erikaparjus-blog

[erikaparjus-blog]

Got bored with this one and started to experiment :P 

I wonder how will it look when it’s finished!

[erikaparjus-blog]

What I do is not up to you.

[erikaparjus-blog]

Ensalada templada de verduras al horno en cama de rúcula y bolitas de quinoa con salsa cremosa de anacardos y coco joven 🍴

[erikaparjus-blog]

Spring is the fucking greatest

[erikaparjus-blog]

Group Trailer: The Struggle Bus

ERMAHGOD. After spending a total of 18 hours worth of editing, we finally got our final copy of our trailer sorted. The trailer is a teen comedy/drama based around the concept that three film students attempt to make a movie in less than five hours. The trailer features:

four different camera shots:

zoom (opening scene with the American University entrance), 

Dutch Angle (Melissa’s dutch angle with Valerie as her subject), 

Extreme Close Up (The end of Melissa’s dutch angle to Valerie’s face), 

POV (Erika going to Melissa asking where she got these ideas from)

Four Different Camera Techniques:

Tilt (The opening scene with the AU flags/Melissa sitting in Battelle)

Spin Around (Melissa looking into the Lit Lounge and turning around to face us)

Tracking Shot (Following Erika around Battelle)

Pan (The stock footage of the campus in the beginning)

Four Different Editing Techniques:

Iris In/Out (The opening Iris in the opening scene)

Fade Out to Black (Ending scene transition)

Fill/Wall Reveal (The black title screens in between the conflict and character introduction)

Jump Cut (The cuts to each clip)

SOUND EDITING WAS ALSO A HUGE EFFORT (Those damn bleeps)

Overall, I’m very satisfied with the outcome of the trailer especially because I got to tinker around with all the editing suites/software that AU has to offer. 

[erikaparjus-blog]

The Best Scene Ever....

If picking the worst movie ever to write about was hard, picking the best movie scene ever was even more difficult. However, after much deliberation, and some slight mental breakdowns, I finally settled on a scene from the beloved Devil Wears Prada. The scene is one of the first scenes in the movie and introduces the dastardly and devilishly insane character of Miranda Priestly. There’s a lot riding on this scene seeing as it is the introduction of the purposed main antagonist of the film. It also sets the story for the supporting characters and their importance within Miranda’s orbit.

Miranda Priestly is known around the offices at Runway Magazine for being brutal; people fear her but they also aspire to be her. As such, her introduction needs to be as powerful as her. This is obviously done from the beginning of the scene which shows some stock footage of a Mercedes-Benz (presumably Miranda’s) pulling up to the skyscraper building housing the fashion magazine. Then the scene cuts to the Runway offices, where panic is ensuing. With the use of tracking, the camera is able to follow all the commotion going on within the offices. Because this film is centered around the glitz and the glamour of the fashion industry, there are a lot of close up shots used to point out the product placement within the film (i.e. the S. Pellegrino bottle, Miranda’s designer shoes, etc).

The use of tracking with one continuous shot is quintessential when Miranda is entering the elevator; it shows how much power she has by literally scaring a model into a different elevator so she has her own. Once Miranda has reached the offices, the shots consistently change from a two person frontal shot to a two person back shot. This isn’t because the director wants the viewer to see that Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep look amazing from the front and the back, but rather show how much power Miranda has: each shot shows a different office extra running in the opposite direction in the background.

On top of this, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, and Anne Hathaway exhibit a great amount of chemistry as a cast--also giving each character their own little back bone needed to address Miranda directly. This movie is amazing, the cast is incredible, and it does a good job at giving outsiders a look into the closed off world of the fashion industry.

[erikaparjus-blog]

Suicide Squad....sucked

I’m beginning to think that 2017 will be the year that the people are saved by the arts. Coming off a recent high from watching the ever nostalgic Power Rangers (Elizabeth Banks slayed), I was bombarded with tons of superhero movie trailers while I was there. Out of the two trailers shown, one was a DC Comics film–Wonder Woman (v excited about this); the other was a Marvel Comics film–Spider Man: Homecoming (also excited but not as much). That being said, after watching the Wonder Woman trailer, I couldn’t help but to think to myself how much hope I had that DC wouldn’t release another failure of a film.

It’s such a travesty to think that a comic universe as diverse and iconic as DC Comics has just been launching failure after failure since The Dark Knight Trilogy. I’ve seen every superhero movie that has come out (with the exception of a one here and there) but none of those movies has been as much of a letdown as Warner Brothers’ Suicide Squad. I had so much hope for this movie. SO MUCH. But the hype got too real for the film and it just crashed and burned like some of the actors’ performances in the film.

