Videos

                I enjoyed all of the youtube videos that we watched in preparation for the short film we will be making at the end of the semester. Being a future Film and Media Studies (IDS) major, I am greatly looking forward to this assignment and think it will be a great way to integrate technology into our studies. I liked the mixture of videos that we watched. Some were funny, some were serious, and others mixed the two. I am hoping to do a video that mixes both as well. One of my favorite youtube videos is one called “Facebook in real life” and it is a satirical take on Facebook and many aspects of it such as the people who typically requests you as a friend, the gifts applications (where you can send your friends virtual gifts), the poke feature, Farmville, friend suggestions, and more. It is a hilarious and memorable video that has always stuck with me. I would like to aim to make a video in the same sort of style by taking parts of a social networking site and exaggerating them for comic effect. Seeing as though our class videos only have to be 2 minutes long, this should be fairly simple and only requires a few features to be exaggerated. I have an HD Sony video camera so I think I will use that to shoot the video and I will probably edit it with Windows Movie Maker which is free software for windows based computers (I have a Dell) that I have been using to edit various projects for a number of years. I like it a lot because of it’s simple user interface and wide range of tools. I look forward to seeing the videos that all of the other groups produce and I think it will be a great way to end the class.

Catfish

Catfish is a documentary, or mockumentary depending on how you look at it, film that was released in 2010 and was directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. The movie documents a young photographer, Nev Schulman’s odd relationship with a family through Facebook. It all started when a young girl, Abby, sent Nev a painting of one of his drawings. She then continues to do this as he sends her some of his photos. Her family members then start to add him on Facebook and thank him for what he’s doing for Abby. He then continues to correspond with them quite frequently through many different mediums (phone, email, Facebook). He even begins to become emotionally involved with Abby’s older sister, Megan with whom he texted, messaged, and called regularly.  Everything is going seemingly normal until Nev discovers that the songs that Megan posts on her Facebook as originals are all exact recordings from various professional singers. A web of lies then begins to unfold. As Nev becomes suspicious about the family, they decide to pay them a surprise visit and learn the truth. While there, he finds out that the mother, Angelica, masterminded the entire relationship. She created multiple Facebook accounts using fake photos, friends, and information, and contact Nev as if she was them. She even posed as Megan and talked to Nev using a different voice.  The story only gets crazier from there and more lies are revealed. Partly because of how relevant the topic of this movie was to the hundreds of millions of people using Facebook, the film was very successful upon its release.  Despite the fact that most, or even all, of the film may be fake, it still does offer a very chilling portrait of how people can manipulate and misuse technology rather easily to trick unsuspecting victims. This is very important for us to remember in such a technological age.

Zines

A zine is a small self-published booklet or magazine that is usually aimed towards minority and obscure subjects and topics. These are usually released to a small circulation and reproduced using a copy or Xerox machine.

Over the years, zines have evolved greatly.  The first known zines were created in the 1930s and 40s by Science fiction fans. Tired of having their stories scrutinized by fans when printed in distinguished publications, sci fi authors began to respond to their fans letters and print the responses. This allowed fans to find each other’s addresses and exchange “fanzines” which contained fan written stories, and personal musings about fandom itself.  Zines were mostly used as a part of science fiction subculture up until the 1970s when the first punk zines emerged. By the 1980’s zines had developed their own following and have had such an audience ever since. 

In many ways, Zines were the old print form of a blog.  Anyone could be a producer and/or consumer of one and could write about anything they wanted. They offered a sort of freedom that had not been available for writers before they existed.  However, in our current technologically advanced age, I think zines are not a viable means of relaying information. Now with sites such as blogger, tumblr, and Wordpress, people can do the same things as they could with zines and not have to worry about printing or even distributing them.  Blogs are faster, cheaper, and read by a larger audience than zines.  Before we talked about them in class, I, along with many other students, didn’t even know what zines were. While they may have been a great way to express personal opinions and stories in the past, there are now many seemingly  better and more advanced outlets through which people can share these things.