Rise & Grind

For this project, my partner Marie and I came up with our concept fairly quickly. However, we did hit some bumps in the road along the way. Originally, instead of me being the "star" of the video, my best friend was going to come in from Long Island to be our actress-- since she acts professionally-- but sadly she had to work last minute on the day that we were scheduled to shoot. Another issue we had was the weather. Since our video was shot predominantly outside, we were hoping for a nice, sunny day. Unfortunately, during the first day that we were supposed to shoot, Mother Nature decided to give us a torrential downpour. Luckily for us, we were able to overcome our obstacles and adjust our storyboard to create the best final product that we were able to!

For the actual filming/editing portion of the project, we split the work fairly evenly. Obviously, since I was on screen, Marie did all of the filming, but we agreed that she would do this even before we knew that I would have to be our actress. I did the editing of the video, including finding our sound effects and soundtrack. I had a vision of what I wanted before we filmed, so sitting down and actually executing my ideas was really exciting for me! For example, both songs in our project are from musician Sam Phillips, who does most of the songs on the TV show Gilmore Girls. Gilmore Girls has been my favorite TV show since I was 12. I always loved the cutesy, upbeat, happy soundtrack they use to transition between scenes and knew right away that I wanted to incorporate them in our project. I think Marie and I did a good job of sharing the work and creating our piece. There was no arguing and no one was doing more work than the other person. We ran everything by each other and made sure the other person approved and we helped each other out where it was needed. And in the end we ended up with a piece that I am proud to share!

James Aronson Awards (☆)

Friday night I had the privilege of attending the James Aronson Awards here at Hunter College.  The James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism has been given since 1990 by Hunter College to honor journalism professor James Aronson.  Aside from being a beloved professor, Aronson was also a renowned journalist and founded The National Guardian, a leftist newspaper created in the late 1940s.

As written on the Aronson Award's official website, the award (in so many words) honors innovative and original U.S. media reports that shed light upon sweeping social inequities such as discrimination, exploitation, violations of human rights, etc.  The judging panel is made up of a prominent and reputable group of media aficionados including members of the Hunter College Department of Film & Media Studies and a select committee of various journalists and media critics. 

There are winners from 3 categories: journalism, documentary, and cartooning.  This year's winners for journalism included Jessica Bruder, Sari Horwitz, Jonathan Jones and T. Christian Miller, Andrea McDaniels, and various USA Today reporters.  For the documentary category, the winners were both Nathan Fitch and Sam Feder.  Finally, in the "Cartooning with a Conscience" category, was cartoonist Adam Zyglis.

Being in the same room as these winners and hearing their stories of simultaneous inspiration and struggle while creating and reporting their pieces was really quite moving.  Each piece dealt with topics that were really deep and disheartening but at the same time excruciatingly educational. While I can imagine that attending this event was most useful and stimulating for students who are aspiring journalists, I was so glad that I was able to attend.  Although I may not be a journalism major, baring witness to these people's hard work and seeing them be rewarded for it made me want to do great things and be the best that I can be at whatever I choose to be as well!

My MOMI Experience

I had actually been to the Museum of Moving Image in Astoria quite a few times before our trip with the class last week.  My family often looks for fun things to do on the weekends together, and since we all share a common interest of movies and television, we have spent several afternoons there.  With that being said, I was fairly familiar with the museum.  However, this was the first time that I have been there since I have been a MEDP160 student, so I was able to look around and experience MOMI with a greater educational perspective.

Overall, I thought the trip was a fun event.  I believe that it was very useful to have had us go around and be face-to-face with things that we have spoken about in class but would never be able to otherwise experience.  For example, the videocamera exhibit which displayed the evolution of the videocamera was really neat and interesting to see, because we spoke about it at length in lecture and would never be able to see those anywhere else today.  Things like that were really beneficial and educational.

My one gripe about the trip was that the museum has so many fun hands-on exhibits that we just did not get around to, be it because of time constraints or because these exhibits weren't deemed as necessary to visit.  Nevertheless, I think that we as students could have equally as benefitted form the "fun" hands-on stuff just as much as we benefitted from the more educational bits.

