The Ultimate Playground Movie!!

Lord of the Rings Analysis

Epic Films are a very interesting type of film. The Lord of the Ring’s is not the only famous epic film. There are many others like Gone with the Wind, Star Wars, and Dances with Wolves. Epic films tend to be very long, have many heroes, one main hero, a large geographical setting, and many super natural forces. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a very interesting, intense, and confusing movie. Peter Jackson directed an incredible trilogy of movies. There are many different heroic characters and there are also many super natural forces, just to name a couple. Mary and Pippin, Sam, and Frodo are just a couple of the heroic characters. The super natural forces are also an enormous part of this trilogy; there are many different wizards throughout all three movies.

A major part of epic films are the heroic characters. There are many heroic characters in an epic film, but there is always one main hero, the epic hero. An epic hero is a character that has incredible bravery whose actions affect a wide variety of people. There were many heroic characters in the Lord of the Rings, Mary and Pippin, Sam, and Frodo are just a few. Mary and Pippin are two hobbits that are very unlikely heroes. They are always goofing around and very silly little hobbits. They didn’t understand how important this quest was until it came to them to save Frodo. At the end of the first movie the hobbits were put in the position to distract the orks or let Frodo be trampled. Without thinking they both jumped out and drew the orks to them so Frodo and Sam could get away with the ring. Distracting the orks ended in the hobbits being captured and held captive by the orks. Also, at the end of the second movie while they were with the tree they told him to take them into Isengard. They were both worried about it, but they knew it was the thing they had to do. Sam was another great heroic character. Sam survived as Frodo’s guide. He warns Frodo about dangers, he feeds Frodo, and he worries when Frodo doesn’t eat. He is always protecting Frodo from the ring, the many forces that try to over take Frodo, Sam steps in and pulls Frodo back. He promised Gandolph that he would stay with Frodo no matter what. Sam sticks to that promise as well as always being optimistic and loyal. He showed his loyalty in the first movie when Frodo was trying to go away by himself on the river. Sam knew he couldn’t swim, but yet he still went into the river after Frodo. This seen had great screen shots like tracking, close-up, and long shot. In the second movie he showed his loyalty and bravery when Frodo was standing in front of the black rider holding the ring. The ring’s powers were driving Frodo to put it on, but Sam jumped in and saved Frodo from both the black rider and the ring. This ended in Frodo being confused and drawing his sword on Sam, in an incredible downward looking shot. Finally, Frodo the epic hero. Throughout the movies he has done what everyone else can’t. He is caring the ring for everyone else. The powers over take everyone else and turn them evil. He knows he is the only one that can and that is why he volunteered to take it on to Mordore. He has shown bravery and courage throughout both movies. During the first movie a the very beginning of the journey, he showed a lot of courage to keep going although the black riders were already chasing them. He could have easily given up and chickened out. At the end of the second movie when he had the ring and was standing in front of the black rider, there was an incredible close-up screen shot that show the strength the ring had. Frodo has had many challenges thrown at him throughout both movies, but he has withstood everyone of them.

A second major part of the epic films are the supernatural forces. A super natural force is an unnatural force that is out this world. In the Lord of the Rings there were many supernatural forces. There were wizards and trees just for example. The two main wizards were Gandolph and Saramon. Gandolph and Saramon were in both the first and second movie. They had a major part in the first movie that showed their powers. When they were battling. There were multiple tracking shots and close-up shots as they threw each other across the room. Also Gandolph fought the Lathram in the first movie, he had him beat until the end the Lathram grabbed Gandolph with his tail. As the monster and Gandolph were falling it showed an incredible downward angle shot with a lot of framing. The framing involved the ledge and the decreasing size of the hole they were falling into. Gandolph fought the monster all the way up to Saramon’s tower and beat it out. This was an example of literally fighting until the end. Also there are the Elfs are another very important supernatural figure in the movie. The Arwen protected Frodo and carried him to Rivendell to get him help, in the first movie. The black riders chased her the whole way, but she never gave up. She even destroyed them after she crossed the border into Rivendell. This seen showed the elf’s powers. She commanded the river to take them over. This was an amazing screen tracking shot as the river came around the bend. Also the elves sent Legolas to help in protecting the ring on the quest. Legolas was a very powerful character; he is a bow master that never runs out of arrows while fighting. He has saved many people multiple times, because he is so incredibly fast and accurate. Arwen and Legolas are not the only important elves. Their home, Rivendell protected Frodo when he was hurt and recovering from his stab wound in the first movie. If he wouldn’t have been protected in Rivendell he would not have able to carry the ring any further. Rivendell was very important to Frodo’s success. The elves did many things for Frodo and Sam, just to add to the list, the elves gave them each a rope and a cape. Each of them had a special power, the rope releases when you want it to, and the cape is a disappearing cape. Both of these gifts helped them succeed throughout their journey. For example, in the second movie when Frodo, Sam, and Golhom were outside the gate of Mordore, they used the cape to hide from the guards.

