Smile Pinki

Smile Pinki is a documentary film about the large and growing problem of cleft lips and pallets in India. This film offers and insight into the culture of many poor people living with young children who have sever cleft lips and pallets. The film is about an organization offering free plastic surgeries to fix the cleft lips and pallets for a year.

We follow a man w.ho was sent out by the organization to inform people about this program and find children who need to surgery. The first shot is of this man handing out fliers to townspeople who are sitting in a circle on the ground. It is a shot looking down at the people and creates the feeling that they are powerless.

Soon after there is a shot of the man in a classroom asking the teachers and young students if they know anyone with a cleft in order for the information about this program to reach them. The camera pans behind him while he speaks to the class making the viewer feel like they are inside the film. Being a documentary, there is a certain "realness" that must persist to the viewer. There is almost never a still image on the screen unless it is an establishing shot.

Another technique used commonly in this film is the blurring then sharpening during interviews which keeps the viewer feeling like the footage is live and raw.. One of my favorite shots was right after the interview with Pinki and her family, a long take of her leaning on her relatives shoulder. This shot really let's the viewer feel her pain and emotion and brings us closer to her.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this film because it was aesthetically pleasing, showing great views for establishing shots as well as graphically portraying the life of a child with a cleft lip or pallet. It was very informative and simultaneously full of emotion and I would definitely recommend this film.

Museum Of The Moving Image

In my trip to the Museum of the Moving Image I saw a variety of interesting things whether they were props for movies or old interactive video games. Not only does the museum allow for a hands-on experience but I learned a few things in the process.

The Museum of the Moving Image takes just that and really breaks it down. When we are watching television and movies what we are really seeing is a bunch of still images, or frames, moving quickly. For television it’s 30 frames per second and 24 for movies. Television and movies have a lot more to do with the biology of the brain and eye than I thought before I went to the museum. The idea of visual persistence applies because it tells us that we retain an image shortly after we see it. Visual persistence is the basis of optical illusions.

They have great examples online but there was one that really stuck out to me at the museum. The demonstration with the strobe light looked like a clay-mation. However, it was actually the different pieces that were spinning rapidly. The human eye makes it into a fluid motion because of the strobe light. This process is called the phi phenomenon. This is the idea that our brain fills in the gap between the images and creates the illusion of movement. In other words if we see two still images blinking, one on the right and one on the left, we assume they are moving in either direction.

The museum taught me about the progression of media production simply based on these concepts. Earlier, with the kinetoscope, movies were hand cranked so they weren’t able to create an entirely fluid motion as they do today.

Overall, my experience at the Museum of the Moving Image was great. It was really informative and fun at the same time. Usually I would dread the idea of getting a tour through a museum, but here I wasn’t bored at all.