"Release" short film by your's truly!

I just finished a short film project entitled "Release." Just thought I'd post it here for anyone who was curious!

Liking and Tweeting

In this age of technology, it's really amazing to think about how businesses have grown because of it.  Creative businesses in particular have benefited from social networking, especially entrepreneurs.  Fashion designers, artists, and musicians have all benefitted from marketing themselves online, gaining a buzz.  Filmmakers in particular use twitter and Facebook for marketing their films, especially if it is independently made.  I come across so many twitter pages for production companies and various films, trying to gain popularity, or just encourage people to check them out, bringing them closer to buzz-worthy status, and therefore already have a steady audience when their film does come out.

"Candles," for example, which I posted about not long ago, is encouraging people to like their facebook page in order to release their trailer.  Once they hit 1,000 likes, they will release the trailer.  This not only gets people to get to know the story they are producing, but also allows them to get excited for the trailer as well.  Win, win.

I just think there's something to be said about social networking, especially since it is relatively new, yet so powerful.

Thoughts? =)

Illustrations

So I am sitting in my University's cafe writing this post. I feel like I real blogger.

I have been following this illustrator, Genevieve Godbout for a while now. She's an amazing illustrator and has a few books out! All of her illustrations are done in color pencil, emanating a soft, innocent quality from all of her works. Her blog, "Rose-A-Petits-Pois" is beautiful! Check her out =)

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Talk About Feel-Good Music

I recently discovered the country duo "Florida Georgia Line."  And by recently I mean today.  And I felt compelled to write something about them.

Growing up, I was adamantly against country music.  I don't know what it was, but I hated it.  I couldn't get into it.  But when Taylor Swift started to come on the radio more often, I found myself singing along, and slowly began to enjoy the twang and soul of country music.  And now I love it.

My friend played "Cruise" by Florida Georgia Line and it was immediately stuck in my head.  It made me feel so good and happy and just wanting to ride around in a car, windows down, singing loud, with sunglasses on.  A good tan would be nice too.  There was something about their music that just made me feel so happy, which is why I'm writing this post.

If you haven't heard them before, check them out.  You won't stop smiling.

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"The Music Film"

Interesting concept and take on a music video. I love the dialogue and creativity, very cool contrast and beauty of telling the story of the song. Give it a look, it's cool!

Romance, by IRV

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Candles promo!

So this new series is coming out. I posted the link to the teaser below, but obviously it doesn't look as pretty because it's just a link. So this is going to be my more official and more aesthetically pleasing post. Enjoy =)

So Candles is a new series. It's independently produced (and you know I love my independents) by Finding Cinema, based out of Philadelphia. Here's their synopsis-

The show tells the story about humanity in a dark, fantasy world. It seems so interesting and the independent yet professional quality really works for this kind of story.

What will you do when tomorrow morning, the sun doesn't rise?

Enter Edith Solstice, therapist by day and modern-day witch by night. She's struggling to keep the threads of her relationships together: a suicidal patient is unraveling fast. Her little sister Jenna is losing faith in her and her younger brother Yaden has misplaced blame and scorn on her shoulders.

And then the sun doesn't rise the next morning. All the fears and unknowns she and everyone around her have must be faced. This is amplified when these fears become tangible things.

Engage into a story about overcoming shortcomings and disillusionment, living to be the one who saves the ones around you, and coping with self-disappointments as Edith finds her own light to bring her world back to normal.

Because they've all been in the dark all along.

So follow, reblog, and like them to help them out. I'm excited for the release and I'll be sure to keep updates coming on here! 

Facebook-https://www.facebook.com/candlesweb

Twitter- @candlesweb

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New Miniseries

Below is a 30 second teaser of this new miniseries coming out soon called "Candles." It's independently produced by Finding Cinema, out of Philadelphia. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9p6Nx_I18U

I can't even

Life has a way of making everything crappy in the past couple of days. Well, if I'm being honest, it's probably more like this whole semester. Or year. Yeah, year. But I'm trying to be optimistic. And bing e watching "awkward" all day has inspired me to blog about it.

Without going into too much detail, a year full of heartbreak followed by a huge amount of work along with getting in trouble for trivial things that honestly don't matter in the real world, has, to put it simply, put in a bad mood. I'm not saying that breaking the rules is okay, but it kind of is given the circumstances they were broken under. I guess it doesn't really matter. I'm graduated in two months, and that guy I was hung up on will be far, far away, and all these stupid punishments will be over with. I just don't want to leave with a bad taste in my mouth.

It'll get better though, right? It always gets better. I just wish I wasn't feel like the world is against me. I'm trying not to be so dramatic, but it can be hard not to fall into that trap when it feels like the world is against me.

Goodness it's hard to type on an iPad.

