A Film with no Words

Last week, my lecturer had shown us a non-narrative movie with no storyline, no actors plus no dialogue instead. The film was shot in 25 countries, which means that it actually needed a sufficient budget since the director would need to visit so many different places. The film showed me the world, the destruction of nature by the development and technology used in the world today. In this film, I've learned a lot by watching the various types of cultures in many different countries. I'd learned quite a lot of cultures around the world in school by the subject, History, but now I could see through the cultures by real eyes in the film, Baraka.

My lecturer, Mr. Hardip didn't mention much about the film before letting us to watch. To be honest, I really didn't get the message that the film was trying to show in the beginning. In the introduction, a red-face monkey (have no idea what's the specific name for it) appeared on the screen. It showed me nature untouched by man. The monkey was alone, staring at the nature made by God, Peaceful.

This picture shows the culture being played in the past before the technology slowly fade it away. Ancient times, culture played a very strong role to people, they carried their cultural activities almost every moment, everyday. But today, through my own eyes, people around the world are just busying spending their times on jobs, entertainment, they have mostly ignored their cultures.

Development of the world, transformed into a higher-integrated world. Technology started to take over the world, cultures and religious are being neglected, even people. The picture above reminds me there are times of my life, I'd always see beggars around the streets, some with legs, some without, for me, they kind of gave up in their lives. For me, they treated life with no meaning anymore. They suffer from poverty, hunger yet being neglected by their family and the society. Life is no more like in the ancient times, where people used to unite as one, where there are no standard division among people.

The film showed the architectural remains of the past civilizations before it ended. Now what have left are those monuments made by people in the ancient times. Angkor Wat, the monument which I used to learned about in school. It showed the human effort in building this monument, which gave a very deep meaning to people living in the past. I'd promised myself that one day I'll surely visit this grateful monument.

Click the link below to watch. Enjoy! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJHPNg7YdgY

Semiotics

Semiology and semiotics are the study of signs and symbols. What can you observe by seeing an object? For example, a rabbit, most of the people will think that the signs of a rabbit are cute, adorable. Some will even think of a well-known brand, "Playboy". In conclusion, an object can have many symbols.

Just last week, my lecturer had shown us this picture, its an advertisement for Calvin Klein. What sign has it represented? Some mentioned sexy. For me, the sign of this picture is confidence. As you can see, the model in it, Mark Wahlberg smiled so widely, and this shows that he actually feels confident yet comfortable eventhough he was just half-naked, wearing a boxer. Moreover, he was grabbing his boxer, this symbolized that the boxer is elastic and flexible. Conjunctively, the model also signified healthiness. It can be obviously being seen that he has a healthy lifestyle because of his muscular body.

Why is it in Monochrome (Black and White)?

The photo was edited in monochrome as it can show a greater contrast. The model's body can be more attractive if it is shown in black and white because of the greater contrast. 

As shown in above, the colour picture can only clarify in light. In comparison, the monochrome picture is more artsy yet, lack of distraction from colour.

Nigahiga

 My very first lecture in Media Appreciation is about Media Literacy. In this modern era, everyone is addicted to media, especially through the internet. The first person or celebrity that came into my mind is Ryan Higa, a YouTube celebrity. He owns a popular YouTube channel named after "nigahiga". He produces his own comedy videos and all those videos are mostly based on trend, keep updated with what has just happened around this world.

For example, not long ago, there's a very famous phrase called Forever Alone. He had produced a video about this "Forever Alone" thingy, and its really being viewed by many people in YouTube.

His every videos truly can make me laugh out loud everytime when i watch. But, as you know things can never be started and worked out easily without any effort. In the beginning, Ryan started posting videos on YouTube with his partner, Sean Fujiyoshi, also as known as his high school mate. Both of them had created lip-syncing videos, unfortunately, they were all removed because most of the videos included copyrighted music. For a moment, their account was being suspended until they removed all the copyrighted videos. Today, all the music compiled in the nigahiga's videos is the music Ryan composed by himself. Ryan and his partner had made a few videos in the beginning when they just started the nigahiga channel which are still famous and being viewed till today, they are "How To Be Gangster" and "How To Be Emo". Those videos were removed at first due to copyright violations. However, they were made public once more when the nigahiga channel was getting more and more popular, of course right after that, they have their own copyright video productions.

The video below is one of my favourite nigahiga videos, enjoy watching!

Introduction

Hello testing 1,2,3 :)