Final Part 2

Seven Pounds: In order to help others you must sometimes make a sacrifice for the greater good. Like what Tim did for Emily, Ezra, and all the others. “Who’s the victim?” “I am” He does this to save Emily’s life by giving her his heart, therefor making a sacrifice for what in Tim's eyes is the greater good. All throughout the film Tim made it his goal to help others in a very miraculous way. “You know, Ben, I keep asking you this but why me?” “Because you are a good man.” “No really.” “Even when you don't know people are watching you.” Here he is talking to the coach who he gives a kidney to after watching him and determining if he is a good man or not. Early in the movie he makes his goal in life clear to Holly who he gave part of his liver to. Tim asks her to find “Someone having a really hard time, that needs help, but may be too proud to ask for a handout.” He clearly wants to help people, it is just a matter if once he checks them out if he feels that they deserve it. Tim is a amazing man who’s soul purpose in life after his accident is to help others.

Craigslist Joe: When you have to rely on other people for your survival you can truly see the good in humanity. He met many people that helped him out in a tremendous way. “We can take care of each other.” Although he did not have anything to trade when asking people for help he would do everything possible to make it worth their while. Some people would say that there is little hope for humanity because everybody is so selfish, but this film proves it wrong. “Some say we have lost the sense of community that used to carry us through tough times, however, after this experience I have obtained enough knowledge about our society to confidently say that is not true.” It's things like this that give people hope that our race can still thrive as one. When he was talking to the first group of people he met they were dumbfounded that he would even try this experiment. “Yeah it was a risk doing it but if i continue to meet people like you it should work out perfectly.” Throughout this entire experience he met many people that helped him and changed his life forever, and he truly saw the good in humanity.

Smoke Signals: Thomas helped Victor on his emotional journey of trying to find his father, and trying to find himself. From the very beginning Thomas just wanted to be friends with Victor and was willing to do most anything to help him. “Thomas brings his jar of change and spare bills to help him and Victor make it to where his dad is.” Victor originally thought that he could not make it to his dad because he had no money but when Thomas offered to use all of his money for someone else's journey, it shows how willing he is to help others. No matter who is in pain or in need Thomas is willing to help, for instance “Victor’s mom is crying and Thomas gives her a big hug and tries to take care of her.” That just shows how willing to help anyone some people are, and it is when you help people that you feel the best about yourself, which is why Thomas is so happy. Thomas would often try to help Victor by hinting things that he did wrong, for example. "You make your mom cry!" "Shut up Thomas!" "You make your mom cry. your dad left her sure, but you left her too, but what you did was worse, you stayed." When Victors father left he lost a piece of himself as well, and his mom could tell. Over the time Victor and his mother grew apart and Thomas noticed that and tried to do everything in his power to help.

PTSD: Often the only way to cure PTSD is to have help and support from your loved ones. PTSD is often caused by a traumatic event, commonly found in veterans coming back to the real world and trying to cope with all the shit they saw overseas. “You can develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when you go through, see or learn about an event involving actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violation.” Doctors still aren't sure why some people get PTSD but they do know once you get it it’s hard to get away from.  PTSD can bring a lot of stress and pain to one’s life, and is very hard to get away from it. “Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares, and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.” Veterans often have flashbacks from war about the terrible things that happened and once you see things like that, it is very hard to forget about them. Symptoms of PTSD can get worse over time so it is better if you treat them early. “Dealing with them now might help stop it from getting worse in the future.” Getting help from loved ones is one of the most effective ways to cure PTSD as well as getting help from a therapist.

Culture and Communication: Cultures provide people with different ways of thinking and seeing the world, and communication helps us understand those different cultures. Most people grow up just knowing one culture and just one language, so it is often very hard to learn about others. If you want to try and experience or learn about a different culture chances are they speak a different language so the chance of misunderstanding increases. "When The U.S. first discovered Indians we did not even take a chance to try and learn about their culture we just assumed they were bad people." If we would of tried to understand their culture and their language it might have ended up a completely different situation. Today with all the advancements in technology it is easier than ever to understand and try to learn about different cultures. The first step to learning a new culture is often to understand their language. Things like "Rosetta stone" help make it easier than ever to understand new languages, and with that comes the opportunity to understand different cultures. Back when the world first started realizing that there were different cultures and different ways of living they had no way of understanding each other. "But now with the advancement in technology like being able to travel by plane to basically wherever you want" This has helped us come together and know more about the entire world tremendously, and without it all we would be able to do is learn about other cultures through electronics or books and not get the real world experience.

post 27

Travi$ Scott ft. Rich Homie Quan & Young Thug "Mamacita"

Different shots use a lot of neon colors. Really light in some shots and really dark in others to show contrast. In most dark shots they balance it out with bright neon colors. They use camera movement to focus on the group or an individual. They also used a lot of long shots. And they used some helicopter shots. Used following shots to keep the important people in the frame. 

         Dom Kennedy "My Type Of party" 

A lot of interchanging shots to show importance in certain things. The background is flashbacks of his past in some shots. Camera movement / panning to show full group of people or just one. Color scheme is usually matching. Usually a very light background. Almost always uses a leveled framing. Zoom shots were common to show importance in certain people 

Burn Notice 

the focus in this picture is not on just one person but them as a group. It shows the unity among the friends. 

American Horror Story

The focus in this picture is on the man in the black suit, but because he is just a black figure the focus is turned to the other man in the frame. 

