American Psycho- 2000’s

For my movie from the 2000’s, I chose to watch American Psycho. I have mixed feelings on this movie and was a little disappointed. The whole thing was extremely disturbing and just strange. I have always been into movie’s that fit under the horror genre and have always loved gory, scary movies. I enjoy the thrill they give its viewers and thought that was what I was getting out of American Psycho. Christian Bale, who I usually love, played the main character. I think he fit the main character, Patrick Bateman, very well because of his serious, mysterious and disturbing personality. The whole movie, he acted very controlling, not personable and used his money to his advantage. The whole thing was a little confusing because he never explained why he felt the need to kill, he just did. He killed people throughout the whole movie who rubbed him the wrong way. Anyone he felt was a bother or more successful than he was, he killed. He killed pretty much everyone he came in contact with and it was just disturbing, plain and simple. There was no plot to the movie. Christian Bale played a character that was extremely successful, yet miserably unhappy in the life he was living and the only sense of fulfillment he got was by killing, and I don’t know where in the movie it explained his intentions for killing. Towards the end of the movie he went on a complete killing spree and then came forward to his lawyer who never believed him. I got confused towards the end because it seemed like he was being set up the whole time, yet even though he killed so many people and came clean about it, no one ever believed him, which I didn’t quite understand. Overall, I didn’t love this movie and would not recommend it to anyone.

70’s Movie-The Godfather

The main thing that describes The Godfather is long. This was by far the longest movie I have ever seen. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but at times it was dragged on and confusing. There were a lot of characters in this movie, which made it hard to follow at times. There accents were strong and different from what I am used to watching. I enjoyed the overall story of this movie. It was mostly easy to follow because the events happened in a sequential order. You became instantly attached to certain characters throughout the movie. My favorite character had to have been Michael. It was interesting to see how he started off against the family business and everything it had to offer, and as time progressed, he became the lead mad behind all of the operations. This was a very violent movie at times. Many people were killed and the movie did a good job explaining the story behind each individual character and their relationships with one another. It was interesting to see the difference between the relationship between men and women in the movie. The men left the women out on everything, and they were basically there to be the caretakers for the men. This didn’t surprise me, especially because of the time period in which the movie was shot. I really did enjoy this movie. It exceeded my expectations. I have only heard how amazing it was. The only major flaw of the movie was the length. It was truly hard to sit through a 3 hour movie because when the scenes weren’t energetic and lively, it got boring at times. I am happy I chose this as my 70’s movie because I’ve been meaning to watch it for a while and happy I finally did.

Screenplay-Assignment 2

Screenplay

Treatment:

Its 1:00 in the afternoon and Sydney and Brian are deciding their futures. They are exchanged students at a private school in California. They fell in love earlier this year, but they must go home. For Sydney, that’s in Australia, and for Brian, that’s in Italy. Their parents don’t understand their relationship and just want them to come home. They have officially spent enough time at the school to get the degrees in which they desired, but their jobs are waiting for them back at home.

Both of them don’t want to leave each other. They have spent a lot of time dealing with this, and think they have made a decision for themselves and not their families. What will that decision be?

Conversations:

Conversation 1: STARBUCKS; boy and girl; exchanged students

Person 1: im sorry

Person 2: Its ok when am I leaving

Person 1: Tomorrow afternoon

Person 2: When is your plane

Person 1: 7pm

Person 2: is your family here

Person 1: no they are not

Person 1: im going to cry and pack at the same time

Person 2: they were supposed to put me far, if I part from them I will feel very disconnected

Person 1: how many classes do you have

Person 2: just one

Person 1: I don’t want to leave this school

Person 2: Why

Person 1: I have to stay here

Person 2: These days are very hard, we are human, and we care about a lot of things

Person 1: Sometimes I just don’t know

Person 2: I think you wont know until you see

Person 1: you have to make the best of your time here

Conversation 2: STARBUCKS; boy and girl; studying/hanging out; American students

Person 1: you have to move the total minus this?

Person 2: yes

Person 1: wait so you use that same formula?

Person 1: I guess I was just looking for total distance

Person 1: I don’t get this at all

Person 2: yes, just do it this way

Person 1: Isn’t it caught by the receiver?

Person 2: its 13% of this number here

Person 1: did you multiply that by 2 then?

Person 2: um, I am not sure

Person 1: because you are rolling the ball here and here?

Person 2: well this is the answer here, I just don’t care anymore

Response:

I really enjoyed doing this assignment. It was interesting to eavesdrop for a purpose. I tend to eavesdrop when I am not even noticing, but when you are sitting and actually taking notes on someone elses conversation, you learn things about each person. One of my conversations was not interesting at all. 2 people were sitting at Starbucks studying. My other conversation was interesting, but extremely heard to understand parts of it. They seemed like they had just met, but were talking about emotional and private things. They seemed to confide in each other, while giving advice. I enjoyed making a screenplay out of these conversations. I focused more on the first one than the second one because it was easier to make a story with the first one. I turned it into a love story, and connected it back to the people who were in my first conversation. The program celtx, was very easy to use and helpful during this process. Overall, I would like to continue with my screenplay and add more characters and plot to it.

