To Alan

I know how you say that "shakespeare doesn't like emo poetry" but your final words showed that there is always time and room for "emo" in a lifetime.
This course was not only educational but also life learning and life changing. This class allowed me to escape from "the real world" and stressful college life to a place with plenty of room for creativity and to be myself.
I enjoyed the idea that you presented us with ideas and left it up to us to get what we wanted from them. It goes back to the idea that if one is interested then he or she will look more into it.
Oh this is not a way of sucking up, but I want to thank you for the many rambling talks that originally started with a purpose and ended with something completely different. These talks helped me think of life and view life in a different light. This exposure to your life experiences/ wisdom will help me in my future.

The class was lots of fun and I enjoyed the course.

-justin

Today's...

Class was amazing!! I loved everyone's performances. These past two classes have been the most entertaining of the year. Aside from just having fun, I feel that we learned a lot from one another. The class has about 100 or a lil more but we don't notice the size, (it's not the size that matters) we're connected. Through the performances we welcomed each other into our comfort zones and left a lil parts of ourselves in each other's lives.

While walking back to my room, I was thinking that this last class took me back to childhood memories. How the "last day of school" should be. I would love to see everyone again next quarter, but that's not how college works. I most likely won't see many of the people again but if I do see someone from the class I will not be shy to tell them hi and ask how things are going for them.

This class has made many friendships and I thank Alan for being the transitioning point from fellow classmates, work, and mandatory lectures to friendships and fun learning.

Thank you.

-justin

the sky

did you guys see the sky yesterday? dude it was gorgeous. so i took a Polaroid of the picture and this is what it now looks like...
~miyou

miyou was in a creative mood

so she decided to make a few things for the benefit talent show/art gallery. all the money went to feed the hungry in Africa.

End of the year!

This video is really random, I just wanted to see if it would upload on the page :)
-Vanessa

It'll be a great idea...

To do the extra credit because not many courses offer it. I think that we should use it to our advantage.
Al said that it's due soon, so I think that you guys should have it done by next lecture. Don't worry about turning in a hard
copy. Just email it to him or put it on the blog. Don't forget to mention what it is and who it's from.
LET'S GET THEM A'S!!!
-Justin

Welcome

Environmental Design

Environmental Design

Environmental Design

The Inspiration

Our inspiration for our upcoming live design.

the sky is blue

i painted this for a friend over the summer
~miyou

Operation Red Duck

I know that we're going to meet up on Sunday, but what time is it going to be?
I don't want to be in bed and get dragged out for the meeting.

-Justin

Thought for the day.... When was the last time that you stopped to admired something beautiful?

The Metaphor

Since the earliest years of mankind there has always been a need to illustrate moments that occur in life. These illustrations began with the use of pictures and evolved into the use of words and language. These illustrations are metaphors for something in the actual world. Borges gives an example of “a monster made of eyes” and it goes back to visual metaphors because we as humans view certain events in our own way. There are many interpretations to an image, “a picture says a thousand words.” With slight variations to words choice and the arrangement, people can create completely different effects to a metaphor. Borges mentions comparing a woman to a flower and comparing a flower to a woman; they are pretty much the same thing but the arrangement makes a difference. When someone speaks about a flower they think of something that is delicate, pure, and beautiful creating a welcoming feeling. But when someone thinks about a woman they relate to the experiences that they have had with women whether they are good or bad. Borges refers to the metaphor’s affect as a pattern. Each metaphor has its own pattern; some can be connected to another metaphor but others just stand-alone. When it comes down to analyzing poems and metaphors there are “only about a dozen” different patters used. These patterns send a message, metaphors many be considered as being a colorful way to send a message to the reader. Borges also mentions that the words he and I wrote are also considered metaphors because they stand for something more in the real world. When a person reads the word “car” they think of an image of a car. This brings the imagination into the reality and gives a person a break from the world. “Where’s Sofie?” is a metaphor. We’re about sending the message, one message at a time.

