God Says Yes To Me

God Says Yes To Me

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

—Kaylin Haught

• Begins with God ungendred in first line to contrast the shock of God as 'she' in the second
• 'nail polish' an acceptance of femininity 
• Written in a familiar tone - God as a friend

Still I rise

May Angelou was born in 1928, and died in 2014.

Still I Rise was published in her third volume of poetry in 1978.

It has been compared with spirituals that express hope.

Kindness

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

• Use of classical music emulates skills and refinement
• begins with monetage of pictures
• talks about work
• close ups of making sushi
• Food critic introduces us to Jiro
• see him moving about city
• entering restaurant
• Sequence about reservations shows eliteness of restaurant 
• Different way of valuing food - fast food only lasts 15 minutes
• Jiro's son introduced in relation to his father
• Talent vs hard work set up
• Value of repitition - sequence of him on the train, opening up shop - his dedication gives meaning
• Archive photos juxtapose with his normalcy
• Talks about his past on a train travelling right to left, as if going backwards
• See how tough he is on kids then see where the toughness comes from - biography
• Jior centred in frame as he talks about how he wouldn't let them go to college
• Japanese succession
• 'I would make sushi in my dreams'
• Slo motion emphasizes the movement of the hands
• fades emphasize repitition of process in montage
• Interview in car with Yoshikazu
• Cold snow gives mystical feel in slo mo
• When interviewing tuna salesman he talks to Yoshikaza but talks about Jiro
• Repitiion of examining tuna fast paced- ease of an expert
• Drum music makes auction more exciting
• Blue emphasized at fish market
• Old man club - takes a while to learn skills
• Always returns to passing down, and tradition, young vs old
• Show cooking while talking about memories
• Communal tlaking in the kitchen
• A long time before actually show a customer eating sushi
• Talks about the way it is served to customers like art
• Details in CUs are reflective of the details Jiro notices
• Show Jiro seeing the customers out
• Sushi conveyr belt shows spread
• Takes 10 yeas to get big tuna - everything takes time
• Slo motion of fish market dumping rubbish - more of everything, easy to throwaway
• Yoshikazu comes with Jiro to hometown as well
• Comes back to Yoshikazu - started with Michelin but Yoshikazu prepared the fish for them
• The lineage is passed on

France's Stolen Children - BBC Newsnight

• Begins with shots of waves
• French voiceover and subtitles
• Drone shots through valleys
• Fades to black as subtitles say 'nothing at all'
• Voiceover introduces her return to Indian ocean island
• Her getting on flight
• Then goes back to her life in Limoges, France, voiceover gives background on her life

A Refugee's Journey: New York, for the First Time

• Published on New Yorker YouTube
• Starts of with shots and diagetic sound of waiting lounge, Louspeaker
• Doors open and people come out - seems like an airport
• Subtitles
• Titles: New York for the first time
• Hla Oo introduced by title
• Don't see his face but his objects first
• See his daily things - studying the dictionary
• Archive footage about burma - news footage and reels show the persecution he would explerience in Burma
• Sit down interview
• Shots of the nieghbourhood - trees, streets, telephone lines
• Him leaving house
• Explain connection between contributors with phone photo
• Hla in the car with old neighbour - lots of close ups
• First time in supermarket, buying coffee, traditional soup
• Male niehgbour playing his traditional song
• Neighbour centre of frame, close ups of hands and face
• Shot of birds then cuts back to Hla in home, waiting, neighbour watches TV - doing different things in one room
• Explains food stamps with titles
• Talking about family, shot of him looking at phone
• Expert talking about how refugees come - 
• Hla showing all his id cards
• Washing up to pray
• View from train
• First trip to New York City in text
• Close up of his face
• Him taking pictures on phone
• Shots of new york square
• Mid then close of this face - same shot but closer
• Sound of male nieghbour playing guitar comes again
• Hla got a job offer ends the film on a positive

It is a slow paced documentary that mirrors the way he has to wait for the VISA process, with moments of him negotiating American and Burmese muslim culture.

Watching Icarus

• Uses video dairies
• Phone portrait footage at wedding of dancing, building to being taken down by WADA
• Telling story through filmmakers interactions with characters
• Use of news footage
• archive pics of Gregory's past
• use of skype - liveness gives sense of urgency
• When the investigation is finished it becomes a different story - politics and danger
• uses phone calls and footage without people
• Filmaker books ticket has him to stay on the phone, produer talking to ed snowdens lawyer
• Gregory in silhouette on phone to wife
• Returns to Orwell htroughout
• Then form changes - sit down interview with Gregory
• Uses animation talking about suicide attempt and mental illness
• Film's legal counsel interviewed
• animation of sochi reconstruction
• shows the stakes and the aftermath
• russian news of hacked
• filmmaker talking on behalf of grigory
• trial in press coverage
• Sad french music as grigory goes into witness protection
• poetic montage with 1984 as voiceover