Wednesday, November 9, 2011

blog #9

http://changethis.com/manifesto/45.02.FreakFactor/pdf/45.02.FreakFactor.pdf

David Rendall's The Freak Factor is about overcoming your weaknesses and looking at them as positives. Instead of trying to fix everything, learn how to see your weakness in a positive outlook. He says that every weakness leads to a strength, and all you have to do is learn what strength it is. Such as if you don't like working in groups, then work by yourself and start your own business. I think his ways of overcoming weaknesses are valid but I don't think you need nine of them. The three that I agree with are 3. Flawless - there is nothing wrong with you. I agree with this because if people just sit and look at their flaws, that's all that anyone else will see. When I was little my parents said that I had a flaw of being left handed, but later on in life I figured it out it made me unique, and gave me a very big advantage when I picked up pitching.
The other one I agree with is 4. Don't try to fix your weakness. A lot of people thing that they have to improve upon their weaknesses or else they will just plague them forever, the time that you spend trying to fix your weakness, you could learn how to strengthen your strengths or find a strength that goes along with your weakness. My weakness in sports is that I have arthritis, but I never complained about it because there's nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is learn how to work past it.
The last thing I agree with is that you cannot do both. I liked the example that they used with Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Target. You can be well rounded, but not at everything or else you'll just be mediocre and no one wants that. K-Mart tried to have low prices and high end products, they ended up being mediocre and filing for bankruptcy.

My strengths in my field of video production would be editing and learning the do's and don'ts of filming, that's why I want to be a director. My weakness is writing, that is why I am not trying to be a writer or producer.

blog 8

http://changethis.com/manifesto/66.01.Brainwashed/pdf/66.01.Brainwashed.pdf


In Seth Godin's Brainwashed, he talks about seven ways to reinvent yourself. The first layer you must overcome is stripping your public school learning that trains you to do factory work the rest of your life. You must learn that instead on the teachers telling you "sticking out was bad" in school, it really is a good thing in the work industry. People who blend in to the mass group will be the ones working in the factories the rest of their lives. The people who stuck out are now the Steve Jobs and Barack Obama of society.
You also must realize that you have the freedom to do what you want. Society trains us that to be happy you must have a stable life, to have a stable life, you must make money, and to make money you must have a job. That is not necessarily how it happens. I know bums that are a lot happier with their life than someone making millions being a CEO of a company working a 9-5 job.

One way to reinvent yourself is to connect. This is my favorite one because my parents say "if you ever want to get a job, you better delete that Facebook of yours." In actuality Facebook can be a good tool to network with people and share your work. Facebook isn't all about uploading drunk pictures and posting derogatory statuses. It can actually help your career.
Be generous is talking about the economy. When people give, they will eventually get back, it's all in good karma. It's all about being generous and not expecting something back. People will remember that.
The next step was make art. The more art you make the more ideas will come to you. If you don't make art, then how are you going to get any further with your career as an artist. That is like telling a student not to do his homework.
The next step was the acknowledgement of the lizard. The lizard brain is the part of the back of your brain that tells you to be safe and caution. The lizard brain also gets angry if you are laughed at. This is why you are afraid to take chances and put your artwork out there because you don't want to get laughed at. You need to first realized you have a lizard brain, and then ignore it.
The next step was ship.Ship means how available you're going to make your product. If your customer needs your product the next day and you are able to ship it within that time frame, you will be more successful and maybe even make more money. If you can't get your products to your customers in a timely manner, they are more likely to go find the product from someone else.
Fail is the next step. You learn from experience, especially failure. Something my mom always tells me is "you have 20/20 vision when you look at the past" which means you learn what exactly you will do next time not to make that same mistake.
The last step is learn. Even if you completely all of your schooling you are never done learning. You learn from your everyday experiences and mistakes so technically you're never out of school.

