Life is full of many struggles, however, through a long journey and with the help of media, anyone can heal.

Through a long journey, Joseph Garner was able to survive for an entire month simply from the help of random strangers he met. Garner had no money and no place to stay anywhere; however through the generosity of others on Craigslist he is able to stay at people's houses that he's never even met before. At one point in the film there is a scene where Joseph is receiving food from a friend he has only known for one day, yet had a very deep connection with. In the shot, the stranger is handing food to Joseph in a medium long shot that shows both of them smiling with natural lighting. The shot shows the personal connection between them because through the use of the medium long shot, it helps to show how close both of them got over the past few hours, while also including both of their faces in one shot. It is important to show both of their faces because they are both smiling which shows how happy Garner was to get the food and make a friend as well. Later in the film, Garner goes to a woman's house simply to help out because she asked for help with moving things around her apartment on Craigslist. Garner goes to her house because he wants to help her out and see if he can make another friend along the way. "We're here to help, whatever you need," (Joseph Garner Craigslist Joe). Although Garner is having his own struggle finding food and a place to sleep every night, he still finds time to help others along the way. Even though he is on a long journey, everyone wants to help him out and give him a place to sleep. There is only one scene in the documentary where someone almost denies him, but in the end decides to let him stay at her house. Even though he is struggling, people realize he is another human being and they want to help him along his journey so that it is less of a struggle. In the end, Garner has endured a long journey and made many friends along the way. He reminisces on his journey while explaining to his family how nice everyone was along the way. "Meeting everyone and telling them my story and the journey and having people, like, invite me, a complete stranger, into their homes, and feed me, and go out, and, you know, share themselves, and their lives with me. It was truly inspiring, just you know, on humanity, to know that we can take care of each other," (Joseph Garner Craigslist Joe). This quote sums up the entire documentary the best because it shows that no matter how long his journey is, people continue to help him in his struggle. Every night is a struggle for Garner to find somewhere to sleep, but he always heals from the struggle because humans help him to find shelter and food along the way. At the end of his journey, Garner was able to say that humans enjoy helping others in their struggles and along their journeys. Going through life is a journey, but humans love to help others and make their struggles less difficult.

Humans are typically influenced in a major way by the media in this era because it can be seen nearly everywhere. In Eminem's music video for his song Mockingbird, Eminem attempts to show the struggles he had during his life to help others not make the same mistake. One sequence switches between a close up shot of Eminem sitting down in low-key lighting and clips that he is watching of his daughter playing. The close up shot makes the viewer feel the same emotions that Eminem does, while the low-key lighting makes the emotions very dark and sad. He talks about how he isn't always there for his daughter, but wishes he would have been with her. The shots switch between Eminem and his daughter to show what he is referring to as he raps. Through the sequences, the viewer realizes that Eminem isn't always there for his daughter and he is trying to influence the viewer so that they are always with people they love rather than gone away. Next, Blink 182 filmed a music video for their song Adam's Song. The song tells the story of a boy named Adam that committed suicide and the song tells the story of him and how nobody is alone and can get help from their depression. One shot shows a long clip of a party happening with the camera moving around in the party as if it were a person. The camera faces a couple that are arguing and the woman ends up leaving the man, clearly breaking up with him. Then the camera pans away and continues going through the party. The music video has many shots that show the diegesis but can only be seen through close analysis. The shot shows that even behind everyone else having a good time, some people may not be happy with their life and the song attempts to explain that. The music video helps to influence the viewer in a positive way because it tells the viewer that they can get help for their depression and that someone will always want to help. It tells the viewer that they are not alone in this world, especially with their struggle, and by asking for help, people will help them through their journey to healing. Finally, The Music Scene is a music video by Blockhead that shows how media affects people and nature in society today. One of the most influential shots in the music video shows a close up of a cartoon man staring into a television as it spews out information at him. The man is sitting right in front of the television and colorful streaks are hitting him in the face and flying right by him from the television. This music video shows how media is such a powerful influence on humans because it is everywhere. No matter what humans watch, it affects them in a positive or negative way depending on the media itself. By watching positive media, humans can learn to heal from their struggles because they see examples of how other people healed and helped others in their lives. Even though humans get bombarded by media everyday, by taking a step back and watching media that shows people doing good, humans can learn to help others and, in turn, can heal from their own struggles in life. Through positive media, humans can not only heal themselves, but also learn how to help others in their everyday lives.

In the book Ceremony, by Leslie Silko, Tayo faces a difficult journey as he attempts to heal from multiple struggles faced in his life. In the beginning of the novel, Tayo talks to Night Swan, a woman he gets very close to, about his life and the struggles he is currently facing. They talk about the racism that has been directed towards both of them and Night Swan attempts to help him heal from it. "She sat with the sheets pulled around her and watched him get dressed. 'I have been watching you for a long time', she said. 'I saw the color of your eyes.' Tayo did not look at her. 'Mexican eyes,' he said, 'the other kids used to tease me.'... 'They are fools. They blame us, the ones who look different. That way they don't have to think about what has happened inside themselves,'" (Silko 91-92). Facing racism like this has caused many of Tayo's friends to turn to alcoholism in order to hide their emotions and get rid of whatever they are dealing with. However, at this point in the novel, Night Swan helps Tayo to heal because she tells him that the only reason people are racist towards them is because they have their own struggles within themselves, so they blame it on others. This is a major healing point in Tayo's journey because through the help of Night Swan he learned that the racism shouldn't effect him because the people saying it are facing their own struggles as well. Later in the novel, Night Swan and Tayo have an intimate connection together which helps Tayo to heal even further. After they become intimate he lies in bed and thinks about his life at that point in time. "He watched her face, and her eyes never shifted; they were with him while she moved out of her clothes and while she slipped his jeans down his legs, stroking his thighs... He breathed deeply... and he smiled. Being alive was all right then; he had not breathed like that for a long time," (Silko 168). Tayo's journey is very long and difficult, yet along the way there are moments where people help him to heal an incredible amount, such as this time with Night Swan. This is the first time he has had an intimate connection where he truly loved someone and enjoyed the experience, which made him feel a lot closer to someone instead of being alone like he thought he was this entire time. At this moment, he feels much better than before and even though his journey is long, he is able to heal greatly with the help of Night Swan. Finally, in the end of the novel, after Tayo's long journey, he finally returns home to his family. Throughout the novel he suffered from struggles such as PTS, alcoholism, and racism, but during his journey in the novel he overcame the struggles and healed immensely. Upon returning home, he talks to his Grandma about his journey and how he has healed from all of the struggles. "So old Betonie did some good after all,' old Grandma kept saying... 'You're all right now, aren't you, sonny?' 'Yeah, Grandma, I'm okay now,'... The terror of the dreaming he had done on this bed was gone, uprooted from his belly," (Silko 200-204). Tayo spends the entire novel in his journey to healing which creates an amazing novel. After the whole journey, Tayo was able to overcome every struggle that he faced with the help of others and became completely healed. Tayo's struggles weren't enough to live with him his entire life because many people helped him and he used the long journey to overcome the struggles and heal into a better person.