Shawshank Redemption-90’s Movie

The movie Shawshank Redemption was one of the mot amazing movies I have ever seen. I was a little skeptical at first because from the beginning it was very graphic and more on the harsh side. Many people who have said it was such a fantastic film recommended this movie for me, so from the start I was excited to watch it. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman star in this movie. Tim Robbins was out in Shawshank prison for a crime he never committed. From the second he got in there, him and Morgan Freeman had an instant bond. Many people beat Tim Robbins and saw him as a threat, but as time went on, people realized he was extremely intelligent and useful. He started to help the guards and warden when they realized he was great dealing with money. As the movie progresses, you realize why Tim Robbins decided to help everyone out and towards the end everything begins to fall into place for not only Tim, but Morgan as well. This movie brought me to tears. I loved the mixture of emotions and themes throughout this movie. You truly felt a connection to these men in Shawshank prison whether they were guilty or not. The character I grew the strongest connection towards was, no surprisingly, Tim Robbins. He was an innocent man proven guilty by authorities around him. He was punished harshly when he started to learn the truth, but got even in a way that involved using his brains and not violence and that’s why the end of the movie brought me to tears. This was an incredible movie, one of my favorites, and I am happy this project finally gave me the opportunity to watch it and fall in love with it. I will recommend this movie to anyone.

My 4 Comics…

how to read a book comic:

This comic was fun for me to draw out. This was directed towards any stressed out and overworked college student. We get so many assigned books on a day-to-day basis and, luckily, we have spark notes to help us out. This was supposed to be comical because the student takes the time to go to the library, check out the book, but right when she got home, she just went online and read it through spark notes. And in the end, gets an A on the book report written about it. Before I started drawing this out, I wrote out the steps so I could stay between 5 and 6 panels. I don’t think I could’ve used more than 5 panels on this comic; I got straight to the point and made my drawings easy to understand. I wanted to draw a comic that I could connect to and laugh with as well.

 How to fall in love comic:

This comic strip was directed to the average teenage girl looking for love. This was also supposed to be funny because everyone knows high school boys are rarely “fall in love” material. This comic was about a girl who got her heart broken and got creative and found her perfect prince by kissing a frog at her local pond. This was easy for me to draw out because everyone wished finding love and the perfect guy could be this easy. This comic was also supposed to be on the funnier side and supposed to be taken less seriously because instead of this teenage girl sulking around, she thought of a plan and it ended up being successful.

how to make a good breakfast comic:

This comic strip was directed towards any person who needs a quick and easy meal to make. This can be directed towards high school teens and older. Our parents inflict independence on us when we hit our teen years, including making meals for ourselves. This was supposed to stick to the “how to” comic, without being funny or serious. The pictures are self-explanatory and clarify how to make eggs and toast in one meal that is just about easy enough for anyone to make! It is a creative and fun meal, especially really tasty too!

Final story comic:

Putting together all the separate comics into one single comic was not hard for me. All of my comics were completely different, but they could easily make one big story. The characters were easy to relate to each other and the story lines meshed very well. I had to take some parts out of my panels in each indivual comic or else it would have been too long, but I knew what I wanted to keep and what I needed to get rid of in order for my comic to come together in a story that made sense to its viewers. I had no trouble with this part of the assignment and enjoyed being creative and making a story out of everything.

Final thoughts on all comics?

             Putting this final comic together was not a difficult task for me. Although the three separate comics are completely different, they all fit together well. This process, overall, was a fun task for me to complete. I have never taken the time to sit down and draw comics from my own original work. I am not the best drawer, so that was definitely the hardest part of this assignment. I can draw people, but drawing people in different settings and situations and making it look visually appealing was difficult for me. Coming up with the ideas for each individual comic was an easy thing. I did things that I could connect with and things that affect me everyday. I am a college female student who is trying to get by everyday. I have had to write and read plenty book reports, I have had to learn how to cook on my own, and I have had plenty experiences with different boyfriends in high school where I wished I could find my own personal prince. I wanted to try and make my comics funny yet relatable to my target audience, which I think they were.

            I didn’t come across many problems during this whole process. I did learn more about comics and everything they have to offer. They are a great and easy way to tell a story. I think more people enjoy reading things with more pictures than words and through comics, you can easily understand the story that’s being told based on the drawings that are given. It is much easier to understand when the pictures are clear and to the point. I have read comics before where I haven’t understood a thing because the pictures and words confused me, but through this process my knowledge has grown. I enjoyed this assignment because I got to see a creative side, which I don’t normally use in my classes, and made comics which I think people will understand and relate to instantly.

Hello world!

My name is Jenna Lewis. I am currently majoring in telecommunications and am blogging about all my experiences with one of my classes on design and production! I cant wait to see whats to come!