Our Town

“Our Town” was an interesting look at life in the inner city of California, Compton. It’s about a high school that has a high riot rate and has not put on a theatrical production in 21 years. One teacher decides to put on a production of “Our Town” and through the production the students learn a lot about their own town and themselves.

The filmmaking approach that this filmmaker uses is unique to this film. He sets up the film to be parallel to the play, and he continues to intertwine footage from the movie version of the play among the footage of the kids rehearsing. It presents a nice juxtaposition of this perfect little town that the play talks about and the lives that these kids lead in Compton, California. At one point in the film the kids decide to figure out how they can mix their own personalities into their performance. It is interesting to see how they do this.

One scene that was particularly effective for me was one when they were at an evening rehearsal and all of a sudden we hear about five gunshots in a row. If it were me in that situation I would freak out for sure, but all of these kids were quite calm, like it was no big deal – something they dealt with a lot. I thought that scene was very telling to the type of lifestyle that these kids live in. towards the beginning of the film one of the girls states that riots are expected to happen just like any other even in school such as prom, graduation, etc. But the nice thing about this film was that it didn’t totally focus on the hard lifestyle that these kids were living, instead it focused on the fact that they are regular kids trying to figure out their lives. We might have different challenges than they do but underneath it all we are all human and we shouldn’t have to be defined by our circumstances.

Gates of Heaven

“Gates of Heaven” was an interesting documentary, different from most documentaries that I’ve seen. I didn’t have any expectations or preconceptions of this film before hand and I think I’m still trying to work through my thoughts on the film.

The directors storytelling approach was unique I think. I didn’t quite understand what the story was that he was telling until about halfway through the film. Ultimately though I found it to be quite effective. He really let the audience do the thinking. I really had to work to figure out exactly what the filmmaker was thinking. And I think that for the subject that worked well. The film was about pet cemeteries, and it interviewed people who owned them, people who had pets in them, and someone who was completely opposite of them. So a lot of the film seemed to be about conflicting views and deciding which view was more accurate. In that sense I think his storytelling approach worked very well.

Something that I found to be ineffective, or maybe just overused, was the interview in general. The entire movie was pretty much just a bunch of talking heads. I really wanted some moments to breathe and understand what was going on in the film, but those moments were very sparse. But the few breathing moments that were in the film were very nice. There was a moment where we just sat watching a lady sing with her dog. It was a nice moment because we were able to learn a lot about her, her relationship with her dog, and her views on pet cemeteries just in those few observational minutes that we spent together.

One scene that I found to be particularly effective was an interview with an older lady sitting outside her trailer. It seemed to be one long shot of this interview that lasted about seven minutes. She was quite the character and I enjoyed spending that much time with her. I found it to be effective because I think it was able to get the filmmakers point across. He was showing us this lady, a human being, with quirks and faults just like the rest of us and we had the opportunity to either judge her or accept her. I think that might be one of the underlying meanings in the film.

I am still deciding whether the filmmaker was fair in his representation of each person. At first I thought he was completely fair because the film was compiled of a bunch of long interviews so I figured that he didn’t have a lot of room for manipulation. But then I thought about the shots that he decided to show and that made me think twice. A lot of times people would say extremely unintelligent things, such as “People like people because they like one another” and the fact that the filmmaker decided to put those unflattering things in makes me wonder how much I was being manipulated. But then I took a step back and looked at the bigger picture, the film in general, as apposed to specific parts, and I realized that we weren’t manipulated at all. I really feel that the filmmaker was honest in his representation of each character and situation. I think the film was a look at being human. We might not agree with these people but they are passionate and emotional about their pets and that is valid in itself, it does not need our approval for validation. We are all passionate about different things and the fact that they are important to us makes them worth something.

Fit for the Kingdom

I decided to visit the website www.fitforthekingdom.byu.edu . I had heard of this website before in my classes but I never actually visited the website myself. I really enjoyed the site and the films on it. I didn’t watch all of the films, but the ones that I did view I really enjoyed. They all seemed to have a really good message in them. They aren’t necessarily the most glamorous films I’ve seen, but these short docs were nice feel, good films that we can all learn from.