The Scene as a Machine and Richard Foreman as Scenographer summaries

The Scene as a Machine, by Baugh, discusses and questions scene language, the way a scene relates with the actor, and the purpose of scenery. It also focuses on the work of two designers, Appia and Craig, and their different scenographic styles. Both saw the stage as a place that could achieve its ultimate artistic life through the act of live performance.
"All theater artists have to contend with the complicated inter-relationship between the real-time existence of living performers and the physical actuality of their surroundings- their place of performance" (Baugh 46).
The interaction between architecture and scenography is an important aspect considered by both designers as it is a space that must be articulated to serve as a venue for performances of all kinds. Architectural devision between the audience and the performance was eventually abolished, followed by the idea of including the audience itself in the atmosphere of performance by sharing the lighting. It was Appia's goal to reflect the atmospheric qualities of the performance and physically embrace all participants.
Both designers understood and showed through their work that physical scenography is given form, color, texture and dimension by the use of light.
Richard Foreman as Scenographer, by Aronson, explains Foreman's style as unique and unmistakable designer. "Text, character, sound, language, space, thought and decor are, in a sense, all aspects of a single entity in Foreman's world; inextricably bound up with each other and each functioning essentiality of the play" (Aronson 161). His style is an embodiment of a rich and textured mind. He stated that the stage is a landscape in which all details are significant; the audience's perceptual flow may not be uniformly focused. The distorted perspectives and creation of a spacious stage reflects the flow of Foreman's consciousness. Designing and re-designing the set is "a pretty much normal procedure" (Aronson 169).

Operation Red Duck

Since I'm going to be the wolf.. I was wondering if you guys wanted for me to do my hair a certain way. Or would you like for me to wear my furry looking hat along with some wolf ears?
-justin

Operation Red Duck

Communication post for operation red duck. if there are any ideas, questions, whatever, post it here.

Tricky

The Stage is a Dangerous Machine Summary

George Tsypin is considered the principal designer in postmodernist stage design. His range of work, from The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez to Henry IV, to Don Giovanni, all support this claim. His favorite material to work with is steel: “I’m obsessed with metal….is very hard and dangerous, but at the same time it’s flexible, and you know, it rusts (George Tsypin).”His use of metal creates a danger, both artistically and physically. The actors themselves must deal with his intricate sets, while the audience must deal with his sometimes harsh landscapes.



Tsypin’s inspiration comes surprisingly from the past. He is inspired by the medieval, ranging from architecture to statues. He uses these historical inspirations in conjunction with the play’s content to create his inspirational sets. He likes to use vertical space to create a large sense of scale. Additionally, these vertical spaces suggest a spiritual connection to the audience as Tsypin tries to transcend the physical limitations of the theater space. Such uses of this vertical space include a highway to nowhere and a giant net. Tsypin also uses light effectively in his designs. His designs must reflect light in a way to reflect his scale. Additionally, he uses projections to add to his lighting scheme.

A unique challenge for Tsypin was working on a film instead of a traditional stage. His odd perspectives were in contrast to the realistic sets required for a film. Additionally, film proved to be less dimensional than traditional theater space.

Around the 1990s, Tsypin career took off, designing more than thirty productions. His materials have grown to include a lot of glass, stone, and wood. His designs have become more symbolic and grand, settling his place as the ideal modernist.

-Vincent

Poet's Creed

Borges states that:
1. poetry is the language that is music, passionate
2. for a book to be great, you need something pleasing to the imagination, characters people believe in. it is not the story or the parable that people believe but what makes it believe, but it is the characters that people believe.
3. some works (like Edgar Allan Poe's work)should be read when you are young.
4. literature begins with verse and so forth (a pattern). a free-verse disrupts the pattern so it is harder to write than a verse.
5. if the reader thinks the writer has a moral defect, he will not put up with the writer or his work.
6. we are already modern so there is no reason to strive to be modern; we live in the present.
7. being a writer means being true to imagination; one must be loyal to the dream, not the circumstances around it.
8. only believe in allusions.
the meaning is not important but music, like the way of saying things, is what is important.
9. ultimately, we are writing for the audience and their experience.

Really ahead of our time...

-Chris

Operation Cobra Starship

I would really like to get draw cartoons and write words along the path that we take to class. It could be a way to burn a trail without starting a forest fire.

I've been thinking a few words that will tripper certain emotions for the people that read them. 

I would also like to draw random things so that people walking by will stop and try to make something out of nothing.

-Justin

Sofie's ink drawing

Operation Cobra Starship

For the members of Where's Sofie? :

If you have any ideas for the secret operation, then feel free to leave them as comments under this post. This will help things keep organized.

Over and out.

Sofie's watercolor eye

Sofie's sharpie drawing human figure

College and High School

One thing I have learned in college is that the drama that is stereotypically in high school, is not in high school, but rather in college. And it's caused because people don't deal with small things that, in the grand scheme of things, don't matter much. It's just a shame that some people have to piss away their college experience and mess with the experiences of others because they either don't know how, or they don't want to address small issues. We're not little kids anymore. It's time to grow up. Even just a little. During my senior year in high school, my econ teacher said that me and my classmates were about to enter some of the best years of our lives. We all need to step back, take a breather, and realize that. Because holy moly, we stopped wearing bootees a while ago.

