BLOG 10 YAY

BLOG 10 David Rendalls FREAK FACTOR

I found this article really interesting. The writer was very direct and simple with each of his points and gave examples to each to make them easier to understand. I agreed with all his points and tried to relate to what he wrote.

3. Flawless: There’s Nothing Wrong with you

Everyone thinks they have something wrong with them. In my case I think I am very unorganized, unrealistic, and at times I’m very loud and obnoxious. But in my opinion my strengths out weigh my weaknesses. Just like the small chart he has, you have to have optimism in your “weak” qualities. Although I may be unorganized I am very creative, I may be unrealistic at times but I’m a very positive person and look for the best in every situation. I’m also loud and sometimes considered obnoxious, but I like to just call it excessive enthusiasm. I am not saying I am perfect and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I just think we should worry about our bad qualities because there’s more good in them than bad.

4. Forget It: Don’t Try to Fix Your Weaknesses

Trying to figure out what is wrong with you is a tough process. If you ask someone “what is wrong with me?” they’ll tell you, but you’ll just get upset and think they are being a jerk. And asking yourself that question is just very depressing, so why even waste the time. Like the writer says we don’t like taking the time to work on our weaknesses and no matter how hard we try that weakness will never become a strength, it will only become an average quality at the most. Everyone has weaknesses so it isn’t something to be unhappy about. Once you’ve realized your weaknesses, take note, and move on. I don’t think there’s any point in taking the time to work on these weaknesses and you can spend that time doing something much more productive and rewarding. Working on our weaknesses will just make us depressed and in bad moods, so be happy and don’t worry about it.

9. Freak Factory: Putting your quirks to work

I am a huge procrasanator, so his point of “engage in permanent procasanation” instantly appealed to me. I never have a problem completing tasks or projects that appeal to me or I find interesting, but tell me to do something I do not want to do, I’ll do everything I can to put off doing it. Sometimes it seems that procrasanting is harder than the actual thing that I am trying to avoid doing. But I stand by my principles; I will be lazy and not do something I find boring and stupid. I also agree with his point of finding people who are strong where we are weak. Great partnerships can be made if people work together and balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Like they old saying “two heads are better than one.”

What have you found your strengths and weaknesses to be (as far as “the creative process” is concerned)?

I have found that my strengths have been coming up with an idea and sticking to it and being able to take constructive criticism very well. Having someone tell you that your idea is stupid or needs work isn’t easy but it definitely helps make it better. Some of my original ideas will be completely different once I have friends or other people give their opinions on it. My weakness is finding motivation to take my ideas and do something with them or being able to take my ideas and decide how I should present them. Sometimes writing my ideas down, then taking those words and trying to turn it into a video or drawing is hard and I’m demotivated by the challenge, but it is something I’ve gotten better at, I’m not saying it’s a strength yet, just not as much as a weakness as it once was.

Collapsus IS COOL!

COLLAPSUS IS SUPER COOL!

My audio response to this really cool trans-media site. Once again I had trouble posting the actual podsnack onto my blog, but I have the link to my audio. ENJOY. ME TALKING ABOUT COLLAPSUS

BLOG 9 Our Video Game presentation

Our video game idea was based off the movie “Honey I shrunk the Kids.” We thought it would be a very fun and interactive game that allowed the player to experience what life would be like if they were only an inch tall. In our presentation I think we made it pretty clear of the goals. Find parts to the remote to help you get back to normal size. And that within each level there are objectives, such as getting past certain obstacles and avoiding getting stepped on or attacked by bugs. However I believe I weakest point was not explaining the rules well enough. Our weakest point was not telling our potential “investors” the game rules. Within our game you will encounter many obstacles and challenges, and some may be “life ending.” Throughout each level you can be stepped on just three times before having to start the level over again. There is NO CHEATING, so trying to find loop holes to skip levels or return to other ones is not an option. You are unable to move onto the next level till you complete that levels objectives and find the remote part that you need to advance to the final level of the game. I also think we needed to emphasize how lights and sounds would be indicators to our players of what direction they need to go in and if they are on the right path. Our Strongest Point was probably my attention grabber at the beginning of the presentation. In this attention grabber that I completely winged I feel I made it clear the games Goals and what the player needed to do in order to reach the end of the game. I made it very obvious that the main and ultimate goal is to find each of the parts of the remote in order to return back to normal size, and in the hopes that throughout your characters journey they will learn to not bully nerdy kids or they will be shrunken down to an inch tall. A life lesson for all of us. 

