This is a bit late, but I’ll post this anyway:

Back at the beginning of the Rose Scholar Program, I was just beginning to learn how the blog system worked. After the meeting that night, I was still a bit confused about how they should actually be structured.

I was happy to see that there was a writing seminar on writing a good blog post. He focused on first writing a good informative and then a good reactionary blog post. I liked how he split up the different types of posts into their core points and what makes their presentations different from one another.

After that, we dissected the different parts of a commercial to analyze the different features of the commercial. It really was interesting how we were able to dive so deep into (and dissect so much) the different elements (cinematography, cuts in time/scene, etc.). It really helped me look at the way commercials are organized in a different light.

I’m really happy I was able to go to this seminar.

Attending the talk on how to properly write a blog post was very helpful for the Friday Film entries. Last year, I primarily went to the Friday Films because they were the only events that could be accommodated in my schedule. And although I like to think that I’ve done a fine job at reflecting on the films as objects of study, I now know that my own thoughts are shallowly placed within the context of the film instead of viewing it as either symptomatic of larger themes in real life or as works of art that function as a means of knowledge transmission.

I really enjoyed talking about the logistics of film production, like how usic, framing, and lighting have strong effects on how the audience perceives the movie. I look forward to actually trying out the new tactics that were offered in the mini-seminar, but I have yet to attend a Friday Film screening. But now that I know what to look for, it will be a bit easier to see the film as more than just a narrative sequence.

Because the mini-seminar was directly following the Rose Scholars introduction meeting, I did feel bad about being late. It must have especially sucked for the students who were there already because the powerpoint had to be started for th few kids who were late. Then the fire alarm went off and we lost even more time. Oh well.

This was my first Rose event of the semester! I had a great time learning how to write better blog’s, and seeing new and old Rose Scholar’s. The instructor shared about the ways we could improve writing blog, he especially highlight how we could improve our blogs when reviewing movies. One of the activities he made us do was to snap every time we noticed a scene cut in an advertisement. This activity was very fun as I had never taken into consideration the amounts of scene cuts happening while watching any media. We then discussed different features of movies we could discuss during in our blog.

Next time you watch an advertisement, snap every time the camera changes angles. You will notice that you are snapping more often than you would think! This goes to show how many things make a video, that go unnoticed.

During the “How to Write a Blog Post” session, I got a better understanding of how to approach blogs for the remainder of the school year. I have little experience in writing them so it was definitely a very informative experience for me. At this event, we discussed different film terms and focused on analyzing films. I quickly realized how much of film I have taken for granted. When I watch movies or commercials, I focus on the plot, dialogue, and music. However, there is so much more to unpack. Through a short activity we all participated in, I realized just how many cut scenes there are in a 30 second advertisement. In addition, the camera movements are something else I never paid much attention to. In the Subaru commercial we analyzed, I realized just how much the movement of the camera followed the story-line. For example, during the more grim moments, it was slow and steady while during a more joyful moment, it was rushing forward.

I will definitely see all the films I watch a little differently now. Details are present everywhere, you just need to be more observant of everything around you. There is a lot of work that goes into making something and I’m going to look at things much more closely now, wondering more about the initially less apparent things.

I really enjoyed my time at the “how to write a blog post” event for Rose Scholars today. While learning how to write a blog post I also began to think critically about events that I see daily. For example, the state farm commercial we examined for its edits opened my eyes as to how truly magnificent the film industry is. While keeping us nearly oblivious without a watchful eye, we see an all-encompassing, nearly three-dimensional view of a scene on a 2D screen, a feat that amazes me each and every time I think about it since examining it with my fellow Rose Scholars a couple of hours ago.

The other commercial we analyzed, the Subaru one, also reminded me of just how important it is to make sure you are safe on the road when driving. My friend in Texas got into an extremely bad car accident, at the complete fault of the other individual, that caused a massive amount of damage. The ability of learning and remembering all of this while familiarizing myself with my other Rose housemates and being introduced into the Rose Scholars program was amazing! Very excited to embark on a fantastic year in the Rose Scholars program!

