Friday, October 22, 2010

Summary/Response and Image Analysis Process

A summary/ response paper is very simple to follow. It is a summary to the article or piece you are writing about and is followed by your response to the piece. It is very straight forward and easy to understand. An image analysis paper is a little more challenging. You must review the techniques the author uses and it is more difficult, for at least me, to follow.

Typing content was actually a little challenging for me. To gather thoughts and try to tie them all into a paper was more difficult than I would of imagined. Blogging did help in some ways. It allowed me to free write all the ideas in my head and get them all written down before I would forget certain things. In other ways, it is easier for me to plot things out such as using a web map. Different techniques always help though to use something fresh and not the same thing every time.

When writing the two papers, the image analysis paper was much more difficult. It was more challenging due to the fact that its comparing what other authors have wrote. In the summary/ response it is all about what you believe. In this paper, you must compare the two pieces and think of why the authors changed them and used different angles of vision. The easiest part was to pick out what scenes I wanted to use. I knew from the beginning which ones I wanted to use. The hard part was tying the all together into one paper that hopefully makes sense.

I have various weaknesses when it comes to the writing process. Most are the introduction and conclusion. These two paragraphs tie your paper together completely. If your introduction is bad then people won't want to read it. If the conclusion is bad, then people will forget everything you wrote throughout the whole paper. It's a difficult process learning how to write papers, and one can only get better with time.

Peer review is nice due to the fact that even when you are reviewing and helping other classmates you can learn from their papers. You can learn what different techniques they are using and learn from different classmates. To end, I believe I have made small improvements in my writing but hopefully large improvements are to come.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

3 interesting points

During this documentary there was multiple points that stuck out to me. First, and this was basically the whole plot of the film, how much design goes into each object that is made. For example, chairs. There are millions of chairs throughout the world and to design a new chair can be extremely difficult. You must add your own details to the chair while still making in unique and comfortable. One man brought up the topic of that are are millions of chairs but why are some still not comfortable. Isn't that the whole point of chairs or is it now turning into the design and look of the chair only. Second, probably my favorite part was when the people wanted to design a new toothbrush. Who would ever think, that much design and thinking has to go into making a new toothbrush. Who knows how much effort it would take to make a new computer or a new car. The toothbrush scene made me realize that technology is always growing no matter how big or small it is. It grows from cars and computers all the way down to a tiny little toothbrush. Last, another interesting scene was with the potato peeler. Who knew that a potato peeler is always getting changed. From one designer watching his wife have a hard time peeling a potato, he and his team changed the peeler completely to help those with arthritis. By doing this small little change, it made the potato peeler a lot more efficient to all. The main point I learned from this movie was, with technology you don't have to help everyone. If you design something that one specific group likes it will carry on down the line to where it can help all citizens.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

A boy and his dog

To being, this movie completely creeped me out. The twists and different scenes were so weird and so out there that at some points I found the movie difficult to follow. The movie starts with Vic and his old dog Blood walking and searching for a bunker. He comes upon a bunker where he finds a girl who has been raped.  Vic becomes upset because he doesn't want to have sex with a dead body. Vic's main mission throughout this movie to to find as many girls as possible and hook up with each and every girl. Vic and Blood continue on their journey going bunker to bunker when they come upon the smell of a woman that heavily attacks Vic. They follow this woman into an underground town. The girl is Quilla who is the daughter of the head master in the underground town. She was sent to find Vic, because the town needed him.
Vic determined to have sex with Quilla follows her into the underground town, ditching Blood. Quilla leads Vic into a town where everyone wears makeup and looks like mimes. It is then revealed that Quilla brought Vic down because the town needs donors. In the beginning Vic agrees because he believes he will be having sex with multiple woman but that changes when he is forced onto a table and they extract his sperm from his body. After Quilla had set up Vic, she ends up helping him escape along with a few other teenagers. When running away, a mechanical robot, also know as an android, begins killing the other teenagers with his bare hands. He tries to get to Vic and Quilla but Vic kills him off before he has the chance. Vic then takes Quilla back up to the surface where they were safe from the underground town. They find Blood sick and dying due to a broken leg and he was starving. Now heres the weird and disgusting twist. Vic ends up killing Quilla to help save his old dog. They end up killing and cooking her body over an open fire.
To begin, how disgusting? This movie completely creeped me out. How can you cook and eat someone! This film was one of the most shocking and disturbing movies I have ever seen. When i first began to watch the movie, I was extremely bored and had a hard time following the movie. I didn't find the movie interesting in any way. I thought it was way too weird, for a dog to be talking and the main character to only care about sex. It defiantly was not my kind of movie. As the film continued, I became more and more interested. For a director, to think of a plot this out there is kind of smart. The director surely took a risk with making this movie, but in the end I believe it was a success. At times, it was creepy and disgusting I found the movie entertaining and it surely keeps the audience of their toes. In the end, I enjoyed watching the movie and would recommend it to someone who is into Apocalyptic theme.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Scene from Blade Runner

Overall I disliked the movie. But I believe that the opening scene was a really good scene. It set up the whole movie without giving too much away. It was a hook, and caught almost everyones eye. In the opening scene the android, Leon was being questioned by Holden. It started off kind of slow but built up to the climax or the scene very quickly. Holden was asking Leon multiple questions to determine if Leon was an android. Leon was obviously extremely nervous and didn't seem to be doing well on the test and Leon knew this. He got very frustrated fairly quickly. On the first couple questions he seemed to answer them alright until Holden brought up a question about Leon's mother. When the question about Leon's mother was brought up, Leon killed Holden. At this particular moment in the movie, almost all of the audience is interested. Especially those people who have never read the book. It set up the plot for the rest of the movie, and the audience knew something was wrong right away instead of being dragged along like most movies. Overall, I didn't like the movie due to the fact that I had read the book first. I believe if I never would have read the book I would of been much more interested in the movie. Overall, I think by watching the movie again, I will get more out of the movie and understand it better.