Collapsus is a rather interesting "piece" of media. It is actually a tran-media work, which basically mean it is spread out/told over multiple forms of media. The main concept of Collapsus is; it's the story of 10 different people going through/trying to change life in a world in an imminent energy crisis. it gives information about the energy crisis. But, the most interesting thing about Collapsus is it's being spread in different media. The story is told through simple animations, actual video clips, and even interactive elements such a managing a country's debt, energy and happiness.
I really like the idea of tran-media work. It allows the work to appeal to multiple demographics Honestly, before watching I always thought that different types of media could be used together well, but this showed me just how well mixing media can increase the impact of something. When your just watching something the impact is partially limited, but when you can interact with what you watch, you're taken to a whole new level of immersion. Before I always sort of imagined anything I worked on, while it may be part a bigger whole it's still a separate piece and I always imagined it separately, but now I realize that the truly important thing is how well it interacts with with all the other pieces, not just how well it stands as a single thing.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
A Response to Karim Rashid's Manifesto, and My Own Personal Manifesto
Chappy's Guide to a Creative and Happy Life:
1. Never, ever forget your inner child. Who was it who came up with all of the games of pretend games you played with friends? Who was it who was able to turn a toy T-Rex into the real thing?
2. Always take the chance for a break. Constantly working on something stresses the mind, and a mind that is stressed cannot work as smoothly or as clearly as one that isn't.
3. Don't always rely on someone else to do things for you. Sometimes you need to try out all possibilities for
yourself to find the right answer.
4. Don't be afraid to rely on others though. Doing things for yourself is a good way to learn and better yourself, but there are times when you will need help. When you've exhausted all other options you can think of, ask someone else.
5. Never give up. Even if you've done all you can, and someone else can't help either, keep it up. Never abandon something you've started.
6. Don't be afraid to daydream from time to time. Sometimes it's better to just let our minds wander than to keep them focus on one thing. New idea's and possibilities can be born this way.
7. Every idea is unique, just because it's something similar to what someone else has thought up before don't mean it's bad, it's always possible to add your own spin to something.
8. Don't always try to start with something new, sometimes it's better to take something old and make something new of it.
9. Always have an open mind, an idea can come from the strangest of places at the strangest of times.
10. Don't try to stifle your own personal way of doing things to fit in, embrace what you do and be proud of it.
1. Never, ever forget your inner child. Who was it who came up with all of the games of pretend games you played with friends? Who was it who was able to turn a toy T-Rex into the real thing?
2. Always take the chance for a break. Constantly working on something stresses the mind, and a mind that is stressed cannot work as smoothly or as clearly as one that isn't.
3. Don't always rely on someone else to do things for you. Sometimes you need to try out all possibilities for
yourself to find the right answer.
4. Don't be afraid to rely on others though. Doing things for yourself is a good way to learn and better yourself, but there are times when you will need help. When you've exhausted all other options you can think of, ask someone else.
5. Never give up. Even if you've done all you can, and someone else can't help either, keep it up. Never abandon something you've started.
6. Don't be afraid to daydream from time to time. Sometimes it's better to just let our minds wander than to keep them focus on one thing. New idea's and possibilities can be born this way.
7. Every idea is unique, just because it's something similar to what someone else has thought up before don't mean it's bad, it's always possible to add your own spin to something.
8. Don't always try to start with something new, sometimes it's better to take something old and make something new of it.
9. Always have an open mind, an idea can come from the strangest of places at the strangest of times.
10. Don't try to stifle your own personal way of doing things to fit in, embrace what you do and be proud of it.
Each of Karim's items brings up a good point, but one of that draws my attention the most is this one: "Before giving birth to anything physical, ask yourself if you have created an original idea, an original concept, and if there is any real value in what you disseminate."
The reason this one gets my attention so much is because I really believe that it's wrong. Like I said in my manifesto, if you create something, and don't just blatantly copy it, you've added your own twist to it somehow and therefore it is unique, which is what is really important, not being original. Also, I don't think that all things we create have to have an actual value, sometimes we need to create something just to be able to create, chances are if we do that it will have some kind of value on it's own, such as just giving us the feeling of having done it.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Respose to Freak Factor
Freak Factor by David Rendall
The main point of David Rendalls manifesto is that everyone is a “freak”. Basically, we all have strengths and weaknesses that make us different from everyone else, but we shouldn’t try to fix our weaknesses, we should try to build off our strengths. And even then, sometimes, a weakness can just be a strength that hasn’t been given the opportunity to shine.
One of the things David lists that I like is the 5th item in the manifesto “Foundation: Build on your Strengths”. The main idea of this is that we should build up the strengths we have. One, because we enjoy doing this we are “strong’ at and if we increase our strengths we can make up for weaknesses. I just really like this idea, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. I know I’ve got a lot of weaknesses and I ‘ve been wondering what to do about all of them and if I should try to fix them in hopes of improving my chances of getting a job later in life, but this made me rethink things. Maybe I should just focus on becoming the best at what I can do right now. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about something that I don’t like doing in the small hope that it will help me later when the stress it could cause me now could have a bigger negative impact than not doing It at all.
