10_ Reading the Multimodal Narrative

    First at all, this comic is totally different compare to what I used to read in my whole life. And also the American type of comic style sometime make me struggle to read. But this one is so special, when I open the first page I thought it is just a illustration sketches book, or just a rough script before refine and publish. but the authors seems like meant to keep this sketchy style for this story. And also the notebook's ring hole keep making me believe it just a scan version from author's sketchbook, still can see many author's thought and figure sketch in some pages. This one is so special in nowadays, authors make the style stand out and just like a personal art works.
    My favorite thing for this graphic novel is about the main character Karen who loves monster movies, magazine and everything about monster. I definitely like the character setting, she sees herself as a wolf girl and she has a lot of things going around her and this really is playing with this child perspective of adult themes, struggles etc. Real stuff that's happening in the world like war, child abuse eventually the book turns into a murder mystery because her upstairs neighbor is found dead and they presume it is suicide but she has to discover who actually killed her cuz she doesn't believe that it was suicide.  But I'm not sure I like the ending or not, because nothing really get resolved at the end... I heard that there's a second book about to coming, maybe I'll read it when I finish my thesis.

09_ Voice and The Auteur Theory

    Wes Anderson, as known as a famous American film director, also famous on how him directed films in his symmetry style. I watch The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

    Most of people are talking about his symmetry camera shot, I can understand. That is the most significant style when you first time see his film. Then I start to think about how he apply the color tone into his film, to make it feel oily and surrealism. His film have a kind of color keys tone, it like a filter style, I saw that kind of style in some 80's, 90's film. Like scissorhands edward. The film is doing fantasy and romance story combo in a fantasy world, it keep a filter's color tone to make it feel unrealistic. Wes Anderson usually uses warm color into his film, like The Fantastic Mr. Fox is saturated warm orange tone, Moonrise Kingdom is kind of warm yellowish green and The Grand Budapest is purple pink.

    For me I especially like the opening and the ending from the Moonrise Kingdom. It sets up so well and stylize, you can know it's his film when you first time see it. The opening sequence pan the camera, and establish girl's house. I see the house decoration and just can feel how fake it is. It's clean and neat, but feels deliberately. You know this family is something wrong, and they are trying to pretend they are just okay. It's a family without connection. And the ending back to the sane environment from girl's house, still the same set, but Sam is in the center painting to stand out. You can compare the difference about the girl's change.

08_ Adaptation

    About the writing script, I read the Chinatown script for this week. I know Chinatown many years ago and doesn't really watch it. At the beginning I thought it's a drama about Asian people in the Chinatown. But obviously it not what I thought, it's a Suspense film and not thing really about Asian.

    I realize in the movie script, they use the location and maybe what kind of camera should have at that scene. They usually write down every acting parts, I realize that is the reason why every actor/actress will get the movie script at the beginning. So they can understand what kind of character is it, and how they should act. It's important to know how their character moves and what kind of emotion they should have at that moment. And in the scripts also talking about the environment setting which interaction with players, it is about basic environment idea I guess. The dialogues in the script are necessary, so the player can know what kind of conversation and what is their character's mood in that scene.

    I'm doing computer animation graduation thesis right now, and it in the pre-production processing. Writing down the beat is the most important thing before we get into the storyboard. Every beat are talking about how camera moves and the how characters act. The atmosphere of the scene and what happens there. It's kind of similar as the movie script I think. They all talking about what kind of element should have in every scene. I believe the function of these script are to make the reader understand what happen at that moment, and what kind of setting there. It make all the producer easier to start the production.

