The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Well, well, well, I had to post about this sometime. If you are friends with me on Facebook, you are probably already aware of my love for this... I guess you could call it a show. I call it a show. *shrugs* Anyways, for those of you who don't know, it is a web series about Elizabeth Bennet as she vlogs about her life. Yes, they are actual actors playing the characters and there is a team of writers that write scripts for each episode, but it's told like Lizzie is a real woman living in today's world.

As it's tradition in these kinds of posts, I'm going to talk about how I was introduced to this. This last August I was browsing on my other blog and (if I recall correctly) came across a post that had a screencap of Lizzie that was labeled as Lizzie Bennet. Recognizing the name from Pride and Prejudice I was intrigued at

Lizzie as Mrs. Bennet

first, but thought it was just someone taking a picture of themselves and being silly or something. After browsing a bit longer, I came across a video labeled: "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries- Tale of Two Gents - Ep: 38". I recognized one of the girls in the thumbnail from the picture earlier. Curious, I immediately pressed play and watched as two young women claiming to be Lizzie and Jane Bennet took score of the good and bad qualities between Wickham and Collins to see who had more. I found it very entertaining and searched to see if there were more. There were. The one I had just watched was the latest one, so I went back and watched the very first one and continued on until I was caught up. Now, I'm still watching it. There's a new video every Monday and Thursday at 9:00am.

So basically it's telling the story of Pride and Prejudice in modern times. Everyone knows the story about the crazy mother who wants to marry off her daughters and how Lizzie meets and doesn't get on with Darcy at the start, but how they gradually start to fall in love. Yeahhhh... it's only one of my favorite stories EVER! But we've heard it so many times, why should this one be so great? Let me tell ya...

Lydia as Bing Lee and Lizzie as Darcy

They put such amazing twists on some things and change certain aspects of it that it's such a fresh new take on it and I find it very enjoyable. You mostly see Lizzie (because well, they're her diaries), but you start meeting other characters like Wickham and Collins and Bing Lee (Bingley) and Caroline and even eventually... Darcy 8D. But most of the time, Lizzie does costume theater when she's talking about people or events. Meaning, she (or someone else) dresses up in a certain costume for a certain person and acts out a scene that has or could happen. So every time she puts on the doctor's costume you know it's Bing Lee, or when she puts on the bowtie and newsboy hat it's Darcy, or when she puts on the goggles it's Wickham, or the flower in her hair is Jane, etc.

Also, how they don't JUST focus on the story. That is to say, they don't stick so strictly to how it happens in the book. It actually is a modern woman living in a modern world with modern day problems. So there's talk about school, and shopping, and pirates and ninjas, and stuff XD.

Charlotte, Lizzie, Lydia, and Jane

CHARACTERS (thus far):
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bennet: played by Ashley Clements- Middle Bennet sister and the narrator of most of the vlogs. She is a graduate student studying mass communications and strongly believes women should be highly educated and do more with their lives than simply pursue husbands.
Charlotte Lu: played by Julia Cho- Lizzie's best friend and the director/editor of her vlog. Charlotte wants to be a filmmaker and convinced Lizzie to start her vlog as part of a school project.
Jane Bennet: played by Laura Spencer- Eldest of the Bennet children, working as an overworked, underpaid merchandise coordinator in the fashion world. She is incredibly polite and sweet and, according to Lizzie, "practically perfect in every way". When Bing Lee moves into town, Jane is immediately smitten with him, much to the absolute joy of her mother.
Lydia Bennet: played by Mary Kate Wiles- Youngest Bennet child. She is "feisty, energetic, and unapologetic." She has also created a series of her own videos starring herself, her cousin Mary, and her cat, Kitty, who apparently follows her everywhere.
Bing Lee: played by Christopher Sean- ("Bingley" in Pride and Prejudice) Young, wealthy medical student who moved into the Netherfield House in the same neighborhood as the Bennets. He quickly

