Blog #4

                                                     Saying Too Much


Once upon a time, in a country far, far away, there lived a girl. Her name was Aloda and she was the princess of the secret country Hulaba. Hulaba was the most beautiful country anyone had ever seen and the people living there all shared the love for their country. Their country wasn't the biggest existing that time, but it for sure was the most beautiful one. Surrounded by ocean on all sides, palm trees, mountains, beaches and trees giving the most exotic fruit anyone could ever wish for. The only bad part of living in this great place was there were one rule, the one rule that never stopped bugging Aloda. When you were born on this island, you were never allowed to leave. This island was about to stay a secret from the rest of the world.

There's a legend that one of Alodas ancestors, Monodi, who ruled the island thousands of years ago, left. He built a boat, brought his servants, and sat off to the unknown. Time went, and time passed and finally they hit the main land. They were the first ones ever from Hulaba who had ever been outside the island. What they saw frighten them. There were wars, there were death and there were sadness. They made a pack, never let these people find our country, that includes never letting anyone leave or anyone arrive. Since the day they came back, the pack became a law.

One morning, sunny as always, Aloda woke up, ready to run away. She was sick of being stuck in the palace, sick of her bossy parents and most of all she wanted to escape. Escape from Waldi, her soon to be fiance. She was eighteen now, and just a week after her birthday her parents had found her a man suited to be her husband. Someone had to keep the family going, and her parents was about to make sure she would. She packed her bag, ran down through the secret tunnels that led to the one place just her family knew of. The escape port. The escape port was made in case the island ever was going to disappear, so they, the royal could escape and survive. She put the sails up, pushed the boat off the shore and sailed away without looking back.

Land was in sight, after many days she was there. She made it. This new place confused her. She saw things she had never seen before, she couldn't even figure out what they were. For the first time in her life she felt free. She explored this new place, met people and eventually fell in love. His name was Jermey, he was a doctor and was one of the first people she met in this land. He cared very much about her and they were even expecting a baby in just a couple of months. One night, when they were about to go to bed, she started thinking of her parents. Her family that would never meet her baby. Jermey comforted her and it all suddenly slipped out of her. About her country, her family, her journey and the pack. His reaction was like nothing she would ever expect. He smiled, ran out of their home and left her crying alone.

It all turned out that Jermey was an history scientist, and Aloda hadn't been more than just a science project.  It didn't take more than a week or so before Jermey and his crew was out of town. They were in her town. Another week passed and her country made the news, lost their rights and got a new name. Hawaii.

Blog #3 "The Snow storm"

"What are you doing?", CJ shouted while Johnny knocked in the window with his ski pole. "What's your plan, stay out here and freeze to death?" Johnny sounded annoyed, why had they even kept going when they could see that it had been clouding up, and the snow came down stronger then earlier. "We gotta stay here, at least just for tonight, and then we can go back tomorrow". Emma smiled, of course she did, the adventurer she was. Johnny liked that about her, no messing around, not making it complicated, just playing along, trying to make it through the night in this old, huge cabin, that had seemed to come out of nowhere in between the mountains. Sally didn't seem so convinced with the plan, probably didn't think they had the authority to be there, oh what the hell, better to break into someones cabin than die.

The four of them all climbed through the window, Johnny first, then the girls, and CJ as last man in. The first thing that hit them was the smell. The smell of rotten furniture, trapped air and they could tell at once that there hadn't been anybody in this cabin for several years. "You guys, there's not reception here either", "Of course there's not, we haven't had reception for the last four hours" Sally didn't like Johnny's response, why did he always have to be so cocky. "Let's see if we can try to get this electricity going" Emma interrupted, breaking the bad mood that was developing.

They started walking, out from the bedroom they had entered and out to the hallway. This place had way to to many superfluous rooms, how could anyone even need this much space for a cabin, CJ though while Emma lit a candle. Soon they all had their own, which gave just enough light to see a couple of feet in front of each of them. Johnny was leading the way, with Emma walking right behind him. They were both chatting about the most random stuff, CJ didn't even care, he just wanted to find a bed, sleep and get out of here as soon as possible. “You guys”, “What” Emma and Johnny replied in unison, while they turned towards Johnny. They all looked at each other, turning and staring at the empty spot, the spot in the back of the line where Sally was supposed to be. “What the ..” Johnny screamed, “She was right there a second a go”. All out of the quietness they heard a huge bang, like a door slammed, followed up by a scream that could not be from anybody else than Sally. As they all put there candles together, the light lit up more than they had wished to see. Blood marks of a body that had been pulled along the floor. Sallys blood.

