Concerned Citizen TMA112

Our documentary "Driven" is about Pablo Quintana from Santiago-Chile, and currently an American citizen. Pablo lives in Salt Lake City and is on of the executive directors of a non-profit organization called Hispanic Community Connection (HCC).  He saw a need three years ago. Pablo found out that Latino community needs help passing the driving test in English. Himself and other associates founded the non-profit organization - HCC, that helps people from Latin community of different ages to get a driver's license teaching from the driving handbook in English and Spanish. This program not only help Latinos with their driving license, also help them to be more integrated to society here in Utah.  Pablo Quintana designed a teaching method based on a year of experience and many other ESL programs.  He realized that older Latinos have some limitations that were not considered on ESL programs.  Because of that He invested many hours with the Latino community working with other professionals figure in out the best way to teach this specific group of people.  This small initiative changed Pablo’s life and the life of those who have taken this course.

We called this short film “Driven” because it shows how one person can make a different being driven by one cause in order to help the Latino community.When we were shooting we decided to shoot some of the students to portray their frustrations and maybe how Pablo feel about them.  Also we shot some sheets of paper in the wall, which had some words on them- like "Learner", "Failed", etc. That also adds to visual language of our project. Furthermore, we wanted to make a picture of the kind of room this people is preparing themselves and how they react to it.  We did some sit down interviews with Pablo, we asked him to tell us how he feels about what he is doing, about his hopes and expectations for future, and how it all started for him. We struggle a little bit with the location, Latino Mall was one of those location, and the other one was the DMV He told us that at first he didn't even know if this initiative was actually going to work.

When we went to a location (Latino Mall) where students were getting ready for the test, we filmed some clips of the environment to make the audience feel closer and more understanding to what must feel these people. First time we saw the students we thought that they looked very friendly and in their eyes we could see this urge of this little but important thing-getting a driver license. As we were working on the project we could see some of the happy students going out of the DMV, the ones who passed the test and the way they looked at Pablo, I could tell how big of a difference he is making in their lives, we could tell it's especially making him happy.

 We think this issue is very important, but we don't think a lot of people even think about its existence. We hope our documentary will help some people to understand something new and to appreciate more what they have, since for these people even such a small thing as driver's license is crucial.

PROTEST POSTER

I selected the issue of Sexualizing Children on Fashion because I have a niece who is five years old and loves to pose for pictures. I made this poster and posted with privacy settings to discuss with a couple of adults, also in the TMA 112 class. I even hesitate on posting this picture because; even though I took it I don’t think is a picture that should be posted freely on the web because of the provoking pose of this five years old girl.  I love taking pictures, and I’m usually looking other professional’s work related to photography, I’ve started to realized how media, in especial the fashion industry is sexualizing children with the style of pictures. Make up and the poses represent a far more adult person than a child. Also, nowadays children are promoting teen and even adult clothe, depicting a fake reality of how a woman should look, or the size it should be compared with the size of a little girl dress like a grown woman.

With that information in mind, I looked different organizations which support this issue, the one I came across is www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org that is concern of many issues including the “End of Sexualization of Girl and Young Woman in the Mainstream Media.”  One popular case of this is the young girl Thylane Blondeau who poses for the Vogue magazine in very questionable poses and clothes being 10 years of age.

In short, I had many different reactions about this picture, since the effects on kids of working on the fashion industry leading to anorexia and an early sexual activity to the effects of these kind of publicity or pictures on pedophiles.  Serious consequences that for others commenting on the web, talking about my project, did not see the great deal on this, and they even liked the picture. I guess it depends with what kind of eyes a person can look at this picture, although I believe that thinking that all people would be able to see only what we see is also very naive.  Innocence cannot be represented with make up, as well as a child shouldn’t be depicting a grown woman. 

Webspina

Restaurant

http://www.inbflat.net/

Ode to salt

American Sabor

Webspinna was the BOMB! I had to confess the process of looking for different sounds took me more than I expected because I started listening a wide range of different sounds, and later I realize that I got nothing… After having fun with my homework I started to feel very frustrated because I couldn’t find something that show something that I wanted to shared with the class. I finally decided to kept it simple and I used the sound of a restaurant, bflat.com website with a poem of Pablo Neruda “Ode to Salt.” After that, I utilize some tropical rhythm to complement this more reflective and calm moment with a “Murga sound” or a Latin rhythm.  Making the transition was really hard, but I tried to kept the flow of the whole piece as part of a whole in the class, and furthermore ending with some restaurant sounds. My piece was about: a different culture, food, and serenity. I looked at these elements to balance my composition and also a way to portrait the importance of balance in life.

Even though I rehearse a couple of times before “performing,” it was a bit difficult to manage to control volume the mouse and other buttons to push and to make things work.  I realize how well some of my dear classmates did, there were some remarkable presentations for me as was Camlyn. I believe her presentation told me a lot about herself, with some blues and street sounds, I kind of went to Chicago or a big city in a small neighborhood with her presentation. Daniel’s webspinna was very intense, and I was glad to hear that kind of intensity and almost pain on his selection of sounds, I found that there is a lot of energy and constrained in Dan’s personality. I believed art can be a great mirror, or maybe an exit to show feelings and maybe  a different reality in a healthy perspective, even though it can get us out of our comfort zone.   Kristin did an amazing job on mixing sounds, as well as Scott.  There where other presentations that were plain fun such as Gina’s webspinna that made me want to dance, and actually I did dance on my chair though, but still isn’t it? I really enjoyed the informality of the event, as well as the respect of most of our classmates, staying and paying attention to the different presentations. Now I wonder how really sound the whole piece… I think we should all have it!