Blog 12: English language challenges

It was nice to study again some English, it helped me fill some blank areas that time with no english courses caused. Studying this language it's not that hard for me because I'm always online lurking through sites that are in english, so I'm forcing myself to practice everyday.

I think I still need to improve my comprehension, both reading and listening. But I think that's just a matter of practice, because when I listen to people, native english speakers, talk it's a bit hard for me to understand every single word they say, they talk really fast. And when it comes to reading, I understand almost everything, but sometimes random words appear that might be a little to specific to remember its meaning.

Now, when it comes to my accent, I now it's not perfect and that it needs to improve a lot, but just like I said before, I think it's all a matter of practice.

Changing the subject, I think that the blogs helped me to be faster with my writing, what I mean is that I think in english not in spanish, therefore, the sentences come out a lot quicker than they used to. Also, I think it's important to share with the other classmates, and the blogs allow you to do that.

I think it's very hard to stay away from english on a daily basis. We are surrounded by english words and we use them all the time. So of course I try everyday to put my english in practice whenever I'm on my laptop working, or googling stuff, or doing a research for a future project.

Blog 11: Good and Bad points

I think one of the most remarkable things that happened to me this year was getting my short film selected in different gore film festivals. One of them was in Mexico called Morbidofest, it was selected in the foreign short films category. There was another one in Spain, but they said they couldn't put it in the official competition because it was too long, but they asked me if they could still show it because they like it so much, and of course I said yes, I felt so flattered. In Chile it was also selected in the short film category in the festival called Fantec. It was the only festival I could attend to, so it was pretty cool to see the people's reaction, the moments they laughed at, what things worked and what things didn't, but most of all, the applause it got at the end was really nice.
In a family related issue, I was very happy that my grandma from the north came to spend some time with me and my family. It was the first time she'd ever visited us in a very long time. I was nice to have her around. I not really sad now that she left because I going to visit her during my summer vacations, like I do it every year.
Now, to the bad stuff. Well it wasn't THAT bad, but it sucked anyway. The thing is for our tv class we had to shoot in the studio a pilot for a tv show. This was a talked show directed by some other classmate, I was in charge of the sound and editing. Everything seemed to be going perfectly, until the day we shot. We couldn't get started because de equipment was not working correctly, especially de microphones. Everything stopped working out of a sudden and we could not fix it. We ended up shooting anyway, but with almost no sound at all. It is was very frustrating for all the team, because it had been a lo of hard worked screwed in a moment because of the bad maintenance of the equipment.
It clearly wasn't our fault, so we're waiting for the University's answer on the matter.
Besides that, this was kind of great. I very happy and looking forward to the next one.

About the past

At the end of the first semester, I've learn some very interesting things. Unfortunately not because of the University, but because I shot a short film called "Dinner is served, Old Bugger". It was my first short film, and I had the support of my family and friends to do it. It's gore, because I'm very into that genre.

I didn't do any sports at all because I'm lazy at this time of year. It's too cold outside to go jogging. I might join a gym very soon, that might help me to get in shape for the summer.
At university, we started our first classes about television. We got to form groups and write a script of a pilot for a TV show. We worked on it during the whole semester with the help of a professor, who guided us to make it just right.

I don't know what else to say, this year is going by so fast.

Blog 10: One of the people a look up to.

As a film student and a movie lover, I have some favorite directors and movies that I'm very protective of. I know that my taste might not be what everybody else enjoys to watch, I may be a little bit too gore for others, and that's ok. 

I think that's why I get so infuriated when some people talk about gore/horror movies I like when they're not even able to appreciated them. One example of this is Braindead, a horror/gore comedy directed by Peter Jackson. Yes, the same man who directed The Lord of The Rings. This is one of his first films, back in the day when he used to make low budget gore movies.

 What I really admire about Peter is that he is always really compromised to his job, he’s very passionate. He spent almost all of his money to make his first movie.

He had a very humble beginning, and after a lot of hard work, he got what deserved, recognition.

