Cinemateque - Erin Brockovich

The movie “Erin Brockovich” is actually based on the true story of a mother that has been through two divorces and is working as a secretary at a law firm in Los Angeles, California. She doesn’t have a law degree or any background in law other then what she has picked up from working where she does. Brockovich takes it upon herself to fight a case in which a powerful corporation has contaminated water in a small, desert town. The corporation had spent a lot of money to hide their mistake up, but Brockovich doesn’t give up and ends up leading the contamination back to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. From having no legal training at all, she works her way into the court room to bring the Mega Corporation to justice.
This biopic/drama was released in 2000 and directed by Steven Soderbergh. Soderbergh is more of an indie movie director, but worked with Julia Roberts to make the real Erin Brockovich’s story a blockbuster hit. The movie is rated R, because the lead character does seem to use a lot of curse words, but the message of the movie is that of triumph and inspiration. This movie, even though it is almost eleven years old, would still speak to many audiences and even connects to the present day with the BP oil spill that recently occurred.
The beginning of the movie introduces the main character, Erin Brockovich, to the viewer. We learn she isn’t having the best luck with her life, but she isn’t the type of person to just quit. As a viewer you find it hard to find any hope that Brockovich will be able to keep her family afloat through her injury and lack of money. But as the story progresses and we see a strong woman set on securing a healthy life for her own family as well as other families she finds have been wronged.
As the story progresses and Brockovich finds more and more people affected by the water contamination, it is interesting that the director takes a break from the central story of gathering the case to focus on the people who are affected. It is heart-wrenching to hear about the effects that this water contamination has had on the small community.
In the end you cannot help to be overcome with the feeling of triumph as the people who caused so much pain finally are put to justice. Erin Brockovich may have sacrificed a lot of her time and energy to help all of those people, but in the end she manages to juggle it all and pull her family together.

Classmate Review 3

The idea I was most interested in during today’s presentations was the “College Hits CD”. The product itself was really good because as a college student I could tell he did his research when it came to the music he chose for the CD. Every song on the CD has been a recent hit and in the world now where one can hardly keep up with the new music, it is great to have it all in one place and on one CD.

Another factor that caught my eyes as a college student was the price of the product. It is nice to se a low price for a product developed for college students because being in college doesn’t allow much time for a real job making real money. The price is great for the audience the CD is intended for, but I cannot see there being much of a profit from the sale of this product. To create this CD, one would have to get copyright permission, which is costly as well as might even have to pay royalties. With so many songs from different artists to pay for it hardly seems like the CD, which is already considerably cheap for what it is, will turn out a profit.

Though, if the product is advertised to enough people and enough consumers want it there is a chance that the creator could break over even. The examples of advertising shown in class were all beautifully done. Every image of the ads that would be in the magazines and/or newspapers was executed so well that this product seemed real. The sound bite for the radio advertisement was also done extremely well. All the advertisements presented made me really want to buy this CD! Advertising on the television would also greatly help in the sale of this product; I think more attention should be given to a TV ad then an advertisement in the newspaper because more college students watch television.

If he wanted to take this product from just one CD to a whole mix CD distribution business, he could pick different target audiences. There could be compilation discs targeted at people from ages 10 to 100! There would even be business in making themed CDs for birthdays, weddings, and the holidays.

This idea has a lot of room for further development. It was presented extremely well with many visuals and he was very knowledgeable about his product.