MY SUPERHERO AND VILLAIN

BLOG 8 PART A SUPERHERO

For some reason each time I tried connecting my Podsnack to my Blog it kept saying error. and after punching my computer multiple times and screaming loudly in anger I decided to just post the link before I threw something in frustration.

ME TALKING ABOUT WANTING TO BE AQUAMAN

BLOG 7. WEEEEEEE

JOKES ARE FUNNY SOMETIMES

SECOND VIDEO WONT SHOW UP ON THE ADD VIDEO FROM YOUTUBE THINGY MA BOB. SO HERE IT IS IN LINK FORM Our Second Joke video

We had the joke that made fun of how men don’t use their brains so they are much more expensive than women’s, because they do use theirs. Not the best of jokes, but we tried our best to make it funny. Not being able to move the camera and having to record audio separate were our main challenges but we managed to make our videos work. Through our videos were displayed multiple binary terms fro the list of five. In our first video “Childish Idiocy” we displayed Shape through the use of our characters heads. All our family members share a common shaped head of a circle. Which shows their innocence when it comes to the brain transplant. The doctor does not have a circle shaped head, but a very square head. Which shows how he differs from the family and has a different position within the joke. I’m not stereotyping towards square headed people, but in my opinion it seems that majority of doctors are square headed. Could it be a scientific fact that the shapes of our heads determine our careers? Probably not. We displayed different approaches to Rhythm in each video. In one video the characters communicate telepathically and although you can hear their voices you are unable to see their mouth’s moving. The character’s each have equal amounts of dialogue and there are small pauses of audio during the characters interactions in our second video. However in our first video “childish idiocy” the characters dialogue and interactions have a different rhythm, where there is no pausing after each characters line, it is immediately followed with a response from another family member or the doctor. Our two different approaches to rhythm helped make the same joke be told in two different ways. The fact that we had to use the same joke in the two videos, we had to make sure that we changed the rhythm between the two to avoid having our videos seem to similar. 

VIDEO GAME BLOG 6B

6A how to be CREATIVE

The video wouldn't upload through the blog so i tried putting it on youtube but then the blog couldn't find the video. So I just have to put the link. SORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY

Me talking about being Creative. WEEEE

5B BLOG I talk about FORREST GUMP YEYY

 

BLOG 5A

I chose Salvador Dali’s Image because of how unique and abstract it was. At a first glance it is hard to tell what is happening in this picture. You first drawn to the giant horse with the very long back legs followed closely behind by elephants with very long and skinny legs each holding something on its back. The first elephant is holding a golden platform with a nude woman standing on it, the second is holding some triangle thing, and the last two elephants are carrying what seems to be some type of golden temple. Your eyes are then drawn to the nude man holding up a cross to the large animals that are high above him. The warm colors and lightness of the animals and what they are carrying towards the man make it very plausible that the naked man holding his cross up towards them is out of worship. However the fact that the horse is up on its back legs it also looks as if the man holding the cross is using it to hold them off and to stop them. I chose to reframe the image and zoom in on the man holding the cross. I wanted to focus more on him, because most of the space in the picture is taken up by the large animals and not a lot of the viewers attention is on what the man is doing in the bottom left corner of the picture.  In this picture, the artist did not include a lot of background noise and made it a very empty space. The horizon seems to have no end and a lack of background helps bring out the main subjects of the painting.  The artist uses the rule of thirds to his advantage. The middle of the painting, which we look at first,  is occupied by the animals and what they are carrying, and as we move our eyes down we see the nude man holding up his cross.

