Eyeless

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@jackysuave
Eyeless
Final Project
I will focus on the dichotomy between the music I listen to and my persona through one song. This song typically implies violence and craziness, all of which i’m not.
I will document myself with headphones in going through my daily rituals of life investigating whether this is true. This will be a video highlighting what I’ve seeing with my headphones in with video of front facing and rear facing views. There will be one song playing. There will be no voiceover of any kind but only of any other environmental noises where one earbud is off. I will also include conversations with friends I’m having daily or videos I’m watching etc... The only text will be the music playing as if it’s on an itunes screen or something similar.
This videos will include me waking up early in the morning, working at starbucks, working at the gym, hanging with friends, going to a show, etc... all while wondering if these general claims are true.
All the videos will be specific to the occasion rather than the music highlighting my own life, I will include of lot of vibrant colors and whatnot, but I’ll also include video of me at a concert both witnessing and being a part of the violence that ensues. Though this may be the most contrasting video, they’ll all highlight my “self.”
Selfie Project
When thinking of how to define “self,” I had no clue what to write. I don’t truly know myself more than just a musician.
For my project, I plan to create a “documentary” of me in my music world. I plan to include me not necessarily vlogging but discussing music as if I was being interviewed. It’d be a lot of voiceover as if I was having a conversation with The video would include old pictures, videos, old facebook posts, me with friends at practices now, me playing guitar, me singing, etc... As a kid, I’ve always hoped to just be in a band for the rest of my life rather than have an office job and revisiting all of my past self would be interesting as to what I dream for now.
The strangest thing for me is that no one really understands how much music actually means to me. I was always interested in heavy riffs and angry screaming vocalists from the age of 8. I have old memories of hearing my brother blasting Eyeless by Slipknot in the car while he would drive me to school (he’s about 6 years older than me).
I always told myself as a kid that I’d learn guitar and even through taking “classical guitar lessons,” I grew bored by 11 and taught myself everything I know to this day. Music has taught me many things about myself, such as having the energy to continuously play guitar for hours on end for a day and learning that I’d have no life without music.
I’ve strayed a way a lot from playing guitar because college has soaked up a ton of time from me. It hasn’t kept me from going to concerts at all though because I’m at a show nearly every weekend. They range from being shows in musical halls to small basements.
I think it’d be interesting to revisit why and how all this strange music created the person I am today.
20 Questions with Soph
My initial idea was to interview my best friend, but unfortunately, because of conflicting schedules, I was not able to do it. So instead I interviewed my younger sister Sophia. She is a 14-year-old teen in middle school, I thought it would be interesting to compare different points of view to find differences and similarities between our generations. My inspiration for random questions came from Vogue’s video interviews called “73 Questions”
Q: Name 3 artist that you are listening to? Why?
A: Kanye West because of his style and fashion are out of the box
Kendrick Lamar because he raps about relevant issues
J. Cole his lyrics have meaning.
Q: Name 2 woman you look up to. Why?
A: Malala Yousafzai because I feel like us as girls, we take school for granted, we don’t realize the great opportunity we have. She gave women a voice.
Mom because I feel as if she is able to do anything.
Q: What celebrity do you think negative influence to your generation?
A: Well I have a lot, XXXTentacion his lyrics are bad, and he’s been in jail for battery, abuse.
Famous Dexter same reasons
Q: What is a subject in school you feel you are never going to use?
A: Project and Solving- all we do is create random projects.
Q: What is one law that you think is unnecessary?
A: Kids are not allowed sharpies, I’m not sure if it’s true but I feel as if it is unnecessary.
Q: How feel about Trump?
A: He’s not open minded. Honestly, no one in school likes him. He’s just racist and acts childish.
Q: If you could live anywhere in the world for a year where would you live?
A: Tokyo, Japan; The culture intrigues me. It’s a city that I always wanted to visit and live in.
Q: Nikes or Adidas? Why?
A: Nikes because I’ve always had nikes. They are classics.
Q: If you won the lottery what would be the first thing you would buy?
A: I would buy an island so I can escape whenever I wanted.
Q: Friend, Marry, Kill? Kanye, Kendrick, and J Cole?
A: Friend- Kendrick
Marry- J Cole
Kill- Kanye
Q: What do you think is the biggest threat to humanity
A: Humans themselves, all the greed.
Q: What do you think High School is like?
A: The same thing as Middle School, just bigger and more classes.
Q: One good thing about Franklin (the town we are from)?
A: The schools are not bad, they are divirse.
Q: Bad?
A: Students care more about socializing than education.
Q: If you could ask any celebrity any question, dead or alive; who and what?
