An Introduction

I guess that I should introduce myself a bit and what I would like to do with this blog.

My name is Rustin Allison. I am a 29 year old film history major. I also will have a minor in religious studies. I would like to combine the two in a study of how religion is portrayed in cinema. I plan to post my thoughts on both of these categories here.

I love anything to do with puppets. I am an amateur puppet builder, and I love to go see puppet productions.

Video games are another hobby of mine, and I am a big Nintendo fan. I will also post some of my video-game related thoughts here as well.

Alfred Hitchcock

The more that I learn about Hitchcock, the more that I am amazed by his mastery of the cinematic medium. All of his films have an aesthetic beauty to them, even though they may take on monstrous subject matter. Right now, I am really intrigued by his camera movements. There are several films where so much is told with just a tracking of the camera. The characters don't even need to express emotions.

Vodou

One of the classes that I am taking this semester is Introduction to Religion. It is a very interesting course, but also very challenging. We are focusing on one religion as a case study and that is Vodou. This is a very interesting religion, and it is very interesting to go indepth into something that I had known only stereotypical things about before. The Vodou spirits are very complex ideas. They possess the practioners of Vodou, and give guidance to the community. The community in return honors the spirits by celebrating their birthdays with altars and feasts. There are quite a few interesting books on the subject. The one that I really enjoyed reading was Mama Lola. This book is about a priestess in New York, and the ways that she practices Vodou in a new country.

Dmitri the Devil

This is Dmitri, my demon puppet. He is a great character. I really love how he turned out. He has such personality as well. He is a demon who is no good at tempting people. He can get you to lie about your age, but when it comes to the big stuff-- he's no good!

I made this demon using techinques from a great book called Puppet Planet. It is a great resource for beginning puppet-makers like me!

Moving Blogs

Moving my old blog over to this one.