07_ Ready Player One

    I love this kind of fantasy topic, and really like how the film version came out. But still, the timing for a film to tell a complete story is difficult. I believe that Steven Spielberg did film most of the story, but he cut out some parts just for matching the time limit. Film version compare to the novel one feel like it lost some build up, and also the relationship between characters.
    In novel version, Author build up the background of Wade, so we can connected with him and understand him more. And also set up the environment issues for the future deeply in the novel one. For me, to have a connection with main character is important, so this is the big miss for me. I want to feel what character's feel, but the film kind of missed it. The biggest difference for me about a film which adapted from a novel is always missing the build up parts. Ready Player One is a good movie for entertaining, but that big missing parts is what I would do.
    Film version change lots of the challenge parts, I know it is a difference choice. But I do like the build up of the first mission from the novel, it's more challenge and solving problem instead of just a action racing. Maybe for the timing, it's necessary to simplify. But feel like it not as strong as novel one.

06_ Marriage of a Thousand Lies

    I listen the audio version of Marriage of a Thousand Lies through Amazon, I can't really finish the entire book because my language issue took me so many time to finish a book, but I tried to understand the story about this book. It's kind of painful to watch Lucky's relationship with Nisha, also she can't see a way forward. And it also feel bleak as Lucky bounces between her options. It's sad, but I can related to her situation somehow.
    In my country, our traditional family arrange everything for us, such as occupation or marriage even more. They always say that it's for our own good. They believe their experiences and perspectives are never wrong.  Confucianism is the central idea for Asian people, it's talk about honor the aged and the wise, respect the leader such as things. So the elder can always affect our life. Fortunately it's changing and getting better now, but still have some conservative people in my hometown doing such as things. Homosexuality in my country is a serious issue, it affecting the traditional society and conservative idea for last generation people. We are still trying to fight for their right, and we are trying to legislate the policy for them. But the most difficult thing is convincing the elder. Most of the families do not accept homosexuality because they educated by the traditional ideas. The limitation of traditional society are making difficult situation for homosexual, they are afraid of telling their family who they truly are. Mostly the homosexuality in my country are not happy, they have to pretend they are straight to become and reach their family's expectation. The characters remind me a character from a film in American Beauty, the gay father who roles by Chris Copper.

05_ Cosmopolis

    "A rat became the unit of currency."

    Story is about a promising young billionaire, Eric, quickly collapsed in a day, and it also symbolizes the collapse of the entire society.  Eric do everything inside of a white limousine, talk shop, have sex, health checkup and more. The white limousine symbolize status of Eric, also a shell to shut people and the society out. The limousine collapse overnight after Eric from rich become rags. His career has been significant downs from heaven to hell. Instead of saying that the reality tear him down, I would say that the personality of Eric can not afford an unexpectedly fail. Eventually he gives up himself and let himself destruction. Everything in this world are so unpredictable, maybe just need a single moment, all the collapse comes fast and fierce.
    In the end of the story before killer shoot, the killer mention that he was waiting for main character's rescue. If those upper class people in this society are able to care more about mid-class even the working-class people rather than exploit them arbitrarily, perhaps those turbulent protests will not happened.

04_ The Secret History of Wonder Woman

   It's always interesting to understand the prototype of a fictional character. I finished the movie version of the story and read some chapters of The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Even though I didn't really finish the book, but it's still interesting to compare the difference about these two medium. The wonder woman made for some reasons, and what's the inspiration of her ability had strong connection with her creator, Marston. For me, the movie version seems to romantic and unrealistic. The film maker kind of on the Marston's side and positive about him, and maybe it's for some marketing consideration, the main character have to be attractive to audience. But I think the great people were not Marston himself, I believe the females behind him are the ones who made him succeed.
  For making a theme park of wonder woman, I may use Olive Byrne as the main character to represent this theme park. Personally I like her the most compare to others. I want to tell my guest about her stories, backgrounds and how she supported Marston. I believe that she sacrificed the most, and also she is the original prototype of wonder woman. That's would be a great connection to introduce what made her became wonder woman. At that time period, the feminism just raise, and also DC is facing it own crisis at that time. Interact about their historical background and how BDSM affect to Marston would be the good resource to point out how him create wonder woman by using Olive Byrne as prototype.