Who, What, When, Where & Why: Shots from "Mad Men".

In any program created for televison or film made for the big screen, every shot should mean something, serve a purpose. Because most moving pictures aim to tell a story, it's important that each shot no matter how overt or subtle, should build on telling that story or contribute to contextualizing the 'world' inside the screen. Here are some examples compiled below from the hit Emmy-award winning US series "Mad Men":

When

Set in the fictional advertising agency Sterling Cooper, Mad Men is set in the 1960s and every episodes will have scenes wherein the background and/or extras very much adhere to the aesthetic vales and historical authenticity of that time period, for example in this shot we can see that they are using typewriters, the office decor is historically accurate and the women are dressed in tight-fitting pin-up pencil skirts and hair up in a bun.

Why

This show is historically accurate but not just visually; its depictions of gender and racial bias, sexual dynamics in the workplace, and the high prevalence of smoking and drinking add to the reason why it's an Emmy-award winning show. The latter two 'vices' seem to constantly be on screen, and both in times of celebration and crisis, there ain't nothing wrong with pouring a drink or three.

What

The weird thing is that besides 'meetings' and the odd presentation, the folks at Sterling Cooper tend to always be taking 4-hour lunches and sitting around discussing non-work related topics (i.e their secretaries, other men's secretaries, you get the idea) and even when the boss (guy near the door) enters, well, he doesn't mind joining in on the fun either. Hence, this is what a 'meeting' is in Mad Men.


Where

The advertising agency Sterling Cooper, where half the show takes place, is set on New York City's Madison Avenue. Whilst you never see the actual building from the outside, shots like these allude to what the 'view' would be like looking down at Madison Avenue.


Who

Don Draper. The Ultimate Ladies Man. Creative director and eventual junior partner of Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency; Draper is the series' main character. His past is shadowy, but he has achieved success at the agency. A close-up like of him is commonplace in the series and often used to show what Draper is thinking. Put it simply, what makes Draper the main character in Mad Men is two things: his infidelity and the fact that this dude has serious childhood issues. Luckily he looks fantastic in a suit, struts around with supreme confidence, blows people away everytime he says anything, is uncannily successful at his job and most importantly, spends 90 percent of time with women remaining absolutely silent, only talking to say the best lines ever.



All stills were sourced from here.

Week IV: Scavenger Hunt

I don't know how I'll get any answers to anything without Google or Wikipedia, but I'll try...

1. What is the weight of the world's biggest pumpkin? How long did it take to grow?

1689 pounds. The guy was Joe Jutras of Scituate, Rhode Island, breaking the world record of the biggest pumpkin on September 29, 2007. Joe said that the "pumpkin grew in 87 days. It was an average of 20 pounds a day. I went on vacation for three days and came back and it was huge." Keep on keeping on Joe.

Sourced from Pumpkin Nook (http://pumpkinnook.com/giants/giantpumpkins.htm) found using the Yahoo! search engine.

2. What is the best way (quickest, most reliable) to contact Lilly Allen?

The question asks for a Lilly Allen with two three L’s.The most famous one is Lily Allen, with only two L's, and if you go online and Ask Jeeves (a search engine) for "Lilly Allen phone number", you can get access to a forum where others are also looking for her digits. This was the most realistic response: "try calling 0800 GET-A-LIFE!” Harsh but true.

There are also other Lilly Allen's with three L's. Myspace is probably the best tool to use to stalk underage teen girls, so that's what I used. Result: 24 pages of "Lilly Allens". Here is the link to the first 10 (of 236): CREEP! You can message them and if you're over 18, end up on NBC's "To Catch A Predator".

3. What is the length of a giraffe's tongue?

According to the San Diego Zoo, the average length of a giraffe's tongue is 18-20 inches long (so around 46-centimeters). Cool...

Sourced from the San Diego Zoo Website (www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-giraffe.htm)found using the Ask! Search Engine

4. What does the term ‘seagull manager’ refer to?

According to BNET Business Dictionary, a seagull manager refers to a manager who is brought in only when there is a problem or crisis , makes a lot of fuss (i.e. "shits on everything"), achieves nothing, and then leaves. Now I finally have a term to apply to my area manager.

5. What was David Cronenberg's first feature film? Which of his films Had 'Blondie' in it?

Using IMBD (the world's biggest internet movie-database), I was able to find out that David Cronenberg's first feature film was a 65-minute Sci-Fi movie called "Stereo". Sourced from IMBD (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065036/)

Again using IMBD, I looked in David's Cronberg's filmography and found a 1983 film called "Videodrome" starring Debbie Harry (aka the lead singer of Blondie) but with dark brown hair. I'm not sure if this film went down in the annals of cinematic history:
Sourced from IMBD (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/)

6. When was the original 'Hacker's Manifesto' written?

Again 'Asking Jeeves', I discovered that the original 'Hacker Manifesto' was written on the 8th of January in 1986 by a hacker who went under the name of The Mentor. A brief article, the Hacker's Manifesto can be accessed here. According to my tutor Kaya, it's also in the movie "Hackers" which I haven't seen and have no plans to see anytime soon.