Smoke Signals is a film that follows the journey of Victor Joseph as he struggles to overcome his past of an abusive father that killed his friend Thomas' parents in a fire. Victor faces an incredible struggle when he finds out that his alcoholic and abusive father has died. He decides to go pick up his father's remains in Arizona, however, he has to bring along Thomas, a friend he finds annoying, because he doesn't have enough money to go by himself. After finding out that his father Arnold was the one that killed Thomas' parents he gets into an argument with Thomas. "'Your father saved my life' ... 'Thomas you don't even know my father. Did you know that my father was the one that set your parent's house on fire?'... 'If you leave here don't you ever come back. You hear me?'" (Alexie Smoke Signals). Thomas knows the entire time that Arnold was the man who killed his parents, but he knows that by telling Victor that, then he can help Victor to heal. By telling Victor that he always knew, it helps Victor to overcome the struggle that his father killed Thomas' parents because he knows that Thomas isn't resentful towards Victor and that there is no hate between them. Victor faces a long journey by picking up his father's remains, but along the way, Thomas helps him to heal by explaining that he is accepts that Arnold killed his parents and that Victor shouldn't feel bad about it. Later in the movie, after Victor and Thomas have this argument, they are sitting together at breakfast talking about the type of person that Arnold used to be. Thomas tries to lighten up the mood by telling Victor about how Arnold used to bring him to breakfast at the same restaurant. "'Hey Victor! I remember the time your father took me to Denny's and I had the Grand Slam Breakfast. Two eggs, two pancakes, a glass of milk, and of course my favorite, the bacon. Some days, it's a good day to die. And some days, it's a good day to have breakfast,'" (Alexie Smoke Signals). This helps Victor to heal in his journey because he finds out that even though Arnold killed Thomas' parents, he tried to make it all better by taking Thomas to breakfast. Thomas becomes a close friend to Victor during their trip and throughout the trip, Thomas helps Victor to heal. It is a long journey for them to travel out to Arizona, however Thomas tells Victor that he is okay with what happened in the past and attempts to tell Victor that his father was a good man even if he killed his parents. This helps Victor to heal because after discovering what his father did, he struggles even more, but in the end finds out that his father was a good man and tried to make everything better even though he was struggling as well. Along their journey, Victor is typically mad, but there are a few shots where they are both smiling because one of the them made a joke. One shot, in specific, shows Victor and Thomas sitting next to each other on a bus with a close-up shot of both of their faces smiling and many bright and varying colors. The close up helps the viewer to feel the same emotions that Victor and Thomas are feeling, while the bright, varying colors add to the emotion of happiness in the shot. At this point, Thomas has just made a joke and finally got a laugh out of Victor for the first time in the entire film. It is one of the first times that Victor shows signs of healing because he is happy for the first time in years. The struggles that Victor faces are finally starting to heal with the help of Thomas and in this shot it is easily seen by the close up and bright colors. Victor faces a long journey as he struggles to come to peace with what his father did, however Thomas helps him to heal during the journey and in the end, Victor overcomes his struggles.

The film Seven Pounds follows the life of Ben (Tim) Thomas as he overcomes his struggle of killing seven people, through a journey that most people would never even think of attempting. Ben Thomas ends up benefiting the lives of seven people by giving them certain organs from inside of himself. In the end of the film, he commits suicide by laying in a bathtub with a box jellyfish. He commits suicide in order to benefit a man named Ezra, by donating his eyes, and saving the life of his friend Emily by giving his heart to her. After Ben has killed himself and Emily gets his heart, there is the closing shot where Emily and Ezra meet for the first time. Emily and Ezra come face to face in a close up shot with very bright, yellowish lighting and beautiful nature behind them. Over the shot, there is a piano song playing that has one note slightly off from the rest of the notes. It is noticeable because the song sounds happy, however with the incorrect note it makes the song sound depressed at the same time. The sound benefits the film because after the Ben's long journey is over, he had to die in the end, however he also saved the lives of seven others. The song shows how the ending is happy, but at the same time, Ben had to die in order for the others to live happily so the ending wasn't as happy as it could have been. However, through Ben's struggles he is able to help seven others and therefore make his struggles end. Before this scene, the film shows the climax where Ben gets into the bathtub with his box jellyfish and commits suicide in order to benefit Emily and Ezra's lives. The film shows a sequence that switches between shots of Ben dying in the bathtub and shots of when Ben got into the car crash and killed seven people. Some of the shots of Ben in the bathtub show a birds eye view of him while the shots of the car crash have very low-key lighting. The use of parallel editing helps to show that Ben has healed from his struggles. It shows that his struggle was from killing seven people in the car crash, however by showing him vulnerable in the bathtub he is clearly healing from the struggle and his journey has finally come to an end. The journey was long and difficult because he had to have many surgeries, but the struggle finally gets healed by him saving seven lives in replacement of the seven people that he killed. Finally, after Ben has committed suicide and died, the film shows shots of Ben lying in the hospital bed getting his heart removed and the doctors carrying it to Emily lying on a different hospital bed. The shot pans from a close up of Emily's head, to the heart of Ben being carried in on a tray, to be placed inside Emily. The sound during this scene is of a heart monitor at a hospital. The monitor is flat line, but at one point it starts beeping to show that Emily's heart, which is actually Ben's heart, finally started pumping and that she is going to live. This is a major scene in the film because it finally shows the end of Ben's struggle and how he has finally healed after a long journey. He killed seven people, but by saving seven others he faced a long journey. In the end, his struggle was over because he saved the life of Emily, a woman he was very close to, which made him happy that she could live even though he had to die for it. Through the long journey, he faced many struggles, but in the end, Ben healed by saving the lives of seven innocent people.

