Right now I am a digital immigrant who is feeling an extreme amount of stress because I cannot figure out how to make a movie using my flipcam footage. I have tried to do it using Window’s Movie Maker and had no success, and I have also tried to make a movie directly from the Flipcam software that was installed in my computer. I think that I am going to google the instructions in a little while, but for the time being I’m going to work on a project for my other class, which is also due the same day.
While still taking a break from my research and perusing Rotten Tomatoes again I discovered that Caddy Shack is 30 years old this summer. It’s a blast from the past to see the semi sadistic gofer again.
Love to watch it dance!
I decided to take a break from working on my film analysis and checked out Rotten Tomatoes: The Movie Review. I normally am not a fan of action movies but I have to say that when this movie comes out in October I will be buying expensive movie theater popcorn. The name of the movie is RED and it stars John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Mary Louise Parker, and Bruce Willis.
Years ago I had a part-time job working as a clerk in a shop that sold theatrical and television memorabilia. My boss wanted me to keep current with what was on TV if we sold that show’s merchandise in the store. Beavis and Butthead was hot that summer so after work one day I begrudgingly turned on the show and was shocked when I found myself laughing out loud. I watched it whenever I was home and it was on. To this day I still find myself surprised that I enjoyed it. I’m writing this because two of my classmates are making parody of Romeo and Juliet using characters from The Jersey Shore. I went to MTV Online and found short clips of the first season. It’s the first time I’ve watched the show and I have to confess that I think I’m hooked and will probably DVR it next week. I think that I sometimes limit myself to what is entertaining because I want to appear “intelligent.” It’s the same with books. There are some professors that I will admit to that I read “chicklit” and others I want. I think that almost all forms of literature has value if you look hard enough. The Jersey Shore is culturally reflective of a segment of society that makes it a valid subject of study.
I was browsing through some of the online links for this class and watched this video I found on Brand Hype. “Behind the Screens: Hollywood goes Hypercommercial about Product Placement in the Movies” is a thought provoking piece at how the advertising industries and the movie industries work together to manipulate us. Earlier research I have done on product placement indicated that movie producers used product placement to make their movies more “real”. Evidently, it’s a lot more than that. If you have ever seen one of the old Dirty Harry movies you may remember when Harry pulls out his big Smith and Wesson 45 gun and says “Go ahead. Make my day.” Up until the movie Smith and Wesson had trouble selling the ’45’ after the movie was released the sales of the gun skyrocketed. I found another video about product placement that is extremely postmodern in appearance…
Before taking this class if anyone had asked me if I would be willing to allow electronic games in my classroom I would have answered with a resounding NO! While I am not convinced 100% in the power of games to teach English, I am willing to concede that they do a viable place in a classroom actively involved in teaching and learning the new literacies. My former negativity perhaps is the result of substitute teaching in schools that have a 0 tolerance policy toward any student owned electronic device which caused me to deduce that they were wrong. Or it may have stemmed from working in schools that have ambigious policies towards the subject and tend to be more teacher determined, so that when I entered classrooms there was often an element of ambiguity that lead to frustration.
Now I am looking at gaming in the classroom in a different light. There is quite a wealth of information on YouTube regarding the use of games to facilitate instruction in English. This video is one in a series.
I type this question into Ask and got these instructions.
1. Go to YouTube and check out your favorite videos. You can also search for videos that might be appropriate for your blog. For example, if you blog about education, search using the term “education” and see what comes up. These days YouTube is so widely used that you can find videos about serious topics in addition to all the silly stuff.
2. Once you’ve watched and chosen a video you’d like to us on your blog, got to the “subscribe” box on the right. At the bottom of the box, you’ll see an “embed code” that permits you to embed the video on your blog. Copy the code.
3. Return to your blog post and place your cursor wherever you would like the video to appear. It’s always a good idea to introduce the video or make a point about the video. Make sure you choose to view your post in html rather than in visual mode–the two choices that WordPress gives you when you’re blogging. Simply paste the embed code in the right place.
4. Don’t forget to save your post, and then publish it. When you view your blog, the video will appear with the familiar arrow that permits your readers to watch the video.
Now I’m going to attempt to import a YouTube video into this post. The video is about product placement in film, which I find fascinating. It manipulates the masses into buying things they don’t need. Imagine how vulnerable an adolescent is to the pressures of product placement?
I just watched Kristen’s movie and found it to be amazing. Kristen, I love the idea of creating a kind of historical archive of what it used to be like in Myrtle Beach. You could have students research back to the pre-Depression days when the Ocean View Hotel was a mecca for the rich and famous. When my father was a young man famous people came to the Pavillion, and the country music band Alabama got it’s start at the Bowery. Hmmm…that might be an interesting teachers field trip.
I just read the article “As Seen On TV” and I must say that it is a rather fascinating look at product placement on television and the degree of effort retail industries will put into getting consumers, most often female I am guessing, to spend money while they are “emotionally attached” to a product they have seen on television. When I consider the concept of a website a person can go to in order to buy something she has just seen on TV, the retail veteran in me finds it to be brilliant. Years ago I managed a girls/womens clothing store and sold a lot of merchandise that was created specifically because of the popularity of the sit-com “Friends”. Y necklaces, Monica dresses, and Friends logo merchandise flew out of the store. Now however, the pre-service educator in me finds it disturbing that impressionable 15 year old girls (as reported in the article) are able to purchase a $125.00 pair of shoes because their favorite television star is wearing them. It’s not the spending per-say that I find disagreable (that’s an issue best left up to the girls and their parents) it’s the even newer and better way they retail and media industries have created to manipulate the minds of young consumers. As future educators we need to be advocates of not only teaching the use of media literacy in the classroom, but also the implications of being media illiterate. A 15 year girl who has an awareness that this kind of advertising is a deliberate effort to manipulate her “emotional attachnment’ to that $125.00 pair of shoes might be less inclined to make an impulse buy.
The company that I have been blogging about is Superbrand Media. The company was bought out by Sugar Inc. in 2008. Sugar Inc. practices the same kind of marketing practices.
I’ve been thinking about why I keep thinking about Ben in the movie the class saw today. I think it is because he was pivotal in causing me to totally turn on Barbara. When Sheba refused to go with Barbara after Barbara’s cat died because Ben was in his first school play, Barbara’s reaction was borderline evil. I understand that Barbara loved her cat, I have two that I love myself, but to place her need not to be alone above a child’s need to be seen and praised by his mother, was beyond selfish.
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