Hello, my name is Raven Silver, and I am an IDS major with a concentration in film/photography, business, fine arts, digital media, and communications with a minor in Marketing. I have decided to name my major Multimedia Arts and Production and hope to become a professional in the digital arts. For my IDS Senior Seminar course, I had to come up with a project that had to do with my major incorporating my skills that were learned throughout my time in the IDS program. I had decided to brand a client by helping them start a small streaming business. On top of working with a client, I had also created a website that can help beginner streamers brand themselves in a step-by-step process.
My major was specifically created so that I could combine my most interested topics and make a career that I will enjoy. I have always had a passion for the arts whether it’s physical or digital. Over the years of being in my major, I have developed the skills needed for being a brand manager, a photographer/filmmaker, an artist in design, a marketer, and a professional writer. Therefore, I want to become a Digital Media Specialist and Digital Designer.
For my project, I had worked with a client and created a website to help beginner streamers on the step-by-step process of branding themselves, including an opportunity to work with me instead of being on their own. The website includes how to create a good logo, a creative background image, a discord server with channels, roles, and rules, emotes/stickers that viewers can use to communicate, an organized weekly streaming schedule, and an about section for their platform such as Twitch, YouTube, and so on. Other sections of the website include “Becoming a Client”, “My Work”, and “Portfolio” which are all sections that I felt were a nice finishing touch to the project. (Evidence of project is included in each section of the website).
Four Decades of Woody Allen
This first piece of writing was from a course called Introduction to Film. This piece of creative writing was assigned as my final project. This project required me to either make a traditional paper, a podcast, a PowerPoint, or a video recording reviewing a director of our choice. I had chosen to write a traditional paper which had to be from 4-8 pages. For the paper I had decided to review four chosen movies directed by Woody Allen. My paper was long and creative as I wrote a page for each movie review and then included a lengthy but readable intro and conclusion. This paper was not only one of my best, but also my most honest which is why I have chosen to make my major in the first place. Branding is all about honesty and giving good feedback and I had felt that this paper represents that. In the paper, I mention that I am not a huge fan of the movies I had reviewed, but also explained why I didn’t enjoy them. This paper is also relevant to my major because some of my contract courses include journalism and writing which is something I want to focus on during my career.
Watching Blackfish
This second piece of writing was a non-fiction piece for a Non-Fiction Workshop course. This paper was another final paper, and I had the choice to either write about something that has happened to me, an editorial, a participation piece, or a review. In this case I had decided to write a review on the documentary “Blackfish”. At the time, I was invested in documentary films and had even considered become a documentary film creator and that is why I was so interested in what I was writing. Although this isn’t my best writing, I still find it to be the most important piece I have ever written. There are spots in the essay that need to be filled and revised but my passion towards the topic was the whole point to the piece. I wanted to make it aware to readers that what I was writing is relevant to current events, being said, my essay focused on orcas from all over the world still being held in captivity today. This topic is quite important to me and is relevant to my major in terms of my writing and film concentrations.
Analysis of Alfonso Cuaron
The third piece of writing is another final project for a course, The Filmmaker’s Vision. This project required me to pick an auteur director of our choice and I had chosen someone who I haven’t seen any films from. This director is Alfonso Cuaron and has only made a few select films. I not only had chosen him because he was new to me, but because most of his films have to do with strong female characters. This is important to me as a feminist and as a female going into film and photography for my career. The films chosen for this paper were incredibly thought out as I only wanted to experience and review films that were specifically directed by him. A lot of his other films had him in an assistant role which was not helping the ‘auteur director’ point to the project. The assignment wanted me to compare and analyze all four films by explaining the summary, the thematic elements, the plot elements, the character types, visual stylistic elements, and rhythmic/editing techniques of each film. My project shows each category in detail and in an organized format which helps support my major’s concentrations, communications and film.
*Each piece of revised writing is on the bottom of the page due to taking a large amount of space in my portfolio*
After constructing my portfolio, I can gladly say that I am ready to move on from PSU and start my life and new career. I am still in the process of applying to jobs and internships, but I have high hopes that I will find something that I enjoy. Looking back at the start of my education here, it has changed tremendously. At first, I came in as a biology major which is something that I had little to no interest in and it was because they hadn’t offered a program that I was looking for. After about a semester of being in biology, I chose to become an undecided major until I found what I wanted. I was in the undecided major for about two semesters and even realized some things that I enjoyed that I hadn’t noticed before. I found out that I really enjoy photography and the digital arts but again, PSU did not offer either of these majors other than Graphic Design being the closest. Although Graphic Design became a part of my major, I did not want that to be the focus of what I want to do. At this point, I was considering transferring to another school so that I could find my ideal major, until my TRIO advisor had mentioned there was a program where you could make your own major. The thought was insane to me at first and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find a suitable enough job, but once my advisor convinced me to step into the IDS office, I was intrigued. It was decided at that point that I would become an Interdisciplinary Studies major. The IDS program had everything that I had been searching for and showed me things that I didn’t know about myself. I learned that digital media and design were important to me so incorporating those concentrations into my major is what made me convinced that this was the right path for me.