Only Through Death, Can Life Be Found

In Seven Pounds, a film by Grant Nieporte, Ben (Tim) Thomas engineers an incredible plan to change seven people’s lives for the better in a very unusual way after ending seven others in an unexpected tragedy. Seven Pounds is a film by Grant Nieporte that follows the life of Ben Thomas, an MIT graduate that works for NASA. One night, as Ben is driving home with his wife, he looks at a text rather than watching the road he is driving on. He begins to drive on the wrong side of the road without noticing; however a car honks at him after they almost collide. The honk makes him look up and he swerves out of the way of that car, only causing him to fishtail and end up hitting another van full of 6 people. Overall, he kills seven people this night, including his new wife, which changes the rest of his life dramatically. From then on he decides to help seven people by donating organs so that he can save their lives, which means that in the end he must take his own. The viewer gets hints at what Ben is doing throughout the film, however it isn’t until the end that the viewer discovers all seven people that Ben donated organs to and what the organs are. First, Ben gives his kidney to George, a hockey coach that had a difficult during his life but remains a good person the entire time. Ben’s real name is actually Tim, however he stole his brother Ben’s identity in the beginning of the film and is never called Tim during the film except by his brother. Although Tim steals his brother’s identity, Tim gives one of his lungs to Ben which isn’t found out until the end of the film. Holly, a social worker that helps Ben later in the film, is given a liver. About half way into the film, Ben asks Holly for the name of someone that needs help and she tells Ben about Connie, a struggling woman who has an abusive boyfriend. Ben helps her out by giving Connie his beach house that she takes her family to, leaving behind no trace for her boyfriend to find them. Near the end of the film, Ben sees a young boy named Nicholas that needs bone marrow and Ben gives him the marrow because he sees how good the child is and wants him to grow up and have a good life. Finally, Ben commits suicide in the end and leaves a note for the doctors so that they end up giving his eyes to a blind man named Ezra and a woman named Emily that he grows very close to as the film progresses. This connection of life and death being connected is a major theme throughout the film and helps to create a compelling storyline that pulls the viewer’s attention in such a drastic way that it brings about many different emotions. Through analysis of this film, the viewer is able to discover these many underlying themes in the film. Life and death appear to be opposites, however both are connected so deeply that only through experiencing the death of someone can a human being even begin to understand the connection that life and death share.

           Sound is a major aspect of film that helps the viewer to connect with a film and feel emotions that incorporate the theme of life and death being intertwined. In the end of the film, Ben unfolds his plan to save Emily’s life by getting into a bath tub with his box jellyfish and committing suicide. When Emily is asleep getting Ben’s heart placed where her heart used to be, the sound is a flat line on a heart monitor that occurs when the heart is not pumping. The music is completely silent other than the flat line, until the heart starts pumping and the machine makes beeping sounds. In the film, the shot has racking focus from Ben’s heart being carried by the doctor and then onto Emily’s face as she is lying down on the hospital bed. This scene is overlapped with the sound of a flat line on a heart monitor.  The flat line eventually ends as the heart starts beating, recognized by the beeping sound on the monitor. This scene represents the connection between life and death because Ben dies in order to give Emily his heart so that she can live. Without Ben giving up his life, Emily would not have lived much longer and Ben would have been depressed because he got close to her and she died when he could have saved her life. He loves her much more than he does himself, which is what brings him to commit suicide in order to give Emily his heart so that she can live longer. She is also the seventh person that he donates an organ to, which helps him commit suicide because even though he ended seven people’s lives, he fixed the lives of seven others. Also, through the racking focus, the viewer realizes that it is Ben’s heart on the tray and they are about to place it into Emily. Earlier in the film, Ben gives bone marrow to a young boy named Nicholas that he found at the same hospital Emily goes to. He notices that the boy is struggling with depression and wants him to have a longer, more fulfilled life, so he donates bone marrow as he goes through a depressed state while thinking about the rest of his plan to end up committing suicide. Ben is shown on a hospital bed, face down, as the doctor sticks a long needle into him. He bites the pillow and begins yelling with a medium close up shot that pans up to the doctor. Through the use of a medium close up, the director is able to make the viewer feel Ben’s pain as well as connect with the emotions he is feeling about the rest of his life. By panning up, the director helps show the viewer what is occurring in the scene. The main aspect is that the shot begins with Ben, allowing the viewer to understand the pain that Ben is going through, not only from the bone marrow transplant, but also in his own life from killing seven people. Finally, in the end of the film, Ben is lying in bed kissing Emily before he commits suicide. During this scene, an oddly happy yet depressed piano song plays with an off note key. After Ben gives his heart to Emily and his eyes to Ezra another scene plays where Ezra and Emily meet each other for the first time. The same off key song plays when they meet each other and it continues playing until the scene fades out and the movie is over. The final shot of the movie shows Emily and Ezra hugging in a medium long shot, as Emily cries. This scene is one of the best representations of how connected life and death are because if Ben had not committed suicide and died then they might not be alive and wouldn’t have the organs that Ben donated to them. Their lives would not be as enhanced as they were from Ben’s organs, yet he still had to die in order to give them the organs. They were two of the main characters throughout the film because Ben got the closest with them. He wanted to see how good of a person both of them were and after finding out he decided he loved them enough to end his own life in order to benefit theirs. The off key piano song in the background enhances this scene because it sounds like a very happy song, but there is one note that’s slightly off, causing the song to sound depressed at the same time. It shows that nothing can be perfect because even though the song is happy, it is sad, while in order for Ezra and Emily to be happier from their lives, it required Ben to die which wasn’t what either of them wanted, however the connection of life and death means that nothing can be perfect like they want. Nothing can be perfect due to the fact that life and death are interconnected which can be seen through the use of sound in this film.