The Shining 

Craigslist Joe

            It may seem crazy trying to live off craigslist for a month, but one man pulled it off. In the movie Craigslist Joe a man literally lived off of just craigslist, with clothes, no money, no food, and a phone and computer with no contacts. He wanted to be done with it by new years so that he could bring all the people he met along the way. It really took some amazing people to help him along his way in order for this to work, even if it was just a guy looking for some company on a long road trip.

           We can connect with other humans so brilliantly if we really try and we can see how amazing the human race is if we meet the right people and that's exactly what Joe did. He relied on random people for his own survival and was hoping that they would feel for the situation he was in and that's exactly what they did he met a ton of new people along the way and made some life long friends.  

Writing Post 24

 

                The Columbine high school massacre was a school shooting that happened on April 20th 1999. It was the first school shooting of its kind and forever has impacted school as we know it. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve students and a teacher, as well as wounding 23 others in their brutal attack, ultimately ending in both of their suicides. All of the school shootings have people asking questions about what is causing so much violence in our youth. And the answer is many things. Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Poverty, Psychiatric disorders. Many things affect young adults and often we do not see how badly they are suffering until it is to late.  

Blog Post #6

                   During the battle of wounded knee, the Academy awards were taking place. Marlon Brando, won the award for best actor in his role in the movie The Godfather. But in protest to the treatment of native Americans in film he sent Sacheen Littlefeather, a Native American actress, who was dressed in traditional Indian clothes, to the stage to refuse the statue and inform the crowd of why, but she was only given 60 seconds and would be arrested if she had gone over it. While all this was going on there was a battle between the Lakota tribe and the FBI, Called Wounded Knee. But instead of horses there were tanks to help the FBI take out the Lakota tribe. 

Writing post #17

       "You know what the army doctor said: no Indian medicine.' Old Ku'oosh will bring his bag of weeds and dust." pg(31). Here they are saying that even though Tayo is badly hurt they will not change their ways, even if it will end up killing him. "When Tayo saw he was getting started, he looked at the eyes again; he took off his jacket and covered the deer's head." Tayo did this purely out of respect for the deer, and the earth. When he was a little child he dreamed that a deer would come close to him and let him touch it, that's why he was so interested in this one.

      "White women never looked at me until i put on that uniform, and then by God I was a U.S. Marine and they came crowding around. All during they war they'd say to me, "Hey soldier, you sure are handsome."" There it showing that white people only started caring because they felt bad, and they felt obligated to have to cheer for them to.

     

Dances With Wolves

            Over the last few days we have been watching "Dances With Wolves." in one of the first few minutes of this movie Lt. John Dunbar risks his life in a very dramatic way. The battle that he is in is at a stalemate with both sides holding their ground, so he decides to hop on his horse and gallop by the enemy. During this he is in the Christ pose and says "Forgive me father." This stood out to me because there was obviously a deeper meaning to this that we will come along to later in the movie.

     In one of the later  minutes of the movie the man who who is in charge of the frontier shoots himself. Before he shot himself you could tell something was off about him, his hands were shaky and he seemed really scarce, because of the things he saw while guarding the frontier. Though this does not phase Lt. Dunbar at all, which shows that he is very determined, but we will see if that bites him in the ass down the road.

Native Nations

The Sioux

                  The Sioux are a North American based tribe that consist of three major divisions, The Santee, The Yankton-Yanktonai, and the Lakota. Before they were called the Sioux they were called the Dakota and it is noted that the Dakota were the first tribe recorded to have interacted with the Europeans. Today The Sioux are mostly based in North Dakota and South Dakota and Canada. Even though they have been relocated many times they still have their traditions like festivals that involve many tribes and traditional Sioux crafting. Although there was many leaders that the Sioux had, the most recognizable one would be sitting bull. He was a famous medicine man that was in the Wounded Knee conflict where many Native Americans were murdered.

The Cherokee 

                        

                        The Cherokee people have always been known as one of the more culturally and socially advanced tribes. The Cherokee have actually shaped a government that is very similar to modern governments today. They were the original ones in the "Trail Of Tears" which is where they were marched from their homeland into what is called "Indian Territory" which is now Oklahoma, and they also are found in Kentucky. One of their ceremonies is called "The Great Moon Ceremony" its where they celebrate the first night of autumn in celebration of the "New Year"

 

The Navajo

                     The Navajo are largely known as Hunters and Gatherers. They are one of the few groups who adopted crop farming early. The Navajo nation is located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Arizona, and covers 25,000 square miles. The Navajo are knows to be some of the fiercest warriors along with the Apache which they have a very close relationship with. The most well known leader of the Navajo was Manuelito who singes a treaty with the U.S. allowing them to move back to their homeland.

The Apache
                   
                     The Apache are very closely related to the Cherokee in the sense that they lived basically right next to each other and had to cooperate with them many times. Apache were very fierce warriors hence the name Apache which means "Enemy" in the language of their Zuni neighbors. Some Apaches are still living in Oklahoma where they were originally located. Most Apaches speak English now but few still remain on their old language which is closely related to the Navajos.

The Choctaw
     
               The Choctaws are the original people from the southeast but now because they were relocated from their homelands like many tribes in "The Trail Of Tears." They are now mostly based in Oklahoma ever since they have been relocated. like most tribes the Choctaw men are the hunters, the ones who put the food on the table, and the moms are the ones who take care of the kids while the fathers are away.