Art Film

1.  The establishing shot of the film White Material is an image of the main character, Maria, standing in the middle of a dirt road surrounding by a cocoa field.   The first thing I noticed when looking at this image was the way Maria was standing in the road.  She is faced sideways starring out into the field with a look of distraught on her face.   By looking at her stance and facial expression I could get a feel that this movie was going to be very serious and that Maria played a very significant role.  The second thing that caught my eye when looking at this image was the dirt road in the distance.  This showed allowed viewers to see the type of setting that this movie was going to take place in.  The area that surrounds Maria in this picture shows to viewers the area that people in this film are living in.  Understanding the setting of this film is crucial in understanding the conflict in this film.  By seeing Maria look out at the cocoa field showed to viewers from the very beginning of the film that Maria had a strong attachment for the cocoa fields.  I believe this image was meant for viewers to be able to not only get a view of the area that this film is going to take place, but also to be able to foreshadow into the struggles and conflicts that the plot of this movie presents.  

2.  One of the interesting camera angles that I remember seeing a lot during the film deep focus shots of the cocoa fields.  These shots would show how big and long the fields were because you would look at the field in a distance.  A great example of this is in the establishing shot.  The main focus of the shot is surrounded by the setting of the film.  Another camera shot that occurred a lot during the film was long shot.  Because the main character, Maria, played such an important role in this movie she was constantly being filmed for a long time and there would be close ups of her face.  The reason for the close ups was to show her emotion on her face.  This film was very emotional and the characters went through a lot during the movie.  Maria was always under a lot of stress and wanted more than anything for her plantation to stay alive.  In both pictures of picture of Maria also exhibits a point of view shot.  A point of view shot is a shot that show a character and what she is looking at.  In the establishing shot she is looking at the plantation of cocoa and that symbolizes what Maria truly lives for.  The plantation means everything to her, even more than her own family’s safety.  In the second photo of the close up of Maria’s face, you can see that she was looking at a radio of some sorts and then looked away.  You can tell from the look on her face that she heard something and was clearly looking for something because she is standing in the woods.  The facial expressions and setting of where Maria is are what allow viewers to feel the real tome of the film.

3.  The film White Material took place in Africa.  Maria and her husband owned a coffee plantation and many civilians in the area worked on their coffee plantation.  They had one teenage son who also lived with them on the plantation.  But, during this time in the film a civil war broke out and the rebel soldiers were committing all acts of violence.  Many of these soldiers were young boys who were brainwashed to commit these crimes!  The area was no longer safe for Maria and her family to live in, but Maria was not giving up on her coffee plantation.  Their family was from France, and she had no desire to return home.  She said that Africa was now her home and she would do anything to keep her coffee plantation running.  What Maria didn’t realize is how much danger she was putting her family in.  One scene in the film that really bothered me was when her son shaved all his hair off of his head and was going around the house fooling around with their shotguns.  The scene scared me a little bit because I hate to see kids act out and threaten to kill themselves or others.  Also during this time in the film, her son teamed up with the rebel soldiers and gave them all of his family’s food and medicine.  The son and the soldiers than began eating the medicine in large doses.   These few scenes showed how truly disturbed the children were that were growing up in this terrible environment.  This film had a lot of violent scenes with a lot of killing, but the one that stood out to me was the one where Maria found her son dead in one of the shed son the plantation.  He had burned to death.  This was a very sad scene and terrible for a mother to ever have to go through.  But, at the same time this should have been a wakeup call to Maria that she put her family in danger and is no long safe in Africa.  Both these scenes reminded me of one of my favorite books, A Long Way Gone, because this novel also deals with rebel armies and the brainwashing of these young boys.  This novel was taken plaec in Lebon and the affects of the war had a huge impact on this young man's life who wrote the novel.  He lived to tell his story to make others around the worl aware of what people are livng like in these countries.  It makes me realize how lucky I am to live in such a safe environment.