BLOG 4A

Opinions to BRAINWASHED

CONNECT
I believe social networking is one of the greatest things to have been created. Yes, people for thousands of years have been able to communicate without facebook or email, but having these tools right now just increases how often and quickly we can connect with others. In a business sense though having the internet is one of the greatest tools. Through the use of email and facebook I was able to connect with the founder of Fischer Productions out in California and now have a potential internship. When my dad was out of work he was able to connect with people and network with people through the use of technology and land a job at Lexus Nexus. Being able to connect with people with such speed and efficiency is an important aspect to how society functions now.

MAKE ART

What some people think is art, might be ugly and completely pointless. Everyone is creative in their own way, some just happen to be more creative than others. If written in a different or unoriginal way our blogs could be considered “art.” These blogs are a way of expressing ourselves. Even though we are told what to write and what to review, we can do it in our own style. Everyone has their own meaning of the word creative. Being able to express yourself through anything can be considered art.

BLOG 3B Soundscape

Alex Boyle
I really like how your soundscape starts with the use of just a drum set. It makes the listener seem like they are in an open space just listening to a drum set through the use of reverb. Then the piano is introduced and the song becomes much more full. Once the synth starts looping over the drum beat it gives the illusion that much more is happening, yet there is actually only two different instruments. Through the song small sounds are added to the song, although they are to loud they help add more to the soundscape. I really like how the “dubstep” feel this song has. It keeps a very relaxed tempo throughout the song. I also really like how you used long ominous tones to stretch out each measure, and make it seem like time has been slowed down. The outro matches very well with the intro. The drum solo starts off the song and is used as a transition into the song and at the end of the song the use of a synth is used as an ending transition. Despite only using, at most, three sound layers, the song sounds much fuller and gives a very compact sense of space.

Harrison Cummings
At first, when you started with the use of a rock drum beat I thought a guitar or piano was going to follow. But the use of some exotic instrument completely threw me off and the two mashed very well. The bass loop helped make the song seem much more full. I really liked how diverse this soundscape is. Many different instruments that we don’t always hear, you were able to work together to make a upbeat instrumental. I also liked how it was very un-repetitive. After a few seconds a new instrument was introduced which kept the song interesting. I also like how the tempo remained constant and how many different pitches there were. My favorite was that throughout the song the sounds came from different angles. While one sound would be playing on the left, a sound from the right side would start, creating a really full sound then gradually transitioning into a much a simple sound of one instrument over a constant drumbeat. The ending guitar picking ended the song very nicely and not abruptly by fading out and ending on one note. The song had lot of diversity to it and was fun to listen to.

Ian Bullington
For the first few seconds I thought the song was going to be a very slow depressing song. The guitar picking takes up very little space, but then a dark tone starts making the song much more full and it reinforces the depressing tone, then a drum beat starts increasing the tempo and building up the song then the song completely changes up the mood but introducing horns and a loud bass loop. The instruments fluctuate in volume and I can hear a slight reverb. Then all the sounds slowly fade out and there is a brief pause which at first I thought it was just ending short, but then a second part of the soundscape starts. Another slow and depressing loop starts but is quickly built up by a techno synth. The second part of this song is much more full and takes up a lot more space. The volume seems to be changing a lot and the tempo is a lot faster than the beginning. It seems like a lot of commotion is going on through the use of just a couple of sounds. But put together they make a much fuller sound than if they were used in a different context.

