Response to "Brainwashed"

Find "Brainwashed" Here!

Acknowledging the Lizard
This "lizard" that is highlighted in the fourth lever refers to "the part of our brain that worries about safety and dishes out anger."  It is the part of our brain that obeys punishment by resorting back to following the norm and being nothing more than a cog in the machine, and for this reason it is also referred to as "the resistance."  What Godwin suggests is that as artists we must take the risk and go against what the resistance once, and it is risks that lead to rewards.  So rather than obey the lizard, acknowledge it so that we can deny it.

Connect
I chose to summarize this lever because what I have heard more than anything in all of the Media classes I have taken thus far is NETWORK.  Media is all about networking.  Godwin is trying to say the same thing by outlining "connect" as a lever.  He offers that our generation should embrace the availability of communication that we have in these times.  There is more ability than ever to connect and reach out to others because of the internet and social networking.  In the world of creative work this is advantageous because once creative work reaches out and connects with others, work will come to the artist.

Connections to the Blog
The "connect" lever is very directly related to the blog.  Blogging is one of the various new forms of social media that allows us to connect to others.  Not that I am going to use this blog to get my work out, but I see it as a trial run.  I am learning how to make a blog, so when I am more organized and start to create my own work I can use a blog to get my work out there and connect to people.  I think this is realistic because since I have started the blog I have thought of different blogs I could create to demonstrate my work in the future.
As far as "Acknowledging the Lizard" I guess it can kind of relate because instead of a professor being very strict about our assignment the blogs are very open, which could allow us to take risks if we want.  I guess it is kind of like the resistance isn't really there, and thats why we are enabled to use our creativity to the fullest.
I don't think that these assignments are a waste of time.  They allow us to explore different parts of our creativity, without really forcing in a certain direction.  There is a lot of room for us to take these projects in whatever direction we want and I think that is what is good about it.

My Songgg

Song Critiques!
Corbin Smith does not have his song up yet!

Gavin McClellan's Critique:



Gavin Moore's Critique

Cover Song: St James Infirmary Blues

"St. James Infirmary Blues" is an American Folk Song of which the origin is unknown.  It was made famous in 1928 by Louis Armstrong, and since lived on in many cover songs.  More recently in 1999 (Well, not that recent) The White Stripes did a cover of the song for their first album The White Stripes.

Louis Armstrong Version (1928)

The White Stripes Version (1999)

Because the lyrics are more or less the same, I am going to focus more on Melody and Musical Quality in my evaluation of the two songs.
The Melody of "St. James Infirmary Blues" is very distinct, and would go as far as to say that it is more recognizable than the lyrics.  As a matter of fact, when I saw a brass band in New Orleans they included the melody within one of their songs.  Both Louis Armstrong and The White Stripes take a different approach to the melody that sets the two versions apart.  Louis Armstrong introduces the melody with his signature trumpet, whereas Jack White of the White Stripes uses his signature vocals.  Armstrong's use of the trumpet with the melody is what brought this folk song to fame, and as a blues musician he really extracts the emotion from the melody.  It is that feeling of emptiness and despair evoked by the whiney trumpet that perfectly accompanies the lyrics about finding one's love dead in St James Infirmary.  Even when Louis' crooning voice picks up the melody the trumpet can be heard trudging along in the background.  In the White Stripes Version however, it is only the vocals that carry the melody.  This really allows for the White Stripes influence the song with their own style, keeping the background simple with only drums and piano.  I also think that it allows them to change the meaning of the song around.  Whereas Louis Armstrong's focus is more on conveying the emotions of the song the way it has always been, I think that the White Stripes are trying to tell a different story and do so by carrying the melody with vocals.  It makes Jack White seem as if he is the narrator telling his own story, not recounting another.
It is the Musical Quality that makes the White Stripe's story different from Armstrong's.  Other than one verse the lyrics are the same and the main verse is this:

Folks, I'm goin' down to St. James Infirmary,
See my baby there;
She's stretched out on a long, white table,
She's so sweet, so cold, so fair.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her,
Wherever she may be,
She will search this wide world over,
But she'll never find another sweet man like me.

