It's A Bird : Most Important Shot

  This straight on, medium shot of Steven Seagle is a great summary of the book in one picture.  It is hard to summarize an entire book with a picture but I think that if you had to choose this would be one of the best in the entire book to do it.  This frame shows Seagle's body under the broad chest of Superman.  This shot reminds me of those boards that are painted of an entire scene and then the faces are cut out for you to put yours in.  I feel like Steven Seagle was trying one of those to put himself in the shoes, or uniform, of Superman to try and feel some connection.
  Besides the image of Seagle, the words are very important too.  The caption says "I need to find STRENGTH" which I find sort of ironic as he looks like he is Superman, the ideal source of strength and justice in comics.  He says that he needs to find strength but this scene comes just two pages before he tells Lisa that he is going to stay with his brother.
  The fact that he brings up Lisa is also interesting because, as I just said, this is just before he tells her he is going to stay with his brother.  Even though he is about to leave he'll still turns to Lisa for strength and power?  Does Lisa change to Kryptonite later in the scene?  I think that Lisa is someone who is there to support and strengthen Steven.  She is there for him, trying to help him think of ideas, and there for him when he is looking for his father.  When Seagle leaves he isn't leaving because she is bad for him, he just needs his Fortress of Solitude.
  This shot from "It's a Bird" is the best single shot in the book to summarize it because of the many parallels linked to it and the implications and questions it leads the reader to about Lisa.

It's A Bird : Fate vs. Free Will

How is Steven "fated"?
  Steven seems to be fated in more than one sense.  There is the story line of the family medical history with Huntington's Disease and weather or not he will write the Superman comic.  He seems fated in both, if he didn't write the comic, 1st of all, it would be a strange and sort of pointless graphic novel.  2nd, the parallels with Huntington's Disease would be lost making another strange aspect to this graphic novel.  Steven does seem to have free will as he does choose to make a meeting with his friend Jeremy about making the comic.  Even though things seem to be set in the terms of what makes sense, the parallels between the disease and the comic, he makes small choices along the way that inevitably help him come up with the "best damned story ideas you've ever heard for Superman" (p. 124).  

It's A Bird : Will The Real Steven Seagle Please Stand Up?

Identity:
  In this section, the book seems to suggest that we construct our identity from the world around us.  On pages 66-69 Seagle is in the steam room and starts to daydream about what it would be like to stand out, like Superman does when he is in him costume.  On pages 75-79 Seagle's thoughts about Superman are changing because of interactions with someone on the train.  He focuses more on what comic books used to be and how he doesn't like the change they have taken.  Seagle is reminded of how the comics used to be good lessons for the kids that read them and how now they are nothing of the sort.  Justice, hero's, and good have been traded in for "snide and mean-spirited", overpriced picture books.
  The book seems to say that we are shaped by everything that around us, our emotions are reactions from situations around us.  In the first section that I mentioned, Seagle is hinting that he believes our clothes to be a uniform.  When he shows Superman embarrassed to be in a world of naked people while he is dressed in his costume he is relating that to how he felt when he was the only naked person in the world.  It is weird to stand out that much when we are so used to blending in.

It's A Bird : "Words, words, words..."

Words, or lack thereof

  -There are a few parts of this section in which the words stand out, mainly they are in the section of Sealge's fake advertisement for Kryptonite.  In some of the frames the only word is "Kryptonite" and it stands out like it was the slogan of the ad.  With a very un-detailed picture, the word Kryptonite is left to make you imagine everything about the lump in the middle of the frame.

L.A. Confidential vs. Double Indemnity

  This medium to long shot at a high angle from Double Indemnity shows Walter Neff walking into the living room of Mrs. Dietrichson and the narration focuses on how smoky the room still was from the previous night.  Besides just being talked about the shot really shows how the blinds cast shadows trough the smoke and onto the walls.  

In this long shot from L.A. Confidential, the final fight scene when Exley and White are holed up in the motel room focuses on the shadows and smoke in the air.  While the dialog of the scene doesn't focus on these visual aspects as much as the scene from Double Indemnity, the detail is much more prominent  here.

These two scenes have a lot in common, they focus on the smoky air and the shadows from the light outside, but they also contrast in a noticeable way.  One scene mentions the details in a verbal way while the other lets the image do itself justice.

It's A Bird : Images

Foregrounding and Backgrounding
  -On page 22, the picture at the very bottom of the page, you can see that Clark Kent and the other characters that were described are all somewhere in the picture.  Clark is in the middle because he is the focus of Superman, he is Superman, and the other people are all just part of the story.
Shadowing/Lighting
  -On page 24, the picture of the person with Huntington's Disease, the person is shown in a grey light with heavy shadows behind them.  This is showing the debilitating capabilities that the disease has and the plague it has taken on Seagle's family.
Shots
  -There are a lot of shots in this section of the book that are medium shots with more than one person in them.  Even still there are a few close-ups of one face.  The close-up shots are generally used when the mood of the scene gets more serious, it is also used when Seagle is talking on the phone with his mom.

It's A Bird : Frames

  Size and Shape
    -Most of the frames were about the same size.  Some frames were smaller because they were focusing in on someone's face.  Some seemed to be stretch out to the sides because they were focusing on something wider like a building.  Every frame was either a square or a rectangle.
  Organization of Frames
    -Most pages have between 5-9 frames and it seems to be that the ones with more frames have less content in them.  The wordier frames are on the pages with fewer frames and that causes me to read the pages with less frames slower.

Framing

 I think that it is so much fun to take great pictures and I love taking them even from my iPhone.  These pictures were all taken from my iPhone and I think they are some of my best.

 I took this picture of a cloud a while ago.  When I took this picture I did frame it so that the majority of the cloud was centered but the parts of the cloud that draw your eye are not in the "lazy frame".  

  I saw this Jellyfish at the Shedd Aquarium.  Jellyfish are beautiful creatures with the way that they move and I saw this one and took its picture.  I knew that it wasn't centered in the frame but I thought that would make your eyes move from the middle where the tentacles are up to where the body is.

This is my dog Olive.  She was standing in my yard with the sun hitting her in the face.  I knew that I could take a decent straight on picture of her but I though that showing more of my yard gave more of a scene to the shot.  Also I was thinking that since she is turned in a direction if I made her back go up against the edge of the frame it could give direction.

Shot #20

In this still from the movie Minority Report you see Tom Cruise (John Anderton, left) and Colin Farrell (Danny Witwer, right) divided by a prominent pre-crime cop.  This medium shot is showing the radical sides of the spectrum with pre-crime in the middle.  Anderton trying to shut down the corrupt system and Witwer trying to take over the entire system.  This shot is at the point of the movie where Danny Witwer try's to play a part in the pre-crime system while John Anderton sees that there is more to his motives.  Anderton is staring down Witwer here as if he knows what he is trying to do.  This shot also shows the division of John Anderton and how he is going to shut down pre-crime.  This shot is foreshadowing for the rest of the movie. 

Films I saw this summer

This summer I saw a few movies, The Dark Knight Rises was among them.  The movie had action to keep you on the edge of your seat while the plot kept you guessing what was next.  I would recommend this movie to everyone because of the top notch entertainment it provides.

Home:

-Minority Report

-Jackass 3D

-Saving Private Ryan

Theater:

-The Dark Knight Rises