The Lord of The Rings was a very complicated movie. People can view this movie in multiple ways. They can just watch is and experience the intense journey, or they can watch it and analyze the heroic characters and supernatural forces, like we did in class. I had never seen this movie before, but it caught my attention and the more we have watched, the more I have become interested in it.

Lord of The Rings Reflection

I honestly have never seen the movie Lord of The Rings. So watching the directors cut was kind of hard. It was hard to understand what exactly they were talking about all the time. But, while they were talking they were showing clips of the movie, which were very interesting and made me want to watch the movie.

Out of everything that I did understand, at first they didn’t want a prologue at all, but in the end they said that they had to have a prologue. Also, a lot of the shots were meant to show the scenery and the size of the location they were in. The directors purposely put these in to help the audience understand the location. The part of the movie that they were in the small house was very interesting. There was a lot of framing which really impacted the size of the house to the audience. They also mentioned that while shooting those shots most of those shots were not shot with both characters in them. They edited the shots to make the characters look closer together.

After watching the directors cut, it was very interesting and made me want to watch the movie as a whole. This movie seems like it would be an interesting movie to watch, with all the different shots.

Rocky, Paper, Scissors

The Rocky Paper and Scissors video was a very good video. Throughout the whole video the music mixed perfectly with the situation. At the beginning the music pulled you in and got you interested, then it transitioned to more intense music to go with them running, and at the end it then transferred to dramatic music to show the finale. They also made the music and the text coincide with each other perfectly. When they were bringing in the characters and the title, they brought them in on a beat of the music, which was really cool.

One part of the video that I thought they could have expanded on was at the very beginning when Rocky was in the alley and thought he was having a flash back. They shot the camera up into the clouds and made it appear a little fuzzy, but then they pulled it back without really having a flash back. They lead you to think there was going to be more then than there actually was.

The video was very action packed. It had many different camera shots. Just to name a few, when they were running there was multiple panning shots, at least one point of view shot, and several tracking shots. Most of the shots were tracking as they were running, with a couple shots inserted in between the tracking.

Overall this video was a very well thought out video that was put together very well. This really opened my eyes to the possibilities that our class can create!!

Carnival of Souls

The Carnival of Souls was produced off of the setting. The man that produced it found the ballroom and thought it was creepy and would work well in a creepy movie. The man that wrote the script found the organ factory to use as well before he wrote the script. These men wrote the script and produced the movie to go with the setting. The production was limited because of the funds. They only had thirty thousand dollars to work on, but they only used seventeen thousand dollars. The crew that produced the movie also only included five people. It also was written and produced in three weeks each.

The Carnival of Souls was a very interesting movie. It is a good movie for the resources they had to create it. Some parts are a little scary, but other parts are meant to be scary although they are actually are funny. Some parts seem like they are meant to be comical. When the girl is running from all the zombies it seems like they are making fun of it. It is entertaining to see what there expressions will be. It was hard to take it serious because of some of the parts that are funny. I personally was waiting to see what else they did that was going to be funny. For me it was more comical and suspenseful than scary.

The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty

Country Music

Pulitzer Prize Photos

Childhood Innocence

The pictures "Faith and Confidence" by William C. Beall and "Wheels of Death" by William Seaman are pictures that majorly represent childhood innocence. "Faith and Confidence" shows a young boy who was being curious at a parade. A young police officer came to protect him from walking into the parade, while in "Wheels of Death" there wasn't anyone to protect the young child from the street. His protection didn't come until after it was too late. If someone would have just stopped and helped him cross the street he might not have died.

These pictures really stood out to me, in the simple fact that they were so meaningful in the way of the children. The children were so innocent in there ways. These photographs really touched me with the fact that it really hits you deep in the fact that the children didn't know any better. The "Faith and Confidence" boy didn't know any better than to go into the street to get closer to the parade. But, luckily the officer was there to help him and keep him from getting hurt. However, in "Wheels of Death" there wasn't anybody to save him from the dangerous cars.

