The Aftermath

A New Reality Is Better Than A New Movie!

For the digital essay to the poem “A New Reality Is Better Than A New Movie,” I chose to make an interpretive mirror image of the poem itself.  The idea behind the “movie” is simply a metaphor for media distraction, and the new “reality” can be best defined as the realization of equality through complete separation from an oppressive government.  With the digital essay, I took more of a minimalist approach in order to emphasize the actual actions and subtle undertones of the conflicted feelings that my character (an imaginative person living “within” Amiri Baraka’s poem) has toward the world he lives in.  As stated before, at the beginning, he was excited by the trailer of a movie on a laptop screen, but overtime it is seen that the events that occur within his life eventually break him free of this form of distraction.

The events in particular reflect on the poems lines that insinuate that the wealth create an illusion of equality, when in fact black Americans are used as a part of a “machine” that leads to their own economic self-exploitation.  This conflict can be seen in the main character’s reluctance to get out of bed from the alarm, his expression of uneasiness while shaking the hands of the white character, his expression of disgust after he was only given $1 out of a stack of $20, and with the unleashing of a pent-up anger by the end.

I chose the John Trudell quotes to hint toward a vague idea of “identity.”  Finally, I chose to use the Martin Luther King Jr. quote at the end to relate the images shown in the movie to a macro or national-level.

My Digital Essay

Everybody Wants a Peace

Enjoy!

Finding Satisfaction

This entire video was more simple than I thought it would be. It only took two days to complete, and that includes the editing process. I only needed two actors for my entire video, the guy who was arguing in the beginning and myself. That same guy was also my camera man, and I guided him through my vision of this video as he recorded (with some suggestions from him as well). I tried to cut out as much from the video as possible, but I still went a little over the required time frame. Everything flows well, so I couldn’t cut out anything else. This was a fun project and I hope you guys enjoy!

Speak and Be Heard

Inspired by Audre Lorde’s “A Woman Speaks”

The digital essay is about the same topic that I address in my thesis, namely “Speak and Be Heard.” The video clips are about the Occupy CUNY Protest happened on November 28. I divided the video into three parts. The first part focuses on the passers-by, who surround the protesters. But they don’t express their opinions, they are just watchers. This portion of people is the one that I want them to speak. The second part of the video is about the protestors. They are trying hard to make their voice heard. But they failed as the trustees approved the tuition hike. This raises the question that how we can make their voices heard which I discussed in the second part of my essay. The ending of the digital essay is the U.S. Flag in front of Baruch College, which is the symbol of democracy. The flag droops, meaning that if we don’t solve the “Speak and Be heard” problem, there will be no democracy. The soft music can get people into thinking about the issue and pay attention to it.

Both of my essay and the digital project are influenced by Audre Lorde’s “A Woman Speaks.” The poem is about a woman expressing her own thoughts, most importantly, at the end of the poem, it says “I am a woman/ and/not white.” I am impressed by the courage of Lorde to express her identity, which was life threatening. Then I look at the situation right now, I find out that people are safe enough but they do remain silent. I want to use Audre Lorde as an example to encourage them to talk. Once I go further, I find out there are reasons why people don’t talk. It’s about the system itself. We need to improve the system to receive and react on the voices. That’s how my essay comes into being.

House of Cards

I revolved my digital essay around building and destroying. The lyrics have a piece that say, “the infrastructure will collapse, from voltage spikes.” And from this i decided to make my video. I used “light graffiti” and “stop motion.” The point was to show how two cards come together with different suits, and than the card with the same suit as one of the cards disrupts the building pattern and ultimately destroys the creation that the other two have conjured. It is a means to resemble how it takes time and patience to build something, and than is can be so easily destroyed. I had a fun time with this and it was a cool experience learning to use my camera and my laptop even further.

The Dog Days Are Over- Digital Essay

This is my digital essay, based on Florence + The Machine’s “The Dog Days Are Over”.

My process:

My final essay was focused on the psychological phenomenon of “Fear of Success”. I wanted to play with the ideas of “damsels in distress”, the underdogs, and the oppressed heroine. I compiled a video of classic movies that agree with this theme–Easy A, Cinderella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Pretty in Pink, Funny Face, The Princess Diaries, and Alice in Wonderland (the 2010 Tim Burton film)– and all these movies were set up in accordance with the lyrics of “The Dog Days Are Over”. I think it worked well because it was a “retrospective” of my life– the triumph after opression (well, not that I have been opressed, but I’ve felt like a dorky Mia Thermopolis at times). At the end, I put the clip of Easy A because I felt like that was my voice and my wishes for the future.

The End.

My proposal for my digital essay is to undergo an analysis of The Message by Grandmaster Flash. The song a strong controversial song of early hip hop talks about large social issues that include poverty education government drugs and more. Since it talks about so many topics I cannot focus on every part of the song. My paper and my digital essay will show what the effects of white flight are. White flight has been a term that originated in the United States, starting in the mid-20th century, and applied to the large-scale migration of whites of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban regions. Which meant neighborhoods that are considered ghettos now were once flourishing regions. Yet when white americans all at the same time decide to get up and leave with their businesses, tax dollars, and their assets it devalues the whole land. African americans and other minorities are left there and face terrible dangers that to this day still occur as an affect of white flight. As a result of white flight The Message talks about the negative effects of white flight it such as homicide, rape, drug use and more. This limits a person’s ability in the area to expand and have more choices for a brighter future. It enables them to think this is the only place they will ever stay and survival, thus all the reasons why all the social problems occur.

For my video I have decided to use a friend in video where i will take slowed down video footage of everyday life in the subways and outside in certain areas effected by white flight. The person in my video will be wearing shabby clothes. But the same person will go into very rich neighborhoods that the whites migrated to, yet instead of wearing shabby clothes its professional showing two scenarios of the same person in two different areas. It will show the difference in the quality of life in each area and strongly depict special meanings of the message.