Author: Morgan Love

Ahhh! A new week. You know what that means…A NEW SHORT FILM! Honestly, I keep think how awkward it is that only about 8 people are reading these posts, but I’m going to keep talking like a large audience is reading (don’t judge me please)

Today, I realized that reviewing these short films has brought me much joy, and I enjoy watching them very much. Now, I understand you might be wondering about the title. Well…it’s honestly the funniest thing I’ve had as a title. If you know, us writers love our coffee. It’s crazy, but the addiction we all have is crazy, and it’s only been some weeks since we started school. Before coming to MSA, I only drunk coffee when my mom offered to make it, which wasn’t often. Now, I have a cup of coffee probably once a day, twice if I really need a kick to get me through the day. I have my coffee routine down now as well. I love the breakfast blend with 6 sugars. If I don’t have coffee, I have to drink hot chocolate. Now that its getting colder in Brookhaven (today it was 60 degrees!), I want to start having hot chocolate more. It will really get me into the mood of the changing seasons. Speaking of seasons, it is officially fall! My birthday is in the fall (October 23), and it happens to be my favorite season after summer. The clothes you get to wear, the food, the aesthetic! Fall/autumn (whichever you prefer) is the coziest season, I love it! What’s your favorite season? Leave them in the comments!

Now, I will actually talk about the short film, but first let me tell you why I chose this film and the title. So, in relation to the title, this film is about a caffeine addiction. You might’ve guessed it, but did you guess that its a dog and a cat that have the addiction? No? Well yes! Like the dog and cat duo in this film, the literary students also have a sort of caffeine addiction and I just thought it would be so cute to have this title be for this particular film.

This film is pure humor! First of all, a cat and dog drinking coffee is hilarious in its own way. What made it even funnier was the cat loosing its wits (or shall I say kits LOL…not funny?…well…ok moving on).  I won’t explain it in detail, but if you love cute animal animations, this one is for you. Me, a cat enthusiast, absolutely loved this film!

The actual film was very well done. It reminded me of the Secret Life of Pets movie a lot. The whole concept was absolutely amazing. This film is appropriate for all ages, and it was executed really well.

-The animation was very realistic, as realistic as animation can be, and I give it 8.5/10. It could’ve been a little better, but it was still very good.

-The concept execution was really good. Animals don’t talk, and for the creators to still have a good plotline to it was amazing! 10/10!

-The music selection was good. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it like I usually would, but it was still really good. 9/10. I would’ve liked some music that would’ve appealed to me better if that makes sense. It just didn’t pop to me.

The overall film was very good, and I will definitely watch it again. To my fellow literary students, I hope you get something from watch the affects of a caffeine addiction and maybe we can all cut back on coffee a little bit (just a little though!) Leave comments on how you felt about the film below! Has it helped you and your caffeine addiction?

     This long awaited post (it probably hasn’t, but I’m going to act like it is so please play along) is my new short film review!! I know, I know, cue the fireworks, cue the confetti, cue it all! I have finally found my new outlet for short films. I don’t know if you remember, but in one of my previous short film reviews, I mentioned a film school named ESMA. Well, this school has been put in a playlist of over 600 CGI animated short films alongside many other film schools and studios. I think I’m going to post animated short films from now on, but we’ll see what the future holds.

     In my journey of finding a short film to post, I watched 5, maybe 6 films before I settled on this one. Now these films were amazing, but this one stood out the most. It beat out a short film of a dog and a cat going through a major caffeine rush, which was absolutely hilarious. It reminded me of all the junior lits and our growing addiction to coffee (even though no one wants to admit it!) This particular film was just so unique and cinematically beautiful. The music used was so melodic and just perfect for the setting of the film. It gave me ratatouille vibes in a sense. The French culture that was displayed was so beautiful and made me smile the entire film. The concept of the film was the best thing about it. Call me childish, but animated films warm my heart. It brings a sense of nostalgia of the years where I would just sit and watch cartoons all day. Oh! how I yearn for those days. I think I loved this film so much because of the feeling it gave me. If a film doesn’t move me inside, I don’t appreciate it as much as a film that does. Animation just brings out the child in me, and I often like to be remembered of my childlike ways. It reassures me that I’m not a grown up yet, thank God!