First Piece - Four Decades of Woody Allen
Woody Allen is as interesting of an actor as he is a director. He has directed dozens of films and actually stars in most of them. I have watched and reviewed four movies from Woody Allen’s collection. Three of these films starred Woody Allen and one doesn’t. I didn’t plan for one of them to not include him acting, but I made sure they were all directed by him specifically. The movies that I watched were all from a different decade of Woody Allen, they were Bananas, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy, Alice, and Anything Else. Bananas is a 1971 film and was one of the first Woody Allen films ever produced. A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy is a 1982 film that had better act and directing in it than Bananas but was less than a comedy. Alice is a 1990 film that was the first Woody Allen movie that I’ve seen without him acting in it and was one of the films that I enjoyed. Anything Else is a 2003 film that was my favorite out of all of these films combined that actually won awards for best acting.
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Bananas is a type of movie that I’d watch if I wanted a good laugh from an older movie. Since I grew up watching so called “older films” I was expecting the type of humor that Bananas offered. Before I had a flat screen, I had a 1980’s television that had a VCR and a GameCube connected to it and it was all in my bedroom. Since I had all of our owned VHS movies in my room, I had full control over what I watched especially since I was home alone, a lot. I have just about watched every VHS movie that existed in my bedroom, even ones that I have seen over 10 times. My favorites included many older films such as the musical Oliver!, Pollyanna, the original movies of The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday, and a movie I will never get sick of Swiss Family Robinson. These movies were a majority of my childhood and I am not sure where I would be if I hadn’t experienced them the way I did. Bananas is a film that was made in 1971 by Woody Allen who he both directed and acted in. This movie was definitely not the kind of older movie that I would normally watch since I didn’t think there were many comedies made in the 70’s. After doing some research, I found that there are many comedies, ones that I’ve seen before that are my favorites such as “Animal House” and “Monty Python and The Holy Grail”. As shocking as this is, Bananas was the first Woody Allen film that I have ever seen so it wasn’t hard to find new films to watch. Allen’s acting skills in this movie were quite good then so I can only imagine how they are now. In the film, Allen played as Fielding Mellish, a sexually frustrated misfit whose job was to test products. After finally getting a girlfriend, she dumps him because she feels that there was something missing in their relationship. This I can agree and disagree with. Since Fielding is an odd person, I can understand why she wouldn’t want to stay with him and the way she gently let him go was better than any other way I can think about when getting dumped. Although she let him go nicely, I believe that she should have given him a second chance which she does end up doing later in this film. When Fielding is heartbroken by this, he travels out of the United States and into San Marcos. Fielding ends up falling into the resistance who are against the United States and their current US president. This part of the movie is probably the funniest to me, I say this because of how clumsy and ditsy Fielding is as a person and how he’s fitting in with these people. I loved Allen’s acting at this point because I felt like I could relate to the clumsy side of Fielding’s character. Every time he would drop or break something it would make me laugh, even if it was a little corny. Some parts of this movie are too cheesy, even for a 1970’s movie. By this I mean obvious. The ending scene of this film does not match the focus of the film at all and since there was no way to tell if the movie is teaching a lesson or not the ending still should have made a little sense. I understand what Allen was trying to do, but if someone is watching and doesn’t catch that, they may think it was put there for no reason at all. Overall, I thought Woody Allen did a good job directing and acting in this film and I saw quite a few filming mistakes when watching but what is a film without its errors.
