Oh The Places You Will Go...

I've always been pretty restless. I don't like staying in one place and doing one thing for too long. I hated high school because it seemed like the same thing every day, every year. College, though, has been quite different. Looking back, this year has been especially crazy.

Last semester, I produced a documentary in New Orleans. I found myself in the car for a total of 80 hours with people who were once strangers. I was stranded in Tuscaloosa for 24 hours. I filmed at jazz clubs, and hung out with amazing musicians. I even ended up sitting in a bar that I was too young to be at, in the middle of a confrontation with a former NFL player because he didn't like our doc.

This semester, I've been to Buffalo and back countless times, often just for the day. I went to Canada for a couple of hours just because. I filmed a family being reunited after 15 years. I decided to not be a vegetarian for a day, and ate goat from an African market. I tagged along while an Ethiopian couple went grocery shopping in the U.S for the first time. I stayed at a hotel that was allegedly haunted by a child ghost. And I even went to a Trump rally...

That's right. A Donald Trump rally.

Of all the things I have been through this year, the Trump rally was easily the strangest. People were selling shirts on the street that said "Hillary sucks, but not like Monica. Trump that bitch." There were protesters corralled into a small section, and people protesting the protestors. A seemingly average lady told us that refugees take perfume as a sign that it is okay to rape a woman. And Donald Trump accidentally said 7/11 instead of 9/11.

One of the strangely surprising parts of the rally was the fact that we were able to get media credentials. I woke up that morning assuming we would just film outside the rally, and ended the night on the media riser, sandwiched between Time Warner, CNN and Fox. One of the reporters there was extremely helpful: he found us a spot next to him on the riser, got us hooked into the mic box, and gave us a run down on what we should expect. At first, I was shocked that he was helping us without us even asking, but then I realized that Evin and I definitely stood out. We were the youngest people in the press by at least 15 years, and I was the only female cameraperson.

The rally ended by Trump walking off the stage to the Space Jam song, while his supports all chanted. The entire thing was bazaar, disturbing, and the perfect way to wrap shooting for the year.

Being a doc major has been pretty crazy, and I'm excited for the adventures that still lie ahead.

B&W Bananas

While filming we learned that St. Lucian violence can be traced to its history as a colony of plantation systems. In order to illustrate this aspect of Caribbean history, we're looking into archive video footage to supplement our doc. I've had luck with the Prelinger Archives, the Kino Library, and Travel Film Archive thus far. What makes the search process difficult is the lack of tags attached to some videos, which renders them impossible to find without looking through droves and droves. What makes it cool is how eccentric and obscure the found footage involved can be.

One of my favorites is this video, "About Bananas," which is a silent black&white film about, well, bananas. See here: https://archive.org/details/AboutBan1935

Banana export was St. Lucia's largest source of income until recently, when shifts away from St. Lucia in the international trade put local banana growers out of work. Instead of being able to make a living on their land with their family, many Lucians now have to commute to work at the island's many tourist resorts, resulting in time away from home, money spent on transportation, children being left unsupervised, etc. This is one example of a riff that history has torn through St. Lucia and something we're going to work very carefully--with the help of archive footage--to visually explain.

Color and Why not

Over the course of this summer I shot thousands of photos over a two month period in Ghana. On my arrival home I realized I had enough portraits to make a series. So I set out sifting through and picking the very best of the photos. There were a few decisions I had to make when going into post processing. My first decision was to have them in color or black and white.

Of course I could have both but I wanted a certain consistency to extend through the series. Unlike many of my peers my roots in photography began in a darkroom. I shot on 35mm black and white film for the first two years before I switched over to digital. Because of this I tend to lean towards black and white over color in many of my photo editing decisions. The lack of color in many cases makes some of the photos more tangible to me. The image is less distracting and focus is more on the subject. Especially in portraits. My usual plan is to look at the un-edited photo with and without color. If I feel that the color doesn't add anything to the photo then it becomes black and white.

