So I wanted to do a blog about the Sail Away premiere but Nathan beat me too it. But I just wanted to say a few things about my experience. I can't say thanks enough to the seniors for letting me be a part of their project, I have learned so much from them. The premiere was fun to see everyone together for the finishing goodbye of Sail Away. It was exciting to see the film put together. I'm defiantly going to miss everyone. Also, I wish the seniors the best of luck in their futures!! They will all do great things. On a side note, for those of you that went to the premiere did anyone else want to stick their face in the chocolate fountain?! sooo good.

Movie Mistakes

So I don't know about you but I like finding funny/goofy mistakes in movies. So I was bored in cla...my dorm and was looking at some, and these have been a few of my favorites as of right now.

I love The Wizard of Oz, my favorite movie of all time. so I thought this was pretty funny

I could probably list like a bazillion others! but what fun would that be?

Urban Decay

I'm the type of girl that love photography! I love happy pictures but what I really enjoy is seeing beauty in disaster. So as I was stumbling I found some pictures of just that! and I wanted to show ya'll! There was a page of a ton but these were just a few of my favorites

reading

So lately I've been caught up reading blogs instead of posting them. After all these great conversations of joy and anger I don't even think I can blog about anything interesting anymore. So I just wanted to say how these blogs make my life, they crack me up. So ya'll should keep posting what ya posting. Maybe I'll be able to find something interesting to blog about in the meantime.

Question

Okay so this isn't a blog but I've been meaning to ask... how come my name isn't on the side bar ---> ?

that is all :)

hope everyone is having an amazing Sunday!!

Late Blog

So I know this blog is a couple days late but I really wanted to settle in what Nicole Dreiske was talking about.

1. Fame

2. Power

3. Money

We all know these three things kill careers and can forever change a person's life. We have heard actor after actor say "Hollywood won't change me" later to be reading or watching that they have been in trouble which starts to slowly kill their career. As for me, I always say to myself; "if I was in that position it would never happen." When I heard Nicole Dreiske talk about these things, it was in a different perspective and it stuck with me. She told us to never lose yourself, never lose faith, God gave us this gift! She told us we should use our skills to help others. Finally, we need to always keep ourselves in check. Let's face it, once you get cocky I believe that's when you start to lose what you really stand for. I was very inspired by her lecture. I don't know if anyone saw, but on the chapel schedule it said she was talking for two hours, I would have gladly stayed longer then two hours to hear what all she had to say. If she's reading this, thank you for inspiring me, and for future reference, thank you for making me stay true to myself and to my faith. For telling me (even if it wasn't personally) to take a reality check.

It was defiantly my favorite lecture. epic.

Relflection

So, the first film we watched I thought was funny. It kinda made my day, in some way or another every girl wants a guy who is there best guy friend and girl friend mixed in one. So I thought it was funny.

The second film, I don't remember to much about because of the third film still running through my mind.

The third film, I still have the sick twisted knot in my stomach that makes me want to throw up just thinking about it. Like Prof Leeper said people get mad when they watch this. After the first scene I was defiantly mad, but not really sure why I was getting more mad through the whole thing. It creeped me out that every single character kept turing to look at the camera, the guys eyes were pitch black and it was creepy. It took everything I had to sit there and watch it and not leave. I hoped every scene was the last. The Catholic Church scene was what really upset me. Other then that scene, the first, and the last scene I have no idea why I was still getting mad. Or as to why I wanted to just walk out of the room, hoping the knot in my stomach would go away.

Leeper's Challenge.

WARNING: this blog may be short.

So, being the person I am, I wanted to try to understand the films we were watching just because Leeper said we'd hurt ourselves. So as we started watching them I instantly failed at trying to understand them. I caught myself basically sitting in amazement, not even doing the bad read good read thing. I was so focused on the films that I honestly don't even know what they were about, I just know I was very fascinated by them all. Moral of the story, if Prof Leeper says it'll hurt you.. believe him.

Confession and class films

So writing this midterm paper really got me thinking, I'm pretty much failing at looking at hidden meanings. So this blog will defiantly make you laugh. Every since I was little The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie and the 101 Dalmatians (yes, I did get very excited when Leeper mentioned this movie in class). I just love it. Anyways, in this class we look deeper into the film and find out what the artist is trying to say. (I don't need to go into detail about this since we all know why we are here haha) Anyways, so back to my confession, I honestly didn't know that the tin man, the lion, and the scarecrow were her friends. haha #FAIL.

Moving on, I didn't like that second video we watched. I don't know why, but I really didn't. I was just bored from it, I tried looking at a Leeper Student point of view but I was just not feeling it. When I thought it was ending, it kept going. But after watching both of those and all the other animated films, I have indescribable respect for animators. That stuff just blows my mind.

First Oscar-Worthy Youtube Video?

So I ran across this article, it's from December of last year but it still stuck to me. Film critic Robert Ebert declared that the amateur film maker should win the Academy Award for best live-action short subject. The part that shocks me is that this is just a video from youtube. So I hope you enjoy the video :)

Random and Children Films

So I've been wondering, Prof Leeper is always telling us to please our audience, but I kind of have a little problem with this concept. Not everyone is going to like they work I do. For example, the way I actually write, not everyone likes it, I express myself in a different way then most people do when they write. So if they way I write and express myself doesn't please my audience and the way to please my audience doesn't allow me to express myself the way I want, what do I do? How do you find the right balance to please the audience and the self expression? Am I the only weird person for thinking of this?

