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ranger-report · 4 years

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Review: THE WITCHER (2007)

With the recent popularity of The Witcher across mass media thanks to the Netflix series starring Henry Cavill and his arms, I finally began what I consider an epic quest to play through all three of the Witcher games and their DLC. This is, by no means, a small task, but you know I might as well sacrifice myself in the name of entertainment. So I began to play The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, a PC game released in 2007 based on the books of the same name written by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. Now that I’ve beaten it I have quite a few things to say about it. But, first thing’s first, and that is easily the most obvious aspect of this game:

It has not aged well. Not at all.

To begin with, the graphics of the game are very 2007. A product of seventh generation graphical technology to be sure, it doesn’t help that it’s running on BioWare’s Aurora engine, which was notoriously difficult to use outside BioWare’s own house. There’s all kinds of graphical glitches, people pass through objects, character models and textures are fuzzy and sometimes plasticine, facial animations are sometimes downright frightening. There’s also the fact that the game reuses the same character model for multiple characters, both important and unimportant, leading me to confusion sometimes as I swore I just saw that goddamn priest I just killed wandering around the city. Except now there’s two of him. And all the merchants look the same, too! This being the enhanced edition there’s a number of upgrades and clarity that’s been added in to the experience, but it’s still dated for better or worse. What has aged well is the use of impressionistic paintings for the purpose of certain cutscenes, adding an extra dose of epic quality to some of the goings-ons. This also includes more “intimate endeavors” Geralt can engage in. Long story short, there’s a lot of women in this game who are willing to throw themselves at Geralt, and if you play the cards right you can get down to business pretty quickly. Sometimes too quickly; one time I brought a woman a loaf of bread and she had sex with Geralt. It was confusing and out of left field. But each encounter comes with a brief piece of tasteful nude artwork of the lady in question as blurred models bump and grind in the background. And, to be completely honest, the artwork is really well done. Although it is very jarring to play a game where sex workers are clearly labeled “whores” and “hookers,” most of the women have a good amount of agency in the proceedings, particularly the two primary romance options, Triss and Shani. Geralt can actually romance these two women to the point of committed relationship, which is refreshing to see that sex is not just a reward for “romancing” a character in a game, but something the characters enjoy, while the romance comes from genuinely caring about someone.

Despite the graphical despondency, main characters fare slightly better, as anyone who needs to be easily recognizable is, and are crafted with much more detail and fine tuning than regular NPCs. While this is fine, sometimes finding these characters is a chore and a half. The Witcher has a day/night cycle, and characters follow this, but when my map is telling me I need to be in one place to meet up with someone, I can’t count that they will actually be there depending on the time of day. And I can’t artificially move the time of day forward unless I have a campfire to meditate at. Meditation is an interesting mechanic, btw, as it basically acts as Geralt “sleeping” and also functions as your chance to level up and distribute talents. On paper, I’m okay with that. In reality, campfires and places to sleep are few and far between, unless you’re close to an inn or someone who doesn’t mind you crashing at their place. And oftentimes you’re running back and forth in linear paths across deceptively open areas, back and forth and back and forth in what can only best be described as tedium when you’ll approach the quest marker on your map, only to find no one there, and need to hoof it back to a fireplace to change the time again. This can also lead to extra consternation if the game crashes, which it did a handful of times during my fifty hours of gametime. Save often.

And, finally, there’s the combat. For better or worse, it’s an exercise in clicking on people to attack them, then clicking again at the right time when your icon changes in order to string together combos. That’s fine. Combat is also divided into three styles between two swords: strong, fast, and group style, with steel blade and silver blade. Strong and fast styles speak for themselves; group style is for when you’re surrounded and need to attack everyone around you. Steel blade is for humans, silver blade for monsters. Sounds simple right? It is -- too simple. Clicking on people is as easy as that, with little interaction otherwise. Sure, you have to figure out which style to use on which enemies, and you can couple in Signs (magic spells) to make your life easier, but repeatedly clicking on people to whack away is bland at best, frustrating at worst. Later on when you can level up your sword styles to include more powerful/deadly moves it becomes more challenging, but even then it remains a strange exercise in an odd hybrid of real time/tactical combat. Finding oneself surrounded can lead to death quickly, so if you’re not paying attention, you can go from overpowered madman to witcher meat in seconds. Literally seconds: enemies I would have no problem with one-on-one, or even two-on-one, suddenly escalate to an unstoppable force the moment that three or more come in for an attack. The game has a way of forcing Geralt into combat situations without warning as well, making it easy to be thoroughly unprepared for a deadly gangbang around a corner and a cutscene. The game also doesn’t have much of an autosave system, meaning that if you haven’t been hitting that quicksave button very often, there’s a deep chance you could get your ass handed to you and reload a ways back from where you were. Easily the biggest frustration for me in terms of playing the game. Enemies will stack status effects to clobber you; Geralt will attack and get hit; sometimes you can stagger enemies and one-hit kill them, but enemies can still attack while Geralt goes through the slow kill animation. I don’t know how many times I cursed the game in anguish as I was forced to reload yet again after a fourth monster swept in out of nowhere, or the one monster I was fighting decided to get in a Stun attack, then proceed to own my ass. Pausing the game at any time using the space bar can help to get bearings, but you can’t execute commands while paused. Saving in combat isn’t allowed either, so if a big fight starts and you realize you haven’t saved in a while, you’re screwed. Couple this frustration with the intensely boring act of clicking on monsters over and over again to fight them, and here we have the biggest weakness of the whole product.

That being said -- is the game worth playing in 2020? Despite being 13 years of age and regarded as the least accessible game in the franchise, what it brings to the table is a surprisingly effective storyline that involves subject matter which is shockingly relevant. Racial tension. Class war. Plague. Quarantine. Riots. Gray morals. Strange creatures. Frustration. Difficulty spikes. Blurred lines between human and monster. If that sounds hauntingly familiar, it’s probably because that sums up the first half of the year 2020. To say that I was expecting a 13-year-old game to reflect the state of current events would be a massive lie; in fact, at the outset of the game, I was struggling to maintain interest at all. However, as time goes, the story and the choices made are what end up being the game’s biggest strength, and ultimately its salvation.

The story opens up simply enough: Geralt of Rivia, our titular witcher, has been found in a near-death state and nursed back to health by his fellow witchers and former lover, the sorceress Triss Merigold. Coming back from the dead has cost him his memories, however, and the amnesiac Geralt is quickly plunged into conflict as a group of mercenaries called Salamandra attack the witchers’s base to steal the secrets of their mutations. Swords clash, magic flies back and forth, and Geralt is tasked with giving chase in order to retrieve the mutagenic formulae so they can’t be used for harm.

A great conceit in this is that Geralt having no memory of his past allows anyone unfamiliar with the world to gently ease in and learn about the world as he does. The game is set after the events of the books, so this gives an added bonus to readers already knowledgable of events. And as the player learns more about Geralt and his world, a variety of choices come into play. Most RPGs have this option to allow player freedom in telling a story, but unforseen consequences follow every decision; whether they come into play immediately or further down the road remains to be seen, but there’s a ripple effect that goes above and beyond the usual Choose Your Own Adventure details which essentially craft your character into a good guy or a bad guy. What’s brilliant about this is that the game never hints at this; it isn’t until the game breaks away into a cutscene with monologue does Geralt realize how his choices crafted this specific moment. For example, in the Salamandra attack, Geralt can choose to fight off a horrific monster or help Triss defend the witcher laboratory. Depending on that choice, some characters may live or die, and the game will let you know that when it wants to....usually to hammer home a point.

