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Final Reflection

Compare and contrast your movie reviews with your production project.

While making each movie review, it was important to stay away from plot summary. A movie review is an analysis of a film by a critic, in this case being me. My reviews aim to inform the viewer about potential strengths and weaknesses the movie contains. I would explain certain shots and angels, sound, acting, or scenes from a movie but not have to describe scenes leading up or closing out the movie. While making my stop motion production I was able to identify differences immediately. Taking nearly many photos of each piece moving began tedious and I have never done something like this before. The stop motion film tells more of a story than any movie review. Both the stop motion production and movie reviews needed a script of some sort to think about before either getting behind the camera or positioning a piece in the production. While the movie reviews do not summarize, the stop motion film. Lastly the audience of a movie review is able to express opinions and analyze the content while the audience of the stop motion films are engaged through the storytelling and animations.

How have your production skills grown over the semester?

As the semester went on, I defiantly was able to grow my production skills. As I continued to make movie reviews and even flip response videos I was able to see how important each clip is to talk in a concise manner. My first videos displayed longer explanations and as the semester went on I was able to trim things down. As for editing I have grown a lot, learning how to use pictures, videos, crop clips or pictures and intros or outros. My skills behind the camera and computer have definitely grown.

As the “director” of these projects, what was most important to you as you put them together?

As I put together my video projects whether it be a flip response or a movie review there were many things to accomplish. If it was a flip review, I wanted to make sure I was answering the question without a verbose and long answer. As for the movie reviews It was most important to talk clearly and carefully.

Do you feel you reached those goals?

I definitely have reached some goals. I have become a lot less scared of being behind the camera. I now know how to edit many different styles of content such as a review, a stop motion video and create online interactive websites such as a genially.

What, in your opinion, is the most important concept or skill you learned during this course?

Like I have already mentioned the skill of being able to speak concise and clear behind the camera is very important. As our world continues to shift digitally I think this skill will help every student who took this course. I know many people who work on the computer and have many important meetings over a zoom call or a different style call.

If you had to take the course again, what would you do differently?

As for movie reviews I would have taken more time to understand each clip, scene, camera angel or sound to explain to the audience. I would have also structured my reviews better to allow a better flow for each video. Working on the case study and production project were my two favorite assignments of the semester.

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Stop-Motion video project

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Genially Case Study (Link Below)

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Hero/Villain Slides (Link Below)

Link for Powerpoint

https://spartansut-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/joseph_lacca_spartans_ut_edu/EQpi4WWXOy9Bn7PSpD5R4gABuG5OXawca2WaBqYP9pMIfw?e=Efg8Ds

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movie review 4

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Movie review 3

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Movie review 2

Here is my movie review 2!

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Here is my movie review 1 for my final portfolio project!

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Production Project

American Cinema – COM-260-6

For my final project, I chose to do the Stop-Motion Animation Film. I chose to do the Stop-Motion Animation Film because when I was a child I loved watching Stop-Motion Animation Films on YouTube, particularly those films with Lego characters. When the project was first assigned, I knew right away that this was the option I was going to take, and I knew that it would be something that would take a lot of patience, time, and coordinated effort, but would result in something that would be very enjoyable in the end to watch as a final film once it would be complete. I knew that the perfect time to film this Stop-Motion Animation Film would be over Thanksgiving break at my home, as I have been a collector of many different Legos over the years, and I had the perfect backdrop to conclude the film being over 4,000 Lego piece Disney Castle that my family and I built when we were younger.

In making this Stop-Motion Animation Film, I had to pay close attention to detail when moving every individual piece, as well as focusing on the short yet simple story I was telling. In doing this Stop-Motion Animation Film, I had to leave my reality and become the Legos in front of me and come up with a story for them. I knew that the plot for this story had to be extremely simple, as following along and understanding what is going on is critical in a Stop-Motion Animation film, especially one that is short and made from Lego pieces. In my story, you will see a dream turn into a nightmare, and a man loses his best friend to a Storm Trooper, but a heroic rescue mission saves the day in a quick and fast-paced dream. I learned that animators and storytellers alike need to have steady hands and patient minds as both animation and storytelling are art forms that people put so much passion into. I learned how much time goes into something, even as short as under two minutes. It took me several hours to do a two-minute Stop-Motion Film, it made me really appreciate the detail and level of care that animators and storytellers have done over the years. If it took me hours to make a two-minute video, then imagine how long it took animators at Walt Disney Studios to make the first full-length animated movie, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs almost one hundred years ago with virtually no technology like we have today.

Working on this Stop-Motion Animation Film enriched my appreciation of cinema as I really got to experience for the first time how much attention to detail goes into animation. With this project in particular doing Stop-Motion, each movement in every photo frame must be done with extreme care and caution, and one misstep can ruin the entire film. It really made me admire and appreciate the animation, especially being hand-drawn, as I think about all the animators who must make sure every frame is perfect, and how an eraser on a pencil must be their best friend. Artists, storytellers, and animators alike put their hearts and souls into projects they are tasked, create, or dream of themselves. Everyone in this world has a story to tell, and it is truly remarkable how we as people have conveyed these stories over centuries, from oral to text to cinema. As technology continues to involve and storytellers continue to innovate, cinema's best days are ahead. There are so many stories yet to be told through cinema and other means, and I have learned to appreciate this art form as I complete this class this semester.