SUICIDE SQUAD mis en scène score:

Production Design: 3/5 Actors: 3/5 Composition: 3/5 Costumes: 5/5 Lighting: 4/5

Let it be known that Suicide Squad was successful at one thing and one thing only: Costumes. They were so good they even got an Oscar nomination for the movie (which says a lot…just not as much as the film needed). Being that it was a full budget feature film, the movie accomplishes the entertainment aspect of the film very well. Now to the nitty gritty: My biggest issue with the film has to be the editing/cutting. The whole premise of Suicide Squad is to be the prequel to all the future villains that the Justice League will be facing. It’s a stepping stone into the deep dive of the DC universe. HOW ON EARTH CAN A MOVIE DO THAT IF IT IS AN HOUR AND HALF LONG?! It can’t. It’s literally impossible. It’s been rumored that the film wasn’t edited by the studio but rather by a third party production company–which is why the film was such a failure at bringing in 7 different plot lines together seamlessly–in order to meet the early summer release deadline. The extended edition of the film features 2 hours of extra footage that didn’t make it into the film. Also, the film trailer featured scenes that weren’t even included in the film itself… The acting in the film is subpar. The chemistry between Margot Robbie, Will Smith, and Jared Leto are the highlights of the movie. Cara Delevigne was as flat as a wall; and the other members of the squad were basically background extras. My hope is that as the next series of films come out from DC Comics will be able to expand some of these plot lines.

[erikaparjus-blog]

Small peek into the life of the cutest cat on this planet!!!!

DISCLAIMER!! THE SHOW IS OWNED BY LENKA AND NOT ME--A LOWLY BROKE COLLEGE STUDENT.

[erikaparjus-blog]

For my second version of the photo journal assignment, I went stuck with the “It must be high or low” theme of our group photo essay. However, I decided to use this theme to showcase the quiet before the storm of a restaurant opening its doors. 

My favorite picture, out of all the ten, is the featured picture/the fourth picture in the series. The picture shows the final product of an hour of work into setting up a seating section of a restaurant. With a large depth of field, the viewer’s eyes get further drawn to the interior of the restaurant. The location of this photoset is none other than Jose Andres’s Zaytinya restaurant in Chinatown. This restaurant has been a neighborhood staple for the past thirteen years, and has the ability to serve an easy 1000 guests a day.

Because of having such a high volume of guests per night, Zaytinya is meant to be a large, open space to make the guests feel as if they’re not being sardined with each other. The semicircular arch creates great acoustics for keeping excess noise to a minimum while giving the restaurant a pleasant and relaxing aesthetic. The use of a horizontal angle for the fourth picture of the series gives the photograph a sense of calm and relaxation--which is the state of the restaurant prior to the beginning of service. 

The common traits shared between the other pictures in the series will be: horizontal-pointing up angles; angular white walls within the shots; medium to large depth of fields; and my favorite, all were taken on my lovely iPhone 6.

[erikaparjus-blog]

Photo Journal

For this week, we had to go out and take a 100 pictures of different photographic categories. Unfortunately, my job during the week doesn’t allow for pictures on the job (even though I could easily fill up at least two categories by being at work -_-) so, I had to get a little creative with the photos I wanted to use. I ended up doing photos for the categories of: Candid, Event, Selfie, Food, and Nature. The link to the contact pages can be found here.

And now, put your hands together for my favorite ten pictures of the bunch:

AND A DRUM ROLL PLEASE FOR THE BEST PICTURE OF THE BUNCH WHICH YOU HAVE THE FORTUNATE PLEASURE OF VIEWING TWICE:

Ah yes, my muse, my lil’ pookie, my Arya Stark of Winterfell. For those of you who do not know, I’m obsessed with my cat. Not only is the story as to how I got her the most entertaining story of all time, but she’s also just so damn CUTE. This picture of Pookie was taken with *gasp* an iPhone 6 camera, so I can already tell ya, there aren’t many fancy shmancy illusions to this picture. This photo is the unedited original, which features nothing but Pookie looking good in her prime.

In all seriousness, the picture is well balanced, sharp, in-focus, and evenly lit. The color scheme of the background and the blanket in the foreground help give the picture a more cohesive flow to the eye when it is looking throughout the picture. The Rule of Thirds has Arya’s nose in the middle third column & row of the picture--making it the focal point of the photograph. The shallow depth of field allows for prime cuteness overload and brings out the individual strands of fur. The whiskers aid in maintaining The Rule of Third, making sure that the natural composition of the photo is made apparent to the viewer.

