English: Film study - Understanding the Importance of Setting to a Film

This week at English we had to understand the importance of a setting for a film/movie. The movie setting we're researching about is Dragonheart directed by Rob Cohen.

The setting of Dragonheart was in a European country Slovakia. I believe the director chose this location was because of the wide natural land and vast amounts of castle, perfect for a medieval theme movie. The filming for the movie began in July 1994 in Slovakia.

How were the lives of the civilians people in the film.

The lives of peasants back then was enslaved for the nobles to help them build their castle, farm foods for them and used in lots of other ways.

Nobles lives in the film was just living in luxury since you could enslave people to do your work and if they don't obey you, you could just execute them.

We see this when Einon becomes king and then use the peasants as tools for building his castle. 

How did the location they chose link with the historical setting.

Slovakia was the location they chose and I believe that was actually a good location because nowadays it's just modern building, sculptures and decorations. Slovakia was different though it had lots of land and castles like I said before perfect for a medieval theme movie.

Pictures of Slovakia



Source - CNN



Source - Reddit

English:Film Study - Explaining Purposes of Camera Angles, Movements and Shots

Spoilers Ahead.

Two Weeks ago at English class we watched a movie which was Dragonheart, it was a movie about a knight known as Bowen. Bowen tried to hunt every dragon down believing that his Pupil Einon was corrupted by having a dragon's heart inserted into him.
However trying to find every single dragon he stumbled upon the last one without knowing and the dragon tells Bowen it wasn't the dragon's heart that corrupted Einon, but it was him self.



Wide shot of Bowen and the last dragon starting an adventure.

This is demonstrated by having the shadows and long shot with the characters signalling movement by having some type of transport whether it's legs or horses. The wide land also gives us that information.

This makes understand that this is a start of a adventure with a lot of travelling before any other encounters. This also could tell us that it's almost night time where they either travel or find a spot to rest/sleep.

The director did this to let us know that the characters will not have any battles but travelling for a long period in their time. Interactions between these two characters may also happen because they are travelling together.

This worked well by having the sun in the back and the lighting because that some how give us a hint that they are travelling without any obvious giveaways.

This reminds me of a lot of movies of a character wandering through deserts with the shadows. Angles are always not the wide shot though like it could be like the camera is looking down on the character from above.



Close-up shot of Bowen smiling after losing a friend and a chaotic battle.

We see this after Bowen storms Einon's castle to try and save his dragon friend Draco from being hidden so Einon can have immortality forever. However Bowen had to kill Draco to stop Einon's evil doings and thus the last dragon has been slain all the other dragon souls surrounded Draco's soul giving a beautiful sight to the people and a way to say farewell to Bowen.

This makes the audience think that Draco's death wasn't going to affect the world in a bad way because of the way the dragon souls went into the stars didn't give off any bad feelings and this might be the beginning of peace for characters.

The director did this to make us sad because of how Draco and Bowen travelled together, did stuff together and then get forced to seperate in the end. Einon's death wasn't really satisfying because of how Draco had to die for him to die.

This worked well with how the final battle give us mix emotions of anger and sadness because of how Einon and Draco shared a life so we didn't want Draco to die but then that means Einon will have to live. Bowen could've trapped Einon in a cage for eternity but he couldn't in the situation he was in.

This also reminds me of lots of other movies that ends like this so I feel like this is a cliche.




Low angle shot of Bowen's disadvantage against Einon

This is demonstrated by having a character on top of some one to show their dominance over the other character. Here we see Einon on top of Bowen giving him the advantage to push him onto the ground.

This shows us that having the camera looking at a character on shoulder level while having his back turnt to us means the character is usually at a disadvantage while the camera shows us the other character on top of him has the advantage.

The purpose of this is have us know who has the advantage and who has the disadvantage through a simple way that doesn't require words to understand.

Combined with the dark lighting might also help us in some way usually meaning the character is in the enemies territory.

This reminds of Obi Wan saying "I have the high ground Anakin"



Close-up shot of Einon disapointed/annoyed during his training to be a knight of the old code.

We see this when Bowen is training Einon to be a king who respects his people instead of his father who is all about greed.

This shows that Einon doesn't really care about the training as we see in the future he does what he wants when he becomes the king.

The director did this to give us a hint that Einon wasn't good to start with even though he had lessions all about being the knight of the old code.

This worked will with the happy music and mood so the director doesn't make too obvious to know.

This reminds me of other movies that gives hints to the ending in the beginning of the movie.

Social Studies: Entrepreneurs - Sam Morgan

At Social studies I have to research about a entrepreneur. Sam Morgan is the entrepreneur I'm researching about, Sam Morgan is the founder of Trademe or known as the largest internet auction website in New Zealand.

Here are the questions I have to answer

1. Name the cartoonist and give the date of publication of the cartoon.

The Cartoonist goes by Tom Scott but his actual name is Thomas Scott.

The date it was published was from 2007 July 2005.

Source - Image and Information

2. Name the two people and identify the techniques the cartoonist uses to show which is which.

One the right side of the image is Sam Morgan holding the sign and on the left hand side is the person who bought Trademe for seven million, David Kirk. 

