Senior Footprint Project

Introduction

My senior footprint video was created with the intention of telling a story with as little use of words possible. I created a video showing my journey through high school which I learned in the past 4 years. Choices, was my topic as I demonstrate using lighting and angles to tell a high school story of the common choices every high schooler will have to make. Lighting and Angles give my video the emotional connection and say the words that aren’t heard.

Side Lighting

Rodrigo Cunha: Senior Footprint Project

Within this scene the use of lighting started off the story as it shows an angel and a devil opposing on my shoulders. The use of side lighting is essential to demonstrate the two choices where half of my face is covered in shadows and the other half is bright, this creates a conflicted, mysterious, or dangerous look to the subject. Side lighting allowed me to go wherever I really want to with the video because it was used in the very beginning of the video, as this is a very relatable topic the viewer understands the conflict in this story where every student has had to make similar decisions.

High Angle

Rodrigo Cunha: Senior Footprint Project

This scene successfully uses high angle photography to bestow an overlooking character on me, as I had made a bad decision and listened to the devils conscience I was caught cheating. The use of high angle photography is this scene gives the audience a sense of the subject being weak, powerless, and trapped as in this case the angered teacher looks much bigger and powerful is looking down at me. The audience is effected by high angle as they feel my fear and resent the bad decision I made and almost root for me to change.

Non-Diegetic Sound

Rodrigo Cunha: Senior Footprint Project

This scene was the climax in my movie where I decide to make the change and listen to my good conscience and do the correct thing, the change in song to a more exciting happy song tells the audience something has changed and becomes a more vibrant mood in the video. The use of non-diegetic sound sets a reaction and a mood from the audience where the characters in the movie can’t here but it helping the acting tell the story. This clip of the movie had the best use of the non diegetic sound as within the scene the use of high key lighting was also used to create a happy, and joyful change in the movie as it had all been black and white and downhill.

Conclusion

The use of many different techniques helped me achieve my goal of telling my story of how the choice of doing the correct thing is going to make you happier than doing the wrong thing. Where the system of high school is very hard to make your way around kids normally believe that they can and end up struggling more than the person who isn’t cheating, fighting, or sleeping in. The use of angles, lighting, and non-diegetic sound in my movie told the full story which began with me making bad decisions and being unhappy, afterwards flashing back to the beginning and showing exactly what it would be if I had been good. The theme of my story accomplished my goal of showing each viewer how high school is made of decisions and you can make it easy or make it hard by doing right or by doing wrong.

Suburban Culture

Introduction to Suburban Culture

Suburban culture has come through a lot of change over time, the beginning of this culture consisted of suburbs being a home for migrant workers and the poor. Originally the really wealthy wanted to be as near to the city as possible, now the rise of the automobile and spacious quiet, gated communities make suburbs a wealthy destination.

The Suburban culture is very different from other cultures because the people who are nothing alike, some believe that suburban culture is a refugee for malice due to the privacy of the lifestyle. Matt Lassiter explains the element of hidden lifestyles and the history of how suburbs are a place where people caricature and get away with the idea that your doing something deep and profound. 

A Brief History

The rein of the suburbs began in the mid 19th century where the sheer pressure of population drove cities to expand outwards in cities like London and industrial towns like Manchester. Once the outskirts of the cities were home to many people, the concept of ideology within the society developed. The culture has four major ideologies of suburbs, Evangelicalism: Where corruption in the city occurs in the suburbs it is considered a “moral refuge”. Sanitarianism: Hygienic alternative suburbs are considered “clean aired”. Romanticism: Detached residences and private gardens are considered much more desirable than the close quarters in the city. Class Segregation: Cities became manufacturing centers filled with industrial workers and suburbs were seen as exclusive retreats. These four ideologies set up a unique group of people with its own special diversity within this culture. 

Photo by Daniel Barnes on Unsplash

Social, Structural, or Religious Aspects of the Suburban Culture

Social aspects of the modern suburban culture are very versatile. People from around the world live in the suburbs of big cities, which allows social groups of people from diverse religions to meet and become close friends and improve the atmosphere of the culture in general. Due to the element of working from home, men and women get very isolated from the outside world and form social groups as well as coach their youths athletic events and support the team also known as “team moms”. Religions within the suburban culture as a population is very diverse but christianity is very openly practiced. Children ranging from pre-school to high school have the option of attending christian schools where they will study the religion every day along with curriculum of a normal school.

