We created two different videos with different scripts, both based off of one joke. Alex's video is about a man who has an addiction with beans, but he farts every time he eats them. He ends up eating beans before a surprise birthday party, which has a dramatic ending.
Nathan's video follows the same basic story line, but includes different details in the story. Neither video uses music. In fact, the only audio in either video are the farting noises. The ending scenes are almost exactly the same as well.
A key concept shared with each video is the concept of space. Both videos use primarily the same confined space aspect. There are a few shots from greater distances, but most shots are waist shots or closer. I believe this is in part due to the limited camera action rules we were given. In order to keep the scene interesting, and to prevent the audience from being bored, we used multiple closer shots to keep the field of view changing. It was still easy to follow the motion in each video.
A key concept that the videos used the opposites in was rhythm. Nathan's video had a character leave or enter the scene at every scene change. This created a rhythm for the piece. Alex's video creates a rhythm with a specific scene. The scene of the man eating beans under the stairs occurs throughout the video. Similar music would have accompanied these scenes, had we added music to our projects.
There is tension and release in both of these videos. The tension is built up when the man is left in the room with the blindfold on and starts farting. Then he removes the blindfold to find that his family and friends have witnessed his attack. This is the climax. The reactions of the people lead to the release.
I believe there is also some subtext with the beans. Unless you knew that beans made you fart, you wouldn't get the concept of this video as well. You had to have previous knowledge about the beans to know how dangerous it was for the men to consume them before a surprise birthday party.
This blog is in response to the article "Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness" which can be found at changethis.com. This article explains that every trait has an opposite. Strengths and weaknesses come in pairs, and they cannot be separated. If you are enthusiastic you are obnoxious, and if you are calm you are emotionless. The article explains that there is no way fix your weaknesses , because you then lose your strength. Instead, your weaknesses can be used to direct you away from things you are poor at, and towards things you are good at. For example, if you don't like authority, you might run your own business. I believe all of the article's suggestions are valid, and I will critique three of them below.
1. Flawless: There's Nothing Wrong With You
I find this point to be very valid. Every strength has a weakness. There is no way to "fix" a strength, because you are then creating another weakness. We generally think of weaknesses as things that are problems we need to fix. They are in fact guides to finding your strengths and excelling in those while avoiding your weaknesses as much as possible. The article gives the example of addiction as a weakness. Instead of being addicted to a drug, you could become addicted to something enjoyable, like reading or exercise. I believe there are also ways to turn our weaknesses into useful mechanisms, as this example proves.
2. Focus: You Can't Do Both
This is also a valid point in the article. When you chose one strength, you are rejecting all other strengths and accepting a weakness. If you then choose another strength, the same endless pattern will continue on. If you spent time trying to have multiple strengths and work around multiple weaknesses, you would be losing time and energy that could be spent focusing on one specific strength. This also limits the total progress you will make with your strengths because you will be spending the same amount of time working on double the amount of skills. Doing both will prevent you from becoming exceptional in any specific skill.
3. What's My Problem?
This last point discusses the way most of us view our weaknesses; we view them as problems. The article explains here that the many kinds of weaknesses aren't problems in need of fixing. They are instead clues to what your real strengths are. If you aren't a team player, you are good at working in isolated conditions. Finding your biggest weaknesses can lead you to finding your greatest strengths.
Your weaknesses make you different from everyone else. When you match your unique characteristics to situations that reward those qualities, you will become successful. I believe I have the weaknesses of being stubborn and impatient when I create my media. This leads me to my greatest strengths, which are dedication and passion.
Hero - I really like the goofy animation of the bouncing worm. Media is always better when it is created with humor in mind. The worm moves perpendicular to the ground and the birds flying at it. I was specifially critiquing the movement of this animation. There are overlapping movements when the bird is flying at the worm and it bounced up and comes smashing down on it. I like how the worm appears to bounce when it hits the ground. This is somewhat like the squash and stretch technique. There's not a lot to critique in this animation, seeing as it is repeated several times, with only a slight variation.
Villain - I also found this animation very humorous. The same pattern of the bird moving up and down is interrupted only at the end, when it swoops down and punches a worm. The bird is moving vertically, up and down. The villain character appears to have very minimal "weight". The bird does flap its wings as it is in flight, but there is not much else occurring in this simple animation. I don't believe there is any parallel movement present.
After reading the partial manifesto list by Karim Rashid, there is one point that especially speaks to me. "There are three kinds of beings - those who create culture, those who buy culture and those who don't give a shit about culture. Move between the first two." This is very true about the world today. Some people create things, some people buy those things, and some people don't care abut those things. However, they probably care about something else being created, continuing the cycle.
To conclude my blog postings, I have created my own short manifesto to sum up my attitudes concerning my creative endeavors.
