Four Qualities: Power, Honor, Shock, Guilt

Power

Power is the loud principal that you were always afraid of as a child. He was mighty and forceful to the point when your teacher spoke those terror-stricken words “GO TO THE PRINCIPAL” you knew you were in for it. Yet when you have done something good, he will congratulate you. He is a hypocrite and a friend. Power can control you or fight with you. He can try to make you like his subjects, Hate and Courage. Power has a hand over all that you do, but swears to be setting you free. Power is the almighty and is told to be in control of everything but Power has a challenger, Anarchy. Power and Anarchy have had a long history together, fighting one day and in hand and hand the next. You see Anarchy is Powers only weakness.

Honor

Honor is much like her siblings, Trust and Devotion, but falls under her own category. Were Trust does not have Devotion and Devotion does not have Trust, Honor has them both. As the eldest of her kin, she has grown up learning of many different ways to show herself. She has had many jobs, but not because she was fired, it was more because she was needed elsewhere. She can be seen in the face of a soldier going into battle not knowing if she will come back. You can see Honor in the face of a Policeman or Firefighter as they go into that burning building or hostage filled bank. Honor is said to be everywhere, and that is true. Honor is every man, women, and child as well as in the ground, waiting to be unearthed.

Shock

Shock was not born like he is now. He was much more like his friend Innocence and Protection. He learned everything from them as well as his parents Discipline and Confidence. He learned that the world was a good place, that crime and misfortune was all an illusion. His friends and family made sure he was sheltered and misleaded about reality. Then one day he started hanging out with Greif and Guilt. He began to see the world through a new set of eyes. Ones filled with reality and lack of imagination and creativity. He saw why Depression, the girl who always sat alone on the bus, was like she was. One fateful day he came home to his parents, screaming and full of terror, because of what Greif and Guilt showed him. He blamed his parents and friends, especially Innocence. He was full of horror. Know a days people don’t see much of old shock, because they are programmed to see certainty and realism. We were all told by Discipline to stop bother him and his family, but now we are all sure of one thing, he would wake up from that attentive and cognizant coma.

Guilt

Guilt is the small child full of worry and anxiety. He often brings home failed tests and assignments he swore to his mother he didn’t have. He and his friend Penance often go to Church and see their friends Faith and Confidence there. They confess their sins and wrongdoings to be saved. Penance always feels much better after doing so, but Guilt just feels worse. He confesses things like shoplifting, gluttony, and greed. Though he feels good doing these acts during the time, he doesn’t like the aftershock of it all. You see Guilt is always tied up with happiness. He has always admired happiness, but only from afar, just close enough to see her. He likes what she has to say, but has heard bad things about her. People say she is fake and impossible. If Guilt was better and could become like his rival Confidence, maybe he would be able to help her. Guilt always has a concerned look on his face, even more so than the school’s scapegoat, worry.

Jacob's Four Qualities

Blame

Blame is a figure of many disguises. He spends his nights preparing his lies and etching them into his sweaters. His closest friends are Anxiety and Grief. He makes sweaters for people to wear. It is rather itchy at first, but eventually they fall in love with its design. Children love to buy these sweaters for their friends, but their parents are infuriated when they see them wearing it. Perhaps it was a little too unique for their tastes. Sometimes, Blame puts on one of his own sweaters, and finds something very wrong with its design and how well it fits him. This happens time after time again, sometimes his friends come to visit, sometimes they bring cake, sometimes they don’t come at all and he corrects it himself. Still his corrections are followed again and again by another mistake. His disguises do not help him and others forget his pain. He thinks sometimes he should invest in a new hobby.

Panic

Panic is the brother of Fear and Blame, and a time traveler of sorts. As a child, he was very nervous in public places and finds comfort in cheating on tests. He preferred to stay at home on weekends, where he is afraid he will encounter someone he knows. When he was boldly threatened like his other brothers, he does not face them directly, but goes to his need to survive. Panic was most effective when he loses his homework. He reacts faster than anyone else would, but deals with his issues differently than everyone else. Panic has visited many of the kings, presidents, dictators, leaders, princes, and traitors of history. He loves to create his own stories with them, along with the help of his brothers. Often, Panic thinks of what history would be like if he had not been there. He knows for a fact that they would certainly have been a lot less entertaining.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a very rare, stubborn, and entirely self-sufficient plant. It is grown from seeds spread by Blame when he goes gardening. Forgiveness rejects any nourishment from others and prefers to find its own food. When Blame runs out of water, Forgiveness finally begins to sprout to the natural sun, relying on only a single cycle of rain. By the time this storm passes, Forgiveness has already grown to its full height past any plant in the garden. It’s thick branches gleam against the sun, each of them blossoming a lovely flower that any person is allowed to harvest. It gives off a lovely scent that entangles anyone its radius that injects them with euphoria. This is what makes people crave its special medicine, but just as it had grown, when it is forced to by others, it will no longer sprout. That is when Blame will return to water its roots, thinking it will sprout just once more.

