-50- edited

Editing this a tad bit. I saw the movie "The Social Network" yesterday. We finished watching it at 12 (almost exactly), so I didn't get a chance to write a little about it.
I thought the movie was well done. The acting was convincing, and I thought the last scene was powerful: The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is sitting in a chair constantly refreshing the page to see if his ex-girlfriend will be his friend [on Facebook]. Then it shows a close-up of his face and text pops up reading: "Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionare today" (I think those are the exact words).
This scene shows that money does not = happiness.
-'Thought that almost everyone in the movie were being really nasty to each other...even though some parts were most likely dramatized, I hope college isn't like that.
-Most of the women (except maybe Mark's ex-girlfriend) were portrayed as...groupies. I didn't really like that, but I suppose that's showing that most of the girls that Mark knew were like that (?)
-I found it interesting that his parents were never there, or (almost) never talked about.

I'm going to get a Facebook when I turn 15, but it's interesting to know the backstory behind the site.

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I've been meaning to announce this, but I was very surprised to see this on youtube one day...an ad for cafepress, but the STAC t-shirt was on it! I saw it a couple more times on some different sites, so I took a picture of the ads, and voila!:

Isn't that odd?

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This is from yesterday:
I just saw the green lantern. Just jotting things down:
good:
-costume
-airplane scenes
-scenes where he's using his ring
-?
eh:
-character development (not much)
-female lead (but that's ok because most superhero movies don't have that)
-plot (fast paced)
-originality to the comic (but that's ok I guess? Iron man I heard wasn't that true either)
-not enough "broship"
-tone (the whole movie had dark colors, but they also had some funny moments which didn't.... flow)
-they forgot an important thing: the rings don't work against yellow (which seemed to be pretty important when I wikipedia'd the comic)

random:
-I also saw John there. I said hi.

-49.2-

Well, I'm done with testing for this week, so I have the time to write!
I have mixed feelings about the end of the school year. I'm happy since, well, no more tests and homework (except the summer reading project) for a few months, and I can catch up on sleep, but I don't get to see people as much over the summer, and next year the seniors will be gone...
I'm curious about the new STACies. I didn't talk a lot to the eighth-graders when I was in middle school, so I don't really know what they're like...I mostly heard about 8th graders and our grade getting in, but I wonder if there are any sophomores/juniors coming in also...
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I thought STAC night turned out great! I remember coming last year, and the two years were really different! This year was more organized, and we took people into the STAC room, but last year had more improv.
I think the asian forest turned out well. It was fun working on it, but I wish we could have left it up longer...I hear plans for changing around the room for next year, and that sounds exciting~
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Yesterday, I went into the city with some friends and my mom. We went to the Met. to see this exhibit on the roof, and the fashion exhibit on Alexander McQueen. We saw the roof, but the fashion exhibit had a really long line (over a half an hour wait)! However, the Richard Serra exhibit caught my eye and we popped in. The art was very simple, but I liked how it took up space (one piece was two 20(?)-foot pieces of black paper pinned to opposite sides of the wall). The funny thing was that my friends were wearing outfits that fit right into the exhibit!

 

she even blends in!

-we also walked about 52 blocks (82->42->50-something)!
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I also did a digital painting today, and I thought it came out pretty good.

I was getting a little caught up in getting all of the shapes, so I decided to leave it at this
reference

-49-

Well, there's a lot to talk about, but it's late at night...so I think I'll have to put a "49.2" blog up tomorrow- or sometime later this week...(probably tomorrow)

I just wanted to post the end result of the math project. I think it turned out well, considering I, uh, procrastinated quite a bit on it....*insert coughing sounds here*

-48--

Wow. I haven't posted on here in a while...I should have found some time for doing this, but I kept on forgetting...
Anyways, I fixed the video from the last post, since I took pictures and fitted them into the video, so everyone's work is in there at least once, if not more.

The year is going by fast, but these last two weeks are dragging out because of all of the projects that we're getting.
I like in math class, that we have the option of doing a comic book for a project. I really wanted to make one, but I didn't have any ideas at the time (and I don't think I'd be able to finish it on time), so I'm going to do a photostory/animation type thing instead.

The asian forest is coming along all right. I'm willing to do the work needed for it but I just need to know exactly what to do for it. I think the end result will look amazing though|!

-47-

Painting workshop day 4.

I created a video, since those expressionist animations were very inspiring!
A little bit of background, but not much (I wrote some reflections in the video description also).

A lot of people (including me, hahaha....) forgot their art supplies for today's workshop, so Luke decided to take a break from portraits and we did expressionist art instead. It turns out that I knew a bit about expressionism since I saw an animation of this expressionist on PBS (Luke showed us the animation, and I recognized it)! Luke also showed us some work of one of his friends...I love watching animations like these...
I'm sad I didn't get a chance to take a picture of Sarah's finished work though... I think I got everyone else's in there though. (I went into the STAC room and took a picture of whatever paintings were in there).

