After watching all of the movies at Flickerfest, what cultural differences did you notice from the US and/or from perceived Australian culture?

From a cultural perspective, I did not notice too many differences between the US and Australian culture. What was apparent is that the way Australians are perceived in these short films were different than in most feature films we watched. None of the typical Australian stereotypes were clear in any of these short films. Culturally the only one that was clear could not take place in America was the aboriginal film Yulubidyi. This film was about an older brother trying to protect his disabled younger brother while his father views him as weak and wants him to lead the tribe. This was obviously different culturally since we do not have aboriginal people or culture in our country. There are some similarities between aboriginal culture and native American culture but they still differ in many ways. More importantly, I have seen almost no native American representation in this way in films in the United States. Seeing some acknowledgment to their culture was something I found interesting. I was surprised to see so much Christian influence in many of these short films as well. We have films like this as well I just did not expect it as much in Australia. I have always thought that the Christian theme is the Southern United States or more commonly it is a European film theme. The main difference between these films and American films was the actors had Australian accents. I think this is powerful because it shows that many of these films could have been made anywhere and are unique, not due to where they are filmed but about their subject matter. A film should be judged by how they are filmed and the story over a gimmick. The last difference that was clear is that since all the films were created in Australia many of them took place in Australian cities. The stories could have taken place anywhere though. The setting was interesting and added to the look of many of the stories but for the majority of them, we either did not know where they were located or the location only served to explain the accent and show what they are used to. Many people do what they know and since these are Australian filmmakers it makes sense that they choose places that they know for the setting of their films.

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After watching all of the movies at Flickerfest, comment on at least two short films that stood out to you and tell us why.

The movies that stood out to me were both in the second session of Flickerfest. Personally, I was most impressed with this session and enjoyed almost all the films in this session. I did not enjoy most of the films in both the first session and the third session. The first film that truly stood out to me was in the first movie in the second session titled Della Mortika: Carousel of Shame. The reason this film stood out to me was not due to its story but its style. I actually did not think the story of this one was anything unique or even great at all. I thought the story of this one was okay at best. However, I still felt that this was one of the best films we saw for its style alone. Watching this short film was just very compelling because visually it was very interesting and it was also impressive looking at how it was made. It was interesting to see all the individual pieces of paper structured together to make this work. I personally find stop motion interesting and any unique use of it I always find compelling. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Nightmare Before Christmas. On top of that I also love animation and stop motion is one of the first styles of animation and this movie used this style in a modern way. I found it to be a very visually impressive movie and I am someone who really does enjoy good visuals. The other movie from Flickerfest that really stood out to me was Papercut. This film was about to actors who are in the closet going to their first award show together and it is about the struggle as one seems willing to come out and the other does not because he feels it would be a risk to his career. I found this one interesting because it was very simple the entire film was shot with the two actors in the backseat of a car. The writing was interesting because they took a very serious situation and made it comedic in a way. This was interesting because many people including myself deal with hard situations best with comedy and this film actually shows the two conflicting sides of this. One of them was taking the situation seriously while the other one was making jokes despite being very hurt by the situation. While this film had an important message it was also written very well and the jokes were well done.

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This is a picture of the peak where Mordor was shot. I felt that this was one of the most incredible views I have ever seen and the picture does not begin to capture how amazing it was to be there.

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Describe two things you learned about the city and how do they relate to what you have learned throughout our travels and/or course study.

The best part about this tour is it gave some insight into the world of Wellington from someone local to the place. It allowed me to gather a good sense of where I was going so I did not get lost as easily in the city. The city of Wellington was another incredible place on this trip. It was very similar to San Francisco which is already one of my favorite cities in the world. I fell in love with Wellington I loved the setting of it and exploring the shooting locations on Lord of the Rings. Some of the interesting parts of our city tour though were our guides discussion of when the United States Marines came to visit on their way to the Pacific front of the war. It was interesting to hear about how the people who lived in the city at the time celebrated their arrival and enjoyed the Americans visiting their city. Also during my presentation of the city in class, I spoke about the legend of Kupe and how he is considered the founder of Wellington and is responsible for the Maori being in the country. It was interesting to hear the full version of this story about how he followed the constellations to find a place for his people to go to avoid overpopulation. Once he brought the Maori to Wellington he then lived a life of solitude until he died and two of the islands near Wellington are named after his daughters. I found the full story a lot more compelling and I enjoyed seeing the statue of Kupe on the harbor. This was a great introduction to the beautiful and windy city of Wellington. The next most interesting thing that happened on our tour was seeing the worlds largest wooden building. This building has gone through many phases in its lifetime as a government building but currently serves as a law school. This is convenient since all the government and justice buildings are right next door. Overall I enjoyed my visit to Wellington and I hope that one day there will be a way for me to go back. But I will always have fond memories of the city until then.

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How did the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy change the geography, tourism, and lives of the people in New Zealand?

