10A: Written Response to Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness

Click here to read David Rendall’s “FREAK FACTOR: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness”.



Rendall's "Freak Factor" provides the audience with a few rods on how to take their weaknesses and embrace them, and use them to their advantage and turn it into something positive. He tells us that our flaws, the things that make us freaks, are also what can make us successful if we take the right approach. After reading it though, there were three specific suggestions on how to do this that stuck out to me the most:


Point 2--Whats My Problem?
A lot of publications and speakers tell us how we can minimize our weaknesses or turn those weaknesses into strengths. Here, Rendall says that people don’t necessarily have to overcome their supposed weaknesses. He says that he found out that his “apparent flaws were clues to my true strengths”. Creating a list of your “flaws” can cause you to find lifestyles and career choices that won’t make you unsuccessful. Applying this idea to everyone’s life can reveal paths that would’ve otherwise gone unnoticed. For example, I love working in groups, and collaborate well with others and their ideas to make one good final product, so I chose a career path that will help me be creative and also work to my advantage because the media industry relies heavily on teamwork and group production.


Point 4--Forget It: Don’t try to Fix Your Weaknesses
This takes the stance that one should not try and fix their weaknesses, but rather understand that they have limitations. I think that this is an important thing to understand, especially to college students and especially to media students, when we seem to think that we can take on the world. The truth is that we all have limitations and driving too hard to overcome these will lead to issues elsewhere in life. Media is a group-oriented career. It is important to find someone who can compliment you. I am generally a lazy person, pushing things to the last minute, so when I am paired in a group with a go-getter type of person, someone that will push me to get something done by the deadline, I can apply my talents to the project, and at the same time get my stuff done on time. It isn't a matter of me "fixing" myself, it's a matter of finding my place and finding people who can compliment me and draw results from me.


Point 6--Focus: You can't do both
What this piece of advice is saying is be great at something rather than be mediocre at multiple things. He uses WalMart, K Mart and Target to create a very good example for what he means. This piece of advice stuck out in particular to me than all the others. I think that most decisions we make everyday in the world generally come down to this. A perfect example is coming to college, and why I chose mine. We pick a major, which should be what we think we want to pursue a life-long career with. It is not ignoring everything else, it is just an emphasis on what we have to offer the world. The reason this applies to me in particular is because of how I came to be a Digital Media Major. I combined three of my best talents, which were a) being technical savvy and being able to work well with computers, b) my love and talent for art and drawing, and c) my love for videogames and movies (animated and real). When I begin to look for internships and jobs, I am going to have to tell them my passion and talent for all these aspects and how I combined them to become talented in one cohesive aspect of the multimedia industry.

As for my own strengths and weaknesses, their are a few. My weaknesses are for one, I need inspiration for my ideas and creative projects. I am not so good at coming up with an idea randomly and right off-the-bat. Another one of my weaknesses is also that I take my time too much, if thats possible haha. I take too long on tests, projects, pretty much anything u can think of. So sometimes I go over the deadline of things, which is not a very good habit. My strengths, as previously mentioned, are being technical savvy, my talent and love for drawing and art in general, and also my passion for the creation and final results of movies and video-games. I combined all three of those three main strengths and my passion for all three in order to pursue a career in which I will never not love what i'm doing, no matter how tedious and long the work is. If its something I love and am good at, I will do great.

9B: Collapsus Audio Response

Collapsus

^^^Here is the link to the Trans-media project Collapsus!

Collapsus Response (again, podsnack is not letting me post it on my blog, so this is the link to it)

^^^Here is the link to my response to it. Click it yo!

9A: Reflections on Gaming Presentation

To be completely honest, our group never got to meet up as a whole so I think our individual ideas of the plot line weren't well developed or combined to form a cohesive whole. So when we tried to explain it I don't think the audience could really grasp what we didn't even really understand in the first place either. We definitely should have spent more time with that, and developed a better way to explain it.  


Another thing we didn't get across is excitement to play the game.  Once again due to a lack of organization and meeting I think that weren't really able to sell the idea as something that exciting.  Our presentation was too much of stating facts about the game, and not enough salesmanship.  Something that I think we did well is explain the technicalities like rules and mechanics, because the concept of our game was pretty simple to explain and there are enough games that are similar and well-known enough to make comparisons to.