Also, Prof Leeper mention making children films with children. I had the pleasure of working with Nick Kellis who is a director and producer (his most known shows he has worked on is LA Ink and Trading Spouses). Anyways, he came to my home town to do just what Prof Leeper was talking about. Putting a group of kids into mini departments to make a movie seems crazy and crazier (it was most of the time) but it amazed me how there was a job for every kid, no matter what kind of kid they were. Kids who would never be friends were socializing and working together. By day three of the week they kids were running the show by themselves. It was an awesome experience to have worked on this workshop with Nick and teach kids how to make their own movie. The finishing video was defiantly funny!

Children's Video

I just wanted to say I thought those videos were adorable! My favorite was defiantly the one with pirates. It was so funny the cat was defiantly my favorite. Was this the same day that we watched the one with the dog? because I really liked that one too. They style of that video, I think Prof Leeper said it was 3D? but don't quote me on that! To many things are going on my mind, but you know, that's college right?! Anyways, getting distracted by a blog awesome. The kid shows are so boring, I mean what college kid wants to sit down and watch a kid cartoon? Not many. Buuuuuut I wouldn't mind sitting down to watch ones like we did in class. They aren't "filtered" like the ones on TV. They have more humor to them I think. What kid show has animals killing each other and dying? Or they have a guy cut up a dog? Not going to lie, when I saw the guy cut off the tail, my hear jumped a bit, only because it was like "woah this is what kids watch" and the shows I watched as a kid would never have that. I wasn't offended it was just a brief bit of shock. There are my opinions.. or rambled statements about the clips we watched in class. I know my blogs are brief but I'm bad at this and I don't know what all to write.

Sail Away to Michigan!

I help with Sunshine, Alyson Eddy, Miles Allen, and Joel Copper's senior project. It's sooo much fun! I don't normally blog about what goes on during these shoots but I heard something that just blew my mind and I wanted to share. On Saturdays when we film, it's just down the road from the campus, but we shot on Sunday in Michigan. We drove 3 (ended up being more) hours to the location with a bus and a car, the ride to and back was defiantly... interesting but fun, there is never a dull moment with this group. Anyways, we get to our location and filmed for about 3-4 hours, loaded up and began our bus drive back. As we all talked about how the day went Sunshine mentioned that of everything that we shot only about 30-45 seconds would actually be in the movie. In a way I wasn't shocked but at the same time I was. Everyone takes so much time to get everything and every little detail perfect. We spent a 13 hour days, 7 of those in a bus, (we kept stopping :)) but all that for just 45 seconds tops. Paying attention to every little detail, 4-6 takes for each shot sometimes, all just for 45 seconds. I think it's pretty crazy, but awesome how far people will go just to make 45 seconds look amazing.

Moneyball!

So, last night I went with a group of friend to see Moneyball. I thought it was a good movie story wise. But when watching a movie does it bug anyone else when you're watching a scene, like were two people are having a conversation and then the camera is switching between the two faces. I feel like this is going to make no sense... but.. anyways, it just really bugs me how the actor or actress will be in a different position from the back then they are when the camera is looking head on. The movie had a lot of that within the scenes and that's my pet peeve. Other then that I thought the movie was really good. Brad Pitt (in my opinion) can play a lot of parts and I was really surprised. If you like sports movies, or even not, you should check this movie out! It was kind of long but still good. Also, if you go to the movie theatre... don't use your phone, the workers come out of no where and tell you to put it away. (not from my experience)

Grimm Brothers

So, I took Prof Leeper's advice and read some of the Grimm Brothers stories instead of my Disney ones. I loved them! They were very good. So I think everyone else should read them! Here is a link to the ones I've been reading, I hope you all enjoy them too! Very different.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/grimm/archive.html

Goosebumps

So yeah, I'm blogging during class, but I wanted to blog before I forgot how I feel. While talking about what would happen if Christians stood up for the Mosque 6 blocks away from Ground Zero. I got chills, talking about this. It really makes you think and it's a very powerful statement. I just typed a book about a topic that we are talking about with religion and politics. I've decided not to talk about it any longer so I deleted it. After this class was another intense conversation has made my head want to explode, defiantly a lot of unanswered questions. Side note: The chalk drawling was pretty cool form of art.

Fairy Tales

To be completely honest, I never thought of Little Red Riding Hood as being sexual. So I started to think, what other meanings were I missing? I knew the other stories that we talked about like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. I guess it's easier to see the messages as we get older. So it looks like I'll be spending my weekend watching Disney movies. Also, on a side note, I really liked the quote we talked about in class "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing wrong" it really sticks to me but I won't go into detail about that. So as for my Disney movies I'll be watching this weekend, it makes me love being a film major even more. :)

Art is borderless

So I saw this picture and it made me think of this class for some odd reason. I wanted to share because I think we all as artist can relate. (sorry for it being small and weird, I had to make it to fit on the blog somehow)

Hmm

So, today's discussion kind of made my head hurt.. but in a good way of course! I honestly don't think I can even put this short blog into words, my mind is still all over the place. After today's class in general I was mentally exhausted, I don't think I have ever thought that deep about any type of art. I fully believe that this class is really going to change our perspective on the way we view and make our art. I don't know how many classes like today I can handle without my head actual exploding but I'm defiantly excited for this class to push out thought limits. Well done Prof Leeper for making me think harder then I knew I could.

Hey! I'm Kayla and I'm a Film Production Major. It's so hard for me to pick my favorite movie or a movie that inspired me to want to make movies. Ever since I was a little kid movies have fascinated me. I'm obsessed with Broadway shows like Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, The Wizard of Oz, etc but I should probably just stick with movies. So as for movies go, I love all kinds besides horror. I love old movies like The Wizard of Oz and Grease. I'm also a Twilight girl (let the jokes begin).

One movie I'm really obsessed with right now is Soul Surfer. I really admire how the key point throughout the whole movie is how her faith got her through her accident. It's really inspirational and really shows how you can live for God and the good He can do.