Aurelie's Movie Magic Project

 

A color is “the property possessed by an object that produces different physical sensations on the eye, as a result of the way it reflects or emits light”. As a form of non-verbal communication, color is therefore subjected to interpretation and its meaning can vary depending on individual, culture and circumstances as a non-static significance. [...] This is why the introduction of colors in media was such a revolution, particularly in movies. In fact, for the first time since the debut of the cinematography’s industry, directors were able to add another dimension to their images, a new way to communicate feelings to their audiences. [...] In order to interpret the way color is used in different films, I chose two clips visually different.  

 

The first movie clip I chose is [...] Marie-Antoinette [...]. I selected that one because I thought it was an interesting example of how colors are used to describe a state of mind, a situation, an era. [...]This movie clip is characterized by the multiplicity of colors, fabrics and tapestries, bright and glittery, which follow one another at a crazy speed: pink, yellow, green and gold; purple, red, blue and so on.
I decided to frame my mosaic with a very bright pink to represent femininity, love and beauty; centered in my work, the royalty is symbolized by a hand-fan made of different colored papers (striped, squared…) that look like the dozens of draperies Marie-Antoinette and her friends examine. On the bottom, I represented the idea of overconsumption, greed, insignificance, decline, bulimia of food and pleasures by these multi-colored cotillions [...].
Finally, on the top I added some gold touches, as bubbles of Champagne, suggesting wealth, prosperity, the people partying, as well as lightness, insignificance, futility.

In opposition to the previous movie clip I analyzed, the second one, Hero [...] is more pure and uncluttered, having a three colors base: red, black and the set orange/brown/yellow[...]. Indeed, this intensity of this fight scene clearly appears by the use of the color red [...] that contrasts with the [...] black [...] expressing the death, the mystery [...]. I chose a simple bicolored background: brown and light brown, to represent the earth and the order, and situated the fight action on the superior part with two red circles complemented with black Chinese signs symbolizing the long dark hair. A thick black line separating the mosaic indicates the opposition and the hostility.  
To finish, I glued very little squares of red and yellow paper to represent the leaves flying around the two opponents, with the awareness that yellow and red putted together do the color orange: the red for action, confidence and courage; the yellow for energy and wisdom; the orange for vitality and endurance.

Movie Magic project (Sung)

The Movie Magic Project was an interesting activity for me because I liked watching movies. Some movie clips were familiar with me, even though I didn’t remember the details and conclusions. Among them, I found two interesting movie clips. One clip was Marie Antoinette and another clip was Star Wars.

1. Marie Antoinette

 

        Marie Antoinette movie clip showed various kinds of color. The movie clip expressed how the young princess lived a luxurious life. However, many people could assume that this movie will be end with tragedy because it was based on history. When I created the mosaic, I tried to express both  bright image in the movie clip and tragedy of the princess. In my mosaic, the sky blue and white fancy ribbon symbolizes Princess Marie Antoinette.  Next, the seven colors surround the princess. I intended to arrange theses color plates like poker cards. That gives a hint that she is playing a dangerous game. Especially, the last card is black because the shadow of death is waiting for her.

 

 

     2.Star Wars

           The movie clip shows the one of the most famous scenes in the movie history. Darth Vader defeats his young son, Luke Skywalker. The young Jedi was too weak to confront with Darth Vader. When I created my mosaic, especially I considered the two colors; the red and blue (green). The red color is a symbol of the Dark Force, and the blue represents the Force. In my mosaic, the Red leaf dominates the major portion of the space. The red leaf represents Darth Vader. The green leaf is the young Jedi. Green is the color of life, but the young man is not ready to fight against the great evil. The background is covered with black color because the Dark Force superior to the Force. However, the right side still has a small space with navy color because even though most of the hope was extinguished, the hope still remains.

 

Elena Holzschuhs Movie Magic Project

For my movie magic project I use two small film clips. The special thing about these film clips are the different kind of colors.

First of all, colours are very important for a film and they give a special view on the hole film because colors accentuate important things in a film for example a important person.  After that, colours also show differences between men and women because it is very often that women wear colourful clothes then men. Besides, you can join different colours with different symbols, for example, the sun is always yellow or you can join colors with different kind of fruits, for example, a banana is always yellow. So that makes it more easy for children to learn the primary colours.

For the magic movie project the whole class watched different kind of film clips. While watching I made some notes to remember what was happened in all these film clips. After that, I chose two clips.

My first clip is called "hero". In this clip, two asian women fight together in a forest. The main colours are yellow, black and red because all the leaves and the trees are yellow and the women play the main role in the clip because of that, they wear a red dress.
For my mosaic I picked these special colours and after that I stuck all of my singles pieces on a white sheet of paper. First of all, I created the background with the trees, then I stuck the main person in this film clips, the two asian women who fight together.

 "hero"

My second film clip is called "marie antoinette", this is a very colourful film with a lot of different types of colours. Sometimes all these colours are a little bit too much and too extreme but in this film clip it is very good because all the different colours signal wealth in this century. In the end of the clip you can see marie antoinette with a very big dress and her hairstyle is also very big.
For may mosaic I chose a lot of colours: pink, red, yellow, green  etc.. Then, I made many small pieces of paper and put these on my mosaic to show the wealth. Finally, I made a small frame on my mosaic to finish it up.

