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Film

Penelope in the Treehouse

After using magic fertilizer on her treehouse, Penelope finds herself high amongst the clouds.

This short depicts a newly merged family and a daughters reaction to her moms new family. She is impulsive and quick to anger.  Penelope is afraid her mom is going to forget her.  Nothing in Penelope's life is the same: she isn't part of a 2 parent home, she's no longer the only child with a single parent, and now she's sharing her house with a large family to adjust to.  she is actively is seeking comfort rather than blending into her family. She runs away from the changes to her treehouse and grows high into the clouds to live her life.  As the short progresses Penelope's steadfast mindset of self reliance softens and as she's witnessing her familial response to her running away she makes a big change.  

The film is full of visually imaginative frames, piecing together stop motion effects and real people.  I was reminded of Roald Dahl: The Twits, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, simultaneously I was picturing imagery from Katy Perry's Teenage Dream Album.

Directing Workshop Begins

Beginning my final semester at Penn State in the film program has brought me in contact with a professor that is definitely inspiring, Pearl Gluck.  Initially the class started differently as it was an exercise in reading one another through action rather than content of words.  This is an intimidating situation to be thrown into.  We've been tasked with finding 3 images to assign to the short story "Fatso".    Below is the Author Etgar Keret reading Fatso and some imagery evoked in me by the reading.