Dark Days

I found that there were many interesting things that the director decided to, things like how they decided on the color, how they decided to show train pass many times, the order of events, and where they did most of the shooting. All of these things combined in order to make a very interesting documentary.

Now I am going to start at the beginning where I found this almost the most interesting part of the documentary. Now obviously a big choice that the director decided to do was to make the film in black and white, now this is something I really didn’t understand and I think that the video would have just been as effective if they decided to make it in color. The only reason that I can really think of that would make them want to do it in black and white, were to make a point how black and white television seems makes it seem very primitive, and it relates how these homeless people have to live primitively, they are unable to have any fancy things or all the luxuries that we don’t even think about.

The things they were showing and what the people were saying were mostly positive. They were almost promoting all of the benefits of being homeless.  A guy was talking about how he can choose his own hours to do what ever he wants, how they have electricity and they can use it all day, but they never have to pay for it. Also they made there houses even though they were made out of wood and very primitive things, they made it seem cozy. Then they eventually move on to talking about all the pets they have, which I didn’t really think about many homeless people having but they talked about a lot how some have had many, many pets and multiple pets at the same time. Now this just seemed to interest me, because you view homeless people as very poor people, but not only are they able to maintain pets but they also mention how on some nights they are able to make enough money to last them the weekend, and allows them to do what they want and relax. This is why I think they kept on showing the train driving by, shows that as they are happy and talking about the positive things it keeps on bringing up the fact that their house is in a subway.

Now as the documentary moved on it started turning negative. They talk about how they have to fight rats off, almost every night and they can sometimes be over ran by them, also they talk about how things can get so serious that they burn each others houses down. They have several people talk about their lives, how they lost their family and lost everything due to mostly drugs, and they show how they are eating out of the trash cans, and they show the rough part of their lives. Then they show how it seems as if society seems to turn against them and kicks them out of their only house.

But as things seem at the lowest they show how society actually does care and they come back in order to help. They show how society helps them off of the streets and help get them into an apartment of their own, and help them get their lives back on track

3 ideas for Documentary

1. How is it that you use Facebook

2. What is your reason on getting a Facebook

3.  Why do you like/started using Facebook

Remix essay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWENsyI87Ws

Link to my remix essay

video games

I really enjoyed the video clip over the article because I pretty much agree with ever-single point she talked about. Even from the beginning where she talked about how pretty much every form of art started out as something that was almost gibberish, or just did not seem like art at all, but over time all these forms evolved into the great forms of art, as we know them. This also goes along with video games they aren’t exactly the newest things, but they are some what recent and especially in this technology era we are currently in, with all of this technology people are being able to use new graphics to be able to add more effects and make things look more like the game designers wanted them to.

A big point that I want to focus on is, how I believe that we talked about art a little bit in this class at the very beginning, now I might be mistaken, but the questions was, can an animal create art? The answer was that they couldn’t because the animal is not putting the paint on the page in a specific order that they see it in their mind. That the truth is that they are just randomly throwing colors on a page. So relating this to video games you can see that, the game designers do the exact opposite of this. These game designers choose exactly where they want to put anything in the game, they decide the sizes, and the even think of the specific colors they want to see. If you look at these concepts it looks like exactly what an artist would do on a painting, he would look at his canvas, which is the whole setting of the game. He draws what he wants to be the setting is, which is just where the game takes place. They both choose the color scheme that they want to see. Now in a painting the artist chooses where he wants the focus to be in the painting, while in a video game, the designer has an advantage at this point. Do to the fact that they are able to make the focus what they want it to be and through out the game they can change this. They can either do this by moving the viewpoint of the game and the interactivity in the games allow the person playing to be able to go through and actually make the focus what they are more interested in. Also the designer is able to put his special view point into life, and use there video game product to show how they picture their life much like artists do in their paintings.

Now I understand that there are so some games that are not art, such as the Call of Duty games, which are just all about entertainment and random action, but at the same time not every single writing piece made is a giant thing of art, the same goes with all drawn pieces of art. Now taking all this that I said I easily see how a game designer can take a video game and turn into a wonderful piece of art of their own imagination. Now how is that not art?

2 Tracks

Viva La Vida by Cold Play

I chose this song because towards the end of my audio essay I start to talk about how Facebook helps me and how i believe it can change lives. This is where there is the happier part and the positive side and i think this song helps set a happier mood while at the same time keeping showing that there is still trouble, there there is still sadness.

Farewell By Apocalyptica

I chose this song due to the fact that at the beginning of the audio essay i am being personal and talking about my fears and things that hold me back in life and things i will sacrifice, and i believe this song sets up that mood well.

Music video analysis

I chose to analyze the video “I’m not afraid” by Eminem, his song talks about his struggles with drugs and everything in life and how he confronting his problems and he is trying to change himself for the better, and how everyone can leave that type of life and how everyone has a chance to live the life they want.

The video that goes along during the words give a visual sense of what he is saying, at the beginning he is standing where he is now, and talks about how he had to go through the bad in order to get to where he is now. He also talks to the people who still live in the bad, he says you can get out; you just have to let him help you.

