Hello Again

I listen to records (ironically, of course) because that's what all of the cool kids these days are doing.  So you can imagine my excitement when my mom's friend let me take what I wanted from her old record collection.

The purpose of that shaky intro was to let you know that I have been listening to a lot of old school music lately, and I thought I would make a post sharing my favorites with you.  This is the post.

1.
Chuck Berry (The Great 28)


 Elvis was a lie.  You want the real king of rock and roll, you need not look any further then Chuck Berry, one of the world's first rockers.  He took blues and rhythm and turned them into an entirely new genre.



2.
 Billy Ocean (Love Zone)


Billy Ocean is the undisputed king of R&B, at least in my book.  His soulful vocals blend beautifully with the smooth, sometimes jazzy, sometimes experimental instrumentals.

3.
The Allman Brothers Band (Eat A Peach)


The Allman Brothers Band is a rock band with an emphasis on blues, a genre of which I am extremely fond.  The long tracks will often consist of imrov that lasts several minutes and surprising complex solos based around a single chord.  I must say, I am approve. 
 
4.
Louis Armstrong (The Great Summit)


This is one of Louis Armstrong's latest albums, recorded in 1961 and released in 2001.  But man, do I love Louis Armstrong.  He and Duke Ellington have been favorites of mine since I started playing trumpet in 5th grade.  I'm afraid if I try to get into the specifics of Armstrong and Ellington's styles I won't do them any justice, so I'll keep it at that.

 

2 Pac - Final 24 Film Review

For my documentary film analysis, I watched 2 Pac - Final 24.   The film, which is one in a series of several dealing with celebrity deaths, documents Tupac Shakur's life and how it related to and ultimately culminated in his untimely demise.

2 Pac - Final 24 is split into two alternating sections, one dealing with the last 24 hours of Tupac's life and one telling the story of his rise to fame.  A mixture of interviews and narration are used to guide the story.  The parts dealing with Tupac's final hours use primarily narration accompanied by dramatic re-enactments, while the story of his life is told through A-roll of interviews and archival footage of Tupac performing and being interviewed.

The movie, while primarily about Tupac's life and death, also incorporates some of the people who played a large role in one or both, such as his mother, rival rapper Biggie Smalls, and the CEO of Death Row Records.  It is told primarily from a third person point of view, but incorporates first-person when the subject of an interview describes a part of the story.

It also has a dark, mysterious mood to it and follows the format of an action/spy movie.  It incorporates cinematic aspects characteristic of spy movies such as a split screen with a timer shown to depict what is happening at a certain time before the tragedy occurs.  The lighting is very moody during the interviews, and the dramatic re-enactments all take place at night, which give the film a dark feel.  The music used consists primarily of hip-hop beats.  

The dramatic re-enactments use actors to portray the people who were actually present during the events described in the documentary.  Using pictures and actual footage from said events as a reference point, the filmmakers recreate the scenes as closely as possible using sets, and costumes.

Overall, 2 Pac - Final 24 is a very well-made film and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in hip-hop history.  It is also very engaging, more so than most documentaries, because of the murder mystery format.  The only thing I didn't like about the film was that all of the people interviewed were close to Tupac, resulting in a slightly biased image of the rapper.

The movie:

Don't Take This the Wrong Way...

Since we've been given a lot of freedom with these blogs and are told to write whatever is on our minds, I'm going to do just that.  And what's on my mind right now is plagiarism.  I recently got in trouble because a paper that I wrote comparing two poems was too similar to that of another student (who will remain anonymous).  I'm not denying that they were similar, but I have a few things to say.

The student in question was absent the day that we were assigned this paper, which I'm sure is a common excuse for plagiarism.  However, in class the day that we were assigned this paper, we went over the rubric, which was to compare the literary elements used to develop tone, and our teacher essentially told us which literary elements were present and what tone they helped to establish.  Needless to say, the only step we as students needed to take from there was to add more words to what she had told us.  Therefore, it was inevitable that the majority, if not all, of the papers be overwhelmingly similar, considering we were essentially told what to write in class.

The student who got in trouble alongside me was not in class and therefore was not spoon-fed the answers.  So to help him, I let him read my completed essay as an example, knowing that they would all be, in essence, the same paper.  However, and not to put the blame on him, but he did not know exactly which ideas were mine and which ones were given to us in class.  The result was too papers that were a little bit more similar than the rest.

I'm not saying that I wasn't in the wrong and that anyone in particular is at fault, nor am I trying to gain anything by saying this.  But if the purpose of plagiarism is to prevent us as students from stealing each others ideas, then when the ideas were not really mine or anyone else's to begin with, but rather the ideas and knowledge forced upon us by the county curriculum.  I could understand if it was math or another subject where the prevention of plagiarism is actually ensuring that students retain the material, but what is there to retain in an instance like this?  The point of comparative essays is to better our critical thinking and analysis skills, which can't be done if we are given someone else's analysis.