In the film world of today I feel as if we are seeing less and less black and white films and even less television without color. With newer cameras expanding dynamic range and colorspace at an alarming rate, black and white seems to many people an unviable option. In certain cases its seen as cliche or "retro". I disagree with these statements but I agree that b&w in video is much more of a difficult decision than in photography. In the end it comes down to the decision of the director and what you think will best help tell your story. Choose wisely.


Released in 2013 Ida was an Oscar nominated film in the Best Achievement in Cinematography category

These are some of the photos in my upcoming series.

ABOUT TIME

Due to the excessive boredom during winter break which included;

• irregular sleeping patterns 
• excessive partying 
• streaming movies illegally 

I was running out of movie options.. With a failed relationship the last thing I wanted to watch was a "love movie". Especially a movie that includes Rachel Mc Adams. You may know her from The Notebook, The Time Travelers Wife, and The Vow.  Don't get me wrong I believe she is a great actress, but in almost every movie I have seen (which include the above), the central theme involves love. As you can imagine I was not in a great state of mind to watch a love movie. However, I later made the decision to watch About Time.

About Time, was written and directed by Richard Cutris. The idea is simple, yet complex.  It's the idea of a man who has the ability to time travel to change his past in order to have a better future. Although, this movie is unrealistic because I mean I can't time travel to change my past. </3 However, not only does this movie show the love that Tim has for Marie. But, it shows the love that Tim has for his father and his freelance, carefree awesome hippy sister Kit Kat.

Tim tries to keep his family together. In all essence this movie was really a touching drama about the love between father and son. The end of the movie shows the closing to one of his last time traveling trips to visit his father, where he says his last good-bye.

There is a huge moral that lies in this story: Enjoy the important things in life, love, family, children and so forth.

UGC/Citizen Journalism and Quick Project Update

National Geographic is asking it's readers to share their "stories of close encounters with volcanic power." I really find it interesting the idea of citizen journalists. Also, the pictures of Iceland's erupting volcano are truly spectacular.

Also, I wanted to include a quick project update. For my project, I have worked on several page layouts as well as researching the data necessary to fill these layouts for full mock ups. I may just have mock ups for the final project with a description of how I would proceed if I were to make this a running Facebook Application.

Facebook Travel Application

This is my first run at a homepage for my Facebook Application. Each image would be click-able and take you to a different component of the application. For example, the luggage would take you to a section on what to pack based on what other users brought with them. The paper cutout people would have information about different cultures including social norms, customs, laws, etc. The journal with pen icon would allow users to post their itineraries in advance plus blog about their experiences. The emergency sign would contain local emergency information (such as phone numbers e.g. 911 in the USA), information embassies (address, phone numbers, hours, etc.). The camera icon would take you to a place to post pictures that could be made into a personal photo album/scrapbook. The video camera icon takes you to a place to post video. The money icon takes you to a page with currency information also what things in the area customarily cost. This should help tourists from getting taken advantage of. The gps icon is going to provide maps of various areas. The meal icon will send you to a place with restaurant information sorted by location and food category. The sites (ruins) icon provides the different available attractions in an area separated into the following categories: cultural (museums, historic sites), parks, entertainment (live theatre, movie theaters, sports). Both the meal icon and the sites icon will have a place for users to rate cost of each restaurant and attraction. However, the sites page will allow users to provide how much time is needed for the attraction. This will allow users to be able to manage their time better. The map and plane icon will take you to a place for you to log places you have been, where you want to go, and where you have lived. I am still deciding what the exact functions of the passport/passport stamps icon.

I have included a home button and back button, which will make the application user-friendly and easily navigable. Also, there is a tutorial and help area where new users as well as users who may be unsure of how something works will be able to easily figure out solutions.

From research I did on other applications, privacy was an important consideration for users. The settings page will allow users to select who sees what information. They will be able to choose what type of notifications they get. Also, inviting friends to join will be optional to using the application. Although, I'm not sure if a person would have to be apart of the application to see the content their friends generate. The profile section will allow users to be able to network with people who have similar travel interests.

Please provide any comments or feedback you can on the Facebook event page. I am planning on putting this information on the event as well. I really appreciate as much feedback as possible. Thanks again to all those who have provided comments so far.