The Cartoonist let us tells which is which by the speech bubbles and the signs they are holding out for example the person on the left has the sale contract.

3. Describe the technique the cartoonist uses to show one person is speaking and one is thinking

The Technique the artist uses is ending each speech bubble with a different shape. For example the shape in the image is one with a pointy end commonly meaning he is speaking and the other one with multiple small bubbles going towards the character means he's speaking.


4. Give Sam's age at this time. Explain how he made his idea successful.
Sam was 23 years old when he founded trade me. He made his idea successful by having his parents help him invest his business. 


5. Discuss an impact Trade Me has had on you or someone you know.
No one that I know of had used Trade Me before. 


6. Web Search: Find the Tremain cartoon that featured the same event as the Tom Scott cartoon, and explain how it is different.

Tremain's cartoon is after Tom scott's cartoon where Sam Morgan sells his business to Fairfax for $70mil. This cartoon shows the son's father is reading a newspaper about how Sam's father got $47mil from the Trade Me deal. 

Source - National Library of New Zealand (Information and Picture)

Science: Water Cycle in Action

Watching the Water Cycle in Action

Aim: To observe the basic processes of the water cycle.

Equipment: 200 mL beaker, watch glass, ice cubes, Bunsen burner, tripod gauze mat.

Method:

1. Fill the beaker with approximately 100 mL of water and place on a tripod over a Bunsen burner.

2. Fill the watch glass with a few pieces of ice and leave it on the bench.

3. Light the Bunsen burner and heat the water until it just starts to simmer. Do not boil the water.

4. Turn the Bunsen burner off and gently place the watch glass and ice on top of the beaker.

Observations:

This science experiment we had to make a artificial water cycle with ice and water.  What I saw was water in the bottom level of the beaker then in the high part of the beaker was steam. and at the top it was just ice I believe.

What really happened?

The water evaporated by the Bunsen burner which steam rose to the top of the beaker. 

Important Words.

Evaporation - Liquid turning into gas form

Transpiration: Water goes from the plant then to the Atmosphere

Condensing - Water vapour turns into liquid or gas turns into liquid.

Social Studies: Fair Trading Act

At social studies we had to learn about consumers and producers. We're given a set of questions to see what we know about consumers, producers and the fair trading act.

1. What is the Fair Trading Act? 
The fair trading act protects you from being misled and being treated unfairly by shops and traders. This act applies to everyone in trade.

2. What is the commerce commission's goal? 
The Commerce Commission's goal is to enforce the Fair Trading Act and also provide guidance as who is in trade including whether sellers.
3. Who besides the commission is responsible for the act and can take their own legal action?
I think you are because you can make a complaint on the trader or the product to the commission. 

4. What are the two groups the act applies to?
Businesses and the consumer.

Understand Your Compliance Obligations 

1. What do the acts apply to?
To anyone in trade including overseas that supply goods or services in land within New Zealand

2. Does it only apply if you intend to deceive?
I think yes because the act prevents any kind of false accusations or any misleading information.

3. Whose "shoes" must the business put themselves into?
 I think the business has to put themselves into the commerce commission's shoes because the commerce commission enforces the Fair Trading Act and to do that they must be in reach of the business

4. What is the commission empowered to do?
The commission enforces the Fair Trading Act preventing consumers to buy misleading products or buying it for a high price than it should be.

Reporting A business

How do you report a business?
You can make a complaint to the commerce commission if you think the business is suspicious but they get thousands of complaints so it might take time for your complaint to be processed. 

Know Your Rights
Know Your Rights Fact Sheet

You would want to know your rights because you might buy something you want from a smaller business for a cheaper price but you don't know if it's are legit product or just a hand made one with poor quality. So if you bought a product you liked for a cheaper price and you're unsatisfied with it you could report that business and have them take legal action if the business doesn't want to give you a refund or anything. 

Source

Commerce Commission Website (Information and Fact Sheet)
Consumer Protection (Information)

Digital Tech: Television Drawing

This Wednesday at Digital Technologies we had to make a television with google drawing's shapes. The teacher said we could put a image or gif on the television screen so I chose a big You- tuber who goes by Ali-A.

I learnt that you can make all sorts of stuff with only very basic shapes like the square and circle.

Here is my creation: Google Drawings 

Drama - Play Reflection

At drama for the past four weeks or more we were practising on how to recite plays. My group had 2 other people so we had to do a 3 actor play. 

I chose a play without thinking about it for some reason and I regret doing that because the play wasn't really for all males. The play we chose was about a man trying to suicide and there was a angel named Grace trying to prevent that while a demon who name is Bez was trying to convince the angel that it's too late and no point saving him anymore.

In the first page there was a action where Jude the man who was trying to suicide lay down on Grace's lap who was me, we tried it and it was obviously awkward so we didn't do actions during the performance.

During the performance it was really awkward because my group didn't know how to start the play so we just had Jude lay down on the ground and then started the play. We only did two pages because of our group members being absent and having bad memory.

Overall it was a painful experience because of me choosing a play without even reading it first.