A Dual Between Money and Love

Post-production brings pieces of film together. A director may have a lot of good footage, but the footage must be put together in a talented way to be able to tell a story. Sound effects give the video more flavor, and really makes the audience feel like they are involved with the film's space. The art of sound effects intrigued me so much this term. As I practiced making sound effects to lay over a silent film, I discovered its very hard to make the right sounds and place them at the right time. The sound of knocking on a wooden door isn’t the same as banging metal. Walking on sand makes a smoother noise than walking on legos. Getting into the mind of a foley artist opened my mind to think outside the box. Ever since taking this course, I have paid more attention to the details in video production and try to figure out the secrets behind them.

I picked the movie Slumdog Millionaire to study its editing, sound production, cinematography, acting, costume design, and production design, and create a dualist review on it. When I saw this movie as a child, I was confused and did not understand what was happening. Now, since I paid attention to the details the movie artists put into the movie, I gained a better sense of what idea they wanted to put in the film.

Climbing Meow Majesties

Game Changers, my STEAM class for the Elective Term, changed my views on why games are important. We learned about the many different mechanics behind a game, such as player elimination, goals, player interaction, luck vs randomness, and score ranking. Before going into the class, I thought creating a game was simple and could be done in a few days. The game process is much more difficult than brainstorming for a day and acting upon it. The class talked to Eric Garneu, an event organizer for Chicago Playtesting Society, about what makes a game interesting and gave us motivation to make a game of our own. Game creation is now considered a talent and an art to me, as I had empathy for what playtesters and game designers go through in this project. Since the first day that my group decided on what game we were going to create, our game evolved from three different games as you can see in our prototypes. Our first couple of prototypes used cheap materials and ideas scattered all over the place. With a lot of playtesting and feedback, we have come up with our game called Meow Mountains. Meow Mountains is an interactive board game for three to four players. In this game, you are a prince cat trying to gather all of the jewels that fell off of the princess cat’s head and down the pyramid. You can move in any direction, two spaces at a time. When you have collected the most jewels and made it to the princess at the top of the pyramid, you win!

KM, Meow Majesties, (2019)

Bankaroo, a virtual bank for kids, can utilize Meow Mountains by having an interactive, fun lesson on how to budget, save money for goals, and spend money wisely. The jewels in the game can represent real money. Having money may have ups and downs, which is shown through battling other cats, but in the end, the amount of money you have for different wants and needs is dependant on yourself.

At first, the game was going to be about the life as a cat in the city, and by using time management skills, the best scheduled cat would win the game. By letting go of the desired theme and putting more thought into the mechanics and structure of the game, the theme changed according to the rules that were placed. The first playtest made me a little anxious because I felt that the game was not ready. I learned that the point of playtesting was to gather thoughts from outside of team and think about how the game can be improved for the future; that a game wasn’t supposed to be at its final version in the first week. Watching my classmates play the game and have fun without needing any instruction from me or my partners, made us more excited to make the game more user friendly. My partners and I had multiple ideas, but we sat and tested each and every idea and whittled our list down to make the best version possible in the time frame we had. It was interesting to me to see how we were sticking to a 2D game board for the majority of the creation process, but at the last minute we questioned why we put that standard down. We challenged ourselves to make a 3D game board that looks more appealing and nice aesthetic. I was feeling stressed that we would not have a final version by the deadline, but with teamwork and timed goals, we made it happen. 

I am very proud of the amount of work I put into the game. I am generally a more creative, artsy person, but I challenged myself to look at the mechanics part of the game. Being able to come up with a player interaction mechanic was hard, and it was critical to think of one up soon or else the game was no fun. By inserting a triggered battle when a player is by another player, made the game more exciting and have more of a luck side instead of being all strategy. After I put that rule in, playtesting got more exciting and had the players on the edge of their seats. I am glad I overcame that challenge, as it helped the flow of the game a lot. I designed the graphics of the board and measured how big each square should be so the layers would fit perfectly, and it came out to look professional and clean. I came up with the idea of using polymer clay to make some of our props, which came out to be handy because it gave the team more use of their imagination to make something what they really wanted. I also wrote the rules and proofread it many times, as clarity and grammar means a lot 

to new players. The creation of this game changed me as a critical thinker, and made me realize that I am great at a lot of skills, but I have room to improve in other areas. As a move forward as a collaborator, I want to improve in listening to others, creating schedules on what needs to be done by each team member, and every positive and negative piece of feedback important, as outside ideas are just as important as those in my head.