Armstrong's Rhythm is slow, lazy, and bluesy sounding, and is very simple under the melody of the trumpet.  As a result the tempo is rather slow as well, probably adante.  The low pitch accompanies the slow rhythm well to create the blue emotion.  The intensity actually varies throughout the song, which I think resembles the voice of the man telling this story in that he is trying to be strong but every now and then his strength wavers. As far as organization goes, it is definitely not chaotic however I do not think it is completely organized either. There are only three elements contributing to the timbre of the song, and those are trumpet, drums, and vocals.  All of these elements contribute to making Armstrong's song very bluesy and filled with loss.  The White Stripes version varies from this version as a result of the Musical Quality.  The rhythm is very steady and strong, yet incredibly simple like any other White Stripes song, and creates a moderato tempo.  So it is faster and more intense than the previous version.  That intensity carries throughout the whole song establishing an overall loud intensity. The pitch is generally high because Jack White's voice is the melody, but the instrumentation is much lower.  It is definitely a higher pitch than Armstrong's version.  The organization of this version is very similar to Armstrong's in that it is definitely not chaotic, but there are parts of the song that lack order.  The timbre is similar in that only three elements are used , and in this case they are vocals, drums, and piano.  Though there are similarities  between the two versions, all of these aspects of the White Stripes version culminate into something different.  There is that blues quality that the White Stripes always include, but there is a fierce overtone. The tempo is faster, it is more intense, and the pitch of his voice is much higher.  Together this makes the song have a more malicious tone. As I mentioned before, it seems as if Jack White is narrating the story differently, and it is this malicious tone that changes the story.  He almost makes it seem as if he is the one responsible for his "baby" being dead.  I don't know if this was what was intended, but I think it can definitely be interpreted that way.  

To choose a favorite between the two is very difficult because they are both so good, and bring different things to the table.  I love Louis Armstrong's version because of the trumpet.  I feel as if that is what the melody was made for, and if not Armstrong made it sound that way.  At the same time I love what the White Stripes did with it and how they adapted it to their own style while possibly changing the connotation in the process.  But since I have to choose I think I will go with Louis Armstring's version because I love the trumpet so much.

Soundscape

The Soundscapes I have commented on are the following:

Nolan Alexander

Laura Radawan

Stephen Hicken

My Soundscape

Apathy:

A Cage Within a Cage

Read The Story

"14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas"

An article by Mitch Ditkoff of Change This explores 14 different ways to get ideas, something very useful for anyone pursuing a career in a creative industry.

He begins the piece with an explanation of the two theories of where ideas come from, those being the Western theory of ideas being conjured up by thought and the Eastern perspective that believes ideas are innate and just need to be dug up.  Affirming that both are valid, Ditkoff goes into his 14 different ways to get ideas.  Sparing the individual details, the 14 methods are:

1. Follow Your Fascinations 
2. Immerse, Tolerate Ambiguity 
3. Make New Connections 
4. Fantasize 
5. Define the Right Challenge 
6. Listen To Your Subconscious
7. Take A Break
8. Notice and Challenge Existing Patterns and Trends
9. Hang Out With Diverse Groups of People
10. Brainstorm
11. Look For Happy Accidents
12. Use Creative Thinking Techniques
13. Suspend Logic

Each suggestion is inspirational, well-supported, and equipped with guiding questions that could help someone act upon one of these methods.  Three that really stood out to me are the following:

Follow Your Fascination

"Fascination, quite simply, is nature's way of getting out attention."  I love this suggestion, particularly because I am a firm believer that nature and the universe are on our side and trying to guide us in the right direction.  Basically what Ditkoff is proposing is that if we find our self fascinated by something that we as artists should exploit this one thing for our creative work.  I think this is a great suggestion for generating ideas because if you are fascinated by it then you have interest, and it is well known that having interest in something makes it easier to work with and learn more about.  In the grand scheme of the "14 Ways" I think it is also a great first step because it is easy and approachable.  Anyone can zone in on something that they are fascinated in.  If I were to implement this into my own creative pursuits, I would use my fascination of stars.  I have always had a strange fascination with stars and the sky, and it seems that the music, movies, and other forms of art that I enjoy often involve the cosmos.  For example, the poster hanging on the wall of my dorm right now is Van Gogh's "Cafe Terrace at Night" in which the nigh sky is very important.  I am now taking an Astronomy class which is incredibly interesting to me as well.  So to use Ditkoff's suggestion I could try to think of a movie plot line that involves space.  I could use this to make a character that is in love with the stars or even take a more scifi route.  I always thought that one of the most interesting things within Astronomy is the fact that what we see in the sky is actually a visual representation of what those individual celestial beings looked like thousands of years ago.  This could be the basis of a very interesting plot.

