Warped Tour WTK

Summer 2016, Cristian and I, Warped Tour. I have never thought I was going to die until then. The craziest most violent concerts I've ever attended. We The Kings was not too bad, but I also was front row so I was able to block the moshing that was behind me. Cristian drug me to the front of Falling In Reverse and I had to literally fight everyone around me to stand up right. I helped way to big of people that were crowd surfacing. Met a few very interesting characters, but also I met my favorite band again. This time it was only Hunter (lead guitar) and Charles (base guitar). Hunter threw his water to me because I was dying up in the front row, and Charles met us at the merch tent. We had a lot of friends with us, but Cristian and I were by far the biggest fans there. We screamed every word. I think in total we went to roughly like thirteen artists that day. I am not sure that I will be back to Warped unless WTK go again, but they only go every other year. All in all, I had a great time. Only 90 days and 13 hours till I get to see my favorite band all over again.

We The Kings in Chicago

2016, middle of February, We The Kings are in Chicago. At this point my film partner, Cristian, also really liked the band, but he was never able to go to a concert. So I took him to Chicago with me, texted WTK's manager and planned on being front row. At every concert I've been to for them I've been front row, I'm excessive I know! But we get there, wait outside in the cold (specifically for over four hours) , random down pour, and then we finally go in. This venue was different though because there was no barrier between the stage and you. I literally could reach up and grab the microphone at any time, and I kept my bag on stage during the entire concert. I found two new bands that I'm crazy about now, AJR and She is We. In fact I'm going to one of the openers, AJR, in March as well (four days before the next We The Kings concert) . This was my first time in Chicago and it consisted of the lead singer and base guitarist remembering my name and singing to me, going to the Willis Towers, the Bean, and exploring the city. I'm so glad I ditched school those days. (I made a video of my adventure if you want to watch:)!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s9x5nbEGGE

We The Kings with Ella

Let's move to 2014 where I met one of my best friends Ella through We The Kings. I was listening to them one day in art class and she freaked out because she found someone else that knew the band. I was so surprised because she was from Germany! From that day we on we vowed to meet the full band together. Our birthday are two days apart and there was a We The Kings concert over spring break. We convinced both of our parents to get us tickets for our birthday so we planned on seeing them in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But we hadn't accomplished meeting them yet! The base guitarist has his own vlog channel, CTFXC, where when the band is on tour,  he shows tons of behind the scenes footage and shows you the crew. So, I found out who their manager was and did a little research. I found him on Facebook and added him. Little did I know that he would accept my request, and give us back stages tickets after I messaged him. I may or may not have guilt tripped him a little by saying that Ella and I may never see each other again, but hey, it worked! Our dream was coming true and I met the full band with my best friend.

We The Kings

Of all bands, not a single one has impacted me like they have. In 20011 I entered a contest to win tickets for a private acoustic concert of theirs. I only knew one song and some how I manged to get tickets for this concert! My mom and I drove all the way to Grand Rapids, Michigan. By far one of the best days of my lives. I fell in love with the band right then and there. I sat front row and as I am typing this, I have officially seen them in concert four times and I am getting ready to get tickets for a concert in March. Each concert will have a different blog, but my journey began here. After the concert I bought the two CD's that they had come out with listened to them on repeat until I had everyone of them memorized. I was worried about going to into high school and transitioning, and whenever I listened to like Smile Kid or Check Yes Juliet, I felt okay again. This band is fairly small and only a few songs have ever gone viral, so I had high hopes of seeing them in concert again and being front row.

Pixar and its Secret

Pixar to me is a dream come true. No I do not plan on going into animation, but the products that this company creates are beyond anything else. Everyone at some point has wondered how they continuously put out promising movies and shorts. In reality, there is not much of a secret. The reading on Pixar has taught me to find the right people, making a movie is messy, put yourself in the world that your character is in. The first thing you think needs to be written down. "The best writing is re-writing." Do not throw away what you have and fully commit to it. The article talks about how Pixar is a fairy tale place to work at. This is created by finding the right people and putting themselves into the story that they are creating. For me, it obviously would not be animation, but I would need to find the correct co-workers and put myself into the shoes of the character I am developing. The shorts such as Geri's Game was done in preperation of Toy Story and For the Birds was for Monsters INC. Pixar easily could have jumped straight into either of these movies, but they would not have had the outcome that they did. With the effort put into the shorts, it taught the workers the techniques needed to make human like characters and how to make the feathers so that Sulley and Mike's fur would be beliveable. The amount of work and passion that goes into Pixar is something I dream of having.
 "You can't create the illusion of life if you haven't lived one."- Brad Bird

Woman in Black

One of the most underrated scary movies that is out there. Daniel Radcliffe knocked this acting out of the park. Arthur, the characters name, is sent out to this old mansion in a small village that has a pat darker than what is revealed. He learns of the boy who drowned in marsh, which leads to the backstory of why this house becomes so paranormal. This poem gives me the chills every time I hear it. 

