Chris's Studio Concepts Blog

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Radio Response

I found a Radio Show to watch off of This American Life. I watched an episode called Surrogates that was about people that could almost switch off because they were twins. Having only had a sibling that looks nothing like me, it seemed like an interesting subject.

First off, it was weird listening to something like a radio show without being in the car. I’ve listened to NPR in the car sometimes on the way to school, but I’ve never listened to something off of my computer not driving around. It took me a little while to adjust to not seeing an image on the screen and get comfortable with getting information in this new media.

The topic was really interesting. It started talking about a pair of twins that were co principals at a school and how they could switch off part way through tours and how they confused some of the students that were at their school. The principals confused a few of the students because they thought that it was only one man that could be in many places at the same time.

They also brought in a pair of twins that didn’t get along and showed us that dynamic. All in all, I found it to be a very interesting topic. I now have a new appreciation and interest in talk radio.

Narrative Response

For my Narrative film, I watched The East. This was recommended to me by one of my friends that go to a very environmentally friendly school who thought it was interesting to see a movie that depicted people with similar views to hers but on an extremist end. So I thought it would be good to watch it.

The film was surprisingly well done. Most independent films do not have a lot of fancy props or extravagant scenes, but this movie could have easily been mistaken for being a normal Hollywood studio film. There were no dramatic action scenes, but there didn’t need to be. There was no plot point that required a violent or special effect filled scene.

The main character I also found interesting. She was a very normal acting girl with a normal personality. She is seen enjoying many common things like fast food and hotel rooms. Her job is one of the only things that are unusual. She is a private investigator for a company that helps gather information to sign clients. She infiltrates a terrorist cell that attacks companies for not being environmentally friendly and the cell is full of extremist hippies.

Slowly as the movie progresses she becomes more and more like the hippies she’s with. She starts eating food out of the trash, she becomes comfortable with other people bathing her and living in the woods. This film was very interesting and engaging. I really enjoyed seeing this kind of extremist people that I didn’t know anything about.

Documentary Response

In all honesty, I do not watch that many documentaries. I have seen maybe six or seven in my entire life so I did not really know where to go to find one. I went on Netflix though and I looked in the documentary section and found a topic that interested me. Zombies.

Now why Zombies interested me is because I am a huge horror movie fan, unless there are Zombies in the movie. Zombie usually bore me in horror movies because I find them not that scary and not that creative. When I saw The Truth Behind Zombies by National Geographic I started to wonder why people found Zombies interesting, so I watched it to learn what these people thought about Zombies.

I actually enjoyed the documentary. I thought it was interesting having a combination of appropriated footage, interviews and images. The transitions between the three combined with the research were a very interesting format for a film to be presented. Normally I only watch narrative films so in was unusual to see a film in this format.

I thought that the movie was pretty engaging and entertaining. In was interesting to watch a movie that has the complete opposite views as I have when it comes to the topic of Zombies. I never new where the idea of Zombies came from and I never knew what people that enjoyed Zombies thought about them. Even though I still don’t agree with their views, I can comprehend them and I found watching this movie to be a good experience.