Take a Break

Too much of anything is never a good thing.  In just about any project whether it is creative or not, complete and constant immersion is not beneficial.  This is why Ditkoff's suggestion of taking a break is one that I agree with very strongly.  There have been many times when I have been trying to come up with an idea for an essay or a project, and nothing comes to me.  However, upon taking a break something usually pops into my head while in recess or once I sit back down whatever I am working on makes sense in different ways than before.  This also incorporates some of the other 14 ways because while on break there is time to observe your surroundings and really listen to yourself without the pressure of the project weighing you down.  A change of setting is sometimes all it takes to come up with a brilliant idea.  Using this suggestion in my own creative work would probably come along in the process of screenwriting.  Writer's block is inevitable in any writing project, and the best cure is to take a break.  So in my future if I were to write a script and came upon a dead end, I would take a break and come back and review everything that I had come up with thus far.  If successful, I would be able to see the project in a new light that would allow me to continue.

Hang Out With Diverse Groups of People

I found this suggestion to be interesting because I feel like we are often told the opposite, that immersing our self in a group of artists of the same trade will inspire us.  I think that both are right, but what makes this a great suggestion is the fact that we are so often stuck with people of our own trade.  College for example, we are separated into majors and surrounded constantly by people who are doing the same things as us.  I am even in a dorm that is almost entirely students in the Media School.  As much as this is helpful, in the pursuit of ideas I can see exactly why hanging out with diverse people can make the brain crank.  Personally, hanging out with diverse people would be perfect for finding characters.  A creative Writing teacher once told me that if we could not create a character to go people watching and create stories for the various people you see until you find one you like.  Hanging out with other people would also do the job, and allow for me to really get to know people to create characters from.  Their diverse interests can leak into my own work.

Activity for Make New Connections:

Nouns

Panda

Peanut Butter

Lake

Hot Air Balloon

Shovel

Bridge

Pinwheel

Waterfall

Balcony

Boombox

Verbs

Trap

Attack

Visualize

Control

Skip

Tumble

Toss

Dance

Argue

Smile

Adjectives

Slimy

Sparkly

Timid

Shallow

Hairy

Freckly

Expensive

Complicated

Yellow

Foolish

Intriguing Connections: 

A foolish Panda gets trapped.

A complicated dance to acquire Peanut Butter.

An argument about a sparkly pinwheel.

Creative Influences

The main reason that I chose to pursue video as a major is because to be an artist with a camera allows one to capture anything they love.  And for this reason there are so many different routes that can be taken with a video production major.  I know that the job market does not allow picky-ness when it comes down to specifics, however at some point in my career I would like to work with both music videos and movies.  A director who has dabbled in both is Director Marc Webb.

Since 1997 Webb has been making music videos for many artists ranging from Backstreet Boys to Matisyahu.  Some of his work in music videos that may be recognizable are My Chemical Romance's "Helena," Fergie's "Clumsy," and All American Reject's "Move Along."  All of which spent their fair share of time on TRL's music video countdown (back when that existed.)  Marc Webb's first feature length film was released in July of 2009, it was titled (500) Days of Summer, and is one of my favorite movies if not my favorite.

My favorite characteristic of Marc's work is his usage of color.  I love the way that color can convey so many things like emotion, contrast, and character.  In his music videos and in his feature film Marc shows his mastery of the usage of colors, especially when conveying Contrast and Affinity.  A perfect example is Regina Spektor's "Fidelity" music video.