           The editing of this film is a necessary aspect in order to unfold the diegesis of the connection between life and death. When Ben moves into the motel that he eventually commits suicide in, he brings in a giant water tank and places a box jellyfish into the tank. As Ben pours water into the tank, the editing goes to a flashback where Ben is a child with his father and brother in front of a giant tank of water at an aquarium. His father is telling him about how the box jellyfish is the most poisonous jellyfish in the entire ocean. During the flashback, there is a zooming shot that ends with a close up of Ben as a child with a close up of a box jellyfish in the giant aquarium tank next to him. Ben has his hands on the window and is staring in awe at the jellyfish as it swims towards him, with very blue colors filling the entire screen, lighting up Ben’s face with a blue color. This scene has multiple aspects to it that create the diegesis, one of which is the blue lighting. Throughout the film, there is constantly blue lighting around Ben, specifically the same color as the ocean. The reason for this is that it foreshadows to the fact that Ben ends up committing suicide through the use of the jellyfish, a creature that lives in the ocean. The parallel meaning with this is that Ben has a beach house where he goes frequently to swim in the ocean. Also, the fact that Ben is staring into the creature that ends up killing him in the end of the film creates the diegesis because by looking closely at the shot, the viewer discovers that he is having a deep connection by touching the blue glass of the tank which symbolizes him touching the jellyfish like he does during his death. The beautiful box jellyfish symbolizes life because the way that it floats in the beautifully blue ocean, yet at the same time it is the most poisonous jellyfish and ends up killing Ben, which shows the connection between life and death in the box jellyfish. Another parallel with colors in the movie is the salmon color of fabric. During the flashbacks of Ben’s wife dying, she wears a salmon colored dress. Then, later in the film, when Emily and Ben have their intimate connection, the bed sheets are the same salmon color as they talk about what if they had children together and got married. Finally, when Ben is lying in the bath tub getting killed by the jellyfish, he is wearing a salmon colored shirt that matches the rest of the fabrics with a salmon color. When Ben is lying in bed with Emily after their intimate connection, the shot is a close up of their faces talking, with a small gap between them for the viewer to notice the salmon colored bed sheets they are lying on. Both Emily and Ben are saying what if statements, such as what if they had children and got married which can’t come true because of her heart condition and she might be dying soon. The parallel editing of this color in every scene with death and life connects various parts of the film. First, there is death when Ben’s wife is wearing the dress, lying dead on the road. Then, there is life when Emily and Ben are in bed together because they just had an intimate connection with one another and are clearly happy to be together. Finally, as Ben commits suicide he is wearing the salmon color which symbolizes the connection between life and death because although he is dying, he will be giving life to Emily. This salmon color relates all of these aspects of the film and creates connections that are hard to notice, however are an important part of the diegesis because they show the connection in an underlying way. Finally, parallel editing is used in the sequence where Ben is committing suicide. The shots change very rapidly from scenes where Ben is getting into a car crash and killing seven people and the scene where he is committing suicide by getting into the tub with the jellyfish. As he first gets stung the scene changes to when the two cars hit, and then as he gets attacked by the poison the scene shows the car crash occurring, and finally when he dies in the tub it switches to him lying next to his dead wife in the road after the car crash. One of the main shots of Ben during the parallel editing is a bird’s eye long shot of him lying in the bath tub with the jellyfish, intertwined with close ups of his face as he struggles with pain. And then a very low-key shot when his wife dies during the car crash. Through parallel editing, the diegesis of the film unfolds because the viewer gets to see what actually happened to his wife and why he is committing suicide to save Emily’s life. The editing connects all of the scenes together to show that the death of his wife is so important to Ben that he needs to end his own life in order to save the life of another woman that he cares about very deeply. By ending someone else’s life, he took on the task of helping seven other people’s lives and he got so close to Emily that he knows he needs to end his life so that he can save hers and hopefully help himself overcome the fact that he killed seven people. This is the main underlying theme of the film and through parallel editing it all unfolds and the viewer discovers how life and death are so interconnected that one cannot exist without the other.

           The most important aspect of this film, in terms of camera use, is mise-en-scene which creates the film in such a way that every single shot helps the diegesis to unfold in some way. The film starts out with Ben calling Ezra and yelling very rude remarks towards him to see if Ezra is a good person. The shots change between Ezra working at his desk job and Ben in his messy house yelling at Ezra after finding out that he is a blind vegan. One shot shows Ben sitting down in his apartment with medical books and papers scattered everywhere as he stares at the phone before calling Ezra. The shot is a medium long shot that has dim lighting with books and papers scattered everywhere around Ben. The fact that there are books scattered everywhere and the lighting is dim is constantly shown throughout this film behind Ben which creates the idea that his life isn’t very alive, while the shots of Emily always have color and life behind them. His shots are always dim and this one has scattered papers which show that his life is hectic. The shot sets up the phone call between Ben and Ezra, and although the scene seems very negative, it is actually full of life because Ben needs to find out if Ezra is a good person before Ben can give Ezra his eyes. The shot is filled with death looking aspects everywhere, yet in the end it helps out Ezra’s life in a fantastic way. Later in the film, a flashback shows when Ben first sees the box jellyfish which will end up killing him in the end of the film. After the flashback, the box jellyfish is first seen in Ben’s apartment. The racking focus shot pans from the box jellyfish in Ben’s room to Ben’s best friend Stuart. The shot is filled with the color blue and the lighting is dark behind Stuart’s body. Similar to the shot where Ben is a child and looking at the box jellyfish for the first time, this shot shows the box jellyfish in Ben’s room for the first time with the same blue color. The blue color is similar to the ocean, as well as Ezra’s eyes. The ocean symbolizes how Ben dies because he dies from one of the most poisonous creatures in the ocean, and he always swims in the ocean next to his house, creating a parallel. The color symbolizes his death, while also being beautiful and representative of life because although Ezra is blind, his eyes are a very beautiful blue color, similar to the ocean, and in the end he can see through his eyes because Ben donates them to him, which enhances Ezra’s life. This color represents the death of Ben while also the enhancement of Ezra’s life. The jellyfish also represents the connection between life and death because it is a very beautiful creature however can be full of death if anything touches it. Finally, the fact that the camera pans and has racking focus on to Ben’s best friend Stuart shows life and death because without Stuart being part of Ben’s plan to commit suicide, his plan would not have worked, however Stuart helps him to pull off the plan because he understands Ben’s life and therefore helps Ben’s life by being his best friend and helping him to end his life in order to benefit others. This shot is full of life and death and through analysis the diegesis unfolds. Finally, the final shot of Ben in the bath tub with the jellyfish has a connection with the shot of Emily in her bath tub after she has gotten his heart. After the surgery, Emily finds out from Ben’s brother about every person that he helped and how his purpose of meeting Emily was to end his life for her. Emily is shown in a close up shot of her lying in water and then sinking her ears underneath the water. The porcelain tub creates a very nice curve arching around her head as she sinks her ears underwater to hear her heartbeat. The water around her head creates the look that she has a halo around her head which is representative of how she has Ben’s heart in her and he was an angel to seven people by enhancing their lives. She sinks underwater to hear her heart which is literally Ben’s heart after the transplant. With that aspect, the scene can be shown as the connection between life and death because Ben had to die in order for her to get his heart, however now she can stay alive longer. The heart that she has inside of her in this scene is Ben's, whom is now dead, yet she is alive and has a halo look above her head. This connection between life and death allowed her to live even though Ben had to die for it. Ultimately, Emily continued to live because Ben died for her and sealed the connection between life and death.

