Nina Levatino 2/28/17

Today we started off class with a reminder to make a conference appointment with Mr. Rivers in order to move onto our drafts for or senior papers. We then continued with either our senior papers or our visual critical reviews. For my senior paper, I'm discussing mental illnesses in the Hollywood and how it's depicted. The film I'm using is "Silver Linings Playbook" with an incorporation of "Silence of the Lambs". I'll be talking about how Silver Linings Playbook redefines Hollywoods depiction of mental illness. Silence of the Lambs; however, makes the audience associate mental illness with canabalism and homocidal behavior. I'm also working on my visual critical review, which is about the last episode of the most recent season of Game of Thrones, "Winds of Winter". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtffthEX1Xk
With the last season just around the corner, I'll be reviewing one of the most iconic episodes in television history. This episode set the series record. 8.9 million fans tuned in, not including the people who pirated the episode. Just the first 10 minutes of the episode killed off at least 6 major characters. We're also introduced to something this particular audience has never seen before, silence. This silence is then filled with eeire, ominous, and threatening piano and violin melody. This is a great topic of discussion, especially with the increasing fandom. We also are told  that Jon Snow is declared King of the North, and Daenerys joins forces with unpredictable armies. I'm very excited to be done with both projects because I'm proud of my work. 

2/28/2017 Sarah Ramos

Today we were given more class time to continue working on our two major projects, our visual critical review and our senior paper. Just like the that last few days, we were able to sign up to conference with Mr. Rivers about our senior paper outline. However, if you are one of the people in the class (like myself) who has not conferenced about their senior paper outline, you could work on your critical review. At this point pretty much everyone has chosen what movie/show they will critically review and is essentially “researching”. Because this is different than a formal paper, research in this case is just finding clips of your movie on youtube and saving them with this site: http://keepvid.com/. Simultaneously, we are brainstorming ideas for the context of our review and what we will say. We can do this by answering who, what, where, when, why, and how? As an additional resource we have the Harry Potter review (https://classroom.google.com/u/1/c/MjEyODYwMTY3M1pa) as a model for what a good review should be. Now we also have the typed out script of this review to make it easier to break down and use as a guide. Our critical review is due March 20th. Our senior paper is due March 22nd.

2.27.17 - Kada Cernek

In class today, Mr. Rivers started by announcing that he will be conferencing with students about their senior paper outlines. If you wish to conference sooner, you can write your name on the board and he will try and get to you first. Over the next few days, we are on our own working and can either work on our senior papers or our critical reviews. Luckily, the senior paper's due date got moved to March 22nd to give us more time, and the critical review is due March 19th. Before we started our work today, we quickly talked about context for our review and then had our own casual review of the Oscars. When introducing context for our review, Mr. Rivers suggested we focus on the basics such as who, what, where, when, why and how. In class today, I personally chose to research different clips of my movie that I will put into my critical review. I am reviewing the movie, Moana, and will be focusing on the locations, colors, and Hawaiian culture used throughout the movie. Any scene that I found that I thought would be helpful in my review, I saved and downloaded into my IMovie account. Unfortunately, I did not get to meet with Mr. Rivers about my outline today but he met with about 5 other students. We did not have any homework and tomorrow's class will be very similar to today's class.

Below is a link to a lot of the scenes and movie clips that I will be using in my critical review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0gfg1Nm9GU

Jake Lepore 2/27

Today started off with Mr. Rivers talking about how he is going to be conferencing with the students in class and talking about their senior paper outlines. He said that for the next few days he will be busy so we have the option to work on our senior papers or our critical reviews. (Senior paper is due March 22nd, and the critical review is due March 19th.) Before he started the conferences he pulled up a power point page that was titled, "How can you establish a CONTEXT for your review" This helps us get an idea of what we want to specifically critically review, this consists of Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. There was small talk about the Oscars, but after everyone started working. What I did was write this blog, but once I finished I started working on my critical review. What i'm doing right now is taking all of the scenes I can find in the film and add them to our editing software. Also I met with Mr. Rivers again to talk about my outline, we sat down and went through each paragraph and he explained to me how I can improve my outline and in the future make a solid senior paper.  

The piece of evidence that I will be sharing is from the film I am critically reviewing, Drive. The movie was really well made, and one of my favorite films of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdqbdEKeJ_4

Ben Lee 2/24/17

At the start of class, we came together to finish discussing the Harry Potter review. The review itself opened my eyes to some ways I could do my own review. Mr. Rivers then told us to continue to either do more research for our video reviews or use the time left in class to work our senior papers. I personally went with looking for footage for my video review, when I realized I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Mr. Rivers came along to give me some perspective on the project as always. He rattled off some examples of what the videos would focus on and I began to see my video panning out in my head. He said the subject of the video could not only be a single movie, but possibly a series of movies and how the changes between the films could be the topic of discussion. It definitely gave me perspective on the project as a whole, and now I', going to approach it with refreshed vigor.