Information sourced from Economic Expert (http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Hacker:Manifesto.html)

7. Why do phone numbers in Hollywood films start with '555'?

The Official Home of Correct Movie Opinions says that the reason why phone numbers in Hollywood films start with the prefix 555, is to prevent people calling an actual working landline, leading to some farmer from Ohio getting requests to talk to God. Image and info sourced from The Movie Blog; http://www.themovieblog.com/2008/06/movie-blog-history-lesson-555

8. What is the cheapest form of travel from the Gold Coast to Sydney?

Once I watched a program on the Discovery Channel about “out-of-body experiences” or “astral projection” as it is also known as; simply, a phenomenon that occurs when a person travels outside his physical body, or travels in the spirit realm using a different state of consciousness. This video below tells you all you need to know about astral projection and illustrates it so it’s like your metaphysical self is connected to your via a invisible umbilical cord:

Since the question doesn’t state what kind of ‘travel’ it has to be, the cheapest way (virtually free) is to go through an out-of-body experience and project yourself through an astral plane; next thing you know, you’re in Sydney.

9. What song was top of the Australian Pop Charts this week in 1965?
I searched and searched, but the only source of info I could get about who was top of the tops back in 65 was on the Wikipedia. I know it's a sin to use it but I have no other choice. Assuming the week encompassing the 17th of August, the song was “Help! /I’m Down” which was number one on the Australian Pop Charts for 8 consecutive weeks, from 14/8 till 2/10.

Info sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one_singles_in_Australia_during_the_1960s

10. Which Brisbane band includes Stephen Stockwell on keyboards and vocals?

Brisbane-based Punk band, The Black Assassins.

Link to their website- http://blackassassins.net/

Week III: Language of the Screen Pt.2

For the week three blog task, we've been asked to find further defintions of the following film shot terms:

VLS/WS*

LS
MLS

MS*

MCU
CU

BCU

ECU*

*have been explained in a previous blog-post

Here is an explanation of these terms and an example of each shot, taken from the films of Leonardo Di Caprio. Oh yeah!

LS: Long Shot. In this type of shot, figures are visible but the background/foreground dominates.

Image sourced from here

MLS: Medium Long Shot. Typically, this type of shot focuses on the body from the knee up.

Image sourced from here

MCU: Medium Close-up. This shot focuses on the subject's face with a portion of their upper chest visible. Often used when two characters are talking to one another.

Image sourced from here

CU: Close-up. This shot singles out a portion of the subject, most commonly the face, in turn emphasizing non-verbal communication, such as a facial expression or gesture. Most films with Leo Di Caprio consist of about 3.7 of these shots every 10 seconds, since that's the only reason why most people go to see his films. He's a good-looking dude.

Image sourced from here.

BCU: Big Close-up. This shot is used most often to highlight the features of the subject's face, and is used for the same purpose as the Close-up. I got over looking up Leo, so here's another example which is probably better. My friend took this photo.

Bibliography

Film Directing and Film Making Tips for the Independent Filmmaker, Understanding camera techniques - shot size, viewed 18 August 2009

Week III: The Violation of Brendan Davies, Pt.1

Capturing some "footage"

Week III: Language of the Screen

We have been asked to find definitions for the following film terms and record how we researched the information online. The person next to me found the answers on another student's blog (a Skye) and I looked at their screen, so in hindsight, I really didn't have to search through the information metropolis that is the internet. In our tute, pretty much everyone gradually came across the same method of finding another student's blog. But for "progress" sake, I'll show how that blog (and definitions) came to be found.

Step 1: Typed "WS Language of the Screen" onto the Google search engine and the 2nd last link was Skye's blog.

Step 2: Great Success!

To get a more definite and concise definition of these terms, I typed in "film and screen analysis ECU WS MS", since I studied film and screen analysis last semester, and clicked on the first link: Film Directing and Film Making Tips for The Independant Filmaker.

And the defintions are...

ECU: Extreme Close-up (focus on the eye)
WS: Wide Shot (subject is shown in relationship to their surroundings)
MS: Medium Shot (the body from the waist up)

Here are examples of each type of shot from the films of Darren Aronofsky:

ECU- Extreme Close-up


WS- Wide Shot


MS- Medium Shot

Week III: Computer History X

A brief history of Computing & the Internet:

• Charles Babbage got into computers way before they were cool; his 19th Century Difference Engine, designed to calculate and print mathematical tables, is considered to be the original computer.
  