Incoming Documentary

Now that the dystopia trailers are done, the next major group film project that we have been assigned is a 3 to 5 minute documentary.  This past Friday, our homework assignment was to  describe an idea that we've had regarding the documentary's topic.  I really liked the topic that my group came up with, so I decided to share it with you.

Blair is known for it's arts program.  And I don't just mean the CAP.  Blair has a great film program, an award-winning newspaper, an outstanding theater program, and, of course, a great music program.  My group wanted to do something about the arts scene at Blair, so we decided to focus on the thing that we were the most interested in: music.  Originally we planned on focusing mainly on the hip hop scene, but we decided that there was enough variety amongst the artists at Blair to make a documentary about the music community as a whole.

I am looking forward to making this film.  It will be interesting to interview and tell the stories of all the bands at Blair, such as Ladle Fight, as well as the solo artists, like Brian Griffin.  Hopefully we will be able to cover most of the artists at Blair, but I have a feeling that since the time limit has to be taken into account, we will end up focusing on a few artists in particular.

Here's an example of what I want it to be like:

HP dv6-7010us Review

In my last post, I briefly mentioned that I would be getting a new computer "soon."  At the time I wrote that post I had already ordered the computer, and it arrived a few days ago.  I feel that I now have enough information about it to make a review, so lets get started.



The process of choosing a computer to get was difficult.  I had been wanting one for a while, but it wasn't until my 4-year-old laptop's battery warped and the track pad stopped working that I decided I was in need of something more modern.  So I began to do some research.  Since I was on a pretty tight budget, I had originally wanted to build my own computer.  However, by the time I had assembled a fairly decent parts list, I discovered that for the same price that my build was going to run me, I could get a laptop with even better specs.

The first laptop I looked at was the Dell Inspiron.  There are many different models of the Inspiron, but there were two in particular that I liked: The 15R, of which one model was 550 dollars and had 500GB storage, 4GB RAM, and an Intel i3 processor.  The other one was also a 15R, but it was 800 dollars and had 1TB storage, 8GB RAM, and an i7 processor.

I was just about to buy the 550 dollar model when I discovered that HP, a brand which, due it's mixed reputation, I had not considered, made a computer for the same price as the 15R, but with better specs.  The computer, which was a dv6-7010us, had 750GB of storage, 6GB of RAM, and an AMD A8-4500M CPU.  While this may seem like the obvious choice, it took me a while to settle on whether the dv6 or the 15R would be a better buy.

The main thing about the dv6 that I was concerned about was the processor.  While the A8-4500M is roughly equivalent in performance to an Intel i5 processor, I had had little to no prior experience with AMD processors and had heard mixed reviews of them.  However, I eventually decided that it would be worth it to get the dv6, because the A8 CPU, regardless of whether or not it performed as well as the i5, was still better than the i3, which was the processor that the 15R came with.

And there you have it.  I am very pleased with my dv6-7010us.  I have also been monitoring my CPU usage, and taking that into account, it looks to me like AMD is just as good as Intel.

Until next time.

Capturing the Fall

This week's blog post is about the "Capturing the Fall" independent video project.

I filmed it with a Fujifilm s400 and edited it in Premiere.  The shots are as follows:

1. Intro shot of feet walking through the leaves
2. Title slide
3.  Tree with yellow leaves
4. Slow dramatic zoom pan of a tree with red leaves
5. Walking through a rock outcropping
6. Dramatic zoom in on a cat staring at me
7. Panning shot of a small creek
8. Walking down the street
9. Gnome in a tree
10. Panning shot of a dead tree
11. Chopped wood
12. Man walking his dog down the street
13. Credits

I used the music I did because I wanted my film to have a melancholy tone.  Autumn signifies the end of summer and the approaching winter.  Overall, I am pretty happy with it, but I do regret that I wasn't able to upload it in HD.  It's because my current computer is slowly falling apart.  But I will be getting a new one next weekend, so my next project will be available in high resolution.

This Week's Showdown: Mac vs PC (Mid-Level Editing Software)

Last week was originally going to be a comparison between Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere, but once I started writing it, it quickly turned into Mac vs PC, and I figured that if I was going to start a Mac vs PC series of blog posts, I might as well start with the basics.  So i did Windows Live Movie Maker vs iMovie.  This week I'm doing Premiere vs FCP.

Now before I start, I'd just like to clarify that Adobe Premiere works just as well on Mac as it does on PC, and that Adobe is not affiliated with Microsoft.  The only reason I'm calling this "Mac vs PC" is because people tend to associate Premiere and the other programs in the Adobe Creative Suite with PC, probably because far fewer people use them with Mac.  Also keep in mind that I edit with Premiere at home, and I use Final Cut Pro at school, so I am fairly experienced with both programs.  With that out of the way, let's begin.

