Comparing the two medias: I AM LEGEND

Usually people read the book before watching the movie, I didn’t. Before I went into the bookstore and picked up a copy of I am Legend in paperback. I watched the movie’s adaptation (I call it an adaptation because if you’ve read the book and seen the movie the two are completely different and the only thing they share in common is the title). After seeing the movie on the big screen my overall impression was good, I liked the movie. I knew this movie wasn’t going to change my life forever, I went in expecting to be entertained and I was, so I didn’t hate it like most people do. You could say the theme is the same, but the storyline dramatically differs between the two. In the movie Robert Neville the protagonist believes he is the last man on Earth. He is surrounded by a new race sprung up by an infectious disease that turns humans into violent nocturnal creatures. In the book they are humans that have been turned into vampires, but there are two types one that still has basic human brain activity and the other that act like merciless animals.

In the movie Robert Neville played by Will Smith has a best friend that is his dog “Samantha”, who plays an integral part in most of the movie. In the book a dog is introduced but is not a friend and is only mentioned in one short chapter. Many people who read the book just don’t understand that sometimes a filmmaker has to make hard decisions to make a film work when trying to make a movie based on a novel. Most of the book is in Robert Neville’s head and you get to hear all of his thoughts when certain things happen, well you cant always do that for a feature film. You can’t have Will Smith talk to himself for 2 hours its just not interesting. Plus storylines must be shortened or summarized because this book probably took me over 5 hours to read and this movie cant be made into a two part film.

Another major difference in the film is it’s ending. In the movie Robert Neville sacrifices his life to make sure the cure for the disease doesn’t get destroyed. In the book he gives up, comes to turns with death and commits suicide with no hope for mankind. The book and the movie have a very depressing undertone that is pretty much carried throughout the storyline. So when the director was thinking hey we need an ending but we cant have the main character commit suicide and have a non-happy ending. So they threw in the hope for mankind and to be honest it wouldn’t have worked if they followed the books ending. People would leave the theatre depressed and you cant have that in a Will Smith movie, trust me its never been done, he hasn’t created a movie that left you depressed. To conclude I love the way this book was adapted because of what they had to work with it makes it even more impressive that they made the movie as good as they did with the type of book they had to work with. Overall I’m very inspired by the productions team’s decisions they had to make. Some hard ones and yes some people didn’t like them, because it changed the book, but hey they made it work in their own way, which I admire and hopefully when its all said and done my future work can come out something like this.

6 Paddles

The above photograph is of six First Nations canoe paddles that my father is making stands for. The client is the owner of an art gallery downtown, and back when I worked for my dad I worked on a few previous projects over the years. Each one of these paddles is worth six thousand dollars each. And one of the few advantages of having a craftsman as a father is having work come home, where you can admire work on your own time. Being able to lift and touch and feel art like this with out the limitations of glass boxes and velvet ropes is so cool. I feel like I can appreciate the art more. Usually when I am at an art gallery or museum, if a piece doesn’t grab my attention right away I usually move on. Now that there’s Native art in my living room, I can really appreciate the time and energy that went into creating these works. Besides being able to see the art up-close, there are other advantages, like when you look at the photo you would never guess that the paddle on the far right is actually one of the lightest of the six, and the heaviest by far is in the middle.

First Impressions-GSP vs Shields

Next to hockey my favorite sport is MMA or Mixed Martial Arts. My favorite fighter Georges St.Pierre is ranked #1 pound for pound greatest fighter in the world, and it so happens is Canadian. His next fight will be in April in Toronto for the welterweight UFC belt. He is fighting an American fighter who hasn't lost a fight in 14 fights which is a major accomplishment in the sport. Last night when I was watching an UFC event at a bar, and this promo for the GSP vs Shields fight aired for the first time. And wow did the crowd in the bar get excited. The promo was extremely well done, and it did what it was set out to do and that get people excited for this fight. After my year at Foundation I am currently planning on going into Film Production or Entertainment Business Management. And one of the things that I am interested in as a career path, would be advertising for the film and TV industry. If I were to go into EBM I think I would find many of my passions there. That is why a promo for my favorite sport, that involves the TV industry and advertising really gets me excited, thus me talking about it in my blog.