            Life and death appear to be opposites, however both are connected so deeply that only through experiencing the death of someone can a human being even begin to understand the connection that life and death share. Throughout this film, Grant Nieporte was able to capture so many emotions through the diegesis that he created with the use of sound, editing, and mise-en-scene. First, sound enhanced the film by adding to the emotion that was already being created by the shot itself. Especially in the end of the film, by playing a happy song with one off key note, the song sounded oddly depressing which benefited the sequences because Ben had to die in order to help Emily and Ezra, however neither of them wanted him to die for it, so it shows that there will always be a connection between life and death where some aspects are happy and others are not. Then, editing was able to create a strong diegesis, especially through the use of parallel editing in multiple shots. By using the same blue color it connected the fact that the ocean is beautiful and a delicate looking creature swims in it, however the blue ends with death because Ben dies from the same beautiful creature that lives in the ocean. Also, the salmon color is a very common theme during the film that connects the death of Ben, and earlier in the film his wife, with the life that Ben and Emily had together during their intimate connection. Finally, mise-en-scene played the biggest role in this film because at any point the shots give hints toward the underlying theme that life and death are connected in such a way that it creates beauty. The use of media plays an important role on human emotions and helping to spread awareness in the world. By creating this film, Grant helped to show the world that people can end their life in seven seconds by reading a text message and that by ending any person’s life, it takes years to get it back, and in the end, nobody can get back their life, knowing they took the lives of many others. This film helped to show the world how easily life can end, while at the same time showing the connection between life and death. People think that life is such a beautiful thing and that death always bring sadness, however, as can be seen in this film, they are both connected and everything has to exist with both. Both of them can be happy and sad because they coexist and create everything that occurs in this world. Although death may be sad and life seems happy, realize that both must coexist in order to create a balanced world.

Television Show Analysis

In Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, decor is used to create a futuristic look. Neil, the main subject, goes into a spaceship every once in a while to travel between the past and future to teach the viewer about something. Inside the spaceship, the decor is very clean and slick with round and clear lines and white lights. This look creates a very clean and futuristic or technologically advanced look that helps enhance the fact that Neil is going into the future or past with his spaceship.

Rear projection is not used in television as much these days, however I believe that I have found a clip where it is used, although it is a little difficult to tell. At 13 seconds into this video, rear projection is used to make the car appear like it is driving without actually needing to drive for many reasons. The director also made the camera move up and down to add more effects that make it appear as though the car is actually being driven.

Low-key lighting is shown in an interesting way in the photo below. In the television show Capture, there were teams of two and they were all trying to capture other teams, while also running from teams that were trying to capture them. In this shot, one of the team members is shown in low-key lighting because there is very dark lighting on his face and a very bright background showing contrast. It creates suspense in the show because he is in the darkness and doesn't know if he can escape the team trying to capture him, as well as get the team that he is going after.

This is another scene from Capture of one of the teams on the show. It is a great example of typage because just by looking at the picture, the viewer can tell what type of team they are going to be. They have their arms crossed which helps make it seem like they have bigger muscles and the lighting is very bright which makes them seem glamorous and better than others. In the television show, the team thinks they are better than everyone else and that nobody can capture them, which is shown through typage.

In the television show Modern Family, the characters are often put into straight in front of the camera and are talking towards the viewer through the use of frontality. The director makes it so that the subject talks either during or after a conflict between characters. The character talks about their opinion on the situation, which is usually a different opinion than the character they are arguing with so it creates humor in the show that only the viewer knows. Therefore frontality helps to create humor in the show.

Another shot from Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey shows good use of color in helping to enhance the mood of the scene. As can be seen here, Neil has a blue light shining on the right side of his face which matches the color of the background. Neil is talking about supernovas, with an animated one happening right behind him. As the camera focuses on his face, there is a blue light which helps with two parts of the shot. The first is that it makes the supernova appear real because it is shining on him and not just on an animated screen. Secondly, it adds to the mood of the shot because the blue color is used everywhere in the shot which creates a certain feeling inside of the viewer rather than just having a video of the supernova. 

Contrast is used in this shot from Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey to show mystery and the unknown. Half of Neil's suit fades completely to black where it blends in with the outer space in the background, while the other half gets very bright. In this shot, Neil is talking about mysteries the world hasn't yet solved about the Earth and the lighting creates a greater feeling of mystery because there is such high contrast. 

Shallow focus is used in this shot from Modern Family to make the viewer focus. The background is blurred out which makes the viewer focus on the two subjects arguing with each other. It makes the scene more personal because they are arguing and the viewer can't help to watch because the focus is specifically on them. The director did this on purpose because they did not want to viewer to pay attention to anything else, but instead to be focused on the arguing giving the viewer feelings that are uncomfortable.

This shot, from Capture, is slightly over-exposed to make the scene feel hot and tiring. The two girls are on a team together and have been running from another team of two that are chasing them, which can't be seen in this shot. By over-exposing the shot, it makes it seem very hot which shows that the subjects are struggling because they have to run in the hot weather. The viewer would never want to be in their position because it looks like an awful situation which is what makes the viewer pay more attention to the chase and get stressed out wondering if the subjects can escape.

Finally, a medium close-up is used in this shot from The Middle to enhance the viewers emotions. As can be seen on the subjects face, Sue is confused and angry at the man that she is talking to. Had this shot been further away, it wouldn't show her face that well and the viewer wouldn't feel the emotions as well, yet if it were closer than it would be too personal and the viewer may not pay attention to what the man is saying to her. However, by using a medium close-up, the director was able to show Sue's emotion and that creates emotion in the viewer as well because they can feel what Sue is experiencing at that moment.