The first thing any frugal American will notice when comparing these two editing programs is the price.  Final Cut Pro 7, the most recent and widely-used version, costs 1,000 dollars.  Final Cut Pro X, the budget version, only costs 300.  On the other hand, Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5, the version that I edit with, is 800 dollars.  I know that it's not the most recent version, but I would guess that it's still the version that most people use because the newest one hasn't had enough time to catch on yet.

The next thing to look at is how well both programs live up to their intended uses.  Since they are both top-of-the line mid-level editing programs, it is safe to assume that the people who will be using them are mainly advanced amateurs, in some cases professionals, meaning that the standards that they have to live up to are much higher than those of Windows Live Movie Maker and iMovie.  In this category, Final Cut Pro has the best track record.  More big-budget professional movies have been edited in Final Cut Pro than in Premiere.  However, since the release of FCP X, which sacrificed several features to cater more to film makers on a tighter budget, Adobe Premiere has been considered more proffessional than FCP.  In a way, this is not fair to Apple, because the full version is just as professional as Premiere, but as they seem to have no intention of making a FCP 8 and instead plan to focus on FCP X, Premiere has the upper hand.

Until next time.



               

This Week's Showdown: Mac vs PC (Basic Editing Software)

Last week I wrote about French vs American literature.  This week it'll be part 1 of Mac vs PC.  I think I might begin doing a showdown every week as the format for my blog.  But anyway, let's get started.

It seems to be a commonly accepted fact that Mac is a better platform for editing video than PC.  Now, as someone whose sole purpose in life is to topple the Apple empire, my point of view may be slightly biased.  But regardless, I think the view that macs are more useful for editing is based entirely on the fact that iMovie comes free with Mac OSX.  But Windows Live Movie Maker, the free PC editing suite, is just as good.

The reason iMovie has become so popular is that it is a very user-friendly editing program.  Since the world has seen a huge increase in amateur movie making over the past few years, editing software that is user-friendly is in high demand.  However, Windows Live Movie Maker is even more user friendly, and can carry out any basic task required by an amateur movie maker.  iMovie can perform more advanced functions, but if someone who is in need of more advanced editing should most likely invest in a more advanced editing suite.

There is also the fact that while the newest version of iMovie comes free with a newly-purchased Mac computer, you must pay 15 dollars in order to unlock the updatable version of iMovie.  Windows Live Movie Maker is 100 percent free.

Tune in next week for Mac vs PC: Mid-Level Editing Software.

 

This Week's Showdown: French vs. American Literature

I'm in French 4, and we are currently studying Antoine de Saint-Exupery's iconic novel Le Petit Prince.  While most Americans know of this book, few have actually read it.  Most just assume that it is a children's book, and to a certain extent, they are right.

On the surface, Le Petit Prince is a cute story of a little kid who travels the universe to learn about life.  But on a deeper level, it is a criticism of the gap between children and adults just about every other flaw the author finds in human nature.  For instance, when the little prince visits a man who is obsessed with counting the stars, thinking that because nobody has claimed them yet they all belong to him, and that he must find out how many he has in order to determine their worth.

Le Petit Prince is comparable to several American classics, but the connection that I made as soon as I began reading it was to The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster.  The Phantom Tollbooth is another children's book that can be interpreted on many levels, starring a boy named Milo who goes to the Lands of beyond, where he meets all sorts of characters and places that are representations and criticisms of human nature, among other things.  For example, when Milo stops thinking on the Road of Expectations, he ends up in the doldrums, a place where people are encouraged not to think.  This is a criticism of oppression and the limited freedoms experienced by some, as well as of the human tendency to want to follow rather than to lead.

They're Still With Us (I'm With You Review)

I've been a fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers since I was 8 years old.  At the time, of course, I didn't really understand their music, which is, in general, not something an 8 year old should be listening to.  So, as you can imagine, I was extremely exited when I learned that they were coming out with a new album called I'm With You.  The Peppers went on hiatus after releasing their 2006 album Stadium Arcadium, which resulted in roomers of retirement.  No one took these roomers seriously, however.  As bassist "Flea" put it, "the Chili Peppers never went away."

For a band that's been around so long, and kept most of it's core members the whole time, it's impressive how good they still sound.  I could not find a single track on I'm With You that I didn't like.  I was also impressed with how well Josh Klinghoffer's style meshed with the traditional funk/hard rock/punk style that the Chili Peppers are known for.  Klinghoffer was confirmed as a permanent replacement for long-time guitarist John Frusciante.  While many fans were upset to see John go, Josh's style provides a different yet interesting effect on the music.  Where Frusciante was known for his psychedelic riffs, Josh does a good job of keeping a good background rhythm that complements Flea's bass riffs very well.

Overall I'd have to say that I'm With You is one of my favorite albums by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  It has less of a hard rock feel to it and draws more influence from funk, which is an interesting but not unwelcome change from the traditional Chili Peppers sound.  The only album that I think tops I'm With You is Californication, which was and still is a gem.