Language

Individuals who grow up in the suburban culture speak of the suburb they live in as a very separate community, such as Windermere whenever someone mentions the city it is mentioned as “downtown”. Most suburbs are also reasonably small with a few big neighborhoods and gated communities, they use the names as a general location. Also something that is very common as a point of destination is the use of names such as the only mcdonald’s in that suburb people, use that as a broad location. In contrary to the big city where there might be three or four of the same fast food restaurant in that area.

Conclusion

I chose this culture because I have lived in both a suburb and the big city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I wanted to learn and figure out the culture I have been living in for the past nine years. I believe the element of Tranquility really helped me understand how the Suburban culture may not be for everyone, as well as how this tranquility and privacy might make a suburb a good place for unjust actions to occur. Matt Lassiter really opened up my view, when he stated that the feeling of something happening that is deep and profound. Many people moved to suburbs to get away from the malice that has been known to happen in the city, but suburbs aren’t as different as people think. The American way of life is very competitive, and suburbs allow the people to show what they have achieved such as big houses, fancy cars, private schools, and living in a neighborhood among many wealthy people. This ideal has grown suburbs tremendously in my opinion because it allows people to show off.

Controlled

How controlled?

The internet has turned a large majority of the world into an unseen dictatorship, where people are influenced by anything on the internet. An untraceable addiction where the giants such as Facebook, google, Instagram can flip an election. This is a powerful resource used for malice as well for well being. The article Mind Control: It’s Happening to You Right Now speaks on the world today and how some of the giants of the technology world got so giant.

It’s Happening to You Right Now

Its not only happening to you right now according to Wayne Chilicki in the article Mind Control “When it comes to targeting kid consumers, we at General Mills follow the Procter & Gamble model of cradle to grave. We believe in getting them early and having them for life.” Mind controllers in other words a lot of our every day uses of technology, use a field called Captology where technology is used to change peoples attitudes and behaviors. Its a world of dictatorship used by humans on humans.

Photo by Arthur Osipyan on Unsplash

Feed

The novel Feed  by M.T. Anderson is a long step ahead in the future, an exaggerated and futuristic version of people being controlled by technology. The book begins with a couple guys taking a casual trip to the moon and find some girls to go along with them, they found out the moon on this school break was a cool place to go to through an advertisement. They arrive at the moon and didn’t look much like the pictures, but continued on following ads and technology to shape their trip.

Conclusion

The article Mind Control is a very basic beginning to what the book Feed suggests in the climax of technology being in control. Mind manipulation through use of an everyday necessity is something that can’t be stopped anymore, the study of captology is a giant in the money market and it was used on many of the tools we use every day such as google. Google can flip an election without notice and that is all through the use of controlling people through the use of technology. The technology that people used to cherish as a facilitator is now what controls them to sway one way or the other.

 

 

People Gone Bad

Responsibility

The government’s intelligence and resources make it the most powerful and potentially the most dangerous organization in the world. The government “accidentally” creating a zombie virus outbreak would make them completely responsible. They have to be accountable for their actions if a government run corporation is assigned to experiment with viruses and try to change the way people are for instance in Serenity. 

The government attempts to create world peace and experiment by releasing a peaceful virus which is exposed to millions of people, one thing goes wrong and it became a rage virus where people turned into brainless killers. The natural flow of humanity shouldn’t really be changed through science although it seems like a good alternative, there is a lot of room for chaos. In the film Serenity the main authority was fully responsible for the outbreak and released the whole galaxy into a war, not only with the zombies but in between people as well. 

The article “Zombie Virus” Possible via Rabies-Flu Hybrid? is not futuristic, this can happen in our world today. The closest thing that the world has seen today to a zombie virus is rabies, this infection if it spreads as a Flu Hybrid can spread a major “rage virus”. Although it will effect a lot of people it would have to become much more contagious and the only way that can happen is through government experimenting. “Thanks to pet vaccinations people rarely contract rabies in the United States today.” This really reduced the threat a long time ago of a rage virus, why would government want to test and learn more about what has been almost completely eliminated. 

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Going too far

Too much of something is never good, the Zombie Virus article states under section “engineered zombie virus possible?” that theoretically it is possible to engineer a zombie virus by mixing different contagious viruses. This would be the point where I feel would be too far, why would government create something that could jeopardize humanity for the sake of almost useless knowledge?

Serenity is a perfect example of where officials past the point of going to far, it is the aftermath of the experiments and basically turned the universe into a war zone. Releasing a virus into the open world as it transformed people into dead killers, the natural flow of humanity should not be changed and although there are a lot of problems with aggression and the different types of people in the world, killing everyone accidentally is not the solution and I believe we have enough information as of right now on what shouldn’t be done and that the experiments need to stop, because there is no point in pursuing problems. 