They ran, as fast as they could. All different directions. CJ ran, ran as fast as he possibly could. Opened one door after the other. His candle had blown out the minute he started running. He ended up in something he decided must have been the kitchen. “What kind of place is this” Johnny whispered to himself, while he ran down the hallway. “Down right, and then a left, that must be where the entrance is, so I can get out of here”, he thought, while he was trying to catch his breath. Then all of the sudden, he tripped. Head first he dived down a stair, that had showed up from nowhere. He bumped his head, scratched his back and it wasn't before he saw a pair of ardent eyes coming towards him and Sallys dead body laying next to him, he realized he was in a dank basement and would never see the day light again.

Emma ran, tried to open door after door, but they were all locked. She couldn't get out of the long, cold hallway she was trapped in. There, the last door, finally opened. It was the master bedroom. When she shot the door as quietly as she could, she heard a big bang, like the last time. This could only mean one thing. There were only two more left, and she was one of them. She hid under the bed, trying to catch her breath. Out of the quietness she heard footsteps. Heavy footsteps, like she had never heard before. And they were coming closer and closer. The doorknob twisted, the door opened and from where she lay she could see a mans lower body. His flash light lit up the room. This creation was unlike anything she had ever seen before. He came closer. He was holding an ax, blood was dripping from it. She hold her breath, trying to be unnoticeable, terrified. “This is it, this is the ending.” Her thoughts got interrupted by a loud noise, pots falling to the ground. The huge person, that had been just a couple of feet away from her, turned around, shut the door and walked away,

“Shit” CJ shouted almost too loud. He had heard it. The second bang, and he was sure he was next. But unlike the others, he was about to be prepared. It was when he reached for the kitchen knife, he touched the pots that were hanging on the wall and they all fell in the ground. The sound was loud, very loud. “I'm not going to be nineteen and die, there's no way I'm dieing here!” He said to himself as he took a firmly grip around the knife. He could hear it, hear it coming. Getting closer and closer. With the rising in sound also came the rising in light. It got lighter and lighter, until he got blinded by the light.

“There!” Emma thought when she finally managed to open one of the windows in the bedroom. She climbed out, jumped down in the snow and started crawling. The wind hit her in the face, the temperature most have dropped several degrees, but the only though that went through her mind was to get away from that cabin as fast as she could. She crawled, and as she got further away she turned, gave the cabin one last look. She saw the light. She saw CJ, and she saw the second where the beast swung his ax, and walked slowly away from the kitchen while the light slowly disappeared. Hear tears streamed down her face, while she kept crawling into the woods, into the dark, alone.

Blog 2

Okay, here's the thing. I have now been thinking of this blog for five days. Thinking about what to write, but I have come to the conclusion that I just can't do it. I have realized that I'm not funny and making an attempt to do this blog would honestly be a failure and embarrassing. So..that's all!

Blog 1

"This was some adventure, huh?"

My adventure is now. I'm in the middle of the biggest adventure in my life so far. This year, in a foreign country is MY adventure.

It's eight months since I stood in my kitchen, hugging my mom while the tears ran down my face like small rivers. It was the night before I was going on a long flight and an even longer stay in the US. That was the moment it all hit me, I was not going to see my family, friends, my home nor my country for over10 months. My bags were packed, and ready to go, and so were I. I had mentally prepared me for months, I had been looking forward to this since I was 12, and now the time had come. I was scared.

The sun hit me like a wave of summer at the airport in Chicago and my first thought was, "I can deal with this". My family picked me up the day after in Minneapolis and it couldn’t have been better. Got a map, keys and some money the first day and it was time to explore. A couple of days later it was time for cross country season and I sigened up.That was probably the smartest decision I've made this year. I met great people, got my closest friends, who included me, took me under their wings and made the typical scary-first-day-at-school not so scary. I must say, South is different in many ways. In the beginning it was the crowd, all the different people, who were all doing their own thing and all the rules, that freaked me out. But I learned it, accepted it and embraced it. I find it interesting how South manages to have all these different people from different backgrounds, cultural and religions all getting along. It's a great thing that I wish I had been exposed to earlier.

The time went by, I had got more friends, experienced a whole lot, been traveling and having the time of my life. The time went by so fast and now it’s spring. Only two more months until my stay here is done and time to go back to Norway. It seems like I’m leaving my home to go home. This place has made me see, experience and meet people I wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for this exchange year. It will be hard to leave it, but the memories and people will stay with me forever.

I'm going to make the best of the rest of my adventure, since it's still happening!