-chris

Chris thinks...

...these shoes are awesome.

Saving one life at a time...

Interview

10 Questions for Trevor Rappleye
1. When was the first time you realized you wanted to work with media?
“I would have to say at Christian Brother High School when I saw their news station (KBFT).”

2. What is your dream job?
“I have two actually, the first is to be a music video director, and the other one is to be in front of the camera, but also behind the scenes; perhaps a sports producer.”

3. What have you done to try to achieve this dream job?
“I have made two music video that already have thousands of views on YouTube and I had a job with KCRA 3 in Sacramento my senior year of high school. I have also recently filmed for clubs such as Sacramento Empire club and Long Beach V20 club where I interviewed special guests like E-40, SuperCrew from America’s Best Dance Crew, and the Pack. I also film for Fullerton’s Titan Communication where the channel is accessible to over one million people.

4. How has media changed your personality and the way you go about life?
“Media has changed me 100%! In the beginning of high school I would never want to go in front of the camera. I was never really shy, but I could never go in front of the camera. Now, when I’m in front of the camera at a club I talk perfect.”

5. What motivated you to put so much time into your work in high school?
“It payed off once I saw it on television. Doing 10-15 hours of editing and filming and then someone coming up to me saying ‘Trevor, that was so good’ made everything worthwhile.”

6. Who do you look up to as a role model most?
“I never really thought about this before…Hmm…I don’t think I have a role model! I guess I would have to say Del Rodgers from KCRA 3 because he has my dream job, and he’s cool!”

7. Is your family supportive of your work?
“Oh yes. My dad is willing to pay for half of everything that can help me in life. He payed for half of my camera, half of my equipment, and all of that stuff. He wants to make sure I don’t take advantage of him [laugh].”

8. Which college did you choose and why?
“I chose Cal State Fullerton for two reasons, number one is that is in near L.A. and has a good TV station. Number two is because of the dorms. It was between Fullerton, Northridge, and LMU.”

9. Through your work what satisfies you the most?
“I love media because it is honestly really fun…that is sort of a bland answer, but I love the power. I get to wear a media pass and go wherever I want. I love the power!”

10. If you did not want to be a producer or director, what would be your other dream job?
“My next dream job would be refereeing, especially for a national league televised game!”



Student, Trevor Rappleye, refers to himself as “dreams in media”. He has been working over the years to accomplish his lifetime dream to be a producer or director. He has done everything from working for a local news station, to interviewing E-40, what in his life influenced him to have such a passion for entertainment?
The first time Trevor realized he wanted to work with media was in high school. “When [he] saw their news station” he was intrigued. However, as much as the teacher of the news station wanted Trevor to be an anchor, Trevor declined the offer. “I was never really shy, but I could never go in front of the camera.” Since high school, Trevor has done more intense packages, including interviewing famous people such as The Pack, E-40, and SuperCrew from America’s Best Dance Crew. Along with expanding his connections, he has also expanded his communication skills, “Now, when I’m in front of the camera at a club I talk perfect!” He also works with Fullerton’s Titan Communication. “I like to be the fun, upbeat, package guy.” But, Trevor is not all fun and games, he has previously interned with KCRA, a Sacramento news station, as a high school sports program. The program was called High School Playbook; the work of the student anchors would then be posted online for anyone with online access to view. One of Trevor’s strengths is staying focused by certain motivations. “It paid off once I saw it on television. Doing 10-15 hours of editing and filming and then someone coming up to me simply saying ‘Trevor, that was so good’ made everything worthwhile.” Thankfully, Trevor’s family is also very supportive as well. “My dad is willing to pay for half of everything that can help me in life. He paid for half of my camera, half of my equipment, and all of that stuff. He wants to make sure I don’t take advantage of him [laugh].” Trevor loves working with media because he can feel the power when he gets to wear a special badge saying ‘PRESS’ or ‘MEDIA’. “I love media because it is honestly really fun…that is sort of a bland answer, but I love the power. I get to wear a media pass and go wherever I want. I love the power!” Trevor is truly a driven and talented student who has a lot of time to still accomplish his dream, but when asked what his second dream job is he casually said, “referring.”