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Mid Atlantic Accent extra credit

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Movie Chronicles (Interview below)

Lion King

From ages 3-9, the movie that most resonates with me is the Lion King. In 1994 the Walt Disney Animation was instantly my brother and I’s favorite movie when we were kids. When we were younger, we loved animals and our favorite happened to be the lion. My father put the movie on for my brother and I and thought we would like it. Little did he know we were going to love this movie and its upcoming movies. 

Directed by Roger Aller’s and Rob Minkoff, and great voice actors such as James Earl Jones as Mufasa, and Jeremy Irons as his brother Scar, the movie reached great success. The box office earned the Lion King making them $78.5 million. Lion King earned Gross value of $968.5 Million dollars. 

Cars

From ages 10-13 my brother was getting started into Disney and watching all their films. One night he put the Pixar film Cars on our television. This movie influenced my life of how I talked and dressed. I had cars pajamas, books, Halloween costumes and more. I would walk around my house saying Ka-chow, from Lightning Mcqueen and quoting one of my favorites, Tow mater. 

Lightning Mcqueen voiced by Owen Wilson, and Tow Mater voiced by Larry the Cable guy paired up to be a great duo in the movie series as it progressed. Cars brought in $19 million on its first day and in total earned over $1.7 billion. Cars is still a staple of my life and hopefully I get to play that for my kids. 

Grown Ups

In my mid teen years from ages 14-17, Grown-Ups 2 was a movie that I saw with my friends in the movie theatre. My friend Andrew got us dropped off and we saw this movie. It was one of the funniest movies I have seen at the time. Adam Sandler is the greatest comedic actor of all time in my opinion. 

On day one this movie made about $14 million and grossed up to $272 million. With actors like Adam Sandler, Salma Hayek, Kevin James, David Spade, and Chris Rock, many viewers knew this film was must see. This movie reaches 4.5 out of 5 stars on many reviewing websites which tells how great of a comedy movie it is. 

Hustle

From ages 18-25 my favorite movie has been Hustle. Another movie starring Adam Sandler. I found out about this movie through ads on television watching my favorite team the Philadelphia 76ers in a basketball game.  This movie takes place in Philadelphia and has some similarities to it such as the Rocky films. 

Hustle is a movie all about basketball. Adam Sandler playing Stanley Beren, and Juancho Hernangomez (NBA player) playing Bo Cruz. This movie made $3 million on its first day and $35 million grossly. This movie featured many basketball players and celebrities. I have recommended this movie to others and have gotten great feedback. Although the movie does not get as many viewers as a film like Cars and Lion King, this movie has a 4.8 out of 5 star reviews on many reviewing websites.

Interview

For this assignment I chose to interview my brother. He was there with me watching majority of the movies I have watched in my life. Majority of our favorite movies are Made by Disney. We enjoy all the storylines and songs that Disney places in their films. His list consisted of, 3-9, Lion King, 10-13, Frozen, 14-17, Star Wars: the Force Awakens, and 18-25, Hustle.

From age 3-9, Lion King was our favorite movie growing up. We both had the same favorite animal which was the lion. He guessed correctly when saying during this age group, my favorite movie was the Lion King.When interviewing my brother about our favorite movies we often thought of the great times and memories created by watching these films. We both loved every bit of that movie. Watching Simba grow up and make friends like Timone and Pumba. Simbas adventure was our favorite part. I remember us absolutely hating Scar and the hyenas. We watched this movie so many times, we began to sing all the songs in sync. We both agreed the best song on the film would be the circle of life.  We would both rank this movie as Disney’s greatest animated film. 

From age 10-13 he guessed my favorite movie was Frozen. We enjoyed watching this movie together. This is another movie by Disney that has an amazing soundtrack. I remember singing the songs with my cousins and brother. I will always remember this time period when frozen came out and the hype around the movie was once in a lifetime. It does not happen often when a movie recieves that amount of great expectations.

From 14-17, Star Wars was an amazing guess. I am a huge Star Wars Fan but I enjoyed Adam Sandler a little more. Additionally, I did watch all the Star Wars films with my brother. As a movie series it Is definitely one of my favorites. We both loved the soundtracks and while watching paid very close attention. My brother said, "For the both of us, this movie we paid very close attention to, unlike others." We went to all the Star Wars Premiers together, ones that we were alive for.

Now at age 18-25 My brother guessed correctly again with his choice of Hustle. He knows I love basketball and Philadelphia sports. This movie Hustle, by Adam Sandler checks both of those boxes perfectly. Many of my favorite athletes and actors were in this movie. This film had many similarities to rocky and other many other Philadelphia icons. I would recommend this movie to many.