I read that he had been a movie fan since a very early age, and when he was in high school a family friend gave him a super 8 camera. After this, Peter started making his own short films. When he was older, he bought a 16 mm camera to shoot his very first feature film, Bad Taste. He made that movie through out the course of four years. He would only shoot during the weekends. He even starred in it with two different roles, he also had all of his friends help him too. But in the long run it was all worth it, because this film made Peter known in the industry and started opening doors for him. Well, and after a couple of years, we all know what happened with The Lord of The Rings.

Blog 9: Artemis Fowl

This time, I'm going back in time. Back in 2003 I got a present from my mother, it was a book called Artemis Fowl. I ha never heard of it before, so I was very intrigued. I started reading and I couldn't stop. I became obsessed with it. I would draw comics based on the books, and I'm not a good at drawing, but still, I managed myself to re-tell the story of Artemis in a comic with stick figures. I forgot to mention that Artemis is a book series of 8 volumes, it tells the story of Artemis Fowl II, a rich and highly intelligent child, who's also a mastermind criminal. He travels around the world with the company of his bodyguard, Butler, planning different schemes to get more money and precious artefacts. And in one of those schemes, they find themselves with the world of fairies and gnomes, and any other creature from fantasy stories you could imagine. As I said before, Artemis story is told in 8 books, I've only read 4, the reason is because these books are very hard to find in Chile, and I don't have a credit card to buy it online. Anyway, these books certainly were very important for me during these past 10 years. I would love if they ever make a movie out of the books. I think Disney is in process of making one but they've been stuck for years. The only thing apart from the books that exists, it's a graphic novel. I got it for my birthday last year, and even if I don't agree with how some characters were drawn, I really liked it. It was very nice to see in images what I had in my imagination for years.

Blog 8: How green are you?

To be honest, I’m not really a “green” person. I’ve never been into that sort of activity where you do something for the environment, BUT that doesn’t mean I don’t care about it. I think that taking care of our planet is very important, after all it’s the only home we have. So, to make it up for it, I try to walk every now and then instead of using a car, but I usually take a bus or the subway because I live outside Santiago, so whenever I need to do something I takes me a lot of time to get where I need to.In the summer, I would like to try to do something useful, maybe start recycling at home, talk with my family and make them do the same.We all know that Santiago has some serious pollution issues, which affects not only people but animals as well. I think there are some necessary measures that help reduce pollution, but they’re not enough. There should be more green areas, and not only in the wealthiest areas of Santiago, but everywhere. Usually, in other not-to-so-wealthy places you’ll find huge amounts of garbage put together in a corner, with no one there to clean it up. So I think that Santiago should take care of these kinds of issues, and keep a cleaner city, it would make it a better place to live in. 

Blog 7: The Green Inferno

"The Green Inferno" is the new film by Eli Roth. I`m a really big fan of this director although I admit that his films aren't very good, in fact some of the are really bad, like: "Hostel 2". But I love his energy and his style and the love that he has for the horror and gore genre.   He became famous after his first film called: "Cabin Fever", and because of the fact that Quentin Tarantino start being like a godfather of him and help him with his next film called "Hostel". This is the most loved film of his fans and from me. I really like this film, principally because I love FX when they're practical and no digital and the story while it's really simple has a really dark dimension but you really have a blast while watching it.

He associated with the Chilean director Nicolas Lopez and produced and acted on his new film: "Aftershock". But now Eli Roth directed a new film with a chilean crew on the peruvian jungle called "The Green Inferno". This is he's come back after six years without directing. So I'm pretty exited for this film and I've been waiting it since January and still they don't release a trailer. It's a cannibal film inspired principally for films like "Cannibal Holocaust", "Cannibal Ferox" and others. Those films are really interesting but I haven´t seen them completely because it has some really shocking scenes of killing animals and I can`t stand those kind of materials. I really love animals and I hate when humans torture them. So I haven't seen those films fully.