Lizzie and Lydia

falls for Jane Bennet and begins to date her. His sister is Caroline and his best friend is William Darcy.
Caroline Lee: played by Jessica Jade Andres- Bing Lee's sister. She is aware of Lizzie's diaries and appears to help Lizzie keep Bing and Darcy from discovering them during Lizzie and Jane's stay at Netherfield. But what are her true intentions? *taps chin in thought*
Ricky Collins: played by Maxwell Glick- Former classmate of Lizzie and Charlotte's with a wide vocabulary who asks that he be addressed only as Mr. Collins. He has received a large sum of money and is attempting to foray into the world of web video. Darcy's aunt, Catherine de Bourgh, is his benefactress and venture capitalist, and he greatly admires her.
William Darcy: played by Daniel Gordh- Bing Lee's best friend and the wealthy CEO of an entertainment corporation. He was staying with Bing and Caroline at Netherfield. He is described by Lizzie as snobby and condescending. Darcy surprises Lizzie by confessing his love for her when she is visiting Charlotte. For a LONG time, Darcy was referred to but never seen and was often impersonated by Lizzie and other characters.
George Wickham: played by Wes Anderhold- Coach of a university swim team and a friend and former love-interest of Lizzie's. George has a past with Darcy.
Fitz Williams: played by Craig Frank- ("Colonel Fitzwilliam" in Pride and Prejudice) Darcy's outgoing and lively friend and colleague. Lizzie meets him while dining with Catherine de Bourgh.
Georgiana (Gigi) Darcy: played by Allison Paige- William Darcy's sister and a graphic designer at Pemberly Digital. She was once into swimming, but gave it up and is now nationally ranked in tennis.
Mrs. Bennet: Lizzie's mother. She appears to be a traditional Southern woman, eager to see her daughters married and interested in little else besides neighborhood gossip.
Mr. Bennet: He appears more calm and levelheaded than his wife, though one of his favorite activities, according to Lizzie, is winding her up.
Catherine de Bourgh: Darcy's aunt and an extremely wealthy venture capitalist who is the primary investor in Collins & Collins, the new media firm run by Mr. Collins. Catherine is very attached to her sickly dog who she calls Annie Kins. She is quick with her opinions and judgements.

Click to enlarge

There's lots of good times whilst watching these videos. For example, referring back to Darcy. I mentioned in his character description that we didn't actually meet him for a LONG time. We (the fandom) dealt with it for a while, but once it got to like episode 45-50 people were complaining (when I say complaining, I mean just little comments like "When will we see Darcy?" "Will we ever get to meet Darcy?" and whatever. The LBD fandom is surprising nice). Actually there were comments WAY before that, but it started getting really bad by that point. It was eventually confirmed that we would meet him eventually. I had my bets on which point of the story that would be (I was right, just FYI).

I just had to include this because I find it quite hilarious

Finally, it got to that point. He walks in the room at the end of the video... AND YOU COULD ONLY SEE HIM FROM THE NECK DOWN!!!
The fandom exploded. We had to wait until the next video came out until we could see his face! I swear, that was the longest two days of my life! This was called Darcy Day Part I.
Darcy Day Part II was when the next episode finally came out and we got to see his face. Once again, the fandom exploded.

There have been several events like this where the fandom explodes, although Darcy Day takes the cake for the biggest one. It's the best when things like that happen. Because even though you know the story, you still wait in anticipation for what's going to happen next. Darcy Day was different since we were only waiting to see what he looked like, but there are other instances where I'm so excited to find out what happens next or whatever. I like trying to figure out what's happening in the preview clip at the end of every episode. (BTW, the LBD fandom sucks at reading lips XD)

Wow, this turned out longer that I thought it would. Welp *shrugs* Here's a sort of trailer to end this rather extensive post:

So, if you're a Pride and Prejudice fan, you MUST watch these videos! They are so great! I'll even give you a link to the entire playlist right here.

A Picture

While I was staying with my Grandma up in Canada this last Christmas vacation, she asked to see some things I had been working on (I believe she was hoping I had made some movies and/or drawn some drawings). I did have one new movie to show, but no drawings (I know, I'm kinda ashamed of myself). However, I showed her some of the pictures I had created digitally. She was rather impressed with them. Actually, I don't think impressed is quite the word. She couldn't quite wrap her head around the idea of making pictures like that. She kept asking me questions of how I did this and that, and how I got it to look like that, and STILL she couldn't fathom it. I wonder what she thought all the movie covers and stuff came from. Someone had to make them.
Anyway, it got me thinking, since I had some time up there, I made another picture and took screen-shots of it after I completed each step. I've decided to post them here with a brief explanation of what's happening, just because.
Now I don't have a fancy photoshop program or anything. I do all this on Pages on a Mac computer.

