Reading the Multimodal Narrative

For this assignment I read Persepolis. I had actually already read this last semester for an Islam class I took, so I thought id refresh my memory and read it again because i remembered I liked it. I am a person who likes to read, just not when it comes to comics. I prefer my comics to be mainly image based with minimal words. Persepolis actually has a nice distribution of images and text, not too much not too little. The artwork is certainly interesting. Being an illustration student im going to be judgmental, but i think for the story the style of artwork works. The style actually reminds me a lot of the stories that I used to read as a kid. Very simple and very straight forward. The comic was both entertaining and educational, it kept my attention. I wish I could tell my life story through a comic. I think it might bore people though.

McLuhan and Media Future

(This is not my image)

Social media to me is a love hate situation. I hate it with a passion because it takes away from the things that really matter in life. Who cares if someone likes a picture of you or gives it a thumbs up?! Who cares if someone likes your stupid status about a dog who dances in a circle. We've become so absorbed in our own little world that we fail to see what's really going on around us. We fail to see our friends and family. We fail to see the planet we live on. The only time something like that comes up is if someone posts a video about it. It makes us realize for a slip second what were missing, but then we dive straight back into the social media bull crap. I wont lie, i do have multiple social media things that i keep up with, which is where i contradict myself. I like getting likes on my images on instagram, or sharing silly videos with friends. I like knowing that people care about me, even if its just a split second of someone liking an instagram photo. But is it ever going to be enough? My generation and the ones coming into the world now are all dependent on people liking them, thinking positive things about them...all online though. I wish i could just throw my phone and laptop out the window sometimes and get back to my roots. Go running, go to the beach, play sports with friends....all without having to post about it or tell people what im doing. Unfortunately that is easier said than done. 

Voice and The Auteur Theory

I decided to watch 3 Wes Anderson films due to the fact that i had already seen a few. Anderson, unfortunately, is one of my least favorite directors. I really dont like his work.
Some of the key features that I noticed throughout his work are:
-He makes obsessive and comedic use of rostrum camera insert shots
-He ended all of his films with a slow motion shot
-He likes to shoot with extremely wide-angle anamorphic lenses with barrel distortion
-Frequently uses a take/double take technique
-His films often focus around a broken or unorthodox family
-At least one of his characters is usually a grown man seeking the approval of a parent or parent figure.
-All of the titles are in yellow
-Themes of white middle-class and upper-class issues
-Many straight on shots

Adaptation

I decided to choose Interview with a Vampire for my movie screenplay, and viewing it as a costume designer. I think the first place I would look would be the time period the film is set in. You wouldn't want to have a vampire movie set in the 1800s with characters that are wearing clothing from present day. That has always been a pet peeve of mine when movies are set in one time period but dressed inappropriately. It just makes the film bad to me. Either way, i would first look to the time period and then to the description of the outfits if there was one. If not, I would do as much research as possible on that time period for clothing. Maybe adding a bit of personal touches but nothing that would make it seem unrealistic. Each scene would have specific costumes which would require it's own research. Honestly, I would base it on personal preference and historical facts.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Personally I thought this film was a little confusing to follow, until someone mentioned what they thought about it. I think that this film...play was mainly based on what happens to minor characters once their scene was done. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were bounced around from scene to scene so much that I really didn't make all that much sense. I did like though that we got to view Hamlet through their eyes, we got to see the story through a sort of "behind the scenes" perspective. After doing a little more digging I found this statement "If life were a play, most of us would be minor characters in it. Sure, we might imagine it differently, but very few of us live our lives as Hamlets. In general, we more closely resemble the silly characters that only occasionally get caught up in the central action, characters like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. We call ourselves "masters of our domains," but when we think about how many things in our lives we actually have control over, it's not necessarily a long list". This actually helps put the play into perspective for me. We have little to no control over what happens in our lives. Whatever happens to us is fate.

Newsworld

1. Are there prominent symbols in the story that you read? And if so, what are they and how are they used?

-There are only a few symbols that I can think of for this story, one being the candle that the one boy took out of his pocket and rolled in his palm. Another would be the flashlight that the boy wasn't allowed to turn on. Both of these might have been used to show that there was no light, or in other words, no hope. Happiness was lost.  Another that might work would be the fact that they watched the event three separate times, some still not processing that it was an actual event that happened.

2. What connections did you make with the story? Discuss the elements of the work with which you are able to connect. 

-I think i can connect with the younger brother Seth in this particular writing. He was too little to understand what was going on and once he did, he bawled. I was really young when that happened so i don't exactly remember what I did but i'm sure i cried. I cared about my family so much that I thought, what if it was my family in the situation. What if it had been my family that died in the accident. I can also connect with the main group of the story, wanting to break into the park and see what was up, kind of reminiscing in the past a bit, wanting to see what was behind the blockade, what had happened to their childhood place.

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

-Personally, how this is written, i could see it being changed into a graphic novel. I would use visuals or illustrations to eliminate some of the text. Not entirely all of it. I would use some word bubbles and have little word boxes at the bottom to explain what cant be described through imagery. I wouldnt change the story at all, I would just change it into a comic or graphic novel, as mentioned above.

Trump image....

The main affects of this image would be:

*provide comedy 

*Irritate Tump supporters

*Make someones day just a little bit better