Last Semester and Demise of the Red Car

It's been over a year since I last wrote anything for this blog, and it's now time to sweep away the cobwebs and start blogging again.

I am now in my last semester at CSUDH. One of the three classes I am taking this semester is the IDS (Interdisciplinary Studies)Senior Seminar, in which we have been tasked with writing a minimum 25 page thesis on any subject that may peak our interest and would consider enjoyable researching and writing about. The only stipulation is that we seek the professor's final blessing before beginning.

After pondering various subjects that I have an interest in, I had finally decided to write the paper on the Demise of the LA Red Car Line and it's effect on Los Angeles. My decision for this was based on a short, quasi-documentary iFilm I had made on this same subject for a Social Documentation class I had taken in 2008.

At the time I had wanted to dig much deeper into the history surrounding the Red Car Line, but time was short, and formulating my first short film using a program that I had never used before turned out to be quite a challenge, but none-the-less a great learning experience.

The film is about as amateur as it gets, but I hope to be able to take the material that I have researched for this paper and eventually develop a short documentary on a more professional level. If you would like to see it, I have uploaded it on Youtube here.

As I continue researching this subject, I am starting to come across many interesting historical facts in relation to environmental and social changes that have occurred in Los Angeles which may be directly or indirectly related to the loss of the Red and Yellow Car lines. Hopefully if time permits I will be able to post some of my new discoveries.