Objectives were fairly difficult to convey to the audience, because once again we were a bit unsure of the specifics of the plot line ourselves. They were the most difficult to explain due to the fact that not even our group clearly understood every small individual objective to end up escaping the room. We had a vague idea of the individual requirements to escape the room, but not well enough to properly convey them to the audience. 

8B: Written Response to Hero/Villain Assignment

                         Hero

                 Villain
          




















Steve Bonahoom's Hero/Villain

There is no more obvious symbol of happiness and cheerfulness than a clown, and so its pretty obvious that the clown character stands as the hero in this situation. The alien is a symbol for an "outsider", something not natural to this earth coming to threaten the inhabitants and promote fear. The contrast between these characters is very obvious visually. The dopey grin on the face of the clown and the drawn, depressed look on the alien's face couldn't be more different. The colors also provide a very obvious contrast. The clown, predictably enough, is comprised of largely saturated colors in various bright hues, making him seem more bright and approachable and, ultimately, good. The alien, however, is muddled with very dark colors. Nothing is very bright, and in fact the only color that really stands out on him is the red that makes up his costume, which is a power of color but also of danger.


William (Jarrett) Blunenschein did not have his Hero/Villain posted.

Brie Donovan's Hero/Villain

Igor is the villain and Glen is the Hero.  Glen is in a wheelchair while Igor has use of his legs.  This gives the two characters both different movement types. Glen uses his wheelchair to get around giving him a more smooth movement.  Igor has more of a normal walk while he uses his legs.  Igor would have more weight in his movements because he is using his muscles rather than a machine to get around. Glen would have a parallel movement because he uses the wheelchair to run on the ground making him a little more parallel to the ground.  He would also would have overlapping movements too because he is using his hands on the wheelchair to get around.  The hands are overlapping the wheel because he has to push the wheels in order to move.  The contrast/affinity between these two characters are very obvious.  We can see affinity between the two with the colors the creators choose. Glen has an all red suit (with some yellow)  and Igor has only red in the 'I' in his shirt.  This gives them affinity because they are the same color making it go together well.  Contrast is also apparent with the color choices.  Again Glen is in a mostly all red suit whereas Igor is in a green one.  Different colors mean contrast within the characters. Another contrast is that Igor has an evil looking mustache while Glen's face is clean.

8A: Audio Response to This American Life

This American Life Listen to act one of this podcast called This American Life which is all about superpowers. Then listen to my audio response below to find out what superpower I would like to have, and what superhero i idolize and want to be. Gambit FTW!



Sorry for not using podsnack either. For some reason it wouldnt work. So i just posted the audio itself straight from itunes on here. Here ya go.


Audio Response on Podsnack that wouldnt let me embed it on my blog
There is the audio response!^^^^ Go listen to it!

Hes a Beast!

7: Reflection of Video Joke Assignment

JOKE ONE


JOKE TWO



My group mainly focused on line and shape more than in the second video. By constraining the view in the first video we were able to focus in more on the line and shape of the people and objects. Matt had a rainbow shirt on, with bright and vibrant colors, making him look more circular. He also has a circular head, which gives the audience the appearance of a happy, jolly child. Jenny was wearing a much more conservative outfit, that shows that she is playing the role of the gentle and kind hearted adult. She wore more neutral, subdued colors than Matt did which helps distinguish between the two characters. The lines of the fireplace and the lines from the washing machine are all directed towards Jenny, showing that she has the power in this movie. They are simple, straight lines, which also reflect the sternness that Jenny exhibits in this movie. In the second movie the shots are much wider leaving more space and allowing for a wider range of motion. There are fewer lines to direct the viewer in this video, aside from the arms of the chairs directing the viewer to look toward the center of the room where I sat.

Text and subtext are also utilized in the second video where it is not in the first. The role of the father in the second movie adds more character development than the first video did. Audiences can literally take my words at face value when I speak politely, not understanding that the only reason that I am speaking politely is because my mom in the video told me to. Audiences have to understand the subtext in order to get the entire joke itself. There is a lot of affinity between the two movies and not very much contrast. Our movies ended up having similar genres; situational/family comedy. They were both shot in the living room; however, the first video also provided another location to break up the monotony. A bit of contrast came from the different reactions of Charlie and Billy – Charlie was a better-behaved child while Billy was quite the little asshole.

