DOC NYC extra credit

On the rim of the sky is a documentary that took place in a small village in SiChuan, China which has minimal to none contact with the outside world due to its location of being on a cliff of a mountain. However, the awful earthquake that occurred in 2008 though out most parts of SiChuan has shaken this small village, physically and mentally. After the earthquake, many volunteers as well as money rushed into the village and this changed everything, including Shen Qijun. Shen has been the teacher of the only primary school in the village and since he doesn’t have a college diploma, his title is a substitute teacher which he has taken for over 26 years. Shen is passionate about his job but the title of only being a substitute teacher never once left his mind because he knows that he could be asked to leave as soon as someone with a college diploma comes in and takes over his job. Shen’s worst nightmare happens when Bao Tangtao, a volunteer teacher who comes to the village to being teaching because of his love for the pure, graceful village. While Bao didn’t take over Shen’s job, Bao has stirred up the peace in the village with his intentions of changing the education system in the village. The two eventually became hostile by the end of the film. The documentary is an intriguing one since small village like this doesn’t have much contact with the outside world so we don’t know much about it and it shows how big of an issue it could cost for the village to contact the outside world (Bao). This documentary doesn’t show a side on who is right and who isn’t so the whole film is under a neutral viewpoint so the audiences get to decide. However, I feel like this documentary is a little bit over-dramatic and unnatural during the heated arguments of Shen and Bao or even with other villagers where they would start throwing things and yelling at each other’s face. I think this could be because they aren’t able to act natural when there are several cameras filming them. Nonetheless, this documentary is a really good one because it shows how outside help might not always be helpful for a small village like this. It is because these “helpful” intentions could disrupt the village’s status quo that maybe the village is perfectly fine with the way it has always been, even though the outsiders would think it needs great improvements just because they aren’t used to this “condition”. 

Extra Credit: Sound symposium

The session that I went to was the Sound and Image At Play Together: Sound Design as collaborations where the participants showed us 3 minutes long pieces of films they have produced. They also talked about the audio and sound archives they have used for their films. However, I think the most interesting part of the session is when one of the participants showed this short clip of her project on Sound Design for Future Films which she added this sound effect (I don’t know how to spell it) to the movement of a snail. This is very fascinating to me because I would never thought of combining exciting sounds to snail movement since snail doesn’t have too many movements to begin with. However, after adding the effect, the snail’s movements have seemed to become very active even though it’s really not but it really showed me how sound can make a huge difference on video or film. Another project that she has mentioned is “crispy cell” where she added crispy sounds to sheep sex cells fertilizing. This is very interesting to me because as someone that’s taking biology class right now, I’ve always had to watch videos on cells but I never found them to be too interesting since the movement is always at a slow pace and there’s not much to it except for voice over explanations. However, when I imagined how a video on cells fertilization with crispy sounds would be like, I thought how fun it would be for biology students like me to watch educational videos on cell movements if they all have fun sounds added to them. The session was overall very interesting whereas it’s showed me something I’ve never thought of like the “crispy cells”.  

Blog #3

In About Time, the lead actor finally learned the last lesson of travel in time where he decided not to go back in time because to him, every day is a perfect day with his family around him even if the day doesn’t go as great as he plans to. The sound that’s being used is a soft and loving song with this one lyric “I’m the luckiest” repeats quite a few times which matches the mood of the actor who is very thankful for his ordinary yet extraordinary life. At the beginning of the scene, it’s just him and his kids getting ready for school, the shots are not completely steady and in fact, they are a little bit shaky which further enhances the shots where he seems kind of messy when he’s making breakfast for his kids. This also adds onto the fact that his life is imperfect because he can’t travel back in time to change things in order to perfect them where as before, he would go back in time and change things if they don’t turn out the way he likes them. After that scene, there’s a lot of different shots showing other ordinary people living their day to day life where their days are also not perfect but they seem like they are enjoying the moment. All the shots are organized in terms of their content where the first few are on the lead actor and his family then slowly moving on to people on the streets but with two to three shots of other people that appeared in the movie before which show how their lives are at that moment. There are a few shots that I want to point out and they are when he bought his daughter to school then his daughter waved goodbye to him again and again for four times where she would go into the classroom then come back out to say goodbye to him. So the shots are on his daughter, then on him which really show his expressions at the moment where he’s very happy, they are also medium close up shots so we could see his facial expressions and movement. These shots reinforced the fact that his ordinary life is actually quite nice. The color of all the shots is very soft because it wants to bring out this image of how our ordinary day to day life can be nice and sweet. The cuts of this scene are very obvious because the movie wanted to show the audience how different people live their ordinary lives which are quite similar in a way, compared to lead actor’s life. 

interview