4.  In the film White Material there were 4 main characters, Maria, Andre, Manuel, and Andre’s father.  Andre was Maria’s husband and Manuel was her son.  Maria was the first character that the viewers were introduced to in the film.  Throughout the movie you could see her strong sense of determination.  But, even though she was so determined she was very inconsiderate of her family and those around her.  She was so concerned with her plantation dh having what she wanted that she did not care that she was putting others in danger by making them work on the plantation.  By the end of the movie she finally realized that she lost what was most valuable in her life and that was her family!  Her husband, Andre, was much more realistic about the plantation and knew that if they were going to survive they needed to give it up.  He loved his wife, but saw her slipping away when the war struck and she feared having to change her life.  He played the role as the peace maker in this film, but struggled gaining the support of his wife.  Their son Manuel grew up in a very rough environment.  He was surrounded by violence and all his mother wanted him to ever do was help her on the plantation.  Because he wanted to leave Africa so badly and hated the environment in which he lived, he acted out by becoming one of the rebels.  He felt as if this would catch someone’s attention and he no longer would have to pretend.

5.  The music in the film did not have words and would just play in the background as Maria would be running all over town trying to get people to work on her plantation in order to keep it alive.  The musical instrument that I could hear the most was the strings.  The music was very serious and set the tone for the movie.  By listening to the music I could tell that this movie was very going to be very intense and violence was going to occur.  Just by listening and watching this short trailer scene you get a vibe of strong emotion that occurs during this film and that the characters are holding on for their life.

6.  The genre of this film is Action/Adventure.  It has a lot of action in it because there is a lot of violence going on throughout the movie.  It is an adventure because the plot is centered on an adventure for Maria to save her plantation, but in order for her to do that she had to fight against the rebel forces.  This film is definitely a thriller, and while not based on a true story it reflects a very real thing that is occurring in Africa and other countries today. 

7.  After seeing the film, White Material, and understanding the plot I could really take away a message from this movie.  In high school I read a lot of books on the issue that is occurring in Africa and other poor corrupt countries in the world.  Films like White Material are making people aware of the violence that is going on in these countries and how people are dying every day.  While this film is centered on Maria and her family’s coffee plantation, the message people are supposed to take away from this film is to be aware of these issues that are occurring in our world and to also be grateful that we live in such a safe environment.  The message that I took away from Maria’s character in this movie is to always put my family and the people in my life before anything else, because at the end of the day they are what are truly going to matter!

 

Assignment 5

1.    Describe Jazz music. Where did it come from, and what makes it particularly unique to Americans?

Jazz music is a type of popular music characterized by improvisation on popular melodies and a swinging rhythm.  Jazz music is a language that is inspired by ones passion and life time experiences.  Jazz music originated by African American musicians in the early 1900s in New Orleans and now is performed worldwide.  Jazz music was one of America’s greatest cultural achievements.  The music brought Americans together by uniting people of all races and people who lived in different regions across the country.  Jazz music was filled with passion always had moving words about freedom and what it meant to be an American.  The musicians sang about personal experiences.  Overall people could relate to jazz music and the songs spoke to them.  The rise of jazz music was a very positive and important part of our nation’s history.  One of my favorite jazz songs is Don’t Stop the Music by Jamie Cullum.  I love the music video to this song because it is centered around musical instruments and shows how powerful they truly are.  Musical instruments are what make up the backbone of a song. In this song you can hear all different kinds of percussion instruments that make this song have such a great beat, but the piano is what carries the rhythm of this song.  In the beginning Cullum is simply just tapping his hands on the wood of the piano establishing a solid rhythm for this song and then the harmonizing melody of the piano comes in.  Watching this music video and listening to the rhythm and words of the song allowed me to able to get a feel for what jazz music really is and that I should listen to it more often.  The music is very soothing and would be a nice change from all the loud and popular music that I listen to today.

 Don't Stop The Music by Jamie Cullum

2. In Peter and the Wolf, what instruments play Peter, the duck, the wolf, the bird, Grandfather and the Hunters?
Peter was played by the strings in the orchestra

The duck the oboe

The wolf the French horn

The bird the flute

The Grandfather the bassoon

The Hunters the timpani drums.