Dream Drawing-VW

Can Theater & Media Speak the Same Language

An innovation in theater was once considered anything that would hide the mechanics on stage with efforts of making the the production seem natural. Hiding the mechanics kept the magic on stage and kept the audience wondering how a specific effect was done. Driven by the thought of innovation, a German man by the name of Edwin Piscator introduced projections onto the  stage. Theater was considered to be the interaction of the events happening on stage with the audience, so when projections were introduced it complicated theater. Projections do not function in the same way as a set stage because a projection is the preservation of an object or element in the past. Whereas all of the components used in theater are in the present and in front of the audience. There is a fight between the physical elements and the projections that are previously recorded. A projection is very similar to a photograph in the sense that it's a caption of an object playing a role at that split second. Theater does not take previous events and try to pass them off as the present but actually has an object playing a role on stage. For example, there is a person on stage playing the role of another person. Theater tries to make the stage and production as "real" as possible by using time and space. In a performance there is the feeling of time and the space on stage is tweak in a way that makes the stage seem larger. The stage is "self-contained and delineated from the world around it," a practice known as framing. A projection also uses framing when dealing with live footage, but the problem with this type of projection is that the audience is not in the presence of the object being projected. The object in the projection might be in the middle of a storm and the audience is not able to feel the storm. This creates the argument between a temporary projection and physical performance. A projection only last as long as it's being projected whereas a set stage last until time takes its toll on it. The example used is a chair being projected compared to the chair on stage. The projected chair is only visible as long as the projection is kept on and the chair on stage will remain there until the theater is long gone. This difference between media and theater is too great for the two to ever be considered as one. There have been many great productions that incorporated media but there have also been many poor productions that reinforce the idea that media does not belong in theater. Theater is perfect the way that it is!!=]

-Justin

Went Away

Going away is tough, but necessary

Leaving to improve one’s life

To my love it is scary

Always planned to for a wife

Upon my leave, our love was strong

We had our disputes but didn't last long

Long, long is the word that can describe this

A long time away; combined with distance

I thought the change opened a door for improvement

To find the true meaning of the word commitment

At the same time it opened the door to failure

The kind that is only needed and known by her

The loneliness turned into hurt

I never thought that “being there” would be a factor

Went away to make better future

My decision then turned into the belief that I left her

Stayed strong and kept hope, only to find no more us

The absence of me caused her to find another

One that she knows is better

Because I went away I lost my true love

She knew that she was always set above….

Me; A decision in life that went wrong

Now left with the feeling of being alone

Hoping, Wishing that this is just a sad song

Instead of happening to me… I always thought that I was the one.

Thought, what about the feel?

-JRM Chocolate

The World on Stage

• Signs achieve vitality by being of the world.
• theater is a language and its words consist to an unusual degree of what things appear to be
• Peter Handke: a chair on stage is a chair acting to be another chair.
• Viktor Shklovasky: art exists to make people feel things, to portray things as perceived. Not as they are. By making familiar things unfamiliar, it wakes up the audience to a fresh way of looking at a single object.
• sign: a sign of semiotic attitude which can be dialectical or correlative (signifier/signified)
• signifier/signified: a form of background of "intelligibility" to the other
• Makes other things easier to read.
• An ex: sound. reoccurring sounds or speech set up a feeling for the play

• Image: any likeness/ representation made of materials of medians. An image is unique and irreproducible.
• When a play is performed, the play becomes real and concrete for the audience. When a play is read by the reader, the play is left to the reader's imagination.
• A working clock is never put on stage because it gives the audience the sense of time and it governing the play.
• Running water is seldom used in a play because it retains this "primal strangeness" in a set.
• Children and dogs add surprising behavior elements and a little bit of wonder to the play. A dog does not know it is in a play and will act like a dog.
• when one plays a character that is himself, he looses the "freedom to be himself"
• Nelson Goodman said art is not a what but a when. A rock can be a rock on a driveway but when placed in a museum, it is a piece of art. Similarly, what is on stage is theater but before it was on the stage, it was reality. That raw sense of reality is needed in order to create an illusion of a certain reality.
• Montigny: first man to place tables and chairs on stage in the 1850's and revolutionalized blocking.
• a chair is a "permanent tool" of art
• a chair places actors in a time boundary of the present in reality.