What works to this being the strength of the game even further is the deep narrative, which is often times complex to the point of frustration. But the story develops at a natural pace, and never presents any choice as being right or wrong, black or white, good or bad. The main gist is that the human city of Vizima is under quarantine, fighting off a vicious plague, but also defending itself from the rise of nonhuman freedom fighters comprised of elves and dwarves. The city is divided on this, particularly in class division, with any nonhuman residents living in the slum quarter, while the affluent humans live exclusively in the market quarter. There are humans in the slums too, make no mistake, but it’s very apparent who is allowed to live where. However, the game makes no stance on this whatsoever; Geralt is presented with a series of choices based on the information at hand, and as the game goes on, comes closer and closer to choosing a side between the freedom fighters or the humans as tensions comes to a head with violence. Every action has a consequence, positive or negative, but also depending on who the consequences affect. Questions of moral arise; what truly defines a monster? Is it appearance, or is it action? It’s difficult to really spell it out further without diving into spoilers, as the story should be experienced first hand without any warning. That being said, it’s refreshing to play through a game in which the character is clearly defined as being the hero, but then forces the player to ask if their actions are truly heroic or actually damaging in the quest to destroy the greater evil.

In closing, The Witcher is a mixed bag. Narratively, it’s a stellar effort that swings for the fences and sticks the landing. From a gameplay perspective, it’s a dated game that’s sometimes a chore to play through, even to the point of dire frustration. But it’s one that I can cautiously recommend. While it certainly took me six or so hours to finally believe that I had the hang of it -- I didn’t -- struggling through the first quarter of the game can yield beautiful results, especially once it rolls into the final, jaw-dropping conclusion. What I will say is that it really beats you over the head with your choices, even the ones you didn’t know you were making, and holds up a mirror to ask if your decisions were really for the greater good or not. Outstanding work in that regard. I’m looking forward to playing The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings now that I’ve beaten this, and someday I’ll even come back to see the paths I could have taken. Just with tempered expectations this time around.

Final score: 7/10

#the witcher #the witcher enhanced edition #cd projekt red #geralt of rivia #pc game #andrzej sapkowski #henry cavill #netflix #bioware #review #ckburch #rubyranger #ranger report

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thepandemicinterviews · 4 years

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Mikki, July 11 2020, Melbourne

During the course of my interview with Mikki, I realised eight minutes too late that half of what had been said so far had not recorded. This lost section illustrates for me two things: 1) the fallibility of technology, and 2) the irrecoverable nature of speech. Thinking about the former, I consider phone calls that cut in and out, one friend lagging behind the others. For a short while, whenever Mikki and I called, only one person could be heard at a time, so I had to make sure not to “mm” in response or I’d risk cutting her off. This meant monologuing and not interrupting, something akin to the interview form.

I’ve always been attracted to the interview. I think teenage magazines, which I read religiously (often standing in the supermarket aisle with the magazines and stationery and greeting cards), were the first indicator of this love. A decade later, recently, I reflected on the unique beauty of speech in written form in Rachel Cusk’s “Outline” trilogy, which are written almost entirely through her characters’ monologue-style speech. I then read her interview in the Paris Review, in which she says the following:

I suppose I recognised that certain worlds could be almost prepared for me by other people, that other people had abilities to perceive their experiences in ways that I found really useful. That sounds a bit like I got other people to do the work for me, but I just thought, Actually you can just use that particular narrative gift for narrative form in speech. […] I think what I was looking for in writing these books was almost a sound frequency. I think I’m very aware when these passages of life occur—when people are able to give voice to themselves. One of the things that is said about these books is, People don’t talk like that. But I think they probably do. Maybe not all the time, but I think they do. The people that I tend to have speaking in my books have a momentary emergence, like someone getting out of the sea and standing on a rock for a minute and sort of looking around, and for whatever reason they can see where they are.

Like Cusk, I wish to glean from others’ experiences, to pay attention to them, and in doing so, give rise to that “momentary emergence.” Interviews allow speech to be consecrated. One can give voice to oneself, then see spoken words turned into black text. The transcriber imagines commas and full stops, moulding the chaos of speech into tidy sentences. The speech is exalted.

Perhaps what makes an interview so daunting, and so singular in its form, is its promise of structured spontaneity. More structured than a conversation, less structured than a piece of writing. Inside it, operating within a space of pure question and response, subjective experience can resound and stand alone.

I wanted to begin this project with Mikki because she is, in every way, brilliant, but also because she has had to experience Covid-19 after moving to Melbourne in February, away from family and friends. Basically, very alone (alone being almost synonymous with the experience of the virus). Now, as cases in Melbourne continue to rise again, she’s moved into a new house, and has entered week one of their six-week lockdown. We discuss existential versus tangible stresses, our displaced visual landscapes, and the limitations of empathy within collective – and yet, so individual – suffering.

C: Mikki, you found out that you tested negative for Covid today. How did you feel when you saw that text?

M: I was really sleepy because it came through before six in the morning and so I felt slightly relieved but also just felt very silly for having worried so much. But also felt very justified for having worried. Then just thought about all the possible timelines and the things that could have happened. So it was overwhelming but in a nice way.

C: When you say the possible timelines, what would have happened if you had tested positive?

M: It would have changed the way this month plays out. So I was working out how it would change my housemates’ plans for moving today, and then how it would then affect all the things that need to happen in the next few weeks. It would mean that I would need to isolate here, so I would need to do my assignment here and wouldn’t be able to leave to my new place, and just change the whole future of July 2020 for me personally.

C: I felt that way when it was March and I felt like every decision I made was contingent on every other thing that happened which was often not in my control. Do you feel like this week has been the most intense week during this period in terms of personal stresses?

M: I think so. It’s been the most actively intense week I guess. Like I felt stressed about tangible real things that maybe didn’t necessarily require the level of stress I was experiencing but still were very real and very scary in practical ways. Whereas, the stress and intensity I felt in March and April was much more existential and about my emotions, I guess, for different reasons. Whereas this felt so tied to real, terrifyingly tangible stresses.

C: When you say that it felt existential back in March, can you elaborate on that?

M: I’m never a hundred percent sure if I’m using the word properly [laughs]. But I think I just felt very aware of literally living and existing and how I was experiencing being alive and all the ways that I could feel throughout a day, or a week, or a month. I was just so aware of every tiny experience and so obviously questioned every aspect of my experiences, I guess. Partly because I had all this time to do that and was so intensely alone that I was forced to do that. This time felt really different to that because things don’t feel as abstract.

C: And with all that time alone, other than thinking, how did you pass that time?

M: I watched so many music videos. I discovered that I can just lie down and watch music videos with my headphones on and feel so much. What else did I do… I called people a lot and I went on walks and for brief periods I’d read and watch movies and feel really good about that. Obviously write my essays, but really slowly. And started drinking tea so, so frequently throughout each day. And I guess just made a lot of plans, just solidified ideas – I guess that kind of comes under thinking. But just, I guess, restructured how I think. It felt like I could just intensely feel an emotion and embrace that feeling and work out which other senses I could use to further feel that feeling and ride it out and just experience it fully. And that was like an activity, and a thing that I could be doing in a way that it never has been before.

C: It sounds very therapeutic. A mindfulness guru we have in our midst. Daphne’s volunteering for this mindfulness group at the moment where they just slowly eat raisins. I guess just having the lack of external influence to allow you this space to drink tea and watch your music videos. Do you think that’s something you’ll hold with you when you do get busier – that experience?

M: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like the only other time I’d understood that was the one week at the end of January when I smoked weed each night and just enjoyed feeling really good in all these ways. But that was so short-lived and so brief, and I feel like I’ve extended that now, but without needing any kind of substance, just fully enjoying being comfortable…

C: So this new lockdown – six weeks – having that set timeframe. How do you feel about that and is there anything you hope to achieve in the second lockdown?

