Final Project Idea

New Media and Video Game Theory

Video gaming has been advancing and changing the way that they provide their entertainment.  Some of these games rely on cut scenes to get the story moving, while others are supporters of telling the story mainly through the environment and dialogue with other characters rather than yanking control from you and have you watch a 10 minute cut scene.  There are also games that are able to combine both of these kinds of storytelling in order to fully immerse you.  

The best way to convey this topic is a mix of both video and audio.  They both add to the atmosphere of a video game.  I plan to maybe show clips of video games and maybe showing the differences in interactivity between them.  I also want to record narration to maybe tell my point.  I want to make the point that video games are moving towards the more cinematic. Video games used to simply rely on game play.  This no longer seems to be the case.  As the technology advances, it has been used to further the realism of the game.  This point will be made through a mix of my narration and game play footage.  

I plan on using the sources:

Computer game modders’ motivations and sense of community: A mixed-methods approachNew Media & Society December 2014 16:1249-1267, first published on September 24, 2013
Brand interactivity and its effects on the outcomes of advergame playNew Media & Society December 2014 16:1268-1286, first published on September 18, 2013
Does game studies have “Complete Confidence in Its Own Legitimacy?”New Media & Society December 2014 16:1332-1337,
I also want to make a point of the McCloud reading and adstraction
Sound Engineering by Shipka
Also Language in the Landscape, but apply it to game design.
For my remediation topic, I plan on using my horror story audio and placing it on top of my technology video.  This will completely change the meaning of the video, as well as the audio.  It won't take place in an abandoned asylum anymore.  I hope to use my existing narration, but play around with it enough to make it different from the story I had told before.

Questions for Interview

1.  How would you define technology?

2.  How do you use technology?

3.  What devices do you use the most?

4.  Is technology bringing us together? Or further apart?

5.  Do you use your laptop in class?  What do you use it for?

6.  

Themes from Students+ Technology

1.  Technology has become an integrated form of learning.

    Many of these videos contain students using technology to complete their homework assignments.  It is hard to believe that anyone can get through college without using some form of technology

2.  Libraries are dead.
     We used to picture students going to the library to study and learn.  This is no longer the case.  Many of the videos portray the students doing their homework at cafes or random areas.  Whereas the video I took of the library was completely empty of people.

Hampe

Hampe brings up an important question to ask yourself when you are conducting an interview. What's the motivation for this scene?  By asking yourself this question, you are able to determine the usefulness of the interview to your documentary.  Hampe argues that a unnecessary interview should not be used and should only be used if it provides visual evidence of your point.  It should show and not tell us the main points of your documentary.  I recently watched a documentary called Waltz with Bashir.  I believe that this documentary is what Hampe would like to see more of.  It is entirely animated with the interviewer's stories providing the context of the animation.

It does utilize a lot of interviews, but we never see a shot of the interviewees.  Instead, their stories are animated and we see the visual evidence of their tales of horror during a Lebanese conflict.  This kind of documentary film making solves the problem that Hampe encountered in his Making Analogs of Reality paper.  Here,  Hampe had trouble with his many interviews that he conducted with veterans.  While these stories were interesting, it was just "talking heads" and was visually boring.  In Waltz with Bashir, these issues are completely resolved.  The stories that are told are beautifully animated and serve to increase the impact of these stories.  Although, it is possible that Hampe would absolutely loath this documentary.  It does not use real-world visual evidence.  Instead, it is all done with animations.  Hampe may see this as lying and cheating.  Hampe has stated that he likes to take tons of footage in order to provide his visual evidence.  He may say this is like taking a shortcut.

Sound Project, Audio File

https://uofi.box.com/s/d4ngtrwoeatm0i7jphcp

Hoop Dreams

• There is cutting between inner city street basketball games and professional level NBA games.  
• the child gazes longingly at the basketball game on TV, giving it a sense of fantasy or daydreaming.
• there is inter cutting between the last child playing street basketball and a pro-basketball player also doing his moves.
  