Joe Schwab 2/22/17

Yesterday in class started with everyone coming it class, getting settled, and opening up their computers like every other day. Then when Mr. Rivers was done greeting everyone he began to speak to the class about the due dates for the essay draft and how it was pushed back to March 22nd. He also talked about how we could conference with him and to best use our time so that we aren’t rushed in the end and writing sloppily the night before. Then Mr. Rivers moved on to talking about the critical reviews and the scoring guidelines/ expectations. After that he handed each group a card numbered 1-6 to see what slide they had to do in a power point. The whole class then watched a video critical review and filled out their respective slides. An example was explain how the author shows and provides the necessary context. The critical review we watched was about Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

After we did this Mr. Rivers explained how we could shape the review to show what we wanted to talk about. He then had us grade the review we saw with most people giving it 18-20 for the audio and 18-20 for the video. We then moved on to presenting our slides to the class. After that we logged out and the bell rang.

Jake Lepore 2/17/17

Today is the continuation of the video project that we did on the previous day. Before we dove back into editing we looked at a list of comments from yesterday about the things we liked about our new editing software. We discussed what members liked and why they did, Mr. Rivers wants the conversation while editing to be consistent because if we all work together rather than letting someone work on it alone we will develop an understanding and make it easier in the future. Once we opened the software again we realized that we could not find our tutorial project. After starching out heads Mr. Rivers saved the day and told us that we had to go back to out tutorial section in order to access the project from yesterday. Then, when i looked closer at the project it was finished by someone in the previous class which was nice. The editing software is pretty simple, so if you have every used logic pro or imovie for fun or in a video class then you can get the hang of it. The other group at my table was really really happy about the software which means (hopefully) they know exactly what they are doing. At the end of class Mr. Rivers praised us for our problem solving and told us that we need to find a film to critically review for Wednesday. Also we need to use the Harry Potter that is on the classroom as a guide to inspire us for our critical review.


This is the link to the page of comments.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10ceo4pm-xZ0QpebEWe33__Y3besk4GQ47tHCJ755Bt8/edit

Jackie Dowd 2/16/17

Today class or just to something new. Mr. Rivers introduced us to a video editing website that we will still be pros at using. We got cards at the beginning of class with another persons name on it, which we were all very confused about for awhile. Soon it became clear that we would be sharing a video account with another member of the other class. We started by making a new folder to separate our work from the person we are sharing the account with. After that we opened a handbook that helped us to edit a sample video we viewed prior. Unfortunately the work from the other class carried over so we had to work with a partner instead. Connor and I worked on the project together, even though we were spending 10 minutes on each step alone, and put together a pretty good video. We were then told to stay in our class after the bell so we got some extra Film as Literature time! Tomorrow we will continue working on the video until we are done and ready to make one of our own.

2/16/17 Brooke Rossiter

Brooke Rossiter 2/16/17
In the beginning of class, we were each handed notecards with students from the previous class name on it. The notecard also contained an email log in to the website WeVideo. Today was the first day that we started video editing. We logged into WeVideo.com and clicked on the goals and "Start Tutorial" botton. We then proceeded to following the instructions of the tutorial by clicking and dragging clips into a timeline. We then began to use keys like "o" to cut specific parts of scenes and "I" to cut the beginning of scenes. WeVideo offers an amazing tutorial that helps give us a better understanding of how to use it correctly. It even provided a sample video that had about 23 different cuts within it. Students who had videos in their timeline already, worked with the students who didn't have anything in theirs, so my group usernames my laptop. We all worked together to read the instructions and correctly edited our film clips. This was a really helpful introduction into film editing   At the end of class we then answered the question on classroom that asked us what tool we thought was the most helpful on WeVideo, and I think that the key "o" was the most helpful because you can cut out specific parts of scenes.

Connor Erickson 2/15

Today in Mr. Rivers class we started off talking about transitions between paragraphs and what would be a good transition and a not so good transition. He talked about saying the words "first" or "second" to transition from paragraph to paragraph is not something we want to lean towards. It's also about transitioning from a film quote and a secondary research quote not just about between paragraphs. After talking about transitions, we then went back to working on our outlines again. The research topic I'm working on it about the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and using the film Miracle On Ice. I have all the quotes, the film research, and the film research but i just have to organize them into more specific topics. So far I have a lot of secondary research on the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union but I need to break the Space Race into 2 specific paragraphs instead of having a huge, page long paragraph that has too much information. The same goes with the topic about how indestructible and powerful the Soviet Union was, I worked on breaking these topics down into more specific paragraphs. All I need to do it put all of the information together to finish my outline about the tensions in the Cold War The outline is due at 11:59 on Friday so hard work needs to be put in to be able to reach the due date on time.