These layers have applied to me in my assignments this quarter. The first layer of connect really applied to this class because I only knew one person in my lab and everything was group projects. I ended up connecting with all of the class while collaborating over projects.
The second layer of be generous applied to this lab because sometimes when I put more effort into a project than my parter, I didn't complain or even care. It also did come and pay me back later on in the quarter when I could only work on part of a project, my partner helped me out a lot with that.
The third layer of make art applied to this course because every week we were presented with a challenge to make something artistic, even if it was something that we had little experience with. Also, no matter what your art looked like from professional looking projects to chicken scratch, everyone appreciated every different skill level of art.
Acknowledgement of the Lizard was something that I really overcame in this class. The first class I was dreading presenting my project because I was afraid of what people would think, then every week it got easier because I didn't care what people thought anymore.
Ship was in this class because our projects were expected to be presented every Friday, and it was very unprofessional if we did not turn them in on time and we lost points.
Fail happened in this class to my first project. Even though I didn't actually fail the project, I thought I did terrible on it, and after that project I learned what the standard was going to be in the class and never made a poor project like my first project again.
Learn was a part of this class because every week we learned new things such as using Garage Band, iMovie, and Pencil. Even though I know Final Cut Pro and thought iMovie was a breeze, I still learned about it even though I thought I wouldn't.

blog #7


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl0JcK4-Dx0&feature=related

I think the theme from this scene could be diactic with the message watch who you're messing with. At the beginning of the scene we think that Phillip Vandamn is a threat to Roger Thornhill, but by the end of the scene the table is turned and Thornhill is a threat to Vandamn because Vandamn was not careful and Thornhill figured out everything he was doing. Now he is threatening to go to the cops and get Vandamn in trouble.

The lines in the scene are virtual in the scene and the lines are kept the same in the frames and between each frames. The lines are very straight, vertical, and do not change much. The shapes are also the same in the frames, very square and never change. The space is deep with all the people in the room but very limited because the camera cannot capture anything but inside the room. The rhythm is very slow throughout the scene because they are acting very calm. Vandamn and Thornhill are talking very slow, and if you notice they are in an auction room, but the auctioneer is talking very slow as well, which you never hear auctioneers talking slow. There is very limited movement during this scene. The only moving during the scene is at the beginning, when Thornhill exits the cab and walks into the building, then leaves at the end of the scene. Most of the movement in the scene is eye contacts. The character's eyes are always shifting during the scene.

Most of the lines, shapes, and movement have affinity in theme in this scene where they all stay the same. I would say the whole time during the scene you would be using conscious thinking. The tension builds when Thornhill starts calling out Vandamn and it gets released when he mentions how he would be safe with the police and walks away. The text within the scene is the literal words that the characters are saying, and the subtext is at the beginning of the scene, Vandamn has his hand around Eve's neck symbolizing that he has his grasp on her and he is in control over whatever she does.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

blog #6 animation deconstruction



     For this assignment I chose the cartoon Spongebob Sqaurepants. Usually in this cartoon they use very bright hues because it's generally a happy cartoon, nothing ever goes wrong except the usual Plankton trying to steal the Krabby Patty recipe. The hues in the first picture they chose were bright yellows, purples, and greens because  the characters don't have a care in the world. They're just floating around blowing bubbles so they used these hues to create happiness. The second picture however, something tragic happens. Spongebob and Patrick take a train to a foreign place called Rock Bottom that is very scary and unknown to them and they can't figure out how to get back home. For this they still use the characters hues of pink and yellow, but they are faded. The background is very dark and uses grays and blacks.
     The brightness and saturation are very different in these two photos. The first one is very bright and doesn't use any dark colors at all because it is a happy scene. The second photo uses all dark colors (besides the characters), but even the characters' bright colors are very desaturated and faded out.
     They don't really use any shadows in Spongebob, but if they were to put shadows in these scenes there would be a lot more shadows in the second picture to resemble darkness and that they are in a scary place. The symbolism of the colors is that the darker colors resemble the scary, foreign place they are in. In the first picture the bright colors symbolize happiness which also puts you in these moods when you watch these specific scenes.
     In the first picture the movements are very diagonal as opposed to the second picture all the lines are going parallel. There aren't many things in each scene so there are not many overlapping movements. The weight in the first picture I would consider light because it is using very easy colors to look at. The second picture is more contrasting with the different colors.
    

blog #5 storyboard imitation.