Reflections

In class, we watched more music videos and got to understand the ten terms much better. Firstly, Midnight City, by M83, showed good use of focus. At one point in the video, the subjects are wearing white clothing and are looking at and walking towards a white light. The camera focuses a lot on the light which helps to show that they are going to freedom. And along with the white clothing that shows that they are innocent human beings. Then, diegesis was shown well in Sail, by Awolnation, throughout the video. The underlying theme is that the subject is running from extraterrestrial creatures because there is constantly a light shining into his house and a green light scanning the rooms to look for any human beings. Then later, he is getting dragged out of the house and it seems as though it is aliens, although the viewer never gets to see what he is being dragged by. Flashback and flash forward are shown well in The Last to Say, by Atmosphere, when the editing fades in and out to the future and the past self of the main character. It shows that he is turning into his father because he has built up anger inside of him and ends up hitting his wife, as his father did, which can be seen through the editing forward and backward. In Around My Way, by Lupe Fiasco, shots are used to help enhance the meaning of the lyrics. He talks about how rappers and artists are always trying to buy expensive things to boost their ego, however none of that means anything. Many shots throughout the video show Lupe with cars and chains being put on him, however the lyrics talk about how that's what rappers want, but it doesn't mean anything. Finally, Blink 182 used a story in their music video Adam's Song to help enhance the song. The video shows people being distressed and in sadness and pain the background of many of the scenes where everyone else around is happy. The song is about depression and suicide and they are trying to bring awareness to it, so the plot of the music video helps to show that and can help people who are depressed and need help.

Five for Fighting uses many sequences of shots in 100 years to show how time passes and what he wants to be like as a person. The sequences help to show that it is him as the main character, even though the ages are always changing from young to older. The auteur Martina McBride used a distinct style in her music video for I'm Gonna Love You Through It. She intertwined videos of her singing with pauses where women talk about their struggle in overcoming cancer. The unique style of editing helped impact the viewer by feeling the pain and then happiness that cancer families feel, which really made Martina and her director stand out as auteurs. Next, mise-en-scene was used fantastically throughout The Music Scene, by Blockhead. The video shows the evolution of humans and nature with technology and at many points throughout the video, it can be paused to show an amazing mise-en-scene. Some of them show how nature is always going to be better than technology and will never be influenced by it, but will always continue to stand above it. And at other points, clips are shown where humans are being taken over by technology and in the end it causes the downfall of humans, while nature is still alive and well above the technology. Next, the editing in Never Gonna Change, by Broods, was very well done and helped to get the point of the lyrics out through the use of visuals. The main character was always pouring water which was very well done in the editing, however its use was to show that the man always gets down for a girl, but he continues to go back to her even though he ends up getting drenched by the water he is pouring out. Finally, the genre of Eminem's music video Mockingbird was a narrative. It told the story of his life with his daughter and how he wasn't always there for her. The story of the music video showed pictures and videos of him playing with her as she grew up, mixed in with clips of him not being there for her and her mother going to jail and not being there for her either. This week helped me see more examples of the words we need to learn and I believe that I understand the terms very well now.

Reflection

We began studying film and media this week. There was an assignment to watch a music video, of our choice, and then we had to find ten specific parts of the video about words that we learned on Monday. The first video to be presented was Stubborn Love, by Lumineers. I loved this presentation because I enjoy that song and the music video was beautifully shot. It told a good narrative story that made good use of flashback because it showed how the child moved on from her past. It also had a happy ending with the mom and daughter holding hands and happy which left a good impact on the viewer and made me enjoy the song even more. Then, With Ur Love, by Cher Lloyd, was presented which showed an interesting video of girls pulling parts out of a guy that they enjoyed to create one man that they all loved. I wasn't very interested in the video for that reason, but the presenter did a good job in pointing out all aspects of the video. Jurassic 5 was the next group, in their music video for the song Influence they used long shots of all the artists rapping which helped show the community they lived in.

The next day we saw two more presentations. One of them was the song Words I Never Said, by Lupe Fiasco. This was a fantastic music video because it had clips of things that were happening in the world, mixed in with a narrative about Fiasco acting out in society and getting put down for it. The song has a lot of truth to it and the music video helped to show the truth because it combined the audio with a visual, only helping to increase the depth of the words. Finally, M.I.A. was shown singing her song Bad Girls. The video was used to show girls in Morocco driving cars the way they do in their home country. M.I.A. wanted to show how their lives are and that girls aren't put down in that country like the stereotypes say they are. There was good use of mise-en-scene because the presenter paused at one point and it showed a girl riding a horse which symbolizes old times and stereotypes and then behind her were girls driving girls like they do these days, contrary to popular belief. All of the presenters did a fantastic job in showing all points that we learned about and I can't wait to continue more next week because it's really helpful for me to learn the terms.

The Culture of Empathetic Humans Through Technology

Communication is a very powerful tool that has changed over time through the use of technology, which shapes the culture and leads to social change. There are many sources that help to educate the masses about how communication has changed and how it affects the population as a whole. Press Pause Play is a documentary, featuring the words of many famous individuals in popular culture, that discusses how technology has changed and how that change influences the democratization of art. Two chapters titled Culture and Communication Parts I and II from a textbook provide ideas from educated sources about how technology influences mass popular culture around the world. Another reading titled (E)dentity, by Stephanie Vie, discusses what an (e)dentity is and how that can affect the way people see who others are as a person. Also, four videos helped to provide knowledge about communication between individuals and how humans are empathetic and helpful to one another. First, The Empathic Civilisation, by Jeremy Rifkin, explained what mirror neurons are and how they affect the interaction between humans. Mirror neurons relate to why humans are empathetic towards each other and how it is changing the global consciousness. Second, Roman Krzarnic gave a lecture called The Power of Outrospection describing affective and cognitive empathy. Krzarnic introduced the idea that the 21^st century needs to be about outrospection, or feeling empathetic towards others rather than focusing only on oneself. Third, Changing Paradigms, a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson, gave a whole different perspective on the education system and how it could be changed for the better. It also looks at the growth of ADHD and how the pills that children are taking for ADHD aren’t working to help them become more educated. The last lecture, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, by Slavoj Zizek, gave insight to cultural capitalism in which people aren’t actually always sympathetic to others, but majorities of the time are just playing a role of being a sympathetic individual. Finally, the documentary Craigslist Joe follows Joseph Garner on a journey where he attempts to survive completely off of Craigslist for an entire month. He meets a number of very empathetic individuals who offer him places to stay, food, travel, etc. simply because they want to help another human being out. Throughout history, mass communication and popular culture has changed due to advances in technology and the way human beings can communicate with one another which allows for empathy in every possible aspect.

