Earthquake

   
    When I asked my mom if she had seen the movie "Earthquake," she asked if that was the movie that scared everyone.  She told me that it was a pretty impressive film considering Mario Puzo wrote the screenplay, who also did for "The Godfather."  My mom remember the movie to be, as I quote her, "pretty cool" because large buildings were breaking apart and the earth started to open up.  She got scared during the movie when the earth started to suck people up, and it totally freaked her out.

Beginning of Film

      George Méliès was one of the fathers of early cinema. He wasn't a master of moving pictures, until 1896.  Originally, Méliès was only a magician and became affixed with the phenomena after witnessing Lumiere's work.  In the book, by Elizabeth Ezra, Georges Méliès: the birth of the auteur, he describes the moment and he said, "We sat there with our mouths open, without speaking filled with amazement."  (2, Ezra) From 1896 until 1914 he directed over a whopping 500 films.
      Méliès was notorious for creating tricks in his films, that were considered special effects back then.  The reason why he was able to succeed in these"tricks" was because he used multiple exposures.  He was able to make things change size and disappear.   In 1902 he produced his most famous work, "A Trip to the Moon."  The movie is a total of 14 minutes and used 16 frames per second.  Unfortunately, technology does move fast.  By1906 cameras became more accessible and cheaper. Competition became fierce with aspiring director such as Edwin S. Porter.  In 1923 George Méliès  declared bankruptcy and died in 1938.
     Abel Gance was a major, french film director in the 1920s.  He began working and directing for movies at the age of 21.  He is an extremely significant figure in cinematography because of his filming techniques.  Gance is also known for his historical battles that appear in his movies.  His name started to get recognized after his successful production of "J'accuse!" 
       In 1924, Abel Gance began the direction of the most groundbreaking film of his career, "Napoleon." It originally durated over 6 hours, but was later compressed to half that.  Gance introudced many new technologies, such as color tiniting and polyvision.  During the battle scences, he had numerous cameras filmuing to capture different scenes so everything was constantly in motion. Abel Gance was a master of editing, and also used superimpoisition. 
     Polyvision would serve as revolutionary for spectators to watch.  In the theature, three projectors played the movie and each projector showed different views for certain scenes.  He created a three-camera rig for shooting.  Gance had a tremendous impact for the future of film.  His experiments with different shooting approaches like close ups, different angle views and wipes paved the way for aspiring directors. 









 

Bring it on Broadway

            Musicals and plays are Broadway are such a great escape.  I remember the first time I saw"Wicked" with the notorious Idina Menzel and ever so peppy Kristin Chenoweth.  My butt practically fell on the floor because I was in such awe of the entire performance.  There is a rumor that a movie is to made, it definitely will not be anything like the musical. 


        It's weird how history also repeats itself.  In the beginning of World War I, entertainers were sent to the front line to remind the army of the support from the US.  Today, plenty of artists have performed for the soldiers.  Jessica Simpson even went to Kuwait to sing for the troops.   Hmm....I wonder how that went.


       After World War II, Broadway was on fire.  In 1943, the first play to sing songs and tell a story gave Broadway an entire new spin.  It was called Oklahoma.  That song "Oh what a beautiful morning," will forever remind me of my father because he blasted that song every time he could.  Broadway would also make a come back after 9/11.  People needed to remember that we must support artists of today.  They needed to go somewhere where they could forget about the war.  


        In the documentary about Broadway, the term Gullah was used. Gullah is a creole language that African Americans used who lived on the regions of South Carolina, and the north of Georgia.  Since many African Americans who came to America all spoke different dialects (from West Africa) they combined their different languages from Africa with English (they heard spoken from their owners).  


            Gullah is still spoken today, but only in "Gullah" areas of South Carolina and Georgia.  In 1979 there was a study to see how many people still spoke the language.  Representatives from Summer Institute of Linguistics concluded more than 100,000 still practiced it.  10,000 of those people did not even know English.  

1920's

     I always love learning new things about the 1920's.  I almost wish I was born in the 20's, except for that whole stock market crash and great depression.  That would not be too fun, but it sounds like great fun to be a flapper back then.  My mission on my blog today is to explain the origin of "jazz," "black face performers," and the effects of the stock market crash..dun dun dun. 