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A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy was definitely an interesting film to watch. This movie was filmed in the year 1982 and was made about a decade later than the movie Bananas. Woody Allen had also directed and acted in this film and it’s a relief to say that Allen’s acting was better in this one. Although Allen’s acting was better, everyone else’s seemed unpracticed and rushed. It was a surprising factor to see that the actress Mary Steenburgen was in this film when I have seen her in multiple. Mary is actually in a few films that I grew up watching; Stepbrothers, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and Elf. The acting that she had done in those movies were not only great, but it seemed like she was born to be her characters. In this movie, I felt that she hated her character, I say this because of the way she acted and how she presented Adrian. I could be misreading this entire film and she may act like that because that’s how her character is supposed to be, but I was shocked to see how uncomfortable I was with Adrian. The plot of this movie was both confusing and not well thought out at all, but I will admit that I again enjoyed this Woody Allen film for its corny scenes. This film is supposed to bring old friends together for the celebration of summer and Leopold’s new wife, Ariel. Leopold is Adrian’s cousin who is much older than his new wife. Andrew, who is both unsuccessful and successful towards his inventions, is Adrian’s husband who believes that their sex life is down in the dumps. Maxwell, Andrew’s best friend, brought a nurse from his office to the house. The six of them spent time together in the one house while tears were shed, drama erupted, and sexual tension increased. Adrian spent most of the film being angry and frustrated at Andrew for lying to her saying that he didn’t know Ariel when in fact he did. Andrew and Maxwell spent the entire film fighting over Ariel while Leopold wanted one more fun and free night with Dulcy, who happened to be the nurse that Maxwell brought. Everything that happened in the movie gave me mixed signals and I’m a sucker for 80’s films so I was quite disappointed that there was a lack consistency when I was hoping for more. An example of this lack of consistency would be when Adrian immediately jumped onto Andrew after he found out that she cheated on him with Maxwell. I was not happy with this at all because if it would have been the other way around Adrian would have gotten a divorce as soon as she would have found out. I also did not like how much of a hypocrite Adrian was for being mad at him for lying when she did much worse. Other than the fact that I did not appreciate the lack of consistency, I was at least expecting this film to be a comedy since its genre is labeled as such. When I expect a 1980’s comedy, I expect to be as hysterical as I was when watching Can’t Buy Me Love, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I know that this is a big expectation and that Woody Allen wasn’t the best director or actor, but I at least wanted a few more laughs from this movie. A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy was indeed a good movie and I wouldn’t mind watching it again but I’m going to have to rethink about what I have witnessed for about 88 minutes of my life.
Alice is one out of the two movies that I reviewed which only had Woody Allen directing in and not acting. This film had its moments, but I admit that it was a Woody Allen film that I wasn’t super disappointed in. Alice was filmed and produced in the year 1990, another decade later in the Allen’s movie period. Alice is the main character in the film who is a grown woman with two kids and a husband. She spends the entire movie questioning her marriage while pining after another man that she met for two seconds. After saying her back hurts, one of Alice’s gossipy friends tells her that she should go see a shrink that offers herbs for people with specific problems. Alice ends up going to the shrink multiple times after her first visit. Each time the doctor gave her herbs, they each gave her a power that helped her with problems she was having in her life. These powers included being able to flirt confidently, becoming invisible, being able to see people from the past, being able to talk to her muse to help her write, and making people fall in love with her. I thought this concept was smart in a way because I felt that it really cleared Alice’s mind in deciding what she wanted in life whether she decided to be with the man or stay with her husband. When she found out that her husband is cheating on her, she confesses that she did the same and decides to leave. At first, I didn’t like Alice as a person because I thought she was like every other woman that cheats on their significant others. I realized that she wasn’t like this at all when she at least felt guilty for even thinking about another man. Yes, it was wrong that she cheated on her husband and I would never forgive a person who cheats, but I believe that she had good intentions for the most part. Before finding out about the cheating, Alice talks to her husband about how she gave up her career to be with him and how she didn’t think it was fair to have asked to marry her so quickly. This part did upset me because it sounded like to me that before she got married, she only had a dream and had no career started. I didn’t like that she was blaming him for her mistakes. There were many parts of this film that mentions Alice being a catholic woman. This was interesting to me especially when her husband says she once wanted to be a nun. In order for her to revisit her catholic side and get her family back, she needed to see her sister who she was fighting with. As soon as Alice went to her childhood home, she reconnects with her sister and has flashbacks of when she was a child. Alice gets defensive with her sister when she says that their mother wasn’t very successful and had no potential to be an actress. When Alice can’t find motivation to write, she takes some herbs and her muse shows up. Her muse basically tells her the same thing that she sister did about their mother and how she didn’t make it in the acting world. Alice tries to get defensive but her muse interrupts her saying that this is what she should write about. The muse explains that Alice could tell the story about how her mother didn’t make it and why. I enjoyed this because of how sensitive the topic of Alice’s mother is and how she can’t cope with the fact that she wasn’t meant for what she wanted to do. This made me think that Alice’s dreams about become a fashion designer was only a dream and she wouldn’t have made it even if she tried. At the ending of the film, Alice leaves her husband, leaves her affair, and moves to India with her two children. After she left everything behind to live her own life the way it was supposed to be, she seemed much happier and I would have picked this reality instead of staying with either of those men. This film had much more potential than the other Woody Allen movies I have seen, this is because I felt there was actually a plot to the script I was watching.