6B: Videogame Imagery Critique

Here is my Critique of the imagery found throughout the games in the Gears of War Series, however this video takes place in the Gears of War 3 Beta. This is okay though because all the games are generally the same in color and brightness. here it is! kaboom!

6A: Video Response to Hugh MacLeod's "How to be creative"

So here is the link to Hugh MacLeod's "How to be Creative" You can click on the link then click to download to read the the article in word or some other application.

www.changethis.com/manifesto/show/6.HowToBeCreative

And here is my video response to it:

5B: Commentary on favorite movie scene

This is it! My video commentary on my favorite movie scene! BOOM!

5A: Reimagining Visual Framing

Original Image

Cropped Image

The reason I was drawn to the original picture was because of its simplicity and its dynamic use of colors to draw attention to certain areas of the photo. The use of 3 of the most basic colors (black, red, and blue) makes it appealing largely because it is an easy painting to visualize an understand. This ease of understanding in what the original photo is, which it is an eye, is because the Theme of the photo is DIDACTIC, meaning the audience is told what to think. This is because the photo can only be interpreted as an eye, and, for the most, nothing else. The reason for re-framing it the way that I did was to incorporate abstraction into the photo. In my cropped version of the photo its hard to tell exactly what it could be, making it abstract and up to the audience to make up their own mind as to what the photo could be, making the theme ACTIVE rather than Didactic. The two photos have CONTRAST/AFFINITY. They have affinity in color and texture however they have contrast because the themes are so different in that one is Active and one is Didactic, even though the only difference is in cropping. I believe the artist framed it the way they originally did was to establish VISUAL INTENSITY in the photo. The Visual Intensity of the original photo is calm and simple because of the use of only three colors and because of the simplicity in figuring out what the picture is of. Another reason the artist framed it the way he did was because of LINES and SHAPES in the sense that the way humans generally look at things is from left to right which draws our attention to the side outline of the eye. After looking at the outline of the eye, the shape and curvature of the lines make the eye lead us to the tear falling from the eye. Finally, the SPACE in the picture is in an unusual format because of the way it is filled in. One would think that the space around an eye would be of skin and that the space inside the pupil of an eye would be colored in, but int he photo the space filled in around the eye is of red dots, and the space inside the pupil of the eye is a solid color, but its also spots of blue. So the space in the original picture is somewhat uncharacteristic than in normal drawings, but it gives it a strangely appealing and abstract sense to it.

4B assignment song post

                                     

3A assignment Soundscape post

                              





                       

 http://changethis.com/

Go to that link and look up Jonathon Flaum's article "Find Your Howl" 

Flaum's first story is about a red wolf named Mumon. Mumon was raised in captivity because of a decrease in birth rates in red wolves.  Once the population rate grew Mumon and his siblings were released back into the wild. The rest of the story focuses on Mumon discovering his howl. Through interactions with different wildlife, with some hardships and shame on Mumon's part, he finally finds his howl. Flaum uses this story to symbolize people expanding their freedom in their own lives. Flaum mirrors Mumon's own struggles with struggles that people face in everyday life. People "find their howl" meaning that they find their voice by facing struggles head on. There are no short cuts to finding our own voices despite the lengths that sometimes people go to to avoid doing things the hard way. 


Since I do not know how to post audio clips on here, I will just have to read my own "Howl" aloud but through text. I am going to be explaining my favorite line of lyrics from one of my favorite songs called "The Hell Song" by one of my favorite bands Sum 41. 


---"Everybody’s got their problems (problems)......Everybody says the same thing to you.....It’s just a matter how you solve them (solve them).....And knowing how to change the things you’ve been through". 


This quote of music lyrics speaks to me as a creative person because it literally almost tells what you need to do in order to get past what I was put through. When I told many people I was coming to OU to study Digital Media: Games, Animation, and Special Effects quite a few people thought I was crazy for doing that. THey believed that there is no job prospect in the future for such a major. However, what they obviously didnt realize is something very important, the fact that I am a very motivated and hardworking person who knows what it takes to make it in the world. I do not accept failure very well, so I strive for the very best possible for me. That includes my studies here at OU, in order to prove them all wrong and get a great and fun career!