Two Thumbs Up

As you watch a movie, you take in the story, unforgettable characters, and powerful dialogue. My Ollywood class watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next and A Christmas Carol, and studied how the camera angles, framing, and lighting influenced the audience's experience. After identifying these techniques in the movies, me and my group created a nano-cinema of a school shooting for a test. My group and I were challenged to tell a story in our short clip, without making the setting too obvious. This helped us learn how to use these techniques hands on and experience being a cinematographer. My partner and I took our critiquing skills to the test by watching Cry Freedom, a powerful movie made in 1989. At first, this movie did not interest me, as it is a very long movie at a whopping 2 hours and 39 minutes. I sat down and watched the movie one night, while pausing it and taking notes. This movie changed me and really opened my eyes to what is beyond my city, state, and country.

Cross my Heart

In my first unit in my class named Ollywood, the students and I had the mindset as a screenwriter and a production designer for famous films. Instead of watching movies for fun, we had a notebook out and critiqued movies to see if they were successful. Some examples of movies and clips that we watched are Jaws, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and Life of Pi. We looked for dynamic characters, if the backgrounds fit the subject, foreshadowing, and character's dialogue. It was interesting to watch a movie to fit certain requirements instead to have it serve as entertainment. We also went on a Field Experience to Lower Wacker Drive to act as location scouts. Location scouts are the people who find the location for a movie to be filmed at. There is a lot of thought to find the perfect place for a movie to be set at, but once you find the right place, it is rewarding to see it in action. For this Action Project, I critiqued a movie called Rushmore. I watched the movie twice. In the first watch, I paid more attention to the acting and context of the film. During the second viewing, I paid more attention to the dialogue. Enjoy the critique!

Rushmore by Wes Anderson is a dramatic and comedic masterpiece released in 1998 that beautifully depicts the art of production design.The movie immerses the audience on a love quest journey, making unexpected turns throughout the way.

Jason Schwartzman plays Max Fischer, the protagonist, who is an ambitious 15-year-old student at Rushmore Academy. He is the president of the French Club, manager of the Calligraphy Club, Co-Founder of the Kite Flying Society, and in lead of many other activities. Despite being a determined leader in more than fifteen clubs, he is flunking out of school. Max confesses his social struggle to his father on a walk home, wondering, “Maybe I'm spending too much of my time starting up clubs and putting on plays. I should probably be trying harder to score chicks. That's the only thing anybody really cares about. But, its not my forte, unfortunately.” Since Max doesn’t have a welcoming friend group at Rushmore, he gets along with his older comadres better. Bill Murray plays Max’s antagonist, Herman Blume, who is one of Rushmore’s biggest donors. Both Max and Herman fall in love with one of the new teachers, Miss Cross, played by Olivia Williams. Herman admits, “She’s my Rushmore”, making an analogy to how the school is Max’s whole life is similar to how Miss Cross has become his love of his life. Herman is smart with his words and uses it against Max to come out as the stronger, older man. The two men have the same desire to make Miss Cross theirs. The situation becomes hectic once they know each other’s plans to get closer with her, and try to foil each of their attempts. They both have their strengths and weaknesses to gain Miss Cross’ heart, but she ultimately doesn’t want any love relations with either of the two. This resolves Max and Herman’s friendship.

The screenwriters illustrated Max’s dynamic character of evolving from a powerful, mature friend to a vulnerable, lovesick teenager properly in the dinner scene with Max, Herman, Miss Cross, and Dr. John. After Max’s play, Miss Cross introduced Dr. John to Max. Although Dr. John compliments Max’s hard work, he is not happy to see a man with his crush. He expected to see Miss Cross alone, but this expectation is overthrown. Max tries to hide his feelings by talking smart and not showing any friendliness towards Dr. John. As the dinner scene starts, the drunk Max immediately begins to belittle Dr. John by commenting on his “nurse’s” uniform.” Dr. John defends himself and says,“They are O.R. scrubs.” Max smirks and hastily asks “Oh, are they?”. Herman laughs suddenly and wine goes up his nose, while Miss Cross is silently displeased. Herman realizes that he shouldn’t encourage the drunk behavior and tells Max to watch himself. Miss Cross angrily blames Max’s drunk, blunt remarks on Herman and says that he is the one who ordered the wine. Max continues to call Dr. John by pet names until Miss Cross calls him out on it. Max yells, “You hurt my feelings. This night was important to me!” Herman and Dr. John awkwardly stay silent and observe from the side. Confused, Miss Cross asks, “How did I hurt your feelings?”. Max screams, “Oh my god! I wrote a hit play!” The yelling causes a scene in the quiet restaurant. Max calms down and breathes out, showing his frustration. He looks into Miss Cross’ eyes and says, “ I’m in love with you.” John looks to Miss Cross. She is at a loss of words. Herman awkwardly looks to the distance. Max looks drunk and dejected. All in a span of a minute and forty-five seconds, this scene makes the audience grip the edge of their seat to see what happens next. Max’s feelings are depicted in an realistic and relatable effective way. When people see their crush with someone else, they instantly feel jealous and only want attention from the one they love. These feelings of expectations not going the way they were planned out to be in his mind erupts, making us wonder what will happen to make Max feel okay again.

