fire Wire

Last night, I did some fire wire and colored fire experiments. Unfortunately  the colored fire didn't work, but here's the video anyway:


Here is a tutorial  on how to make fire wire:




"Let the sparks fly...
but the fire remain at bay"

-Zephyr

Simple Stories. Amazing Stories.

I found these videos a while ago while getting lost in the depths of Youtube. Check them out.






These videos, although short and simple, are interesting because they convey a story, and have a character that the viewer cares about.

In the video "The Guardian", viewers are invested in the boy because he appears normal, but has the tremendous task of saving the sprites from the evil guy with the monocle. The character is both relatable because he appears normal, but awesome because he can fly (at the end), and beat the bad guy.
"The Guardian" is also pretty awesome just because of the music. Is epic-celtic-viloin a new genre?

The video "Alight" is the story of a boy made of fire, and a girl made of water. The viewer cares about these two characters because they are cute (check out this video on cuteness), and because they seem good-intentioned. Unfortunately, the girl gets killed, which makes the viewer sad. The fire boy then proceeds to take revenge. The ending doesn't really make any sense, but that doesn't matter because the feeling is conveyed. How did you feel after seeing the video? Chances are its something like: 'woah, that puts stuff into perspective', 'hopeful', 'slightly downcast', or maybe just 'what?'. However you felt about it, the message was conveyed.

I should have a video coming out about making that color video soon, if not, I'm also working on a tilt-shift video.

"An epic can't be short,
but a short can be epic.
Take that Homer."
-Zephyr

Color

I have been working on a few projects this weekend, which I had hoped to had have completed in order to upload a video this weekend. Unfortunately, no, I'm still working.

The idea for the video is to basically have a colored powder fight or do cool things with colored powder over a song. A quasi-music video if you will. I was going to attempt to emulate this video:



In order to make the powder, I was going to mix rice flour, cornstarch, or talcum powder with water and food coloring, let it dry, then stick it in a coffee grinder. Then take the colored powder, and stick it in a stocking. I'm still experimenting on what materials/mix of materials work best.

The other thing I'm working on is making colored smoke for the video. I've found some pretty cool videos of demonstations of smoke canisters, which I may use as background-blockers in the video, or just as cool colored smoke.

Skip to 2:05 in order to see it being used.



Hopefully I'll have a video coming out in the next week or two wtih these cool things!

"All we are is dust in the wind
(ahem) COLORED dust in the wind"

-Zephyr

Capture the Fall... LITERALLY

For a school video project, our class needed to individually make videos that "Captured the Fall", meaning autumn, our feelings about it, etc. However, I don't want to sit though thirty minutes of watching people's videos of pumpkins and leaves, so, I decided to make a different interpretation of this video challenge. I decided to Capture the Fall... LITERALLY. Take a look:

I used a plugin in After Effects called Twixtor, which generates frames in order to slow down video. I shot this at sunset, so we had to use a high iso, which made the quality kind of bad, sorry. We shot it with a Cannon 550D, and edited it on After Effects and Final Cut Express 4.

Another video that uses Twixtor is Mica Ho's info flow show open from last year:





P.S. I fell 32 times in order to get these shots.

"The winds blow, but in slow motion
The east has edited. Welcome."

Blair Crew Occoquan Regatta

Today, Montgomery Blair Crew had four boats race in the Head of the Occoquan Regatta (HOTO) at the Occoquan Reservoir. The team raced a Men's Varsity 4, Men's Varsity 8, and two Women's Varsity 8s.

The Men's Varsity 8, comprised mostly of first year Varsity members, did fairly well. They placed 22nd out of 26, which isn't too good, but, compared to their last season where they placed last every race save one, this race is a major improvement. (See all of the race results here).

Some reasons for this less-than-prime performance are that the best Men's Rowers were put into the Men's Varsity 4, in an attempt to create one great race lineup, and one OK race lineup. In addition  the Men's Varsity 8 rowed with two freshman novice rowers, who were not as experienced  nor as physically tall and big as other Varsity rowers.