Anything Else was my favorite Woody Allen movie so far. This movie was filmed in the year 2003 and was the first Woody Allen film where I wasn’t completely bored or disappointed. I did find myself checking how much time was left a few times during some uneventful scenes but every other part in the film I enjoyed. Woody Allen’s acting was remarkable in this movie and his character fit so well that I didn’t recognize him at first. From seeing him act in the movie A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy (1982) to Anything Else (2003) was a huge jump in the timeline so I was completely shocked to see how far Allen has gone. He is still his awkward self and has moments where his acting could definitely be better, but I like to think as if it was me up there, let’s just say I wouldn’t do any better than him. Anything Else had so many actors in it that I grew up watching and I really tried to not expect the best dialogue. In this film I knew Christina Ricci, Jimmy Fallon, Jason Biggs, Danny DeVito, and Stockard Channing. Christina Ricci acts in some of my favorite movies such as Casper and Now and Then. Ricci has been one of my favorite actors since I can remember and her being in a Woody Allen movie was a huge eye-opener. Anything Else is about Jerry Falk who falls in love with Amanda as soon as they meet eyes. Jerry is a writer who eventually meets this lunatic person David Dobel that is also a writer. Soon, they hope to both move to California together in hopes of a writing job as partners. Dobel throughout the whole film gives Jerry advice on what should change in his life and why. I loved the Dobel character because of his craziness and weird habits, such as when he brings a bunch of gadgets to Jerry’s house hoping he’d use them one day. Amanda is an honest, unpredictable, and self-conscious woman who can’t ever make up her mind. At times, Amanda will make decisions right on the spot and the rest of the time she’ll take months to come up with an answer or an excuse. Although Amanda can be a tiresome person that you wouldn’t want in your house, Jerry has his fallbacks too. Jerry is too trusting and has to tip toe around Amanda whenever she has a problem. Jerry doesn’t seem like he has time to take care of himself because of how much time he spends trying to impress her and keep her at his feet. I spent this movie hating Amanda because of how she treated Jerry and even herself. She had no self-respect and I absolutely despise that in a person. If she was a tiny bit nicer as a person, I would have probably enjoyed her company, but I didn’t. Even though I say I don’t like Amanda as a person, I don’t mean that I don’t like her character. Ricci did an absolute job being the character of Amanda, I never truly hated someone in a movie, and I believe that is what Allen was trying to do. I believe that the watchers were meant to dislike Amanda and not just because of how she acted but the way she treated everyone else. It was like when she was done with one person, she went straight onto the next. Something that had been repeating in my head was that I wondered why I haven’t come across Anything Else before. This movie was fantastic and completely underrated. I can actually say that I enjoyed a Woody Allen movie in its entirety.
These films were interesting pick in movies. The reason I chose to be so diverse was that I wanted the least amount of similarities in them as possible. I didn’t want to be bored watching the same type of movies four times and I wanted to be able to explain them in detail without them sounding the same. Alice and Anything Else were the two movies that I had enjoyed the most out of all four. The other two movies I found myself quite bored and was expecting more out of poorly written scripts. I didn’t know what to expect when I first started watching these movies because I had never seen a Woody Allen film before I began examining his work. Some people had warned me that I may become bored and unsatisfied with his films, but I didn’t exactly hate any of the ones that I’ve seen. Bananas definitely had its bad qualities, but it wasn’t the worst movie I have ever seen. Overall, Woody Allen both confused me and satisfied me with his awkward acting and unrelated scenes and I will certainly be watching more of his films in the future.
Second Piece - Watching Blackfish
Blackfish, a documentary film developed in the year 2013, about SeaWorld and its many devastating events. SeaWorld was a place I dreamed of visiting as a kid because of how fascinated I was with orcas and dolphins. I have always been driven to what’s in the ocean so seeing these fantastic creatures up close was something I have always wanted to experience. After doing much research on SeaWorld and watching the documentary, I was terrified. Watching this film based off of these poor whales being held captive and being torn apart emotionally and physically breaks my heart. Listening to the poor families stories about their loved ones being attacked and then killed by these orcas and then being lied to saying it was an accident is horrible. This was the first time viewing the film and I am shocked at how many ex SeaWorld employees spoke and how many of them kept it together during the interviews. SeaWorld themselves of course refused to speak for the documentary but that was expected by many, even the ones filming.