      Also, this film made me think of the Kentucky Derby and the infamous hat pieces that are displayed there. I think it’s only appropriate that I mention that one day, I too will be wearing my Sunday’s best with a giant hat on watching horses race. Why, I have no reason to be ashamed, so why not just say it! 

     Now with that little spill, let me actually breakdown the film and rate it.

-The overall graphics were really well done and accurate. I could see these characters as actual people. Graphics get a 10/10 for me!

-The music was so peaceful and accurate. I have to find the music used and add it to my music library to be honest. Music gets a 10/10!

-The plot was easy to follow, nothing confusing about it, but the fact the dialogue was in a different language threw me for a loop, and following the subtitles and trying to watch the film at once was an extra task I didn’t really want to do, but it was such a minor thing, I can’t really complain. 10/10 for me!

The overall film gets a 10/10 for me. Some might not see it as THAT good, but it was so good to me, I have nothing to complain about. I really recommend you guys watch this film! Share your thoughts with me on how you thought it was! Also, now that I have a steady outlet for short films, expect more of this series from me. I’ll stop talking now so you can watch, enjoy!

So before I get into this post, I realize I haven’t followed up on some of my recent series. Trust and believe those follow up post will be coming soon. With my short film series, I haven’t been able to find a short film I feel like posting. I want to post good content so just be patient with that. With my other series, I just haven’t had the motivation to do them, but I am a woman of my word and I will be sure to get those posts up soon. For today’s post however, I would like to share a video. Now, this might appeal more to my people who enjoy makeup. Though, if you are wondering about the world of makeup and want to get a taste of it, I would suggest you keep reading. My experience with makeup has been…short lived but is on going. My sister was the one who got me into makeup. She started around this age, mind you I’m 16 and she’s 20 now so she definitely has more experience than me. I would always watch her do her makeup and I would be so jealous because I wasn’t allowed to put on makeup yet. As soon as I turned 15, I begged my mom to let me start wearing makeup and she let me. She didn’t let me do a full face of makeup at first which is understandable. I knew she wouldn’t let me use foundation or concealer or lipstick yet, but I could do my eyebrows and lashes. I was perfectly fine with this since I thought it would be easier to learn how to do my eyebrows and lashes first anyway. My eyebrow journey was indeed a long one. I started off by using an eyebrow pencil, but once I learned how to do that I moved onto brow pomade. I want to insert some pictures so y’all could see, but me not being internet savvy, I can’t seem to figure out how. After mastering my brows, which I truly mastered over the past summer, I moved to lashes. Now this was a challenge. Putting on false lashes was the hardest thing to do in my life. My hand used to shake bad when I was working on a specific thing so that made it so much more harder. I eventually mastered it and now it’s like second nature to me. When I turned 16, I could finally do full faces. Luckily this would be the easy part. My sister did help me a lot at this stage, but she could only do so much. I practiced a lot over the past summer. When I say a lot—I mean a lot. I eventually got my routine down when I do a full face, but I still need more practice in this stage to fully master it. One thing that has helped me a lot has been Youtube videos. Yes, I’ve finally said it. YouTube videos have saved my life LOL. Specifically Jackie Aina. Jackie is a black MUA (Makeup Artist) who is just wonderful and so talented at makeup. Her tutorials have helped me so much. In fact, this whole post has led to a video I’m going to share. This particular video is one of her more, say, family friendly videos. Not that her videos are inappropriate but they do have some content that may not be for everybody. In this video, Jackie shares the screen with her lively niece Jade. This is one of my favorite videos because it is so cute to see her niece play around in Jackie’s makeup. I hope you enjoy!