A: Kendrick- Tell me about growing up in Compton
Q: Top 3 most important social medias
A: Instagram
Snap Chat
Q: A celebrity that best represented Latinas?
A: Selena Quintanilla
She was proud of her Hispanic background
Q: What do you think college is like?
A: Lots of homework, classes, always running late.
Lots of parties
Q: How do you feel about Rutgers?
A: It doesn’t look bad, it seems diverse, I wouldn’t mind going there.
Q: What is one thing that you are thinking about right now?
A: I want to sleep
I found this interview both hysterical and amazing. I forget what it’s like to be a teen before highschool. I feel I didn’t even care about the world at such a young age. Since your sister seems to know the world around her more well than I ever did, this makes it all more interesting. I loved how the questions ranged from serious to comical such as the “biggest threat to humanity” to what high school is like. I also loved how all the answers were extremely short so it made reading much easier especially because there were a ton of questions.
The big Selena gif was a weird break in between the text and I wish you’d included a picture of your sister. I feel the only goal of this interview was to show what it is to think like a middle schooler again. Wish you’d included more questions too!
Experiences of a college student
My older brother is a graduating senior at Syracuse University, with a bachelors in IT. These were his thoughts on his college experience, what he thinks about it, and how to go on from here:
What are some of the biggest things college has taught u?
- “So far college has been a tremendous journey which has provided me with
many great experiences. College helped me see what independence is really
about. Attending to a college a couple hours away in another state has really
helped me test if I am truly ready to be independent, which I think I am.
College has also taught me that you must take advantage of the opportunities
that present in your way, and creating these opportunities when they do not
show up. However, out of all things, college has really helped me found a
potential in my that I hadn’t seen before. Between many challenging classes,
work, and social life I thought I would never have time to do everything, but
with some time management training, I learned that I could successfully
accomplish all these and more. Once I saw this potential, my confidence
increased and became more motivated to get things done.”
Do u think the experience was worth the money?
- “College has definitely been a worthwhile experience and I wish I could do it
all over again. However, the cost of college tuition is very high, which deters
many from getting an education and leaves many others with large burdens
of financial debt (student loans). College is a great place to find opportunities
and develop oneself, but is something that it should be affordable to anyone
with the desire for a higher education. I am one among the students that will
have some student loans to repay post-graduation and even though I am
happy college opened many opportunities for me, I do wish I could of had
this experience without having to worry about paying thousands of dollars
once its over.”
Is “the struggle” when it comes to finding jobs after college real?
- “I think the answer to this question depends mostly on how one approaches
the situation. I have found that networking and building connections is key to
finding a job, or at least a job that you would actually want. Taking action
early, building relations while still at school and thinking what profession
you want to pursuit will make this “struggle” less of an issue. I’ve met some
peers that have found their careers and have everything figured out and
others that have not even started thinking what they want to do once they
graduate. I believe attitude is another key component to finding a good job.
The opportunity is always out there waiting for you somewhere, but you
have to do whatever is necessary to find it, thus your mentality could be the
deciding factor between working hard to find the dream job or getting stuck
at a mediocre job.”
Who are some of the brightest and some of the worst people you’ve met in ur college career.
- “During my underclassmen years of college, I mostly focused on the fun part
of college and was always hanging around with people that wanted to just
hang around and play video games. During this time, I was getting good
grades, but simply did the work because I had to do it and was more driven
towards getting my homework done so I can hang out with friends
(sometimes leading to mediocre work), but to be fair I feel like this is a
similar situation for the majority of students. During my last two years, I
started to focus more on school and started to hanging out more intellectual
individuals that were more focused on working on projects and thinking
about their futures. Hanging out with these guys encouraged me to become
more involved on campus, which definitely opened many opportunities.
Hanging out with people that were school and career-oriented helped me
land a position as director of the research center at my school as well as a job
at a startup company. Out of all this I can finish with one conclusion, the
people you hang around with really does matter.”
What would u do different if u could do it all over again?
- “Like I mentioned earlier, college tuition is very high and carries a burden of
debt when graduation happens. something If I would had done something
differently, I would of definitely applied to more scholarships to reduce my
college debt and maybe even go to a cheaper in state school like you did. I had
a lot of fun though, not much I would change about that experience.”
What is ur biggest regret in college so far?
- “My biggest regret is not having started thinking about my career since the
very beginning of college. When I first got accepted, four years seemed like a
really long time and thought I had time to figure everything out. However,
I’m about a month away from graduation and realized that these four years
flew by really fast. I am not very upset that I didn’t start that early because I
had to go through that experience to learn, but I would consider that my
biggest regret. Start looking for internships and what you wanna do now that
you still have time.”