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During parts of the film, I learned many things about the natural wildlife of an orca aka the killer whale. Orcas are not meant to be held in small tanks, they need much larger areas to swim and Sealand did the opposite. Sealand of the Pacific was a public aquarium that originally held the orcas Haida, Nootka, and Tilikum. It was closed down due to an attack by one of the whales which ended up killing the trainer Keltie Byrne. A main thing that Sealand did to the whales was that when they were done with them for the day, they would put them into these small tanks away from the park and leave them in there. If for some reason the whales did not want to cooperate in the daytime, they would underfeed them and continue to starve them until they were put into the small metal tanks. Because these whales were treated this way, this caused many of the female whales to be frustrated and even take out their anger on the other whales, especially Tilikum.
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Tilikum was a male orca that was captured 1983 by an orca hunting crew. In 1991, he became so stressed along with the other whales that they ended up pulling a trainer into the pool and drowning her. This cause Sealand to close down forever but did not simply end Tilikum’s career. SeaWorld saw an opportunity to breed whales at their park using Tilikum and bought him off of the pre-existing owners of Sealand. The company of SeaWorld only wanted him for his semen, but he ended up being a fan favorite for the shows. Tilikum was quite the stressed and worn out whale so he had no intentions of breeding with the females in the tanks, especially when he got beaten up by every female he’s ever encountered. Since he did not want to breed himself, SeaWorld took it upon themselves to get the semen out of him and inject it into the females. Tilikum eventually became the father and grandfather of many and most of the orcas in the aquarium. In 1999, a trespasser, Daniel Dukes, broke into the area with the tanks and decided he wanted to go on a naked swim with poor Tilikum. This didn’t end well for Daniel as Tilikum wanted to take him for a swim instead. He died in the tank due to Tilikum thrashing him around in the tank viciously. In 2010 during a live show, Dawn Brancheau was dragged into the pool by Tilikum after being forced to put on a show not by Dawn but by the owners of SeaWorld themselves knowing how tired, beaten, and depressed Tilikum was from living. Even after these incidents happened, SeaWorld still decided to keep him. Why? His semen was the only male semen that SeaWorld could get their hands on which means, no semen = no baby orcas to raise and sell for profit.
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Speaking of selling the baby orcas, after two pregnant orcas gave birth, SeaWorld decides that after they reach 4 years old, they are at a training age which means they can sell them for a good price to other companies and parks. After this happened, both of the mothers freaked out for months by crying and screaming. Many of the trainers did not feel it was right to do this, but they were brainwashed so much by the company that they thought they were doing good. During the documentary, there were many instances where former trainers would speak about this. SeaWorld would take people in that know nothing about orcas or training them. This was so that if they decided to something wrong, no one would know the difference. For example, on many occasions especially with whales kept in captivity, these whales typically live up to 20 to 30 years old. In the wild, they live as long as humans live to be which is around 60-100 years old. SeaWorld decided to wrongly educate their employees by telling them that in the wild they live to 20-30 years so that the customers or employees wouldn’t get concerned about many unreasonable orca deaths. This is only the start of the amount of lies and brainwashed thoughts that SeaWorld put into their employees’ heads. Another thing that became quite the terrible, and harmful lie, the dorsal fin on Tilikum. Since Tilikum’s stress was so high and his unhealthy eating habits were off the charts, this caused his fin to flop over. This is rare in the wild, especially in males, and almost never happens unless the whale is extremely sick. This was another lie that got brainwashed into the poor employees’ minds.
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There is plenty more to this story and it’s all explained in the documentary Blackfish, which is on Netflix right now. The events that occurred in the film happened a few years before it was released which was only a decade ago. SeaWorld stopped doing orca shows for a while but recently started doing them again this year of 2020. I believe that orcas are not meant to be held captive and every aquarium park should ban them. Unless they are caring for sick whales, they should all be let free. Many people feel the same as me which you would think is enough to stop it all together, but it’s not. SeaWorld will still continue to do the shows, in a different approach, but they shouldn’t be doing them at all. I hope that one day there will be enough people on my side to stop keeping orcas in tanks.
Third Piece - Analysis of Alfonso Cuaron