If you didn't want your art to be on youtube, tell me, and I'll take it out of the video.

I didn't really think about what to do with this. Maybe once or twice, I got an idea (the sun, the beach, leaves on a lake) but past that, I did what looked interesting/felt right/felt nice... It was fun using a lot of different mediums also!

-46-

Last day of acting workshop. I was wondering when the last day was going to come, and it snuck up on us! There were interesting improvs today
-I noticed that when we improved, we've used a lot of sibling situations, and most of the situations seemed to turn into arguments...I wonder what this means, and if this says anything about the group....hm...

I think one part I'll miss about the workshop was in the beginning when we settled down and did some meditations. After doing that, I've felt calm and refreshed (especially today).
I learned a lot about using your current feelings to make acting more natural. Also, sometimes if you use your "mask" (what feelings you show to the world) while you're improving, sometimes the situation can change what you feel at the beginning to something different by the end...

-45-

This month, I've had a lot of experiences with art/film. I took a figure drawing class and
During vacation I've seemed to be watching unusual films. In the past three days, I've watched a show about a Times photographer and a japanese silent film.
I've also eaten excellent ramen from a ramen bar sort-of place in the village. (no, not that village you prisoner fans)
---
I had the figure drawing class a few weeks ago. There was a live model (not nude, but she only had her underwear and bra on) and we worked in charcoal. The teacher there talked a little about the type of poses that we would be drawing and gave us tips on how to draw (ex. a standing person is usually 8 heads tall while a sitting person is 6 heads tall). After that, he let us practice drawing the model in a series of 2 minute poses and 5 minute poses.
We went over four major poses (standing, sitting, crouching and laying down) and started a little on how to draw clothed figures. He gave us more tips, like drawing the figure first, then the clothes over the figure and that there are 7 types of folds: spiral, c fold, radiating, pipe, zigzag, crushed and inert). The model changed into a dress, and we did another series of 2 and 5 minute poses (they were going to do a 15 minute pose, but I had to leave to go somewhere else.
I liked getting more experience of drawing people, and learning a bit on how to draw clothes (since that gives me trouble a lot of the time when I draw people). I'll put up a few pictures after I take a cleaning break, or tomorrow.


The movie about the photographer I saw was a documentary called "Bill Cunningham New York". It was about this times photographer (who is now about...80?), Bill Cunningham, and his unique lifestyle. He takes photos for fashion spreads in the times.
From what I got, Mr. Cunningham seems to be dedicated to his job (a couple of times in the documentary, he nearly got run over) and his job seems to be his hobby...and his life!
I also thought that it seems like a hard thing to do to film a documentary about something current. You can't re-take a scene...the only footage you have available is the footage you have to use...

Miscellaneous thoughts about the movie Bill Cunningham NY:

-liked the moment when he took a picture of someone and it showed the actual picture in the paper

-liked a transition in sound (I'm not sure if it was intentional or not) when there was applause and it turned into the sound of cars passing by on the street

-I found it interesting how he noticed a general trend in the fashion each...week (I believe it was a week)

-I liked seeing places in the film that I've been to and were familiar with

-The movie made me wonder if he ever rode by while we were walking in the city. Before I saw this movie, I think I wouldn't have noticed him (while I was in NYC during the break, I looked around once or twice, but he wasn't in the area.)

The japanese silent film is called "Naked Island" (translated name anyways). It wasn't what I expected of a silent film since, well, it wasn't completely silent (You could hear footsteps and the water.) It was silent in that there wasn't much talking.
The movie was about a family living on a barren island. They had a day-to-day repetitive lifestyle which consisted of bringing water from the mainland to the island in order to water the plants (with meals and sleeping in between). The film is slow-paced and gives off a calm, but monotonous, feeling. I admit, I dozed off in the first ten minutes of it, since the sounds of the water reminded me of being on the beach...and I had a late night's sleep.
It follows a year of their life, from the time they plant their crops to the time that they harvest them. The biggest event in the movie was when one of their sons die...! However, they have to recover in order to carry out their daily tasks and keep on living.

I also went and saw an exhibit on young artists at the Japan Society in NYC. The theme of the exhibit was that not all japanese art was "kawaii" (coughcoughIthinkweallknowwhatI'mtalkingaboutcoughcough). It had some graphic pictures (like a mountain of office worker corpses that, interestingly, looked like a traditional asian painting from afar), but it also had beautiful art, like this triptych (I think it could be called a triptych) of samurai riding on armored animals, and a giant screen of paper cutting art that you could walk around...

I also saw the musical "Memphis" yesterday. It was pretty good since it caught my attention, but I felt that the music wasn't that memorable...

...I've also re-energized (is that the appropriate word...?) my love of the works of Shaun Tan by re-watching his short film (here is the link: [link] if you'd like to check it out).