Ugh! The title is so good right? My mind! To the people who understand this joke, you are forever in my heart. The reason I picked this title is because of its relation to the video I’m going to share with you all today. I stumbled across this video a while back when I was trying to find a cello version of “Do I wanna Know?” by Arctic Monkeys (If you don’t know this band, I highly suggest giving them a listen.) After my long quest of trying to find the music for it, and eventually about to give up, I came across this video. I’d never heard of Rachel Lander prior to this video but I’m so glad I found her when did. I’ve played the cello since my 4th grade year in school. I played the viola for one year but ended up despising the instrument (no hate to the viola players here.) Since coming to MSA, I haven’t touched my instrument. Lately, I’ve been feeling a sense of longing to play my cello but I’m not confident in my skills anymore. I played the instrument for roughly 7 or 8 years, even going to an arts school for it, but even then I didn’t feel confident in my playing. I played some hard pieces, even being 2nd principle in the cello section of the school orchestra but I never felt my potential. Don’t get me wrong, I knew how to switch positions, switch clefs, even played some of the hardest pieces, but I never felt I filled the “advanced” position I was told I was in. My fear of sounding terrible while playing my cello now is the only thing keeping me from picking it up. I used to love playing the cello in my beginner years. It was so satisfying telling people that I played the cello. I even considered it my party trick. I used to be ask to perform in different ensembles and play in different places but I was so scared of sounding bad, I would always decline. Looking back on it, it’s one of my biggest regrets in life. I never wanted to take cello playing into my adult life. I wanted it to be apart of my childhood only. I never really saw myself playing professionally so I never took it seriously. Even now, I can’t see myself playing professionally nor teaching it. I just like to do it, you know? I’ve never actually told anybody this but I felt a need to get it off my chest. Typing this now, I feel a weight has been lifted off me. So after my little spill, here is the video that I mentioned in the beginning of this post. Enjoy! (Don’t mind the color of the text. I’m trying to learn my way around the website and see what I can do and what I can’t. If it is distracting, please let me know!) Now you can really enjoy! *Listen with headphones*

This blog post completely snuck up on me. I wanted to do another playlist but I’ll just save it for next week. For now, enjoy this poem that I wrote from last year. I remember being so proud of this poem. It was the first poem I ever submitted for a writing competition. I wrote this one day after school. I just joined the literary magazine at my school. The teacher asked us to bring a poem in for workshop but I’d never wrote a full poem before. All my other “poems” were 4-5 lines and complete trash. This poem just came to me. I’d been feeling very active lately and I needed my peace and quiet. The girl in the poem is me but also the girl in my head. It sounds weird but it’s just the voice in my head. I see her as this girl and its like two people in my head at once. I’m okay I promise lol. But here’s my poem, “Silence”, I’m thinking about going back and working on this poem again but let me know what you guys think 🙂

Silence

The sunlight shines through the cream-colored blinds.
The birds have a steady tune that bounces from a crescendo to a low decrescendo.
The lively tree branch taps on her window, begging for her attention.
The two lively squirrels across the street have an on-going game of tag. If you listen close enough you can hear the squeals of excitement between the two.
The grass shines bright, almost as if each blade had a mirror on it, reflecting the happy sun.
The concrete shines with the shadows of the sun, while it dances a wild tango.
The people laugh and shout out in joy while they bask in the temporary weather that won’t show itself for another two months.
And yet, she sits upon her bed with a frown upon her face.
Voices scream around in her head. They won’t stop. They only get louder and louder and louder.
They become so loud she can’t hear the one voice calling her name.
The one voice that will lead her into the light.
The one voice that will let her hear the squeals of the two friendly squirrels.
The one voice that will let her hear the persistent tapping of the tree branch.
The one voice that will lead her to the one thing she truly wants.
Silence.

Enjoy!! Hopefully I put you on some bops!

