Skip to main content

Digital Portfolio 2 Theme Choice

Over the course of my time in Digital Portfolio 1, I was given the opportunity to explore some of the themes we had discussed at the beginning of the year. Despite the year being cut short and with me only being able to work on two different projects, I gained a solid grasp on what themes I tend to enjoy within my work. Now that I have moved on to Digital Portfolio 2, I intend on centering in my focus on one specific theme to explore throughout the year. The theme I have chosen for this year in Digital Portfolio 2 is the theme of "Looking Inward: The Human Experience."

Why Choose This Theme?

While at first "Looking Inward: The Human Experience" might seem outlandish considering the projects that I worked on last year, I feel that the theme of  "Looking Inward: The Human Experience" is the next step in the style of film that I want to produce. My first film that I completed last year "The Game VS The World", was a fun experiment in creating something less serious. However, with the film being a comedic mockumentary, it lacked depth in its overall concept. In my opinion, there is a balance of entertaining/comedic elements and deep/creative elements within film, which I hope to find through working this year. While there are definitely exceptions to this balance of elements, the style of work that I am striving for this year mostly does take this balance into account.  Creating realistic characters seems to be one of the most difficult things in my eyes. "Looking Inward: The Human Experience" focuses on characters, their struggles, their emotions, their place in the world, et cetera, and by choosing this theme I should hopefully be able to focus more on creating characters that are deep and fit within the scenarios around them.

What Made Me Want To Choose This Theme?

Over the past months, I have been consuming more types of media than I normally used to, and most of these shows and films have left me wanting to create deeper, more human stories. For some context, I'll list off a few examples.

Neon Genesis Evangelion/The End Of Evangelion

Neon Genesis Evangelion and its full feature length conclusion The End Of Evangelion on it's surface seems to be a typical anime story about giant robots fighting each other. This is what I had first thought it was about when I started watching the series, however, as the show goes on it begins to present itself and its characters in a darker and more introspective way. The show's protagonist goes from being a vessel in which the audience can relate to, to a sickening and depressed but complex character that the audience tends to feel ashamed in previously relating to. Seeing this breakdown over the course of the show and it's finale and how it slipped from being a "monster of the week" cartoon show to a heavy example of the human experience made me want to explore the human experience in my own work. (Link To Image)

Bates Motel

Bates Motel is a television adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho which I have previously spoken about in other blog posts. The plot of the story resembles the original film but focuses primarily on the characters and the relationship of Norman and Norma Bates. While the show does showcase some bits of action and gore like the original, the show mainly stands out as a character drama. Seeing the relationship between Norman and Norma, what makes them the people they are, and why Norman inevitably becomes the Psycho we know him as is what made me want to create something that focuses less on comedy or big action and more on the experiences that makes people who they are. (Link To Image)

Mini-THON and The Human Experience

Being this year's Mini-THON Technology chair definitely adds another type of work for me to incorporate this year. While most of the Mini-THON content that I anticipate creating for this year likely won't incorporate directly into my chosen theme, there is one video that I feel (somewhat) will. The Mini-THON documentary that plays on the day of Mini-THON is the largest, most complex piece of content that I anticipate creating and will likely incorporate the human experience. The documentary serves as a way to sum up the events of the months prior to Mini-THON and to hype up those participating in Mini-THON for the event the night of. While I could be entirely wrong, I feel that the final portion of the documentary, which describes the purpose of Mini-THON, can be drawn into my theme. Part of "Looking Inward: The Human Experience" describes why we do what we do as humans, and I feel that the documentary describing why members of Mini-THON do the work they do to help the kids falls under this theme (I could be entirely wrong here and just stretching to see if this can fit my theme, I am just trying to make everything come full circle).

Final Thoughts

Overall, I am excited to explore the theme I have chosen. It is definitely a change of pace from what I have done in the past. However, due to all the external factors from the shows I watch to how I feel in my personal life, I feel that exploring the human experience is something that is calling to me. The first project idea that I have for this theme should be a simple film about two people, their internal thoughts about themselves, and how they feel about each other. Hopefully everything works out for this project and I can creatively explore my theme through it and have a final product that I am proud of.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

End of MP 1 Blog Post

After now reaching the end of the first marking period of the 2019-2020 school year, I am able to reflect back upon the work that I have completed so far. Intention Definition & Exploration Of Ideas Having no prior experience in any particular area of film, I set out to choose a topic to focus on that would allow me to help narrow down my focus. The area I chose to focus on was documentary and mockumentary styled film making. I made this choice with the intention to be able to explore both formal and less formal ideas while also not relying on having to create an entire original idea by myself. The topic of my film (The Game) was chosen because of my familiarity and pre-existing personal opinions about it. Planning Planning an entire production entirely by myself was a change of pace in comparison to how I worked in previous years. I began the planning process by typing out all of my thoughts in order to help establish what I am trying to do. Once I developed an idea for th...
Post a Comment
Read more

O Brother, Where Art Though?/Homer's Odyssey

Throughout O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Coen brothers included various elements in the film that drew inspiration from Homer's The Odyssey . The following are a few of these elements and characters from O Brother, Where Art Thou?  that are meant to reference Homer's The Odyssey . The Sirens In The Odyssey , Sirens are seductive creatures who try to tempt the main character of Odysseus into coming with them. To counteract this, Odysseus fills his ears with beeswax and is bound to the mast of his ship as instructed to him by Circe. In O Brother, Where Art Thou? , the Sirens act like they do in Homer's poem. They're used in the plot as a way to tempt our main characters. However unlike Odysseus in The Odyssey , Elmer, Delmar, and Pete do nothing to protect themselves from the Siren's temptations and allow themselves to be thrown off their path. Big Dan Teague In The Odyssey , The creature of the Cyclops is known as Polyphemus, son of Poseidon. In...
Post a Comment
Read more

Investigation 4/25: Scott Pilgrim Takeaways

Typically, I only really watch movies in a social setting or if there's one particular film that I really want to see. Over the past few days I've tried to change this habit by watching a film each night in the evening. The first of these films is one that I always wanted to watch but never had until now. Scott Pilgrim VS. The World  was originally released in 2010 and is based upon the 2005 graphic novel of the same name. The film follows Scott Pilgrim who has to fight the seven evil exes of his new girlfriend Ramona Flowers in order to be able to date her. The film is great and instantly became one of my favorites. However, the purpose of this blogpost isn't to gush about how good the film is. The purpose of this blogpost is to talk about a few takeaways that I got from the film. Editing Since the film is based upon a graphic novel that is heavily inspired by video games, it took a large amount of creativity to bring those influences to life on the big screen. One of the ...
Post a Comment
Read more