Blog #10

1. Our documentary is going okay..We have got all the filming done, started editing and it looks pretty good. The fact that it has to be done on Monday kinda freaks me out. Since Julias group also uses the same editing room as we do, the have reserved it for the days we wanted..So we basically only have Thursday after school and Sunday..I really wish we could have Friday and Saturday...hmm so this will be interesting! I hope it will turn out good! Cross your fingers and wish us luck, we'll need it!

2. "They'll Say, "She Must Be from Another Country" " By: Imtiaz Dharker

With this reading  it sounds like this girl is quite different from all the other people where she lives. The people sounds really conservatives and seems like they think that everything she does that is different is wrong. To me they seem quite parochial, and this girl really differs from them. When they say "She must be from another county" I feel it's like an insult. She just doesn't follow the societies norms. I can kinda relate some to this girl. Cause I'm foreign the norms differs from places, counties, countries etc. Some everyday sayings or acting are really different from here and home. But it's all about adjustments.Try to adjust to the culture, learn from it, take up some good norms and not take up the norms and traditions that are not as great. It's all about taking the best from both worlds, right?

Blog #9

1. Finally our filming is all done! We went to Jazz 88 station, got three interviews done, and filmed a bit around in the studios. We also got an interview done with the daily producer/director, the woman that is the boss of everybody! People seemed to be a bit scared of her, but turned out that she was really nice, and fun that we got her on camera! On Friday we're going to start edit and we're also editing on Sunday. So we will hopefully be ready for the ruff draft! I'm excited to start editing and see how it all turns out! Just two more weeks left..so we better get this done! :) Otherwise everything is going good, Zoe and I are good friends, fun to work together!

2. "Defending Freedom and Freedom of Speech" by Luis Aguilar

When I read this, the first thing that came to my mind was "How would it be like to live in Cuba without the right of freedom of speech and not be able to express your opinions?" I can't even imagine what that would be like. Here in the western world we are used to have the freedom to express our thoughts, opinions, minds in every way we want to. That is one freedom I really hope will be a right for everyone one day, the sooner the better. One of the quote in this reading was "I thoroughly disagree with what you say, bit I shall defend to the death your right to say it." -VOLTAIRE I think this is a really good sentence that express how it should be. In this reading they also mention that even though we here in America have the right and freedom to express ourselves, most of us are too afraid of what others may think and how society will look on you to say what we mean. This is truly sad when the ones who has the freedom doesn't use it as much as we probably should.

Blog#8

1. Zoe and I had rented the camera, picked it up and we were ready to go get some interviews done today. Unfortunately some confusions came up and we couldn't do it today. But that's how it is sometimes. So the plan now is to get all the filming done Monday and Tuesday next week and then try to edit as much as we can that week and the next following week. I think this will be good, but we still got a lot of filming left!!

2. Reading Assignment  "A Gift of Love" by Martin Luther King Jr.

The people King remembers in the first paragraph have the fact that they are black and suppressed in common. They are all in one way or another treated badly by other humans, people who think they are superior to them and people who treat them bad since they have a different skin color. When I read this, it reminds me of how sorry I feel for what black colored people have had to go through over the years and still struggle with today. I can't imagine being treated that way just because you are born with a different skin color. We are who we are, and it's sad that other people don't respect each other. The fact is that we are all the same. We all want to be loved, we all have our own lives, thought, families. It should not be a privilege but a right and a matter of course that all humans should be treated equally and with respect.

Blog #7

1. It's Tuesday and I finally feel that we can do this within the time limit. We got all the shooting for the trailer done last Thursday and on Sunday we spent four hours on editing the trailer. Zoe and I sat in that tiny, little room, worked out buts off and almost went crazy. The trailer didn't work out as good as we wanted it to be, but we're hoping to get a stronger comeback with our documentary. before starting this project i would never think that it would be possible to spend four hours on 20 seconds, but apparently I was wrong. The plan is now to get some more filming done next week, hopefully all the footage we need and then to start edit as soon as possible so we don't have to sit the last Sunday session and do it all in a rush and get a really bad documentary. So that's they plan. I like working on this project, but it takes so much time and power from you. Well well.

2. "A Bed for the Night" by Bertolt Brech

The man in the poem helps homeless people out by appealing and asking people who pass by if they can give a homeless man or woman a bed for the night. I believe he does this since this man has realised that by doing this for others, he helps people out and he let other people help the homeless people. These people would probably not offered a bed for the night if the man on the street hadn't reminded them that they could make a change in somebody else everyday life. I also believe that passers-by feel that it's more safe when a man that is not homeless ask them, than if a homeless is begging.

the man is basically just asking strangers if they can give a homeless person a bed for the night. I really liked this poem and hope that that man exist. The man on the corner, who helps homeless people. a man that is so unselfish, a man that has a home, a family, but realise that he needs other peoples help to be able to help all the people he wants to help.