Even though the Blair Men's Varsity 8 went into the race with suboptimal conditions, they managed to keep their focus and power up throughout the whole 5 kilometer or ~3.5 mile race; a problem that had plagued them in practices.

(For a the definition of rowing terms used below, see bottom)

During their post-race meeting, rowers shared what they thought went well and what they could improve on. "For a plus: we definitely kept the power up, especially during the power tens, but we should have had a smoother transition from arms to legs. But in general power was good. For a negative, our set in the boat was off, and ports were dragging their paddles on the recovery because of it, which slowed us down. So we need to have better handle heights. Also, we could have slowed the slide down and increased the speed of our drive".

The team's fall season is over, and workouts begin in December. Rowers will then start their spring season in March, which consists on the water practice and shorter 2 kilometer races.




EXTRA INFORMATION



Power 10: Ten, hard, good, 100% effort strokes to re-focus the boat and speed up.
Set: Wether the boat is leaning to port, starboard, or is balanced. (Set is off when the boat is tilted).
Handle Heights: How high or low the oar is in the rower's hands during both the drive and the recovery.
Recovery: The stage where a rower prepares to take another stroke.
Dragging: When the oar skims or skips across the top of the water on the recovery, caused by improper handle heights and bad set.

For further info about rowing technique and rowing in general, check these three videos/websites out:

Rowing 101

Concept 2





"May you have a westerly tailwind that will propel you to victory"
-Zepher"

Dystopian Trailer Progress... And Sandy

Overview
Our Dystopian Trailer Projects are due this thursday. Our group has been working on it, but we still aren't completely finished

What's Up
I took the final cut project home on Friday, because it was still just a rough cut. I was nervous because at school we have FCP 6, but at home I have FCE 4. Luckily, they were compatible; so I have been editing since Friday. As of now, I have everything done except for adding our production company name to the end of the trailer. The production name that we are going to use is Flying Carrot Productions, which my fellow CAP member and I started while we attended SSI. I havent been able to figure out how to extract the footage for the production company name off of vimeo, but hopefully Mr. Mayo will be able to help us with that.

I'm happy that I got in all of the editing before our power goes out (It always does). But, I am annoyed that MCPS is making a decision as to whether to cancel school or not at 5:00 AM tomorrow. I will most likely not have power, and I will have to wake up earlier in order to check. Not fun.

Here's the video that has our production company name in it. (It's at the very end).



Can't Let You Go from mrmayo on Vimeo.


P.S.
I'll upload the Trailer on Thursday.

"I see storms on the horizon.
 Zepher will not blow them away.
 Prepare for their wrath."

For Giggles

This shall be the post where I will post funny images and videos as I see fit.

Thoughts on Copywright

In CAP 10's upcoming dystopian movie trailers, a project that involves making a movie trailer for a hypothetical dystopian movie, most, if not all of the trailers will include music or sound effects in some way.

Some music that can be found online is in the public domain, meaning that the creator no longer owns it, but more often than not, is not in the public domain. Even if it is, permissions from the liscenser, recording company, etc. are needed to use the music without infinging on copywright laws.

Sites such as ccmixter.org and freesound.org are good scources for music that is (mostly) copywright free. These sites use a special type of copywright called Creative Commons or CC. Depending on the specific type of CC, the arist may require that their name be in your credits, that you ask permission before using, or meet some requirement. These artists are typically very small, and may do thier own recording and editing.

The difference between this kind of "attribution music" and songs from popular artists such as The Strokes, Ellie Goulding, or any other artist; is that it is much more difficult to obtain permissions to use these works. In order to use these works, one typically needs to obtain permission from both the artist or band, as well as the publisher, record company, or liscencer. This is somewhat more difficult, and these institutions may ask for both credit and for a sum of money to be paid.

Interestingly though, record companies think it a waste of time to give permission or issue a liscense unless money is being made of of the showing of a video with the music in it. Based on my expirience, record companies rarely, if ever, reply about using a piece of music in a school or personal film. If they do reply, it is only to say that they don't want to spend the time issuing a legal liscense, and just to use it anyway if it is a project that does not generate revenue.