1. Don't take the easy way out, even if it saves you time.
2. You can't force out new ideas.
3. Spontaneous ideas are the best.
4. Humor is a great creative tool.
5. There is always an alternative route.
6. The longer it takes you to do something, the more you are learning about it.
7. The future is not always the best. Sometimes the "best of times" was the "good ol' days," but that doesn't mean you can't recreate that in a new light.
8. If it has no meaning to you, there's still someone whom it gives every meaning.
9. If you don't have the resources, create them with other things.
10. Someone will always hate what you're creating.
I went to the student expo at the Convocation Center on May 13th. My favorite student project was the video game called "Pangaea Arctica". I really enjoyed this project and thought it seemed very realistic, considering only a small team of students created it. I only played the game for about 2 minutes, and there was no sound, so I'm sure the game is much more exciting than my short encounter with it.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
This blog is in response to the article on Collapsus.com.
I believe that one very strong point we had for this presentation was the fact that this is designed as a Wii Sports game. Most people already know the Wii Sports games, and are familiar with their simplicity in design. We didn't have to try very hard to explain how the game would look and what the sounds would be because all of the Wii Sports games have virtually the same aspects. Included in these aspects is a lot of fun, as any person who has experienced Wii Sports would report.
I believe the only hard part about giving my presentation was trying to explain the game knowing that the audience did not know the rules of lacrosse. For some aspects of the game to make sense, you have to understand how the game works in real life. For instance, if too many players are on the wrong side of the field, a penalty is called and gameplay is stopped. This is why explaining the RULES of the game was the most difficult concept to explain. The rules of this game follow the rules of the actual sport of lacrosse. Unless you know those rules, some parts of this video game concept might seem confusing, and you might find yourself saying, "Why does this happen when I do that?"
The easiest part of the game to explain was the GOALS. The object of the game is like most other sports games; to score the most points. This is a very general concept that everyone already knows about. This could possibly make for a boring game, which is why we added other challenges into the design so that players can unlock new things, like clothing for their characters. This keeps the game interesting, despite the repeatedness of the scoring concept.
This blog is in response to the article "This American Life". Even after listening to the piece, I would choose flight as my superpower of choice. Obamaman has the superpower of flight.
And this above is the original photo. I was initially drawn to the photo because I like the contrast of the pink and purple against the warm, neutral background. The pink figure seems to resemble a person. This makes the painting relatable to me. The head is round, which gives off a comforting feeling. What appear to be the arms are outstretched. On the edge of the image you can make out another pink line, which I am assuming is the figure the main character is reaching out to. The dot where an eye would be helped me identify the object as a person.
I chose to reframe the picture like I did to bring more emphasis to the pink object, that I believe is a person. This also gives a closer view of the face of the object. The eye now appears to be crying because you can see how the eye is a vertical brushstroke and fades out as it goes down. This fine detail is much less noticeable in the original painting, because there is much more SPACE for the eyes to explore. Following the RULE OF THIRDS, about two thirds of the original painting is a large, neutral object with seemingly no meaning or symbolism, and the other third is the point of emphasis. To me, It looks like this large object is here just to take up space.
I think the artist framed the painting like they did, as a shot type LONG SHOT(LS), to create more of an abstract piece of art. Unless you really studied and liked the original piece, you would just make a 3 second scan and see some random objects with totally different colors, and then move on. Making the bottom two thirds of the original painting have no clear visual meaning causes you to focus on the pink object, leaving the bottom two thirds basically unexamined. When you switch to a shot type CLOSE UP(CU) of the painting, you get a much better detailing of the facial expression and overall mood of the piece.
This blog is in response to "Brainwashed" by Seth Godin. One layer is titled "Acknowledge the Lizard". The 'Brain Lizard' is our set instinct to give in to society's critiques. It wants us to cower away from creativity when our creativity is laughed at. I believe this is one of the most common ways people become less creative. Even though you might be laughed at, you must suppress the 'Brain Lizard' and become creative.
Another layer is titled "Make Art." It talks about how art doesn't follow guidelines. Art is where people create the uncreated. Art must be created, despite the risks that society might not like it. But art should not be created for society. I believe that art should be created for the sake of creating art and doing things that have never been done before.
These two layers might be in some way related to the blog I am writing this quarter. I must always "Acknowledge the Lizard" when I write my blog posts. I know that these posts can be viewed by the world, and they might completely disagree with my opinions. I have to look past that and write what I truly believe. And that is how my blogs relate to the second layer, "Make Art". Everything I write here has never been written before. All of my words are original. It is all my art. I believe this blog is very much related to the two layers I have examined here.
Lastly, this is the song i created in GarageBand using loops. It is very funky. I have titled it "Funky Blimp".