As far as the website itself, there was one feature that I really appreciated. When you click on a film you can click on a link for “More information” and they tell you a little about the film or the people in it. So that I really liked. The site was easy to navigate and pleasant to look at.

What I liked about the work was its honesty. The film titled “Scriptures” is a honest look at how scripture study goes in a regular LDS family. And it wasn’t offensive at all, meaning it didn’t take a sacred topic too lightly. But instead it taught that even though things don’t go smoothly, you are still teaching your kids correct concepts, they are still learning something. That is a nice message that I think a lot of LDS people need to hear. What I didn’t really like about the work was the fact that I didn’t see a lot of variety. I know that I didn’t watch all of the films, but they all seemed to be the same concept; a person’s story that teaches you something through a nice message. I realize that that is the purpose of the sight so I didn’t mind it too much.

I don’t know how “useful” this website and its contents are for me. It’s a nice place to come to when I need a pick me up or if I need to feel better about myself by watching other peoples, non-generic LDS, stories. But aside from that I don’t see a whole lot of use for it. But it is a nice idea and I do think highly of the fact that there are people out there devoted to making and sharing these kinds of films.

I don’t know if there is anything that I would do differently. I do really like what I saw. I think its great to see happy, spiritual people through something other than the cookie cutter, Sunday school answer view. It’s inspiring I think. More people should know about this website.

The Sweetest Sound

For my first reaction paper I chose to watch “The Sweetest Sound” by Alan Berliner. I originally chose this documentary because I had seen one of his earlier docs, “Nobody’s Business”, which I really enjoyed. I looked forward to seeing how he used his unique filmmaking techniques to explore what I thought was an interesting topic. But I must say that the film fell short of my high expectations.

Although the film wasn’t my favorite there were still some positive aspects to the film. As a documentary director I think that Alan Berliner does a nice job of using as many different elements as he can to tell his story. For this film he used a lot of black and white stock footage to back up his commentary about people and names. He also played with the use of sound and particularly the sound of a typewriter. That was a motif throughout the film. We would hear a typewriter as different names were spelled out on screen for us but we would also hear the sound of a typewriter in sync with action on screen. Perhaps he used this effect to create a normalcy throughout and to place everyone on the same level. People are reduced to a name typed out for them.

I found the subject itself to be ineffective. It just didn’t seem to go anywhere. I thought the concept was interesting; what’s in a name? What meaning does it have? Does it shape who we are? But I didn’t feel that he expanded on those questions, he merely stayed on the surface of those questions and never delved into anything deeper. I kept wanting him to use his experimental style and find something, maybe come to some conclusions but I never felt like he ever got there. He spent a lot of time talking about his own name, which was interesting. And he spent a lot of time introducing us to the other Alan Berliner’s that he met, which was interesting. But that’s about all that it was-interesting. Needless to say he didn’t really make me care or feel passionately about anything. He might have made me think about my own name for a few seconds, but not even enough for me to google the other Chelsea Wofford’s of the world.

One scene that I found to be particularly effective was when he was out on the street asking people about names. He would give them a name of someone and ask them what kind of person they pictured when they heard the name. It was interesting to hear the different responses, and they were all different. One person could have found the name Alan to be a fat old guy, while another person found the name Alan would belong to a young man. I thought it was particularly effective because it was a nice insight into how we derive meanings from names. I think it comes mostly from past experience. If we knew a mean Jennifer in Jr. High then we would most likely associate the name Jennifer to be someone that is mean. The other interesting point brought out in this scene was how we feel about people with the same name as us. Some people felt apathetic, but it seemed that the majority of the people didn’t like people with the same name. No one wanted to share that one part of themselves with another person. So I thought these interviews were affective in telling his story.

As far as point of view goes I felt this film was quite one sided. It was all from the point of view of Alan Berliner, the documentary filmmaker. We basically watched him as he did a personal experiment for his own pleasure. I didn’t feel manipulated and I didn’t feel that he was unfair in how he presented is story, but basically I didn’t feel like there was a lot to work with so there wasn’t a lot to be manipulated by. All in all it was an interesting concept that didn’t go very far. But he did do a nice job of putting it together.

The First Post

I like how everyone, except for Brant (way to mess with the norm), picked the same blog layout. I guess it just shouted TMA 273.