M: Yeah, it definitely is quite a set time. I was talking about that just earlier today, about how that’s different psychologically to being told that something’s happening indefinitely and that would change how you think about it. I am kind of seeing it as a second chance in a way, like Lockdown: Take 2 [laughs]. Like a time to do all the things that you hoped to do the first time round, but obviously were never going to accomplish. This feels like the chance to do that. So part of me does want to end up becoming a runner by the end of it, or someone who does yoga all the time. But I also just hope that I’m someone who’s a bit more solidly in the real world by the end of it. And feel a bit more able to engage with the external world more comfortably and feel like a real person who exists in a tangible world that’s external to me and my own mind. Because I think at the start of it, so the next few weeks, I definitely will keep being very gentle with myself and move with whatever mood or feeling needs to happen and just try to ride out the next few weeks, I guess. And still try to achieve the things I have to do but without any real world pressures because it doesn’t feel like I’m back in the real world yet. I think I do hope by the end of the six weeks I am a bit more solidly in the world and able to interact with people without feeling like it’s all a bit imaginary. And be ready to be doing uni subjects a bit more seriously, and start looking for a job, and be a bit more down-to-earth, be solidly on the ground kind of vibe.

C: Do you feel like it gives you a bit more time to realise what you want before feeling fully settled? Do you feel like it’s kind of a good thing for where you’re at to have this extra time?

M: Yeah, I think it is. It feels a bit sad to have started to have these nice things, like seeing people occasionally and being able to relax a bit, not feeling that stress. It was nice just feeling like life was picking up in that way. But I think for me, still kind of feeling like I am quite alone, and I do want to take all this learning and growth, becoming different and new in all these ways out of this time I have, where I am forced to be alone. In that sense I think it does feel like a nice bit of extra room to do that comfortably.

C: You mentioned moodboards before, when I think it wasn’t recording. What images come to mind when you think of this year? Not January, of course, because that was a very different time.

M: This is super obvious and has been the case for nearly everyone I love, but the sky at dusk has been a really clear daily chance to really feel something. Something that changes all the time. I think just striking visuals in general have been something I’ve been able to appreciate more. It’s as though colours and images or videos of people in really good or interesting outfits carry so much more weight and power in a way. I feel like I can appreciate them so much more. So those are some of the images that I’ve been much more struck by than usual, I guess. I feel like the things I look at in real life are so limited, you know, like I just look out the same few windows, and walk the same couple of parks, and go to the same shops. But then at the same time, the things I’m looking at online are so much more varied and diverse and I’m giving them so much more attention and time that it feels like they’re all more powerful. Oh, and also just my big blue jumper has become such a staple and all my bed sheets and pillows are different shades of blue, but the jumper just typifies that soft, comfy, homey – soft colours, but also warm soft cosy overall sensation. I think it represents that all in itself.

C: It does. So you’ve learnt a lot about yourself of course, but do you feel like you’ve learnt a lot about other people, people in general, specific people?

M: Hmm. I don’t know if I’ve really learnt about other people. I think I’ve seen more of certain parts of different people I know, because our relationships are obviously really different, and it brings out new dynamics and certain aspects of everyone’s personalities are amplified in different ways.

C: In terms of different opinions towards the whole situation or?

M: In terms of how people think and feel. I guess because I’m in a new place, it’s kind of been a really specific way of highlighting how different people think and act. There’s just been such clear divides between people who are partying recently and out in bars and stuff, and people who are following the rules because they’re the laws but aren’t necessarily super invested in the reality of the health crisis and your responsibilities in your communities and so on. And then the people who are most disadvantaged by this and are just in such a completely different world to the people who are out dancing, happy they can do that. So it’s kind of been really stark seeing those differences play out, and mainly through my phone or laptop as well, like not in person. I guess also seeing people respond to stuff, like with the public housing hard lockdown, seeing people really quickly working out ways to donate stuff and help with various things. I think that kind of brought out people’s opinions especially starkly. In so many ways. Obviously, seeing the government’s responses has also been super informative, and feels like it all lines up with the last essay I did, which was all about incarceration in Victoria and how indigenous women are disproportionately affected. And seeing that conflict between a fairly progressive government in a lot of ways, but then a really harsh, tough crime, law-and-order focused, criminal justice agenda. And that’s come out really clearly again recently.

C: Like you can’t be both.

M: Yeah, well it just kind of feels really extreme how it somehow goes so hand-in-hand in this state.

C: I think at the beginning of everything, just speaking on a very vague global level, I thought everyone is kind of going through the same thing worldwide. You never get to experience that level of – like I could talk to anyone in the world and say, “How’s it affecting you?”, “Same.” But then I think as the months progressed and different countries went different directions. And on a local level, different types of people had different experiences and it reinforced existing hierarchies.

M: Totally. It was such a shift from we’re all in this together to realising that just couldn’t be further from the truth, basically. And how false it was.

C: Yeah, and all the blaming of people and outrage. I think in particular, in Australia and New Zealand, it’s been a big part of the conversation around outbreaks. Blaming people for not being perfect and not having the empathy to understand why someone might be more likely to pass it on due to living conditions or just personal situations.

M: It’s been so extreme seeing that play out. Especially with the recent Victorian spike, I feel like the discourse has become so much more about blaming people who are doing the wrong thing. Even where government policy failures are also a huge part of that story as well. Yeah, it’s so interesting in terms of empathy, actually. It’s kind of helped people develop empathy in some ways, in terms of unemployment for some people and what that’s like, or what poverty is like, or social isolation or being lonely or being anxious or not having access to the same food or resources. But then also seeing how limited that empathy is in other ways. That’s such a strange conflict I think.

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booksbookandmorebooks · 5 years

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The Gloaming Book review

So this is my most recent read and honestly I still don’t understand my feelings towards this book never mind understanding the actual point of this book. The plot in itself is quite simple but has this shroud of mystery and uneasiness to it which makes it so difficult to pin down to one specific genre and one specific talking point. I mean it’s difficult for me to even begin to explain what happens because it’s a very mix and match type of book (Anyone that has read this will understand what I mean). I usually really enjoy ambiguous books as they give you that rare chance to come to your own conclusions and meanings which I find makes for very interesting and diverse conversations...but with this story, most people came to the same consensus. confusion.

There were elements of this book I really enjoyed and that helped make this a relatively enjoyable read, which in turn is why I have no actual negatives to discuss, as there were no glaring and obvious issues with it. Yet I can’t help feeling like the John Travolta meme especially when I had finally finished the book. I’m unsure as to whether this was the intention of the author and her writing style but either way I know I’m not alone with this.

Now while on the subject of writing I have to applaud Kirsty Logan because her ability to create such a strong Gothic nature is incredible to read and watch develop. The constant referral to the melancholy and dull surroundings just helped intensify this unnatural feeling. The writing is that of a very old classic Gothic style, one I have only seen in books such as Dracula. It is beautiful yet oddly haunting and something that will stay with you months after you have put the book down. I feel that this is the most accurate depiction of an 19th century Gothic novel. Especially when we look at one of the major plot points. The hill. A hill that is given no backstory and no explanation but yet not only plays a huge part in our main characters lives and day to day but the lives of everyone in their village. A place that takes the lives of anyone that feels their time on this earth is nearing its end thus turning them to stone when they inevitably reach its peak (also such an emotional ending to the ballerina story right?! if you know, you know.)

Upon reflection I also realised how much symbolism is present throughout this book. Here are a few of my favourite examples of sections that really helped me understand the characters a little better.

The deteriorating house is not only where the main tragedy takes place it’s also the main hub where present day events unfold. Now on the surface this is just an old family home but upon reflection I realised that no matter how much time was spent attempting to fix the house it was never fully fixed. This to me is because the house is a metaphor for the family. The family is a highly dysfunctional one not to mention fractured and each relationship contained in the house is one of a fragile nature and could be seen as ‘falling apart’. A phrase that is used to describe the house on numerous occasions.

