A couple of days ago my friend Trent introduced me to one of the funniest movie producers I have ever experienced. His humor is kind of dull and dry but it makes you laugh like none other. The way that Julian angles the camera and puts people right in the middle of a shot makes adds to the hilarity of the video. He also uses obviousness as a tool in most of his videos to make things more funny because most people like to laugh at people's ignorance or stupidity. One of the funniest videos I've watched by him (he has about 20 that I've see on YouTube) is called Red Eye Flashes Twice. It is about a man who gets very very angry when people move on the second flash when a camera's "red eye avoidance" feature is turned on. One of the things that makes this video better and better every time you watch it is that you don't notice until you have seen it a couple times that there is subtext throughout some of the video. When you realize that and pause it every time you see the subtext the things he says add to the experience of the video so much. Here watch for yourself:
Julian Smith: Red Eye Flashes Twice
I believe that these types of video and comedy styles show how our culture is movie away from the loud annoying America and into the plain old stupid America. Or maybe it shows our intelligence because we find people being stupid funny. But if we were more intelligent then maybe we would think it was funny if people could not solve difficult math equations or scientific problems. Maybe our world will rise to that level someday but for right now, this is pure funniness (in my perspective). I also think that these videos are geared more toward the 15-30 generation right now. People older or younger probably would not understand the humor because the humor of their generation is much different. Julian Smith shows that comedy can come from the simplest things and I enjoy that.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
An Inconvenient Truth: There are not 25 hours in a day
When choosing an inconvenient truth to focus on I thought about choosing something about how all humans are judgmental and how that is a natural instinct in humans. Well that issue does bother me a lot, but one that has seemed to be a problem for me lately is time. Not just how much time there is in a day, but how much time we all have until certain things happen; we have about 3 months until college, 4 years until freedom.. or until crash and burn? With so much changing in my life and the lives of my peers right now, I feel like time is slipping through my fingers. I only have so many more family dinners until I will have to wait months to just sit down at a table with my whole family. I only have a couple more months to go over to my boyfriend's house whenever I want, and then who know what will happen to us when I am in college? I always thought that I would be ready for this change, running head on into it, embracing it. But now that it is finally here I cannot help but think about all of the things I need to do before my life gets ahead of me.
One of the scariest parts about this change is that no matter what there will be some people I have made connections with in high school that I will never talk to again after we walk across the stage. Why does life work that way? Why do we make connections with people that we will not have the will power to care about in the future? In 30 years, how will I know if the guy I made jokes with in math class for the past 3 months with has a family or has moved to Africa?
I know that I should accept that this is just how life is and that I will have a great life ahead of me and all of that. But I cannot help but think that there has to be some way to make better use of the little time we have left before certain events. I wish there was some type of pause button that we could have for ourselves so the amount of time thinking about what we want to do isn't wasted from the time we have to do them.
Of course we all have the inevitable event of death that time will always be too short for. But sometimes I think that if only there were 25 hours in a day, 8 days in a week, 366 days in a year. If only there was just a little bit more time I would actually be able to accomplish what I would be able to.
Since there is no changing the phenomena of time, I will cope with it eventually. I feel like sometime in my mid 50s I will feel accomplished about something which will let me know that time was finally on my side. But for now I will just make the most of the time I have because the inconvenient truth is, there are not 25 hours in a day.
One of the scariest parts about this change is that no matter what there will be some people I have made connections with in high school that I will never talk to again after we walk across the stage. Why does life work that way? Why do we make connections with people that we will not have the will power to care about in the future? In 30 years, how will I know if the guy I made jokes with in math class for the past 3 months with has a family or has moved to Africa?
I know that I should accept that this is just how life is and that I will have a great life ahead of me and all of that. But I cannot help but think that there has to be some way to make better use of the little time we have left before certain events. I wish there was some type of pause button that we could have for ourselves so the amount of time thinking about what we want to do isn't wasted from the time we have to do them.
Of course we all have the inevitable event of death that time will always be too short for. But sometimes I think that if only there were 25 hours in a day, 8 days in a week, 366 days in a year. If only there was just a little bit more time I would actually be able to accomplish what I would be able to.
Since there is no changing the phenomena of time, I will cope with it eventually. I feel like sometime in my mid 50s I will feel accomplished about something which will let me know that time was finally on my side. But for now I will just make the most of the time I have because the inconvenient truth is, there are not 25 hours in a day.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Blogging Around
First I commented on one of Alex's blog posts. She talks about how fabulous the TED presentations have been and how interesting it is to see how people interpret their videos. I can't wait to see the rest of our TED presentations. Here is my response-
AL! i completely agree with what both you and hal said about the TED presentations. It is so interesting to hear about all of these new things that are happening to sustain our futures. It is also so weird to know that people actually think of those things! It's really interesting hearing our peer's perspective about their own TED presentation and weird to think about how people interpret things differently. I personally have my TED presentation next tuesday and I'm nervous because i don't know if anyone will care about what my TED presenter talks about because it is all about science and how science will lead to our survival. But i think it is really important so that's all that matters right?? I wish you guys were in my class so i could see your smiling faces while i was presenting!
Next, I commented on Hallie's blog post! She talked about how Oprah can brighten her day even when it seemed like it was so down in the dumps. Hallie loves Oprah so much and I think she is an amazing role model for any powerful woman to have (Just like Hallie!) Here is my response-
So i was just bloggin around and I saw that Al had this as one of the ones she commented on and i started reading it and i was like.. oh my god HAL+OPRAH=LOVE! so i knew i had to read it :) I feel like throughout this year I have realized so much more that everyone has their own unique qualities and it doesn't necessarily make them weird it actually more makes them normal because EVERYONE has something a little odd about them. There is no normal. Normalcy is like a paradox! I love that Oprah points out people's special qualities and you know what the greatest thing is?! Hal does that too! Hallie always points out the best things about people and makes people feel so special just like Oprah does! Hallie livens up so many people's lives just like Oprah does hers! Love you hal!
AL! i completely agree with what both you and hal said about the TED presentations. It is so interesting to hear about all of these new things that are happening to sustain our futures. It is also so weird to know that people actually think of those things! It's really interesting hearing our peer's perspective about their own TED presentation and weird to think about how people interpret things differently. I personally have my TED presentation next tuesday and I'm nervous because i don't know if anyone will care about what my TED presenter talks about because it is all about science and how science will lead to our survival. But i think it is really important so that's all that matters right?? I wish you guys were in my class so i could see your smiling faces while i was presenting!
Next, I commented on Hallie's blog post! She talked about how Oprah can brighten her day even when it seemed like it was so down in the dumps. Hallie loves Oprah so much and I think she is an amazing role model for any powerful woman to have (Just like Hallie!) Here is my response-
So i was just bloggin around and I saw that Al had this as one of the ones she commented on and i started reading it and i was like.. oh my god HAL+OPRAH=LOVE! so i knew i had to read it :) I feel like throughout this year I have realized so much more that everyone has their own unique qualities and it doesn't necessarily make them weird it actually more makes them normal because EVERYONE has something a little odd about them. There is no normal. Normalcy is like a paradox! I love that Oprah points out people's special qualities and you know what the greatest thing is?! Hal does that too! Hallie always points out the best things about people and makes people feel so special just like Oprah does! Hallie livens up so many people's lives just like Oprah does hers! Love you hal!
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