Mind Was Slow- Media Review #2

I decided to do After by Moby. This music video was under character studies, which is one of my favorite things. I was drawn to this particular music video because I just love how the story of this girl was told through a series of themed shots. There was no continual flow but a lot of jumping back and forth using images and still lifes and metaphorical scenes to explain the character.

The story starts with setting up the place and characters. The first shot is an expositional shot telling us where this was taking place. Right away we know the characters are in a rich maybe royal home. It also sets up the color theme that plays throughout the story with the red flowers, then shows us two regal people preparing to dance together. It's not long after the main character is revealed running through the courtyard away from others, all of them in white. The words, "But my mind was slow" playing repeatedly throughout. I think that the lyrics while repetitive play to the story very well. Saying, " Oh when you had the time to give, Oh when I had a life to live" which I think refers to being a child and having your whole life ahead of you. The other lyrics say "Oh when you want, you want from me," meaning she had to fill a role and everyone around the character expects something she can't give, because her mind is still slow.

There's than a greatly contrasting shot of the girl in black in the rain surrounded by others in black. The colors white, red, and black seem to already be playing a big part in this music video. The blackness and dreariness contrasting the lighthearted running through a sunny courtyard tell me there was a tragedy. The girl is always seen in red after the funeral. To solidify the concept that there was a tragic death the girl see's a couple, a man and a women, with skull masks over their heads.

It's hard to catch but the following sequence of shots reveal that the skull headed people were the people preparing to dance before, as they are seen dancing in the darkness briefly.

The redness and flowers are shown throughout.

One of my favorite contrasts in this music video is the shots of the little red wooden rocking horse and then the shots of the huge black horse. Emphasizing the growth and lost childhood. Another shot that shows this is the girl lifting her leg to put her foot in a large high heel which is too big for her, showing how she is a girl that has to fill the shoes of an adult.

The whole story is kind of sad. The story of a girl who loses her esteemed parents and has to take over for them and the responsibilities they left. She does so unwillingly, there are shots of her looking in pain as someone pours her a cup of tea or a man shoving legal papers in her face while screaming. In the end she pricks her finger on a red rose and blue blood comes from her finger. At this point of the video the blue is shocking when we've been seeing nothing but red, black, and white. She can't run away from who she is and ends up taking her crown, her blue robe, and leaving the child she was behind.

It's difficult to describe every image that is shown because there are a lot of shots that flicker on and then off again so quickly you hardly have time to process what is is you saw. I had to watch it multiple times and pause it to get all the pieces together. Which I think is the feeling they want. This is a story of a girl who is forced out of her childhood after the death of her parents. All the responsibilities fall to her and it's not something any child wants. I like this character and I love her story, and the way it was told.

Sugar Water

Just wanted to bring up this music video

We didn't get to watch it but it's pretty much mindblowing. It takes a one take to a whole new level by reversing it mid way and splitting the screen. There's all these little details and things that you can miss by watching it just once. The switch in the middle is what really makes your brain hurt. It's just incredibly clever and simple.

WWW aka Welcome to the Wild West

As much as the world of the world wide web has grown and developed over the past couple decades, it's still a very wild and untamable place. There have many attempts to ring it in and control it but it's very much uncontrollable still in some ways. People are still adjusting to how to act and how to say things online since there is no body language or context rules to help in understanding. Sometimes it's good to have some guidelines.

Netiquette is trying so so hard... a little too hard really. I felt like it was something someones grandma would forward them in an email. FWD:fwd:fwd:re:re:fwd.

My favorite line of the article was this, "Please be advised that college students do not act normal. College netiquette is quite different than other forms." 


That made me laugh, but oh my lord that video was so obnoxious. Seriously they can't think of a better way to put their article into a video? It just screams "LETS BE REALIVANT TO THE YOUTHS OF THE INTERWEBS!" like disney channel in the 90's screaming it.

Making rules for internet etiquette for college students just seems like a waste of time, and totally goofy and pointless. There are no rules for them in real life it seems anyways, here are some examples.

You think this guy cares about internet Netiquette?

