Justin - First Car

My heart knows this is just how freedom feels
(Though this was not the car I’d hoped to drive:)
Gears shifting, fairly flying low on wheels.
 
I searched the whole lot, looking for their deals;
I knew that I could only put down five.
My heart knows this is just how freedom feels.
 
Playing cool will not my want conceal,
To unchain soul, spread wings and come alive,
Gears shifting, fairly flying low on wheels.
 
And if this auto does not match ideals,
It matters not nor blocks hope to contrive;
My heart knows this is just how freedom feels.
 
Liberty’s bell in jangling keys sound peals,
A pilot’s chair to cradle through the drive,
Gears shifting, fairly flying low on wheels.
 
New man in used car light of day reveals,
Though mirror does not with the real life jive,
My heart knows this is just how freedom feels-
Gears shifting, fairly flying low on wheels.

First Car - Jason

My '84 Escort

She was more than transport
As freedom was the key
My ‘84 Escort

So childhood distort
And the wind made me free
She was more than transport

She would give a report
When I stopped on my spree
My ‘84 Escort

Her hatchback we exhort
Packing in ten and three
She was more than transport

Thirty-fifth district court
Where innocent I plea
My ‘84 Escort

Engine smoke than stop short
My Grandpa Smith helped me
She was more than transport
My ‘84 Escort

Resurrection - Jason

Resurrection

We convicted and killed the bread of life
Twas the blood our transgressions did provoke
The divine had designed to turn the strife
So with spirit the lamb in flesh awoke
The mortality lost could not be held
Resurrected he rolled the stone away
With intention and hope he strode compelled
Demonstrating for us the path to stay
With a heart descending to the grave
As I follow from dark in strained entreat
I’m released and burst forth from sin enslaved
To experience life without defeat
Once confused by the truth but now I see
That the real resurrected man is me

The Resurrection - Justin

Rising

“It is finished” was his final cry -
“It is finished” not “this is the end”-
Hanging, watched by mother, brother, friend,
He released his spirit and did die.
And in death redemption he did buy;
But what if in the grave he did remain?
Would not all of our faith then be in vain?
If Christ did not arise, what hope have I?
 
Dying, he threw open heaven’s door,
When for our sins the king of glory fell.
Rising, he created order mends;
Rising, his creation to restore,
That we may in union with God dwell.
“It is finished,” this is not the end!

Don't I know you, Mister- Justin

Looking it appeared that he

Saw something when he glanced at me

But what he saw I could not tell

But something surely he did see

It seemed that something rung a bell

And watched as confidence did swell

As he tried to judge my size

He looked as if he caught a smell

And a glimmer in his eyes

Broadcasted that he recognized 

Someone he saw in my face

Someone he thought shared my guise

I saw the gears turn make a case 

To try my countenance to place

Arguments I watched him weigh

Until prepared to make his case

 "Don't I know you" he did say 

And knowing it would ego slay 

I met his eyes and shook my head

And just said "no" and walked away

Mistaken Identity - Jason

Second Sight

When the people so shifted and I saw her face
In the glance of her eyes I foresee her embrace
Overwhelmed and relieved there’s so much to relate
But the moment is wrong and my heart starts to race

Through the crowd I am tracking my fears to abate
She appears just awaiting then lengthens her gait
Tangerine was her shirt I repeat in my head
In that instant I leapt so the truth culminate

Then she turned and displayed it was not who I wed
And my hope drained away expectation misled
So the weight then returned that distinct albatross
And again she was gone with my hurt still unsaid

Twas the prison of silence an ocean I’m tossed
Where submerged by the weight of the memory embossed
So I craft my mirage from a stranger I cross
A mistake of intention to bandage my loss

Auto Tune

The new Beauty and the Beast looks to be very popular. I saw it on opening night with my wife and three teenage girls for my daughter’s birthday. While the visual effects were amazing and reminded me of the big deal that was the computer generated chandelier from the animated version and how far computer effects have come since then, juxtaposed with another bit of modern technology, namely auto tune, I wonder where we should draw the line in using technology to augment art.

With visual effects, it seems we make constant progress: the 1933 King Kong looked like the Claymation that it was and thank George Lucas we’ve come so far. Through horrible blending of models and computer in (so horrible you are hopefully unfamiliar with it) Anaconda to a fully generated motion capture character like Golem in Lord of the Rings. Technology has not always been kind to us in visual effects, but they continue to progress, sometimes. For sure animatronic puppet Jabba the Hutt from Return of the Jedi was much more believable than the computer animated version from Episode I, but we keep moving forward. The question is should we?