House Fellow Zachary Grobe’s insight into the perfect blog post has not only made me look deeper into the meaning of seemingly mundane things, but has made more introspective of my own life. While analyzing the attributes of a successful Subaru commercial, Rose Scholar residents saw the passage of time on screen, as a family experienced fleeting memories during their life, some joyful and exciting and others chaotic and sad, but one thing that remained constant was the reliability of their Subaru. A complex theme such as this was portrayed within a couple minutes with very few scenes. The director’s prowess in film making was exemplified in his choice of music, mise-en- scenes and editing. An activity during the event that had the most impact on me was the snapping activity every time the commercial changed scenes. I was surprised by how frequently the room was snapping fingers in such a short span of time! This activity was very telling of the complexity that goes behind making videos, even if the video is only a minute long! I was intrigued learning about different aspects of film making such as the effect that soundtracks, lighting, and camera angles have. This event broadened my scope of knowledge not only about writing an evocative blog, but also the complexities in life even if it comes in small packages.

Books have existed for a long time. Parchment and scrolls might be considered some of the earliest forms of books, and paper can date back to Cai Lun’s invention in 105CE (ARRIETA-MERAZ). Since then, books had been the main medium of storytelling besides face-to-face ones. But the birth of camera, and afterwards, Hollywood, has revolutionized storytelling. Being able to watch and hear a story unfold right in front of you on screen has dramatically changed the way we perceive a story.

In a mini-seminar about writing a blog post, Mr. Godowski challenged us to delve into the subtleties of films (and videos in general). What makes visual storytelling appealing? The analysis of a car commercial has shown that mise-en-scene, soundtrack, cinematography, and edits contribute greatly to the power of videos. By depicting stories from well-chosen perspectives (cinematography and mise-en-scene) and using appropriate soundtracks, directors are able to connect with their audience and create strong emotional effects. This is especially important to commercials: persuading potential customers to make purchases in 15 seconds is not easy without impressive stories.  For movies, it can be even more important, one of the reasons is that movies usually have bigger themes.

At this Friday Movie Night, we watched a musical called Rent (2005). This musical is centered around several important topics, including sexuality, poverty, and the impact of AIDS and drugs. Musicals require truly ingenious designs as everything shall be conveyed through singing, acting, and very few lines of dialogue. In this particular movie, the lighting was very well chosen. Overhead and side lighting highlights the main characters’ facial expressions, while relatively dimly-lit background leaves out unimportant details. The actors’ performance was also great. Their singing conveyed emotion through pitch, volume and tempo, while their body gestures add on to the storytelling effect. It is indeed through the uniqueness of visual and audio storytelling — mise-en-scene and soundtrack — that Rent is able to tell such a deep story in a single musical.

Sources:

ARRIETA-MERAZ, JOSSELYN. “Cai Lun: The Chinese Inventor of Paper.” StMU History Media, 27 Oct. 2017, https://stmuhistorymedia.org/cai-lun-the-chinese-inventor-of-paper/.

Last night, I had the opportunity to sit in on a blog post writing seminar. I was able to learn new terminology and get a better understanding of how to write about an experience. Writing about yourself or experience can be a challenge for a lot of people because you have to dig deep and figure out how an event has impacted you. While at this event, I reflected on my experiences writing memoirs in school, which I found challenging as I had to think about how I wanted to express this information.

Zackary Grobe pointed out great tips and suggestions that can help with personalizing a writing piece, which can be done by including small details that have a personal connection to the writer. He frequently mentions that it is not just a summary, it is more than that; it is about placing yourself in the situation and realizing how you feel about it, as that is what makes blogs captivating to the audience. Not everyone has the same ideas, reflections, or experiences. It allows the readers to see how an event affected you. Through this, our community of students would be able to learn more about each other.