 

Player One is Ready

The first 93

The first 93 pages of the book Ready Player One demonstrates the life of a teenager Wade Watts. The greatest video game ever created turned into a competition not to only those who used video games but to the whole world. A competition intended for the world of the future worth hundreds of billions of dollars, after the death of the creator of this video game who turned into one of the richest after his creation announced that whoever finds the “easter egg” had all his riches.

The world had come to a state that no one imagines today, where the earth has overpopulated to the rim and people are fortunate if they find a job, the alternative however to life for people of all ages was the OASIS. Halliday’s ultimate creation. Where this game was a life on a different planet in a video game console, everything that the world couldn’t supply anymore the game supplied, education, sports, movies, books, it was a real world.

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Utopian Society

OASIS is an escape of the future into a different future. Imagine a world within a gaming console, that is used as jobs for people, daily activities, all of your life essentially other than food and where you sleep is in that console.

In Wade Watts case like majority of others in the world, escaped for a reason into the virtual world. There were many reasons for Wade to stay into this virtual reality but the main reason was because of who he was and his background. His parents died when he was young and his guardian which was now his aunt, he wasn’t welcome in her room and couldn’t bring anything of value home or she’d take it and sell it. He spent most of his time and slept in his hideout, this is where he kept the computers that he went on for the OASIS.

Most people who lived in the stacks didn’t have jobs at all, the future overpopulated as ever made life really hard for people without jobs. The OASIS was the nearest thing to a good life possible. “The school strictly enforced dress code, and required that all avatars be human, and of the same age and gender of the student.” (Pg. 28) The school had rules like the ones in the real world. That means that everyone even with all this overdose in people still get educated and rules are still taught and enforced and if not the students are disciplined. The real world was not a good place anymore it turned into a wasteland and it was overcrowded. “The real public school system, the one run by the government, had been an underfunded, overcrowded train wreck for decades.” (pg.31)

 

Its Real

Ernest Clyne makes the future feel like technology is the new living. Lives are in technology literally! Big games today that are free roam, large maps games allow you to create an avatar give it a name and live a very basic scaled life within that game. This book is that concept in a much larger scale.

The book up to the point thats been discussed is a Utopia in a sense of the future. It is very unhealthy because things like, exercise don’t really exist, and food is all in packets, pollution fills the air. But it allows people to almost go back in time where, they can enjoy the little things such as mrs. Gilmore go to church and Wade can hangout with his friend, and can get educated although he has no money. This utopia isn’t for the time being because its not a perfect world for the humans of today, but maybe someday it will be.

Future in the Making

The New World

Since the beginning of time humans have been creating the future and facing challenges. Inventing fire, Agriculture, The first modern solar calendar was invented. The world kept innovating and increasing in population. Now we are in the new generation where we are facing a new adversity created by humans that might be the toughest one to overcome for the general population.

Robots are taking over many jobs that the general population specializes in and large firms and companies support the movement into this technological world. The movement is economically beneficial to them, robots mess up less than humans and don’t require wages. The question is why are humans so special?

Photo Credit: Katya Austin at Unsplash.com 

Education

Stephen Sanger the chairman for Wells Fargo believes that U.S jobs are at “high risk” of automation and as many as 38% of U.S jobs can be taken over. The country that everyone always seem to fit into and make a steady living regardless of the education and skill level is in a dark path back into the cold war.

Areas with low education the U.S is more vulnerable than any other nation in the world, for instance the financial and insurance sector has a much higher possibility of being automated than the British ones because the American finance workers are less educated.

The Truth

Although this all sounds overwhelming automation in my opinion will be slowed down and the situation is very “hyped up”. A such thing would never happen due to economic decisions, sometimes having a robot might be more maintenance, and more expensive than a human with a wage.

The government could never allow all companies turn into a monopoly, they could impose high taxation on firms that are automated and make it so they would eventually start giving jobs to people. The government could also start turning this problem into an advantage, where people all still have jobs but with better education and with robots working where people are under qualified for.

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Conclusion

To answer the essential question of why are humans so special? It is because we as humans are always going to be competitive and are always going to adapt and change into different circumstances. It is so simple to think of automation taking over but it is also so simple to think that humans are going to give their jobs up and drop economically. Why would the government protect humans, and compete with the other economies and strive to be in the best shape economically to demonstrate the best living.   Automation is going to be one of the best human creations ever and will help the economy strive like never before.