This question becomes (to me at least) more pronounced when we look at sound engineering and specifically auto tune. When Audrey Hepburn played Eliza Doolittle, she didn’t sing, she lip synched. Did it hurt My Fair Lady that she was “faking it?” Some purists may say it did; some may say that Julie Andrews should have played the part she starred in on Broadway. Maybe, but did it really hurt the movie? I think not. More recently a actors live sang their way through the movie musical Les Miserables. Was it perfect? No, but with the exception of Russel Crowe’s inability to drive the necessary passion through his performance to make his Javert the right counterbalance to Hugh Jackman’s Valjean, it was good. There was no distraction from the performance, dramatic or musical, for a missed note. I use these examples to give viable alternatives to auto tuning a performance.

On the contrary, auto tuning is distracting. From the first song when Emma Watson starts lamenting her “provincial life” it was distracting. The weird wobble of a note pulls away the emotion and distracts from the overall. I’m sure the producers had a very good reason for auto tuning her singing instead of having her lip sync, I just can’t figure out what it was. I know why they couldn’t live sing it like Les Mis, it’s Disney: imperfection is unacceptable. But I would suggest that the distraction of auto tune is a far greater imperfection than a missed note or lip syncing.

Disney has a history of not using the acting voice as the singing voice. Matthew Broderick, who has done well singing on Broadway, didn’t sing for Lion King. Danny Elfman sang for Jack Skellington while Chris Sarandon did the speaking. These instances were animated characters, but, again, Eliza Doolittle. In the fifty-three years since My Fair Lady I don’t think Hollywood has improved on the lip sync mode of having an actor who cannot sing, (at least to the producer’s standards) sing.

So where does this leave us with the use of technology in film? I think we need to remember that filmmaking is an art, but it is also a conglomeration of multiple arts. There is an art to making the sets and backgrounds, to framing the shot, to sound and visual effects. Acting is an art as is musical performance. All of these go together into the art of film and some of these are greatly aided by modern technology. However where technology can make a dancing candlestick somewhat believable, it cannot make a bad singer good without making itself obvious and when it does, the actor looks bad, as does the director and the producers. I like Emma Watson. The fact that she hasn’t become a mess after achieving fame so young is admirable. I think she’s a talented woman. I would have liked her performance as Belle a lot more if she had just lip synced.

I know there is an argument to be made that technology is a progression; that if we didn't have the horrible effects of Anaconda there wouldn't be the budget for the much better CGI we enjoy now. I get that, but, like the superior puppet Jabba, old tricks still work and sometimes better than the new ones. I am all for the progression of technology in filmmaking and in art in general, but the stepping stone to greater things can't be a step backward without damaging the product. we need to remember that art is a human thing, that it is meant to produce emotion in the audience. To that end, perfect notes and CGI are not always the answer.

Technology in Art

Video Games are Art

Roger Ebert once wrote, “Video games can never be art.” Whatever he meant by this it must mean that he either had a very different experience with video games or a very different understanding of art. I am going to guess his video game playing was limited.

According to Merriam-Webster art is the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects. Over the course of time, lots of things have been deemed art. Pigments used to make marks on cave walls. Marble carved into the image of the goddess Diana. A play about a Danish prince who seeks to avenge the death of his father. A novel about a middle aged man who chases heroism by taking up a lance against windmills. A movie which brothers battle in a deadly chariot race.

Paintings and Sculptures, Drawings and Architecture are all art because they are beautiful creative objects. Stories, whether in plays or novels or movies, too are art because they are beautiful, they evoke feelings. A good story in some ways is the highest form of art, pure experience and expression. I suspect Ebert would have agreed with that, but somehow he had a blind spot when it came to games.

This is not a blind spot I share. I distinctly remember the first time I was headed back to Imperial City and I crossed over the crest of the nearby mountain just as the sun was rising. I actually watched so I could watch the virtual beams of light, the hues of pink and purple illuminate the tower and the various districts of the city.

I remember being an operative for the Sigmund Corporation hired to give a wish fulfillment memory for a dying man. I remember learning of the melancholy love of Johnny and River, a troubled girl who communicates with folded paper bunnies. I remember finding the sheet music “For River”, a composition of love, which just the thought of moved me. Then there was learning why Johnny’s wish was to go to the moon. A beautiful love story.

If a painting of a landscape it are, then using a computer to virtually walk through one, has to be art too. If novels and plays that make you fall for and feel for the characters are art, then it is art when I get to live in that story. Technology has always allowed the evolution of art, multiplied the art, not kill it.

I say, let’s have a little art appreciation, Skyrim anyone?