Jack Oberli's Blog

 One of the biggest influences in the modern world is social media. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing at almost all times. The Social Dilemma steps up and tackles this issue head on. It may not be the most thrilling documentary, but it is certainly one of the most impactful when it comes to modern day relevance.  The Social Dilemma does have a fictional story aspect to it; however, it is not its strongest part. The scenes can come off slightly cheesy, but they do have function in that they illustrate the impacts of social media and data tracking. Where this documentary shines is in its boldness. They talk to engineers and marketers from all major social media platforms and get valuable information. Although the film may develop too strong of a voice to where it becomes preachy, I have certainly become much more aware of my social media presence its voice is certainly heard.

 While there were many avenues, we could have pursued in how we implemented acting in our Fascination Project, we ended up deciding to go with a classical approach. Or at least that was the theory at first.  We started by having a set script and wanted that to be the dialog in the final cut. However, we quickly realized how difficult that could be with the time constraints we had. In order to go the Classical acting route, we would have to know the script in and out. The reality was that we just weren't going to be able to pull it off with the time we had. That's besides the fact that not only do you have to remember the script, but we would also have to time all the lines together. This is when we made a pivot to a more Method acting framework. We had specific lines that we felt were funny and were must haves. We had each character's personalities worked out, so as long as it stayed on theme, we began to go a more structured improv route. We just used the heart of our writ...

 Our Fascination Project revolved around being a goofy sports comedy. We also wanted to incorporate some elements of the films we have watched in class. We found that Wes Anderson's style would mesh well with our Will Farell inspired plot. When writing our film, we wanted to include dialog that seemed as if it would come out of a Farell film. Naturally this led to a lot of screaming and belittlement. A common dialog theme Farell encompasses is very rash comments that lead to overreactions. We took a lot of inspiration from "Kicking and Screaming" and "Semi-Pro". As far as our cinematography goes, we tried our best to show off some of Anderson's iconic shots. Some of the highlights being a symmetrical walk-off, a top-down shots and over the shoulder views. Since the majority of our film takes place with the characters sitting down at a table, these shots allowed us to maintain some movement to prevent any stale moments. 

 I can say confidently that creating our Fascination Project was one of my favorite college projects I've done. It was a blast to write and film. On top of that it was really cool to take different film strategies into account in order to express ourselves. At first, I thought this may be a difficult project to get done. However, it was actually pretty smooth sailing. Our group glued together really well, and we all had similar visons for what we wanted to incorporate into the film. The only hard parts were finding the time to meet and then actually limiting the amount of content we put in the film so that we could finish on schedule.   

 Miranda July's "Me, You and Everyone We Know" is an intriguing indie film. It embraces the awkwardness of life in particularly in human interaction. While its sometimes very cringy to the point when it can be hard to watch, it's important to view this film with a comedic lens . I found that this July's piece much easier to take in and its value became clearer. One of the major strong points this film hold is it's acting. The film had a low budget, and you won't find any big names but that works in its favor. Not recognizing the actors adds to the realism July worked to make. The actors overall were very believable and made their actions seem rational to their character. They encompass the dry humor this film is built upon. As stated before, it's important to think of this film as a form of comedy. There are some serious awkward moments and relationships throughout. You can't take the film seriously in these situations. You just have to embrace it ...

 Sofia Coppola's rom com "Lost in Translation" takes on a melancholy theme to the genre. It uses changes of tempo and character contrast to build a large part of this theme. While not overly hilarious it does have its charming moments both in mix ups fitting in with Harris attempting to fit into Japanese culture and interactions with Charolotte.      As alluded to before, Lost in Translation is designed to be slower film. I believe that this largely plays to the pieces advantage. Harris is supposed to be going through a midlife crisis and has no idea what he wants to do with his life. While this may lead some to completely blow up in panic, Harris goes the other route and lulls out of caring. Meaning the slowness of the plot adds to the dullness Harris is feeling in his life. Of course, this begins to change when he meets Charlotte, but all the same their love is more romantic friendliness than overly passionate which ties easi...