Media 203 1B assignment: written response to WAYS TO GET IDEAS

http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/49.06.14Ways

That is a link to Mitch Ditkoffs "14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas". I am writing my written response to 3 of these ways. 

His first of 14 ways to get Breakthrough Ideas is to “Follow your Inspiration”. I completely agree with this technique Ditkoff believes to help get a Breakthrough idea! If a person does not follow their inspiration then they are only depriving themselves of something they love and could do extremely well. A person always has their motives to do something, whether it is to further a career or just to do something they love. If someone follows their passion or their fascination, then they will be doing something they love while having fun and enjoying it completely at the same time. Ditkoff states that, “Fascination, quite simply, is natures way of getting our attention”. I agree with this statement as well because he couldn’t be more right. Fascination is any type of appeal to what a particular person likes, and when someone likes something, they will pursue that thing and enjoy the process and the final outcome. No matter what the outcome may be in the end of this process through which a person got to wherever they may be, they will have enjoyed the unique experience of it all, and because of the fun they will have had. An idea that is found in the end of this process would be more meaningful because you found it by following your fascination and having fun at the same time.

His second of 14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas is “Immerse”. I again do agree with this because when you are not immersing in one task, you are multi-tasking and too much is going on in your mind. You literally have too much going through your head to even just think about some of the smallest things, so the answer seems to be quite obvious. One of the best ways to get a breakthrough idea is just to sit down, and immerse in thought, just focusing one thing. Ditkoff gives the definition in this portion of his article saying, “Immersion: "the act of becoming completely involved or absorbed in something— engrossed, enthralled, or preoccupied”. This is a very true and very well said definition, because it is as straight forward as can be. Follow that definition and you will be completely immersed in something you need to be. Ditkoff also states that if you want to immediately increase your odds of getting a breakthrough idea all of a sudden, the bets thing to do would be to Immerse. Now with this statement I am partial on. I do agree that immersing works on people, but it may not be the best option to immediately get a result. Its’ just that there are plenty of other options available in order to get a result of a breakthrough idea. It is still a very good technique to use, none-the-less, and should have satisfying results.

His third of 14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas is “Tolerate Ambiguity”. By this Ditkoff means “Breakthrough ideas are not always the result of a revolutionary ‘eureka!’ moment. On the contrary, they are often the result of an evolutionary series of approximations or failed experiments”. I agree but also disagree in part with this thinking. The part that I agree with is that in some cases the best conclusion or Ideas found are arrived after a series of failed experiments, tests, or events. The fact that this happens quite often is evidence to his point. However, there are some cases that a ‘eureka!’ moment can and does appear. Now, sometimes when this moment occurs it is passed up, however it should not be passed up. Both of these instances are good ways to get a Breakthrough Idea. Through a series of careful and multiple experiments over an extended amount of time, and also through the quick unorthodox ‘eureka!’ moment, both are excellent ways to get a Breakthrough Idea.

For his prompt number 1 of 14, the activity that Ditkoff suggested that I have chosen was “What new idea is fascinating you? What new possibility has captured your attention? In what ways can you honor this inspiration today?”                         My answer to this would be the new idea that is fascinating me is the idea of working for a huge videogame company, as one of its top designers. The new possibility that has captured my attention to this was the idea that I could pursue a career in this combining two of my favorite hobby’s, art/drawing and videogames. I can honor this inspiration by striving to future my career as a game designer by graduating with my degree in college here, and also by finding good internships in the future and finally finding a jon to start me on the right track.

Media 203 1A assignment: What inspires me as a Creative person?

There are a few people that possess the skill and knowledge that is required of the type of graphic artists and animators I like. These types of graphic artists and animators I am speaking of are those people that can have fun making their work, while still adding meaning and depth and binary appeals to their work. It is these such artists that are sometimes hard to find. One such artist though I believe is Cliff Bleszinski. This is an interview of him talking about the upcoming new videogame he was in charge of creating, Gears of War 3. 

