Blog 4- Mise en Scene

I thought that both the setting and props were, surprisingly, very realistic. I understand that the movie isn't too old, but I still think it was very well done for the time period it was made. I found no flaws in the setting where the scene took place. It was very realistic and the underground room was very frightening. It was set up very well and I could almost feel myself being in the girl's shoes. I also thought that the ending, where she was able to cut a hole in the ceiling and end up back in a normal room, away from the madness, was also interesting. For the most part, the lighting was somewhat dim, and was evenly spread out through the entire room. I did, however, notice that the table was a bit brighter than the rest of the room. With this, we were drawn into the monster, especially his upper body and face. It was interesting how effective the lighting is when you actually look for it. When only looking for certain lighting, I was still drawn to the same parts of the screen when just watching it normally. The lighting played a huge part on where my focus was a certain point or time in the clip. The costumes/makeup were by far my favorite part of the clip. The monster's costume was very realistic and I noticed very little flaws with it. The eyes were a bit plain and didn't seem to fit in with how realistic the costume was. Also, I felt that, when the monster turned around, you could more easily tell that it was a costume. Even though we already knew that it was one, the front of it seemed very real and intriguing. Also, I wouldn't necessarily consider this a costume, but the small fairy-like creatures were also very well done. Even though they were most likely done digitally, they fit into the scene very well. The sound was mostly diegetic. The most noise and/or sound in the clip came from the girl, the monster, or the fairies. There wasn't much actual speaking, but the noises that the fairies and monster make made up a majority of the scene. There were also some non-degetic sounds. There was very dramatic music in the background, especially near the end when the monster was following the girl. The music made this part very suspenseful. The camera angles provided a lot to the suspense of the scene. The monster was in the shot almost the whole time. The part where he gets up from the table and everything after that was perfectly done. We could see the horror on the girls face as we also saw the monster in the background, coming after her. Also, the beginning of the scene was very well done showing us what the girl was doing and the switching to what the monster was doing, up until the moment where he gets up from the table.

The Wind on the Downs

Post #3

     The onslaught of social media sites has been changing our culture drastically. While the implementation of sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has brought many fun and innovative ways to communicate, many negative side effects have also come about. These online media sites have been detrimental to acquiring personal relationships with people. Just about every form of communication we have, whether it be with our closest friends or a family member that lives far away, is online through a social media site. When these personal relationships aren't there, people begin to lose their personalities when using these sites.
     Entrepreneur Andrew Keen believes that the "Occupy Wall Street" movement was never really a serious issue. He thinks that movements, such as this one, that have been seen as very strong online, have little to no effect on our actual lives. He believes that when people get online, they lose their entire personality and are very outspoken on things, such as the movement. Then, he also thinks that, if the issue was brought up in person, it would not be as near as popular as it currently is.
     According to medialit.org, media literacy can be defined as "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms." Using this definition, I would consider myself very media literate. I spend many hours a day, both in and out of school, using the internet, or other forms of media, to learn and research many topics. Doing so means that I have to access, evaluate, and analyze what I find in order to learn whatever I want or need to learn. The last part of the definition, create, in my opinion, is the toughest part of media literacy. Creating any form of media, whether it be a website, blog, etc. can be pretty difficult. On top of the difficulty of creating it, you also what to make it so that it will be useful and appealing to anyone who may use or see it.
    In the excerpt we read from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to death, we can determine that Postman does not enjoy the rise of social media. He believes that it has, and is getting even more, out of hand. I would have to both agree and disagree with this. I do believe that social media can be a very good thing and is not ruining our culture, like he seems to believe. I do, however, also think that many people are too involved in social media and it is effecting their lives in many negative ways. As explained earlier, personal relationships are greatly effected when social media becomes a large part of someones life. While I understand that the Postman believes social media has little to no good for society, I cannot bring myself to believe that.

     Works Cited

Johnson, Abby. "Is Social Media Hurting Our Culture?" WebProNews. N.p., 15 June 2012. Web. 08 Mar. 2013.

Solis, Brian. "The State of Social Media 2011: Social Is the New Normal." RSS. Socialmediatoday, 18 Oct. 2011. Web. 08 Mar. 2013.

"What Is Media Literacy? A Definition...and More." Center for Media Literacy. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2013.