The laws on copywright, as well as the obscure interpretation of these laws, are both extensive and difficut to understand. One typical law, for example, is that if the song is "significantly altered" (remixed) then it is concidered a new work. Well, what constitutes "significantly altered"?

Even though using Creative Commons Liscensed songs is clearly easier to deal with and offers more defined rules than copyrighted music, if the song is only for school or personal projects, the use copywrighted material is usually accepted, and should be allowed for use in school projects.

P.S. I saw the movie "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" tonight, there may be a movie review in the near future. IT WAS AWESOME! Here's the trailer.

"Is west a copy of east?
or east a copy of west?
are both just altered north?"

-Zepher

Tutorial - Compositing - Final Cut Express 4

Here is a video explaining how to composite in final cut 4 express.

It is kind of long so I might make a revised version making it shorter.

"Edit in the west. Hollywood Style"
-Zepher

Getting Back Into the Flow

Well, I haven't made any posts in a while, but here is my plan for my blog in the future.

This weekend I will hopefully start doing some Final Cut for Mac tutorials on various things such as compositing using screenr. I would also like to post about backpacking and climbing, but im not really sure how to make that interesting.

Back on the topic of film making, I may also start playing around with Final Cut at my house and uploading videos of whatever; music videos, VFX tutorials, maybe short scenes. Heck, I may even make a short film if I am feeling adventurous and dont have three unit tests on one day like I did today.

Sorry if this post is a little bid disjointed, I still need to wrap up AP NSL homework and work on a service project.

I will leave you with two cool songs. Enjoy!

What Makes A Good Man - The Heavy

You Wish - Nightmares on Wax 

"May the west wind be full in your sails"
-Zepher

5x5

Clips Used

1. Putting on headphones
2. Walking across room
3. Walking to workbench
4. Adorning gear and walking toward garage door
5. Opening garage and twirling axe\

Camera: Nikon Coolpix (point and shoot)

Editing: IMovie 06

I did not use an online editor and I did not run into any problems along the way.

I am very pleased with how my 5x5 turned out. Since I wanted to use music, I played it in the background, which I thought the camera might not have picked up, but it did.

For our next video challenge, we could:

• Make a music video of a song that doesn't already have one (a semi-popular song) with a neighbor that is in CAP or by yourself. This project might take more time to do.
• A video in which there is one main color (red, blue, green etc.)

Dystopian Trailer Critique

Terminator Salvation . Joseph Nichol . PG-13. May 14, 2009

In the year 2018, an artificially intelligent network of robots and computers called Skynet have taken over the world, with the goal of eradicating humans. John Connor (Christian Bale), is the fated leader of the resistance against the robots. He encounters a prototype humanoid-cyborg named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), that he hopes will help the resistance destroy Skynet. Marcus and John are able to destroy the Los Angeles branch of Skynet, but unfortunately, John was wounded in the battle and needs a heart transplant to live. Marcus gives his heart so that John will live. The war is far from over, but the resistance has dealt a crippling blow to Skynet.

Here is the link to the trailer.

The trailer for Terminator Salvation is exemplary because it exhibits dystopian premises, controls, and protagonist  and uses many effective cinematographic techniques to expose the setting, create suspense, and make the viewer want to see the movie.

In the trailer, citizens are under constant surveillance by hunter-killer robots, that will kill or capture any human that leaves his or her hideout. Citizens fear the outside world and Skynet, and thus, their freedoms are restricted. Since humans are under the constant threat of attack, they live in a dehumanized state; not trying to improve their living conditions, having little food, having little to no contact with the outside world, in order to remain unnoticed by Skynet. These dystopian premises expose the general setting and premise of the movie.

Skynet uses Technological and Post-Apocalyptic Controls in order to control, oppress, and kill humans. The robots and Skynet are in themselves a Technological Control. The robots then nuke the earth so that most humans are killed. The rest of the world lives in a post-apocalyptic world where they are not able to gather natural resources. In addition to the dystopian premises, the types of dystopian controls are also used to set up the world in which the story takes place.