The reason Bleszinski inspires me is because of his passion he has for the games he creates and his use of Tension and Release in all the games. As is evident by watching this interview for the new Gears of War 3 game, the Gears of War franchise itself is a very dark and strange series. When you think about the concept of the game it is familiar in the sense that it is a classic shooter game, and has normal techniques like other shooters. Such techniques are like taking cover, tactical ideals like killing someone by aiming dow your sight to get more accuracy in your shot, and throwing grenades. So when someone explains this game to you, you think it would be a normal game with normal human enemies. However, what is not clear to the people that have never played or heard of the Gears franchise is the unfitting and dark nature of the enemies you face. These enemies are called Locusts and some of them are very very creepy and scary. So you have the familiar classic shooting style in the game, and you also have the unfitting scary enemies represented by the locusts which is the Tension. However because you don't play as the Locusts (you play as humans) and you know the humans will win, it brings back the familiar sense of the good guys will prevail which is the Release. Bleszinski is a man of great talent to be able to manage and create, with some help of course, a game series that incorporates all of that in order to have a strong fanbase and corporation.

Now, as for my inspiration as a creative person when I am drawing, I listen to two types of music depending on what I want to draw and how i'm feeling. One of them is an edgier dark and more hardcore type of music. This type of music would be stuff like Metal, Hard Rock, and maybe some Punk music. Here is an example of one of my favorite metal bands Bullet For My Valentine. The song name is called Hearts Burst into Fire. 

Now my other type of music I like to listen to to inspire how and what I am drawing is more clam, chill, colorful, sometimes abstract music. This type of music I speak of is stuff like Alternative, Reggae, and also sometimes R&B/Soul. Here is an example of one of my favorite Alternative Rock artists Dave Matthews. The song name is called Lie in our Graves.

Now I have two very important reasons for choosing these two types of music to inspire my drawing and the way I make art. 

One of these things is for the Contrast/Affinity it brings into my art. The contrast between these two types of music brings different emotions and thus different styles and techniques of drawing. If i listen to a hardcore and angry or sad or dark piece of music, I will draw a dark edgy and somewhat gloomy object. Such as a spiked thorn crown, or a dark red rose with thorns twirling up the side, and maybe a drop of blood from the rose pedal to add emphasis on the dark and sad aspect of the picture. This type of drawing is in direct contrast to what I would draw if I was listening to a piece of music that is happy, or upbeat, or chill. If i were drawing while listening to a song like that while drawing something I would make the object I was drawing being something that is pleasing to the human eye. Such an shape that would be pleasing to the human eye are things like circular objects believe it or not, that make us happy. With a circular object I have a wide range of things to expand on my drawing. I could make a very bright and vibrant sun, with the classic looking face in it, with an awesome pair of sunglasses, and instead straight and edgy sunrays coming out of it, i would draw twirling and multi-colored sunrays. So solely based on what type of music I listen to while drawing, I am inspired to draw something different depending on the type of music. That is the Contrast between the two main types of music that inspire me. The Affinity between the two that inspires to me to just draw in general, is that when I am listening to a song, I will randomly just want to pick up a pencil and start drawing to it. It doesnt matter which type of music it is, I will just want to start drawing something to it! That is the affinity these two types of music share with me, is that they both inspire me to just start drawing. 

Finally, the other reason that these two types of music inspire me to be creative in my drawing and art, is the Active and Didactic themes in the two types of music. I know it sounds crazy, that there are themes in music, but there really are. An Active theme is when the audience makes up their own minds on a subject. A Didactic theme is when you or the artist tells the audience what to think. In a hardcore or hard rock songs, there are mostly active themes. The audiences is left to make up their own meaning of the song at the end of it. In more chill Reggae/ Reggae Rock and sometimes Alternative Rock music there, for the most part, Didactic themes, where the song tells you to do something or the message/meaning of the song is clear and told to you. The reason these two types of music inspire me as a creative person is because based on whichever music I am listening to while drawing, I will either have an active somewhat mysterious hidden theme or element to my drawing, or I will have a didactic type of drawing style, making my message and meaning clear understanding in the drawing. 

blog test

d'kjgsbvk jqbe'asc first post, yea this is kinda cool. the teacher is moving very fast talking haha. i love my family and friends. okay thats about it. peace yo.