Classmate Review 2

Today in class out of the seven presentations, I found that Melissa's book on family life to be the one that interested me the most and the proposal that I would endorse. The idea was not only original, but I feel that it would be relatable to many people of different ages, ethnic background, and family type.
Melissa began her speech with the introduction of the book she plans on writing. It gave insight into her own family life and the fondness she had for her family. She described the fun times she had were sisters and also the loss they all felt with the death of her grandfather. I saw this introduction as a teaser that gave a lot of insight into what the rest of the book would be like.
As Melissa broke the book up by dividing into the chapters: Marriage, Education, Cohesion, etc. one can see that though each topic may differ, it is all centered on the strong feelings that come from family. Each chapter would give insight into how to cope with different situations the family would come across. She also said that there would be activities that the family could together which I thought was important and a great idea.
When it came to the advertising of her book, Melissa created a mock of what her billboard and magazine would be like. I loved her examples because they were bright and attention grabbers. She also made them cohesive with each other which I thought to be extremely smart since an audience would remember what her book cover was like to from the images they saw on the billboards and their favorite magazine. Melissa might also want to try advertising her book on family television stations. Even though it might not be the best way for a family to bond, a lot of families all sit together and watch television. Having a commercial for her book on stations that show family sitcoms would be the perfect place to reach families.
I think what I liked most about Melissa’s pitch was that I myself could relate to having a close family that has somewhat grown apart. Having both my sister and I away from home and at school for most of the year has taken a toll on my family’s closeness. I think a book giving us ideas on how to stay connected and even having activities to do when we are all together would be very beneficial.

Final Project Presentation: Invisible Children

Invisible Children is the idea of three other people, but it is my proposal to take it to the next level here at Ramapo College of New Jersey. The idea, though developed in other places, is falling short here at our school and so I feel it our job to help educate eachother.

Mission of Invisible Children:
“Invisible Children uses film, creativity, and social action to end the use of child soldiers in Joseph Koney’s rebel war and restore Northern Uganda to peace and prosperity. Invisible Children addresses the need for access to education and economic development through innovative programs.”

The War in Uganda:
For the past 23 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Government of Uganda (GoU) have been at war leaving nearly two million innocent civilians caught in the middle. The LRA rebel movement is traced back to a woman named Alice Lakwena. In the 1980’s, Lakwena believed that Holy Spirit spoke to her and ordered her to bring down the Ugandan government for being unfair to the Acholi, an ethnic group in Uganda. Lakwena and her followers, known as the Holy Spirit Movement, gained force as anger toward the government grew. When Lakwena was deported and no leader remained, Joseph Kony took control and transformed Lakwena’s rebel army into the LRA, and have been terrorizing Uganda ever since.

Who are the Invisible Children?
Kony’s LRA did not receive the same support as the Holy Spirit Movement. With dwindling approval for their cause and heightened government offensives, the rebels resorted to abducting children and essentially forcing them into slavery as soldiers. This originally caused the children to night commute, or walk miles nightly to avoid these troops and keep their freedom. Children leave their homes at night and they sleep together in community centers in order to not be abducted by the LRA. It is estimated that 90% of the LRA are abducted children.

How They Started:
In the spring of 2003, three filmmakers, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole, traveled to Africa. Initially they planned on going to Sudan, but the LRA shot out the truck that was taking them. They were forced to turn around and wound up stranded in Northern Uganda where they witnesses children sleeping in the street and uncovered a story that both appalled and moved them into action. This experience inspired their first film, Invisible Children, and the creation of the organization.

Schools For Schools:
The Schools for Schools program’s goal is to raise the values of secondary education in northern Uganda. This project encourages academic excellence not only within students, but also, excellence within their schools.

Types of Media:
Posters
Campus Radio/TV
Classroom/Dormroom Handouts
Powerpoint presentations given in the classrooms

C – character: Students of Ramapo College of New Jersey
L – location: Ramapo College of New Jersey
O – objects: Educational videos & Invisible Children Merchandise
S – situation: Helping educate and inform to insight a movement for change
A – act: Create awareness about an important world issue
T – time: Present day

Though Invisible Children might be on our campus already, there isn't enough support. If our school put a bigger effort into the program it could grow to reach other schools in New Jersey.