[erikaparjus-blog]

For this week, our class finally started to touch the tip of the iceberg known as photography. However, photography is not my favorite subject of analyses simply because I feel as if I'm overlooking all the subtle implied meanings to them. This mostly is a concern with portraits and candid photos. This is not the case, it seems, with food and drink photography. Working in this industry, you learn fairly quick what a kick ass photograph can do for your restaurant. As such, this week I chose a photograph from legendary food photographer, who is also locally based, Greg Powers. 

The photograph displayed above is a photo of Del Campo's Smoked Cherry Old Fashioned Cocktail. For starters, this is a photograph that makes the viewer immediately go "ooh" and "ahh". Powers' is notorious for using high contrast levels to bring out that natural richness of the ingredients used. In this picture, the high contrast allows for the auburn and red undertones to really pop against a dark background.

 The photograph (besides being edited with red undertones, slightly increased saturation, and increased contrast), contains a successful composition that sheds light on all the components necessary to create the final product: a smoked old fashioned that'll stimulate all of your senses. Powers manages to achieve this by using a large aperture, perhaps a f/2.8, to showcase all the elements of the drink. The larger aperture still allows for the viewer's eye to draw straight into the finished cocktail while giving the viewer the option to explore around the finished cocktail. 

 The shutter speed of the photograph is definitely a relatively slow shutter speed, perhaps 1/60, paired with a low ISO. This pairing is critical because of the blow torch used in the picture. The use of such a concentrated source of heat would cause for all the lighting of the picture to be focused on the torch. By having the pairing of a slow shutter speed with a low ISO allows for the details of the Smoked Old Fashion to not be overshadowed by the flame of the blow torch. The diamond composition of the cocktail ingredients gives the photograph a necessary sense of balance that allows for the harmonious workings of the Exposure Triangle. 

 All in all, Greg Powers has an eye for food photography that is so sought after, his portfolio transcends the limits of most food photographers. Simply put: this photo, like the drink itself, is delicious.

[erikaparjus-blog]

Resume Draft and Business Card Draft

Resume rough draft can be found here

Resume final draft can be found here

[erikaparjus-blog]

Logo Analysis” Netscape Internet Navigator

Way way way back in the day, before the rise of Internet Explorer, computers all over the world were fitted with an internet browser known as Netscape Navigator. Netscape Navigator has been credited with creating JavaScript (A language commonly used by coders, programmers, and designers alike) and was a major success up until the integration of Internet Explorer into PCs and Safari in Macs. Netscape’s logo is something that I’m sure will ring some bells in the back of your mind.  While this logo may seem a bit basic compared to the logos littering the market today, Netscape’s logo set the precedence for all the future internet navigator logos. During the 1990s, computer displays had limited color options--many warm colors such as red and yellow were a bit difficult to display. Cool colors such as blue, green, black (as found in the Netscape logo), were more commonly used. The color scheme used by the Netscape logo also corresponds to the color scheme that comprises the user interface of the browser.

The use of a serif “N” acts as the main identifier of the logo. The “N” is “no good” “Netscape” for obvious reasons. The circular shape of the logo is the standard shape for internet navigators. It is used to minimize the amount of space that the icon takes up on a computer’s desktop or app dock. Other logos that share resemblances are Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, etc. What’s interesting about this logo is the similarities found between this and the 2012 Obama Campaign “Hope” logo.

Like the Obama campaign logo, Netscape’s logo features an almost rolling plains style that starts underneath the left side of the “N” and eventually envelopes the right side of the “N”. My guess is that this overlap is meant to signify the “navigator” aspect of Netscape. By using Netscape, consumers have the ability to “surf and navigate” their way through the internet.

For a company and logo that reached its peak in 1999, Netscape’s logo has done an excellent job at becoming iconic. It can be identified by different generations alike which is the largest sign of a logo’s success.

[erikaparjus-blog]

Howdy, my name is Erika Parjus (otherwise known as PJ) and I’m a junior at American University. I’m currently studying Public Relations and Strategic Communications with a minor in French. I’m from Valencia, Venezuela originally but, I was raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (I know it’s not the South but that isn’t going to stop me from saying “howdy”). The whole purpose of a such a combination is to become a restaurant critic by the time I’m an old sack of bones. Should I become a restaurant critic, I would make sure to have an amazing restaurant logo. What would that logo be exactly? Well, it would be the sunglasses pictured with me. 

 These sunglasses have been with me for the better part of two years, and have become quintessential to my identity. While these glasses are very simple--much like myself--they get the job done just as well as a designer brand pair could. I wear them to every family function, job interview, and occasion that calls for shades. As such, I'm as loyal as a good pair of sunglasses. 

 My experience with design expands throughout all the Adobe Creative Suite apps. I even own a Bamboo Design tablet because I thought it was a cool looking gadget. I'm looking forward to further expanding my graphic design skills in this class.