• For the computer to seriously develop, a serious man was required to do some serious work: Alan Turing. During WWII, Turing and his posse devised the first working computer, aptly titled The Bombe. After using this computer to crack German "Enigma" codes, he got arrested for being a homosexual and later commited suicide by drinking cyanide. Heavy stuff.
  
• IBM start producing the first commercially produced computers in the 1950s. These first machines were massive and expensive, so as a result, only the military and large companies could use them. It's worth noting that back then, they didn't have social networking sites or any websites back then, so even if you had a computer, you couldn't do anything fun or productive with it.
  
• Bill Gates decides to drop out of high school and start writing computer language for the first personal computers (PC's) released in 1975. That same year, Bill Gates started a company you may have heard of called Microsoft.
  
• Modern-day tech giants Apple were also founded around this time, by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak whose girlfriends left them for Bill Gates, since word on the street was that Bill had his own company. After selling their first Apple computer for $666.60 and their soul to the devil for untold wealth, the PC revolution began.
  
• Bill Gates joined forces with IBM and to cut a long story short, became the richest man on Earth for a long period of time. The End.

More in-depth material about the history of computing is presented here

Week II: Photoshop Master

Behold my prowess in the field of photo alteration:

Before:

After:

Week II: A Convergent Technology and Proof that 9/11 was a set-up.

"These implications of 9/11 being a controlled demolition are dark for our country (USA), because it means that somebody besides Al Qaeda was involved."

Week II: Convergence + Technology = Technological Convergance

According to the Ivy League folks over at Princeton, the term 'convergance' is the occurance of two or more things coming together. When this term is applied to the realm of technology, it refers to the intertwining of two or more pre-existing technologies, which should produce a technology more convenient and better-suited in performining similar tasks.


Examples of Convergent Technology:

1) Skype: Skype is a free-to-use software program that allows people who use it to communicate- both through voice calls and video conferencing- to other users over the Internet, and in some cases, to landlines and mobile phones. This program can also be used to share files and send instant messages/SMS to other poeple aswell. More information can be found here. Nice to know that this software wasn't developed by 20-something American computer-nerds/college-dropouts in their parent's garage.

A diagram of essentially how Skype functions.

2) The Iphone (or any "Smart Phone"): The Iphone is one of the best examples of convergent technology in the modern age. It retains the purposes of a phone- calling, sending & receiving text messages- whilst at the same time intertwining pre-existing technologies: it serves the role of an MP4 player (plays music and videos), a computer (can send/receive emails, browse the internet), a GPS-system (can access maps) and a portable-gaming console. God favours the undertakings of Steve Jobs.

The Iphone with four of it's central features: GPS, Internet access, MP4 and of course, being a mobile phone.

3)Refrigerator-TV: Okay, I guess it's cool that the powers that be have combined the everyday necessity of an fridge with the endless entertainment value of a television. But unless you sold your shares in Apple and have bought this for your holiday home in Cape Cod, I highly doubt that this piece of convergent technology is entirely practical and needed in the everyday home. Sure, your friends will be impressed but your wife will be asking why you didn't buy a TV for the living room; last time she checked, that's where people actually watch their television.

Just in case you lack any imagination, this is what a refrigerator-tv looks like.

4) "Spy" Pen Camera: Besides James Bond, there is a niche market out there for camera devices in everyday items that don't resemble a camera. Like this pen. I have a feeling that it's used for more sinister reasons than "home security", but I'll pass judgement this time. According to OZ Spy, "This video pen camera has colour video and audio with real time date and time stamping. The built-in 4GB memory gives 16-hour audio/video recording in AVI format and the super sensitive microphone can record sound with-in a 15 square metre range." Whatever you do, don't bring this on first dates. Or any dates.

Cool when you're 13. Liable for charges when you're 30.

I Prefer Phil Collin's Solo Work over his Genesis stuff.

In this blog, I will be documenting my experience in studying New Communication Technologies, including weekly tutorial tasks and summaries of that weeks lecture. I'll aim to reflect on my own ideas regarding the course and include entries about interesting books or websites I have discovered in my free time and/or during class time.

When I mean "interesting books or websites", I pretty much mean anything relating to conspiracy theories i.e "9/11 was an inside job", "The Illuminati/New World Order", etc.
This interest in conspiracy theories (theories can, and have, been proven true by the way) stems from my grandpa. If you've ever seen the film "Conspiracy Theory " starring Mel Gibson, it pretty much nails my grandpa down to a tee, except he isn't a mentally unstable taxi driver and isn't being hunted by the FBI yet.