Lord of the Rings is the biggest thing to happen to the country of New Zealand it changed everything. Not only did the movies change how some movies are made and go on to win so many awards they also changed the country. After the movies came out the industry of tourism in New Zealand became their number one industry. When the government investigated and asked all these tourists why they were here they learned that it was due to Lord of the Rings. Tourism grew by 500% after the movies came out. Tourism is still currently the biggest industry in New Zealand and it makes the country a lot of money. The tourist presence of Lord of the Rings can be seen all throughout the city of Wellington, Hobbiton, and the national park. People visit all these places just to see places where the movies were shot. There are tours designed specifically for showing the locations of Lord of the Rings shoot. Our tour through Wellington for a day and a half took us to Rivendell, Helms Deep, the Auduin River, and so much more. It was truly incredible to see all these locations and how little they had to change for the movies to work. Most of the geography of the area is relatively the same. Our guide showed us various pictures of what the sets looked like versus how they look now and it appeared that most of the differences were temporary additions. These additions included miniatures, bigiatures, and a few other various set pieces. The most incredible part of all this is that the geography of New Zealand worked naturally for The Lord of the Rings. From what we saw there are only a few changes to the land this includes signs, the set of Hobbiton, and some mistakenly planted grass. Hobbiton is the only major change to the landscape of the area. Before the set was placed there was a large number of hills a few trees and a lake. Currently, there is a little Hobbit hole under each hill leaving a lot of the area different than how it originally looked. The most incredible part of what we saw involved with Lord of the Rings was the area used for Mordor. This area was nothing like anything I have seen before. It was incredible walking up the mountain as the vegetation slowly disappeared, the wind blew, and the clouds were down with us. When we reached the cliff I was blown away by the view but I was impressed by how the area looked incredible but had this eerie feel of Mordor. A lot of this was due to how the win violently blew and the clouds looking like a mist. This set is my favorite in the movie so seeing that what they show was actually real blew me away. I would never have said I was the biggest fan of the Lord of the Rings I have seen most of the movies twice and have trouble remembering details but seeing everything blew me away and makes me much more interested in the series of movies. I now see why Peter Jackson shot here not only is New Zealand his home but it is an incredible stand in for Middle Earth. The scenery in New Zealand is like nothing I have seen before.

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Give at least two examples of something you learned from our bus driver, Douglas Curry.  How do these relate to what you have learned throughout our travels and/or course study?

Douglas was a man of seemingly great knowledge and pride for his country. You could tell as he spoke to us that he cares so much about the country he lives in and he provided so many interesting things. I remember one of the first things he told us was that Tip Top was the best ice cream so since he said that I have been on a mission to find Tip Top ice cream. I have still been unsuccessful in that mission and will hopefully find some before we leave for Sydney tomorrow afternoon. Douglas also gave so much insight into how the New Zealand government works to protect a lot of the natural land but most importantly he talked about their plan to protect the Kiwis. He mentioned how the Kiwis had no predators prior to people coming to New Zealand. The Kiwis are flightless nocturnal birds so unfortunately, they do not to well when they are up against other creatures. Currently, the government offers money to those who kill possums and in many of the forests the country has been placing poison for the predators to find that will kill them. This, unfortunately, does not have a 100% success rate and does accidentally kill some animals that they do not intend to. According to Douglas, this has created a lot of controversy in the country and we found out that many people do not want to take a side on the matter due to the controversy. I actually do wish I found more time to talk to Douglas because every time he spoke on the bus he so much knowledge and so many interesting things to share with us. I was fortunate enough to spend lunch with Douglas though and was able to ask him a few questions ranging from Tip Top ice cream to asking about the Maori people. I was curious how similar the Maori were to the Hawaiian people. I thought about this because Douglas talked about how the native Tahitian language is very similar to the Maori language and if someone speaks Maori they can pretty much understand that language as well. When I have visited Hawaii I noticed that the langue does seem to sound similar so I was unsure since the native Hawaiians and Maori are believed to originate in the same place. Douglas did admit he was unsure of the answer to this since he did not know much about Hawaiian culture. The most interesting thing Douglas spoke about that I found was that a lot of life was brought over from California. This is specifically seen in the trees. The entire Redwood forest in Rotorua is made up of California Redwoods and this is because they grow so quickly here. There are also a few other trees in this country from California and those trees make up a large part of their timber industry which is one of the top three industries in New Zealand.

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Going through Hobbiton was an incredible journey into a world of fantasy. As we walked through I could not believe it was real. Seeing the words brought to life in the movies was one thing but seeing the true set was even more incredible than it was in the movie. Seeing Bagend is something truly will not forget and this was one of the moment I was looking forward to most on this trip and it lived up to all expectations. While being in Hobbiton we did gain some film knowledge on forced perspective and how these sets were built. Most importantly our guide discussed a little bit of how they found this location as well as what they were looking for when scouting for this movie. The story of this scout began with a location scout going to the farmer who owned the land and asking if he could look at the land for use in the movie but this was during a rugby game so the owner nearly did not answer the door. Shortly after this occurred the scout flew over the land with Peter Jackson and it had all the components he was looking for for this set. In this scenario, there were actually three main things Peter Jackson was looking for and this was due to certain details in the books. The three things Peter Jackson was looking for were was a good tree (for the party tree), a lake, and a hill like area. The area that is now Hobbiton fit all that criteria perfectly. Thankfully this land was already too hilly for farm use so none of the land was in use so the farmers allowed it to be used for the movie. The set took two years to build before the began filming. Most of the land is exactly how it was when the found it with the exception of the paths and the door additions but the basic shape of the land did not change. To build the Hobbit holes they dug up the hills built the doors and windows then replaced the dirt for the hill in the same way it initially laid. Most of the details of the Hobbit holes were left up to the set designers so the designers decided to create backstories for each of the houses and made each one unique. They also created the holes in different areas to show income of each of the Hobbits. A ridiculous amount of detail was put into every single part of the set and it truly shows. For other films I believe a lot of the same practice was is used for location scouting. The director gives the scouting agents a few specific criteria that they are looking for in a location and the scouts go out to find the location that fits this idea best. Once a location is decided upon the location is transformed to look how it needs to in the movie. Movie magic would not be possible without the location scouts. The magic of Hobbiton truly comes from the fact that it is the perfect location for the Hobbits of the Shire to live.

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