Wishing everyone some solid fresh tones in this world with the New Year. Here’s to 2021!
In the meantime, here’s a nice piece on room tone with a neat video, a holiday gift from the folks at Criterion. Cheers!
How did a character from Matt Furie’s comic Boy’s Club become one of the mega-memes to end all viral meme characters? Yup, it’s Pepe the Frog. Do you even know where Pepe comes from? How he became a symbol of powerful forces of provocation and extremist alt-right political views today? And what does its creator have to say about how this came to be and what he can do about it?
If interested, check out more info on the Sundance Award-winning documentary Feels Good Man. Director by Arthur Jones leads us on an investigation of the webverse that many of us, particularly today’s students, inhabit here and now.
Posted in Chapter 1, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Media Literacy, Social Studies | Tagged Arthur Jones, Boys' Club, documentary, Feels Good Man, Graphic Novel, Matt Furie, Pepe the Frog, Sundance Awards | Leave a Comment »
In earlier posts, mediateacher.net has featured posts that highlight lessons that can be learned from study of movies from the Star Wars franchise, particularly with Rogue One and innovative work in sound design. Along with the superbly detailed book The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film by J.W. Rinzler, there is this YouTube video that explores how George Lucas arrived at his final cut of Star Wars through the work of his editors Paul Hirsch, Richard Chew, and Marcia Lucas) and which can be very eye-opening to students about the development of story and the power of the editing process (and all of the stages of movie production) in arriving at the definitive version of a film.
Posted in Chapter 1, Chapter 8, Directors, Resources | Tagged Biggs, Editing, George Lucas, J.W. Rinzler, Marcia Lucas, Paul Hirsch, Star Wars | Leave a Comment »
So there are lists all over the place, of course, to mark raves and disses across the spectrum of motion picture media, for the year or the decade past. I really liked this one with a nice theme curated by the folks at Criterion: Hidden Gems of the 2010s. And it’s worth it just to see the suggestion for Twin Peaks to “become part of the core curriculum of high schools across this country.” Hahaha, we’ll see about that!
And for documentaries? Try this list from Paste, which has informative intros for their 30 choices.
There was this interesting piece from a couple of years ago picking 25 best movies for this century so far (until then, at least), and it has a link to choices from Sofia Coppola, Denis Villeneuve, and Alex Gibney, among others. Speaking of Villeneuve and Coppola, Dune and On the Rocks are both due in 2020!
Posted in Chapter 5, Directors, Media Literacy | Tagged Best of 2010s Films, Criterion Collection, Denis Villeneuve, Sofia Coppola, Twin Peaks | Leave a Comment »
I am presenting Media Creation in Action: MLE Collaborative Principles in the Classroom at the Northeast Media Literacy Conference in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 8, 2019. Welcome to my presentation!
Here is a pdf of the slideshow. Here is one of the exercises described through the case study.
Don’t forget this post with screenwriting resources! Here is the interview referenced in the case study.
Posted in Chapter 3, Media Literacy | Leave a Comment »