One part of the event that captivated me were the commercials that Zackary Grobe showed us. Although they were short, there were really small details in the videos that added significant effects to the overall story being told. With the Subaru Forester commercial, I was able to pinpoint certain sound effects that allowed the viewers to feel what the actors were feeling. For example, when the ambulance was at the scene of the car crash, there were sounds of sirens and radios murmuring in the background. Upon hearing that, I was anxious to know what had happened and if anyone was hurt. The commercial portrayed that Subaru was a reliable company, and one way it showed this was through the accident, where everyone was saved and no one was hurt. This seminar taught me to pay attention to accessory details around me as they are just as important as the information explicitly presented.

I haven’t done too much blogging in the past. On one occasion, I took the position of “tour blogger” when an orchestra I was in traveled to Argentina and Uruguay. Those blogs dealt mostly in a “today’s greatest hits” run-through of our itinerary for the parents back at home, with the occasional cultural comparison or musings on music at the end. But I’ve never gotten the chance to blog about events like those Rose Scholars get to go to. I’ve certainly never written a blog about a seminar about blogging. This is my first-ever meta-blog, and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself.

According to Zachary Grobe, the seminar leader for “How to Write a Blog Post,” the goal for this blog is to describe our experiences of events rather than just to summarize them. We’re meant to focus in on the aspects of the activities that interest us and expand on them.

In a lot of ways, Mr. Grobe’s presentation was a great example of that. Though he presented various small examples to help illustrate what made a good (or bad) blog post, his main focus was a subject that interests him quite a bit: film. As so many of the Rose events are movies, he gave us a short introduction to analyzing camera work, sound track, and spacing on screen. His passion for film was contagious, and now I can’t wait to watch a movie just so I can pay attention to cuts.

A seminar where a speaker gets up and presents a bullet-point list of the do’s and don’t’s of blogging can only be so interesting. But because Mr. Grobe introduced the concept of blogging through a lens of something he cares deeply about, the seminar was engaging.

We’ve all heard the phrase “do as I say, not as I do.” That was not the case for Mr. Grobe’s presentation. Everything he said about focusing on your interests and your takeaways was backed up by the way he presented his information. I tried to keep that in mind in the course of this meta-blog, and I intend to keep it in mind in future posts.

Last night, I attended an info session with house fellow Zachary Grobe to learn how to write a blog post that is more engaging and more interesting to read and to write. I really liked the focus on film, because the Friday night movie nights are usually my go-to for Rose Scholar’s events. Now I can focus on an entirely different aspect of the movie when I’m writing my blogs; the stylistic elements. I always used to focus on the content, when, as I learned, that doesn’t make a film any different from a novel. What really distinguishes a film from a movie is that style. This includes music, costumes, color palettes, and more.
One movie I could have applied this new lens to was one we watched last semester, V is for Vendetta. The music in this film was so artfully integrated, oftentimes I couldn’t distinguish between when the sounds were coming from within the movies, actually in the scene, or a part of the narration. The transition between the operatic and orchestra music made everything vey dramatic and suspenseful. Instead of focusing so much on content and message (which are also important), I could have talked about how the director’s choices when it came to the film created this message.
The seminar was overall very useful and I will definitely apply what I learned to future blog posts.

Focusing on tiny details, there is a reason for every trivial matter to be there.  Light reflecting and color changing can imply the mood of the protagonist, while the repeated occurrence of the trivial symbols can be regarded as a hint or clue related to the plot. There is also such a clue in the Subaru commercial we saw tonight. Each scene of the narrator’s life contains a different car, emphasizing this commercial movie may have a strong relationship with cars. I have to say that this commercial movie is not what I used to think. Hiding advertisement carefully in each scene of the movie, it may not be easy for audiences to spot their intention unless the movie comes to the end. Trying to capture everything that is in the camera may deepen the understanding for not only the plots but the techniques using in movies, which may need to be practiced sedulously.

Actually when I entered the seminar for this event, I was just thinking about some specific skills or tricks to improve my writing. Talking about blogs mainly on how to analysis a movie is really more intriguing. During the seminar, we learned different perspectives for movies analyzing like trying to focus on the sound, cinematography, editing or Mise-en-scene, which means everything we can see in front of the camera. Usually when I watch a movie, I will mainly follow the camera and the screen without trying to figure out how the sound changes and what the role of the light will play. After analyzing in specific aspect, I may need to watch some of the classic movies again and apologize for what I missed.  It is also quite interesting to snap on the cut which can help us pay more attention to the quick but coherent changes in the movie.