Classmate Review

In class all the presenters had interesting ideas. The idea I liked most was Molly’s idea about collecting information on the best places to live. Her idea can be useful to people of all ages. One might think it wouldn’t help someone younger, but there were many a times when I myself had to look up different places in the United States for different projects in elementary and middle school. As you hit high school you start looking at the places to attend college and the neighborhoods around. Most of the top places Molly named were near colleges and universities. Once in college these young adults are already looking forward at the next step in their life and that is where Molly’s information would come in handy again. College students will be looking for work and knowing the unemployment rate of these top places to live is useful information. Even after graduating some people move onto starting a family and knowing a great place to raise your family would be important. Knowing how well the school systems run in the area are important for growing families. Now after a long, happy life people look for the perfect place to retire. Once again Molly’s information would come in handy. So having all the information she presented in one easy to find location would be useful to many people of all ages.

Having all of this useful information would be nothing if it didn’t reach the people who needed it. The perfect places for Molly to advertise her idea would be on television. She should target a wide variety of channels, but hope to advertise especially on news channels during the new report. This would be beneficial because a lot of people at different ages would be watching. Another place to advertise would be in newspapers and magazines. Young and old families tend to have subscriptions to magazines such as, Good Housekeeping and Time Magazine.

Molly’s idea of collecting information on the best places to live and having it accessible to the people that need it is a great idea. It definitely also helped that her presentation was very organized and went right to the point.

Pitch for "Cinderella"

When a young girl named Cinderella, loses her father in a tragic accident she faces not only the hardship of losing a loved one, but also the sting of living with her evil stepmother and equally horrific stepsisters. Cinderella performs daily chores as the servant in her own father’s home. She suffers through the hatred of her stepmother and the jealousy from her stepsister’s day in and day out yet, she still remains pure at heart and loving towards even the smallest mouse that crosses her path. One day it is proclaimed that there is to be a ball held on behalf of the Prince to aid in him finding a suitable wife. The evil stepmother prepared her two biological homely daughters in the hopes that one of them will become the next queen. Cinderella, unable to attend the ball, was soon face to face with her fairy god-mother! The magical god-mother created a carriage and coachman out of whatever is around and dressed Cinderella in a beautiful dress and adorned her feet with sparkling glass slippers. The fairy god-mother asked in return that Cinderella be home by twelve, before the magic ran out and her beautiful dress turned back into rags. As soon as she enters the grand ballroom she catches the Prince’s attention. They begin to dance, and losing track of time, Cinderella did not realize it was already twelve ‘o’clock. She ran out of the ballroom and, not even stopping to grab her shoe as it fell off. Back at her father’s home, her stepmother knew that she had been dancing with the Prince all night and kept her inside and busy. The Prince did not want to give up so he used Cinderella’s glass slipper as a means in finding her. He sent his men out allover the village to find the foot that fit the glass slipper. Of course that glass slipper fit Cinderella perfectly. They wed soon after and lived happily ever after.

"Memento"

The film, “Memento”, directed by Christopher Nolan is an interesting movie that challenges the way we, the viewer, perceive what we are seeing. The director calls it a “Psychologic Thriller” and it is about a character named Lenny who cant make new memories and is looking for revenge on the man who killed his wife.

Lenny tattoos himself and uses notes to help him remember who people are, where he is living, and even what car he drives. He can have a whole conversation with a person and even have known them for years before his accident occurred yet still have no memory of them. This handicap makes him an easy target to be swayed in whatever direction a person would want him to be influenced. We follow Lenny as he tries to figure out who caused him to lose his short-term memory and who killed his wife as he meets the people who say they are there to help him.

The film is highly subjective to what the protagonist knows and thinks. As the audience we are put in the head of Lenny as he works through his memory handicap to try and figure out fact from fiction. Having so much weight put just on what Lenny thinks makes me as a viewer question his credibility, why would we trust someone who does not remember what he had done just minutes before? Perhaps he has a distorted point of view, but I think that is one of the questions the writer would like the audience to ask. My favorite part of the film is that you do not know who to trust, it is like playing a game of “Clue” without being able to ask any questions. The reliability of this narrator adds to the mystery of the storyline.

Another question the writer might want the audience to ask is what time frame does this story take place in? It might seem like the story has a non-linear structure, but it is in fact linear just in reverse. Each scene depends on the one before it and after for the story to fall into place and make sense. Sequence of events might seem confused, but they each play off of the other to tell the story in the opposite direction.