First I need to pick a subject. I was on a BBC Merlin spree at the time, so that's what I chose.

Then I have to picture about what I want in my head before I start. (Some artists sketch it out. If this were a serious project, I might, but this is just for my own amusement.)

Now to the actual project...

First I start out with a blank background. (My default color is black. Sometimes I change it.)

Then I pick out the picture(s) I want and put them in place.

Then I blend the edges. (There's a setting on Pages to do this. It's a picture frame)

I decided one of the pictures didn't quite fit what I had pictured in my head, so I changed it. Also I added some other pictures to fill in the space. (Both pictures of both characters are similar)

I blend the edges on the new pictures as well.

I want a quote on it so I add a text box and type it in there. Then I reposition the text box to where I want it on the picture.

I decided that I wanted the golden eyes to stand out more. So I changed the opacity (transparency) of the original pictures to much less, then I took a copy of the same photo and cropped it just around the eyes and blended the edges. Then I put those eyes over the original photo so it looked like the eyes were brighter than the rest of the photo.

I make a few last minute tweaks such as changing the shade of the text, adding shadows here and there, revealing or cropping more of a certain photo, changing the opacity of a photo or text, etc. And voila! The final product:

This was a fairly simple and quick project. Some of the pictures I've done were much harder and much more time consuming. One in particular is one I've titled "I Don't Want to Go- Ten". It literally took probably around two or three hours to complete. Finding the pictures, putting them in place, cropping them properly. I can't really describe the true extent of it. But it turned out to be one of my all-time favorites that I've created.
You can see most of my creations on my Facebook page (My Creations album), but I'll put just a couple of my favorites here.

In a Land of Myth

Merlin and Morgana

Rapunzel

Allons-y!

Doctor's Companions

Eleven

Ten

The Amazing Spider-Man

Rumplestiltskin

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

When You Walk With Sherlock Holmes...

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

This is the one I was talking about earlier:

I Don't Want to Go- Ten

Long Live! You Will Be Remembered

Long live the walls we crashed through

All the kingdom lights shined just for me and you

I was screaming long live all the magic we made

And bring on all the pretenders

I'm not afraid.

Long live all the mountains we moved

I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you

I was screaming long live that look on your face

And bring on all the pretenders

One day, we will be remembered.

                                                                                         --Long Live, Taylor Swift

It's finally happened. One of my many, many TV shows has come to an end. That finale though! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! (Interpret that in any way you like. Good or bad.) I feel like I'm mourning the death of one of my best friends. (There's actually a YouTube video talking about hardcore fans. It says that when your show ends, "you feel like all your closest friends have all just suddenly died and you'll never see them again". It was completely right.) This has never happened to me before, this is the first time I've experienced a TV show ending. The show I've lost is one I've actually only blogged about once... Merlin (see post here).

I just... can't believe it's over. I've been watching since the second season had just finished airing (out of five seasons). It's been a great run though. Of course there were faults and things I wasn't happy with, but overall, I loved it. This post is just my goodbye/tribute to one of my favorite shows through high school and college.

I'm going to miss everything about this show.

Merlin and Arthur's hilarious, but sweet friendship (I loved their endless banter)

The epic battles 

The awesome costumes 

...Especially the swooping red capes

The sometimes amazing and sometimes horrid CGI

Amazing (wook at dat wittle baby dragon!)

Horrid (I cringe every time I see those vines wrap around him)

Arwen (Arthur+Gwen)

The way people's eyes would turn gold when they did magic (I thought that was a really cool and imaginative little touch)

Arthur always conveniently getting knocked unconscious 

Merlin's many neckerchiefs

"Shut up, Merlin." and "MERRRRLLLIIIIIIIIN!!!"