Do you think u have solid plans for after college?
- “I am still in the application and interview process, so I do not have concrete
plans as of yet, but I think I will be fine.” (I could tell he was somewhat scared of
that question)
Are u ready for the rest of ur life?
- “Life is something that is inevitable whether we are ready or not. I’ve learned
in college about my potential and that we can grow if we have the desire for
it. I am sure that I will have many more of these insights throughout my
career, thus I am looking at life as a learning process and trying to focus
living in this moment, since tomorrow is always a mystery.”
______________________________________________________________________
Before we did the interview, my brother asked me if he should be honest or just make the answers sound good. This made me think while the interview was going on, and I think to an extent he answered the way most people would. With the question about plans after college, I could tell that like everyone, he has some self doubt but he is trying to be as optimistic and professional about it.
Since this is your brother, I imagine him to be comical with you. I love how the questions you asked were more like something you'd send through imessage rather than a real interview with any other college senior. I also love how all the college facts are the same format but I’d love if they pertained to the interview. Did he ever spend a night out where he couldn’t be awake in class? Did he ever have any crazy drug related stories? Your title is extremely general so pinpointing to just “Interview of a graduating college student” or something similar would be better. I wish you did include more comical questions to even out the big mystery of the final answer. I also wish you included a picture of your brother!
Do I Value Life
Interview Proposal
For my interview I would like to interview my boyfriend, Jose. He is of Peruvian descent and is bilingual. I would like to ask him about his culture, heritage, etc. and how that effects him in the world today. I want to compare his answers with how I would have answered them as we are both parts of minority ethnic groups and strangely enough both of our cultures have mingled at points and there is actually a Chinese-Peruvian mixed culture in Peru so it is something I would also like to ask about or maybe we can explore and look into together. I’m not sure if I would like to just audio record this interview or have it through text as I am not sure what would be most convenient at this time.
I think your interview topic is interesting because you both share the upbringing in minority and ethnic groups. You could discuss how “Americanized” he’s become in his family. Being Peruvian is especially interesting in your case because of the Chinese Peruvian mixed culture. Go in depth with how that affects him. I think it’d be sweet if you recorded each other live-texting. A phone call could work too but it may be difficult to find a way to record each other.
Interview Proposal
I plan on interviewing my significant other on his stance on capital punishment.
This country is in it’s biggest divide because of the government and the people. People are constantly challenging in the ideas specifically of color and violence.
My boyfriend began passionately talking about how we should bring back capital punishment. I was mortified hearing about him talking about how to deal with these sorts of criminals who commit extreme acts of violence.
These are the few couple of questions regarding the interview.
- What benefits do you see in capital punishment?
- Why do you think this country is trying to get rid of it?
- Explain why the countries who have it continue to use it?
- What do you think causes someone to commit these acts?
- Who should be paying to euthanize these people?
- Are you religious?
- Do you value your life?
- Do you value other lives?
- Would you take someone else’s life under the government?
I plan on recording this interview over facetime. It’d all be recorded at a live time with me asking the questions and truly hearing him out. It’ll be edited only to cut long pauses if it’s too long of a video.
Ocean Vuong Response
“Here’s our only chance to preserve our eternity of mind, like a thumb print”
Ocean Vyong grew as a Vietnamese refugee who struggled adjusting to the American way of life by never really adjusting, but by making it his own.
Vyong recalled horrific moments trying to remember the motions to recite the American Pledge of allegiance and admitting he still can’t remember it.
As a US-born citizen, I never realized the difficulty of being a child in a place far away from home. With slight dyslexia and having to learn an entirely new language as a young child, I couldn’t help but feel almost saddened to hear about Vuong’s childhood.
As sad as I was feeling, he was given such a talent and incredible mind that became his solace to dealing with a sort of rejection from the standard way of life of the States and of his family.
His solace wasn’t at first easy to achieve. He admitted to reading slowly and breaking down not only the meanings of the words, but the words themselves. This allowed him to reflect on how the words felt to him. In his poems, he used breaks to mimic the stutters, the feeling of speech in the mind and body. I never imagined a writer using this to represent his art, his life, or his stories.
His family, I can’t imagine how his family is life. Here they call him a “scholar” and to him, he felt they couldn’t really understand the work he does and the degree of understanding he has to the world around him. His continuing success won’t change the way he cherishes his family though. He discussed how he used a picture of his mom and aunt as the book cover but covered their eyes because it’s “artsy” but I feel it’s much more in depth than that. He truly wouldn’t be anything without the help of a family who did everything to love their child and keep close even through harsh times.
