Election 2016. What's Going On?

As I'm sitting here watching Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders duke it out in the CNN Democratic debate, I'm struggling with what to write my blogpost on. Here's what we do know about this election so far: Hillary Clinton is still up in the polls but Bernie has recently been surging. As I'm watching Bernie dominate the debate, I wonder why Hillary could still have the lead. Then I realize something that was painfully obvious. Hillary Clinton looks like a bird.

Curious if anybody else has done research on this topic, I search Google. Lo-and-behold after one search I unearth photographic evidence of people's artistic take on Hillary's ornithological resemblance:

It made me very happy to see that other people have contributed to this part of science. But there was one thing that bothered me. If Hillary looks so much like a bird, then why is Bernie getting so popular? It doesn't add up.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Perhaps one of the most candid and memorable moments of this entire presidential election cycle happened to Bernie just a couple of weeks ago and made social media explode over him. I'll let the picture speak for itself:

The Advantages of Using Bird Chatter Instead of Musical Soundtracks in Movies

Hollywood producers are always looking to find new, innovative ways to create a hit movie. Some movie producers have gone as far as putting talking dogs into their films to try to make them successful, but many overlook the power of music.

One technique that a lot of Hollywood producers haven't tried yet is to use bird calls as the soundtrack of their movie.

There are many advantages to replacing the soundtrack of your movie with bird calls, but this short essay will detail a few of the most obvious ones:

Financial

According to David Bell, author of "Getting The Best Score For Your Film," a high budget feature film can cost up to $400,000 plus a $200,000 to $400,000 composer fee. That is an awful lot of money to spend on music.

When your movie is about a haunted house for example, it would make a lot of sense to invest money into bone-chilling and spooky music because that can play a big role in giving the audience they haunt they paid for, but for movies where music is less important, it might be smart to consider using bird calls to fill the dead air.

When dealing with a medium-budget film, you could decide to use bird calls instead of music and re-allocate your funds to another part of the production because you don't need to pay a bird for the music they produce.

Legal

Under U.S. law, in order to use a song in a movie you must acquire a Synchronization License from the publisher to use the song in synchronization with the video and a Master Use License from the record label to reproduce the song in your film.

The advantage of using bird chatter in your film instead of music is that you can circumvent the acquisition of these music licenses because birds won't sue you unless a human lawyer is representing them.

The chances of a human lawyer representing a bird in court are extremely low and there have been no known cases in the history of film of somebody being sued for using bird calls instead of music.

Nostalgia

Other than scent, which is known to be the human sense most strongly linked with nostalgia, hearing might be the next. In terms of hearing, here is nothing more nostalgic than hearing a bird you remember from your childhood. That memory can be very therapeutic for people and very enjoyable for others. These emotions can add to the overall enjoyment of a film.


All in all, replacing your soundtrack with bird chatter should not be overlooked by mainstream Hollywood.

The Art of Using Birds in Movie Titles

For ages, movie producers have tried to find new and innovative ways to make their movie a blockbuster. One common trend that has been observed most frequently in the past decade has been the use of birds in the titles of movies.

Some of the most successful and highly-acclaimed movies of all time have used birds in their title: Black Swan (2010), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), and Chicken Little (2004) to name a few.

There is speculation over when this trend started but most movie buffs agree that the first big movie that used a bird in its title was Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 thriller, The Birds. After The Birds's gigantic success, many movies followed in its path, but were forced to take circuitous methods of using bird names.

There are many ways you can go about using birds in your title. Some movie makers like to make movies about penguins and be very straightforward with their titles such as Penguins of Madagascar (2014) and March of the Penguins (2005) while others like to take trickier approaches such as Robin Hood (1973), Robin Hood (2010), and Black Hawk Down (2001).

Although these movies took the approach of adding a bird in the title while keeping birds out of the plot, nobody has done as good of a job at subliminally inserting a bird in a movie title than Michael Moore with his widely successful 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine which cleverly inserted the word "owl" into the title.

We might never know if the fact that birds are in the titles of these movies are what made them successful but we can at least say with some certainty that the use of birds didn't hurt the films.

How Birds are the Embodiment of Film

Watch this bird:

This is film in a nutshell. And I will explain why.

If you were to describe a bird in three adjectives, which would you use? Precise? Elegant? Free? Birds are beings of freedom and grace. The miracle of flight is something spectacular to observe. The first time in your life that you truly analyze flight, you are in awe. The miracle of flight mirrors the miracle of film.

Film is in every sense of the word, a miracle. To capture the motion, the emotion, and the reality of life on film is incredible. The first time you look at film in an analytical way, you realize how truly unbelievable it is.

Like a bird in flight, the filmmaker explores new avenues, using creativity to venture through space and time to achieve his/her goal.

In the video, at 11 seconds, another bird flies in front of the main bird. Every bird is influenced other birds. You can observe this in "bird V's". Each bird follows the birds before themselves, but take slightly different paths.

Just like these birds, filmmakers are influenced by the filmmakers before them. They draw influence and create their own paths based on the filmmakers of old.

An observer of birds is an observer of film, and I strive to be both.