New playlist4

New playlist3

The song I chose is "I wanna Love you" which is originally by Akon. The Maine did a cover of this song and changed up the tempo, pitch, and many other aspects that differ from the original version. The Maine chose to sing the exact lyrics that Akon had written. Because the original is an R&B song, at some parts of The Mains rock version, it seems very different. Through out Akon's version he uses auto tune, which makes it very "poppy" and have more of a club feel to it. Also the speed of Akon's version is much slower, which adds a more sexual theme to it, compared to The Maine’s version, which is much faster and fun. Akon sings in a much higher pitch compared to The Maine’s lead singer and also his song has a very recognizable bass sound, light instrumental, and a lot of focus on vocals. However, The Maine, use a very distort rhythm guitar and the bass line is very hard to hear. The drums in The Maine’s version are much more up beat and increase the tempo of the song.
Both versions have the same organization. The Main chose to stick to the original song set up that Akon used. Both versions have a small intro then go straight into the chorus. Then there are three verses till the chorus, after the second chorus is four more verses till the chorus is repeated twice more before the end of the song. To me the lyrics don’t make to much sense in either song. The song uses a lot of slang such as “ I’m ready to hit the catty. Right up on the patio, move the patty to the catty.” I have no idea what a catty is. I’m not sure that The Maine even understood the lyrics that Akon wrote, but at some parts of the song the lyrics were obviously not written to be sung in a rock setting, and some words seemed forced to fit The Maine’s fast pace rock version. If I have to pick a favorite I’d say I like the original version more. Akon is a much better singer than The Maine, also I think the tempo and pitch are just right in his version. I have never found a cover that I liked better than the original track. Its obvious in Akon’s version that the main focus is the vocals, but in The Maine’s version it is very cluttered, it is hard to focus on everything at once because so much noise is happening. Akon’s version was a hit and has over twenty-seven million views on YouTube, while The Maine’s cover only hit over two million. I believe certain lyrics are written to fit a certain style of music and although it is interesting to hear a rock band cover an R&B song, it is an obvious choice when it comes to which song is of better quality. The quality of Akon’s vocals and of the instrumental aspect of the song outshine that of The Maine.

New playlist

Not only does Flaum give us a live lesson but also it’s a survival guide to. I really hope the main character he is referring to is an animal and not a savage human running around in the woods killing deer. In this story Flaum teaches us how to find our inner “howl.” Not a literal howl but our inner “voice.” It took me a while to get into this story and realize it was a metaphor because the majority of the time that I was reading it, I believed the main character was a human and it was a really funny picture in my head as I continued reading. However, he teaches us a lesson in our creative process. No matter how long it takes or how hard it is to get there, eventually we all hope to reach that point where we find our voice or our inner “howl.”

BLOG 1B

My response to Mitch Dikoff's "14 ways to get breakthrough ideas"

Each day I lose touch with reality and get lost in a daydream or fantasy till I suddenly snap back. Often staring at a wall for a good ten minutes fantasizing about something and having no sense of time or where I am. I experience this about two to three times a day and a lot more while lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. At times my fantasies may seem like funny stories or great ideas at the time, but I eventually come to my senses and realize others would probably think I was crazy. Ditkoffs’s fifth way of getting break through ideas is the first one yet that I find myself agreeing with. He is completely right about the fact that we are discouraged from fantasizing and having a strong imagination. We all reach a certain age, where having an imaginary friend isn’t creative or cute anymore, but is borderline creepy and a sign of mental illness. Everyone has a different imagination, some people, like me, just spend more time using theirs. I cannot imagine not daydreaming or not being able to fantasize at random times of the day, sometimes not always in the best places. Being lost in a fantasy while driving, giving a presentation, or operating heavy machinery are not good times to daydream. The best times to fantasize are: while in class, when your weird neighbor across the hall is trying to explain why he got a mole removed, or while in prison.

Think of a current challenge of yours. What would a fantasy solution to this challenge look like? What clues does this fantasy solution give you?
Currently my challenge is trying to figure out how to not be so broke. The last time I checked my bank account I had $22.50 left. Which can’t buy much, but I am able to buy 22 burgers off the dollar menu and maybe a juice box. My fantasy solution would be to marry Donald Trump’s daughter. And if she declines I plan on forming my own Columbian drug cartel. I really hope Ivanka Trump accepts my proposal because I’m too nice of a person to be a kingpin and my negotiation skills fail to even help me borrow a pencil from someone in class when I forget one. This fantasy clue gives me no ideas; I will never marry Ivanka Trump, nor will I ever be the head of a leading South American drug cartel. But I do think I can manage to get a job over the summer that does not include matrimony or a lengthy prison sentence.

