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In the article by Nick Yee he discusses the many complex roles that players have taken on in MMORPGs. From ” geologists in Star Wars Galaxies” to “pharmaceutical manufacturers.” MMORPGs such as Star Wars Galaxies offer players numerous roles to fulfill without directly steering each and every player to one distinct role. MMORPGs can act as an escape from the real world and provide different roles for players to play that they would never be able to do in the “real world”. One question that came to mind reading this is how far does can this immersion and role playing go? Yee even talks somewhat about how far it has already gone in his article. He writes, “Interesting social and cultural phenomena also emerge in these environments. Weddings take on new cultural roles.” It is hard to think that virtual weddings have become a real thing, but to some people this plays an important role in their everyday lives.

This article about the different roles that players choose to play in video games made me think of several articles that I had read before about the unique roles that some players had taken on in various video games. For example in the game Elite Dangerous, there is a group of players known as the “Fuel Rats.” Travels far into the void of space to rescue players who have been stranded with no fuel. Here is a link to a good article that describes a mission the Fuel Rats took upon themselves that took them 42 real world days to complete.

Yee talks a little bit about in game marriage in his article. However, what if this in game marriage could lead over to a lifetime of happiness in the “real world”. For example this article discusses how the game World of Warcraft has brought couples together and even lead to lasting relationships and eventually marriage. It is pretty interesting considering that most of these couples met online without any idea about each other outside of the game. However, even with meeting this way they were able to develop a relationship and eventually become married.

Editing is definitely a skill that is learned and developed with much practice as well as natural ability. Every film director either has their own style of editing a film or they draw influences heavily from past movies that they have seen. One thing I wonder about these films is if in fact all the edits are done under the supervision of the director themselves, or if a special team of editors does most of the work and they just approve of the final project? One thing I found interesting in reading the Hubris-Cherrier chapter on editing was the fact that a movie can change completely because of the editing. A filmmaker may have one idea for a film when they are shooting and end up taking it in a whole other direction in post-production. As the Hubris-Cherrier chapter states, “Don’t stubbornly hang on to preproduction ideas that are not in the footage, or even if they are- let the movie evolve.”

When I was thinking of editing and the different types of editing techniques one scene that kept coming back into my mind was the opening scene in Apocalypse Now. This scene does an excellent job of using different dissolves and cuts to show that the main character is remembering things from his past wartime experiences. The editing style evokes strong emotions and allows the viewer to really understand what is going on in the scene.

Another scene that I thought perfectly fit while talking about editing was the phone scene from The Departed. This scene uses cuts to evoke a sense of suspense during the phone call. As well as a sense of urgency when one of the characters is packing up his things after the call takes place.

This reading from Hurbis-Cherrier essentially fully answers my question from the previous blog post that I had. I was confused as to how directors pick what types of camera angles and motions they will use in which scenes. However, after reading this chapter I now realize that directors make a “shooting script” in order to tell everyone working on the film exactly what they want in each specific scene.

Although I did not find any actually examples of movie “shooting scripts” I found an interesting series on YouTube called “Script to Screen”. This channel shows scenes from famous films with the script scrolling directly under the scene. This gives the viewer a good example of what was originally intended for the scene and how this scene might have changed in the final cut of the film. Here is a good example of this from the movie La La Land.

While continuing to research I again struggled to find any good examples of shooting scripts from well known films. However, I did find several final scripts and screenplays from famous films readily available online. Like this one from Pulp Fiction. It is very interesting to see how Tarantino originally planned the film to be like and how it turned out. However, I wish the script showed more of the shooting script and camera aspects in it. I am curious as to how Tarantino planned these scenes in his film.

After reading the Vansijil article on camera motion in film I began to think of the many shots in my favorite films and how the camera movement affects them. One question that I thought of throughout this reading was how do the creators of these films decide to use each of these motions in their films? Obviously the reading describes what effects these camera motions give the audience, but how exactly does one determine what motion to use at what time?

While reading I instantly began to think back on some of my favorite films and the shots that are in them. Although the reading gives the example of the handheld style from Pulp Fiction I believe an even better example of this style to be The Blair Witch Project. The Blair Witch Project uses an entirely handheld camera style to invoke a sense of urgency and “flusteredness” throughout the film. This style of movement makes the viewer feel on edge the entire movie.

The reading references many other camera movements, one of these being the circular shot. Possibly the best example in my opinion of a director who does circular shots well is Michael Bay. This seems to be one of his signature shots in his films. In Michael Bay films this is a lot of the time how you are able to tell if this is a key turning point in the film or a significant moment in which he wants to draw your attention toward. Here is an article discussing this signature shot in more detail.

I found the Bordwell reading on narration quite interesting in the fact that narration is possibly what I focus on first when watching a film. I enjoy many different styles of narration from restricted to unrestricted to films that fall in the in the middle. Bordwell writes “Unrestricted and restricted narration aren’t watertight categories but rather are two ends of a continuum. Range is a matter of degree.” I wonder if there are any movies that toy with this idea? Is there some film where a perfect mix of unrestricted and restricted narration are used?

This question might seem kind of abstract in a sense that these two seem to contradict each other. Since I cannot off the top of my head think of one of these examples I will provide what I believe to be good examples of restricted and unrestricted narration. For restricted narration the first movie that came to mind was The Usual Suspects. This film does a great job of not letting the viewer know “whodunit” until the very end of the movie. You see the film through the first person point of view of several different characters and are forced to piece together the narrative yourself.

There are many many films from an unrestricted or omniscient point of view. However, the first one that came to my mind was The Hunger Games. While watching this film you can see what is going on not only with the main character Katniss, but also with people outside of the arena in the Capital and other characters all throughout the arena.

As Matt Zoller Seitz discusses in his article “The Video Essay”, quoting audio and video texts have become something that is not only easy to do, but quite common in our digital environment. However, with this ability some new problems have arose. One of these being the issue of copyright infringement while copying a video clip. Seitz references the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in his writing he states, “(DMCA) requires that service providers remove any content that the copyright holder deems infringing.” However, my question is how do these copyright holders determine if a clip is infringing or not? If someone paints their media in a negative light then will they mark this as infringement?

The first thing that came to mind when reading this article were the many YouTube videos which I watch every day. In recent years YouTubers have had to get creative in using other people’s copyrighted work in their own videos. Here is a recent video explaining YouTube’s copyright laws and how to avoid copyright infringement on YouTube.

The next thing that I thought of when Seitz discussed video essays were another series of YouTube videos. These come in the form of CinemaSins a YouTube channel dedicated to telling you everything wrong with your favorite movies in a short period of time. So essentially all of these are video essays with a critique of the movie being shown and examples being given for what is wrong with the movie.