The songs I am exploring are both titled "Knock On Wood". The original was released in 1966 by Eddie Floyd. It has a pretty slow tempo and very happy feeling. The video helps portray this emotion even more. It is 109 beats per minute, giving it a very bouncy 60's swing vibe.
The brass instruments produce the melody during the chorus. During the verses, the guitar and brass seem to share the melody over the bassline. There are vocals throughout the song.
The cover song I selected is "Knock on Wood" by DJ Stephanie. This song was released in 2010. It has a much faster tempo of 147 beats per minute. It also has a happy feeling and is slightly corny, but really makes you want to get up and dance.
The lead synthesizer creates the melody. It is a very fat combination of sine and square wave oscillators, detuned to perfection. This song has a series of buildups and breakdowns before and after the 'dancy' parts. The vocals are only played during the breaks and buildups. The hard kick takes the place of the vocals during the 'dancy' parts of the song.
When comparing and contrasting music, I think it is often helpful to analyze the audience of the songs. The original song was meant to be played on the radio or played for a group of dancers at a restaurant or club. The cover song was meant to be played for tens of thousands of people with ridiculous amounts of energy at extremely loud volumes.
This being said, it makes sense that the cover song has a better sense of rhythm. The rhythm of a song is the part element that drives you to dance. The percussive elements are much louder in the cover song than in the original version. This could be because the focus of the original song was the vocals. When people listened to this music, they wanted to hear and sing along to the lyrics. With the cover song, people want to hear the kick and bass.
At large events, people will sing along to the melody of the song. To get the audience more involved, producers will use well known lyrics in a song, such as "Knock On Wood". This gives the audience something corny to scream out, but everyone knows the words. This creates a very positive relationship between the DJ/Producer and the audience. This positive energy is needed to drive the artist's success, as well as the events, which generally run until 7am.
I like the Stephanie version better. It really gives me that "hands-up" party feeling. The original would be nice to listen to with friends if we were in the mood for something real goofy. The Stephanie version is just a more modern dance production that I am very accustomed to. There we not nearly as many ways to digitally create music in the 60's as there are now. This has opened up new ways of producing music, as well as simply making it sound better. I do think that older original versions of songs can be very appealing though. They provide an interesting contrast to the digitally produced music of today. I enjoy stepping outside of the digital world every once in a while to refresh my musical palate.
Lastly, this is the soundscape I created with Ian Bullington using GarageBand. Our term was 'Affection', which was difficult to exemplify.
This blog is in response to the article "Finding Your Howl," by Jonathon Flaum. One of the described stories is about a pack of wolves who are on the verge of extinction. They are brought into captivity to safely recover their population, and are later released once again. But once they are released, they have all forgotten how to howl, and they have no leader. One wolf knows that he used to be able to howl, but can't remember how. He goes through a series of strange events and eventually acts with his instinct. He falls into a hallucination where he sees his death, as he is shot with a gun. He finally howls, and is brought back to reality as the other wolves follow suit and claim him as their leader.
The main point of this story is that we must sometimes suffer greatly, even feeling like death, to do things that we believe are impossible. When we set a goal, we cannot simply walk away from it. We are drawn into it, and there is no turning back.
The following is an audio blog restating the previously stated material, as well as new information.
I have recently read "14 Way to Get Breakthrough Ideas" by Mitch Ditkoff. The article explains 14 guidelines to help inspire new ideas and cultivate new ways of thinking. Many of these are common knowledge ideas, and are nothing new, such as "Brainstorm".
I agree with most methods described, but I am slightly bothered by a bit of hypocrisy amongst the various guidelines. Guideline 2 is "Immerse", meaning to completely surround yourself in a concept. Conversely, guideline 8 is "Take A Break". I think these are both good guidelines to follow, but you can not do both at the same time. This leads me to believe that each of the guidelines should always be considered, but only one or two will ever actually be performed at any given time.
I do find taking a break to be helpful when trying to think of new ideas. I think that too often we immense ourselves so deeply in the subject of thought that we overlook more general ideas. A lot of good ideas came about this way, almost by accident. When we allow ourselves to take a break, we allow ourselves to think of completely different possibilities in completely different ways. I often take this approach myself when I produce music. I often become so immersed in the environment i am creating that I miss many details that a first-time listener would pick up on. I often find myself so unable to move past certain aspects of a production that I will take a break. I generally head to the outdoors, something completely different from the electronic sounds I produce. This helps my brain recharge and immerse myself in completely different things to inspire new things in my productions.
I also find that guideline 10, "Hang Out With Diverse Groups of People," is a great way to conjure up new thoughts and methods. This can be related to the "Take A Break" method. When you are always around the same people, you are immersed in the same ideas and thinkers. Being around diverse groups of people will give you different points of view. Along with those comes different ways of thinking. These diverse groups of people will also give different answers to problems that would have otherwise gone unseen.
