Class11

I watched the animated film “Up” recently. What struck me as the best joke in the film was the “broken” voice of one of the talking dogs. The leader of the talking dogs, who talk thanks to the translating collars they wear, is some kind of a German Sheppard-looking dog with a very menacing personality. Yet when is in introduced, his collar is broken, rendering his voice similar to that of Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks. Having an evil character with such a paradoxically silly little voice was extremely amusing. Later on in the film his collar is fixed and his voice changes from chipmunk, to Darth Vader. All of a sudden the dog seemed much more threatening. This reminded me of just how important voice casting for animated films is. A voice can completely change the perception of a character.

Class10

I watched the documentary "We Live in Public" yesterday. The film covers the life story of .com entrepreneur John Harris and his ability to predict internet trends, and his obsession with the virtual world and its destruction of privacy.

At the end of the film the song that plays over the credits is "Virtual Insanity" by Jamiroqai. While the lyrics of this song, which say "virtual insanity", are appropriate enough, the melody, which is extremely happy and upbeat, does not fit at all with the tone of the film. At the end of the film I was left with an eerie sense of caution about the virtual world, and felt as though I needed to go through a lot of deep thought. This feeling completely disappeared as the credits rolled and "virtual insanity" began to play. It was a very wrong song choice that did not go at all with the film, and actually played against the message the film was trying to relay by replacing any pensive feelings with a happy, upbeat vibe that makes you wanna get up and dance.

I don't know if the filmmaker underestimated the power of an end credit song, or if I just totally missed the point of the movie...