Resignation

Resignation is a stubborn teen. He refuses to listen to others, nor his superiors. He has a bad influence on others with his uncaring attitude, and only cares for his closest friends, Blame, Panic, and Regret. His days in school were dull to him, and his friends wouldn’t cease to pester him in classes.  Soon he found himself out of school, without work, and completely content. His days and nights are empty, uneventful, yet still entertaining. He no longer speaks to his parents, his siblings, and even rarely to himself. His stubborn nature has earned most of the admiration of others around class. Now he locks himself away, with little education, disconnected friends, and parents filled with regret.  All he wished was that he was back in class, but things would still be the same. Hopefully for him, things will change one day, when things change, but for now, his seat feels quite empty.

A quality is something that makes a person a person. It makes up the personality of a human being or character. Some qualities like Braveness, Courage, and Confidence are qualities that make a person a hero, but on the other side of the vibrant quality spectrum, there is Despair, Terror, and Doubt make up a person of evil or fearful. I believe that everyone has both sides, good and bad, in them. A person could be heroic but at the same time have little faith in themselves. I believe that I personally have Joy, Creativity, Jealousy and Uncertainty.

DANDELION WINE Response

1.) Bradbury's metaphor of a bottle of wine is a metaphor of keeping memories alive but bottled up. This is a reoccurring theme in this set of vignettes. One example is how Douglas and Tom record everything that they've ever done so that they could remember that certain memory whenever they wanted. Bradbury wanted to get the point across that you shouldn't forget.

2.) Leo Auffman's attempt at making artificial happiness, the Happiness Machine, is a total failure. His family goes through grief after he has made the machine. The author also makes reference to a sadness machine. the sadness machine teaches a very important message, that if you try to make something that is impossible, artificial emotions for example, it will backfire. Humans decide for themselves what they want to feel.

3.) The ravine is an important aspect of the story. It is a metaphor for the battleground between humans and nature. It shows an untamed, wild side of nature.

4.) Mrs. Bentley, a sad old widow who is convinced by little girls that she was never a child. She then refuses that she never had a past, that she was always an elderly woman. I believe that this is wrong. You shouldn't deny your past, you learn to many important lessons. This book's whole message is to remember and never to forget.

5.) I don't believe that the record book is a good reflection of what they really learn. They actually learn to remember and the significance of each other and the world, not when the first caught spiders and ate pie.

6.) The Lonely One is a serial killer. His function in the novel is to induce fear in the everyday lives of the characters. Livinia Nebbs does kill him but Douglas does not want to believe it because he needed something to believe in.

7.) I believe that Douglas has a heat stroke because it is in the middle of Summer. The Junk dealer
cures him by giving him two puffs of air.

8.)I believes that it physically ends, but it never ends in Douglas' mind. He will always be a child playing in the fields with his little brother Tom in the summer of 1928.

Dandelion Wine Short Response

So far in Dandelion Wine, I have been very confused. The characters are easy enough to follow, but the stories are scattered around. Doug and Tom have an interesting relationship. They seem to be the town's outcasts. They spend their time writing down every "first" they do like the first Eskimo Pie they ever ate or the annual making of the Dandelion Wine. They also spend their time arguing over dull things like water-strider-spider catching. Another confusing part of this particular collection of vignettes is the ongoing discussion of Leo Auffmann's HAppiness machine. I understand that it is a metaphor for happiness, but there is also the mention of Sadness Machine. This implies that there is only two emotions a human being can go through, Happiness and Sadness. All and all I have researched numerous times the meaning of the novel, and have fallen upon many other people with the same problem as me, confusion.

Rules to Writing a Script

• Publish a master header and then put an action underneath.

• All sounds must be capitalized to indicate that we should hear them.

• Put names in capitols and center in page.