Post 6: Summary from a career-related article

The news I selected it's:  "Nymphomaniac trailer accidentally shown to Florida Children".
"Nympomaniac" it's the new film of the danish director Lars Von Trier known by the films "Melancholia", "Antichrist", "Dogville" and "Dancer in the dark". He's part of a movement called "Dogma 95" that had really strict rules about film technique. The main rule it's related to the style of the camera and the way to shoot. It's a very dirty way. But now he has change a little bit so he mix his dirty style and a most pictorical style, designing his own new style.  He's well known by being explicit about many themes like sexuality and violence, but always from an artistic point of view, never for being "controversial".  
The trailer of he's new film called "Nymphomaniac" was released on a disney film in the United States, so children were expose to this really hardcore trailer that shows some real sex scenes. Some mothers ran of the cinema, and others start fighting to the cinema.  It has been called the most explicit trailer for mainstream cinema.

Link: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/04/nymphomaniac-lars-von-trier-accidentally-children

Blog Session 5 - "Scream"

One of my favorite movies it's "Scream" directed by Wes Craven, written by Kevin Williamson and produced by Dimension Films thats own by the Weinstein Brothers. It's a comedy horror movie, that surprised to the audiences and critics. It was released on 1996 but at first didn't cause a big impact, everyone thought that it was going to be a failure at the box office but as the weeks went on "Scream" start to grow up on numbers, to become a hit on the box office and became so succesful and loved by the public that become a trilogy.

The reason because I love this film it's because I'm a big fan of Slasher genre films, but I really hate some of the most famous films of that genre, like "Friday the 13th" or "When a Stranger calls", and "Halloween", this last one I don't hate it, but I don't love it neither.  "Screams" makes a parody of all of this films but without being a full comedy it's a movie that only horror fan can fully understand. I love the costume of the main killer named: "Ghost face", and some of the tone of the movie. Some times it's so cheesy but it's okay because the movie wants to be like that because the original films were like that only that they didn't fully embrace that characteristic.  I don't like none of the sequels but this one it's the perfect movie to see with friends that really know and understand the slasher genre.

Romeo Santos

Romeo Santos is a singer who was part of the group "Aventura". They belong to the bachata genre and  the usually sing romantic songs. They disolved the group some years ago so they can dedicated each one to thir own carreer but planning to return as a band in the future. Me and a friend went to viña del mar to see another singer but we had to listen Romeo because he went on stage first and we really had a good time, I usually don´t like this type of music but it's the only bachata singer that I enjoy. I would love if when we were theh I'd know his songs so I could sing with my friend and no just to stay there... moving. With my friend: Andrea are always expecting a new song or video of Romeo and we´re trying to learn the lyrics of all his songs. 

A country I would like to visit

I would like to visit Spain because I love medieval cultures . And Spain it’s a culturally diverse country, you can visit a small village or a big modern city. I’ve never been in Europe, and because I love history Spain it’s my number one place to visit if I go to Europe.  Some of the places I would like to visit are Toledo, Madrid, Barcelona, Burgos and some movie festivals that are uniques around the world like Sitges Film Festival, because a lot of important directors go to screen their films before it’s release.  I’m interested about Spanish cuisine because it’s a mix of different cultures but never to the point of being “too” exotic.  I would like to travel around Spain but not to live there because I love my house here in Chile, my whole family it’s here. Maybe I could study for a semester or even a year but I don’t think I could stay longer away from my country.

My ideal job

My ideal job is to work on the movie industry here in Chile or in some other country like USA, Spain or UK. I love to direct, so I would like to be a movie director. Not necessary my own scripts because I like to work with writers, but it has to be a "material" that captivates me. Also I really like editing, and I've been working on this area many times.

To work as a Director, you need to be a leading man, with the capacity of listening to others. It's very important to understand that the other members of the crew are there for helping you. As an Editor you need to be patient, its like work on a jigsaw puzzle. The ability of being alone for many hours, working. In both cases you need to know the process of filmmaking, it's very important to know every step of it and understand it. The Editor needs to be skilfull with the editing softwares like "Avid" or "Final Cut", and know about codecs and every aspect of video.

The reason that I think i'll be good at these jobs it's because I'm patient, I learn fast about softwares and I really love the filmmaking process.

The problem it's that if you wanna work in these jobs you have to start early, making contacts with people that work in this area, and have projects. You can't stop working, that's the only way to seattle on this area.