It just sucks when you try to be a good person and do the right things and the smallest moment of irresponsibility is how people will see you forever. Don't the other parts count? I'd say I'm a rule follower 99 percent of the time, but that one little damn percent will get in there. It'll get in there when your friend gives you a wonderful gift of alcohol from St. Croix for your birthday and since it's over 14 percent alcohol content, you're in trouble. It'll get you when you don't feel good at night and the person you call is a boy instead of a girl, and that's against the rules after 2am, and it has the power to determine how you live at school until you graduate.

That little one percent will get you. I hate that little one percent. Especially when I was so innocent in both instances of misbehaving.

To whoever read this, thanks for letting me vent. I realize my problems aren't the biggest in the world, but when it's what you're up against all at once, they can feel like monsters.

Spring Breakers. Let's do this.

So yesterday I saw the highly anticipated, super underground (yet still containing an all-star cast) film, "Spring Breakers." I have to say, I was blown away.

"Spring Breakers"

Directed by Harmony Korine

Muse Productions

First, this movie is different in every sense of the word. The first thing I noticed, technically, was how the movie used color. It uses color to portray feelings. Things are neon and bright when the characters are feeling wild, and they are duller and more monochromatic when the characters don't. This really connected me to the emotions of the characters. I felt happily crazy when they did and I felt like I was in their insane world of partying and drugs. (SPOILER) But I felt worried and scared when they got arrested. So, artistically, this film got it right. It used film and cinema as a form of art again.

The message that "Spring Breakers" is sending is a little harder to talk about. I don't think it was at all endorsing the lifestyle that these girls were living, but rather just portraying it. I thought it was a very accurate description of what can happen when you're young and feeling experimental. When you feel unbelievably free, thinking nothing bad could happen. Their minds were in this ethereal world they never wanted to leave, and it spins completely out of control. Basically, don't get in too deep or you may not be able to stop yourself.

Another aspect that I found extremely interesting wast the combination of these characters. Selena Gomez portrays a naive girl, but feeling a desire to experience new things and find herself. She grounds the story, while the other girls certainly take the audience off the deep end. When Selena Gomez wasn't in the scene, I definitely felt less safe, so to speak. I felt like something bad had more potential to happen. She was the voice of reason. She was the only one who actually got worried about the things happening around her. Not to mention, her performance was amazing.

Overall, this film was great. I almost can't even touch on James Franco's character because of how disturbing he was. But of course, that was the point. I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole day, almost having to recover from the experience.

Spring Breakers is certainly an acquired taste, but it is an amazing portrayal of cinema as art. It's disturbing, it's uncomfortable, it's scary, and it's free. And it makes sure you feel all of these things all at the same time. So be prepared for an overload.

"Rust and Bone," Not Worth It

So I just saw the movie "Rust and Bone" with Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard, and I have to say, I was pretty disappointed.  I'm a huge fan of Marion, so I automatically assume anything I see with her in it I'm going to love, but this movie just didn't do it for me.

I can't really give a synopsis of the movie because I don't really know what the plot was. A woman and a man meet one night at a club, the man was the bouncer, and he takes her home after she was hit in the face. He leaves his number with her. She's a whale trainer, and she loses both of her legs one day at a show. I would say this drives the narrative, as the two become closer because of this accident, but then the story goes nowhere. The protagonist, the man, is a pretty unlikeable guy throughout the whole film, and I don't see any development in him until the very end, and even then, there wasn't much of a resolution to anything. But there wasn't much happening for a resolution to happen. 

I really wish I liked the movie, I was really excited to see it. But I found myself continuously waiting for something to happen that a narrative could follow, and instead, random things happened that led to nowhere.

New and Improved. Well, almost.

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while.

That's an understatement.

But I had this sudden surge to post again. I sadly abandoned this blog as school started again, and my time management failed miserably. I am thinking of revamping this whole thing and making it into something more specific. Before, I was sort of posting whatever I was thinking about that day, and there really wasn't much of a theme. So if that bothered anyone, my apologies. I hope you enjoy the new coming look better.

That being said, I think the idea of blogging has struck me again because there a lot of things I wish to say, but don't know who exactly to say them too. But I do want people to hear them. And I also want to just figure out how to say them. I've noticed that I have a lot of opinions, but I tend to keep them inside. When I'm asked about politics, I just don't give my thoughts and that's that. But I do want to say things! And I think here would be a good place to say them.

Also, I'm odd about how much time I spend finding things that I think could become really great and deserve attention. I'm very into indie movies, I love vintage records, riding my bike is one of my favorite things to do, and I have a weird obsession with the cuteness of birds. So, just saying, these things might come up.

My posts will be about art. And I mean that in every sense of the word. Film, fine art, books, music, everything. But all of these things will have a sort of underground or different feel to them that I think deserve some attention.

So there we are. Here we are. And I'm excited.

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S