Kiersey Temperment Sorter

I took the Kiersey Temperment Sorter Test and was interested with the results that I got. My grandfather has been studying the Kiersey testing for years and has always told me that my type is "INFP." After taking the Kiersey test online, my type was "ENFP."

The Kiersey Temperment Sorter is a very widely used personality test. It first appeared in "Please Understand Me." It categorizes people into four different personality types: Artisan, Guardian, Rational, and Idealist. Other technical terms you will be put into are: Introvert or Extrovert, Sensing or Intuiting, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving.

The type that the online test gave me the was "Idealist Champion" and that I was an ENFP. I belive that this type is accurate to what sort of person I am. The Idealist type is all about emotion, building personal relationships, communication and being gentle and kind-hearted. Idealists live in a world a filled with possibilities and see room for change. We are harsh on ourselves when we think that we are being false or insincere. I think that this type is very much the way that I am.

The Champion part of my result said that I am a energetic person, are just and love to live life to the fullest. I think that these results are accurate to my personality. 

I am a little bit unsure of whether or not I am an extrovert or an introvert. The only difference in the results of the types that I have gotten is the extrovert and introvert aspect. When I was younger, I was was very shy and much more introverted than I am now. I think that both results seem to be accurate to the type of person I perceive myself to be. 
 

Observing Gender in Advertising and Media

In class, we took a look at several different films exploring gender roles in media and advertising. After watching these movies, I've noticed I'm looking at gender roles in advertising and media with a keener and more informed eye.
Later that day when I was Facebook, I took a look at some of my photo albums. I realized just how many photos I had taken where I was in many of the classic poses that we observed in the last film. Head tilted, leg canted, twisted into a position that threw me off balance or contorted me in some way. In positions that are considered to be classically feminine poses. I had never realized before how many of my photos were like this. Very few that I had taken could have fit into the category of "masculine" stances.
A few weeks ago, my friend's little cousin, Gabriel, came to visit. We took him out shopping with us. In one store, we came across some coloring books. My friend suggested to him some Batman or Thomas the Train Engine coloring books, but Gabriel was very insistent upon getting a bright pink and yellow Hello Kitty coloring book. My friend was attempting to discourage him from picking the girly item and even made a few comments to me about Gabriel potentially being gay. Gabriel is four years old and already being mocked for not being "masculine" enough.
Just experiencing this situation really brought to mind just how much importance we place on fitting into your gender role and how early on we are pressured to meet society's expectations of those roles. Before you are even born, sometimes as soon as your sex is determined, your family may give you a pink or blue nursery.
These films brought to light the enormous divide in the world of the feminine and the masculine and have made it easier to observe it.

Blog Four: Favorite Genre Film?

A genre is a used to understand the signs and content of a story for the purpose of building an audience. It is a type or category in which television, film, literature, etc. can be grouped into.

The question posed to me was “What is my favorite genre film?” I would say that my answer to this question is “Edward Scissorhands” as a favorite of the modern fantasy film genre.  

The concept alone is a fantasy. An inventor dies before his creation, a young man with scissors for hands, is finished, leaving him to live alone in a castle in the suburbs. The creation, Edward, is brought to live in the suburbs by the local Avon lady and Edward attempts to adapt to normal life. However, Edward’s inability to do so leads to disaster and his eventually having to return to the castle to live alone.

The film is original and different, while incorporating many of the common tropes we find in the fantasy film. We have familiar characters with the young hero, Edward, the old mentor/Father figure to the hero, The Inventor (played by the late, great Vincent Price) and Kim, the beautiful girl that he falls in love with.

Fantasy films often involve a quest of some sort. The hero has a goal and that goal tends to become the focus of the movie. Edward may not look to be a not heroic knight on a quest, but his goal is to win the love of Kim. In the end he takes on this role, winning the love of the fair maiden and saving her life.

Of course, with this being a Tim Burton film (and one of the first to showcase his unique and distinct style) the settings and characters of this film are over the top and fantastical. I adore the juxtaposition of the dark, lonely expressionistic castle on the hill against the cookie cutter, pastel-colored Floridian suburbs. The sets featured in the “real world” are so fantastically exaggerated that they are as fantastic as the castle where Edward was created in.

“Edward Scissorhands” is one of my all-time favorite films and my favorite film of the fantasy genre. It plays with tired conventions and modernizes them, makes them fresh. I love this film and it inspires me to learn more about fantasy as a genre.

My Favorite Role in the Studio

While working in the production studio, I had a chance to work a little at every position in front of and behind the camera, from camera operator to working on audio and being in front of the camera.

While I enjoyed a many of these positions, my favorite role in the studio was being in charge of lighting. Lighting is not exactly something I have had much experience with, but while I was working in that position, I had some creative control over how the set looked. I was able to alter the position of the lamps based on whether or not I thought that they looked good, were distracting, etc. I liked being able to call the shots in that area because I was able to arrange the set so that I thought it was more aesthetically-pleasing to look at. I liked being able to have a little control over the look of the set. I was very pleased by having had the opportunity to do that.

