Friday, October 18, 2024

Sameless - Representation

Shameless is a show about the Gallagher family, who live in poverty and face many tough challenges. Two main characters, Fiona and Frank Gallagher, show very different ways people can deal with hard times. Through them, the show explores serious issues like addiction, family responsibility, and how society treats the poor. 

Fiona Gallagher is the oldest sibling and takes care of her five younger brothers and sisters. She is strong, smart, and does her best to keep the family together. Fiona’s story shows how difficult it is for women, especially in poor families, to carry so much responsibility. She works hard and tries to give her siblings a better life, but the system often makes things even harder for her. Over time, we see Fiona’s struggles take a toll on her as she faces more stress and pressure. 

Frank Gallagher, the father, is the complete opposite of Fiona. He is selfish, addicted to alcohol and drugs, and does whatever it takes to avoid work or responsibility. Frank’s character is often used to criticize how society blames poor people for their problems without understanding the deeper issues. Frank constantly makes bad decisions and relies on his kids or scams to survive. While his character is exaggerated, Frank shows the darker side of poverty and addiction, revealing how these struggles can destroy both individuals and families. 

Other characters in Shameless also show different ways people handle poverty and difficult situations. Lip, the smart brother, tries to escape the family’s cycle of poverty, but he faces his own challenges. Ian, who is gay, shows the difficulties of being part of the LGBTQ+ community in a family and society that doesn’t always accept him. 

In the end, Shameless gives a messy, real look at life in poverty. Characters like Fiona and Frank force us to see beyond simple ideas about poverty and understand the bigger social problems behind their struggles. The show doesn’t offer easy answers but instead highlights the complexities of surviving in a world that often overlooks the poor.

Monday, October 7, 2024

Sound Project

My teacher taught us a lesson on different kinds of sound techniques and different ways they're used in film.

For this project, we need to brainstorm a 1–2-minute scene, keeping it school-appropriate and realistic for that time frame. Scenes like getting ready for school, cooking, and robbery are off-limits. We'll focus on identifying the sounds that naturally occur in the scene, and we can only use seven words. After brainstorming, we will create an outline explaining the sounds needed to tell the story. For the final product, we’ll record the sounds, with at least four being made using random objects (not digital sounds) on a “foley stage” and then make a video of the process. We’ll submit three files: the sound file of the scene, a video showing how we made the four foley sounds, and a screenshot of our audio editing timeline.

The first thing that came to mind for me was a party scene, me and my partner followed the directions like a recipe and completed everything in the order it was shown in the directions. We spent a solid 30-minutes brainstorming and creating our outline, those 30 minutes consisted of general conversation and agreeing on what we both wanted to do. Afterwards, we immediately jumped into creating the project, Editing took around 2 hours for me since it had been a while since I edited audio on premiere pro, but I picked it up pretty quickly and I was able to get through it relatively fast.

Overall, I'm very satisfied with how my rendition of the project turned out, I feel like If I brushed up on how to use premiere, I would do an even better job. This project also showed me how little I know about sound techniques; I'm definitely going to study more of that.

My project:
https://youtu.be/9i-Op9CBiM0

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