On the subject of relationships towards the end it’s very clear that Mara and Pearl’s relationship becomes not only an unstable one but a strained relationship. With both parties unsure of their futures separate and together. Yet something that I loved reading was after an argument that left Mara and Pearl estranged from each other there was still this care. There is a scene where Mara expresses a very intense upset and panic when pearl attempts to touch a door handle her mother has previously hurt herself on. Now while on the surface this seems to be a normal response, not wanting someone to hurt themselves, just think about what a door represents. After an argument with anyone there is always that dreaded fear of going too far and causing a person to leave whether it’s for good or just out of sheer frustration. As soon as Pearl touches the door Mara’s panic rises and it is so violent, she is unable to contain her fear that Pearl will, as she sees it, inevitably leave her.

I also loved the constant companion in this book, water. We see it relate to a number of events in this book

Through the loss of her brother

A subject of resentment and hatred for her mother

Mara and Islay’s methods of coping with grief but also something that unintentionally ends up bonding them

Pearl’s job

The suffocating effect it has on the island

and so much more. If anything, the main character in this book is the water in my eyes.

There are a lot of other scenes that I would love to talk about but instead of talking your ear off I will allow you the chance to experience this for yourself. Over all if I had to describe this book it is a collection of memories and monologues from different family members about their experiences and their struggles. Whether that’s referring to romantic relationships, families or grief and loss. Yet the saddest part about this book is that at no point do any of the characters convey these feeling and struggles to each other. We as readers are getting an in-depth look into how they feel and how they work. Yet when you step away and really look at the situation you find yourself knowing more about the family as individuals than they do as a collective. Which is why this book is one of the most haunting and saddest books I have ever read.

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aconboyidentity2019 · 4 years

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Progressing with my film

8/11/19

Today, I set about improving the film based on the critiques I had received.

I had made many changes such as changing the song in the middle as a poem/haiku style reading over just the sound of rain since I feel that it would clutter the film slightly if I had three different ‘songs’ playing all thirds of the film, and the poem would be more impactful with just the words spoken calmly and clearly.

I also tried to make my motif with water (running) more blatant by changing the end of the first section script (“I am a pretentious photographer who loves running water”) to add another layer of me that is implied and to cement the continuity between sections one and two.

Despite set ideas I had for the film’s production and outcome, I am satisfied with its current state. In the beginning, I originally wanted the film to revolve around aesthetic mood boards/presentations but that concept became only one aspect of it in the almost-finished project. This is because now, I am using the film to discuss identity in a broader sense.

I also tried to emphasize a ‘circular’ structure so that the final image of my face transitioned back into an icon of a woman (below) - a call back to the opening. The final portrait of me fading into the icon, for me, talks about identity and non-identity: I am these things and more, and I am not defined by these things. It is about the fluidity of identity at any given time and the potential damage we do through categorization - which is at the root of all ‘isms’ in our society.

5/11/19

On that day, it was my final feedback from the teachers and students before my last edits to the film. When I showed the film, they had some criticisms such as the three parts of my film having more work to fit together, otherwise they will not work completely. There were also some inconsistencies in the slideshow such as pictures not dissolving at the right time and the water mark in the corner of the stock video of the sea. I have to confess that I left them in so that I can get criticism of how exactly to improve my film and do it at the end. Another reason is that I am still learning how to use Premiere correctly and I can only do so much in a short space of time.

There were positives, however: the first part was the most well-received, because of the clipart and business style and the ending was very intense with the low voice. It was so popular that it was suggested that I extend that part. While I can see the benefits of following through, I have ultimately decided to instead improve on the other thirds because I feel that the film still has a place for them. There was also a suggestion to build up the first part until it becomes incomprehensible at the end, even more than it already was. However, I felt that if I extended the first part too much it would lose its charm and become repetitive.

The other parts were well-received such as the singing in the second part and some quotes such as “we might”.

My goal to improve the film in ways such as playing with the pitches of the voice a bit more and straightening out the montages and improve their fluidity.

4/11/19

I decided on the film title: I felt the title should not be too long because it would distract from the content.

I added more rain and light snippets to the middle. I considered making the video black and white, but then decided that splashes of colour would look effective and provide some relief.

Through the middle and ending, I involve water as the artistic connection (rain in the middle and sea in the ending) because I have always had a connection with water: I was born into water and ever since I was little, I loved everything about it, feeling it and playing in it. The inclusion of water is also symbolic of purity and self-acceptance, which is an influence. I deliberately had no mention of water in the opening as it was an “objective” form of my identity.

Other influences from film include:

About A Girl (female narration and monologue - a definite case of not fine on the inside)

Photographer Daniel Regan (exclusion and stigma)

Sauté ma Ville (inner life and subjectivity)

Pachanne (experimental filming).

La Jetée (sequencing and ’animation’ of still images to create the illusion of movement)

Blade Runner (emotional monologue at climax featuring water and deep reflection on experience)

Still from ‘About a Girl’

3/11/19

To add to the middle section where my version of “Fine on the outside”, I chose snippets of footage and photos of my own to find ones that fit the subjects of loneliness and doubt that “Fine on the Outside” carries. I began to experiment with them by, for one example, adding my own photoshopped eyes to one photo that looked like a “ghoul” and, as another example, adding the photoshop eyes to other photos, to give the sense that my presence is an ubiquitous motif. I may change my mind about the effects, but it feels positive to experiment until I find something that clicks (I later rejected these visual ideas as too literal and not sufficiently abstract).

Speaking of Photoshop, I learned a useful technique - ‘inverse select’, where it can be used to delete surroundings around selected areas such as the “eyes”. Learning about PhotoShop and Adobe Premiere is essential because not only will it help me create other projects in the future but might help me improve this artist’s moving image

2/11/19

I re-did some parts of my narration after listening to it on Adobe Premiere, the program I am using to make my film (I imported the animation from PowerPoint into Premiere as a .mov file). To re-size some of the pictures, I brought them into Photoshop since I recently learned that it helps to re-shape and resize images before bringing them into Premiere. This gave me more control over the size and position on the screen when the images were imported into Premiere.

To accompany the ending monologue, I chose a sea scene to be visible through my biographic/chronological photos (the order of the photos is to give the sense of progression through my life). I also learned how to use the opacity on Premiere, and the reason I am doing it for the sea instead of the photos is that I feel that the photos should be the focus. To fit with the mood climbing down from the “insanity” of the beginning, I used the effects from Premiere to wash out the colour and create black and white imagery. In addition to photo-related effects, I also used some video effects such as blur to produce a more impressionistic/dreamlike effect.

After listening to the singing to go in the middle, I decided to re-do it as my uncertain pitch took away from the soundtrack. To make sure my singing was on point, I got an already sung version of the backing on Cubase and sang along with it: because Cubase has the option to mute tracks or parts of a track, I am able to do this.

1/11/19

Today, I added more to the Cubase soundtrack: that includes the farcical music behind the first part, re-done singing to the backing track of the second half. and edits to the sound already added. The musical piece I chose for the comedic beginning is the “Can Can” by Offenbach (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Diu2N8TGKA). Using the Cubase scissor tool, I “cut up” the opening narration and inserted the separated audio segments during certain points of the song to better fit the narration to the music’s rhythm.

After this, I continued to edit my PowerPoint document accompanying the audio. I was inspired using PowerPoint from the presentation slides I had seen from some of my teachers previously, including some from Varndean College: it was to parody of the business world presentation and the business-like way society automatically labels people. I loved using the strange animations that had become so commonplace in these presentations. As well as presentations, PowerPoint can be used to make films! The use of the symbols was for how the accumulation of simple icons can crudely attempt represent a much more complex person.

An icon image for the opening section of the film

It is surprisingly complex giving all the icons different animations and making them appear based on the timing of the background audio. It involves a lot of restarting PowerPoint animation and adjusting the animation times to synchronize the icons arrival with the voice-over. Hard work!

