Thursday, January 27, 2011

Catfish Final Paper

              One day, a photographer from New York received a mysterious box from an eight year old girl from Michigan that he had never met before. Inside was a stunning exact duplicate in painting of his latest photograph. Soon, they exchanged contacts and started to write letters. He exchanged his photographs, while the little girl named Abby returned back with the paintings of them. Eventually, they added each other on Facebook and he became a family friend. On Facebook, Nev, the photographer learned of Abby’s 19 year old sister, Megan. Very quickly, they became close friends. As their relationship grew, so did their interest in each other, and before long, they both started to date, via Facebook. The photographer and Abby’s 19 year old sister got to know each other really well, however after months of online dating, Nev started to realize that the songs he asked Megan to sing for him did not sound exactly like the voice he heard over the many phone calls he had with Megan. Not only was that suspicious, but Nev also found many other supposedly “facts” were actually lies she made up. Weeks later, he decided to go on an expedition with his brothers to find the truth behind the mystery.
            The story, titled Catfish, revolves around the character, Nev. The whole thing started in 2007 at a New York magazine studio, where Nev received a painting of a photograph he published in a magazine. During this incident, Ariel --Nev’s brother-- and Henry began a documentary around this relationship between him and the little girl in Michigan. Eventually, the 19 year old sister, Megan, of the eight year old painter dated over on Facebook. Over the months of dating, Nev found that the things Megan told him were not actually true at all. After this incident, Nev’s brother got together with a producer and made a movie from the documentary called “Catfish.”
            The whole story behind the movie “Catfish” all started when Nev, the photographer, published a picture of a local dance show. Not much later, an eight year old girl from Michigan sent him the painting of Nev’s recent picture. Nev’s brother, Ariel, and Henry found that the relationship is pretty interesting, so they began to record the process of Nev’s growing relationship with Abby. Eventually, he and Abby added each other as friends on Facebook, and continued from there. As he got to know Abby’s family, he learned of her older half-sister, Megan, who was an amazing painter, dancer, and singer. Their relationship changed really fast and they soon dated on Facebook, and even called each other over an eight months period. Since Megan was such a great singer, Nev wanted her to record a couple songs he likes for himself. The odd thing is Nev found out that the singing was not exactly the voice he had heard from Megan over the many phone calls he had with him. Ariel, on the other hand, went on YouTube and found Megan’s recorded singing to be exactly the same. From there on, Nev began to research on Megan’s background. He learned that Megan did not own a barn, Abby did not open a gallery store, and lastly, Megan was not a singer. Nev was determined to get to the bottom of the story, so, his brother and Henry followed him to Michigan to film the documentary turned mystery.
            What is so special is the documentary based movie. Next was the storyline because it was so unique, especially under the recording for a documentary that makes it an original making. There was definitely a connection between the audience and the characters like their dialogue, lifestyle, language, technology, and culture. The topic, internet romance, was quite an attention grabber because the majority of the people could or may never experience the things behind it from a first person’s perspective. This movie does just that. During the “cracking” of the truth, the film did a great job at pinpointing every single important moment that a curious audience would want to know – a good selling point to this movie. With all these qualities combined together, the idea is definitely to be considered an interesting original.
There were many aspects of this movie I really like. Like what Mr. Kreb said, this was a true story, and I really like to watch movies revolving around the life of people with unique experiences. The movie “Catfish” was exactly this. Since the movie was a documentary, the “acting” of all the characters, especially Nev, was supreme. The story was definitely a catcher because the storyline was able to connect to people in this generation. The Facebook relationship got me curious because that’s not something you would see on a regular basis, and I was absolutely waiting to see what is actually coming up next. Each time there was a twist in the movie, I would pay more and more attentions to it. The background music was perfect because it matches up with the emotion in the part of the story. The camera’s angle was just right and special because it follows the character as they move and talk. Overall, I would definitely recommend any person that’s into technology or nonfiction to follow up with this hit.

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