Apples, Editing & Me Life

I Drew an Apple in French

It's been too long since I last blogged, so this is gonna be a long one. I drew an apple in French class today. The whole class did, that was the assignment.

         

             I don't really think I'm that good of an artist. I really enjoy painting and drawing, and I have been building a tiny portfolio of work on my own, just for kicks, but I never considered myself to be noteworthy. With someone like me you can obviously see that I have some fine art ability but not anywhere near the level of an AP art student. When you judge the art of someone who is terrible at it, you judge it on the idea, not on the skill it took to make the piece. With an advance artist, you judge their work too on the idea, but the emphasis is also on the technical aspect. I’m in the middle. This is an extremely awkward place to be in because you can’t exactly critique me on the quality of my work, and it’s too technically good that you can’t judge it 100% on the idea behind it. 

            So the assignment in French class was to draw an apple that Mr. Pasquier put in the center of the circle that we made with our desks. Everyone was at it, drawing their apples, finishing, and waiting for Mr. Pasquier to continue his lesson. But he didn’t stop us. He circled around the room, as if he was making the first of many check ups, so I figured that we’d be here a while and I’d just work on my apple until he stopped us. And so I decided that maybe the apple needed some shading, and maybe I could draw the shadow I saw. And I don’t even realize that Mr. Pasquier is stand right over me, watching me work. He stays there for a couple of minutes before calling time and he proceeds to pick up my work and shows it to the rest of the class. There is nothing better than a room of little ninth graders all saying in their loud whisper “wow that’s really good” and my favourite, “how did he do it?” Honestly the apple wasn’t too amazing, and asking how I did it seems uncalled for because it’s pretty obvious. I drew the exact same apple as you, only I decided to rub my finger on the lead. I then realize that I’m not really that much better at drawing than these kids, I’m just older. I couldn’t draw an apple when I was 13 or 14. It was only two years ago, but this is the first time for many of these kids actually examining things. You learn more as you get older. If you asked every kid in the school to draw apples, the senior kids would generally have a better apple than the freshman kids. Actually our school does exactly that. Doesn’t the freshman mural always kinda suck compared to the senior?

Editing

For some reason I’m really getting into editing. I realize that I can go for hours without stopping. It’s one of the only things that I can actually invest a significant amount o f time in without giving up. Even with books, I can’t sit down to read for more than half an hour at a time because my body and mind just ends up feeling bored.

            Our movie is coming out pretty awesome. Sarah is just the greatest thing to film for something like this. The expression she makes with her face, and the way that she manipulates the makeup to make herself look even creepier is so amazing. Really what makes the movie feel cool is how awesome Sarah looks. I am actually scared of this creature coming to get me.

            I feel like I have so much power when I edit. I can change the entire meaning of the movie by simply just moving a scene around. I can create scenes that never happened, and, especially in this silent film, I can even create conversations. I have editing experience now. It may be small but it’s enough that now I have learned things for filming. My group didn’t film enough. A lot of the time I have only one shot of something, and it isn’t the best one that we could have gotten, or it’s not at the right angle. I came into this problem so often that I ended up using some shots multiple times because other ones either didn’t exist or really look awful.

            We filmed the whole movie on our iPhones. Not to criticize Danielle C., but her iPhone camera is kinda crap. At least compared to the one in my phone. We have the same phone, but I think I probably take care of mine better, because the quality of the shots on my camera are so much better in comparison to what we got out of Danielle’s camera. It’s not really much of a problem because the movie is in black and white, and the fuzziness makes the whole thing feel like an old horror film, which is what the project is based on.

            There are no good fonts for the dialog cards. It’s something really minor, but it sets the tone of the movie, and having a doll convince a little girl to hang herself written in Comic Sans or Times New Roman just takes away so much. I want something creepy but not extravagant. It should look like something scary, but we’re not in a castle.

Me Life

             I'm trying to reorganize myself. I've been getting lazy these past few weeks and that's never something that's good. It's hard to get out of routine, good or bad, but even harder when it's bad. I come home and watch a season of Breaking Bad, and even though it's an amazing show and I don't blame it at all for my recent laziness, I have created a habit that isn't a good one to keep. I figured it out before, but I never made a mental note so it took some time to relearn that you need to keep yourself busy to avoid these lazy streaks. Editing has kept me busy recently, and the other day I painted this on piece of wood I had in my room. I even started sewing a new Adventure Time hat because I lost my old one. Just doing things like this turn my entire life around. I get used to being busy and then I suddenly realize that I always am.

           That's what happened to me over the summer. I had an internship, I took and intensive French class, and I had my SAT class, which ended up giving me much more stress than it should of, and you who know the story will understand what I mean. Everyday I'd come home so tired, some days I'd spend all in Manhattan. I'd spend an extra half hour getting lost in the subway just because, and when I got home I'd go to bed before I could even think of T.V. And on my days off, I'd watch only the news. That was a great time. I was so tired, but so accomplished. That is what I imagine college being like, only with more parties sprinkled in and less news. I'd take classes that I liked, and even the one's  I didn't, like my summer SAT class, wouldn't be so bad. I guess school just changed that or maybe I just lost the passion, but I know how to get it back, so I will.