• 
  

Sound Proposal

I love films and storytelling.  I want my sound project to be able to tell a coherent short story by using sounds.  It will be a success if I am able to transport the listener into my world of fiction that I create. Due to the time of the year, I plan on creating a horror story.  I believe that this is also a genre that relies heavily on sound and sound cues to relate a story.  I'm thinking a Blair Witch Project type sound story.  In that I can pretend to be a protagonist that is in a haunted house.  These homes can creak their own atmosphere through their sound.  The creaks and moans of old floorboards and doors, maybe some rattling of windows.  It would be able to quickly draw in the listener to this spooky environment.  I also think that horror movies lose their power when they show the villain or monster.  Usually whatever the viewer is creating in their mind is scary than what is shown on the film.  This would not be a problem for this project because this is all being created in the mind of the listener. Using McKee's bullet points of sound, I believe that the project will be a success.  I can use silence to create suspense, then break it with a creak or a noise.  It will be simple to get many of the sounds as they are all around me anyway.  It wouldn't be a problem to record floor creaks or door squeaks, maybe even some screams.  I will provide the voice as the curious person who messes with something that doesn't need messing with.  I may ask some friends to provide their voices as well to create a larger and more intricate story. I have not really planned out the script yet, but I see no problem in breathing new life into the tired genre stereotypes that horror movies fall into, through the use of sound.

Sound Test (Audacity)

I chose to use Audacity, mainly because it is the first link I clicked on.  I also have not heard many good things about Garageband, at least from my roommates who use sound editing programs a lot.

https://uofi.box.com/s/3ks90ke6gc6tcodo4qr3

Sound Essay #3

Sounds
piano
Phil Collins!
more music

          The music helps to augment the feelings that are presented to us by the narrator.  Stedman used the example of the Mario Bros, theme song as a way of quickly bringing about nostalgia.  The narration and music complemented each other.

Sound Essay #2

Sounds
background voices (football game?)
drunk voices
music
drunk singing

     There was a good use of background sounds throughout the audio essay.  They do a good job in taking you through the night of several drunken girls.  It also does a good job in using some of McKee's rules.  The voice delivery of the narrator provided an interesting contrast to the drunk voices throughout the sound essays.

Sound Essay #1

Sound 1
wind/traffic
car horn
piano
club music
screams
shower?
tire screech

 I thought that this project was well done.  The use of sound created a feeling of immersion to the environment.  It was done well enough that we were able to follow him along his trip to collect sounds.  The sounds collected together created a solid use of sounds and he was able to find sounds everywhere by the end of his project.

McKee and Stedman

 Creating meaning through sound is a hurdle that I may have trouble with in the project.  The McKee and Stedman pieces pose some questions that I will take into account during the creation of my sound project.  McKee brings up several points that one should keep in mind when creating a project that relies on sound.  1) Vocal Delivery, 2) Music, 3)Sound Effects, and 4) Silence.  Together, these elements can combine to form a sound project that is truly well made.  Stedman's ideas on the impact of music to our environment is well made.  I can't recall the amount of times I've wondered into a store just because of the music that was playing in there.  I can think of a time I stepped into Forever 21 just because a Passion Pit song was playing.  Music is able to quickly bring out a feeling of nostalgia in people, and that is why it is such a potent way to get the attention of people.  McKee discusses the use of music in film, but I think that music provides the most impact in the shortest amount of time when it is presented to us in a film trailer.  These trailers are designed to give the audience the desire to see the film.  By inserting some exciting music, you get the audience to get the sense of the film you are making.  If you use scary piano music, it is a horror movie.  Epic operatic music is usually the sign of an epic action adventure film.  If you use music from the the era of the film, it serves a double purpose in creating nostalgia for the audience members that are old enough to have lived in the time period and to help set the authenticity of the film.  A perfect example of this is the trailer for the upcoming film Inherent Vice.  It does an amazing job in using the music in the trailer to complement the scenes and voices that were chosen in the trailer.

Mapping Project!

Weavly-Sounds of home

this is the link to my weavly

http://weavly.com/watch/LRxpAIfpJPb

Rough Draft for Mapping

Rough Draft for Mapping

          I want to use the Crime-Alert notifications and pinpoint some of the crime hot spots on campus.  I believe that this map will fit the criteria that you have provided.  The information that my map will provide is something that isn't shown in traditional maps.  I will will attach the email messages that I use with my rationale to show you that I am not making up dots or just putting them on a map.  I have a very rough draft completed.  It isn't close to being done.  What I have done is simply placed the raw data points on the map.  Haphazardly, I might add.  The emails provide a specific location that I will nail down more specifically.  The points in the map I placed simply on the street location that the crime occurred. While the map looks bland now, I plan to add some pizzazz to the project.  This would include a legend that would color code the types of crime between assault, robbery, and miscellaneous weirdness such as arson and indecent exposure.  If I notice that there is a bunch of crimes close together, then I will add a slight red tinge to the area, maybe a warning sign as well.

