Final Project

Audacity Project

Playing with Tears (Re-Edit)

Playing with Tears (Re-Edit) from Sorenna Brown on Vimeo.

Orange Is the New Black

            Orange Is the New Black is an American comedy-drama series created by Jenji Kohan. The first episodes aired on July 11, 2013 on Netflix. This is a show about a girl names Piper Chapman and her struggles with going to jail. As the audience, you start out not knowing why Piper is going to jail, but as the episode progresses you learn about her past and why she decided to turn herself into jail for a year. Piper Chapman went through a phase after college where she dabbled with smuggling drugs while dating another women named Alex Devas. This backstory is the reason that she went to jail, and as it happens Alex Devas is in the same jail as her.

            As a white women raised by a religious proper family (like Piper Chapman was) there are a certain set of expectations. Some of which include, getting married to a man (not being lesbian – which she was), finding a good career (which she doesn’t have), not participating in illegal activity (which she did when she smuggled drugs), and lastly don’t end up in jail! All which Piper failed to do the right/expected thing.

            As Piper Chapman comes from a religious family, being a lesbian is the last thing that should be okay. Her family didn’t approve when she told them about her lesbian phase – because she “should have” just been interested in men. As for going to jail, that is not what a “stereotypical white woman” should be doing with her life.

As I watched, I noticed that a majority of the women in jail were “black” or of African American decent. It’s horrible to say, but it was almost as if I wasn’t shocked to see that that race was the majority in the jail. It just goes to show that  many ideas as Americans are put into our heads, that are usual not true, and that we are just judging people based on their race or gender. The entire show challenges what a white woman is supposed to do with her life, and it’s very entertaining to get a fresh new perspective on the matter. In

            Watching the first episode wasn’t enough for me, I continued watching the season, and in one night I got to episode 6. That’s a lot of television to watch considering each episode is an hour long. But I found this show very refreshing and not just something like your typical sexualized vampire slayer show.

Radiolab Presents: TJ & Dave

            The radio program that I chose to listen to was an interview with TJ Jagodowski and Dave Pasquesi on Tuesday, April 2, 2013. Robert Krulwich and Sean Cole interviewed them about their improvisational comedy shows. The interview was talking about how TJ’s and Dave’s improvisational style is so different from most. Their show is a complete guessing game; they themselves don’t know how the show is going to turn out. They start out the show, introducing themselves and talking to the audience, and then all of a sudden the lights turn out. They come back on after a moment, and the two of them stand there staring at each other until one of them speaks and the show is off. I was so interested in their show, that I YouTubed it and found the entire show that they were talking about on the radio program.

            Now, to get into the audio effects and/or techniques that were used in the radio program itself. Through out the radio program the use of music is very present and effective in making an emotional statement. When Robert Krulwich is talking about a moment in the show when the suspense is high, the music reflects the suspense. The music played was a series of bells that sounded like they could be in a haunted church. Next they introduce their guests, TJ and Dave, and when they do so they use a bunch of what sounds like wind chimes. Which gives the radio program a completely different feel to it than it was just a second ago with the mysterious bells.

            Another effect that they used a lot was the use of fading in and out between the interview and the pre-recorded comedy show. It was a very effective tool to use, so we, as the audience can transition easily between listening to the show and the commentary of the show at the same time.

            Robert Krulwich had a rougher voice while Sean Cole had a very soothing voice. The two combined made listening to the radio program very enjoyable because as the listeners we would bounce off one of their voices to another without effort. It’s a strange observation, but it was noticeable right away.

            You don’t notice all these things that go into a radio station, unless you really pay attention and analyze each aspect. But that doesn’t mean if you’re not listening for all these things, that they don’t add to your overall experience.  

Playing with Tears (Final Cut)

soccer 2 from Sorenna Brown on Vimeo.

Single Shot Video

IMG 7849 from Sorenna Brown on Vimeo.

Rough Cut

soccer 1 from Sorenna Brown on Vimeo.

Re-edit

Nobody's Business - Documentary Response

Nobody’s Business

In the documentary “Nobody’s Business,” the director Alan Berliner takes a look into his fathers past. As we watch we see that one of his main goals are to understand why his mother and father got a divorce. That’s where the title of this movie comes from – for when Alan asks his father why they got a divorce he replies saying that it’s “nobody’s business.” Besides looking into his parents divorce, Alan is interested in finding (anything) out about his ancestors, and where they came from.

           

            The filmmakers relationship with his subject is son to father. Alan (the director) holds the power, for he is the one with all the information on his family’s history. While his father has no knowledge of anything, and is frankly uninterested to find out about his past. Alan would ask his father about his past to which his father had no recollection and would say something funny like “how the hell would I know” or “I don’t care to know.”  This creates a sort of comedic aspect to the documentary. Alan doesn’t abuse the power that he has over his father, but he merely uses it to see if he can retain any new information from his father that he doesn’t already know. Unfortunately, his father proves to know absolutely nothing, which was funny, but at the same time unsatisfying.

            The gaze was either on Alan’s father or on home videos of his mother and his father from twenties and early thirties. The home videos Alan choses to put in the documentary illustrate his fathers line perfectly, almost as if the home videos were made for the documentary. 

           

The point of view in Nobody’s Business was factual with all the information that we as the audience were getting from Alan’s fathers past, yet it was comical by how the information was delivered. For example, Alan would tell his father that his relatives came from somewhere in Russia, and his father would follow up to that with “who the hell cares,” it put a funny spin on an otherwise factual documentary about a mans ancestors.

           

The voice of this piece was interactive and easy to follow along. It was meant to be understood, and not overly complicated. It was an amazing documentary, and I enjoyed it immensely.

 

It’s hard to explain how this is considered perceived power, but basically Alan has just asked Oscar (his father) why he and Alan’s mother got a divorce. Oscar looks puzzled, and frankly a little sad, but then replies saying that “it’s nobody’s business.” Alan is the one holding the power, for he asks his father this very emotional question and he is waiting for a sort of reaction or response. It puts his father in a very vulnerable place, and it shows on his face in the picture. (Oscar isn’t the one with the power, but you never see the Alan’s face in this scene – that’s why I chose this picture). 

Alone

How Laura Poitras….

How Laura Poitras….

This article initially started out talking about Laura exchanging emails with someone who had top secret information that the government had been listening into peoples calls and reading peoples emails. I started out not understanding what I was reading, but then the author takes you back in time and it all starts to make sense.

            It all starts off with Laura Poitras background – how she is a documentary maker and how she is interested in government surveillance. She traveled to Iraq where she was accused of knowing an attack was going to occur before it actually did. This however was false – but ever since then she was put on watch and the no flight list. Laura took extensive precautions – clearing information off of her phone, decrypting information on her computer, all so the government wouldn’t be able to know what she was up to.

            Soon she was contact by Snowden, who is a man in his late twenties, who said he knew lots of information about the government’s surveillance on America. She blindingly trusted him and got Greenwald involved as well. The three of them became a team and precociously carried forth with their plans. However they were discovered and their plans were stopped in their tracks. Poitras and Greenwald left Hong Kong (where the three of them had been meeting) and got out of the thick of the action. As for Snowden he went into hiding for he was the most wanted man alive.

            This article was very interesting to read. Honestly, when I usually see an article this long I will just skim it and not read all of it, but for this article I read intently the whole time. It was crazy to learn about some of these things. Of course I knew that the government was allowed to listen into calls and such, but I didn’t know to what extent they went too.