In the poem they say that "it won't change the world, it won't improve relations among men, it will not shorten the age of exploitation" this is true, but it will give a man a smile on his face when he for the first in a long time lays in a warm, safe bed.

Lena

Blog #6

1. We're getting there! That's all i need to let you know right now. We have a access, Zoes and my friend Alex McCormick. Alex works in a local radio station and will help us getting access to the studio and some important people we can interview. I really want to get some good shots while they're recording and get one interview with the producer, one with one of the program leaders and might have some random people at the street telling why radio is important to them, why we listen to radio when we already have all our music on our i-pod. What does radio have that you don't have on your i-pod? Entertainment? News? news related to your community? These might be some of the answers we could hear, at least these are my reasons for listening to radio, but i wonder why other youth listens!

So tomorrow, Thursday we are going to the channel and shoot, as much as we can and maybe get a interview down. And Sunday we will go to MTN and make the trailer. I really hope this will work out, since now I'm stressed and concerned we won't have a trailer by Monday..So we'll see!

2. "Fellowship" by Franz Kafka

Where does fellowship come from and what sustains it?

I think fellowship comes from similar people comes together and figures out that they have something in common, that they enjoy each others company and like to be with each other, A fellowship is a great thing, it makes you feel a part of a group and to know that you have a place you belong to. I think spending time with your fellowship sustains it a lot. Spend time together and experience things that's what will make it last. Then you have memories to share, to talk about and even more things in common than before. When I read this piece I got kind of sad. It's not easy to be that one person, but it's not easy for the group ether. We all want to be a part of a fellowship, but it might take some time, even years to figure out what kind of fellowship you belong to, fit in and feel that you can really truly be yourself.

Blog # 5

Okay. so the thing is that my group just keep changing. We change our members, we change our topic and we change our minds. Now it's back to Zoe and myself again and we really need to figure out and schedule people to talk to and interview! But the first thing we really need to do, i think we're doing it today is to make a plan. We have to sit down, go through what massage we want to send people, what stories we want to tell and how we're going to tell them. Since an interview need to be for a reason and to get what we want we need to know and have a plan. So 2 hours today will hopefully be used productively so we can start this project.

2. "Theme for English B" written by Langston Hughes
This paper is very different from the other reading assignments we have gotten before. I kinda like this one, it was short, cute and interesting. I think the purpose with the teachers assignment was to have the person to write a page about just whatever came to his/her mind and that would be what he wanted to read. Not set any limits. not set any guide lines, but just have the person to write something that would be different and interesting.
I think this assignment begins with the words "Go home" since then start in medias res, the introduction to the page is interesting and it captures your interest right away. And the person is also letting us know that the reason that she's writing those exact letters is because of her teacher that told her to go home and write a paper.
The narrator writes that he is different, cause he is colored. But he also let us know that he is like everybody else, he is a human being even though he stands out in the crowd and is "different".

Reflection:
I have noticed that a lot of times, when you meet somebody and they assume you act and behave a certain way. A lot of times personal expressions tell you more then you could ever imagine. Just by meeting somebody and look at them you can kinda tell if they really are interested in getting to know you or not. Normally i don't react really strong, i just get upset how strong imprinted stereotypes can be sometimes. I usually try to prove them wrong so the next time they meet somebody they will meet them with an open mind.

Blog #4

1. This week we  are going to figure out who we're going to interview, call them and plan when we can shoot! Cause it was the ending of the last semester we really didn't get to do a lot since we wanted to focus on our grades in the final classes, so now I hope we can get started and do this! I'm realy excited and think this will be a lot of fun! We figured out to change our topic from monogamy to relationships in general and human interaction. I think that is really interesting and that it will be fun to meet different people and listen to their stories!

2, "Directing the Documentary" by Rabigere Michael ch 14, Interviewing.

By reading this piece I learned a lot about how important interviews are in your documentary. They are the clue to make a good documentary and you get a human relationship by talking and getting stories from people. While interviewing it's important to get their story right, be respectful and listen. Before an interview it's important do do a lot of research, have some questions ready and also be able to ask follow up questions to the person you are interviewing. That's often the most important answers you get since you dig deeper and get important facts for your story!

It's important to take the location in consideration when you are doing an interview. It can be outside, in someones house at their workplace etc, but it's important that it has something to do with the topic of your documentary. The location will also play a part in telling the story.

Before an interview it's also very important to be prepared and also while you are interviewing give visual feedback so the person feels comfortable and want to tell you their story!