10 Words

10 Words

1.  barking

2.  cooking 

3.  TV 

4.  Spanish

5.  steps 

6.  music

7.  water

8.  lawnmower

9.  birds

10. driveway

Shipka and Making Radiolab

Sound Project

        The article by Shipka raises some good questions to ask yourself.  The beginning of a project is always the most difficult part for me.  I usually do not have a clear idea of what I want to do or where I want the project to go.  Shipka raises four points to help students to find out if their ideas can be turned into a good project.  These questions get students to question themselves and to go deeper into their project, and they will most likely help me write out the rationale for the project.  1. What is the your project trying to do? 2. How does the technology or material you use complement your project? 3. What made you decide to chose this project? 4. Did you receive any help in completing your project?"

        I found the example of Dan's project the most interesting to me.  Dan's assignment was to use create music by using data about a word from the Oxford Dictionary,  The idea of creating these purposefully horrible songs to create your project appeals to me.  His though processes also showed good rationale thought.  This wasn't a half-baked idea that falls apart.  He was able to really augment his project with this great use of technology.

         The Making Radiolab podcast was interesting as well.  It did a great job in showing us how the mashing of different sounds together can create something wholly original.  This can be applied to the Everything is a Remix video that we watched.  By mixing in these different sounds, you are able to breathe new life into them.  The example I remember is using the electric sound and the hard "s" in distance and combining them to sound like the beeps of a space craft.  I enjoyed seeing how interesting it can be to mix different sounds together.  

         A long time ago, Star Wars sound designers were having to create the sound of things that never have existed before.  How do you capture the right sound for something that isn't real?  I remember seeing a feature on the sound design of the film.  They interviewed the sound man and he told us that the sound that a lightsaber makes is made from things that exist today.  He used a motor from a projector booth and a TV sound transmitted through a microphone. 

          

Here is the youtube link for the interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0WJ-8B6aUM

Ideas for Mapping

I have a small idea for a mapping project.  I was thinking of using those constant crime alert emails that we receive.  By using this data,  I would be able to mark the locations of where a lot of these crimes occur.  With these dots, I would be able to find some way to clearly represent the areas of campus that the most crime occurs.  This is still a rough idea that I will probably change.  

Drucker and Young

          My first experience that I can remember regarding street art is a stencil art.  This stencil simply had the face of George W. Bush and the words "F*ck Bush," except it wasn't censored.  The Young reading made me think about this.  I was pretty young, so this seemed very startling to me.  The Young reading made some interesting points as to identifying what makes graffiti into street art.  Young makes the argument that the location plays a pivotal part in the classification.  Drucker’s reading talks about the strength that language can have in an environment.  Banksy manages to mix words and art together, melding the ideas of Drucker and Young.  This also brings up a point that Young made.  She states that some street art is very valuable and expensive.  This reminded me of an episode of “Pawn Stars” where someone attempted to sell off a piece of the Berlin Wall.  The clerk did not accept it.  He said that if it was a part of graffiti art from some famous graffiti artists then it would have fetched a high price.  The art that was once on the Berlin Wall is wonderful.  It also highlights the temporariness of street art.  It may last years or hours, but it is eventually removed.  

http://www.photosnack.com/abcwaterboy/photo-essay-reverence-of-celebrity-culture.html

Reflection on Photo Essay

Without Sanctuary

           This is a very powerful photo essay.  Each one of the images is powerful enough to stand on its own.  The creator of the photo essay was able to put these images together to create something more powerful than if he had just used one or a couple of images.  With all these images combined,  we can understand how horrific our past was.  The title is also great.  It is vague, until you look at the photo essay and you realize what he means by saying "Without Sanctuary." 

Photo Essay Rough Draft

PHOTO ESSAY ROUGH DRAFT

               My photo essay will be a critique on our society's worship and reverence to celebrity culture.  It seems like something that will be hard to do, but rewarding.  I plan to photo shop the faces of celebrities into some famous religious paintings.  The last image will be of "The Last Supper" with celebrity faces photo shopped onto the image.  It will be awesome to photo shop Angelia Jolie's face onto "The Birth of Venus."  This will likely take me a lot of time to do, but I am confident in my patience and my power to Google any problems I may have. The following is the start of my photo essay.  I plan to photo shop celebrities faces into these portraits.

MAPPING

     This was an interesting read.  I enjoyed the idea of creating art of political statements by creating maps. This is really a great time to bring up this topic.  About a week ago, my Political Sociology professor showed us these cities around the world.  These maps were bright and colorful.  They also served to prove his point about the government becoming more centralized and creating more organized cities as the years move on.

