Once again, in my math class, I was surprised with a documentary film.  This film depicted the complete history of film starting with Thomas Edison and continuing on through the present.  I was only able to watch the first half of it, so for the moment I have only seen the very early history of film.   I found it amazing the way some of the effects, like ghosts and disappearing people where created.  The processes used were so primative, yet so innovative.  Furthermore, it is wonderful to imagine how the audiences might have reacted to theses now hokey special effects.  If a ghost had only ever been described to you and then you are suddenly exposed to a full visual representation of a phantom on screen, imagine the excitement.  Still, so far the movie has seemed some what more nostalgic than what would considered objective.  However, I cannot complain when I am still being provided the information.  I look forward to seeing the rest...

After seeing the second half, I continued to be enthralled with the information. The movie explored the themes of Hollywood and romantic film.  It spoke about how these films were completely unreal and how everything way made to be perfect.  It then briefly went into the revolution of realism.  It also spoke about some of the darkness in film by referring to the shockingly racist film Birth of a Nation.  I was pleased to see that the directer made a follow up film in response to the horror of his audiences called intolerance.  However, although all the information I greatly enjoyed, I could not help but notice when watching the 2nd half that the narrator seems extremely pretentious.  He ended all his sentences like a question and repeatedly came back to the metaphor that Hollywood was a bauble.  I enjoy metaphors, but instead of introducing it in an interesting way and subtly linking it throughout the film they drove the metaphor through the viewers skull by continuously going back to the shot of a hanging Christmas ornament  and then dramatically making it crash to the floor, while the narrator droned on with his haughty Scottish voiceover.  Despite this small annoyance, I greatly enjoyed the experience of learning a little more about early film.

Today, in Algebra II, I received a lovely little surprise, the opportunity to forgo mathematics and watch a movie.  A documentary film called Between the Folds, this cinematic treat was a surprising trip through the world of modern origami.  It depicted the blending of mathematics and art through paper folding.  While watching the film, I lusted after a few sturdy squares of paper so I could begin the fantastic journey that was being shown on screen.  The film fairly depicted the world of origami by showing traditional origami, wet folding, more edgy artistic origami, and mathematical origami in  a stunning and interesting way.  With amazing colors and incredibly complex technical displays one easily falls in love Between the Folds.  

Some of my artwork.

Nu Works Music Project

This six weeks our big project involved making our own instrument and composing an original song.  I enjoyed making the instrument itself but I wish that we had more time to practice our song.  When it came to performing our song, my group was not well rehearsed and we became very nervous.  I really like the idea of this project but it was really hard to execute because there are so many kids in our class.  During practice time everyone was yelling and it was very hard to hear each other.  However, I still had great time doing this project.  My musical instrument was made of four soda bottles filled with water and you blew into it like a flute.

Nu Works Short Film Project

This 6 weeks we had a BEAST project in Nu Works!!! We were put into groups and assigned a prompt.  My groups prompt went something like this, "There are many statues of men slaying lions, but if the lions carved the statues we would have a very different set of statues.  We were given jobs. I was the designer, Sam was the editor, Ashley was the sound person, Joan was the playwright, and Joy made the storyboards.  We decided to make are film a silent horror movie about pumpkins.  The idea was that pumpkins don't like to be carved and they might want to carve you if they could.  Every group had really nice videos but I like ours alot.  I think it turned out really funny.  This was by far my favorite Nu works project, because I think it was the most creative.  I just wish Ms. Edmondson had given us more guidance.  Still, overall I loved it and my group was great.

SPACE PROJECT

My project on space was very difficult and time consuming, but I think it turned out well in the end.  I explored all the types of space in a wacky and entertaining way.  I hope...  The two main problems with my video were that the pixels were very large, and the video overall was pretty jerky because it was a stop motion video.  I am SUPER exited about showing my video to the rest of the Nu Works class.  

My favorite performance out of the class was Heather's.  Her performance was a dramatic poem which really took you out of your comfort zone.  At the very end she even shouted at the audience.  I thought it was a great concept and presentation.

Nu Works

In Nu Works class we are learning about different types SPACE. I made this blog in class so I could learn about cyber space.  Making this blog was really fun, but it was kind of confusing.  I wish we could have had more time to perfect it.  The 2nd type of space that we learned about was the infinite space of the imagination.  We all lay down on the floor and closed are eyes, while we listened to a calming story.  At the end of the story we opened an imaginary box.  We sat up and we drew what we thought was in that box.  This experience was very low key.  I think it might be a stretch to ask a group of High School students to use there imagination.  However, it was still an interesting experience.  The last space we learned about was movement in space.  This class was my favorite class about space.  We learned about the different types of movement and we performed at the end of the class.  It was really fun and energetic.