During the beginning he talks about how he will get out and even for the people that don’t believe in him he will show them wrong and he doesn’t care what he things, the video at this time goes between two scenes. One he is on top of the building where he is now, the other is in a dark basement, where he was. Setting up a visual of when he referees to the past and the future.

Towards the middle it shows him walking through the city and then goes into a bunch of mirrors, as this is happening he starts to talk about how he still trying to figure things out, how he use to think he had is life where he wanted it, but he eventually learns that he is actually still trapped in his life and that he needs to break free, this is shown in the video when he runs through the mirror and breaks down the wall. He says he can’t keep living his life how he did, he has to get out he stands at the edge of the city, but he says he has to move on he has to get his life on the right track. So he jumped so he could come back a better person, after he comes back he end up on the same ledge that he was at the beginning showing that he ahs done the process to get to where he is.

Audio roughdraft

This is the link to the rough draft of the audio essay i made

http://soundcloud.com/christian-kruckeberg/audio-rough-draft

Audio essay roughdraft

There is one thing in life that I am just truly afraid of, and that would be being a nuisance to anyone. This fear of mine is something I have been living with my whole life, and it gets to the point that I would sacrifice everything, time to sleep, drink, I would even stop eating because I was afraid that something I ate, is what someone else wanted to eat for dinner. I remember giving up weekend after weekend as a kid to watch over my autistic sister just so my mom could enjoy her weekend, because I was to afraid that me going out having fun would get in the way of her plans to go out for a night.

Clearly this affects my social life, even today. I spend many days sitting at my house doing nothing because I do not want ask any of my friends if they want to hang out or anything, because in my mind, they might have to change their plans to include me in them. Something that has been able to help me slightly get over this is the Facebook. Using this I can see what people are doing and depending on what they are doing I can find out if me asking to join them would make them have to give any extra effort, I don’t want people to have to waste the energy or the thought trying to make different plans to include me.

Using Facebook makes me feel more secure on what people are doing and makes me feel less guilty for asking them if they could use one more. This helps me see my friends that come into town over a weekend from their college, or meet up with old people that I use to talk to all the time, and the best part about it, is the fact that I do not feel guilty doing it.

Facebook as given me more opportunities to do the things that I want to, the things that I think about doing but sometimes I just don’t want to get in the way and am to afraid to do. This it effects me everyday and has been changing my life one small step at time.

This I believe (the 2nd one)

I want to start out by saying exactly why I was not interested in this one. The reason was that the metaphor that was used was a Prairie, and how the life the Prairie is like the middle part of America, where the heart and soul is. Now i just could not connect to this because i have lived in Lexington all my life, and i have never had a chance to know how the Prairie life is and how the land is.

The speaker started with how her family moved the Prairie to get away from the city life, also she talked about how she left to the city in order to get a higher degree and get an education and a career. Twenty years later she eventually found her way back to the Prairie life.

She believes that people that live one the Prairie have a lot they can teach others in America. This is because the view on life of Prairie people are different then those of others. They watch out for one another the poor to the rich they all know that in the end, every one matters. That these people know the balance between having fun, work, education, and the community, that they know this balance which gives everyone the best chance to succeed in life.

Now I understand the point of this essay and i recognize the good points of it but there are just a few things that i did not like about it that just stopped me from really being able to connect to it. One of those being what I stated above. I am un able to connect to the metaphor of this piece. Which kinda makes it useless since to me she is telling me to compare life to something that I do not understand. The other reason I had problems really enjoying this essay is how she went on talking about how Prairie people can teach people this and how they know all of this information, which i am fine with this. The problem is she didn't state it or i was unable to understand, but i never was able to find out why from this piece. Without this information i can not really believe in what she is saying 100%. Learning why she thinks this would help me greatly in actually being able to connect to this piece.

This I believe

The story I felt the most from wasn’t a sad one at all. It was merely I story on how this guy would commute to work every day by hitch hiking and he would never be late. How he once rode his bike across America and at night he would ring a doorbell and ask if he could pitch a tent in their yard for then night. He was never told no.

Now the way I can connect to this is the fact that I may not be one asking for help, but I am always the one willing to give it.  The thing that really got me in his story is how he was so inversely like me, I am a huge on giving help but I always hate asking for it. His view on life is that the universe always wans to help. The thing is you just have to allow it.

He talks about how for every action you make you receive and equal reaction. This is how he lived his life; he believed that his openness, his kindness he gave to the people who helped him is equal to their willingness to help him. He also talks about how people can easily accept help when they are sick or ill, but the problem becomes that for the most part you are not sick or ill, and in these moments people can be afraid or unwilling to accept this help. That this simple act as is seems actually have to take some preparation.

The overall purpose of his essay is he goes in to detail how the best givers are not those who give the best things, or even are willing to give the most things.  The best givers are those are just as good at receiving then giving. This is because in the line up of the universe people are all at the receiving end of one of the greatest gifts of all. The gift that the universe gives to everyone, that simply is the gift of life itself.  If we everyone can come to truly understand this gift, can receive the true gift of life. Then everyone is able to be the best giver.