Frederick- This Class

The Tim Burton Seminar turned out to be much more than I expected the first day. The first day of class I had a terrible headache, and class is two hours.... I was ready to leave right away. Throughout the year though it had become one of my favorite classes. First impressions usually aren't even close.

Last year I had a great english teacher who taught a great class. The whole class was about literary analysis and writing. I have always enjoyed taking apart literature and art to get to the deeper meanings and symbols within it, but I had never analyzed film before. The Tim Burton Seminar taught me how to understand films in a different way. Instead of just watching movies superficially, now I can see them for what they really mean underneath. I also learned how to do a Mise en Scene analysis. This not only helps me in this class, but also in my art classes this year, since I had to do a short animation and critique other works. 

I learned a lot about Tim Burton the man as well. He has some pretty deep problems, but to be honest, not much worse than anyone else. He is a very relatable guy. Burton's films express him and his story, no matter what they are about, there is always something about him that it goes back to. One of my favorite things about Burton is his love for the outcast. America always says it cheers for the underdog, but that is only true if the underdog is the ideal strong, cool, man that belongs at the top and just in not there yet. Burton supports the more realistic underdog, even though he expresses it in fantastic ways. Burton loves those individuals that are strange, abnormal and would never fit into that ideal person. 

I got to watch some movies that I had never seen before in this class. I enjoyed watching Ed Wood. I like the idea of making a movie about a terrible movie director, and I thought that Johnny Depp did a great job at being cheesy. I had also never seen Tim Burton's version of Sleepy Hollow, and I really enjoyed it. Big Fish was probably by favorite movie that we watching in this class. It was full of emotion, and the fantasy world was wonderful. Sometimes the things that are not really real are the best parts of a story, or life for that matter. 

This class showed me how much I really love movies. For a long long time I wanted to be an animator at Pixar. This class showed me how much I really love movies. For a very long time I wanted to be an animator at Pixar or Disney. I love animations and I love cartoons and drawing. Now I think I  am going to minor in film studies, or something about film. I'd love to really get into animation and maybe do something with that in my life. I am a graphic design major, but I want to mix film and animation into that. 

I am really glad that I ended up in this freshman seminar class. I learned quite a lot, but I had fun doing it. I also got to meet some wonderful people. It's been inspiring.