A Stale Avenue (Talkin' bout art)

I'm very passionate about art. More so how our christian culture approaches art. I'd agree that our american christian culture is way too afraid of it. There is too much focusing on being "in the world not of the world" which a good thing but they are taking it as an excuse to be afraid of the world. "... But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33.



One of my biggest pet peeves is censoring art. You will get me in a big tizzy if you bring up the life drawing class on this campus. Not much makes me more angry then the fact that the school cumulates the idea that the human body is shameful. I can't tell you why this makes me more angry then most things but it does and I'll tell you why.


I see it as cowardly. Too afraid and lazy to direct artists or those interested in art onto the path of how to approach art maturely and with our eyes pointing towards heaven. The human body is a work of art, made directly by God. Viewing it as dirty is an insult to God, and maybe you'd say I'm being mellow dramatic but I think this is just one area in which we are letting fear rule over art. 



It's a great irony that our fear of not pleasing God cuts him off from relating to us.






I love what the article was saying about symbols. It's true that our world is almost nothing but symbols and language. The fact he equated that as the two ways God reveals himself to the world was perfect. Our culture has lost it's view of beauty. Either they are too busy looking inward, or too afraid to look at all. Either way, we are losing communication with God, a way to deepen our relationship and wisdom.

I've always had a passion for character and story. Using people and stories as an avenue to reveal what's true. I love songs that are unafraid of revealing human nature. The song "Keep Yourself Warm" by Frightened Rabbit is a hauntingly sad song about the longing for love. The thing that all humans have. We all desire to fill this hole in our souls and we need something more then "fucking someone you don't know"

I see God so clearly in that song, yet I couldn't share that with most of the christian culture because they can't overcome their fear of language and curse words to see how is it being used, and why. True people curse too much without real reason, I'm guilty of this, but too often do I see someone missing something beautiful because they are too afraid of breaking the rules they built for themselves that make them "good christians." That was the attitude of pharisees, and they were blind to the beauty of what Jesus was doing, and the people he lived life with. They were blind to the beauty of stories. It makes me sad when I see my culture doing the same thing.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

So at a young age I was introduced to first person shooter games. My dad and I loved playing Medal of Honor and old school Call of Duty. Somewhat I liked it for the history and the being involved with historical wars in a small sense. All from the comfort of my living room. That game was violent and americans in general are quite desensitized to violence. Hence our being stereotyped as being gun loving "'MERICA" patriots.

A lot of the con articles on video game violence and violence in children pointed out the fact that, "according to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low." 

The research is nearly impossible to do and the articles that said yes, video games cause violence in young adults and children seemed to have a narrow scope on things and just saw what they wanted to see. It seems like they decided the outcome before getting any solid evidence, which there doesn't seem to be any. People bring up the high number of school shootings in the past several years when making comments on the matter. I would like to point them to our history books. 

Like I mentioned I played Call of Duty. That took place in a time of great violence between humanity. World War I&II, Vietnam, Revolutionary, America has seen a lot of violence. The western part of the states was called "The Wild West" for a reason. There was lawlessness, senseless violence. We've seen violence between black people and white. Violence against the native americans. This is all just in America. Romans, Germans, Brits, they've all had a hand in some unspeakable evils. Guess what, none of them had video games, or media to the extent we have it in any form. Humans have a capacity for evil, video games can be used as an excuse perhaps but do they themselves always cause violence in our kids? No I would say not. I'd say it's a case by case scenario. 

Some people can handle a lot of media violence and it has no effect on them. Some are more easily manipulated by it, or more accurately, let it shape them into violent people. 

Also, the ratings on games are there for a REASON. Just like how you wouldn't let your fourteen year old go watch Ryan Gosling smash a man's head like a watermelon on Drive, you don't let that fourteen year old shoot cops and cocaine in Grand Theft Auto. A mature individual knows the difference between playing out these games and acting them out. They also know themselves and know what hurts them and what doesn't effect them as human beings. 

Really there's nothing we should do about the violence in media, just be better about discerning it ourselves and teaching our children how to do the same.  

Now...Enjoy these elders shoot up cops and punching ladies on the street. 