-Miyou

Vanessa

Directors and Designers Summary

In the article "Directors and Designers" Pamela Howard talks about the actual roles of directors and designers and how that contrasts with the ideal roles. She starts off the article with a bold statement saying how "the excitement that should be in theatres is found only in baseball parks, arenas, stadiums, and racecourses" (p. 25). This leads into the different roles people take in order to make a play exciting. It logically includes the director and designer working together as one to become a single creator of the work. In the early 1980s, Howard spoke about how hardly any designers were also directors, except for Philip Prowse and the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. They discovered their own style of theatre, they produced plays that could only be seen in Britain, and brought in daring actors and young designers right out of college. The main ideas in the article show two people or groups coming together to make a form of theatre more enjoyable. Howard spoke of the directors and designers in terms of royalty. She said that the director was the master while the designers were the servants. In her opinion, however, directors need to find a new direction in order to end the master servant relationship. Whether it was Prowse and the Glasgow Theatre or Vladimir Mayakovsky and the director Frantisek Zelenka, Howard showed the teamwork and power that needs to be shared in order for a play to recieve the excitement it should from the audience.
-Vanessa Parga

Sofie's collage

Behind the Screen Door Summary

Doors are oft used objects in plays or shows which people often take for granted. Used in today's sitcoms as well as the dramas of the ancient times, doors represent a divide or barrier of some sort, between the known and the unknown. Doors block off a chaos which cannot be seen by the audience, yet they are so easily penetrated by the forces outside. Doors are important because a major part of theater is the constant entrances and exits by different characters. They can represent a beginning and an end, as well as a flow of new information to the audience. Theater can be seen as a door to the inner human soul, and doors on stage can emulate this idea. Every time a door is swung open, an infinite number of possibilities can be brought to the forefront of a play.
However doors were not always used on stage in drams. The first recorded use of a door in drama was around 460 BC in The Oresteia. Before The Oresteia was produced and the use of doors was made part of theater, the Greeks, on the Acropolis, introduced and brought characters on stage gradually. Using the rolling hills behind the stage, the Greeks had characters walk onto stage using long processions. The audience would see this, and to ease the long and tedious walk, the Greeks would have a narrator introduce the character while they made their way to the stage. It may have worked, but it took away the surprise, and the audience knew which characters were going to be on stage long before the character actually got there.
When doors were introduced, the rhythm of dramatic theater was drastically changed. Characters could enter and exit a set quickly, bringing surprise to the stage. Doors also allowed playwrights to accomplish things which they did not feel could be realistically portrayed in front of an audience. One such example is the act of murder. In Agamemnon, a door is used to conceal a murder. The audience cannot see the act, but hear the screams and flailing of the actor behind the door. The door leaves the imagination of the audience to fill in the gaps of what happened, a thought more horrific than could actually be portrayed by live actors.
Doors represent a threshold which belongs to neither side it governs. Still, passing through a door can represent many things, such as a dangerous act. Roland Barthes notes that in theater, characters who leave through a door often leave to their death. The potential of a door's usage is unlimited, yet doors are becoming more and more uncommon in live theater. The plays today without doors can have no definite end and leave the audience no feeling of finality. In television, doors are used to relate to the audience, to show that the setting shown in the black screen is similar to the one in which we live. In this way, today's television doors represent doors, while theater's doors represent a barrier to the unknown.

-Chris

Justin

Chris

Vincent

Miyou

If You Seek Sofie... (An Ode to the Founders)

So this is how we roll:
Original to this group are only six people
Formed together like under a church steeple.
In this union we've got the one and only Sophie
Even starting small, we know we'll get that trophy.

Everywhere we go, we know that we look good
Now that Justin's in the group, doing lighting like one should.
Giving us ideas of how a set should look is V-Wong
Sketching and forming concepts, we know he'll never be wrong.
Tracing? Ridiculous, because we have a real artist
Recognize Vanessa please, or you're not the smartest.
Our organization is the tops, because we've got Miyou
Managing the stage like vacation in Rio.

For photography, we've got Chris seeing objects through the lens
Observing things on our set, which sets the latest trends.
Under this introduction, you'll notice something missing
No director listed. Wonder what we're thinking?
Directing this crew of many talented persons

Produces a situation which we know can only worsen
Everyone in this group is accountable for each other
Acknowledging group members like a sister or a brother.
Combined altogether, we are known through to Nairobi
Eternally true to ourselves, and asking “Where's Sofie?”

Manifesto

What we stand for:

We are a league of random thought persons
Because an apple a day, is seven apples a week
And we make sets that aesthetically please.
We drink milk because it makes our bones strong.
But don't tase me bro!
Because you can pick your friends and your nose, but you can't pick your friends' nose.
And all the boys and all the girls are begging to if you seek Amy.
Because the words that come out of our mouthes flow like poetry,
And the setting is set, and the set is watching the sunset.
The rest is still unwritten.
The message is sent.

Manifesto

Is on the way and should be brought for the viewing for all those whom are interested in knowing "where's sofie?"