Speaking With Animation : Curtis Jackson edition

A constant theme in hip hop culture is the battle. The battle is when two MC's square off and engage in a lyrical confrontation. It has become a marketing tactic of sorts. You engage another rapper in an exchange of words it begins plenty of water cool talk. Arguments ensue between fan bases and each rappers material is talked about more. Earlier this year 50 cent engaged in a very viral beef with down south rapper Rick Ross. 50 cent utilized many types of media. Including animation. Instead of wasting more music on the over weight rapper. 50 cent put together a series of short cartoons aimed at Rick Ross. Rick Ross is a former corrections officer who has this mafia don persona in rap. In the cartoon Rick Ross is Officer Ricky. We track Officer Ricky who is coming up in a hyper real version of the rap world. Another large theme in hip hop is pop culture references. Hip Hop loves to discuss whats going on in pop culture. 50 did a great job at including this in his cartoons. Officer Ricky is seen arresting TI, DMX and even Chris Brown (after he is seen beating up Rihana on screen.) All these people are facing real life criminal charges. He also includes some more less popular hip hop subplots. Like the fight between Suge Knight and Akon's body guard. My favorite cartoon is the last cartoon he has Officer Ricky flip out because his album has been pushed back, 50 uses a monologue from the film Training Day to dub Officer Ricky's voice. The cartoon than goes into a minute long parody of Rick Ross's music. The parody music video features Kanye West, T Pain, and Lil Wayne all being portrayed as non nonsensical idiots. I chose these cartoons because while they didn't impress me visually or with an incredible story, I found them to be very clever. This type of entertainment is very popular and I think it is smart to push the boundaries of what an artist can do to fulfill its audiences needs. If doing cartoons like this cuts down on the amount of pointless diss tracks, name dropping and silly pop culture references its a plus and a change that I welcome. I don't turn to hip hop for these themes but its nice to see someone keep it off wax and try to find another avenue for this. Below is the Link with the cartoons!


THIS IS 50 Cartoons

Shooting Hungry @ Hunter

The planning, shooting and editing of my video project all was very instrumental in the shoot that we had during class time. Storyboarding the film made it much easier for me to move through the shoot. I would not have been able to shoot at all four locations I used if I had not gone to the locations and mapped out the shoot. Also pitching the film to the entire class was also very beneficial. It was good to practice explaining the concept behind a character. Since the process has you explain the film to your partner as well as answer questions from the whole class, I was prepared to quickly respond to my actress’s questions. One thing that I think would have been beneficial would have been more camera access. I think we could have benefited from using the cameras during the storyboarding process and possibly the writing process. When a storyboard is constructed based off how your eyes perceive a space it is different than when you look at the space with the camera you are using. Since we were shooting at such a specific time we could have been able to look at our possible settings through the lens of the cameras we would be using. This could have helped us brainstorm different ideas. If we realize that during our section, a certain area is deserted or even populated to our liking it could help us shape a story. It could help us think about new ways to utilize a space. While I think scouting time would have helped me get a better film, I m pleased with the product I received. I thought with such short time to shoot and edit, I might be unable to shoot a complete narrative. I was wrong.