The protagonist in the trailer, John Connor, resists the powerful Skynet, and is the leader of the resistance. The characteristic of the "society" that is bad and that John seeks to change is fairly obvious: humans are being eradicated by Skynet. John is simply the protagonist because he is the leader of the resistance and the character upon which the film focuses. By introducing John Connor as a character, the film begins to shows the conflict that will take place in the film.

The trailer contains various cinematographic techniques that are used in order to enhance the message and overall effectiveness of the trailer. The video is shot with hard light (dark blacks, bright whites, lots of shadow), and is desaturated. This gives the video a depressing and post apocalyptic feel. In addition to this, the music sets the tone and mood for the trailer. Finally, there are a voiceovers with very charged words making the trailer epic and exciting. These cinematographic techniques enhance the mood and setting of the trailer and film, and make the viewer want to see the movie,

Depending on what my group's final idea is, we may use some, all, or none of the techniques I have mentioned above. I particularly liked the cinematographic aspects of the trailer (darkness, desaturation, music), and I hope to use them in my trailer.

Personalized Learning Article Reflection

 For homework I read the article Preparing Students to Learn Without Us By Will Richardson. The article is about how students nowadays are able to learn autonomously by creating their own assignments, relating their studies to their passions, using technology in and out of the classroom, and personalizing their learning experience.

A quote from the article that I found interesting was:

"Students keep blogs, which Smith regularly comments on, where they archive their work, reflect on their learning, and connect with potential teachers outside the classroom. Smith uses Google Reader, an RSS feed aggregator, to collect all of her students' posts and support her review process. Students also use podcasts to capture and share presentations they give in class." (Anne Smith, Arapaoe High School)


All of this is interesting, and in some ways our class already does this. What I thought was particularly interesting was the part about students using podcasts to share presentations in class, because it could be used in our film class to give tutorials, instructions, or assignments to the students.


 Something that I found surprising about the article was that it says "personalizing the learning experience is not just a possibility—it's almost an expectation" (Will Richardson). I feel like this is a very broad generalization. It is almost an expectation according to whom? Another key piece of information that the article omits is: How do students that use this learning style compare to students that learn other ways? How do they compare in tests and grades?

A topic that I am interested in and would like to learn more about is how to use Final Cut Pro. My most recent problem was trying to import the clips from film individually, as in iMovie06, rather than in one big block of film.

Link to annotated article:
http://diigo.com/0sx4o

Movie Review

Today I looked at the "Blades of Glory" movie in the New York Times by Stephen Holden. The link to the movie review with my annotations is at the bottom of this page.

Holden talked mostly about Will Ferrel and his acting in the movie. He seemed to jump around from character/actor description, to the plot, then back. He avoided talking about the cinematic aspects of the film, but did interject some of his own opinion into the review. When he talks about the plot, he doesn't reveal enough of the challenge that the skaters face, but reveals too much about what happens toward the end of the movie. Holden gave the movie a positive review, as would I, it is hilarious and a classic Will Ferrel movie.

For our class quarterly movie reviews, I believe we should give a brief plot summary of the movie, then write about something interesting, good, or bad that we saw in the movie. We could wirite about actors,  cinematography, etc.



http://diigo.com/0ssxu

About Myself and Film

Images That Describe Me:
Welcome to Zephyr, my blog. My name is Connor. I have four years in film experience, starting in sixth grade at Silver Spring International Middle School. In sixth grade I started LCL, seventh grade LCFL, eighth grade LCML, and ninth grade CAP Scriptwriting.

Some of my favorite film projects I have participated in are:

• Creator vs Creation Stopmotion Project

Can't Let You Go from mrmayo on Vimeo.

• Short Middle School Film (Five Star)

Five Star from mrmayo on Vimeo.

I like to do almost all of the jobs in a film production. Director, Actor, Cinematographer, and Editor; but if I had to pick my forte, I would say that it is editing. At MBHS, we have Macintosh computers with finalcut Pro, which is awesome compared to iMovie06, which is what I used at SSIMS.

Other ways we could use our blogs in class are to ask questions to our teachers and collaborate with other students to create better films. This can also be applied to other CAP Classes, and our Change Project. In terms of film class we can use the blogs to brainstorm film ideas and collaborate on existing ideas in order to make them better.