Although I have been to MOMI more times than I could count at this point, I would definitely go back again in the future.  The museum is always a good and interesting time!

Relationships Between Shots

For this assignment, I chose a clip from the 1996 movie Matilda, which has been one of—if not my most—favorite movie for as long as I can remember.  For a bit of insight, Matilda is about a sweet little girl with telekinetic powers that she uses to cope with her nasty family and evil school principle.   The scene that I have chosen to examine, though on the shorter side, is very important to the movie's overall plot.  This particular scene is where Matilda first discovers the full extent of her powers and exactly what she is capable of doing.

The first important aspect that this scene brings to us is its upbeat music.  We can conclude from this that this particular part of the movie is supposed to be positive and happy.  Next, we see a bowl of Cheerios and a spoon that is lifted out of the bowl all by itself.  This is significant because, since there is no hand visible on the spoon, we can see that Matilda is doing this all with her eyes.  The next shot shows the spoonful of Cheerios floating in midair before entering Matilda’s mouth.  The song gets more and more upbeat as the scene continues to play out.  We see Matilda moving by simply pointing a finger and snapping her fingers and dancing all around the room.  The shots are quick and sort of (intentionally) all over the place.  The scene ends with an overhead shot of things “exploding” all around Matilda.

This clip—and the entire movie, really—shows great editing.  Obviously, we know that spoons can’t float and lights don’t turn on by just pointing our fingers at them.  This is all the magic of editing.

Interview With A Hopeful Dancer

For our second project, I interviewed my classmate Lauren, who aspires to be a professional dancer.

What I Hear

This year, I commute to Hunter from my parents' house on Long Island, but last year I had an apartment on 83rd street, between the avenues of York and East End. I decided it would be fun to do this assignment while sitting on the stoop of my old apartment building, because... well, why not?

The first distinguishable sound that I heard was the wind.  Today was a very windy day and the loud gusts of wind came often.  The next sound I recognized was the sound of a fire engine roaring by. This was to be expected, as sirens are very common in New York City.

I was beginning to think that coming here was a bad idea, because of its lack of original sounds, when suddenly the door to my old building opened.  I remember from living there that if the door was opened all the way, the bottom of it would scratch against the floor, creating a loud screeching sound. It seems that the super still hadn't gotten around to fixing it, because when the tenant walked out and pushed the door open, the door screeched very loudly.  The noise of the door sent a dog living in the building on a barking spree.  Coincidentally, the tenant who walked out of the building was also walking his two dogs, and so the next sound I heard was the sound of dog paws and nails clacking down the stoop.  Before they headed on their walk, the man stopped to throw out his trash, and so I heard the noise of the tin garbage can lid clattering open and closed.

Shortly after this, I heard the chattering of parents and kids.  There were a few schools in my old neighborhood and I guess the school day was over because herds of children and their moms (or maybe their nannies) were heading my way, gossiping and talking amongst themselves.  In this sea of people happened to be my old super, who was having a heated conversation on his cell phone.  At this point, I was getting kind of cold, and I was not in a mood to exchange pleasantries, so I left before he got a chance to recognize me.

Defining A Space

Artist's Statement

Since I was a little girl, all I wanted was to be in front of the camera. When my parents took out our videocamera to record home videos, I would do everything in my power to make sure that all eyes would immediately find me. My love for being the center of attention continued from childhood into my teen and adolescent years. Starring in my parents' home videos turned into starring in award-winning independent short-films that were shown in festivals around the country.  I was 10 years old when I appeared in my first short.  A while later, I starred in another.  I don't remember there ever being a time when I did not want to perform in front of or for a large crowd of people.

While I loved every second of these ventures, they also called for a lot of hard work on my part, which led me to thinking about the other amount of work that goes into creating the film. That is why I want to explore the other side of the art. I want to take the passion that I have for being in front of the camera and use that energy to learn what goes on behind the scenes. To be a versatile artist, I think that you should know all of the different parts of your craft. Production is the next stop on my personal journey.

[He's My Dad: 2005]