I'm going to try to come up with some more possible page layouts before next week's class. Hopefully, I should be recovered from my cold by then.

Does anyone know a good resource to learn what can be done with HTML 5? If anyone also knows of any good resources to learn how to code in HTML 5 let me know.

Just another reminder to comment

I just wanted to remind everyone that if you have not yet joined and commented on the Facebook Travel Application event please do so as soon as possible. Also, I wanted to say thank you to Arturo, Francesca, and Garrett for commenting. If you have not commented it is not to late. Your comments do not have to necessarily be travel application specific. For example, you can comment on some features to make the application more user friendly. It should take you less then 5 minutes to comment.

Some of you may not have Facebook. If you do not have Facebook, please comment on this post of what you would like to see in an travel application.

Please Give Your Ideas on the Facebook Travel Application

I just wanted to remind everyone that if you have not yet joined and commented on the Facebook Travel Application event please do so as soon as possible. I am planning on doing an initial mock up some of the different components of the application before our class next Tuesday. It would be helpful to have everyone's feedback before I make the first prototype. I especially want everyone in the classes individual feedback. It should take you less then 5 minutes to comment.

Some of you may not have Facebook. If you do not have Facebook, please comment on this post of what you would like to see in an travel application. Your comments do not have to necessarily be travel application specific. For example, you can comment on some features to make the application more user friendly.

Facebook Event to submit Travel Application Ideas

I created a Facebook event to collect travel application ideas. Anyone can join and post there ideas. Please join the event Facebook Travel Application. If you could get some of your friends to participate that would be terrific. The more feedback I get, the better the end product will be. I appreciate everyone taking the time to post their ideas.

Collage 2.0

The primitives I am working with

I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts, so after a week of diving in (and flying around) SL here are a few things that I've found interesting, academically and otherwise. I have enjoyed chatting with a few class members already in-world - this should be fun. (Or, Deckard Jameson has chatted and enjoyed it? Argh.)

I took the class because it was interdisciplinary and interesting - I really had no idea how it would relate to my research, if at all. That's good because in the last week of using SL I've found a whole bunch of things about it that I love that have very little to do with my research, like:

• "travel writing" -- I collected a few lists of "places to visit" and spent way too much time visiting different sights and writing notes on them. I would think doing some travel writing on different SL sights would be a blast.
• "the book experience" -- I'm kind of a book nerd, in the sense that I like the 'experience' of a book (that can't be found on the Web) so I was interested to see if/how the good ol' book would adapt to the SL world. I went to visit the SL Library and several book publishers. And, I visited a bunch of "bookstores" to see if anyone had managed to create that great "third place" feel of a good coffee house or old bookstore. (Or, err ... would that be "fourth place"? I get confused easily.)
• "snapshot aesthetics" -- I started taking snapshots early on and they were so bad I had to spend time learning the camera controls. Then I started wondering what qualifies as a good snapshot in SL.
  
• avatar creation -- To do some posed snapshots I started creating different avatar "roles/skins/???" to use as "models." Fooling with the sliders in different ways brought back lots of lessons on anatomy from art classes that I thought were lost forever. If I were a (professional) actor I think I would be thrilled at my ability to throw off physical constraints in the creation of a role.
  

So ... I'm not sure exactly how SL relates to my current research directions, though it certainly does. Thus far in my research I have been looking closely at the rise of online social networks (ie MySpace or Facebook) and how people use them to connect and relate to each other. (Example: when I say you are my "friend" online, what are the obligations/expectations I have about our relationship?) So, like Narasi and others I'm interested in the "quality" of SL relationships.

Beyond the metaphysical questions I'm interested in SL as a technology of social connection, too. There are pieces of the "social network toolbox" built in to SL (ie profiles) - but how will this aspect of SL evolve, if at all? Could a future version of SL provide residents with the same sort of "uses and gratifications" that, say, MySpace does today for those who use it? If not, what about the experience of both is different?

So many questions, not enough avatars to find out the answers ...