• (V.O.)=Voice over (O.C.)= Off camera
• When changing the master header, indicate just that
• When moving around the master header, for example going into another room in the same setting, indicate it as a sub header.
• Put pause in parentheses for a pause about the length of three seconds.
• If a characters dialogue goes off to another screen, indicate it b putting (MORE).
• To create a montage, get rid of all dialogue and add many sounds.
• End a montage by simply putting END MONTAGE.
• If you leave the main header during a montage, there is no need to put the main header down on the paper again.
• When talking to somebody whose not actually there, for example on the phone, put 9into phone).
• When ending a telephone conversation put (end call).
• Put INT. to indicate that the setting is interior and put EXT. for an exterior setting.

Here are a few examples of shots that me and a few other people did. We chose to do the Crane Shot and Dolly Shot.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqnQuO8jkgY&noredirect=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwN3SD-Amp0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuFa7GoRWyI

In Writing for Publication, we have been doing a documentary unit to coincide with our film studies. We have been watching the film The End of Poverty? This film was written and directed by Philipe Diaz in 2008. He traveled to some of the most poverty stricken areas in the world including Egypt, Bolivia and Peru. The film thus far is pretty good. They tell you real life stories and have relevant and significant statistics and facts.

Something This Way Comes Reaction:

So far my opinion to this film is positive. Ray Bradbury's adaptation of his his book by the same name is very well made. They use suspense to keep you watching and make you want to know what happens to our protagonists, Jim and Will. They use many advanced and skillful film techniques like back lighting, different camera angles, and unique music. They use all of these and more to make you sit on the edge of your seat.

Yet again in my Reading and Writing for Self-Discovery Class we are watching a classic. Something Wicked This Way Comes is a novel by the well known science fiction author Ray Bradbury. This is the Hollywood adaptation of his popular novel Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Ray Bradbury has written many novels and short stories including Fahrenheit 451, All Summer in a Day and many more short stories. He was born in 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. His first paid job as a writer was for a popular 1930's television show, The Burns and Allen Show. He was given this job at the age of only fourteen. He became a full time writer by the end of 1942. He sold his first piece for $13.72. Perhaps his most famous work, Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953.; To this day it sells around 50,000 copies a year. Sadly, Ray Bradbury died on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91 to a long time illness. On his tomb stone, it reads: Ray Bradbury, 1920, Author of Fahrenheit 451. He died in Los Angeles.

Written by:

Mitchell Duncan

Jacob Gilbert-Mahoney

            In the film Edward Scissorhands, Johnny Depp plays the lead role of Edward Scissorhands.  His entire performance is rather silent, as he only speaks 169 words throughout the entire film. There are many themes throughout this particular movie, including romance, hatred and fear. All of these incorporate into Depp’s character as an isolated monstrosity. This antihero who dominantly speaks without speaking, can be very powerful and influential to the viewer through his eyes. Once this secluded character is finally brought into society he under goes a slow change as to adapt to his new found home.

            Johnny Depp made many choices in the film that we make throughout our daily lives, the only difference is that his isolation caused him to never develop his common sense and difference between right and wrong. The more he stays within reality he becomes more enabled to develop these traits. It does not come fast though, half way through the film, he is tricked into robbing a house, is then arrested, and soon after these events is neighbor Joyce enacts to seduce but is rejected, causing to take revenge by claiming he tried to “rape” her. This combined with the break in causes his former chums to turn their backs on him along with Peg and her family.

            The colors of the people’s clothing, houses as well as cars contrast largely to Edward’s costuming. While everyone and everything appears colorful and flashy, Edward’s attire is of very black clothing, pale complexion, facial scars and crazy hair. This was likely used to display Edward’s difficulty to blend with reality and the people he is surrounded with. His attire also matches his disposition, which is very different from the happy and out going personalities of the community members. We find this very important because it displays the uniqueness of Edward and the similarities of everyone in the small neighborhood. Costuming is clearly very important in this motion picture because the actor can portray a monstrosity as much as he wants but as long as he doesn’t look like one, the full effect will not sink in to the audience. We thought this was well used through the entirety of the screenplay as it matched well with the musical score.

            The portrayal of his role uses many different techniques. The director uses full-front position to help display his vulnerability and silence as a character. His entire role is reprised through acting with his eyes. In variation, Tim Burton (Director of the film) also uses the three-quarter turn at the first reveal of Edward to make him appear hostile. As the plot evolves this impression changes from a violent figure to a passion driven character. This excellent use of camerawork and angling helps us the viewers understand characters and plot in a deeper meaning.