For the second episode or second post, whatever you want to call it, of my short film review series, I present Cloudy Day. Directed by Kamelia Chabane, Adrien Flanquart, Emeric Malvat, and Benjamin Tussiot, who were students at ESMA, a school for applied arts. Now this particular film is 7:33, and doesn’t contain any dialogue but it features music along with the occasional sounds from the characters. This is an animated film but  who doesn’t love a good animated movie? This took me back to my childhood when I would sit at the tv all day and just watch cartoons all day. The message in this film can be taken many ways–it really depends on how you perceive it. For me, I took the message as giving more than what was asked. It isn’t particularly a negative message but it isn’t exactly positive either. The film is actually quite uplifting but I guess my tainted mind see’s the negative side in things alongside the positive. The film itself is really good and the features of the characters force the audience to wonder where the setting is in this film. Overall, I’d give this film a 9/10, simply because I personally would’ve enjoyed a little more context of the setting and characters. Watch it and tell me how you think below!

This is gonna be a series on short films. I didn’t seriously get into short films until recently. I was randomly scrolling on Youtube and came across this short film about these group of friends and one of the friends died by electrocution. It’s very blunt but the sheer aspect of it was so unexpected and left me compelled to see what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, that isn’t the short film I’m reviewing today 🙂 When I look for short films to watch, I never search for anything specific. The pure enjoyment of finding one adds a level of anticipation that makes the whole experience of watching 10x better. My selection of the day is called Roadside directed by Jakob Owens and Ryan Alexander. This film was 4 minutes and 55 seconds long, contained a fair amount of dialogue and only consisted of two characters. There were no names, no specific setting, just a man and a woman on a lone road in what seems like the middle of nowhere. The simplicity of the film is what gave it its character. Many simple films don’t pace the plot and rush it completely, giving away its excitement or completely overwhelming the audience. Roadside made a good move in pacing it in a way that didn’t give too much away in the beginning of the film, giving the audience the chance to ponder over what could happen. This movie was labeled a thriller though I think it should’ve been labeled suspense simply because of the dramatic climax of the film. The climax itself was very well executed. The directors did well in fooling the audience to think one thing was going to happen but having a completely different thing happen. That aspect I enjoyed very much. Overall this film, on a scale of 1-10, was a 8.5. If the acting itself was better, I think a 10/10 would’ve sufficed. Comment what you think of the film below!!

https://youtu.be/84sKjWyMFoE

August 8th: Today is my sixth day being at MSA and all I can really say is—wow. This experience, though its only been six days, has been so new for me. I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had to wake up earlier than I have to just to write my name on a paper and now that I have…it has got to be one of my least favorite things to do. Despite the agony of having to sign in everyday, that seems to be the only fault I’ve seen so far at MSA but with any school, there’s bound to be more than just that one. My sister actually went to MSA before me and she graduated in 2017 so from then my perception of MSA has definitely changed. I can’t say exactly if it’s what I thought it was going to be like because I haven’t been here long enough. However, lately I’ve taken to the motto “take it one day at a time,” mainly because I have such a tendency of planning ahead and expecting things to come when I haven’t taken the time to see what’s right in front of me. As the days go on and I meet my teachers and realize how different they are and how different they teach—it kind of scares me. Like with any new venture—I have my doubts. Will they be to hard for me to handle? Will I be stressed and unable to function properly? Will this class lower my GPA if I don’t do well? All these questions have been running through my mind constantly but I’ve been trying to assure myself that everything will be okay. I have to tell myself that school has never been an issue for me before. I’m smart, I have…okay time management skills, I haven’t gotten a C or below in my entire life and I’ll absolutely lose my mind if I get my first C while in the last two years of my secondary education SO I think I’ll be okay…stressed…but okay. I have to constantly remind myself that everybody moves at different paces and no matter how fast or slow I go in my classes, I’ll eventually catch up with everybody else. These self reminders push me through my day and help me stay grounded and humble in this new experience. I’ll end this by asking any seniors who read this, what ways did you manage your time for being social and doing school work? Did anything that typically works NOT work for you? Any tips/advice/pointers you can give on procrastination? Anything helps!