The Starting Point of making my film (01/11/19) 31/10/19

On this date, I made significant progress on my film by recording me reading from the first draft from the transcript. I used Cubase for the recording of various sounds including my voice and the backing to the song “Fine On The Outside”, the song for the second section of the moving image.

Cubase is a very advanced sound program where not only you can record sounds, but you can also cut apart existing sounds and insert snippets from more successful takes of a song to give the illusion that they were one piece all along.

My song recordings are only first drafts and may well change during the week from the 5th of November to the final deadline of the 12th.

When I was voice-acting, I was attempting to channel a nonsensical, almost manic, energy to match the first part’s comedic tone: the inspiration came from the opening monologue from the film ‘Trainspotting’, as I (like Renton) also start with a repetitive starting pattern (“I Am…”) and short simple sentence structures. The way I wrote the attributes going from objective to subjective is how going from how society sees me to how I see myself.

Between the first and second part, I created the sound of heavy breathing as if “calming down” from the “insanity” of the monologue. It would also allow me to make a believable tonal shift from comedic to solemn (this later evolved into a single, deep sign since the heavy breathing sounded inappropriate).

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mrmichaelchadler · 5 years

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The Right Side of History: Backstage at the 91st Academy Awards

“This is my sixth glass,” quipped Spike Lee, drink in hand, upon entering the press room of the 91st Academy Awards. “And you know why.” The trailblazing director of such masterworks as “Do the Right Thing” and “When the Levees Broke” had just earned an Oscar for adapting Ron Stallworth’s memoir into the acclaimed Best Picture contender, “BlacKkKlansman,” along with fellow scribes Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Wilmott. What should’ve been a joyous victory became bittersweet at best when Peter Farrelly’s intensely divisive “Green Book” took the night’s top prize, besting a slew of titles that favored diversity and representation over old-fashioned comfort food. Lee’s film is as unsettling and immediate as Farrelly’s is reassuring and eager to please. The focus of “Green Book” is an interracial friendship between an Italian-American bouncer and the African-American pianist he’s been hired to drive on a concert tour across various southern states during the volatile 1960s. 29 years ago, Lee received his first Oscar nomination for “Do the Right Thing” in the screenplay category—and lost—while “Driving Miss Daisy,” a strikingly similar feel-good picture about an elderly white woman’s friendship with her black chauffeur, was crowned as the year’s best film.

“Every time somebody is driving somebody, I lose,” Lee laughed while cavorting about the press stage, which he visited in the aftermath of the telecast. “But they changed the seating arrangement.” When pressed for his thoughts on the film to which he lost the Best Picture prize, the director said, “I thought I was courtside at the Garden. The ref made a bad call.” Lee’s prolonged sipping of his drink spoke more volumes about his frustration than any fiery elaboration. Yet he still credited April Reign’s #OscarsSoWhite campaign and the efforts of former Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs in creating the path that led him to win his first competitive Oscar, just three years after he was given an Honorary Award for career achievement. He also reflected on the alarming relevance of “Do the Right Thing,” where he tackled not only racial tensions and police brutality but gentrification and global warming. I instantly flashed back to the film’s 25th anniversary screening at Ebertfest, when an audience member suggested that the events portrayed onscreen had little relation to the present. It was mere months later that Ferguson occurred—a real-life mirror image of the famous climatic sequence in Lee’s 1989 film. By ending the story of “BlacKkKlansman,” chronicling a black police officer’s infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan, with a sudden cut to the white supremacist demonstrations in modern-day Charlottesville, Lee reaffirms that racist movements are not only still active but woven into the fabric of our culture.

“The coda of this film is where we saw homegrown red, white and blue terrorism,” said Lee. “The murder of Heather Heyer was an American terrorist act. When that car drove down that crowded street in Charlottesville, Virginia, the President of the United States did not refute, did not denounce the Klan, the alt-right, and neo-Nazis. Whether we won Best Picture or not, this film will stand the test of time being on the right side of history.” Lee told the press in attendance that he had prepared two acceptance speeches, one featuring a list of people to thank and the other, more artful draft, which he decided to go with instead. “I said to myself, ‘Self, your black ass may not be up here again, so let me go with the speech,’” the director recounted, and it’s a good thing he made that decision, since it resulted in one of most stunning monologues in recent Oscar history.

“The word today is irony,” said Lee after arriving onstage. “The date is the 24th. The month is February, which also happens to be the shortest month of the year, which also happens to be Black History Month. The year 2019, the year 1619. History, Herstory. 1619 to 2019, 400 years. 400 years our ancestors were stolen from Mother Africa and brought to Jamestown, Virginia, enslaved. Our ancestors worked the land from can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night. My grandmother, Zimmie Shelton Reatha, who lived to be 100 years young, was a Spelman College graduate even though her mother was a slave. My grandma saved fifty years of Social Security checks to put her first grandchild—she called me Spikie Poo—through Morehouse College and NYU Grad Film. N.Y.U.! Before the world tonight, I give praise for our ancestors who helped build this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native people. If we all connect with our ancestors, we will have love, wisdom, and will regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment. The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize. Let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing! You know I had to get that in there!”

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The applause from members of the press that greeted Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga, who shared Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscars for “Green Book,” was conspicuously chilly when contrasted with the rapturous ovation that welcomed Lee moments later. Their film’s portrayal of the bond between Vallelonga’s father, Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), and the far more fascinating musician Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), has been blasted as “a symphony of lies” by members of the late pianist’s family. Yet Vallelonga insisted that he told the story in the precise way that Shirley had instructed, arguing that this perspective on the subject is as valid as any.

“If you're discussing the Don Shirley family thing, that falls on me,” said Vallelonga. “Don Shirley himself told me not to speak to anyone. He told me the story that he wanted to tell. He protected his private life and all the other miraculous things about him. He's an amazing man. He told me, ‘If you're going to tell the story, you tell it from your father and me. No one else. Don't speak to anyone else. That's how you have to make it.’ He also told me not to make it until after he passed away. So I just kept my word to that man. I wish I could have reached out to Don Shirley's family. I didn't even know they really existed until after we were making the film, and we contacted his estate for music. Then the filmmakers invited them all to screenings and discussions. But I personally was not allowed to speak to his family, per Don Shirley's wishes. I'm an Italian from New York. They call that a stand-up guy. I kept my word to the man, and that's the reason for that. But Don Shirley and my father had an amazing story together. They went on the road and changed each other, and I think that comes out. That's why the film is what it is. It's because of the both of them.”

The pro-Trump tweet from 2015 that led Vallelonga to delete his Twitter once it was unearthed a month ago was echoed in a question directed to the filmmakers about whether Tony might’ve been a supporter of the current president.

“I never thought of him as a MAGA guy,” said Farrelly. “It's a different era, and whether he would have been one of those guys, I don't know. But he was a guy who was flawed in the beginning. For a couple of months, he was in a car with a man who was completely different from him, and they got to know each other, and they realized they had a lot more in common than they thought they did starting out on this journey. The message is, ‘Talk to each other, and you'll find out we all have a lot in common.’ It's a hopeful message, because sometimes it seems like there is no hope, but there is. All we have to do is talk, and we get closer together. I know that sounds corny and like, you know, Pollyanna-ish, but it's the truth. The only way to solve problems is to talk.”

