We're All Animals

     Animals is a new HBO animated comedy executed produced by Mark and Jay Duplass. The mumblecore duo promotes the work of Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano, two unknown comedy writers who submitted Animals as a short film to Sundance in 2015. HBO picked up Animals at the festival and streams it exclusively on HBOGo, their mobile streaming platform. 
     

     Animals is a really good idea on paper. Human problems and stories as explained by animals who act human. Plus the animated element means that really anything can happen. If you look at the cast it's a list of alternative comedies biggest names such as: Eric Andre, Aziz Ansari, Jason Mantzoukas, Nick Kroll, and Scott Aukerman. Mark and Jay Duplass are indie stars and them promoting a young comedians work it must be good for them and the comedians.

However Animals has gotten mixed reviews at best. Maureen Ryan at Variety said, "It is unfunny, its animation is unexceptional and the studied banality of its dialogue is excruciating." It has a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.8 on Imdb. 

But why the intense hate. Even Mark Duplass is a little confused, "Animals is the first time in history that people have gotten angry with us about something we’ve made." To be fair the show is weird. Very weird for HBO. Structurally the show follows one main plot but has several vignettes. 

     These vignettes aren't even necessarily non sequiturs, often these smaller sketches are tangentially related to something that happened earlier in the episode. For example in the first episode the main characters, a pair of rats that are obsessed with making babies, watch a couple have sex. Later in the episode the woman having sex is taken out in a stretcher which starts a sketch between two police horses which cuts back to the mice. 

Duplass says it's because the show was created separate from HBO. That they did it their own way and that might be why people are not responding to this like they would a traditional HBO comedy. 


     As a comedian who hates restrictions I have to side with Duplass. While Ryan is right at points the show becomes tedious and drags, often Animals shows a unique and funny perspective on mundane things in life. I'm excited that the show is weird and with this show being streaming only it is a good example of the future of tv. Shows made by unique people for a niche audience. While Animals might not be for everyone, I enjoy Animals and hope to watch the second season HBO ordered at Sundance. 

Silicon Valley

     A sign of a good serialized tv show is that the premise is not what the show is about. Silicon Valley on HBO, as one can imagine, is about a small start up in California's technology cradle. The show follows Richard, played by Thomas Middleditch, a geeky and soft spoken programmer who has developed an algorithm that compresses files at an alarming rate. With his programming friends Richard develops this company, Pied Piper, 

     Silicon Valley is set in the world of technology but it's about finding confidence and reaching success. Richard has to balance working with his high strung, out of touch boss Peter Gregory and his competitor Gavin Belson of Huli. Belson being a thin caricature of Steve Jobs and Huli being an amalgam of Google and Apple.   

    The main cast is mostly comprised of comedians in acting roles. They truly do a great job, the show is ridiculous but not slapstick. Points of tension arise because of characters desires rather than whacky antics. People familiar with comedy will recognize Middleditch and costars Kumail Nanjiani, and TJ Miller as up and coming stand ups. It's only fitting they get their first major acting roles as start ups.

     The production quality is high and showrunner Mike Judge, of Office Space fame, has said it's based off his own experience in Silicon Valley in the late 80s. The series is funny and entertaining and is everything you would want from a situational comedy. Plus it has the best dick joke in the history of television.

     Check it out.

Is Binge Watching Really the Way You Should be Watching Television?

If you have Netflix, HBO Go, Hulu, or any television streaming website, you know how it feels to binge watch a TV show. There comes a point in the level of binge watching where you should ask yourself, "Is this healthy?".

Where binge watching can't directly effect your health, it's best not to try and over do it. This way of viewing TV shows is kind of like being hooked on drugs, you get addicted and there's no way you're not going to push the button for next episode when it appears.

But there's another question that comes along with this style of television, are you really appreciating the show? If you watch so much of one show at a time there is a point where you will get distracted or become disinterested in what you are seeing. Are these TV streaming websites taking suspense and drama out of TV shows? There's no waiting anymore, you can automatically click on a button to see what is happening next.

Netflix is definitely taking over the television scene and there is no way that it's going to stop. People spend hours and days of their lives watching continuous television and missing out on the "reality" of the world. They are stuck in this virtual world which can ultimately lead to them regretting the decisions that they made to binge watch television. They do this to be caught up with the times, or to watch that one popular show that they missed out on. Either way that you look at it, binge watching television online is hindering the lives of people and their health. There is no looking back now, and we will walk forward in this digitally infused, binge watching obsessed world.

Lighting in Game of Thrones

**SPOILER ALERT**

Sticking with our class theme of lighting today, I decided to analyze the lighting of the series I am currently binge-watching — Game of Thrones. The majority of scenes in Game of Thrones take place in three places: Essos (a desert-like continent), King’s Landing (a well-developed coastal town), and The Wall (a city in the frozen tundra of the North). The lighting in the scenes from each place changes dramatically, and perfectly matches the mood and tone of the storylines that take place in each location.

The first location I’ll discuss is Essos, the desert continent. This story line follows one of the show’s main protagonists, Daenerys, as she travels from city to city freeing the slaves and killing their masters, recruiting former slaves who wish to join her army. In the beginning of the series, Daenerys is given to a barbarian-like race called the Dothraki and is made “khaleesi” (queen) of one of the tribes. Her only purpose is to give the “khal” (king) a baby, and she is mistreated as many women in the series are. These scenes are very dark with lots of shadows and warm colors, which does a good job of portraying the mood of the scenes. As time goes on though, Daenerys gains power and begins to form an army. She fights for a good cause and is a very positive character, so her scenes change to being lit with soft, warm light. Daenerys has bleach blonde hair and wears very bright colors, which contrasts the dark, plain colors worn by the slaves she frees. As she gains power and her army grows, the colors lighting in her scenes gets brighter and brighter with less shadows.

The second location, where much of the show takes place, is King’s Landing. As the name suggests, this is where the King and the royal family lives. The storyline in King’s Landing follows two families: the Starks and the Lannisters. Sansa Stark is another one of the series main protagonists, but she is forced to marry into the antagonist Lannister family. While some of the happier scenes take place outdoors with bright colors and full, soft light, the dark and twisted scenes take place inside the castle and are much darker. Since there is no electricity in the time period/world that the show takes place in, everything is lit with candles. The show does a great job of targeting light to make it appear that each room is lit only with candles since there are rarely windows inside the castle, even though the number of candles shown couldn’t possibly create enough enough light to actually show what’s happening. It is interesting watching these scenes, and the lighting is always impressive.

The last major location of the show is along “The Wall”, a giant, 700 foot tall ice wall in the North that travels 500 miles from coast to coast. The main character here is Jon Snow, the bastard child of Ned Stark, father of the Stark family. Jon Snow is a member of the “Night’s Watch”, the defenders of The Wall who give up their life for the brotherhood. Since the North is a tundra-like environment, the outdoor scenes have no shadows, imitating how clouds diffuse the sun when it snows. The indoor scenes are VERY dark, lit with very few candles, and the color palette is always very dark. Jon Snow has lots of personal struggles, and the mood of the storyline at The Wall is usually dark and depressing. The lighting and color palette matches this mood, with all colors either being pale white like the snow or dark brown like their furs/clothes.