The first commercial we watched in class was the Subaru one where the parents are worried for their teens and they’re thinking about the worst possible scenarios. It shows the teens in unserious situations like the car standing straight up in the water and the teen is still eating his food. I think the creator wanted parents to relate to the parents in this commercial because a lot of parents worry about their kids. They also showed stereotypes about the teens being distracted cause a lot of people believe teens aren’t great drivers because they're always distracted. The commercial showed that distracted teens were the problem and I think it had something like an automatic brake thing that stopped the girl from going through the intersection without looking. I think the commercial connected with parents and made them feel as if maybe that car would be good for their kids.
A topic that seems to be trending is AI art. I don’t like how many apps are using AI now. Especially in creating art. It might've been a year ago when instagram was training their AI to create art by using artist’s artwork on the app. Whatever art was posted on the instagram app, they would use it without permission to train their AI models. Then something else happened where there was a way for those artists to not have their art used for that training. It was in the settings on the app but it was pretty much hidden so artists didn’t know they had the option to not have their art used until others started sharing the information. But after this was trending I’m not entirely sure if this actually worked or if instagram was still going to use art that was posted even from artists who didn’t consent to it. This doesn’t seem right to me. I make a lot of digital drawings and post them online. I’m worried about my art being used for these training models. AI also isn't great for the environment. It uses a lot of energy that causes gas emissions. I also found out it uses a lot of water for the cooling systems. It damages soil as well, contaminating them with toxic stuff. I’ve recently seen people who live near these companies are losing their water because of the amount it takes.
One scene that stuck out to me was the train scene. Where they are stopped and asked for their documents. Zero had his but it seemed it wasn’t enough and the soldiers were going to take him. M. Gustave seemed to be growing fond of zero throughout the movie and was defending him. During this scene I notice that the music stopped and it’s entirely silent throughout the scene making it intense and uneasy to watch. Zero is visibly nervous adding onto that intensity. I’ve noticed in Wes Anderson’s films that he has a unique style in the framing of the scenes. The scenes are almost always symmetrical. The characters are either in the middle of the shot or on either side of each other between the symmetry line. It’s really hard to explain this without showing what I mean. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the characters are filmed a lot with faces forward or showing their side profile. The characters in most of his films (from what I’ve seen) act kind of animated in a way.
The first thing that came to mind was language. During my time in high school, a lot of older people (specifically my Navajo instructor) would tell us that we’re losing our language. That many people don’t or can’t speak Navajo anymore. This has always been at the back of my mind but I’ve always chosen to ignore it. This past weekend I heard a presentation from a staff member from Navajo Preparatory school. He was mainly talking about how their school fought for the Navajo language to be taught in their school and how they’ve been improving/changing the way they teach the language. It was really interesting to hear. Though what really caught my attention was what he said later into his presentation. He mentioned something about the Navajo language would be declining in fluent speakers significantly by 2030 and by 2050 it might be mostly gone. This was really shocking to hear because in my lifetime, the Navajo language could disappear just like that. This matters to me because I don’t want to lose our language. I will admit that I don’t even know the Navajo language, just a few words and basic phrases. But I think people in my generation and younger need to hear this message. Because it’s really important to keep the language alive as most of our teachings are in Navajo. Learning your language can make you feel more connected to your cultural identity. For me personally, I believe I would feel more connected to my culture. I’m not entirely sure what would convince people to listen because I also didn’t listen years ago.
I can’t think of anything I've seen outside of class. But that first infographic poster that was shown did catch my eye. I saw a lot of color and the layout reminds me of a comic book. Unfortunately I didn’t read it so I can only assume what it could be about. I saw images of the state of Alaska and a thermometer. Some of the images of Alaska were red. I’m guessing it was about the rising temperature of Alaska and that it affects some cultural aspects of the state because I also saw an image of sled dogs. When I was listening to the presentation from Navajo Prep. and their efforts in preventing the Navajo language loss, the guy presenting used a lot of charts to explain the issue. From what I can remember, he used a lot of Hogan images to represent certain themes in his charts. I feel like the Navajo images connected to a lot of people in the room. It was meaningful and easy to understand. I want to try and use some of those aspects in my project as well. I was thinking about something with the Navajo basket would be cool.