Webisode – Christian Orellana – What NYC means to me

Assignment # 10 – Ethnicity On Television – Christian Orellana

The presentations of the quick clips of television shows that focused around the various types of ethnicity found today in our society and how they are portrayed at the Paley Center was something rather fair to watch. I did not expect to see how well and precise the Paley Center had categorized the different time periods and clips of shows and the different types of ethnicity that were most likely had a strong influence on the ideas of television in their times.

Shows like George Lopez, The Cosby Show, and I Love Lucy stood out to me the most because these are shows I am very well aware of since I have watched them before. It was disturbing to see though now at this point in my age and education how during different eras of television this was how people were portrayed in television. It was cool to see how in The Cosby Show, they tackled the stereotype of young African American being unintellectual and academic when the young scholar school boy came into Cosby’s home and was able to have an inspiring and awe shocking conversation with Bill Cosby at an intellectual level.

The instance with I Love Lucy on the plane was fun to watch as well as we see an American girl who was married to a hispanic endure the harships of having to travel to Cuba to meet his spouse’s hispanic family. This hits the point of our trip dead on, I believe, in what we were trying to capture in terms of Ethnicity on Television. It is a very humorous and uncommon thing to see a couple on television fight about how to endure the difficulties of learning about each others cultures and family values…or well for me it is uncommon.

I barely take out the time to watch television now a days and it was refreshing to see these old shows that I grew up with as a child. I definitely enjoyed the trip to the Paley Center.

West Side Story – Christian Orellana

Even though I have never been fond of musicals, let alone movies with dancing, West Side Story has an interesting plot and enrichment of diversity and culture that makes the movie actually compelling to watch.

The conflict between the Jets (Caucasians) and the Sharks (the Puerto Ricans) is something to ponder about. A lot of this conflict is portrayed through the interpretive dance that is heavily shown whenever the Jets and Sharks are going against each other. Also a lot of the shots, especially the one in the school dance, uses the space of the stage so well that you can deliberately see this imaginary boundary line between the two gangs. Not only is there conflict within the two gangs, there are also certain issues going on within the gangs themselves.

And just like Romeo and Juliet, both of these gangs stories intertwine as two people from opposite gangs fall in love with each other.

How the police treats the two gangs is very clear. In the beginning at the basketball court the Police and Detective already treat the Jets more as children that need to be watched over and the Sharks as delinquents. This is interesting to me because it is clear not only to the Jets but to officials in society that the Sharks are to be looked at as less than acceptable people in society. It is also interesting to see a police officer at the dance of the school.

This conflict between race makes the plot of West Side Story something worth following, in spite of the singing and the dancing. I was surprised when I did a little scouting about the movie that it had won 10 oscars. I was shocked. I need to redefine for myself what makes a movie worth watching.

Trip to Library of Performing Arts – Christian Orellana

The trip to the Library was a little bit of an inconvenience since I was not able to make it there on time.

Spite my inconvenience I did not expect the library to be as huge as it was. It definitely had a large collection of resources that I did not know were only accessible inside the library.

As also the name implies I did not even know there was a library that only collected work and art related to anything of the performing arts sector.

What caught my attention was the level of attention they gave to organizing everything media related, from music to books, and newspaper article clippings to pictures and photographs taken decades ago, they almost had it all.

I would definitely want to come back the library when doing any specific research papers. I wish I knew about this library before when working on my previous research media related papers.

Life in the 18-19 Century Power Point Assignemnt – Christian Orellana

18-19th century living in NYC

Gangs of New York Assignment 7 – Christian Orellana

Watching the movie in class today with Leonardo DeCaprio was fun and a little confusing to watch. I say confusing because since I never watched the film before, I had the impression, or the assumption through the title of the movie that it would be about the mafia, or certain more modern gangs that we hear about today involved with New York. I did not think that this film would take us back so far as the period where Abraham Lincoln was president.

One of the things I have to point out was that in terms of visual effects, I did not particularly enjoy the fight scenes involving blood. The blood looked considerably fake and unrealistic, and also, the first big gang fight in the beginning I believe the priest and the butcher were just hitting people with metal blades that didn’t cause anyone to bleed. That already made the film for me lose some credibility and I thought that was what I was going to see through the rest of the film. On the other hand it was pretty awesome to see Liam Neeson as the father and priest, who looked pretty bad ass walking around in his cross while holding his young son in the other hand.

In terms of composition and special effects, I really did like the ending where we have some large wide angle shots of the city, which I imagine in post were composited together. I also liked the quick fast forward in time montage after Amsterdam buries the butcher in the grave next to his father. I think these scenes were pulled off very well.

Talking about the ending, I did not really appreciate the ending, because I feel like it completely dismissed the importance the movie established about where one person is from and the pain it is to kill and betray one of your own kind. I feel like in order for the director to be able to end the movie, he decided to use an interesting shot of the city and a deep message from Amsterdam was placed. These things I thing was what the director used to sort of tie the idea of where one is from, or their nationality, and the idea of a reality of gangs and violence that would be forgotten forever. I feel like what the director or writer here needed something stronger than just a fancy visual and quote to tie these things, otherwise anything else didn’t cut it for me.