Hearing about how he doesn’t really understand anything as to why he writes poems is comforting although frightening to him. I feel this just keeps the pressures of life more at stray and just cherishing all that is in the world on a daily basis. He uses this as a way to stray from the “capitalistic” idea of writer’s block.
It was amazing to get the opportunity to spend a more intimate time with Vuong and his perspective of being a writer and experiencing life.
Questions for Ocean Vuong
In Eurodyce, can you explain what you mean by “ I thought love was real & the body imaginary,” because it’s not the typical view of how most people see love. What makes the body imaginary? Does it only become alive when love isn’t?
What does a gun signify for you? You bring up different images of guns and weapons in your poems and I wonder if they share a similar theme altogether or stand for their own in each of your poems.
How does being a child refugee affect your every day life and writings?
Distance Relationship Documentary
My spring break consisted of working, and visiting my boyfriend the moments I could because we both work full time, go to school full time, and live about 50 miles apart. I decided to film only one trip where the weather was beautiful because Iphone cameras really only work well when there is good natural light, otherwise they get all grainy.
I used the song Field Trip by an Australian duo called Good Try to capture an aspect of the relationship between the perspective of the filmmaker and the subject of the documentary. I had the song previously downloaded onto my phone.
I went the route of stacking clips less than 15 seconds apart. In this journey, you see I’m out of my house, walking to my car, getting ready for a ride, going for the ride, seeing him, then back at home.
I filmed in 5-10 minute increments of the ride. I’ve captured this by the little clock on the bottom right corner of the video so you can see the change of time and terrain of the ride.
Since the travel from north NJ to south is drastically different, I’ve captured parts of Newark then parts of the Garden State Parkway onto US 9 and so on. “You’ve only seen the ocean from your bedroom window.”The road does change up a lot traveling south,” is the line of the song where we get a glimpse of the subject and the ending of the video. At some point I change the angle of filming my side mirror which captures more spacious land and farm, then goes back to driving down the highway.
Once we meet the subject entirely instead of getting the glimpse, it’s not the cliche scene of opening a door but rather hopping on another car to travel some more with the subject now driving. We then hit a change of pace where we see the subject and a sunset all at once. You can tell there are closer ties between filmmaker and subject because there is a scene where they hold hands.
This all ends with the filmmaker heading back into their house at night.
I used IMovie to cut and piece all the clips together. Since each clip was originally 15 seconds, I felt it was too long of a showing in my case to keep it at 15 so I filmed more and just cut clips into shorter pieces. Music helped piece this documentary together because of the greater vibes and aesthetics that come off of it. I feel the hardest part was distinguishing the time differences in each clip, but could be noticed if paid closer attention to. Imovie doesn’t have the greatest tools to piece together and edit the actual quality of the clips but it gives off an aesthetic that can’t be replicated.
Tangerine
I had no idea what to expect when I read this film was shot with three Iphones. I immediately thought it would be a home video type of movie, or like the horror videos all that were “all” shot through small cameras. Instead though, I was blown away by the quality and breath-taking shots these filmmakers created.
From the first couple of scenes at the restaurant, I could tell this entire film’s was going to be over saturated through editing. The sound quality is great, but I know it all the characters would have been somewhat mic’d. I imagine the filmmakers shot some clips using tripods with an Iphone mount; which made certain scenes look incredible.
The natural, bright light make the film look even more surreal. With any mobile phone, we know the quality in any darken room is diminished. Also, when editing video in a darker spot, adding any sort of brightness can also add grain to the video so I believe the filmmakers used this as an advantage and went with an aesthetic that edited all the film to be grainy and it worked super well.
During Alexandra’s performance, the close up shots of her face lacked graininess and saturation. It was an extremely clear shot which differentiated completely from the rest of the film. It showcases a whole other stage personality that Alexandra has. It’s perfect how the filmmakers made this scene so much more different which opens this idea up for many interpretations. Even when Sin-Dee goes to the bathroom with Dinah, we revert back to the graininess and saturation but the shot was always clear during the performance. They did a great job capturing different angles of Alexandra including the shot above.
All the scenes had much thought. They corporate basic but necessary rules for filmmaking. The use of the rule of thirds make certain scenes much more eye-catching then just putting a character in the middle of the screen. Another is capturing dialogue between characters pretty well without too many short cuts of one person talking then the other. The filmmakers made each of the shots pretty long, for example, the one hungover man in the taxi talking about his name and the filmmakers filmed the man and the driver in the same space for a good portion of the conversation. The over the shoulder shots make it make it for a more interesting to watch. We feel as if we’re in the movie with them because everything flows incredibly well.