Though Alfonso Cuarón’s widely perceived frontrunner, “Roma,” lost to “Green Book” in the Best Picture category, it did become the first Mexican nominee to win Best Foreign Film, and also picked up richly deserved honors for Best Director and Best Cinematography. Cuarón’s astonishing portrait of an indigenous maid in Mexico City who becomes a second mother to her client’s children was based on the actual woman who helped raise the filmmaker and his family during the turbulent early 70s. In his second acceptance speech of the night, Cuarón quoted French icon Claude Chabrol, who responded to a question about the New Wave by declaring, “There are no waves, there’s only ocean.” Cuarón then stressed that his fellow nominees, including Paweł Pawlikowski—who also directed an achingly personal, black and white stunner, “Cold War,” have proven that “we are all part of the same ocean.” The filmmaker also thanked the Academy for recognizing a film centering on “one of the 70 million domestic workers in the world without work rights, a character that has historically been relegated in the background in cinema. As artists our job is to look where others don’t. This responsibility becomes much more important in times when we are being encouraged to look away.”

In many ways, “Roma” serves as a spiritual companion piece to the director’s 2006 thriller, “Children of Men,” another immersive film tackling the challenge of bringing new life into a chaotic world. When I asked Cuarón about the parallels between these films, he replied, “I don't really see my films after I finish them. I prefer to see other people's movies. I don't really think so much about my films. I know that thematically and in terms of cinematic approach, they have a lot in common, but I would go farther back, probably to ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien,’ which is very connected to this film. But yeah, I will tell you something. The whole theme of birth—I was not even aware that I had been repeating that in my films until you journalists, people from the press and critics mentioned that. So yeah, I guess that there is a connection, but it's more up to you to find it.” Before he left the room, Cuarón expressed his gratitude to members of the press for being “amazingly respectful and supportive” to him during the long journey of awards season.

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Another interviewee who made a point of thanking critics, surprisingly enough, was Best Actor winner Rami Malek, star of Bryan Singer’s poorly reviewed yet phenomenally profitable Freddie Mercury biopic, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” His sincerity and sweetness were so infectious that it left no doubt as to why Academy voters favored him on their ballots, in addition to the fact that his performance single-handedly carries much of the picture. “I don't think critically the decision on this film was unanimous,” said Malek, dryly making the understatement of the evening in his first words to the press, “but I do appreciate everything you guys had to write. As a kid, I read criticism of film, and I learned so much from it. So no matter what, I still do very much appreciate you.”

Malek got choked up when recalling the “tough battle” of making the film—most of it attributed to Singer, the fired director and alleged perpetrator of sexual assault who still was never mentioned either on or offstage—and how unlikely his Oscar win was in light of it. He also spoke about growing up as a first-generation American, the son of Egyptian immigrants, and how his status as an outsider made it all the easier for him to identify with the lead vocalist of Queen.

“I grew up in a world where I never thought I was going to play the lead on ‘Mr. Robot’ because I never saw anyone in a lead role that looked like me,” said Malek. “I never thought that I could possibly play Freddie Mercury until I realized his name was Farrokh Bulsara, and that is the most powerful message that was sent to me from the beginning. That was the motivation that allowed me to say, ‘Oh, I can do this. That man steps on stage and he moves people in a way that no one else does. He has the ability to look everyone in the eye and see them for who they are. And that's because he was struggling to identify himself. All of that passion and virtue and everything burning inside of him allowed him to look to everybody else and say, ‘Hey, I see you.’ Not right here in the front—I see you there in the back. I see all of you, I will play to all of you, and together we will transcend. Because it's not about being from one place or looking like one thing, one race. Any of that. We are all human beings. And forgive me for this, but collectively we are all the champions.”

Mahershala Ali’s unwavering class and genuinely humble demeanor also led him to emerge unscathed from the controversy endured by his film, as he received his second best Supporting Actor statuette only two years after his win for “Moonlight.” In the press room, he spoke warmly about his fellow nominees, all of whom had roles that fit the definition of “supporting player” much more than Don Shirley, who is practically a co-lead in “Green Book.”

“Any of those gentlemen could have been up here and would be, obviously, deserving of being up here,” said Ali. “They did wonderful work, beautiful work, work that inspired me. So to be the one that was chosen to get to hold this trophy again, it's not something that I take lightly. It's not something I take for granted. If anything, it makes me more aware of all the people that have really contributed to my life, from childhood to my team that works on my behalf and is always looking to take advantage of the best opportunities that are fit for me. And so I'm very grateful. The first one helped me get ‘Green Book.’ I don't think if I had won—I wasn't just getting offers like that, you know. Getting an Oscar for ‘Moonlight’ changes your profile. It gets you in other rooms, and it shines a light on your work. You could have been around for 15, 20 years and suddenly people notice you. I’m really grateful for that, because I've been wanting to work and expand and stretch. This was the first time I got to stretch my legs.”

Whereas Malek and Ali were largely favored to win their respective categories, hardly anyone expected Olivia Colman to claim Best Actress over seven-time nominee Glenn Close, who was considered to be unbeatable after her surprise win at the Golden Globes. No one appeared to be as shocked as Colman, the brilliant British star of Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” whose speech was so endearingly gobsmacked that it even got a laugh out of Close. By the time she arrived in the press room, Colman was almost entirely at a loss for words. I told her that I knew she was one of the great actors as soon as I saw her in Paddy Considine’s 2011 gem, “Tyrannosaur,” and asked how she went about finding the tragic in the absurd—and vice versa—as the neurotic queen in Lanthimos’ film. “Well, that is lovely of you,” Colman gushed. “That is a lovely thing for you to say. Thank you very much.” And then with a giggle, she answered, “I don’t know…sorry!” Later she admitted, “I could not tell you what I'm feeling. Next year, I might be able to put it into words, but I don't know what to do with myself at the moment.”

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The pangs of disappointment undoubtedly experienced by Close were shared by your’s truly near the beginning of the telecast, when Jimi Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s visual powerhouse, “Free Solo,” won Best Documentary over Bing Liu’s Kartemquin production “Minding the Gap,” one of the very best films I’ve ever seen. So deeply was I invested in its victory that I wore a shirt baring its title under my tuxedo, if only to ensure that the film would have a presence in the press room regardless. Liu’s film is a testament to the cathartic power of cinema, enabling its subjects to see themselves reflected in each other’s story, as they open up about their experiences of domestic abuse and how it has shaped their young adulthood. I was reminded of the film when listening to the riveting words of Regina King, winner of Best Supporting Actress for “If Beale Street Could Talk,” directed by one of Liu’s most high-profile champions, Barry Jenkins. Recounting her most wrenching scene in the film, where her character, Sharon, encounters the woman who mistakenly believes she was raped by “Fonny” (the fiancé of Sharon’s daughter), King said she drew upon her own experiences as a woman.

“If we have not experienced a violation on that level firsthand, we have lifted a sister up through that,” King said. “Every woman that had something to do with this production [had] the understanding and the need to make sure that it was very clear in the story that we all knew that she was raped. It wasn't Fonny, but she was raped. And we hold each other up through a secret that shouldn't be a secret, so often. That's the beautiful thing about the #MeToo movement. It has gone beyond that with creating opportunities for women to find their voice—even beyond just being violated sexually, but being marginalized. When you have put in the work to be at the table and are denied a seat at the table, this movement has allowed us and has inspired us to say, ‘No, I am supposed to have a seat at that table.’ That energy was going on throughout the production of this film. Barry supported that and lifted it up as well. When you have men and women working together, pretty amazing things happen.”

There’s no question Lady Gaga would agree with King’s words, as she joined co-writers Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt in the press room following their Best Original Song win for their showstopper, “Shallow.” Gaga appeared with Bradley Cooper onstage for an uncommonly intimate performance on their signature tune, recapturing the chemistry that ignited their duets—both musical and otherwise—in the movie.