The smexy knights ;P

(Left to right) Percival, Gwaine, Lancelot, Arthur, Elyan, Leon

Deep/touching/motivating conversations (often) around the campfire 

Arthur's Burger King crown XD

[Sir] Gwaine (my favorite character)

Never understanding what the heck the Great Dragon was talking about (or panicking over it when I did)

Epic magic battles (though there weren't that many) 

Sassy old Merlin (yes that is the same actor. It was seriously the best thing! No. Old lady!Merlin was the best thing [see here], but that was a one time thing so...)

Excalibur!!!

Morgana being absolutely terrified of Emrys, but thinking she's more powerful than Merlin (I just found it finger-tapping exciting whenever she confronted either one, like "if only she knew")

...I could go on, but I'll stop now.

I have a thousand fan videos for the show, but I had to pick just one to put on here. It was tough, but I finally decided on this one because I absolutely cried like a baby when I first watched it. It was made after the finale and it's sort of a farewell to the show, so it's perfect.

Now, to finish off, let me just say that I am sincerely going to miss watching this show every Saturday. Though it might've been a little repetitive in its story lines, not so historically accurate, and emotionally-wrecking, it was still in my top 5 favorite TV shows of all time. It was actually the first BBC show I ever watched (faithfully). So thank you, Merlin. You will be remembered. 

So as a final goodbye, I'm going to leave you with this classic that every Merliknight should watch at least once in their lives (it's like the 500 Miles video to the Whovians): The anthem to our fandom, Colin Morgan and Bradley James's performance of You're the Voice.

Paperman Review

(I know I talked about this in my last post, but I just cannot stop thinking about this, it is THAT amazing).
“Paperman,” the Disney short before “Wreck-It Ralph” was by far the cutest animated short I have ever seen in my life. Nothing compares. All my feels, guys! ALL. MY. FEEEEELLLLLSSSSSSS!!! The music on it was just out of this world. Seriously. I can’t! In a short few minutes, it portrayed a better love story than any other movie I can even think of (especially Twilight). My gracious. I don’t have words for how much I loved it!  You cannot begin to comprehend! I was tearing up by the end at the sheer beauty of it and my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Go see "Wreck-It Ralph". And if you miss the short at the beginning, prepare to hate yourself unwillingly for the next eight years at least.

Wreck-It Ralph Review

WATCH TRAILER 

Oh my gosh, it was such a fun movie! With details EVERYWHERE regarding retro arcade games. I'm sure it was every gamer’s dream (I'm not much of a gamer myself, but I picked up on a lot of the jokes. However, you don't have to be a gamer to enjoy it. You'll just have an extra layer of humor to appreciate.) Not to mention the characters themselves were absolutely amazing! Ralph and Vanellope were a truly fantastic duo, but Fix-It Felix and Sergeant Calhoun weren’t far behind. (Also can I just say how flippin' ADORABLE Felix was? Like what a little sweetheart! He might've been my favorite character. "*hits prison bars with hammer* *they get stronger* Ahh! Why do I fix EVERYTHING I touch!?")

Now regarding the movie itself: Even though most of the plot was pretty predictable, there was a mother of all plot twists at the end that I was not expecting at all that completely blew my mind (so brava for that one Disney writers)! There were also hilarious jokes (the one joke I absolutely DIED at were the Oreo guards chanting like the guards from the Wizard of Oz, but instead it was: "OreEEEo OreEEEEEEEo OreEEEo OreEEEEEEEEo". I seriously could not stop laughing), a number of heartwarming scenes, as well as heart wrenching scenes, and the animation was fantastically stunning! The colors, the textures, the way each character from different games moved. I say, GO WATCH IT! You’ll enjoy it for sure!

And don’t even get me started on the short before the movie, Paperman. It was beautiful. The simplicity, the cute story, the 3D overlapping 2D, the music, and the characters... It deserved the price of admission on its own! I was grinning so big at the end and had tears in my eyes. The animation, the ANIMATION. Ugh! I hope this starts a new wave of animation, something to show that 2D should not be overlooked or ignored.

All in all, I'd give Wreck-It Ralph an 9/10 and Paperman a 10/10. So go watch the movie. Really. Just do it.