I recently rediscovered Google Translate Sings: “Do you want to Build a Snowman?” and felt compelled to share the creator of the Google Translate Sings series. She doesn’t have nearly enough subscribers. Here are my favorites of her Frozen videos, but she has many other videos with music from other movies, series, and popular songs.
Speech Therapy: You can see Ender’s Game if you want to
Transcript:
I recently heard about the Skip Ender’s Game pledge. I’m all for supporting gay marriage and the LGBT community. My best friends and at least one of my family members are gay or transgendered. I personally haven’t figured out what I am, but I wouldn’t have anyone punish me for whatever I decide. But something didn’t sit right with me about this pledge.
It seems to me that this movement is boiling down thousands of hours of work into the hateful personal opinion of one man, an opinion that has nothing to do with Ender’s Game. Pledgers aren’t just hurting Orson Scott Card. They’re also hurting Harrison Ford, this kind-eyed child, and the hundreds of other people who made this movie possible. These people didn’t sign up to make a political film that would support anti-gay activism. They just wanted to make a movie based a good book… and money.
By making this campaign, Geeks Out suggests that Orson Scott Card is so horrible we shouldn’t give him any money even if it means hurting innocent people in the process. Anti-LGBT perspectives are very interesting to me. They give me an idea of who these people are, what they believe and why, and what they may know that I don’t. So I decided to look into Geeks Out’s claim that Card is a monster.
Card’s view was particularly interesting in that he didn’t rave about God and that it was based around the sad knowledge that humans exist only to breed. Basically, he believes that because everyone should want to pass on their genes and have their children pass on their genes, all of society should be dedicated to encouraging and supporting people to do just that. As much as they may want to, homosexual couples can’t have children of their own, so that behavior shouldn’t be encouraged for the survival of the human race.
This is a pretty legitimate argument in comparison to the usual argument, God hates gays, or the conspiracy theorists’ argument, the government is making us gay to reduce the population. Card lost me, however, when he started ranting about “The Left,” an unspecified group of people that he made sound as infamous as Alex Jones’ “Bilderberg Group.” It also didn’t help that he writes about how heterosexuals will be the ones discriminated against in the future… Oh my god…
I could spend hours debating Card’s arguments, but the point is that I don’t think this article, or any that I’ve read of his so far, establishes Orson Scott Card as evil. I don’t know if it even establishes him as a homophobe. I think he’s genuinely concerned about the survival of the human race and the welfare of children in a new age where behavior that doesn’t seem to be conducive to survival is acceptable. How will children develop with two parents of the same sex? Will they choose to have children of their own? How will humans and society evolve in the coming generations? Will we survive? These are kind of scary questions, ones that scare a lot of people and ones that I don’t think have been answered definitively. Card is only doing what he thinks is right, and that’s hardly worth punishing hundreds of unrelated people for.
If you think Card’s fears sound stupid, think of your own daily anxieties, what they’ve driven you to do, and how dumb they may sound to someone else. I like to think that humans aren’t stupid enough to die off without constant reminders of how to have productive sex… but I could be wrong.
So if you’re not going to see Ender’s Game in November, do it for a better reason than “because Orson Scott Card is anti-gay.” Don’t see it because you love Ender’s Game. Don’t see it because you’re still shocked by how horrible Man of Steel was. Or don’t see it because you’re too damn lazy. Or do see it! See it because you love Ender’s Game. Or because you believe this child is the next Keanu Reeves. Or because you have nothing better to do.
I give you permission. Either way, you aren’t supporting or denying the gay or anti-gay communities. Now go! Watch a stupid movie! Any movie! Talk at you next time!
Sources:
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700245157/State-job-is-not-to-redefine-marriage.html
One thing is certain: I’m still an introvert
I’ve spent most of my time as a film maker directing out of necessity and, consequently, being expected to direct. I don’t consider myself a director, and it’s not my goal to be one. My main interest in film creation has always been video editing, and well, there was only one way I could get footage to edit.
Like most young filmmakers, before I’d taken any media arts classes or knew anything about directing, films were the product of my friends and I filming with no real regards to the quality of what we made. I was usually in charge of what we filmed, when we filmed it, and where it was filmed. Where the camera was placed, blocking, and acting were usually collective or individual decisions. Many of the scripts we filmed were mine, but I didn’t have a grand vision of what they looked like. I only wanted to see them on screen in some form. At the end of it all, the script only served as a medium for my friends and I to goof off. The best moments were often improvised or unexpected.
The search for these great, improvised moments would ultimately affect my directing style. Even after I took my first media arts classes, I continued to direct minimally. I gave more thought to where the camera was placed, but beyond blocking, actors continued to get little direction from me. Many of the films I’ve made in the past few years have been mostly improvised. I prefer to capture actors and their interpretation of the basic story, interfering as little as possible.
My directing style may also be influenced by the fact that I’ve been a video editor longer than I’ve been filming and directing. This has given me a “we’ll fix it in post” attitude. I tend to rush through production to get to post production where I feel more comfortable. Sometimes I wish the footage I had to work with was in focus or that I had a different shot to work with, but turning bad footage into comedy gold or a decent product is a welcome challenge. Editing is usually where most of my “directing” happens.
