LitandMedia

An important book to consider is called "Trash". Originally published in 2010, Andy Mulligan shares his traveling experience with his audience. Andy has visited both India and Brazil, where he found conditions in which the main character of this book Raphael and his friends Gardo and Rat live in. A lot of children do not go to school because they are forced to work on this trash pile, to try and find garbage to sell, or to use. A lot of families do not see the point in school when their children could be getting a little money from working on a trash pile. This book does not only cover the class difference, but also the political side of corruption. The book is set in India, but the movie was set in Brazil, which has recently been released in 2014, directed by Stephen Daldry, director of famous movies such as Billy Elliot, The Reader and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.  This book shows the world other children have to live in, what they find normal, what they do on...

A lot of conversations about media talk about "what if". I am a strong believer media and social media were unavoidable creations and do not think things could've been different. History shows media being used in different ways, we have just gotten ourselves into the era of technological developments. It would be unfortunate and wrong if we didn't use that for communicating news, entertainment, communication, and much more. It has become 'the new normal'. Young people grew up with technology, we do not know what it was like before. This frankly scares me knowing my children will raise an eyebrow at me if I told them what we had to work with in school, once their new technological ways show up. I do believe technological media creates a big impact in peoples lives. I feel like people have become lazier in general communication. Communication with another friend or stranger is just a single short message away. Face-to-face conversations are not a preference fo...

I watched as much as I could from the  Detectorists, the recommended comedic series from England. Detectorists is a TV-series that started fairly recently in 2014 until present. It follows the lives of two individuals that spend most of their day metal detecting tracks and open fields to one day find the treasure that will change their life entirely. If they are not metal detecting, they are in their metal detecting club, the pub/bar or talking to their wives about metal detecting. This TV-series might be one of the most comedic things I've ever watched. It is so dry, but yet you want to keep watching to see what they do next. Both main characters Andy and Lance, seem to have very unique personalities, but they are as stupid as each other. It looks like they're just bouncing their stupidity off each other. We gain empathy for the characters a little since they're so dedicated to the sport, yet do not find much at all. Or they think they do, but it turns out they haven...

My Favorite Thing is Monsters is a very unique "comic" if you will. The comic shows a 10-year-old; Karen Reyes, who investigates the murder of her neighbor. Emil Ferris, the author has a unique story of herself, she received the West Nile and became paralysed at age 40. She lost all use of her right hand, the hand she used for freelance work before she got paralyzed. Ferris grew up in the 1960s Chicago, where she currently still lives. I believe she created this book My Favorite Thing is Monsters a little like a sketchbook diary. A sketchbook diary in the sense that it seems to be a very personal book, about her childhood and her past. She manages to cover a few important topics in the book like race and class of the people. Starting in 2010, Ferris took 6 years to complete this comic, from start to finish. I found it interesting on how the comic has different styles of drawing within the drawings. I believe this might be because some frames are from the perspective of ...

For week Nine I chose to write about Wes Anderson and three of his movies: "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox". A lot of directors have their own particular style, which shots they like to shoot, and which they prefer in different circumstances such as emotion and action. Wes Anderson, in particular, has created his own style or twist onto the majority of his movies. These themes and shots go throughout his movies, not just one style to the next between movies. Throughout all these movies, the biggest themes would be the use of color and symmetry. We can see a lot of symmetrical compositions in Wes Anderson's shots. Directors are taught in film school that symmetrical shots are set up and flat. Wes Anderson wants to break this rule, as "rules are there to be broken". I have also just read an article on how complicated Wes Anderson plans these shots out. A lot of thinking goes into these shots, possibly ...

For week 8, I read the screenplay of Leaving Las Vegas. The movie was directed by Mike Figgis, and the novel was written by John O'Brien. It had a very sad, strange but truthful/honest storyline. as a Set Designer, for Ben's motel room I would make it very non-caring. We know from the screenplay he has a lot of bottles lying around, empty, everywhere but mostly on the floor. We also know he has a closet, and a mirror inside of it, and also has a bathroom. This makes me as a Set Designer think that the motel is pretty nicely laid out and cared for. This could set up for a good clash between environment and character. So I would add a lot of clothes hanging around on chairs, and everywhere that's not a closet. The character, Ben, has already decided he wants to die here drinking, so why would he care about where he puts what. A t-shirt or towel hanging on his nightlamp, bottles everywhere, spills of alcohol on his bed, and the floor mat. I would also add things that are ...

Virtual Reality is a computer-generated simulation that is controlled by you, the gamer. Games in VR do not always know where you are looking at every second in the game, therefore they try to build a story that predicts and guides you through a certain path in their world. My sequence is from the tomb where he finds the Copper Key: You stand right in front of the Tomb of Horrors with a map tied down to the right corner of your screen. This map would guide the player to where things could be and where things cannot be, so it gives some control to the game to where players will go and won't go. The player stumbles across a huge, long corridor, a straight line. So the player only has one way to travel but the width of the corridor to explore the paintings on both of the walls. These paintings tell different stories but are linked to one another leading to the end of the corridor, therefore a story can be told while quite accurately controlling the player where to look. There are...

Consumer Activism is the movement of activists that try to change the way goods and products are delivered and produced. One major topic is Child Labor. Children work in extreme heat, conditions, time schedules, or are exposed to dangerous toxins from a very early age. Child labor also interferes with one's early education. Since these children barely get paid, the owners do not give them the appropriate food, water, and care. Especially to live a healthy life afterward, if they ever get out. Another major topic is sourced ingredients in specific items from famous companies that should know better. An example comes from Nestlé, who used palm oil from Indonesian companies such as Sinar Mas. Sinar Mas is a company known for destroying the rainforest with their products, this destroys the habitat of many animals such as the orang-utans. This was brought public by Greenpeace. Other companies do the exact same thing, some examples: - Adidas's use of Kangeroo skin for leather sh...

What is your reaction to the text you just read? The author says "without a knock on the door there's no story." however the story started with him transforming his son into this Swedish guy that's somehow already in front of him with a barrel in his face. I like how each person who came carried their own story, their situation, their goal and their background (country, etc). I feel this story is something I can relate to in different ways, both the story aspect of being pressured to get something out and the cultural aspect. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect. Since I come from a different part of the world, I understand there are different cultures and ways of doing things. I do believe there are some stereotypes of specific parts of the world, that exist and maybe that is the purpose it has been put in the text, I am not sure. When I come up with ideas for stories, for my animatio...

Technology is a great development in today's world, it brings so many positive things to this world. We find information on the various media platforms that we can access for free anywhere, anytime we want. Information is just part of it, communication, entertainment are other aspects that are easier to access. But with these advantages, come its disadvantages.  I personally believe media is a very dangerous thing. It can be affected by a lot of things, stories that are not as interesting to the majority audience won't be shown. So we would not know they are happening since we trust the media being the only source of information. It can also be very affected by the money involved. As media centers are also businesses, they want to make as much money as possible and make choices based on that theory. There is also a board or CEO that decides what will be streamed in their news program. Hence we have different channels that are liked and disliked by different people.  Com...