Besides the wild story Rushmore tells, there is another layer of context that is not talked about by the characters. Wes Anderson’s films exist mostly in a white people environment. As Rushmore is very expensive, it is expected to see a lot of preppy kids rule the school. Max has a talk with the principal about how he gained a scholarship to attend Rushmore in second grade by writing an impressive play. He appreciates the opportunity to be able to go to a nice school without the worry of paying high tuition. He is violently bullied for being ambitious and outgoing, but that doesn’t stop him for doing what he loves. This nice world crashes down when Max has to transfer to a public school because of his slack in studies and harassment at Miss Cross. At the new school, his new love interest is Asian-American. Since he only saw white people at Rushmore, going to a public school was an eye opener for him that there are so many different people out there. Max comes from a working-class background, unlike his peers at Rushmore. He lies to everyone that his father is a brain surgeon, but he is actually a barber. He also deals with the loss of his mother, which we feel sorry for when he sits next to her grave when he is sad. The two different economic schools are realistic to how students feel when they attend schools that are in a higher class neighborhood than their own. The audience empathizes with Max’s two different personas at home and at school.

The production design of the movie has a lot of thought put into it and tells its own story by connecting the subject and the background. Rushmore is set in Houston, Texas. This is where Wes Anderson grew up as a child. Sunny, hot Texas is a beautiful place for the movie to set place. The location for the school is very green, pretty, and well kept. It looks more like a fancy college than a high school. The chapel is extremely elegant and fits the catholic school atmosphere. Miss Cross’ classroom looks very realistic, but also rich because of the many aquariums she has in there. All of Max’s clubs has props that fit the context of them. In beekeeping club, there are actual bees. In the racing club, there are carts. In the chess club, there are many chess boards. This makes the audience believe that the clubs are well taken care of and lead well by Max. At the end of the movie, we catch a glimpse inside of Miss Cross’ husband’s room. It has all of his old things in there, such as hanging planes, posters, and bed set. The props really wraps up how the husband’s personality was even though we never met him in the film. Being able to depict someone’s life with their bedroom is personal and lets the audience imagine the history of the room and its owner.

The costumes portrayed the characters successfully. In the student body, Max is the only student that wears a black, sleek Rushmore blazer everyday. Wearing this blazer everywhere is what keeps him prideful of being a Rushmore student. It is a surprise when he is not wearing it. The Rushmore students all wear light blue collared shirts and khakis, which makes them all look the same. This makes Max stand out. Although he transfers to a public school with no uniform policy, he wears it there too. This is similar to someone wearing their favorite sweater or hat all the time, as it keeps them sane and content. Miss Cross always wears something simple but professional, which goes along with her calm and quiet character. Herman is a very rich person, so we see him in a suit for most of the film. He starts to dress in more casual clothing once he is split from his wife, because he lost a lot to the divorce. We start to feel more sorry for Herman once we see the shabby side of his apparel because he doesn’t have to impress anyone with preppy clothing. The costumes are consistent to make us recognize the character’s style easily.

Although Rushmore is successful for its dynamic characters, costumes, props, and background, it fails at the production design and context connecting as a whole. The use of one race and same social class plays a huge role in the movie, and it could’ve been empathized to relate to real world problems.

Fight to Unite!

In the beginning of the Rhetoric unit, I was intimidated by how it works and the meaning of literary devices. After studying and practicing it, I have been able to detect examples of rhetoric in historic text and books. Throughout the unit, i have been more careful with my speech and the tone I use after studying politician’s rhetoric. For this project, I applied the knowledge I have acquired about rhetorical elements to create artwork that breaks the status quo on a social issue. I chose immigration because I have been studying Chuy Garcia and his views on immigration policies. I had some trouble coming up with an idea, but research was able to inspire me. Each element on the poster represents a piece of rhetoric.

JMP, Fight to Unite, (2018)

In my invitation, I intend for the people to see this as a crosswalk sign in Chicago. As they are waiting for the light to change to assure them that it is safe to walk across the street, their eyes will linger towards this bold sign.  They should think about the endangerment of crossing the border as they cross the street, and how lucky they are to have freedom. The name of this piece, "Fight to Unite", will make them think, who is uniting? The piece addresses the immigration policy issue in the United States. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, a politician that focuses on changing our current harsh immigration policies, is holding the children's hands on the left side. On the right side, there is a mother and her other child waiting for her children to be united back with the family. The United States is on the left, because it is north of the southern families trying to find new life in a new nation. The children were taken away from their mom because of ICE's heartless actions. Chuy is holding the mother's hand through the broken wall because he is trying to abolish the harsh rule on immigrants and how the government makes them leave the United States with no care. Trump is fundraising for building a wall to block out immigrants and their potential. Many people support his actions, but Chuy is breaking the barrier, literally and metaphorically, to unite minorities and speaking out on this issue. I made my piece to build upon the tradition of rhetoric in U.S history by studying Thomas Paine's "Common Sense". In his writing, he makes war sound simple and easy, but it actually isn't. My piece understates what is at stake at crossing the border and makes it seem easy. This is an example of meiosis. Comparing the simplicity of crossing the street is analogous of crossing the boarder. Immigrants suffer for just the search of a new life. I want the audience to feel empathy as they study this sign. We as a community can start small from talking at a People's Assembly in the neighborhood, to making a change in the whole nation.