Book of Face

i wake up and my morning routine includes checking all my social media apps. First is facebook then instagram then snapchat. Email follows that. Finally I get out of bed and get ready for the day. The past 10 years has changed how we relate to others but it also has over saturated our everyday with advertising and new more colorful things. Sometimes the world is just too loud.

At the same time as an artist there's an incredible way to directly reach people instead of depending on all these middle man. There is a direct way to reach people on a large scale and that's pretty amazing. It adds to the noise and competition is intensified. But that challenges the producers and inspires incredible growth in multiple industries.

Thin Thin Thin

The topic of media and body image has been discussed so often that I tend to tune it out. Mostly because I am not a parents nor do I have any little children in my life at all. I'm very confident in my body and it took me a long time to get to that point. There were always little insecurities on how I looked or how people viewed me socially as an adolescent but that's expected and yes intensified by media. I didn't really think about how it could affect children as young as seven or ten! That seems insane to me. At that age body image was the absolute furthest thing from my mind. Kids my age never brought up those sorts of things that I can recall. It's insane that kids are introduced to media as young as they are now and grow up with it. I think to myself now that when I have kids I'll have to diligently monitor how much media intake I allow. I don't think it's healthy to be raised on touch screens and wi-fi.

It's ironic that while we culturally are obsessed with this "ideal body" and all desire to be thin, we also have a major obesity epidemic. This is a very unhealthy way to live. Unfortunately I saw this comment from someone on the blog,
"I understand that many kids are concerned about their body image and I do know the media's image of the human body is unrealistic, but honestly...why does it have to be considered a bad thing? I mean, think about it: With all these kids going on diets, it'll be good for their health! And it also lowers the rate of obesity that we see in this country! So if kids wanna go on a diet, I say 'Let them give it a shot!'"

Yeesh, can we say bad parenting? You want to put a ten year-old on a diet? Seriously adults need to be more diligent and promote healthy living. Honestly, my mom has had terribly body image, and is overweight. She still complains about it and yet because she encouraged me and my healthy living I can see myself in a positive light.

Being as involved in digital media as I am and as most of us are, I think we have a greater knowledge of what we're dealing with and need to be smart consumers. If we're smart consumers, maybe we can become smart producers and give back to the world something that can stop contributing to the problem, but solve it.

WE ALL SCREEN FOR ISCREEN

I'll be honest and say I never was much of a music video watcher. They never interested me, I always thought they were weird and ruined the images I had in my head from the song itself. It's like when you read a book and the movie based off of it doesn't match what you imagined at all. I liked the story the song told in my head and I never was very interested in seeing it get ruined. That's just me, also lots of music videos just had the band playing and dancing while lip syncing which I never found entertaining. That was my view.

This article brought up a lot of things I never thought of before. By looking through it's history I see that it's not all just weirdness and lip syncing but it's a way for the artist to express the music in a way not seen or thought of before. When done right, it's a way to express the music fully and visually.

Videos are so incredibly accessible now and thanks to youtube, vimeo, and portable video players on our phones now we can see these art forms anytime. This also means that there's a lot of them. The media is so heavily saturated with so many things to see and consume it must be hard to get anything through.

Digital Media Review #1

9:00 Alarm plays The River by Imagine Dragons
9:15 Browse Social Media
9:20 Watch Buzzfeed video on roommate struggles.
9:21 Text Kyle
9:40 Text Mad
10:00 Text Kyle
10:45 Take shower, use Herbal essence shampoo/conditioner
10:45 Listened to Songza playlist
11:12 Go to lunch see Disney Sweater
11:15 FB message Dad
11: 23 edit Google docs
11:40 Listen to Disney Podcast
1:15 Watch New Girl episode
3:45 Eat Panda Express
4:30 Billboard add for Huntington
4:30 Mall store adds
5:00 Go to Walmart
5:30 Listen to endless Spotify adds while working
8:00 Zelda t-shirt spotting
11:00 Watch Lord of the Rings
1:15 Discuss how much the Hobbit sucked
3:00 Fall asleep to Indie playlist.