Tournament Time!

Although WVU won't be in the tournament this year, I am still looking forward to it. This year's bracket is already looking like one of the hardest to predict in my lifetime. There are multiple teams that could easily win, and I can't wait to see what unfolds in the next couple weeks. I am going to name three teams that I think have the best opportunity of winning the whole thing.

Louisville
The Cardinals are the number one seed overall, and enter the tournament on a roll after winning the Big East title last night. They are lead by one of the best leaders in all of college basketball Peyton Siva. He has been at the school for as long as I can remember and all he needs to complete an incredible career would be a national championship. He is surrounded by a team full of athletes, shooters, and good overall basketball players. Whenever a team wins the Big East Tournament you know that they are prepared to make a run in the NCAA Tournament. Not to mention that this team as one of the best coaches around in Rick Pitino.

Indiana
Indiana has been atop the college basketball world all season. They have probably the most talent of any team in country, and won the Big 10 regular season title. They can beat teams in many ways, and are a great all around team. Although they have had some slip-ups this year that's only to be expected seeing that they played in the country's toughest conference. Tom Creen has done an excellent job bringing Indiana back to the height of college basketball and a championship would be a great way to end a fantastic season. I think that if any team in the field is going to dominate the tournament it would be Indiana.

Miami
This is my guttiest pick, but I truly believe that Miami has the talent to win the championship. Although they stumbled into the ACC Tournament, losing three out of their last four games, they were able to regroup and win the title. In the championship game today I saw Shane Larkin, Miami's point guard, put on an unbelievable performance. He was hitting all kinds of shots and easily penetrating through the lane. He turned into a star today, which is a good sign for Miami going into the tournament. When Miami gets rolling no one can stop them, just ask Duke who lost by 30 points earlier this year to the Hurricanes. I think that Miami could win the whole thing, or lose early, but I am placing my bet on the Hurricanes.
This predictions could easily be incorrect, but I am sticking with them anyway. March Madness is about to begin and I can't wait.

Documentary Reflection

My group's documentary focuses on what role the internet plays in the music industries for artists, record producers, and the fans. This topic interests me a lot because a large part of my life revolves around playing and listening to music. I love that Mr. Mayo gave us the freedom to select our own topics, but I think that the freedom of selection might have made some topics to unrefined. Looking back on the project there were some bright spots, but also some pretty bad ones. I am glad that I had this experience, but also slightly upset about how it ended up.
At first my group and I decided to do something about the evolution of music, due in part to the internet. Then our topic slightly changed and we wanted to focus a lot on how artists and record producers use the internet. Then finally, after all of our interviews, we decided to focus solely on the internet's effect on musicians, record producers, and fans. We were able to interview some very important people for this project. We interviewed Kip Berman on the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Ian McKaye the operator of Dischord Records and a member of bands like Fugazi and Minor Threat, and Sean Peoples the former owner of Sockets Records.

The problem with the interviews is that since our topic slightly changed a lot we weren't able to get the best information out of our interviews. Still, the planning part of the project was my favorite part. I loved being able to meet and talk with this people about music. I have seen the Pains of Being Pure at Heart live and it was an unbelievable experience to talk with Kip.
After we put our interviews onto the computer things got bad. We didn't have any real direction to go in, and spent many classes watching interviews over and over again, just trying to figure out what to do about the project. Eventually we kind of laid out what we had, but it didn't flow at all, and Mr. Mayo called us out on it. It was disappointing to be called out, but it needed to happen if we were going to make anything of substance at all. We took Mr. Mayo's feedback and were able to make something with it. Mr. Mayo hasn't watched it yet, but it is a thousand times better than it use to be.
Looking back on the project I feel one major issue needs to be addressed. Next time I would recommend that there be more set deadlines. There was suppose to be a rough cut due sometime back, but Mr. Mayo never asked us to look at our rough cut, which is good because we really had nothing. Without scriter deadlines we were able to slack off a bit and not focus hard on trying to create a solid documentary. If I had to do it all over again, I would have worked a lot harder to try and create a rough cut, then tighten it up, and finally create a good final product that I can be proud of. This project was an interesting experience for me and I gained a lot of knowledge from it. I am excited to use the experiences from this project in future. I know now to pre-plan well, and don't get discouraged if interviews don't work out as well as I thought they would. All in all, I enjoyed this project and was able to work on a topic I find interesting for three months, I can't ask for much more than that.

The Killing

Over the past 17 hours I have watched the entire first season of The Killing and have tried to figure out who killed Rosey Larkin, yet I still don't know. You could say I'm hooked.

The Killing is an AMC series about the murder investigation of Rosey Larsen, a 17 year old girl. It is based off a Danish television show called Forbrydelsen. What makes the show great is that it has three separate yet intertwining stories. The stories are the impact of Rosey's death on her family, the impact on the upcoming mayor's election, and the actual murder case conducted by the cops. Each episode of the show encompasses a day, which although making the show slow at times, makes the show more realistic. With all of the shows various subplots it's not hard to get hooked.
 
What I love about the show is how different it is from most other U.S. crime shows. Instead of just solving a mystery in one episode it takes more than one season to. The audience really gets to see what the cops have to deal with in a murder investigation. That aspect of the show reminds of The Wire. In addition, the idea of have three separate stories is very original. Each story has its own twists and turns and in the end they somehow tie together. I specifically like how the story of Rosey's family has been told. The struggles that the family has to face show just how painful the death of a loved one can be. I commend the show for writing that section so well. 
 
I strongly recommend this show because of it's well written, shot, and it's very original. It is very slow at times, and extremely dark. Not many happy things happen in the show. There isn't a lot of comedic relief, and it can be extremely depressing, but in my opinion that's what makes it great. There's such a variety of storylines and characters in the show that it makes me want to keep watching. Hopefully next time I write a blog post I will know the answer to this question.