Number eleven of this list is something I find myself doing majority of them. I agree that this strategy is a great way at having a break through idea. I find that working with a friend on an idea is much easier and turns out better than if I were to work alone. The old cliché that “two heads are better than one” may be old and overused but it is true. When working with a friend with a similar weird sense of humor, we are able to work off one another. If one of us is to introduce an idea, we don’t immediately shut down one another, but we try and take it to another step. We both have different perspectives on an idea and are able to work together to make it work. In certain things such as music and drawing I work best alone, without anyone else’s input. However, when working on a story idea for a short video or script, working with someone else is always my first instinct. Sometimes I feel that what is funny to me and my friend may not be as funny to others but at least it makes us laugh. Brainstorming with someone else is also a great way of knowing if you idea sucks or not. If I suggest something that makes absolutely no sense, my friend has no problem telling me that I am an idiot and shouldn’t be allowed a brain.



I disagree with Ditkoffs’s thirteenth way of having a creative breakthrough. In this idea, he suggests that if you having trouble getting a breakthrough idea jumpstart it with a book or a quote. I believe creativity isn’t something that you can force to happen. It’s about waiting for an experience to happen or coming across something that you are able to build into something that is considered a “break through idea.” Not everyone is creative, just telling them to get a book or read a quote won’t enable them to have a sudden spark in creativity, and the same goes for me when it comes to algebra. Telling me to read an algebra book isn’t going to make me suddenly great at math. I think the best kind of creativity is spontaneous and unplanned.

Week 1 Assignment

I have never been a math or science kind of person. Give me a math problem or science equation and I’ll just sit there daydreaming looking at it for a good ten minutes before I decide to draw an elephant over the question and write “couldn’t see the problem there’s an elephant blocking the problem.”  But given the opportunity to express myself through writing, art, or film I’ll spend hours zoned out, lost in my head. The past few years I have really liked getting lost behind the lense of a camera and filming what is around me. In the future I hope to be an oceanic videographer and film sharks, in particular, Great Whites. Cameraman, Doug Anderson, has been one of my main influences and is one of the leading cinematographers known for filming for shows such as Life, Planet Earth, and Blue Planet.  

In Planet Earth: Shallow Seas, Doug Anderson’s footage helps display examples of Contrast. From the surface the ocean just looks blue, but beneath is coral reefs and a diverse world that is rarely seen by many. Fish of all colors and shapes living off the reef surrounded by mammals looking for food are all captured on film. Anderson shows how different the animals are, their different hunting tactics, how the interact with other fish. He shows Affinity by showing the audience how all these different species rely on each other, the reef, and the sun for a stable environment. In this episode, the main focus is the shallow seas. Doug Anderson captures footage that helps display such a different world from any other habitat on earth. Yet, it also helps show how similar it is to other habitats, how the existence of one specie is crucial for the survival for others. 

Doug Anderson filmed for Discovery Channel’s series Life, in hope to make people aware of how amazing the world is that they live in and that it needs to be conserved. Throughout the series, the narrator or filmmaker do not tell the viewers that they need to stop polluting and that they need to realize how spectacular life is on earth. They let the viewers figure that out for themselves by using a very active approach. They don’t force any views onto the viewer, in the hopes that the footage that Doug Anderson has shot will do that without words. At times the narrator, Oprah, may hint at human pollution and affect on the environment, but I am not influenced by Oprah. Doug Anderson is able to get a message across the viewers through the use of a High Definition video camera and showing us creatures of the deep that many of us will never see or have never even heard of and how mammals such as Whales and dolphins nurture their young and have innovative ways of hunting. 

In Blue Planet: Open Oceans, Doug Anderson makes it very obvious of his objective. And that is to show viewers how amazing the ocean is and how it is vital to conserve this environment. Anderson doesn’t use any trick photography, effects, or CGI to enhance his footage. A five second shot may have taken hours to set up and find in order to support his Objective. His footage has no underlying or deeper meaning, his objective is very simple and is conveyed through the use of a camera. 

Here is a link to my TA's Blog...

TA's Blog

Here is the link to the blog of my TA

Edited photo

Trying to make a link or something

I made a link to Doug Anderson