The movie over all was fascinating, and was very compelling. The butcher Bill was an incredibly well played character which gave the movie such a villainous touch that I almost thought there would be no way anyone could touch Bill. But I guess I was wrong when Amsterdam finally killed him at the end.

Trip to Tenement Museum – Christian Orellana

The trip to the Tenement Museum was a cool experience last Thursday. Even though I was little late, I still got to experience some of the things inside the store, and I also was able to watch a documentary on the museum, and how it became to be.

I recall doing a research paper on Jacob Riis, a Danish man who did not have no background in photography or writing, but was able to pioneer the use of photography in journalism through his photographs of the tenement homes down in the lower east side. Watching the documentary about the Tenement Museum, it made me remember about the images I saw that Riis took as I did my research on him.

It’s sort of eye opening to learn the roots of how New York City came to be, and what it used to be. As a kid, I wouldn’t have ever thought that the conditions that people lived in the early 1900’s was very difficult, crowded, and en cumbersome. In spite of that though, many immigrants moved forward and tackled the harsh lifestyle that was presented in the documentary that I watched.

Walking through the blocks of the lower east side on Thursday made me think right now how probably Jacob Riis walked on the same blocks, looking for pictures to take to put in the newspaper. It inspires me to think how much possible change Riis brought through his pictures.

It was really cool to see that one of stores gave us unleavened crackers. They were a bit dry, but I’m used to eating them.

I would have never have thought that the lower east side was a bunch of tenement homes that were packed with a bunch of families. But I guess they dealt with it. Here are some pictures of our walk around the neighborhood.

Hester Street: Assignment number 5 by Jean Carlo

Hester Street was a film shot back in in the 1970’s. I really like the production value of this film because I really had the impression that the film was shot back in the early 1900’s. I know that this is contrary to the film because sound was capable of being replayed through film until the mid 1900’s.

In terms of composition, the film was very well shot. Almost consistently each shot was very well lit and angled to show the characters. There is one exception, to this rule, because there is one shot that Jack and Mamie were both in her apartment and were trying to become close and intimate. There were well lit, but there was a very strong vignette around them that gave this weird awkward feeling that maybe they were being watched. I imagined from a directors standpoint this must have been intentional, as they were other people in the room, which made Jack and Mamie uncomfortable.

The music was also fair for the film, although I was paying attention more to the dialogue rather than the consistence of the score of the film. Speaking about dialogue it is interesting to know that the actors were probably not from a Jewish background at all, and had to learn how to mimic a specific accent. That was pretty funny actually to know, because to pull off a certain type of accent for a specific amount of screen time is hard to pull off, and giving the fact that accents when people try to mimic them. But I guess the illusion that they are were from a Jewish background was well done since we never get the impression before hand that they were well English speakers.

The ending of the film also was something that stood out to me. I really did like how Gitl in the end of the film wanted to keep the name of his to Joey, in spite of the fact that she divorced with her ex husband Jack. It was definitely an interesting character shift and arc to see in Gitl throughout the film as she herself was getting accustomed to living in the United States. Gitl through the film has been my favorite character who experience a very profound character arc.

Other than that, Hester Street is a pretty cool film, I would recommend it.

Assignment # 4 – The Crowd – Christian Orellana

“The Crowd” was a pretty interesting film that casted James Murray as John Sims, and Eleanor Boardman as Mary.

One of the cool things about the film was that it felt very cinematic. I almost forgot that it was shot back in 1928. I could easily follow the flow of the story, and the acting of the film was dead on which allowed me to understand the story without having to hear too much dialogue.

There were a few moments that the acting seemed a bit exaggerated but I would understand that from a directing standpoint, the actors had to sort of portray their emotions in a stronger way in order for the audience to know what the actor was feeling at the moment.

One of the scenes that really got to me and set the movie for me was when John Sims decided to kill himself off the bridge. With knowing that he could easily give it all up in front of his own son, he was left with the decision to keep on going and facing his greatest fear which was to be separated from Mary and being alone. This must have been one of the most dramatic parts of the movie because we see this very climactic change in John Sims. I was actually glad that he decided to not kill himself and find a way to make things work out with his family and his wife Mary.

Again I am still surprised this was shot back in the early 1900’s. That was what made this film very interesting for me.

Assignment #3 The Immigrant – Christian

The Immigrant was definitely something interesting to watch. I remember watching other Charlie Chaplin’s films like The Great Dictator, and Modern Times. Reading the commentary in the beginning about the amount of footage that Charlie Chaplin took for The Immigrant alone is very shocking, especially to know that today we can easily navigate and organize footage with computers, and back in that century, everything had to be done physically by hand with special devices.

One thing that definitely caught my eye was how Charlie managed to provide the camera with the effect that we were actually on the ship in the film. I know others in class mentioned that probably everyone knew how to move in sync with the swaying of the camera, but I honestly believe somehow Charlie Chaplin managed to keep the camera stationary, and have the whole set move to give the idea of a moving swaying ship.

https://storify.com/xhattenjr1/charlie-chaplin

Actually, I was doing a little research right now before I was continuing this post. According to the website above, the camera was actually on a tilting pivot stand. I guess I was definitely wrong. I can’t believe how well and synchronized everyone matched their movements with the camera.

Charlie Chaplin’s ability to use certain innovations in cinematography definitely did make him stand out for his time.