The use of music is probably the one major key that makes this promo work so effectively. It starts with a low beat that starts out slow. At the same time establishing shots appear setting up the mood and introducing the main antagonist that is Jake Shields. As the beat increase the first lyric starts which is "are you ready" then followed by "lets go!" basically letting the viewer ahead of time know that its about to get a little bit more serious. The music then gets louder and the footage of Shields in his dressing room come on. This is used to introduce Shields the fighter to the non hardcore MMA fans. The UFC wants to make you believe that Shields is the hardest opponent for GSP to date. As a business they want you to believe this fight can go either way so you better tune in to see who wins. And this promo does exactly that, it shows all of his medals hes won all the established fighters hes beaten. Then it cuts to GSP the current champ, and to make the audience feel that this is a fair match they show all of GSP's best highlights of his career. Its the perfect formula for an interesting advertisement.

Review: The Pianist

The Pianist Directed by Roman Polanski, tells the story of a Polish Jew, a classical musician, who survived the Holocaust through bravery and plain old good luck.
The film is based on the autobiography of Wladyslaw Szpilman (the Pianist), who was working at his job for a  Warsaw radio station when the first German bombs fell (which is the first scene in the movie). Szpilman's family was prosperous and financially secure, and his immediate reaction was, "I'm not going anywhere." As the film begins we watch as the Nazi grip tightens. His family takes heart from reports that England and France have declared war so they believe surely the Nazis will soon be defeated and life will return to normal.

The Pianist is in my top twenty greatest films of all time, and I would put it in my top three war movies, next to Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's list. This movie doesn't go into detail of a concentration camp as does Schindler's List nor does it go into the battle field like saving private Ryan does. It goes into the life a Polish Jew trying to avoid capture of Nazi occupied Poland. Roman Polanski shows us what it was like to live more like 'survive' in the Jewish Ghetto during World War II. There are a lot of reasons why I love this film, the first being the amazing acting that is shown. Adrian Brody stars as Wladyslaw Szpilman and actually won the Best Actor at the Academy Awards and I believe he was the youngest in history to receive the award.

With great acting you need great directing and I think Roman Polanski did a superb job envisioning this movie. Polanski shows Szpilman as a survivor not as a fighter or a hero, as a man who does all he can to save himself from death. I read that Polanski himself was also greatly effected by the Holocaust. His mother like Szpilman's was also killed in the gas chambers, and I can only imagine how hard this movie must have been for Roman to create. To conclude this movie is a must watch, its acting, directing and envisioning brings the audience to the front steps of WWII, and shows us an unique window into the life of a Jew that is trying to survive in the memory of his family.

Is she staring at me?

The above photo is a profile picture of my friend on facebook. This photograph caught my attention at first, not because how beautiful it is, because I did not believe it was my friend at first. With all the art decorations on her face, I barely recognized her. Everything about this photo just inspires me and actually makes me think, 'If I were a photographer, makeup artist or hair dresser', I would want my product to look just as professional and pleasing as this. I have always been in love with black and white photographs. I think the first time I realized I loved it so much, was when I bought a poster of the New York Manhattan landscape pre 9/11 at a poster-sale when I attended University. In addition to the standard black and white, the editor also incorporated some faint blue in the top left corner, which in my opinion makes the image just pop out at the audience.
Besides loving the black and white composition of the photo, I also really like how my friend is looking down at the viewer, but at the same time her posture looks like she is facing upward. The way in which they used her hair in the shot is also very interesting to me. It looks like her hair is only shown at the top of the photograph, but if you look closely you can see that there is pieces of hair flowing across her cheeks and chin. The first thing I focused on while looking at the picture was her mouth and then her right eye. Which I think whoever took the photo, wanted the viewer to do. After that I think the audience just absorbs the image as a whole, viewing the artwork across her face, her nose and then finally her hair.

A02 Animation: Flour sac a jumpin

Animated Bouncing Ball