       The word jazz used to be spelled as "jass."  According to the, Complete Idiot's Guide to the 20th Century, the word jazz is probably derived from a slang term for sexual intercourse. I found out in article, called "Brass tracks: Getting down to he origins of Jazz," that African Americans first started playing jazz in New Orleans.  I would have definitely thought New York first.  After New Orleans jazz became big in Chicago in 1915 and then in the 1920's it made it's debut in New York.  Jazz was a combination of African American beat and European rhythm. 
  
          I found an interesting, yet completely legitimate quote from Frederick Douglass that sums up a black face performer pretty well, "...the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens." Black face performers were white people who actually pained their faces black. They also emphasized creating their lips look bigger.  The performers spoke in a different accent and wore rugged attire.  However, by the 1840s African Americans even participated in black face performers. 

    The first "black face" performer was a white comedian Thomas D. Rice who introduced the look in 1828 when he sang about Jim Crow Laws.  The black face performing shows were referred to as minstrelsy or a minstrel show.  In the 1920's even famous females blues singers such as singers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith dressed up as "black face" performers.  By mid 1920's minstrel shows died out.    
     The stock market crash not only brought an end to Broadway but also everything that made the twenties roar.  There were no more extravagant outfits, Unemployment rates were the absolute worst, businesses and banks failed everywhere and even the wealthy were struggling.   People had been predicting that stock market prices were way too high, and when they plummeted people literally lost everything.  World War II had also put America is greater debt.  No one was buying anything from us, trading decreased tremendously.

      It is interesting how there are parallels between the recession going on now and the great depression.  Unemployment rate in April 2010 was 9.9% (according to an article, "Why a Rising Unemployment Rate is Good News," by Rick Newman) .  The unemployment rate in 1931 was still worse than now, but by not by too much.  The president now is trying to take ideas from Roosevelt, which I think is wise but I still think he should think more outside of the box. 

     I love learning about Broadway!

      

Opera!

So I just realized Publix Greenwise has Wifi.  I am still without internet, because I cannot get my priorities in order.  The VMA's are on too which I totally forgot about.  Hopefully Lady Gaga will perform, she is super outrageous.   Yum, it smells like cheeseburgers out here.

     Last class was pretty flipping sweet! We listened to Opera, ugh I love Opera man.  My teacher played old school opera too, which I usually do not listen a whole lot too.  I definitely want to introduce old school opera more into my daily life.  For our assignment due next week, we get to even watch an Opera move and write it about.  That is such a good excuse for me to drink wine too. Even though I tend to over use any excuse I can to drink.

      We watched this really cool scene from this movie, "Aria," and these two people were making love to this beautiful song composed by Richard Wagner, it was so unbelievable.  It freaked me out when they slit their wrist at the end.  I did not see that coming.  We listened to a lot of composers like Rossili and Puccini. He also played a clip from "Phillidelphia," boy Tom Hanks can act.

      I heard the song"Madame Butterfly," too.  I have heard the song name before, by Andrea Bocelli but the song he played was by a woman and much different.  I strongly recommend both.  I also never knew that "Rent"was created from "La Boheme."  I love muisc.  Now it smells like greasy chinese food...ew...later haters

Hey

      Hey, my name is Alexandria Guerra and I am an absolute mess.  I am writing this blog for my COM 211 class.   I am a junior at University of Tampa, my major is public relations/advertising and my minor is Spanish.   I like a little of everything which is not helpful in determining what I want to do with my life.  Currently, I live with 4 other girls in a 5 bedroom crack house.  I am not proud to say that my room has looked the same since I "moved" in-which I have not officially done yet.
     So I am currently sitting in Stadium Center and I am so happy that I do not live on campus. It's probably because I hate rules but damn there are so many rules outside of campus.  There are too many rules in general, but then again if we did not have rules our world would be chaotic.
     I have never taken an art class at University of Tampa, and do not consider myself to be "artsy." However, I do like fashion so hopefully that will play into this course (keyword=hopefully).  The class we had the other day was pretty cool, I liked how movie and sound clips were incorporated because I am pretty visual.  "Shakespeare in Love," is my all time favorite movie! I was so happy when my art teacher played a clip from the movie.  Shakespeare is beautiful.  I really enjoy learning different cultures too, so I definitely took interest into the way theater has changed throughout time.  I am pretty stoked to see what else I am going to learn in the class.  I am just worried about the work!
     This is my second blog, I still need to update my other blog.  Again as I said, I am a mess, and unorganized and lazy so my old blog needs to be updated in the worst way. Blogs are pretty sweet though, they even have spell check on these things now.  I hope I will be WAY better updating this than my last.  Man how I love technology.