A Boy and His Robot

Here is the link to my 5x5:
A Boy and His Robot

1. First Shot: My little brother and his stuffed robot waking up to an annoying alarm and smiling (isn't he                             adorable?)
Second Shot: An overhead shot of my little brother brushing his teeth with his robot in his arms.
Third Shot: My brother eating his cereal while his robot reads a good book.
Fourth Shot:My brother tying his shoes with his robot by his side.
Fifth Shot: My brother and his robot walking out the door to face a new day together.

2. I had a LOT of fun creating this video with my little brother. He loves to act so he was super excited about getting to star in my film project. To shoot, I used a Pure Digital Flip Camera which I borrowed from Mr. Mayo. I was grateful that the school had a camera to lend me since mine recently broke and we haven't gotten a new one yet. I edited my clips using wevideo.com. Although it was frustrating at first because it wouldn't let me cut my clips or export them, I figured it out with the help of a friend and after that it was really easy to use. 

3. 5x5 was a great way to start of the year and get our creative juices flowing. The fact that it could only be 25 seconds long was challenging in a way because you had to trim a lot of the excess footage to get the perfect 5 seconds. I think I did a good job with my 5x5 though, and it was pretty fun to shoot it too.

4.For our next video challenge we should either do something much shorter, or much longer. If it was to be longer, I'd like for us to have an opportunity to make a video that tells a full story and is a couple of minutes long. If it was to be shorter, I think each student should choose a theme and make ten seconds video of a bunch of fast-moving clips that relate to that theme, like in the opening for the movie "Gattaca." 

Dystopian Trailer Critique

2018. Chandler Tuttle. NR. 2009
In this 25 minute film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, people live under the rule of a brutal government that keep everyone exactly equal by outlawing anything mildly extraordinary. That is, however, until a ballerina (Alina Faye) decides its time to show the world her beauty and talent through one great act of defiance that sends this seemingly perfect society into a chaotic tumult.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL9zg7-rzPc

         This trailer is exemplary because it follows the majority of the original dystopian premises and is able to get a message across without giving too much formation away. The red font on a black background is used to communicate to the audience the values of the society and hint at what's going to happen. Most of the images in the trailer are used to show how the government handicaps people and maintains the citizens under their rule. Using both images and text, the director is already able to give the audience a pretty good idea of the main character's personalities and struggles. The setting is also showed pretty well, although no shots of the outside are shown, maybe for a reason.
         I mostly chose this trailer as being one of epitomized standards, however, because it shares a lot in common with the ideas that my group had for our own dystopian trailer. The general premises are pretty much the same: that people are living in a society were beauty and talent are looked down upon while normality and dullness are held up as ideals. In addition to the general premise, we also want to use many of the same film techniques that were used in the movie including the background music, the fuzzy earpiece noises, and possibly the text as well. I'm sure our trailer will turn out looking differently than this one but I just found it interesting that there was already a movie with ideas that are so similar to the ones we have.

Reflection on Technological Collaboration Article

1. The article "World Without Walls: Learning Well with Others," by Will Richardson presents his ideas on how educators and schools should adapt their educating techniques to better fit the new technological age. Mr. Richardson explores and explain how many great, new learning opportunities are presented by the new "Collaboration Age," as he calls it. According to the article, teachers need to, "think of [themselves] as collaborators first and content experts second." Instead of trying to shield students from possible dangers associated with the world-wide web, teachers should help students avoid these dangers by teaching them how to appropriately use the internet and networking sites. In doing this, they will help students learn how to get the most out of the new range of opportunities presented to them now. All over the world, some of these revolutionary changes to education are already being implemented with excellent results.
2. Near the end of his article, Will Richard says, "Anyone with a passion for something can connect to others with that same passion--and being to co-create and co-learn." I'm sharing this quote because I thought it was a PERFECT epitome for the entire reasoning behind why its so important for students to take advantage of the Collaboration Age. By writing and reading blogs, online articles, and other websites, students have the chance to meet new interesting people, get advice from professionals, and share their love for something with someone who feels the same way.
3. Something from the article that I found surprising was the fact that a student was expelled from his school on the ground of "cheating" when all he did was create a study group on Facebook for sharing notes. The article didn't really go too into depth with it so there may have been more to the story but it just struck me as interesting. I was also surprised by the number of schools that are already implementing new methods for education.
4. I was actually very intrigued by the ideas that Mr.Richardson had to share. I'd like to learn a little bit more about what would go into the process of changing texts and curriculum at schools to suit the Collaboration Age before forming a concrete opinion, but the arguments presented seemed very logical and convincing. If the statistics and ideas the article shares about connected learning are accurate though, I think it would be very beneficial for Montgomery Blair to consider going through some of the changes that other school all over the nation already have.
5. I'm really interested in psychology, all kinds. The human mind is really amazing.

Diigo Link: http://diigo.com/0sy3e

Movie Review Annotation Assignment

1. I annotated a movie review by Aanchal Johri titled, "The Dark Knight (Surp)rises)." The review was published by our school's newspaper "Silver Chips."
     This particular movie review was very structured and written in an easy-to-follow format. The author begins the review with a short but powerful introduction including his general opinions on the movie. The introduction is immediately followed by an overview of the movie's plot with some additional information on the two previous movies in the trilogy without giving away any important information. Next, the author gives a general introduction of his specific opinions on the actors followed by more specific examples. Lastly, the author reviews the cinematographic aspects of the movie and ends the review with a short conclusion in which he highly recommends the movie to anyone who has yet to see it. The overall tone of this review could be described as admiring and enthusiastic. Amid all the praise, however, the author fails to make any mention of the incredible lengthiness of the movie.

2. Our quarterly movie review assignment should allow CAP students a fair amount of freedom while still keeping some sort of structure. I think it should be something along the lines of we get a list of topics we need to touch on (e.g. the acting, the plot, etc) but then its up to us to decide how we want to format it. Also, the movie reviews shouldn't be too long; probably longer than a paragraph but shorter than a full out essay.

Hyperlink to my Diigo annotated page: http://diigo.com/0su88

First Blog Post

1. Hi, I'm Milena! I like kittens and sunshine. I also like clean laundry because it's warm and smells nice. Platypi are the best animals ever. They're the best because they sweat milk and have poisonous glands on the back of their legs but still manage to look really cute. Regarding film-making, I'm particularly interested in the recording part and the different cinematographic techniques that can be used. I'd rather be in front of the camera than behind it but filming is fun too. My favorite film project that I've worked on has to be my Info flow show opening sequence. This particular project took a lot of planning, editing, and overall creativity. I'm hoping to use this blog to discover more about film making and share my findings with the world.

2. We can use our blog to...

• display past projects in addition to new ones as we complete them.
• give our peers feedback on their projects for future refrence.
• share change project ideas and progress with our other group members.
• share any interesting information related to the class or film-making.

3. I chose this picture for my first blog post because I feel like the new school year is a time for everyone to open up to display the talent and creativity they have to share. This photograph is also just really colorful and inspiring so I thought I'd share.

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenceshan/108050432/