“There are many songs written for this film, but there was one song that was written with true, true friends of mine that I've known, and who know everything about me, the ups and the downs,” said Gaga. “And the truth is people see what they see on the outside. In some way, shape, or form, at times, we become architects. The truth is, I was so determined to live my dreams and yet there was so much in the way. There were so many things I did not anticipate that broke me, that tortured me, that traumatized me. And I think sometimes, what you are trying to clarify, is that people think that it comes easy to us because when we show up and we have our suits on, that it's all okay. But the truth is every single person on this stage has been through so much. We are friends. We have worked on ourselves in life. We have tried to heal through the torment of this industry and being artists. And the truth is that this is very, very hard work. It is not for the faint of heart. But I would never want to imply that anyone in the world is faint of heart. I wanted everyone tonight to feel like they could be each one of us on that stage.”

When she was handed her Oscar, Gaga said that she looked it in the eye and “saw a lot of pain. I saw all the things that I've been through. And I also felt the camaraderie and the truth of the pain that the men standing next to me have been through as well.”

“The song itself is a conversation, and it's between a man and a woman,” said Rossomando. “I think that maybe there's some timing involved where people's hearts are open to that conversation. Maybe that's why it's translated so widely. Someone sent me a couple videos this week of an entire church congregation singing the song. And it actually brought me to tears.”

“I really believe in my heart that the unfortunate truth is that our cell phones—as I watch you all typing—are becoming our reality,” said Gaga. “It's becoming reality for the world. And in this song, we provide not just a conversation, but also a very poignant statement. I wish to not be in the shallow, but I am. I wish to dive off the deep end, and watch me do it. I think this is something that speaks to many people. And during, I think, a very shallow time, it's a chance for us all to grab hands, dive off into the water together, and swim into the deepest depths of the ocean that we can.”

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Though “BlacKkKlansman” was passed over for considerably lighter fare in the top category, an equally incendiary picture went on to be named Best Live Action Short Film. Israeli director Guy Nattiv’s “Skin” centers on a family of white supremacists and the senseless violence waged by its monstrous patriarch. When he severely beats a black man for having a harmless interaction with his son in a supermarket, the hateful sadist eventually finds himself having what can only be defined as an out-of-body experience. Asked whether the film was intended to be a response to the racism frequently voiced by President Trump and members of his administration, producer Jamie Ray Newman said that she and Nattiv weren’t necessarily trying to make a political statement.

“Guy is the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors,” said Newman. “He grew up with stories about the Holocaust. I'm Jewish as well, and I think that we just deeply want to explore. In the short, we explored how what you teach your children is going to perpetuate the next generation. We have a five-month-old, so we see she's a sponge. Everything we do, she inherits. The film starts out with a father shaving his boy's head because he's literally carving him in his own image. And the feature, which is next, is a true story about a very famous skinhead who was covered in neo-Nazi tattoos, and through the collaboration with a black activist, got all of them taken off. I think that the beauty of Guy as a filmmaker is he doesn't pound anything over your head. He's subtle. He doesn’t have answers, but he shows you the questions.”

While watching the film, I was struck by its excerpted inclusion of Mica Levi’s indelible score for Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin.” It’s something only film musical aficionados would likely spot, and I couldn’t resist asking Nattiv about his soundtrack choice, considering Levi is one of the most exciting composers working today. “Mica Levi is probably the musician that influenced me more than any musician right now,” he told me. “I’m very influenced by her work, and I think that our musician was too. Inspiration is what I would call it. I hope to work with Mica one day on my next film.”

It’s only fitting that “Captain Marvel” stars Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson presented Spike Lee with his Academy Award, seeing as Marvel had a hugely successful evening, with Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” scooping up three accolades including the first Oscar for Lee’s longtime costume designer Ruth Carter. As the first-ever black recipient of the prize, she admitted to the press that she had been dreaming and praying for this night to arrive because of what it would mean for the young people coming behind her. Carter said that her innovative use of 3-D printing may have “tipped the iceberg” in her favor. It was UCLA professor Julia Koerner who developed the algorithm for the isicholo—the South African married woman's hat—in her computer and sent it to Belgium for 3-D printing.

“There were several iterations of the ‘Black Panther’ story through every comic book writer and illustrator, but it all started with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and their idea that the black community in the 60s needed a superhero,” noted Carter. “And guess what? The black community in 2018 needed a superhero as well. So with that, we created a new Wakanda because it's a forward nation. It's forward in technology. So we couldn't really use the old tech from the other comics. We had to create new tech. And with that, the door was open to us to be creative. […] I love the neck rings from the Ndebele tribe. I love the use of leather skins from the Himba women. I love the symbolism of the beadwork on the Dora Milaje. I love how their costume honors the female form. It shows that you can also be beautiful and be a warrior without being exploited.”

Another key member of the “Black Panther” team, Hannah Beachler, also made history as the first black production designer to be honored with an Oscar. Fighting back tears, she credited Coogler with enabling her to stand before the audience “with agency and self-worth,” and likened the massive undertaking of the project to “eating an elephant one spoonful at a time.”

“A lot of the inspiration came from where we located Wakanda on the continent, because if people were going to migrate, they were going to migrate around that area,” said Beachler. “So we took a very anthropological look at how the country was placed on the continent, and then from there, you've got your Omo Valley tribes that are in southeast Ethiopia. It's like they migrated down to Wakanda, and that became our river tribe. These were our inspirations. We wanted to be as real as we could.”

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Few films I’ve seen in recent memory earned as euphoric a reaction as this year’s Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” When the titular superhero’s co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, who both passed away last year, turned up at the end in a dedication card, the entire audience at my screening rose to its feet and cheered. After recounting this experience to the film’s trio of directors—Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman—they told me that they had intended on mentioning the late comic mavericks in their acceptance speech, but were cut off by the music.

“We were going to thank Stan Lee and Steve Ditko for really inspiring this whole thing, and for being a force of believing that all of us—human beings—have the potential and the capacity to be heroes,” Persichetti told me. “Phil and Chris had put together a treatment for us to make a movie that challenged the audience to believe in themselves, believe in their neighbor and really be positive and make a difference in the world. And possibly be a mentor or be heroic. That was really it.”

Joining the trio onstage were the film’s co-writer/producer Phil Lord and producer Chris Miller, the extraordinarily inventive duo behind “The Lego Movie,” who are fully committed to expanding representation in cinema, as evidenced by the vibrantly diverse ensemble in “Spider-Verse.”

“When we hear that somebody’s kid was watching the movie and turned to them and said, ‘He looks like me,’ or, ‘They speak Spanish like us,’ we feel like we already won,” said Lord in his acceptance speech.

“To be a storyteller, it's really just about connecting with your audience, whether it's your little kid that you are putting to sleep or, apparently, millions of people who go see your movie,” reflected Persichetti in the press room. “So I think it's just validation of being a human and sharing the experience of being a human. It's kind of an amazing career.”

Added Miller, “To feel like you have affected someone else's life positively, one way or another, is a really magical thing that we don't take lightly.”

After the briskly paced three-hour-and-17-minute telecast came to a crisp close, I ran into Bing Liu, his mother and “Minding the Gap” producer Diane Quon outside the Dolby Theatre. I showed them the shirt I had been wearing under my tux all night, and they insisted on taking a picture of it. Liu may not have gone home with an Oscar in hand last night, but I have no doubt that when he encounters someone whose life has been deeply impacted by his work, he knows in his heart of hearts that he’s already won.

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urameshiy-blog · 6 years

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This post is brought to you by characters with questionable motivations that will never be mentioned again.

Episode 7: Gouki and Kurama and 8: The Three Eyes of Hiei

In these two episodes, Yusuke gets his ass kicked. Hard.

This, along with the Power of Friendship and Love, will be a treasured theme of Togashi’s throughout the series. It’s honestly more of a surprise when Yusuke doesn’t get his ass kicked. Of course, this is a classic shonen anime trope: character gets beat down, picks himself up to get beat down again, and stumbles his way to victory. Watch Naruto: same thing. Bleach. One Piece. My Hero Academia (the... only contemporary shonen anime out of this list). Yet, Yusuke always does it with this odd combination of anger, determination, joy, and most importantly, a snappy one-liner, that I can’t help but love him best.