Technology, including technology interface, is constantly changing which allows people the ability to communicate easier, but can also create two different lives for every one person. People have friends in their life, but also have the ability to be a completely different person, which can be seen in the reading (e)dentity. “…We also carry with us an ‘(e)dentity, an electronic identity composed of the digital traces left behind as we participate in virtual worlds. Every time you upload a picture to a social networking site, create an avatar in an online game, blog or tweet about your life, or buy something online, you generate digital traces that, when examined, form your (e)dentity,” (Stephanie Vie 1). Originally, nobody had an (e)dentity because there was no Internet, but technology has evolved immensely in the past few decades and now almost everybody has two separate identities. We use our online identity in various ways, such as to communicate with others, but more importantly it provides us with the ability to see what popular culture is at any moment. Humans have a different amount of access to the technology due to contrast between various societies and how humans receive mass communication. “Psychological noise refers to internal factors that lead to misunderstandings in the communication process. The concept of psychological noise comes from consistency theory research that found that people usually prefer to seek out information and ideas that are consistent with their beliefs, attitudes, and behavior and tend to avoid information that is inconsistent. Selective exposure holds that, as a general rule, we expose ourselves to information that reinforces rather than contradicts our beliefs or opinions,” (Wilson, Wilson 11). Every person has different access to mass culture because they choose what they want to see, as well as the society may choose for them. Some countries have strong religious beliefs in their law, so citizens are not allowed to use the Internet, or parts of it, meaning that not everybody will see popular culture as easily as others. Lastly, humans try to help others that are not able to access the Internet due to not having the wealth for it. Agenda setting allows for mass media to decide what news the masses can see and therefore show people that they are helping those less fortunate through their purchases. “This is what I call cultural capitalism at its purest. You don’t just buy a coffee, you buy, in the very consumerist act; you buy your redemption from being only a consumerist. You do something for the environment, you do something to help starving children in Guatemala, you do something to restore the sense of community here… This generates almost a kind of semantic over-investment or burden,” (Slavoj Zizek). Everyone thinks that they are helping an unfortunate individual, but in reality it is the mass media creating cultural capitalism so that you pay into their company rather than another company. Technology isn’t easily available to everyone, so through charity people are able to give to them, however it just turns into cultural capitalism. On the Earth, some people don’t have access to technology or may use it in a different way, and through this evolution different cultures don’t always receive the same mass communication that everyone else receives.

The impact that technology has on popular culture comes, at the root, from various changes in communication, technology, and how technology is used as a vehicle which can be seen through various sources. Democratization is the act of allowing technology to everyone which gives everyone the opportunity to get into the creative industry, rather than being as talented and having to go to school like it used to be a few years ago. “There were professional artists and now everybody’s a musician… And suddenly I understood, like, this is a different world and it’s possible for anybody to make a movie now,” (PressPausePlay). In the past few years, advanced technology has become available to the public which allows anyone to make it in the creative industry. Before this time, people had to go to school and study the professionals in order to get a career as a creative, but now that technology has evolved, anyone can become a professional creative if they produce content that the appeals to popular culture. Technology itself has also evolved allowing everyone to know what the current popular culture is. “The newspaper found its niche by becoming a medium from which the common person could learn about what was happening in his or her city… Radio’s more important function was as a mass medium for news and entertainment… Television was invented as a potential replacement for radio by adding a picture to the sound… Critics also detested the fact that the mass media conformed to average tastes and did nothing to elevate the cultural level of the masses,” (Wilson, Wilson 28-32). Popular culture was made available to the masses which lowered the cultural level of the masses because anybody could understand what was popular culture, rather than just the elite being able to access and understand the technology. This was a major impact on culture because it lower the elitist culture since everyone had access and it conformed to the masses so that anyone could easily understand it. With this new availability of technology, it changed the entire world, especially the education system to where some students no longer wanted to participate because they believe they can earn a career as a creative. “When we went to school we were kept there with a story which is if you worked hard and did well and got a college degree, you would have a job. Our kids don’t believe that, and they’re right not to by the way. You’re better having a degree than not, but it’s not a guarantee anymore,” (Sir Ken Robinson). This new idea of education has impacted culture because children no longer need to go to school. It is risky to not go, but a child could make a career as a creative and would never need to go to school because they have access to technology that can help them succeed in another industry. Mass communication can also help these children to put their creativity into the world, simply from sitting in one spot. The evolution of technology and communication has drastically impacted the culture of the world and popular culture in individual societies.