When you're done interviewing it's important to say thanks, and let them know that you just want them to look best as possible and if they are not satisfied how they are put on the screen you can always edit, but in the end you have the final saying. And also to get them to sign a personal release form that says you're allowed to use the material.

Blog #3

1. Right now our group haven't had really big progress since last week. We pitched our idea on Tuesday, we figured out that our groups topic is monogamy, and the question we want to answer or discuss is "Do monogamy really exist". For those who don't know what monogamy is, it's basically to be fully committed to only one person your whole life. So we want to interview interesting couples and maybe one single person/divorced person and see what people think about relationships and if their significant other is the only one for them. We want to interview couples in different ages, and try to narrow it down, so we're thinking of having three couples, 2 kids, around the age of five, a lesbian couple  and a old couple. We already know the lesbian couple, so we need to get permission from some kids parents and find the old couple. We want to try to find our characters this coming weekend or really soon so we can start planning more. We also want to have our video to include lots of pictures, especially from the old couple. I think this will be an interesting and cute movie.

2.

'How to Write a Documentary Script'

by Trisha Das

When I read this piece I learned a lot more than I thought I would. I learned that your documentary has a value and that all the research you put into it makes a huge difference. There is many ways to do your research, but the most important is that your documentary is interesting to you, so you want to spend time on it, want to put in the effort and that you will spend a lot of time thinking and looking for more information on your topic. You need to be curious and you need to ask your self some questions, like "What would I want to learn about this subject?" and etc. There is many different ways to get information. You can interview people, experts, you could use the media like the internet, books, etc, you can go out on field research, go to museums, galleries etc to gather information or you can skim read lots of fact books and pick out the most important information in each one of them. When you do your research you get a lot of information and it's really important that the quality is good. It's really important to spend some time segregating the relevant information from the irrelevant.

I also learned that it's important to have different perspectives in your documentary, and the best way to show that is through humans. So that leads you to find people to interview and what kind of questions you want to ask and get answered. I also learned that imagination is the biggest talent and tool of the scriptwriter and that is whats makes every documentary different. It's also important to dig deep, get information that surprises people. Find out more insightful details. When all the information is collected, the interviews done, the filming is past you need to put it all together. The hardest part is now to eliminate all the information that is not necessary to tell the story, reorganize your scenes if needed and the last part, writ the script.

Blog Post #2

Our group is now been formed. It's Zoe, Bea and me in our documentary group. We are kind of late in the process and we really need to get together and figure out a idea! We were discussing today in class what we wanted to make a documentary about and figured out that we might do one about love and relationship in all the different stages of life and ages. We think that would be adorable and interesting to document many different kinds of people, all from small kids to old people. We are all really interested in people and think it would be a fun experience to meet many strangers, hear their stories and talk to them! So we basically have to figure out an idea, make our pitch, and start planning!

2. "How real does it feel?" by A.O.Scott
I really didn't feel that I learned a lot from reading this critic by Mr. Scott. The article was written from his perspective with a lot of personal opinions that I do not agree with. The only thing that made me think a little extra while I was reading was his point of view on documentaries not being exact, movies that are "based on a true story" often aren't really how it was in real life. This made me think about all the movies that I have really liked mainly because it actually happened in reality, might not be exact.

It surprised me that he has this strong opinion that documentaries are films without art, that basically everybody with a video camera could make, and that they are not worth seeing. I really think that through documentaries you can tell stories, share experiences and people can learn something from you through an artistic, creative way. I really didn't feel that I got anything out from reading this article, mostly upset, frustrated and board of hearing this mans strong opinions, that I'll be better out knowing.

Lena

Blog #1

Chapter 1 "introduction" Directing the documentary by Michael Rabiger

While I read I learned some about what a documentary actually is. Michael Rabiger writes that a documentary explores actual people and actual situations. A documentary could be about the Past, the present or the future and he calls it a "creative treatment of actuality".

I also learned that a documentary needs a good story with interesting characters, narrative tension and an integrated point of view. It's also important that the documentary is to somewhat objective. That minimize the dangers and responsible you can have as a director. To be objective it's important to get facts from both parts of the case and cross-check everything.

The thing that surprised me the most was that he writes that it's important that the documentary is actuality and that everything can be proved and defended in court. I never thought that you can actually be sued for making and expressing your thoughts, actions and people through a documentary. This also made me think of how important it is to get all the facts correct, and be sure not to expose people in a negative way.

I am satisfied with what I learned, the paper/essay was pretty long so I feel that a lot of what was written was unnecessary for us Voices students to read and that we could just have got the basic facts. When I get that long papers to read I find it hard to learn something at all in between all the other information, so I'm satisfied that I learned some good basic facts about documentaries.

Lena