 "marie antoinette" 

Live by words. Sr Kim Dung

One of my friends asked me how I could learn wisdom. That was not an easy answer for me, so I said I did not know, “reflect and appreciate” he said. That is true and necessary to appreciate what I have. Those can be my family, my community, my professors, nature, religion, and all things I learn and receive daily. The appreciation is never left over, useless or an extra thing. The more I appreciate, the more I respect people and everything around me, and the more I become a genuine person. Because I cannot create them, they become my special presents. Therefore, I need to appreciate all things in both great and small.

Life is not perfect in our will; what I want to do, I can do sometimesor cannot do sometimes. It becomes normal in daily life. I prefer successfulness as a great thing and failure is a small thing. So, although successfulness or failure happens, there is a message for me; it also brings me to a specific look or specific thought about previous situation or a lesson in that moment. For me, successful is not the only goal I need to achieve; however, failure also brings me an achievement somehow. Even though I said that, I do not refuse that I get frustrated when I cannot get what I will. Because I am a perfect kind of person, successful is still a goal that I need to try the best, but if the result is not good as I expect, I accept it as a “small thing” that I have.

In my opinion, successfulness or failure represents a “trophy” as a straightforward reward or later reward as an experience.Furthermore, there are many other things we need to appreciate during our lives. For example, a small stone is a stone of itself, but when a small stone is given for someone on special occasion, immediately, it becomes a present. If the receiver respect that present, the giver feel happy. Therefore, when appreciation develops into our attitudes, we are never alone.

“Hãy chèo ra chỗ nước sâu” means “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Lk 5:4. That is my community theme to reach out in future. This simple set on the counter in dining room of my community. The words are from New Testament; Jesus spoke to His disciples when they went to catch fish in the early morning, but they got nothing in that day. Jesus told them, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” They did as Jesus said; His disciple got many big fish in that morning. “Into the deep water” is also understood that I need to break down my safe wall and look for another new chance. As a simple example, Daisy does not like her classmate,Ally, because Daisy always criticizes racism about Ally, and Ally comes from African. Daisy hurt Ally day by day unconsciously. Also, Daisy ignores or continues thinking bad about her classmate. Until one day, Daisy recognizes that she is wrong because of her racism. In order to go “into deep” Daisy approach to Ally for a sorry and they become friend. That is the very simple meaning of “go into deep water”.

The picture is placed in community dining room to remind each on of us about this theme. Whenever we pass by, we see it, put it in mind to live and try to “go into deep water”.

In conclusion, appreciation is never waste and “go into deep” to make another chance to reach out to other people. I chose these pictures because it really touch me and help he to stand up every time that I want to hide myself in a safety room.

Cultural Informant _ Hebe Gurdian

HOLIDAYS IN THE US

As an international student I have always wondered about celebrations and holidays in the US, so this topic was interesting to be used for the interview. My tutor, Allison Derrick, who is from Florida, had a good idea about how holidays are different from one place to another.

My tutor considers that the most important celebrations in the U.S are the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Halloween and New Years Eve. Personally, I had heard about 4th of July but I did not know that it was so important for Americans. In New Orleans, we both agreed that the most important holiday is Mardi Gras. According to Allison, even if Mardi Gras is not celebrated around the country, there are carnivals in other cities which are as important for them as Mardi Gras is for New Orleans. For example, Gasparilla Carnival in Tampa. They celebrate that Tampa used to be the home for a bunch of pirates from the Caribbean. It is like a party and they have parades, beads and everything.

Halloween is also very important for New Orleans. Allison described her Halloween experience in 2009 and 2010 as a “very cool” experience.

We discussed Thanksgiving Day, an American tradition that I did not understand very well until Allison explained that Thanksgiving is a cultural holiday, and the history is that the pilgrims, when they first immigrated to the United States, had a really rough time getting settled and getting enough food, and some of the local Native Americans helped them out and gave them the extra food they had and they all ate together. Thanksgiving is the day when you take time to reflex on your life and be grateful for the good things that you have.

I have always wondered if Thanksgiving is more important than Christmas for American, now I understand that both of them are important. Thanksgiving is more like a cultural holiday and Christmas is more religious. Many families celebrate Christmas in the similar way the do for Thanksgiving, with the difference that they go to the church on Christmas Eve. I think that some families with kids in America celebrate Christmas in some sense, even if they are not Christians or Catholics, only for Santa Claus tradition.

Allison studied abroad in Africa and she said that when she was in Botswana she had a Thanksgiving dinner with her friends and she tried to explain them about the importance of that day for Americans. It reminded me to Bohannan when she had Thanksgiving dinner alone, eating chicken instead of turkey and trying to feel as if she was at home.

It is really interesting to understand how Americans celebrate their holidays in different ways from one city to another. As I always say, our culture represents us, no matter where we are. A good example of this is Allison’s experience trying to keep her Thanksgiving dinner, even being in Botswana.