             To establish an effective use of mystery, Burton uses many different techniques for lighting in the film. One example is the use of low-key lighting at the first reveal of Edward. This particular form of lighting is used to create a mysterious and somewhat ominous view of the character. At first glance, you can only see Edward’s silhouette as he emerges from the shadows, and revealing his Scissorhands. This helps create this ominous feeling, exciting the viewer, and giving the deceiving sense Peg, for example, felt in that instance. Another easy to spot lighting technique used in this movie is backlighting. This is used most effectively during romantic scenes. Tim Burton used this in Edward Scissorhands when Kim realizes her feelings for Edward when she is dancing in the “snow”(being shaved ice from Edward’s ice sculpture). In the background you can see bright flashes of light around her even though this scene was shot at night.

            The film still has its share of flaws to it despite its overall positive appeal. Kim’s brother, Kevin, played by Robert Oliveri, plays a very small and rather unimportant role throughout almost the entire film. The only major set piece he plays is near the end of the film when Edward saves him but his actions have the consequence of mistakenly cutting him. Also, at the films end, it is revealed that the elderly woman speaking is Kim. She believes Edward is still alive after all this time, because before he came down from the mansion there was no snow, but once he did it began to snow. The film claims that the ice sculptures he makes in his tower is used to make the snow, which falls on the neighborhood below. The problem with this theory is how in the world did he manage to get those ice blocks, and get them all the way to the top of the mansion (Please comment below your theories on how he got them up there). Kim claims that she never went back up to the mansion because she wants him to remember her as she was when they were young. So that means hat Edward had to remain completely self sufficient as he went back to his old life of isolation, so how does he manage to get all that ice. This plot hole appears to be the only major one, but it’s a pretty major one.

            To conclude, Edward Scissorhands is very well a good classic movie. It teaches high moral values including not judging a book by its cover. It’s symbolic, enjoyable, and delivers an outgoing message to the audience. While it has its issues, ice sculptures and the protagonist sometimes being over the top, it is understandable that Edward has to seclude himself from society, thus having no common sense, but the only missing components were his hands. Can’t he still portray emotions on some level rather than evolving them when finally in society? It is easily a Tim Burton classic to be preserved through the ages.

Today I am going to talk to you about something important, EDUCATION! I know you have already scrolled down in boredom or even clicked back to Google, but to be honest, it is important. I have been researching for example the literacy and illiteracy rates in America and the World. Here are just a few statistics and rates thanks to statisticbrain.com:

*14% of American Adults are illiterate, that 32 million adults.
*21% of the American Adults who can actually read read below a 5th grade level.
*63% of prison inmates cannot read.
*19% of High School students are illiterate.
*774 million people worldwide cannot read, that's 9% of people in the world.

Kind of hard to believe. With seven billion people in the world you would think more people would be able to read and write.

Lately in Writing for Publication, we have been reading the non-fiction investigative journalism novel Chew on Tris, by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson. According to the author, this book is about "Everything You Don't Want To Know About Fast Food." This book discusses how large fast-food chains create their most famous and successful meals including McDonald's Chicken Mcnuggets, Burger King's Whopper, and Taco Bell's Burritos. It shows you pictures of what fast-food does to your body.
I feel like I will never visit a McDonald's again thanks to my teacher as well as Schlosser and Wilson.

In my Creative Writing class, Reading and Writing for Self-Discovery, we are doing a Film Study unit. Today we will be watching the classic Tim Burton film, Edward Scissorhands. And when Tim Burton makes a movie, it is customary to have Johnny Depp play the role, in this case, Edward Scissorhands. Depp is also in a number of other Burton films including Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Corpse Bride. A director like Tim Burton is somebody who creates the overall vision of a film. This film was produced in 1990 and is about a quiet, young man who just happens to have the obvious handicap of scissors being attached to his hands. It tells the story of how Edward Scissorhands finds love after years of being afraid and being feared.

Rave: North Korea

Does North Korea really think that they can withstand the wrath of the United States. They got like one nuke and we have thousands. We have allies right next to you and you want to bomb us. Ignorant is all that is.

Welcome to Mitchell's Blog. My name is Mitchell and I am a School of the Arts Student. I am writing this blog for my Creative Writing Course: Writing for Publication. For the rest of the year I will be writing for you stories, poems, and various writing prompts. I hope you will enjoy these writing pieces.