Perhaps what I really enjoy, during production at least, is cinematography. My favorite projects are usually the ones where it’s mostly me, the camera, and a video editing program. As a cinematographer, I can simply capture the actors, environments, and objects and depict the feeling of the scene. I don’t have to worry about directing. I’m not looked to to tell people how they should be.
Of course, I won’t lie and say that my timid and anxious nature has nothing to do with my directing choices. When I’m not making something silly with friends or part of the crew on someone else’s film, I’m a bit of a loner. Working with groups particularly those that contain strangers is very stressful to me. I get anxious from expectations that I know what I want and how to get it in a timely and coherent manner. I can’t enjoy what I’m doing. Really all I want is to capture and compile the best of my actors’ performances together. I don’t want to assert a grand vision on people, and yet it’s often assumed that I do.
For me, animation, 2D and stop-frame, is the perfect combination of cinematography, video editing, and directing. It’s when I’m alone that I feel most free to make a film my own. With animation, I can work alone from concept to final product if I want. I can set the camera, environment, objects, and characters where I want and work in a relatively stress-free environment to make a product that is as rough or as perfect as I want it to be. Any voice actors or crew I need, I can work with individually with no distractions. The demands and expectations of everyone involved are easier to deal with when they’re not all in the same room.
Whether I’m a director or only a video editor in disguise is debatable. Regardless, I intend to continue creating films and, if it won’t be as a cinematographer, video editor, or animator, it will be as a director. I’d prefer to move away from directing live-action films though and focus on stop-frame, 2D, and 3D animated films where I feel more confident.
Three Inspiring Things
Video Game Cutscenes
While I do like CGI and 3D animation in general, cutscenes have several features that I find particularly inspiring. By video game cutscenes, I mean the short, pre-rendered sequences made with complex character models. First, cutscenes embrace the idea that full CGI films don’t have to be for children, an idea that most CGI films produced today hold. In fact, cutscenes are for very specific audiences: the players. Second, the limits of in-game rendering are removed, allowing players to see characters in a new, exciting way. Finally, because of the file size and cost of these films, they’re usually short, rare occurrences. To me, the cutscene’s focus on its target audience, effort to give characters more life, and rarity make it treasured and unique.
Abe has three dimensions!?
Unfortunately, the cutscene is becoming a lost art. Some players feel that non-interactive cutscenes are distracting and more a nuisance than a reward. Plus, today’s in-game graphics are so advanced that pre-rendered cutscenes aren’t needed to show details such as facial expressions and actions. It’s often cheaper and just as effective for a studio to use in-game character models and objects. Modern video games that still use cutscenes have not promoted them either. Final Fantasy XIII and Metal Gear Solid 4 overuse them to the point where they might as well be feature films.
Though cutscenes are disappearing from the video game world, it’s my hope, and perhaps my mission, that they will influence CGI movies. CGI is not just a form of animation but a storytelling medium that can contain content and genres as diverse as those found in comics, movies, or TV shows.
MUST SEE:
Square Enix, you are insane!
If you’re also cutscene deprived, watch Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. This is the most beautiful CGI film I’ve ever seen, and I can’t watch it enough. There’s more to be desired in terms of its story, but it shows what CGI films could be like if they expanded into other genres and target audiences.
Experimental Writing
In high school, a friend lent me a mysterious novel called Vurt. This book takes place in a dark and strange world of drug addiction, and reading the book is perhaps as close as one can get to doing drugs without doing drugs. It switches between third and first person, rambles for paragraphs, and fearlessly uses the “F” word for adjectives, verbs, nouns, and sentences enhancers. Intrigued, I proceeded to read the rest of Jeff Noon’s novels. Each was more insane than the last.
Jeff Noon’s novels aren’t always effective or coherent, but nonetheless, his ideas about the evolution of writing are fascinating. Most of his novels and stories come about through a process he calls “remixing,” which he describes in his book Cobralingus. He’s also written an epic poem called Needle in the Groove, which includes a companion music CD. His novels tend to tell the same story and rely on sex, drugs, and violence, but his characters are colorful and touching, and occasionally, moments of clarity leave me with a feeling of awe. His current projects use the Internet as a storytelling medium. He excels at describing complex ideas in single-sentence Tweets.
I’ve since read Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves and Douglas Coupland’s jPod, but Jeff Noon still has a special place for introducing me to experimental writing and having the biggest influence in how I write stories. My writing has remained relatively traditional, but Jeff-Noon-inspired character perspectives, voices, and experiments are often present.
MUST READ:
Vurt’s great, but I’d actually have to recommend Danielewski’s House of Leaves. This experimental masterpiece is basically a 650-page review of a horror movie that doesn’t exist… Also, typography:
All film critics should write like this.
Dramatic Anime
The main reason anime inspires me and influences my writing is its treatment of drama. Nothing has affected me through shock, horror, and awe as dramatic anime has. In shows such as Fullmetal Alchemist, Code Geass, or Death Note, plot twists leave characters shell shocked and horrified by their actions and the actions of others. Dramatic reactions to these events are borderline cheesy, but I find them effective. When a character’s eyes slowly widen in horror, I can’t help but recoil and exclaim, “Oh my God!” right along with them.
Now THAT’S terrible.
MUST SEE:
To get a better idea of drama in anime, watch Fullmetal Alchemist. This 51-episode series has great and terrible dramatic revelations, plot twists, and horror stories and a nice bit of comedy mixed in.