Another one of the parts of David’s manifesto that I liked was the 5th item in the manifesto “Focus: you can’t do both”. This is mainly because this is of what I talked about in the last bit, focusing on multiple things can be stressful, and if one of those multiple things is also something you’re not good at it’s even worse. Some may think that it’s better to be a jack of all trades so you can do anything you want, but unless you are superhuman, you are not going to be exceptional at what you do, I would guess average at best. Like I said before, recently I had been thinking that maybe it would be better to be a jack of all trades, but before that I had always tried to do something one step at a time. I liked to focus on one thing and get really good at that.
I think the one piece from the manifesto that I like the most was the 3rd one “Flawless: there’s nothing wrong with you”. I just like the concept that for every weakness someone has, they also have a corresponding strength. And, after reading it, I have to think that David is right. Having given it a bit of though, most the parallels he lists makes perfect sense and some even fit me perfectly. For example, one he lists is the strength of being reflective, but the weakness of being shy. I’m honestly a bit more than shy, I’m terrified of social interaction so much I think a may actually have a phobia, but I’m also very inward thinking and I always go over past events in my head.
When it comes to my own weaknesses and strengths, I like to think I’m a very creative person, and while I like to be organized, things usually don’t end up that way for me. I also a very humble person who downplays basically everything I do. I don’t like having other people look over my stuff. Honestly I probably shouldn’t mind this because I’m actually more critical of myself than other people are, but I think that it’s linked to my fear of social interaction so there isn’t much I can do about it.
Hero/Villain Reflection
The first villain/hero I'm critiquing is Gretchen Kessler's
With Gretchen’s Characters it is very easy to tell who is the hero and the villain because of the Color used with them. While the characters do have an affinity to them because they both have a similar Hue, specifically blue, that is the only way, the rest is contrast. For example, the brightness of Aqua girls costume shows us that she is the hero. The saturation of her costume helps accentuate the brighter blue. Evaporation Girl’s costume, on the other hand, is a darker blue and appears to be mixed with a bit of black. The specific way the saturation of her costume is set up gives the impression that she is the villain.
Something else that helps contrast the two of them are the body types and physical appearance. Aqua girl looks rather human with a pinkish skin tone and a human shaped body. Evaporation Girl though, has a much paler complexion, which to me makes me think of someone who spends a lot of time in the dark and gives off a hint of being evil as well. Along with the complexion, her body type seems much stranger than that of Aqua girl. Her feet are strangely shaped and, to me at least, appear to give her a more fluid like shape. All of this combined gives her a feel of something not quite human, and this helps contrast her to aqua girl and makes her feel a bit more like the villain between the two of them.
The second Hero/Villain I'm critiquing is Megan Kirn's
Megan’s villain and hero animations didn’t have than many color differences, but it was still easy to tell who the villain was and who the hero was because of the way their movement and actions. B-girl’s movement is much more fluid and relaxed; one to accentuate that fact that she dances a lot but also to give a sense of being easily approachable, as a hero should be. Her, smoother movements also gives a sense of a lighter weight to her movements as well. Handel’s honey on the other hand has a much stiffer movement and walk. This stiffness gives us an idea of what her personality is like. B-girls video also gives examples of overlapping-movement because, when the attacker jumps on screen, they are both moving at the same time.
There is a major amount of contrast between the two characters in the videos as well. One of the major examples is the fact that B-girl only acted in violence in self-defense while Handel’s Honey simply attacked someone without provocation. This also shows that characters as the villain and as the hero, the hero would never attack first, while a villain would do whatever they pleased. Now, while they are very different, they also have a bit of an affinity for each other. They both have a link to music, but even this leads to a contrast; B-girl likes music and actually uses it as a weapon, while Handel’s honey, while liking music, does not like the kind of music B-girl does, and actually destroys music.
The final Hero/Villain I'm critiquing is Katie Macks
Katie Mack’s characters are very easy to tell apart when it comes to who is the villain and who is not for a few reasons, but mainly it’s the color. It’s easy to see that Psycho is the villain because the hues used in his colors are much darker than that of Sonica. Specifically, Psycho has a mainly black and purple color scheme, which definitely shows his “evilness”. Also accentuating this is the purity of the colors; all of them are almost just that color, which in my opinion gives the idea that he is pure evil. This is in stark contrast to Sonica, who has a very vibrant and warm yellow color scheme. The blue of her gloves and boots simply accentuate the yellow of her costume.
There is actually an affinity between the two characters as well. Because each of the characters has a large amount of purity in the colors they use, it makes me think of it as a comparison between the pure good and pure evil. This kind of accentuates the link between these two characters
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