A Soldiers Death - The Controversy

A 21-year-old marine was killed in Afghanistan. This story is a very sad story. His company had two reporters with them at the time. When they were under fire everyone was notified that there was a casualty. The reporter was laying down trying to stay out of the fire taking pictures of what she could see. She was with the company to learn and report about the war. She was doing her job perfectly until she crossed the line of posting the photographs of the injured marine in the national newspapers and on the internet. The line that she crossed wasn't just considered too far by the American people, it was considered too far by the family. The family had strictly asked her not to publish those pictures of their son in that time of great pain.

The reporter mainly crossed the code of ethics. At the point when the family asked her not to publish the picture she should have automatically refrained from posting it. But, even as a journalist, she broke one of the main standards. Number four on the NPPA Code of Ethics, journalist's standards, "Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see." This journalist didn't treat this tragedy with respect, dignity, didn't give special compassion to this tragedy. Instead she was very disrespectful to both the family and the deceased soldier. She also didn't give this situation any compassion, she didn't think about it as if it were her own family. Finally, she didn't need to post this specific image to the public. The public was not begging for this picture to be publicized. She could have reported this story to the public with a different picture. She could have used the picture from the memorial service that most of the other newspapers used. I think that all the journalists involved with posting this story could have used better choices and thought more about their personal code of ethics to make the final decision of publicizing this image.

Picture Study

The picture study was a very interesting study. It made me open my eyes and analyze pictures closer for clues of it being altered. The picture I studied was a fake because of it being unrealistic. The landscape didn't blend together, so there were two different types of landscapes. Also, the calmness of the antelope running was very unreal; compared to how close the train is the antelope should be more alarmed than that. Putting all of these clues together caused more attention to be drawn to this picture. After more study they realized that the one picture wasn't just altered. The photographer put two entirely different pictures together to try to make one. Other than the picture being a fake it is a really cool photograph, if only it was real. The fact that he faked this photograph brings up the topic of ethics, was it right or wrong to forge this photo. In my personal opinion changing this photograph changes goes against the NPPA Code of Ethics. It is disrespectful to the photographic moment of each of the pictures that were put together. Each picture was a special photographic moment, but by putting them together it ruined each photograph's integrity.

The Center of Everything #2

The Center of Everything has changed a lot since my last post. Tina and Evelyn have been through many hard times. Her and Evelyn went to Wichita to ask her father for money, but Tina and her father got in a fight before she could ask him for money. On their way home the Volkswagen broke down, instead of calling her father she called her boss. Tina grew very close to her boss; even after Tina was fired she kept close contact with him. He knew that they were in a bad spot and would bring them groceries every week. He would also make unexpected stops at their apartment during the day.

Evelyn was also having problems in school. She had her science project all put together exactly like the directions said. Hers wasn't as sharp looking as another one in her class. But, her teacher still picked her project as the best, because she followed the instructions like they were supposed to. Evelyn and the science fair runner up didn’t get along very well. They got into a little argument on the bus.

Evelyn is now out of school for the summer and her mother still hasn't found a job. Her mother has been sick and puking a lot, so she has became good friends with her neighbor. He is a little bit of a troublemaker. She is now getting frustrated with her mom and is getting impatient with her. Evelyn needs new shoes, because hers are too small for her, but they don't have any money to buy new shoes. Her mother has been very depressed because her old boss hasn't been coming around. Her being sick and depressed has caused her to not look for a job and to lie around every day.

The Center of Everything

The Center of Everything is a novel about a mother and daughter living in a little apartment complex in Kansas. Tina the mother is a single mom that has not spoke to her father in a very long time. But, her mother is very active in her and her daughter's life. Eileen, Tina's mother, always visits and brings Evelyn, Tina's daughter, food. Tina and Evelyn are hard off for money. Tina works hard for everything. Tina and her boss are good friends. Her boss ended up having an extra car, which he gave to Tina. The car was a major problem car but it got Tina back and forth to work. The car's transmission went bad and Tina needed money. She is in a bad spot that she needs money but doesn't want to ask her father for money.
This book is very interesting to read, it brings real life problems into the book. It helps you to not lose focus on real life.

School As of the Third Day

Hi,

Today is the third and final day of the first school week at Oskaloosa High School. It has been a long week, it seems like each class is taking forever!! But all in all the week has been pretty well! It doesn't seem like we have only been in school for three days... it seems like the middle of the school year already. But, anyways it's Friday and I only have two more hours until i'm out for the weekend!!!

Shelby!

1st Post

It's the first day of school. The day is going well, it seems like it's never going to end. The classes are only for fourty-five minutes, but they seem like forever! It doesn't seem like school should be here already. The summer went too fast. This summer I spent alot of time outside working around the house. I also worked with my pigs and worked with my steer to prepare me for the 4-H fair. I road my horses to prepare me for barrel races.