     It's hard to tell if the director followed the 180 degree rule because the shots are very short and limited. Each shot is a somewhere new and with new actors. You can tell one place where he broke the 180 degree rule is in the second scene. When he shot the blue car, he shot it from the back end, then the very next shot you see the front end. It's confusing because one second the car is traveling away from you and the next it's coming toward you.
     The director did follow the rule of thirds. He always has what he wants you to pay attention to in the right third. Whenever there is a car in the scene it's either traveling from the right third, going to the right third, or sitting in the right third. Sometimes he does break it and puts the characters right in the middle of the shot, but the scenes aren't supposed to be about the characters, you're supposed to be paying attention to the cars. 
     It's hard to decide whether the 30 degree rule is followed in this commercial because the shots are so short and limited. It seems like there are a few jump cuts in the commercial because there are some spots that it feels awkward, but the commercial and shots are short enough that they wouldn't be noticeable to a regular viewer.
     If you pay attention to this commercial, the scenes that have multiple shots in them do seem awkward because they either have jump cuts or the example when the director broke the 180 degree rule. Overall I think the director did not pay attention to these rules when he was shooting a commercial unless there are different rules for car commercials. 

Storyboards.





Overhead storyboard







blog #4 song deconstruction

For the song deconstruction song I chose two songs by Local Natives.

"Wide Eyes" by Local Natives

Listening Phase One:
Tempo: Vivace (lively and fast)
Source: Drums, bass guitar, lead guitar.
Groove: The groove is definitely coming from the clicks of the drums constantly going throughout the song.

Listening Phase Two:
Instrumentation: Drums, two guitars, distorted bass guitar.
Structure Organization: The song gets more intense as it goes on.
Emotional Architecture: The song keeps building with more things going on as the song goes on.

Listening Phase Three:
Height: varies, the guitar is very high but the distorted bass is very low.
Width: no panning.
Depth: five layers of instruments playing different things at the same time, makes the song very loud.


"Who Knows Who Cares" by Local Natives

Listening Phase One:
Tempo: Adagietto (Rather Slow) 
Source: drums, bass
Groove: The groove is coming from the drums and keyboards.

Listening Phase Two:
Instrumentation: drums, two guitars, bass guitar, keyboards.
Structure Organization: The song gets more intense as it goes on.
Emotional Architecture: The song starts of very slow and then ends up rather fast towards the end.

Listening Phase Three:
Height: high
Width: no panning.
Depth: song starts off with very few layers then ends with a lot.

    Between the two songs, I definitely like Wide Eyes better because it has a lot more going on in the song, there are many layers, and there is a constant drive behind the song. I purposely used the live performance for the second song because it shows you how many layers they use and personally I like the live version better even though the song quality is less impressive than the real version of the song. Another reason I like the live version is because you can actually see the audience's reaction to the song and what the musicians are putting into the song while they are playing it.
     With both songs I don't think the lyrics are the main focus. I've been listening to these two songs for over a year now and still don't know all the words which is rare. Your attention is drawn more with what the instruments are doing. After looking up the lyrics, I like "Who Knows Who Cares" better because the lyrics are more relatable. The lyrics in "Wide Eyes" don't really make sense.
     I feel like "Who Knows Who Cares" is the anthem of Local Native's album. It's slower than most of their songs but it still has a drive to it. "Wide Eyes" is considered their single for their album and is more upbeat than the rest of the songs.
     My favorite parts of both songs would be the lead guitar. I like the clean sound it has opposed to the distorted bass in "Wide Eyes." Each song multiple guitars playing unique guitar riffs the whole time, both using the clean sound that you expect from Local Natives. Another thing I like in both songs are the drive of the drums. The drummer does not use typical drum patterns in any of their songs, so during the song you never tune-out the drums, they are always obvious and present whenever they are playing.
     Overall "Wide Eyes" would be my favorite out of the two. Using unique instrumentation and multiple layers of all instruments keeps my attention on the song and I haven't gotten sick of hearing it yet.