We pick up where we left off, with Gouki pounding Yusuke. Unfortunately for Yusuke, he used up his one shot of spirit energy earlier that day, and is stuck with only his fists. However, Gouki is much too strong, and knocks Yusuke out completely. It looks like this is the end of Yusuke’s brief second life. But with some quick thinking and deception, Botan saves Yusuke and brings him back home. She presents him with a second item: the concentration ring. Armed properly, and with Botan at his side, Yusuke faces off with Gouki again and promptly defeats him, with a few additional bruises added.

But Yusuke and Botan have no time to celebrate: waiting for them is the next demon, Kurama. Previously, a spirit fox, Kurama merged with the spirit of an unborn infant when he was injured, and has since been in hiding. Though he had planned on returning to the Demon World after recovering, his love for his mother grew, and he decided to stay instead. But when his mother fell ill, Kurama turned to other means to save her: the Forlorn Hope, which will take his life when it grants his request.

Yusuke, however, is a huge softie, and decides that Kurama doesn’t get to die that day. In the middle of Kurama’s request, Yusuke interrupts, and asks the Forlorn Hope to take Yusuke’s life instead (because the boy has zero consideration for his own life still). Luckily, the Forlorn Hope considered that noble, and decides both boys get to live! So Kurama’s mother is saved, Yusuke doesn’t die again, and he’s achieved the Forlorn Hope.

All’s well, end’s well?

and here’s Yusuke contemplating how "sad" Kurama's eyes are, like the protagonist of a YA novel

Wrong. Episode 8 comes crashing in, and Hiei promptly kidnaps Keiko to use as leverage against Yusuke. Yusuke tracks him down to a warehouse, where we find out that Hiei has cut her with the Demon Sword. If Yusuke doesn’t get the antidote from Hiei, Keiko will be turned into a mindless, demonic slave forever. Using her own healing energies, Botan focuses on keeping Keiko stabilized, while Yusuke goes after the antidote. Yusuke and Hiei proceed to fight, and Hiei gains the upper hand. Just as Hiei is about to deliver the finishing blow, Kurama intervenes, and takes the blow meant for Yusuke. Yusuke takes this moment to gather his wits, and faces Hiei again, angry and more determined. With a last ditch effort, Yusuke fires his Spirit Gun at the Forlorn Hope, which reflects the shot and strikes Hiei directly in the back.

Hiei finally defeated, the team heals Keiko, and laugh over Yusuke’s dumb luck, and Kurama’s masochistic tendencies. Just another day in the life of a Spirit Detective!

I decided to attack these two episodes at once, since it neatly wraps up the story arc begun in episode 6. I really appreciate how stream lined it is, and that the fight scenes don't take longer than a single episode. There's actually quite a bit more talking than fighting throughout all three episodes, which I almost find refreshing, since it really lets us spend time with the characters. Action wise, the fight scenes are still pretty slow, and I found myself a little bored during the Hiei/Yusuke fight scene.

Yusuke is on point in these two episodes: he’s determined to get back the artifacts, and he’s once again willing to put his life on the line to save these children’s souls. It’s surprising how consistent character wise Yusuke is in this aspect; as much as he was willing to throw himself in front of a car for a child in episode 1, he’s now willing to get beaten to death for them. And he does it all with a ready punchline. It almost makes me wonder how Spirit World screwed up so much in their reading of Yusuke. It’s not like he started caring for children after he died; this has always been a consistent character trait. Then again, I guess we can’t expect institutions to be correct all the time, amirite? (just go look at the news for reference)

Botan is also a DELIGHT, providing heavy support during the Gouki fight. She's unfortunately relegated to healer status in episode eight, but I'm glad she's still involved. Keiko, sadly, defaults to damsel in distress and the jealous girlfriend, and she will remain in this role for the rest of the series.

In episode 5, I said we would later discuss the evolution of how Togashi depicts demons. With our introduction of our two favorite demon boys, this is the perfect time to do so.

Gouki is a pretty standard stock villain. He’s big, dumb, and wants to eat human souls. Compared to Hiei, he’s actually a better developed than villain, with an understandable motivation, and a character design that outright says “evil.” And when he transforms, he’s undeniably the most demonic out of the three. By combining both his motivation and character design, we know for certain that we’re not to trust him (oddly, we will not see demons actively try to eat humans for another nearly 100 episodes, and it’ll be the subject of some intense discussion).

Kurama, on the other hand, never looks anything other than human during his appearance. With wide green eyes and a human mother to boot, we are subconsciously prepped to sympathize with him.

As for Hiei, he falls somewhere in a gray area between Kurama and Gouki. He’s certainly no ogre creature like Gouki, but he’s most definitely an antagonist. His pupils are smaller than Kurama’s, and his third eye marks him as other. Not to mention, at the height of the battle between him and Yusuke, he transforms into a green goblin like creature, covered in eyes. This form comfortably places him in the “evil” category for viewers and enhances his predatory appearance. In some ways, all three of these demons’ character designs are reinforcing our ideas of what “good” and “evil” looks like. I won’t say that Togashi completely smashes these expectations later on, but we’ll continue to discuss the difference between what “relatable” and “evil” demons look like as the series goes on.

Before going further into their characterization, I do want to note that even during Hiei’s introduction, Togashi was not 100 percent certain how major a character Hiei would be. However, his character and design ended up being so popular, that Hiei ended up as one of our core four characters. As such, there are some funky inconsistencies with Hiei’s motivations and why he would even want to steal the demon sword. However! It’s there, so I’m going to treat his characterization here as canonical (for the time being), rather than a completely separate characterization.

As much as Kuwabara and Yusuke contrast each other (Kuwabara is the emotional and motivated one, Yusuke’s the repressed one), Hiei and Kurama are each others’ contrasts. Even their character design (at least in the anime) is directly in contrast with each other, with Kurama being bright red, feminine, tall, and seemingly trustworthy. Hiei, on the other hand, is clad head to toe in black, with spiky hair, beady demonic red eyes, and 4 feet and 11 inches of pure anger and edgelord punk style.

Their motivations are in direct opposition as well; Kurama’s a reformed demon, and acts a thief one last time to save a human life. Hiei, however, is incredibly cutthroat, and out to… build a demonic army from humans and take over Human World (maybe)? His motives are very unclear, but he’s a starter villain, so we don’t really need to know much. We do know he sees humans as inferior, and this is consistent, even later in the series.

As the series goes on, we will see that the two slide into complementary roles, with Hiei as our Brute Force and Kurama as our Smart Guy. What will be more interesting is when Togashi begins to subvert their tropes, creating more complex and interesting characters as we go. Both characters will undergo immense change later on in the series, and I'm excited to come back to discuss that. However, we'll be saying goodbye to them for now, and instead venturing off into a completely other direction! (Genkai, we're coming for you).

Final Thoughts:

Kurama is the biggest drama queen in the history of the world, matched only by Yusuke Urameshi himself: “Did you know in some species the child eats its mother?” he says, as he proceeds to wax poetic about feeling like one of those “mother devourers.” Just. Chill, Kurama. CHILL.

Favorite line of the two episodes goes to Kurama again, with a 10/10 roast to Yusuke: “All the while we’ve been thinking you’re a brilliant strategist. You’re just a lucky fool… A strategist is a person who uses his brain.”

Yusuke making fun of Hiei monologuing is fantastic.

I never thought I would say this, but I miss Kuwabara? So much?

TL;DR?: These two episodes throws us straight into demon world, and provide some fun action scenes! Kurama and Hiei are startlingly different from their later characterization, but deliver some great moments and insults. However, upon rewatch, I find myself impatient to get to later episodes where the team is working together!

#yyh #yyh rewatch #yyh review #yu yu hakusho #anime review

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