     This mapping technique clearly shows the progressing organization from the older cities to the newest in America.  Mapping is a very clever and quick way to show this information.  Just describing the change in the organization of cities doesn't make the idea clear enough.
     I loved the artist Biaussat and his "green line."  It sent a strong message about how arbitrary the border is and about how ridiculous it is that people are dying over it.

      I am excited about this project.  There are a lot of different ways to take this.  If I was funny, I could come up with some parody of an iconic image, or I can use the project to criticize something.  I had a vague idea of using the image of "The Last Supper" and inserting the faces of celebrities as a way to criticize how we have begun to idolize them.  Obviously,  Mel Gibson would be in Jesus's place at the table.  I'm sure I can find an image of "The Last Supper" on Google Images as well as other celebrities.  The problem with this idea, is that there are only 13 people in it.  I feel like I can cram others into it.  It's still an idea in progress, one that I will probably change if I can come up with something better.

Ways of Seeing

               The Harrison article is very interesting.  Harrison is a writer who is attempting to explain the importance of images and words.  The argument is mainly that words and images work best together. She discusses the term "Semiotics."  This terms means the study of signs.  She also discusses three other terms.  The Icon, Index, and Symbol.  An icon bears a similarity to the real-world object.  The Index is when the concept and object work together to convey the meaning.  The last one is Symbol.  This may not look anything like the actual object, but through social structure, we all recognize the symbol to represent the object.  The article also discusses the importance for the author to create three things when merging words and images.  Representational, interpersonal, and compositional metafunctions.  Representational is basically what is in the image.  Interpersonal is more about how you interact with the image.  Compositional is how the image and words work together to create a meaningful whole.

ICON

INDEX

SYMBOL

             

                 The Berger video "Ways of Seeing" also held my attention.  In the part we watched, Berger discusses the strength of reproductions of art, and how there meanings change.  The exercise with the Goya is what I remember most.  He would put in a short clip or image, then show us a famous Goya painting.  Depending on the clip that preceded it, we felt different things. It changed the way we though about the painting.  When it showed the tied up black men followed by the Goya,  it made me feel quite differently then when he showed the ladies dancing.  

We chose to write about these abandoned homes.  The homes were taken with a straight on angle.  Most of the yard is showing in both images.  These images don't seem to be edited.  The homes were located in empty neighborhoods.  These images seem to convey a feeling of depression and giving up.  It illustrates the city decay of Detroit.  We also get a sense of how quickly people can lose their wealth and prestige.  Some of the homes in the blog are very big and could have been beautiful, but have fallen into ruin.  

      McCloud discuess several terms in his novel Understanding Comics. The discussion of what an “icon” signifies is interesting to me. McCloud makes the point that these icons often do not resemble the real thing at all, but are still accepted and understood by the masses. He also seperates these into subcatergories, such as pictorial icon. He makes the argument that we no longer think abstractly. We put things into categories and have trouble with things that don't resemble their counterparts.

     He also goes on to seperate the world into two other categories, the realm of the concept and the realm of the senses. He uses the example of the Tin Tin comics to clarify it. The use of a fantastical or unrealistic characters inserted into realistic environments.

     He also goes on to talk about how other authors use abstract characters to talk about deep issues or mature themes. McCloud reminded me of another comic book illustrator called Art Spiegelman. He used animals to portray the people and characters in his graphic novel about the holocaust. The novel was violent and graphic, but with the substitution of creatures for humans we were able to handle his violent and gruesome images of the concentration camps during WWII.

     Chapter six is also an interesting chapter. He discusses how we are forced to turn away from books with pictures with them and move on to books with words. Comics are able to fully utilize the power of both words and images. McCloud argues that this makes comics a different and, at times, more powerful then just words alone. This depends a lot on the artistic power of the illustrator. IF it is executed correctly, then the words and images complete each other.

     The Harrison reading was also interesting.  She discusses the term "semiotics."  This is a word that I had never heard before.  This means the study of signs.  She also breaks this down into similar categories like McCloud.  The other categories are the icon, index, and symbol.  An icon is similar to the thing being represented.  An index is something that may not look like the object, but we as a society have decided to use it to represent the object.  A symbol looks nothing like its counterpart, but we have learned to accept it.

     The Wysocki reading is similar to the McCloud, although it deals with visualization differently.  It discusses the many forms that letters can be a visual form of information.  She also lays out forms of examining the information on the page.  Such as looking at the page itself, what is on it, and what helps the reader to make connections. By looking at these, we can get more meaning.  An example Wysocki uses is using large type, such as thinking of the book as a children's novel.

Inspirational Image