In my film I chose to explore the topic of gender in sports.  I was interested in this topic because it is something that we have been talking a lot about in my race, class, and gender class at Lick.  It is also something that Sydni (the star of my film), and I have had many conversations about, and think the topic is very meaningful.  I think a strength in my film is the found footage I used, and everything Sydni had to say.  I think a challenge I have is working with sound.

My favorite trip while taking Bay Area Cinema were the trips to the Castro Theatre.   I actually had never been to the Castro Theater anf it was awesome to see something so historical and cool for the first time.  The film we watched at the Castro Theater “The Dark Corner.” however I was not the biggest fan of due to some the sexism, and lack of people of color, but just being in the Castro Theater was a great experience and was even better when we went to listen to members of Aardman Animations.

Another experience I enjoyed a lot was when we got to listen the Aardman Animations co-founder Peter Lord.   I really enjoyed listening to the growth of his company and brand of film.  I also learned a lot about developing an idea for a film.

I really enjoyed learning about animation, and making my first animation film.  I think this is something that I would love to get into more in the future using some of the advice that and knowledge I used from Peter Lord.

For our motion study film assignment we were to make a film using the minimum of 72 frames minimum and create a Motion Study Sequence.

For my motion study film I was originally doing a film in which I animated my friend Marcus juggling a soccer ball in front of a mural near my house.  However our times didn’t really match up in the end and due to time constraints I choose to focus on something else.  In this film I focus on a small altar made for my Nana who recently passed away.   Although my original plans for the film fell through I think the film turned out more meaningful and I’m proud of it.

This is the film I made for the FIlm Noir Assignment we were given. For the assignment we were asked to make a film that was shot in black & white and in a film noir style.  I named my film Work, and it stars my friend David Peletz.  In the film I follow David working hard in order to one day fulfill his dreams and ambitions.

By Antonio Quadra

Hoop Dreams” is, on one level, a documentary by Steve James about two African-American kids named William Gates and Arthur Agee, from Chicago’s inner city, who are gifted basketball players and dream of someday playing in the NBA.  On another level, it is about much larger subjects: about ambition, competition, race and class in our society. About our value structures.

With the first shots, the director communicates the style of the documentary, objectively moving over poor districts in Chicago and taking in the sights without comment. Yet when he touches upon footage of basketball, either of kids playing in neighborhood courts or of professional games being watched on TV, the film slows down, lingers on these shots. For so many of these poor inner city kids, the NBA may be the only way out of the place they live, and basketball represents not only fame and wealth but simply happiness. Young Arthur vocalizes this in his first scene, telling the documentary crew that “when” he makes it, the first thing he’ll do is give back to his family. He’s not thinking about the models or the diamonds yet, just getting his family out of the projects and into a nice house. That shared desire among a lot of youth leads to competition, to the point that basketball recruiters now scout for kids in middle school to send them to high schools with good programs. James follows around one Earl Smith early in the film as the man talks of helping kids along “the road to success,” but he’s part of a twisted system that finds and puts too much pressure on these kids too early.   Much later in the film, a host of college recruiters use terms like “meat market” and speak to each other knowingly about “hooking ’em while they’re young.”

During their freshman year, William and Arthur after being recruited to play at St. Joe’s High School, find themselves doing very well on the basketball court but uncomfortable at the school itself going to a school predominately made up of wealthy white children.  Arthur feels uncomfortable around the white people at St. Joe’s because he’s never interacted with many white people and does not know how to relate to them.  Also William and Arthur come from underfunded, understaffed inner city public schools, and are behind in terms of academics. William at the beginning of the year reads at a fourth-grade level but his dedication powers him through his setbacks and by the end of the year, he’s up to par. Arthur, however, is not as lucky and, combined with some not too impressive basketball performances eventually the school does not offer him the financial aid he needs and is forced to leave the school.

Hoop Dreams illustrates the reality of the recruiting system and all the complexities with it.  In this movie, every failed test, every missed free throw carries weight.   If their grades slip too much, not even the help of coaches can help them. And if their performance suffers, someone else might move up over them.  There are no villains in the film, not even St. Joe’s, but the perversity of America’s values is clearly on display. As Arthur’s new coach at John Marshall High School says, someone at St. Joe’s would have ignored his poor grades and his poverty if he’d played like they thought he would (just look at the help that materializes around William when he runs into money problems and his grades slip). Everyone representing a school always tells the prospects and the cameras that they value education over sport, but coaches never seem to care about the players’ grades beyond the minimum requirement to qualify for scholarships. People like the coaches in the movie have turned the sports system into a business that processes people from adolescence through adulthood.

To Check Out The presentation I made that includes information about the director, characters, a scene analyzation, my artpiece, and my experience with the movie heres the link.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1d_YHbg9DpjMiWScJYvtTIx6dDN0B9pB9wOCtxJdTtmg/edit?usp=sharing

My StoryBoards:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LhtgD87qi28mTpFTVvtUpiFIqct3wK7K8TcMzXMkZbY/edit?usp=sharing