The camera isn’t steady all the time, like when Sin-Dee finds out she’s been cheated on and dashes out of the restaurant the camera zooms past her as she walks fast towards her friend.
When she does find Dinah at the motel, everything is incredibly fast as she drags this women out. The camera is shaky but adds to the feeling of being in the film with them. It incorporates another scene that is going at the exact moment. Alexandra is at the car wash with Razmik while Sin-Dee is tossing Dinah around. The scene at the car wash is still and doesn’t have much going on yet when Dinah is crying and screaming, everything about those shorter clips are bouncier and shakier.
The pan over shots in the household of the Razmik household during Christmas has an archival feel. It’s as if someone from the family picked up a camera and was recording just for memories sake. We followed them around the house as they were eating dinner as a family. It felt a bit gloomy because of the darkness of the household with the lack of bright, Christmas colors; especially coming off the tree. You could only tell it’s Christmas by the tree.
While the plot is coming all together in the end with the fighting inside and outside of Donut Time, the clips are shorter and include many different angles, all seamlessly edited together.
If I hadn’t known the videos were shot with Iphone cameras, I would have never guessed. It takes a great cameraperson to understand how to construct well quality shots, but that doesn’t always take expensive equipment. It was a great movie to see.
God is Bind & I Am Not Braille By Ema and Jaymi
From this image, we see a woman sitting on a stool in a church looking out a window. We don’t see her face but we see a hand with a ring on her back.
I’m not entirely sure what I see when I look at this besides the actual braille on the image. To me, it kind of mocks the idea of blindness because seeing braille doesn’t give us a clear idea of what is being said; so here we are blinded by our own sight. We don’t know if the hand on her back signifies a happy marriage or a broken marriage. It’s all in black in white but it’s not a clear message.
This could be in reference to violence in a marriage because it was a marriage under God in a church. This woman could have had blind faith but now realizes it’s in her own hands to deal with this event as well. This challenges the idea of blind faith but again, it isn’t really clear on what stance this is on. If anything, this could be a same-sex marriage but there is no way of knowing.
The braille I feel is the least impacting portion of the picture, because there is no way of knowing what it is unless you study braille.
Julia and Drew: “Pick Your Favorite"
Looking at this first glance, I almost scrolled over it. I didn’t know there was actually more text on the bottom until I looked it over again. The background was a bit distracting as well, when I feel the animals themselves should have been the center of attention too.
I feel the “to survive” is also oddly put. “Pick one!” is a statement of itself and adding “to survive” is just strange. If the group had just left, the final phrase, it would leave more of an impact to the audience because it directly states the reason for the images.
If the images were side to side, I feel it would have been easier to find the final line.
My question is why the polar bear cub vs the tiger cub? We know climate change is ruining the arctic but are tigers really being affected? Maybe if they showed another animal in the endangered species list, or one that is in horrifying habitat, it could have left more room for thought for the audience. Climate change is extremely looked over so possibly more exotic animals could leave an imprint to the audience’s mind.
Chronicles of Cancun
This is another quote in reference to Trump. Trump is referring to Mexican immigrants. He believes they’re coming over bringing drugs, crime, poverty, etc.. causing our country to become worse. This image shows a young group of people in a bar with the caption “Chronicles of Cancun.”
The caption is the only reference of knowing where these people could be because if it’s just looked at by itself, it just appears like young students partying. The negative effect of the image makes it strange and creepy to look at; even though these people appear to be having a fun time.
The actual quote is a bit hard to read as well because it’s hidden in the corner and I feel it should be bigger cause it’s important to the image. It’s good to be distracted by the image, but the audience may just feel lost in the image; it’s really hard to tell what these people are doing.
Deceiving
Nikko & Emmanuel
I’m not sure who the photograph is, or the significance to the quote. I know the quote is off of Kennedy’s inaugural address but this group dated this to 2016, which is pretty sweet but I feel this quote could be relevant to everyone all the time. The black, white, and red are incredibly strong but again, I’m at lost for words because of both the man and the caption, “deceiving.”
Blinders - Text Art by Joy Awadalla and Sahil Chonkar
The biggest words on the screen are Violent, Gun, Welfare, Ghetto. Every other word, including criminal, is all a smaller and harder word to read from afar. What this group did was pretty neat in the sense that they are showing what a cop views when looking at someone of a different race, in this case, a black male boy. The surprising thing is that the boy appears to be educated, and not poor. The screen are split colors which is a bit funky to the eye. I'd rather see a poor, black boy cause then it challenges the audience. Most cops are unconsciously biased in their views of POC; so if confronted with someone other than white, they will think more negatively of them. I feel it’d be more of an impact in this case, rather than have a successful, looking boy.