I use this method of thinking and learning on a daily basis. I try to be around different people every day. This gives me many different perspectives and shows me that there is often more than one right answer. Many times the solution is a combination of thoughts gained by conversing with multiple groups of diverse people. Too often people limit themselves to a certain group of friends they are secure with. Going outside your personal comfort zone and interacting with many groups of people is the best way of thinking and the best way to become successful.
Method number 4, "Make New Connections", is also very important to me. If you continuously turn to the same people, you are limiting yourself to finding many new methods and thoughts. Other methods being used outside of your 'connection circle' may be just what you are looking for. New connections may not necessarily have the answers to your problems, but they will provide fresh views and possibly different methods of thinking that can be applied at a later time.
I am not the best at meeting people outside of my field of interest. However, this is often a great way to get ideas outside of your normal realm of thinking. It is very easy for me to to make new connections with people in my field of interest. I am generally as enthused to meet them as they are to meet me. I am sure this can be said for any field of special interest.
This next section is in response to the prompt given in guideline number 9, "Notice And Challenge Existing Patterns And Trends." The trend in the marketplace that most intrigues me is the shift of income for musicians. For years, the primary source of income for musicians has been from the sale of their music. Because so many people now have access to this music for free, the primary source of income for musicians is shifting towards live performance. Some musicians are now getting paid more to play at huge concerts and festivals than release a new album of music. I believe this trend will continue until purchasing music becomes virtually obsolete, save for the nostalgic purpose of owning the physical copy of a music album.
My most inspired idea and biggest life goal is to bring the huge dance festivals held in Europe to America. This is the future of income for musicians, and every fan wants the next event to be bigger and better. America seems to be several years behind Europe in music preference, and these large-scale events have just recently begun to take over the music scene. It is my belief that these events will very soon make it to America, and I want to be a part of the people who profit the most from this surge of musical performance.
I am a very crazy creative person. I like operating outside of the box. Music is my passion, so i would consider myself an acoustically creative person. Normal people watch TV, but I listen to it. I like finding new ways of doing things. While I often arrive at the same answer, I like finding different ways of getting there. This opens up new doors that I would have otherwise not discovered.
It takes a lot of creativity to create music. Anyone can go outside and use a video camera, but it takes a lot of patience and out-of-the-box thinking to create music. For example, I spend roughly 1 hour modifying a snare drum for my productions. There are so many things you can do to that snare drum, and so many different ways you can do it. It is easy to get frustrated and just give up. But often, the solution just requires taking a different approach.
The people I admire the most are the duo know as Noiscontrollers. This is a group of electronic music DJ/producers; Bas Oskam and Arjan Terpstra. They joined forces in 2005, releasing their first EP in 2007, and have since become one of the top hard-dance groups. Both members help in production, as well as performance.
This song is from their first official release in 2007.
The reason I admire them is because of their creativity and innovation. You can easily hear the progression of their early work, and their work of today. The sounds they produce keep becoming clearer and more innovative. I see innovation as something that I have never heard before, and it sounds good. This definition can be slightly altered to define innovation in TV, movies, painting, etc.
The Noisecontrollers have also just begun a track in their career that I too hope to someday accomplish. Along with Wildstylez, another hard-dance producer, they have started their own record label; Digital:age. Their mindset is to create sounds that no one has heard before, but to keep the essence of hard-dance music faintly visible for the more 'traditional' audience.
This song is a good example of Tension and Release. The tension is built up starting at 1:25. This part lacks the kick and bass that the intended audience is waiting for. The song builds up and is is finally released at the climax at 1:50. This is almost what the hard-dance culture considers an anti-climax, as the music becomes more simplistic, but is still very danceable.
After listening to both songs, you can clearly see that the Contrast and Affinity are well at work. The first song is dark and scary. This is probably due to the fact that it is easiest to make hard-dance music that is dark. Thus it is harder to make hard-dance music about subjects like love. Creating different sounds and using them in different ways creates the contrast, but the genre is still held together by its structure and basic percussive features. This is the affinity.
I do believe, however, that there are many things to consider with the Text and Subtext of hard-dance music. Unless you know about hard-dance music and how it has progressed, you might think, "It's techno, and it all sounds the same." Which is not at all accurate, but I am aware that this is how many people view the subject.
This music is very influential to me. In order to keep becoming innovative and stay within the realms of a genre, you have to listen to music that was created before you, adding your own twist on things. I turn to the Noisecontrollers when I need inspiration for sounds I need to produce. Listening to the ways their music is progressively changing helps me alter alter my own sounds. This is how I become innovative with my music.
I'm ending my blog entry with a video showing that the Noisecontrollers are just regular people. They take you through the production of one of their tracks, and you can get an idea of how much creativity is put into their music.