Despite how short commercials may seem, there is actually a lot of different film mechanisms that go behind creating a commercial, specifically in the categories of mise-en-scène, sound, cinematography, and cuts.

I have always viewed commercials as simple thirty-second videos that revolve around a cheesy plot-line, ultimately, with the goal of trying to subconsciously sell the audience on the “experience” a particular product could bring that person. Yet, in today’s mini-seminar, I realized that commercials are deceptively simple from the outside. In actuality, they are very complex.

Here’s an example: My group was given the role of analyzing the background sound in a Subaru commercial. Once the commercial started, I noticed that the background sound had three layers: the narrator’s voice, sound effects (to give contextualization of what’s happening at a given time), and music. When all of these layers are presented together, they harmoniously intertwine and are able to strongly add to the commercial’s goal of promoting the Subaru vehicle. The sound effects all go along with the narrative, and many times add to the emotional aspect of the commercial as well. The chiming of church bells within the commercial allows the audience members to feel joyful, while the whining of ambulance sirens conveys to the audience that something tragic has happened. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed taking a deeper look at the amount of detail that goes behind creating commercials, which is something I never thought about before. This event that HF Zach and GRF Seema led definitely leaves me feeling an immense amount of appreciation for film and commercial-makers.

(And relatively less annoyance when commercials play before my youtube videos.)

Some of the aspects of films and videos that directors use the impact us include sound, the movement of the camera, editing, and the actual objects in and/or physical properties of the scene.

During the “How to Write a Blog Post” event this Thursday night, Zach talked about how to analyze films since a lot of our events will be film screenings. I enjoyed his explanations since I am taking a class that urges students to look at media content critically. I was especially interested in Zach’s example of the impact editing can have on the viewer: in a horror film, the director typically uses sound to build tension right before the scary ghost comes out and then a smash cut, or an abrupt transition, to the ghost to scare the viewer. Because of Zach’s explanations, I was able to see other ways that visual media is able to effect or, in a way, manipulate its viewers besides the ways that I hear of in class.

Analyzing the film was also a cool way to talk with some of my floormates. Even after the event, we got to talk more which is always cool!

Introduction

My first event of this semester with HF Zachary Grobe and GRF Seema Singh really put into perspective of how I want to set the tone for this academic year. While I attended expecting only to learn about writing blog posts, we also ended up analyzing films to prepare us for writing reflective blog posts for when we attend Film Fridays. For our collaboration event, we were split into groups to analyze one of four elements of a well directed Subaru commercial: mise-en-scene (what we see), sound, cinematography, and editing. My group analyzed the cinematography of the film, and it led me to think about the importance of perspective-taking not only in film, but also in our own lives.

The Subaru Commercial

The camera slowly moves backwards, passively witnessing the narrator’s life story as it unfolds, but the tone of the commercial suddenly changes when the scene switches to a car crash at night. With tension and anticipation rising, the camera slowly pans to the side, and suddenly the perspective of the camera changes. Now we are in the car with the happy family, actively speeding towards the bright future ahead. This juxtaposition of the cinematography– from passively moving backwards, to actively speeding forward–made me wonder about how we frame our own lives. Are we passively witnessing everything that is happening to us, or are we actively engaged in how our life unfolds?

A Fish in The Stream

I often feel like I am a fish swimming along congested stream, unable to stop because everyone at Cornell is (and perhaps must) constantly move forward. Objectively, we are all students in a large University, in an interesting city, perhaps far away from home or right next door. However, we each have individual stories: our own eyes are our cameras, and we are witnessing the cinematic playing of our own lives. I think the beauty of being the director is that we can choose our scenes. Sometimes, we just want to sit back and let life go on for a moment without disturbing the moment. Other times, we will charge forward and really dive into the heart of the scene. Regardless, there’s no correct way of “directing” our own life. Only that there is, and we are, so it becomes. 

What do you think about using film cinematography as an analogy to perspective-taking in our own lives?