Spektor is singing about how she has held her self back when it has come to falling in love, and to accompany this Webb creates an entirely black and white scene excepting only her skin and hair color.  Spektor's entire outfit matches the setting as well as the outfit of her lover which doesn't yet have a body to fill it, creating affinity between these two characters and the setting.  Black and White in the case resembles blandness and lack of excitement, suggesting that not loving anybody fully calls for a bland relationship.  The two characters display affinity because they are wearing the same colors, representing the fact that they are in the same boat.  Since the male character isn't really there and we just see his outfit that represents him, it draws the comparison that Regina isn't really there either and that they are both just carrying on their relationship and lives without really living it.  That is until the end when we see a turning point symbolized by Regina throwing a white and black heart necklace to the floor (no longer "protecting her heart truly") before the man-less outfit that is kneeling before her in a proposal-like position.  As it crashes to the floor it explodes into colors, representing Regina's decision to engulf herself in love or "love somebody fully"as she would put it.  The color not only creates an incredible visual contrast, but demonstrates the contrast between being cautious and allowing love to take over.  The man appears in his once empty clothing, representing the life that wasn't there before, as the two proceed to have a color fight that looks way more fun in contrast to the activities they were doing in the black and white scene.

(500) Days of Summer also displays Webb's expertise with color usage, however what it really excels in is Tension and Release.  From the very beginning of the movie the narrator states, "This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story" and immediately tension is created. When the audience hears that it is a story of Tom meeting the girl of his dreams Summer, they do not want to hear that it isn't a love story because that is against what is expected.  Webb carries the tension through the first scene which is a breakup scene, not really what you want to see in the beginning of a relationship, however we do realize that this is not the first day of Summer because of the clever graphics that introduce each scene with a corresponding day.  The tension is alleviated when we reel back to day 1 and see the first time Tom lays eyes on Summer, and then in the days following attempts to pursue her as any male protagonist would in the average story of boy meets girl.  This is the release.  The art of this movie is that the audience is constantly going back and forth between tension and release as the movie jumps back and forth between different points in the relationship between Summer and Tom.  One minute Tom will be dancing and singing to "You Make My Dreams Come True," and in the next second the day will change to a number like 325 and Tom will be shown stepping out of the elevator to work devastated by the lack of Summer in his life.  But no need to fret, the movie ends with release, just not in an expected way.  And this is merely how the movie captures tension and release as a whole.  The characters and awkward interactions also master the art.

This is the full length preview of the movie which obviously does not have the same affect that the whole movie does, however the sound clip used of the narrator's introduction shows how tension is set up from the very beginning, and we see some of the tension and release in the dialogue.  Especially within the conversation that Tom and Summer have about nicknames.

What inspired me most to go into video is the ability to create something worthwhile.  If I do anything, what I want most is to create something with a valuable message or a deeper meaning which is what a lot of media lacks these days.  An artists that inspires me in this respect is Lupe Fiasco.  Even though he is a musical artist and not a film maker, he is still a creative influence because he strives to fill his music with content that actually matters.  He speaks out politically on issues such as racism, rape, poverty, and always encourages his listeners to think and speak out for themselves.  

Lupe's work shows the difference between Didactic and Active Themes.  I personally would want to create movies with active themes that call for the audience to make up their own minds about what they are viewing because this encourages thinking and coming to one's own conclusions, as opposed to just effortlessly comprehending what is being told.  In most pop music listeners are just being told what to think, which is a didactic approach.  For example in Ke$ha's song "We Are Who We Are" the listener is being told "Tonight we’re going hard/ Just like the world is ours/ We’re tearin’ it apart/ You know we’re superstars/ We are who we are!"  There is nothing more to consider, that is that.  Ke$ha and her gang are going hard with glitter and torn up stockings and they are superstars.  There is nothing left for the audience to think about, it is just given to them. Lupe Fiasco however, is very active in his lyricism, and "Streets On Fire" is a song that represents this.

The song refers to a disease that is taking over, and that we do not quite know the cure: "no pill can heal the ill of this/ sickness some are still in doubt of its existence".  Everyone is blaming someone else for its creation, "some say a morgue, some say the skies, some say the floors/ whores say the nuns, nuns say the whores" and as a result we just do not know where it has come from.  Lupe then goes on to outline how all of the information about this disease is somewhat hidden.  My brief explanation does no justice to the actual lyrics, but it is evident that Lupe is letting the audience figure out a lot for themselves.  What exactly is he talking about? A lot of listeners on the internet have identified the "disease" to be AIDs, which makes complete sense, however since Fiasco does not explicitly state this the answer is left to the listener.  These lyrics are brilliantly crafted to make the listener think about so many different things, and this is the active approach that I want to take when I create my own art. 

TestTestTest

Nawwwwwlins Pic