                               

Michaela Kayal 2/15/17

Today's class we had the ability to work on our senior paper outline. Mr. Rivers stressed the importance of time management and reminded us that the draft is due Friday night. As students, we have come accustom to the lifestyle of handing in everything last minute; however, with this huge paper, time management is essential to not only achieving a good grade, but also conducting a well crafted senior paper essay.  Mr. Rivers showed us a document called Transition Guide, and he taught us the importance of transitions within an essay. The specific choice can be helpful within topic sentences and among paragraphs when organizing the draft. We learned that transitions establish relationships between or within your paragraphs, and to start basic and then revise by adding specific content. There are many types of transitions and different uses for them. For example, there is sequence/order, similarity, exception/contrast, time, example, emphasis, place/position, cause and effect, additional support or evidence,  and conclusion/summary. After the brief transition lesson, the class was able to "get crackin," and "dive in," to our organization. I personally, only had to finish my thesis statement. Typically, a person should draft their thesis statement prior to creating the organizer, but I simply could not come up with the perfect sentence that accurately encompassed my paper's theme. The thesis statement is so critical to a paper and I am still very stuck with the perfect way to word it. I established a draft of it, but I really have to edit it to a strong thesis statement.

Chris Link 2/14

         Today the fourteenth of February, in the year two-thousand seventeen, also commonly referred to as Valentines day, we started off the class by observing the two similar, yet vastly different images that appeared on the projector. Mr. Rivers announced that he had posted a question on the classroom page so that he could track what we individually had gained from class time today. We then moved on to discussing the topic of genre and redirected the class'es attention back to the projector which showed the google doodle for today which featured a large valentine in the center, but in the other image it showed a real human heart in the same positioning. As a class we decided that google went for the doodle that depicted the valentine because of tradition and aesthetics. Society is more comfortable with the traditional symbol of a valentine because it is more appealing to the eye, along with various other reasons.
        We then were shown various romantic comedy movie covers and were asked to point out similarities between them all. Some similarities include the following: all of the starring actors/actresses on the covers seemed to equally share the space on the cover, the actors all seemed to have a goofy expression while the actresses all seemed to have a knowing smile, they were all beautiful people, all white, and all in the age category between too young and too old.
         We moved on to the song city of stars, dissecting the lyrics to find that the song was entirely made up of simple rhymes that didn't require much effort to figure out the meaning for. For example one line reads, " Yes, all we're looking for is love from someone else". We then listened to the song and were asked to point out the effect that this song has when it was sung by the actors Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. We found that the way they didn't take this song entirely seriously added a certain aesthetic to the song making it more romantic. We then watched the video that went along with this song and were asked to find the effect that the moving picture had on the song. We discussed how the twilight lighting added a sense of beauty, paired with how Emma stone's focus was directed at Ryan the entire time thy sang the duet.

Connor Erickson 2/13

Today in Mr. Rivers class we took a break from working on our senior paper outlines and started evaluating an outline that was finished on Friday but an anonymous student. This student's outline focussed on Psychology and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, stating that "Mental illness is a main focus in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest since it takes a tole on characters like Chief and Billy in their personalities and quality of life." At first we worked with our regular groups and Mr. Rivers gave each group 2 topics to focus on when examining the student's outline. Jackie, Zach, and I focussed on the film evidence and the topic sentences in relation to the thesis. We thought the topic sentences in the outline were really well constructed in relation to the thesis and every topic sentence had some type of similarity with the thesis statement. After about 10 minutes of working with our groups and coming up with 4 quotes, (2 from each topic), we were then split up into different groups. Six new groups were formed and we were split into different groups so each individual could share what their 2 ideas were. Nina, Michaela, Mike, and I discussed our different topics from our prior groups for about another 10 minutes and then each new group picked a general topic about the outline to share to the class. We picked "layout" and the pro to the outline was the organization and the negative to the outline was the spacing. The spacing is an easy fix and overall we thought the outline was a decently written outline.

           

Sarah Hoffman - 2/10

Yesterday was a half day, and yet again we worked on our outlines. Mr. Rivers kicked off our class by asking us where we were in terms of out outlines. He compared the time we had to work on our outlines with the length of many long movies, adding up the time from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and yesterday and calculating how that compares with movies such as gladiator. Mr. Rivers also reviewed the guidelines on how to write our outlines. As long as your outline is clearly organized, it does not matter so much how the organization is structured. Font style, font size, and line spacing must be consistent throughout, but what kinds of bullets or numbered lists are used is up to you. The number of paragraphs is not set; it can vary. As long as the paragraphs can become a 5 – 7 page paper without having page long paragraphs, the requirements are satisfied. He encouraged us to work on the outline at home if need be, and to feel free to get it done early and ask him for feedback. We were also encouraged to not procrastinate. The outline is due next Friday right before the long weekend.