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Anna Clark
English 103
Video Evaluation

2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey was directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1968. The film is focused human evolution and the evolution of technology. The film has little dialogue and is filmed to take place in space. Because of the lack of dialogue, this film can be difficult to understand. This is done so viewers can use their own imagination to contemplate the meaning of the movie.
For the first several minutes of the film, it shows apes running around and interacting with one another. This is to symbolize the evolution of man. The first monolith appears in front of the apes and they all are hesitant about this large, tall, black, structure. The leader of the apes is the first to reach out and touch the structure. This is much like Adam and Eve eating the apple from the tree of knowledge. The ape touching the monolith is equivalent to Adam and Eve eating the apple. . Eventually, it shows an ape using a bone to smash the skull of an animal. This is the beginning of technology and the first form of technology displayed in the movie. The bone is thrown up into the air and the movie then jumps million of years and the bone dissolves into a satellite in space.
Once in space, in shows satellites orbiting around the earth. In the spaceship, it shows on of the passenger’s pen floating around. This is the next sign of technology. The movie continues on, and eventually HAL is born. HAL is a computer that is capable of almost everything a human brain is capable of. HAL expresses emotions just as a human would. HAL is the only “person” aware of the purpose of their mission to Jupiter. The other two astronauts on the spaceship are not aware of their mission.
HAL shows signs of concern about the mission, which is the first time HAL shows any signs of breaking down. Throughout the movie, more and more things happen that slowly show to imperfections of HAL. While the two astronauts are trying to talk in private without HAL hearing, HAL is able to read their lips and detect exactly what they are saying. The two men are talking about disconnecting HAL. While on of the astronauts was outside the spacecraft, HAL snaps his oxygen tube, thus murdering the man. The other living astronaut eventually disconnects HAL and kills him. The last spoken words in the film were spoken by HAL himself.
Once he kills HAL, he slowly starts aging and dying himself. This is to symbolize that he could not live without technology and the only way he was staying alive, was because of technology. Bowman eventually dies, but then is reborn as a space embryo. This child is reborn and travels through space without the help if technology.
This movie seemed very in depth and difficult to understand. It had many symbolic images of technology and how much humans rely on technology. I had to review many parts of the movie at least once in order to understand what Kubrick was trying to imply. I also was lost by the lack of dialogue in the film. I feel as if I would have understood the movie better if I were a little more aware of what was happening at each part.
However, The Internet Movie Database gave this movie 8.4 out of 10 stars. The movie reviewer said that it was one of the best if not the very best movie they had seen. They said that this movie had great special effects, and still to this day, over 40 years later, no movie has been made that has special effects like this. Another critic, Stephen Hunter said he was not fond of the movie. He said it was unrealistic and none of this ever actually happened in 2001.
2001: A Space Odyssey depicts the advancement in technology that our world has seen in the past millions of years. Some people are in awe of the film that Kubrick was able to create while others are simply not impressed by his work. Although it is not scientifically accurate, it shows how much the world of technology has improved.

Portfolio

I have never had to make a portfolio before. Actually, before reading this I had no idea how to even start a portfolio or what to put in it. I never knew that you could pretty much put anything you want in your own portfolio. Not only can you make a paper portfolio, but you can also create one online. For each thing you put in your portfolio, you need to provide a reflection on it and evaluate it. Creating a portfolio can be important for future jobs or positions.

criticing

For today, we were to read pages 120 through 126 in the Norton Field Guide to Writing. The reading opened up with a critic on the television show, Dawson's Creek. I thought this was a good way to start off the chapter because it was interesting for our age group but also portrayed to the topic. The reading talked about the proper way to evaluate text, or a movie, and so on. To me, this was very helpful because I have never known the proper way to evaluate. I think this chapter will come in handy when we are doing our movie evaluations because it breaks down everything you need to know about evaluations.

coming along great..

Today, my group and I met to work on our project. We worked on it for a couple of hours and made great progress. We just have a few finishing touches and we need to add the song. Our video is turning out much better than I expected. The pictures fit together great and we also added some other pictures in with facts about going green. This week we were able to have a nice break from class and therefore it gives us more time to work on our projects. Instead of going to class we worked on our project during class time. On Thursday we meet with Tess to go over what we have done so far and get her opinion on how our project is coming along so far.

progress

So, the progress on our group project is moving along nicely. At first we thought we were a little bit behind but I think were on track now. We have almost all of our pictures taken and we are going to finish up the rest today. Next week we are going to work on the actual video part and edit it and add words. My group has been working really well together and I think were all really excited to see how it turns out :))) I can't wait to see all the other groups videos too!

group project

So far I feel like our project is going really well. We have a good topic and a good idea of how we want to portray our topic. GROUP: Tess gave me some links of other groups that have done a going green type theme.
http://goinggreeninformation.weebly.com/
http://environmenta.weebly.com/
http://environmentissues1234.weebly.com/
I haven't had time to look through them all really well but I'll do that this weekend. If everyone else wants to browse through them too I'm sure we could get some good ideas or hints for our project. Let me know what you guys think!

from start to finish

In part 4 of the Norton Field Guide to Writing it talks about how to begin and end your writing. When beginning your writing, you need to have something catchy that makes your reader want to read further. Otherwise, your reader is going to loss interest immediately. Also, towards the beginning you need to state your thesis so your reader knows exactly what your writing about. Make sure you provide background information on your topic so your reader isn't immediately lost. Your ending needs to be well written since it is the last thing the reader reads and most likely this is what they will remember. The reader needs to know what to expect next while reading. So, it is helpful to provide them with the information that will be covered in each paragraph in the beginning of the paragraph. So, in order to make sure your reader wants to read your writing and to make sure your reader remembers your writing, you need to have a solid and catchy beginning and ending.