"During afternoon tea there's a shift in the air,

a bone-trembling chill that tells you she's there.

There are those who believe the whole town is cursed

but the house in the marsh is by far the worst.

What she wants is unknown but she always comes back;

the specter of darkness, the woman in black."

As the movie plays out you learn what the woman wants and why she is persistent. The ending is what really gets you though. I could watch this movie over and over again. NEVER watch the sequel though. It is just so dreadful and boring. It would have been much better if Daniel was lead role again, but hey, at least the first one became my second favorite scary movie! 

As Above So Below

If you are into psychological horror movies, As Above So Below should be your cup of tea. Not only does it mess with you the whole time, it is suspenseful and scary not only in like jump scares, but reality. Most of the movie is set in the catacombs of Paris. These are now illegal due to people getting stranded and lost within them as well as the possibility of disease being present. The only way to get in them is illegally through an underground tour guide. Scarlett, the archaeologist, is devoted to finding Flamel's Stone. She creates this crew that documents their journey. After she gathers clues, they lead her underground. What the crew and her have not realized yet is that they are walking straight into their own personal hell. For everyone it is different. Nothing is hidden about you while you are within these walls. Your past is used against you. Anything that haunts you becomes real. That is what makes this movie so incredibly mind twisting. The end is what really gets you. I am not going to spoil it, but anyone reading this should go and rent it like right now. All I will say is, the only way out is down.  

Monsters University

One of the best prequels that Disney and Pixar has ever produced would have to be Monsters University. And it is not only because baby Mike Wazowski is the cutest creature this world has ever seen. It truly tells the back story to Monsters INC. The companies easily could have just made a sequel to it about Boo just to make more money, but that is not what this movie was for. It shows how  the lessons in this movie, I would venture to say, they almost surpass the lessons in the first one. Not only does it touch on bullying and the need to fit in, but it focuses on self confidence and reaching the potential that all of us have. Towards the end, Mike and Sulley find themselves in a sticky situation where they need to stand up for themselves, but they also need to prove to not only the others but to themselves that they are as amazing as they once thought. You have the little nerd who finds his strength in not scaring, but tactics. On the other hand you have the typical college student who's dad has a big name and thinks that he can get away with anything. He quickly learns that that mind set will not go over well. If you want a great childrens movie to enjoy as an adult, this is the one for you. 

Middletown

My first play at Huntington was much better than I anticipated. I am not huge on theater, especially to one that I have never heard of. The actors were phenomenal as was the story line. Middletown is about Mary, a wife of an absent husband who wants to start a family, John, a frantic and depressed man trying to find happiness, and Craig, the local alcoholic who really wants to make something of himself. The play is very philosophical. It is constantly questioning what you to believe and what to think. It also breaks the fourth wall multiple times by having characters speak to the audience or when the cop comes to the audience. There is a "crowd" within the crowd. Although they are actors, it is meant to force you to wonder how others are understanding this play. Every character has there unique kinks. The cop is, I believe, bipolar. He will lash out and immediately regret it, but he just was doing these bad things to see the result. John questions everything that he says and hears. Not only does he make Mary start to look at situations differently, he begins to question too much causing him to worry. He falls in love with Mary, and as time goes by, he slowly gets more and more depressed until he begins to question what it is like to cause a crisis. Mary is conflicted between her absent husband and a man that would be there for her at any time. You are meant to hate the husband, but you never really find out why he is never there. Craig wants nothing more than to find love and make people proud. His Indian rain dance brings himself to feel beautiful again. It reminds him of something that he once was and he wants to move forward, but feel important enough again. All in all, the play was intriguing and Craig is easily my favorite character in the whole world.

Art in Motion: The Aesthetics of Animation

Art forces us to look at a different perspective. We have to look past what is right in front of our eyes and see deep inside to find the true meaning. "And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in Magician's Book." This is a quote from CS Lewis's book, The Voyage of the Dawntreader. As the lecture went on, the more and more I realized that art is a way for us to see the beauty in the Earth rather than the evil that is present. Art takes us out of the mind state of forgetting what we forgot already. It is not just something pretty or cool, it is a meaning, lesson ,etc. Why do I watch any type of media and feel all of the emotions that come forth from it? Professor Leeper discussed how virtual reality desensitizes us to what is real and what is not. Watching animation through a screen creates a barrier where we can still feel what it is portraying, but once you literally are inside of it, the barrier is no longer there. Although I find virtual reality to be incredible, I must agree that jumping into a horror movie makes something fake way too real. This lecture, believe it or not, made me remember something that I had forgot. Art is more than just art.