There were many other positions that I was afforded the opportunity to work in, but that one was my favorite because I was able to give some creative input, something I always enjoy and something I would very much like to be a part of my career in the future as I feel it is one of my strong points.

Blog Five: The Importance of Understanding Communication

My life’s ambition is to work in the film industry as a director. This is a career where the ability to not only communicate, but understand communication and the power it holds is paramount to being successful in the field. A director must communicate with his or her cast and crew and must understand how to translate information from the script to the soundstage to the big screen. 

To be a successful individual I must be able to communicate, whether through my work (engaging an audience requires communication skills) or in everyday life (communicating with my employers, co-workers, business partners, etc.) The key to understanding communication is starting at the beginning, at it’s foundation and working your way from there.

To begin at the very basis of communication, we start with Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics (deriving from the name of the Greek god Hermes, who would translate divine language into human language) is the science and philosophy of communication. It is how we humans interpret and make sense of the information that is presented to us. Next, we move to semiotics.

Semiotics is the “science of signs.” Semiotics is a way of “reading” images and decoding things that are multi-layered such as film, television, books, etc. and making sense of signs and mythologies

After decoding the signs of semiotics, we arrive at the narrative, a story with a well-established structure. A narrative is a discourse in which time is enacted, where there is a beginning, middle and end.

The narrative can be broken down further by placing it in a genre. A genre is a category in which a narrative can be placed and structured even further. As someone interested in the film industry, I am fond of many different genres of film, from the dusty Western with it’s tough but soft-hearted sheriffs to the hard-boiled PI’s and femme fatales of the black and white Noir. Genres will take narratives that are similar in content and structure and group them together to make them even easier to interpret.

I believe that understanding these concepts will lead to a better understanding of communication and hopefully the ability to better communicate with those around me. I believe that this basic knowledge would be very practical and useful to have as a film director, a career that is really focused entirely on the art of communication.

"Art and Copy"

In the PBS documentary “Art and Copy,” we see the artistry and work that goes into creating advertisements. The documentary features interviews with the creators of some of the world’s best-known advertising campaigns and hear about the creative process it took/takes to create them. While viewing some of the famous advertisements (The Volkswagon Beetle campaign, the iPod dancers campaign, etc.), I began to realize what the documentary was “really” about.  

As I really studied some of these ads, I realized how brilliant they were. I would find myself being pulled in by some of these advertisements. Watching this time around with a critical eye, I realized just how manipulative some of these ads were. But not only are they manipulative, but these advertisements can be pieces of artwork.

I observed just how much human emotions are manipulated to sell products. Advertisements may become works of art that appeal to our emotions. Advertisements can sell us dreams, ideals, states of mind. An ad can sell us the idea of strength of family or the power of dreams all while selling us a bottle of shampoo, a car or a candy bar.

“Art and Copy” puts a great deal of emphasis on the idea that we, the consumer, are part of the advertisment. It is based on the idea that we are participating with the ad. We, the viewer, are part of the experience, and share in it with the creators of the ad. The documentary “Art and Copy” seems to emphasize this shared experience between advertiser and consumer.

One of the examples of this sort of emotional advertising is the use of Ronald Regan’s campaign commercial. The commercial features a very friendly suburban neighborhood, full of families, neighbors and friends, working together and generally having a good time being in each other’s company.

The ad is colorful and warm, creating a very inviting, safe and secure environment. The advertisement claimed that this was the way life in the United States of America was since Ronald Regan took office. The ad was able to conjure up such strong feelings that it even managed to take Regan’s critics by surprise when they were moved by the powerful advertisement.

So while you are being shown a commercial about a fun new airliner, you aren’t buying the ticket. You’re buying the happiness, the fun, the colors of the plane, the beautiful flight attendants. You are buying the good feelings that the ad can give you. The point that the documentary was trying to get across, I believe, is that advertisements use creativity to sell their products. They appeal to our emotions, ideals and standards.

I think that “Art and Copy” is really about the appeal to our emotions, and the idea that advertisements may not just be sleazy and deceptive forms of media used to empty our wallets. Advertisements may also be pieces of artwork, bits of print or television that in addition to selling a product, may also truth and beauty. May also sell us feelings and emotions.

"Bad Angel" Blurb

When a chance encounter with her old love, Lucifer, leads a newly promoted Guardian Angel to rebel against God, she is tossed headfirst from the Pearly Gates and down to Earth.  

On Earth, our heroine, now known only as “Bad Angel,” befriends a lusty demon, Lady Lechery, and works for the Devil as a Retriever, a Hellion who collects souls from Earth. But when the life of the boy she was first assigned to protect is threatened, will Bad Angel side with Heaven or Hell? Is there any chance of redemption for this Ex-Angel?

In Bad Angel’s journey between Heaven, Hell and Earth we learn that Demons can love, Angels can sin and even God has his doubts. “Bad Angel” is the story of one young Angel’s sacrifice in the name of love. 

                      Bad Angel (left) and Lady Lechery (right) playing croquet.

  

Lady Lechery and the Archangel Michael  

  

Big Red and Mr. Red (Lucifer)