La Cargosian

In our last unit of Design and Engineering, we studied the benefits of using a bicycle. It saves fare or gas money, whizzes past busy traffic, and does not create pollution. We used new Calculus skills to determine the measurements, velocity, acceleration, and distance covered by a bike. We also talked to a representative from Divvy, a bike company in Chicago that rents out bikes. It was awesome to see where the Divvy stations are placed in the city and how the design of their bikes is fit for the average commuter. I never used a Divvy bike before, but after hearing the benefits of using one, I may use one when the weather gets nicer.

For our Action Project, my partner and I designed a bicycle for a certain persona. There are many components when it comes to designing a bicycle. First, we had to research different bicycle designs to see what was out there. Then, we thought about the consumer and what needs they have on the go. After knowing what elements the bike will have, we built a prototype and worked until the final product came along.
I learned that inspiration to design comes from researching existing bikes, but not to let it stop me from expanding those ideas to greater ones.

I interviewed Brent, a teacher at my school. He rides his bike from home to school for ten miles a day. He said…

“It has aluminum frame, which transmits a lot of bumps to my body. So any bumps I go over, I feel more than other people with bikes do.”

This inspired my design because I do not want my user to feel bumps easily, especially since she will be traveling on a trail and the street a lot. I researched different materials for the bike frame so it will be the smoothest ride for Malia.

JMP, Bike Route, (2018)

Our user is Malia, a fifteen year old girl that lives in Logan Square. She goes to school, works at the library, and buys groceries often. She will use the elevated , hilly 606 bike trail and ride on a bike lane to get to her destinations. She will try her best to be careful riding along intersections with a lot of potholes and debris. She rides home in the dark because of her busy schedule. It will take her about 27 minutes to get to school on her route.

JMP, La Cargasion, (2018)

Our new bike design is called “The Cargasion”. Since she will be carrying her schoolbooks and groceries a lot, there is a built in cargo pack in the middle of the bike. The middle of the bike is just empty space on past bikes we have researched, so we wanted to put this space to good use. It is made of a wire net to hold the bags in place, and has a secure cover lock that wraps around, so no one tries to steal her belongings. The saddle is a women's specific saddle so it fits just right. There is a built in metal U-Lock, so she can easily lock the bike securely. It has a foam grip, drop handlebar for 2 sets of brakes and faster speeds since Malia will be leaning forward. The foam grip will keep her sweaty hands stable. The steering will be sensitive so Malia can maneuver on the street. It has 3 sets of gears, since she will be going on some hills. The bike frame is made of titanium, which is a very strong material. The saddle is made to last for comfortable long rides. Malia won’t need to dangerously swerve from potholes and debris, because the tires will be airless- meaning that they never go flat to keep a smooth ride.

I have done the research, measurements, and talked to real bike sellers to make sure I can make the best bike for my person. I made sure that these new implements on the bike make sense and benefit the rider's needs.

I am proud that I learned this designing technique and went hands-on to create what my imagination desired. Having empathy and really wanting the best for the consumer is important. I think that this project taught me some life skills, such as planning before acting, thinking outside the box, and connecting my passion of design to the real world.

Boondoggle of a Wall

Previously in my first Action Project for Rhetoric, I studied Chuy Garcia and created a speech based on his rhetoric, style, and views. I focused the issue of immigration policies, on one of the topics he is very passionate about challenging in his run for the 4th Congressional District. Chuy García wants to change current immigration policies to make sure they treat all people equal and pay funds to domestic programs, not programs that already have enough money. I made a brochure based around the research I gathered about him and this topic.

JMP, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia On Immigration Policies", (2018)

Getting the material together was easy, since I have researched him before. Finding a medium to place all of this information was difficult. I talked to my teacher about how to best show off my work, and we decided on a brochure. 

Citations

"Jesus Chuy Garcia Speech at NALEO." Youtube,  uploaded by NALEO Education Fund, 2013 June 29. Video. 

Sun Times Editorial Board. “4th Congressional District Democratic nominee: Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.”

Chicago Sun-Times, 13 October 2018, Website.

Unknown. "Chuy." Jesus Chuy Garcia for Congress, 18 October 2018, Website.