Peter and The Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev

 

Classical music was the period of music from about 1750-1810, the time of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; the music embodies clarity of form and logic of development.  The classical period is distinguished from classical music in general.  Because the classical period was expanded over thousands it was organized into six historical periods, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Contemporary.  Classical music’s audience is usually better educated, wealthier, and increasingly older, which was to the dismay of music administrators and marketers.  When attending a classical music event people are expected to dress very nice, this makes classical music have a certain prestige or an awful stigma.  For most people it is more work listening to classical music because you need to fully concentrate on the music to get the full meaning and effect of the music.  But, if you put forth the time you will get more out of the music and have a better understanding of what you were listening too.  Since I played piano for eight years when I was younger, I always enjoyed listening and learning about Beethoven.  By having to look at some of his work such as, Moonlight Sonata, I got to appreciate classical music and the amount of effort classical musicians put into their musical pieces.      

Moonlight Sonata composed by Beethoven

     

 

Assignment 4

 

The building on campus I decided to take a picture of was Sims Resident Hall in the Women's Quad.  This beautiful building has several Greek columns in the front of the building.  When first looking at the building, the columns are what caught my attention.  They really give the building that old historical look.  There are three Greek column styles, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthians.  These columns are Corinthian style.  Corinthian colunms are the most ornate style out of the three Greek style of colunms.  They contain fluted colunms and have very decorated capitals.  Capitals are located at the top of the colunm and are what allow you to distinguish what type of style the column is.  The Caorinthian capitals are decorated with leaves and scrolls.  These columns attribute to much of this building beauty.  The second feature I notices when looking at Sims was a small dome located on the top of the bulding in the center.  A dome is a hallow upper half of a cirlce.  I found that with this dome being small it allowed me to look at the overall building instead of just a huge dome.  For exmaple, when I look at the South Carolina State House in Columbia I find my attention totally directed to the dome and overlooking the other architectural features of the building.  Both of these architectural features provide beautiful decoration to the building making it a pretty sight to look at!

The architectural style of Sims is Greek Revival.  The two architectural features that classify this building as Greek Revival are the Greek columns in the front of the building and the dome on top.  The buildings that are the Greek Revival style of architectural are much older and have a history behind them.  The buildings are modeled after historical architectural structures such as the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.  This is my favorite style of architecture because the buildings have so much elaborate detail on them that it makes them so pretty to look at.  The buildings on the University of South Carolina's campus are one of the first things I noticed when visiting here for the first time.  So many of the buildings on this campus are old and have so much history behind them.  I would much rather look at an old building modeled after the Greeks than a modern styled building.  Our buildings are what make our campus look uniform and united. 

Pathenon in Athens, Greece

Assignment 3

1.  Every night before I go to bed I listen to my ipod for about a half an hour.  My room is completely dark and the only light shining in the room is the backlight from my ipod.  As soon as I turn on my ipod I go right to my country music playlists, so I can start to relax my mind.  Once I choose a song, I close my eyes and just listen to the soothing and comforting words of Kenny Chesney, Darius Rucker, Sugarland, and many more.  Just listening to the melody of the music puts me in a relaxed state and allows me to let my mind wander into my own world.  Country songs are like a story to me and inspire me to look at my life in such a upbeat and optimistic  way.  I feel as if the words speak to me and I can relate to many of the messages in the songs.  After I have listened to six or seven songs my eye lids become heavy and I start to slowly fall asleep.

2.

While I was listening to Pavarott sing his song I could tell from the very beginning that the song was about love.  So, I immediately went to my read and started drawing red lines for love.  But, as the song went on I could sense a feeling of sadness in his voice, so I then moved on to my blues.  My yellow color is what brought the two emotions together.  While love can bring someone so much happiness, it can also bring them pain and sadness because it is such a powerful thing.  I felt that this was a very deep and meaningful song that conveyed many emotions.

3.  An establising shot in a movie that always stuck out to me was in Harry Potter movies when viewers see the castle and know that now the movie is transitioning to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  The purpose of this short scence is to show the main setting of the movie and show a new beginning.  Seeing Hogwarts means that the students are starting a new school year that will be full of adventures.  As the viewers of the film it tells us where the move is heading and establishes the setting, so the movie can then go on to unravel the plot.  The estbalishing plot of these movies is crucial for the viewers.  The Harry Potter movies can get very confusing because there are so many parts, so by establshing the the setting of the movie and where the characters are will help the viewers to follow along with the plot better.