I found this movie to be a hard one to follow.  It definitely raised a lot of questions in my mind, such as what is the point of this film…? I did enjoy it thought, it had clever jokes and suppose a movie that is thought provoking is one that is a success.  Having the setting in Japan while the main characters were American clearly out of their elements was a good way to set the film.  It made good use of camera shots, and had an appropriate amount of music and other things of that nature to really set the tone.

As she reads his letters, she struggles to find the words to write back.  His poem is a VO as the scenes cut to see him writing to her.  It’s the sentimental value of letters as a bridge to separation that will be explored through this look into the essence and feelings of having to write letters as a form of communication.  No dialogue, just poem VO and music.

That is the question. Here are the answers.

This Rolling Stones documentary was one that I actually enjoyed, not because of a love of the band (I would not call myself a fan) but because of the technique used in filming the piece.  I really appreciated the cinematography; the camera angles were great.  They really focused in on things like people’s faces to get reaction shots and snakeskin boots as they were tapping to the music.  The camera made the documentary real to the viewer, and captured a lot of things that really showed the essence of the era.  You learned about the Rolling Stones through more than just watching them, but also by watching their fans like in their free concert.  They also did things like focus in on a large bubble floating around the open concert area, which just gave an artistic feel to the piece and added a little bit of flavor.  I felt like the people who filmed Gimme Shelter did not just make a standard documentary, but really made it their own.

This weekend we watched the film Raging Bull.  It was very different than films I am used to watching, but I enjoyed it because of this.  It was a black and white about a the career of a boxer.  The camera angles in the film are what I enjoyed best from a technical point of view.  They seemed to let you in to see the realness of the story.  It also seemed true to the times in which the film took place by having it in black and white in addition with the qualities and accents of the characters.  It was a somewhat intense film.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this film.  It was a fairly long documentary but I never found my attention wandering.  Seeing it from the kids’ points of view was a really nice way of putting it together.  I loved hearing what the kids had to say about different things when they were interviewed.  The camera angles mixed with the upbeat music and the reality of it all made for a great film.

Here is the nighthawks painting story I created for my Digital Media class. It’s just the first edit!

It’s easy and kind of hard at the same time.  You have to be in the middle of the action and create the picture in your mind just seconds before you get the shot.  A street photographer’s goal is to isolate the exchanges between people, and show simplicity of the world.  The hard part is sometimes being quick enough to do so.  I know that I have let some really good photographs pass me by because of hesitation or not being ready.It is probably one of the most frustrating things ever, to know the potential of a shot you missed.  You also can’t be shy to be a street photographer-one of the times when I was ready with the camera it was an awkward situation where we were in the car and pulled over to give a homeless woman money on the side of the road.  I was honestly embarrassed to even ask, but she let me take the photo. I never would have gotten it, or at least one half as good, if I hadn’t been able to be outright enough to just ask and do.

Street Photography for the Purest is a great beginners manual that really levels with the reader in explaining a lot about the basics of street photography.

I looked up this film on IMDb, also called Lola rennt, and was surprised to find out that it was not an independent film or something of that nature, that it is the German version of a Hollywood film.  It is so different than a typical contemporary film, and it is only ten years old.  I do not think that I have ever seen a film before that repeated the plot line three times, all with the same basic course of action but with different outcomes.  The story itself is very simple,  Lola needs to get 100,000 DM in twenty minutes for her boyfriend so that he does not rob a store for it or get killed by the man he was working for.  It was definitely a hit though because it is translated into quite a few different languages.