Mass communication is a powerful tool for empathy because humans can see what others are feeling, react to it, and help them for the better. Everyone has empathy inside of them because they learn about life at a young age which makes everyone want to help each other. “When a child learns that life is vulnerable and fragile and every moment is precious and that they have their own unique history, it allows a child then to experience another plight in the same way. That that other person or other being, could be another creature, has a one and only life, it’s tough to be alive, and the odds are not always good. So if you think about the times that we’ve empathized with each other or a fellow creature, it’s always because we felt their struggle. Is it really a big stretch to imagine that new technologies allowing us to connect our empathy to the human race writ large in a single biosphere?” (Jeremy Rifkin). Every individual has empathy inside of them because they understand that every creature has one life. People are able to extend this empathy to humans in other parts of the world because through mass communication and mass media anyone can see what is happening to humans on another part of the world. Through this availability of mass media, people feel empathy for others on a different part of the world because they can see their struggle and relate to it. Humans originally only felt this empathy towards people of the same religion, ethnic group, or country, however that has evolved over years and now the majority of humans feel empathetic towards all humans, some even toward all creatures. “Socrates said that the way to live a wise and good life was to know thyself. And we generally thought of that as being self-reflective, looking in at ourselves, it’s been about introspection. But I think in the 21^st century we need to recognize that to know thyself is something that can also be achieved by stepping outside yourself, by discovering other people’s lives and I think empathy is the way to revolutionize our own philosophies of life, to become more outrospective and to create the revolution of human relationships that I think we so desperately need,” (Roman Krznaric). This century needs to be about helping others because we feel empathetic towards them. Mass communication can let anyone empathize for another person that is anywhere because humans see what they are struggling with and feel empathetic towards them which can lead to helping them in some way. The use of technology can let people help others because people empathize with others they see through a technological interface and then can help them using another piece of technology. Years ago, there was only the newspaper or maybe radio, so it was difficult to help people that lived far away and before that people didn’t even know what was happening to others outside of their own community. Now-a-days anyone that feels empathetic toward another human can find a way to help them. Currently, a great example of this is the documentary Craigslist Joe, where Joseph Garner meets people through Craigslist that help give him shelter, food, travel, and a good time for an entire month. “Meeting everyone and telling them my story and the journey and having people, like, invite me, a complete stranger, into their homes, and feed me, and go out, and, you know, share themselves and their lives with me. It was truly inspiring, just you know, on humanity, to know that we can take care of each other,” (Joseph Garner). Empathy is possible through technology which can easily be seen through this documentary. Every single day Garner has to go online to see if anyone is offering shelter or travel so that he can survive. For an entire month, Garner was able to survive off the empathy of others that he found through technology. This would have been incredibly difficult years ago because the interfaces wouldn’t have allowed for him to see what people were offering on that exact day, but with the evolution of technology, anyone can easily see what people are offering at that exact moment. Empathy is easily possible through technology these days, especially with the current technological interfaces.

Throughout history, mass communication and popular culture has changed due to advances in technology and the way human beings can communicate with one another which allows for empathy in every possible aspect. Many sources can be found that demonstrate how empathy has changed in humans, yet, at the same time, remained the same because everyone realizes that all creatures have one life. Originally that empathy was only between people of the same tribe, religion, or region, however technology has evolved so that any human can communicate with any other human on the planet which allows for people to feel empathetic to all humans and creatures of earth. Technological advances have shaped that empathy as well as the popular culture of societies. Culture changes because mass communication and agenda setting show the public what the popular culture is. This has changed the many industries because now, anyone can succeed as a creative if they follow popular culture and use mass communication to get well known. School is no longer needed for people to get educated on the technology that creative use because they are made for anyone to use. This has changed education because children don’t necessarily need to go to school anymore since they can now learn how to use the current technology to get a career in the creative industry. Technology is constantly changing and nobody knows where it could lead to in the future with the education system, mass communication, and popular culture, but hopefully no matter where it goes, humans continue to feel empathetic towards other, if not even more empathetic towards all creatures. 

I enjoyed watching The Empathic Civilisation, The Power of Outrospection, Changing Paradigms, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, and Craigslist Joe during class this week. All of them made me think about an aspect of my life and how I could change it for the better. They were all fantastic videos and it was important to show the class these because I think they help everyone realize what this world is like, how we can improve, and to be sympathetic towards others. First, was The Empathic Civilisation which discussed how humans feel empathetic towards each other and how that has developed over time in different ways. He talked about mirror neurons which are neurons that make us feel whatever emotion we see another person feel. If we see someone crying then we feel bad for them and get sad because our neurons mirror the emotion they are experiencing. "All humans are soft wired with mirror neurons, so that if I'm observing you, your anger, your frustration, your sense of rejection, your joy, whatever it is, I can feel what you're doing. The same neurons will light up in me as if I'm having this experience myself," (Jeremy Rifkin). I could relate to this because whenever I see anyone crying I feel sad as well because I want to make them feel better and know that they are crying from something that mad them sad. It makes me sad in the same way that they are crying. Later, Rifkin went on to explain that we feel empathetic towards others because we all realize that everyone has one life and that their life could end just as easily as ours, so we feel emotional towards everyone. This helped the class because everyone can relate to feeling bad for someone else and it helps us realize that we are all humans living our single life. Then, we watched The Power of Outrospection, where Roman Krzarnic describes stepping outside of our bodies to really feel the same emotions as others, either from mirror neurons or because we can relate to them. "We need to shift to the age of outrospection, and by outrospection I mean the idea of discovering who you are and what to do with your life by stepping outside yourself  and discovering the lives of other people and other civilizations," (Roman Krzarnic). Affective empathy is the same as mirror neurons which we saw in the last video, but cognitive empathy is where you can relate to someone which makes you feel the same emotions. It's interesting seeing the different ways that we feel empathy towards one another and I think it helps the class realize that we are all related and should be kind to everyone.

The next video we watched was a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson called Changing Paradigms. Robinson discusses how a majority of the world wants education to change in the way that it is taught. Specifically standardized testing because that is simply memorizing facts and regurgitating them on paper rather than actually learning material and being able to apply knowledge to something. He compares the growth of ADHD with standardized testing. "It seems to me, not a coincidence totally, that the instance of ADHD has risen in parallel with the growth of standardized testing," (Sir Ken Robinson). He then goes on to talk about how ADHD pills are an anaesthetic, which is unhealthy. "An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak... an anaesthetic is when you shut your senses off and deaden yourself to what is happening. And a lot of these drugs are that," (Sir Ken Robinson). Everything about those statements is completely true and needs to be progressed. Robinson knows what he is talking about and I think that that he brought up many good points that made the students re-think about everything and question the entire education system. Which led into the last video, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce by Slavoj Zizek. Zizek lectures about cultural capitalism and how everyone plays roles rather than actually being a true, compassionate human being. "When you go to a store, probably you prefer buying organic apples. Why? Look deep into yourself. I don't think you believe that those apples, which cost double the good old genetically modified apples that we like, that they are really any better. I claim we are cynics, they are sceptics, but you know it makes you feel warm that 'I am doing something for our mother earth'," (Slavoj Zizek). I agree with Zizek in the fact that some people play a role and don't actually feel sympathetic towards something, but that they just do it to seem good. However with this example of the apple, I, respectfully, disagree because genetically modified apples are bad for human health and nature. It causes insects to die that are part of the environment and growth to apples and the GMO's in apples cause cancer in humans. Other than that, I agree with all four videos that we watched and I think they were beneficial to the everyone in class and changed some perspectives for the better.