Seals- Last blog :-( - Always All Ways A Color Map of the Sun

Well… this was an interesting class and semester.  From the beginning, I new I was going to be writing a lot which is both good and bad due to the fact that I love writing, but hate how long it takes me to get ideas out.  I had an idea of how much material we were going to analyze.  It's an english class so I figured we were going to truly dig deep into the mind of Tim Burton.  But it was really great to do so.  There were so many aspects of production that Burton and other writers/producers use that I had to knowledge of.  To be honest, I know/knew nothing about film.  The whole mise en scene world and technique for films were a revelation for me.

Something else that was interesting to me was how, overall, I didn't find Tim Burton that dark of a person.  Or maybe just his films weren't as dark as I thought.  His past is..sad, none the less.  I don't know how to back up this point really.  Maybe I just always affiliated him with a lot more darker films.  I think that's because all I knew was "Corpes Bride" and "Nightmare Before Christmas."  I guess I expected more grotesque themes or something.  Actually, his films are pretty dark now that I look back on it.  Gotham city was one of the most claustrophobic and depressing settings I've ever worked with.  I don't know- I guess I'm two sided with that.

Learning about his past was awesome though.  I definitely felt a good connection to him when learning about his view on suburbia which was cool.  Overall I enjoyed this class.  It definitely opened my mind a little bit on how much stuff can actually be packed into a good film.  Tim Burton has so many personal references thrown in his works which is fun to be discovered.  As soon as I thought we were getting repetitive within our task to discover these personal references, another theme was to be found.  From the twists on politics to all the death satire, the man is truly brilliant.

As for myself- I need some work.  This was a class that I "got by" in, which I'm disappointed with.  I fell back into the crappy habits!  And I don't know why.  This goes with all my classes too.  We had about 13 worksheets and blogs and I probably did about half of them.  AHHH.  My first semester was weird.  I'm really good at overanalyzing the purpose of everything which causes distraction…and depression. :-(  I got a great feel for what I need to do and how everything works though.  When it comes down to it, I just need to do what I need to do.  Same problem same b.s. I've pulled my whole life.  I'm slowly getting the hang out of it though.  In high school I barely did any work, but that can't slide here.  I guess it doesn't work to suddenly change bad habits.

I had fun in this class.  So long Timmy Burton.