Lights Out

Another horror movie. You will soon learn that this is by far my favorite genre. Horror messes with your mind and makes you sit on the edge of your seat. If a scary movie fails to do this, then it fails at its genre. Lights Out definitely succeeds at this. Although the ending is very abrupt and personally I found it lacking content, the rest of the movie is superb. The story follows a little boy and his older sister through this mental journey that relates to their mother. At first you find the mother to be insane and to be blunt, you completely hate her character. As the story goes deeper, you find the truth behind her which turns your hate to sympathy. The daughter used to have this entity follow her around and torture her. Now the little brother has adopted this spirit and it is not being kind. The beginning of the movie clearly helps you understand what the entity is meant to do. Towards the end you find out why she (the spirit) targets certain people. Not only is she incredibly jealous, but she wants the mother all to herself. This movie is psychological, but it has and underlying tone relating to the type of insanity that causes voices in peoples heads. Except this voice has a personality that is out for revenge.

Monsters INC.

Monsters Incorporated is by far the best Pixar movie that there is. Sure, I am a little biased, but let us look deeper into why I think it is. First off, it was the first movie that I ever got to see in theaters. Second, it has such a good meaning! The obvious tone of the movie is that we should not judge a book by its cover. This comes from both sides. The monsters judge the children because they have been taught that they are evil. Same with the children. They think monsters are these horrifying creatures that are only out to get them in their sleep. If I am spoiling this for you then you are way behind in life. As the movie goes on, the monsters, specifically Mike and Sulley, figure out that humans are more beneficial when they are laughing rather than crying. This is an important life lesson as well. Why tear people down, when you can make them happy? Besides being the most adorable movie of all time, it hits people of all ages. I still cry when Boo is tied to the chair and Randal is torturing her. The other great aspect of this movie is that the prequel only benefited it. That review is for another day!

Blair Witch: 2016

Over summer I won a buy one get one free ticket to our local movie theater. I went to use it over summer and in super tiny writing it said it was only valid through September. Well, this past weekend I was home and my boyfriend and I decided to go see the newest version of Blair Witch. Although, I cannot compare it to the older version, I highly recommend it. This horror movie is not like other ones. Instead of a jump scare here and there, the tension is present throughout any of the scenes in the woods. Crazy characters that have a much deeper meaning than originally shown are present in the whole movie. Lane is presented as a strange guy, but he is meant to give you this strange feeling. As the movie moves forward, you quickly learn that the Blair Witch is more of a mind game rather than an actual person. The ending, although is aggravating, is somewhat predictable. SPOILER ALERT: Most minds can figure out that James will do anything to find his sister, but we all hope that he will not give in to the voices placed in his head. I think my favorite aspect of the movie was how they did not just get fantastic shots from a drone, but they tied it into the story line and it ended up trying to save them and killing one all at the same time. Some people are never truly explained as in what happened to them in the end, but you can assume. All in all I found this movie to be overall fantastic.

Shelby Price, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy

This section of the book discusses the ideas and views that differ throughout everyone. How few are able to face reality and how others hide from pain. Preachers can become more of teachers, educating us on the Bible and saying what should be said at points rather than saying what needs to be said. Our world begins to deny reality and we think that we are high and mighty. For example, when the students are reading Shakespeare they realize that they are not as important and they once believed. Then it discusses how when Jesus was shown Lazarus laying dead, he wept and let his tears speak for him.  We try to cover up problems over and over again without facing them and letting ourselves be human. We are all failures, but deny being vulnerable and able to be harmed. A quote that truly grasps this idea is, "We put frames of words around silence and shells of stone and wood around emptiness, but it is the silence the emptiness themselves, that finally matter and out of which the Gospel comes as word." Near the end it discusses how art students , such as filmmakers, preach the most truth in the essence of how we are unafraid of speaking the truth. We watched a short puppet film about tragedy and how although it is horribly sad, he did not offer solutions but he showed how we are not alone. Everyone experiences death and tragedy, but you are not perpetually the only person dealing with these problems. Sadness is reality. Sadness is being human.

ShelbyPrice

Hey there! I am Shelby Analyce Price, I am from Logansport, Indiana. Let's see, I have danced for 16 years, bowled for 2, played softball for 7, played volleyball for 6, and competed in track and field for 5 years. I am continuing my bowling and dance career here at Huntington. My major is Film Production and I am double minoring in Broadcasting and Journalism. My favorite movie (movies) is Monsters INC. and Monsters University.  We The Kings would have to be my all time favorite band. Fun fact, I've met them four times and I've always been front row for their concerts. I'm really into rap and my favorite artist include Logic, G-Eazy, Hoodie Allen, and Childish Gambino. I am sort of addicted to concerts and in total I have been to 28 concerts and have seen roughly 49 groups live! I have been told I am super outgoing and way too happy a majority of the time. I am not a morning person by any means, sorry Professor Leeper. I promise to try my best and drink like eight cups of coffee! I tend to stay up way to late due to insomnia and I work on low hours of sleep pretty well. My dream vacation is Paris, France. My favorite place that I have ever been to would have to be New York City with South Haven, Michigan coming in as a close second. I hope I get to know you all!