Angel de Quinta's Stage Door Assigment

 The three excerpts I chose were Michael Buble's Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Jennifer Hudson's Push Da Button, and Gwen Verdon's If they could see me now. I was excited to watch Michael Buble's video, but it was not the first time I have seen it. He is one of my favorite artists. The setting of his song was in a class building with flowers, candles, and a Christmas tree. He is wearing a suit and the orchestra behind him is also very fancily dressed. The setting is classy but still upbeat and reminds me of a very happy time, Christmas. Push Da Button involves more people acting and dancing. The cast is funny and happy and gives off the mood of humor. The dancing and costumes are much less formal. Michael Buble was the only one in the spotlight, but Jennifer Hudson has around fifteen people interacting and sharing the spotlight with her. Gwen Verdon's is more similar to Michael Buble's in the way that she and, "friend", for lack of a better word are very dressed very fancy and with a lot of class and the spotlight stays primarily on Gwen Verdon. However, If They Could See Me Now, has the same sense of humor and mood that Push Da Button. 

Mise en Scene Assignment

I think that mise-en-scene is fascinating in my favorite movie, Little Women. The most creative and unique part of mise-en-scene is surprisingly the lighting. This is something I had never even considered in other movies, but stood out to me in Little Women. Based on the main characters, the four sisters, they each had their own, "color". This meant that this color was the one they primarily dressed in, which impacts their costumes. However, the producers even used a different shade color for filming based on the characters. Meg's was green, Beth's was brownish pink, Amy's was light blue, and Jo's was red and yellow. This provides depth to the movie in a way I had never seen before. These, "colors", affected costumes, lighting, and actors. Some might even say it affected decor and props. The impact these, "colors" had on the film is indescribable but it helps us understand the tone, mood, and characters much better. The producers also used decor, props, and costumes to show the time period in which this movie was set. They include parasols as props to show the style of dressing and time period. They used old paintings and furniture as decor to show the 1800's decorating style. They used clothes such as long layered dresses for the women as costume's that showed the 1800's dressing style and what was considered proper. 

Howard Goodall Assignment

 The first person that I learned about in Howard Goodall's video that I found fascinating was Claudio Monteverde. I am a big fan of romance and drama and he specialized in making, "heartbreaking love songs" and, "dramatic music". I thought it was interesting that he was the greatest genius in that era but I had never heard of him. I also liked learning about how well he knew the audience, what they liked and enjoyed. I find that the vast majority of very successful people get that way by understanding other people, not necessarily by being the best in their field. Another person I was interested to learn about was Richard Wagner. His opera's were exploited a hundred years after he made them by the Nazis and Mussolini. I am happy he was not alive to see this. It is sad to see opera, "caught between propaganda and conspiracy." It seems like opera would be the one place politics would not have to be caught up in, it could just be there to provide entertainment and happiness for the audience. I knew 150 words was not enough to cover everything in this video so I decided to focus on the two people/things that stood out to me the most.

Madame Butterfly

 The animation of Madame butterfly was shockingly very easy to follow. Overall, I actually liked it better then the play. I typically enjoy animations and love seeing the short film ones. I think they are fun, easy to understand, and typically can get across their point in a shorter time period then films or plays. This animation of the Madame butterfly had an interesting effect on me. I did not think it portrayed the emotion sadness as well as an actual play. Some of the parts were actually funny to me because the animation itself looked funny. The naked dolls and all the different kids in the car made me laugh out loud. While this is not the same effect that the play had on me, it actually made me enjoy the animation more. Although, I would say I enjoyed the animation more then the play, it was for different reasons. The play felt more emotional and sad. The animation was more fun to watch and easier to follow. I would watch these for different purposes, but enjoyed them both.

Extra Credit - Sacrifice

 When I heard about castration for the sake of singing, it was shocking. However, Professor Cifuentes put it in perspective when she listed a few things that we have in today's world that is comparable to that amount of suffering in order to be the best at something. This assignment we are supposed to think of a profession in today's society that is comparable to the suffering that opera singers went through. I am taking this assignment a little more personal. My brother is a football player at USF. Just last week in their game against Notre Dame, his wide receiver got hit so hard he was knocked out. The week before that, my best friend on the team tore his ACL, MCL, and meniscus. These are just a few examples of the injuries these players go through to try to be the best, get their education paid for, or try to get a job in football after. The wide receiver will have to deal with the repercussions of a really bad concussion for possibly the rest of his life. My best friend will have to get a knee replacement before he is 30 years old. Their sport and sacrifices will impact their bodies and them for the rest of their lives.

Extra Credit - Gothic Cathedral

     A Gothic Cathedral has many characteristics that qualifies it as a Cathedral. These include stained glass windows, arches, flying buttresses, bishops chair, ribbed vaults, gargoyles, has to house a relic, and has to be built in the shape of a cross. I was most surprised to learn that so many characteristics were required to qualify a church as a Gothic Cathedral. The feature I was most surprised by was the fact that it has to be built in the shape of a cross. The pictures that went along with this were really neat and cool to see. I'm not sure you would even notice this shape unless you saw it from above. The most random feature to me was the gargoyles. I'm not sure how this relates to Gothic Cathedrals and it seems like such a minor feature.

Native America to Hagia Sophia

     Starting our journey in Native America, we learned about the Native American's different religions, story telling, and different types of housing. We saw videos of Native Americans worshiping by chanting, dancing, and singing. They mostly did this in the open air. We then traveled to the Theatre of Dionysus in Greece. This was used for religious and entertainment purposes and could seat 17,000 people. We then traveled to the Roman Circus in the ancient Roman Empire. Here was a massive increase in the amount of people attending, jumping to 250,000. It was used for sports, horse and chariot racing, and venationes. The Roman Colosseum was next up. This was the culture and building I knew the most about before watching the videos. It was used for gladiatorial combats and wild animal fights and could seat 55,000. Lastly, we traveled to the Hagia Sophia. This was different then the other buildings because it was indoor. It was the largest cathedral that has ever been built and was used for religious and entertainment purposes. During our journey we got to see a wide range of architecture styles and different cultures. What saddened me the most was the Roman Colosseum because so many humans and animals died there. The most impressive to me was the Hagia Sophia because of the interior architecture and the way it was separated by gender and class.

Extra credit - New idea

 Although, I learned several new facts about the Theatre of Dionysus, the Roman circus, the Roman Colosseum, and Hagia Sophia. The most interesting fact to me is that the Roman Circus could hold 250,000 people. Professor Cifuentes pointed out this is 10x the amount of people that can fit into Amalie Arena, and 5x the amount of people that can fit into the Buc's stadium. It's fascinating to think about the traffic pattern and the distance people had to travel to get to the Roman Circus. How many people were trampled trying to get to their seats or leaving?

Extra Credit - Violence and Movie Gore

     Violence is something that I have always hated. I hated the scary video games growing up, any sort of conflict, and movies filled with blood and fighting. Violence, war, and death are some of the worst parts of life. I understand the importance and life lessons of violent movies, but I only want to see them if they have significant moral and historical lessons. I do not think we should desensitize ourselves to the evil in the world and there are multiple studies that show this happening because of the violent TV shows, movies, and video games that surround us. These TV shows, video games and movies portray war and violence as "tough" and "manly".  Thus influencing children and young adults to view these violence and fighting as normal and common. This puts the idea in children from a young age that them fighting and using violence to communicate is the same as them being "tough". These are just a few of the reasons why I think that violent video games are completely useless, and movies should be violent only if absolutely necessary.