Blog Assignment 10:

In this article, Rendall tries to give the reader suggestions that will help them “discover uniqueness by flaunting weakness.”As is the case with most of these articles, I disagree with the majority of the points that are trying to be made. The three suggestions that I thought were the least valid were 3, 6, and 8.

3: Pretty much this entire article seems to be ideas that he seems to think support his point but in reality do not support it at all. One example in this point is when he is talking about the man who used to be addicted but “turned his life around.” What he seems to be trying to suggest is that any weakness can become a strength in any person. He tries to support this by using the example of one man who just happened to get clean from drugs. In no way does this support his claim that all weaknesses are or should be strengths. He even diminishes it even further when he says that the man proceeded to lose everything again because of his addiction to something else. Just because his addiction is now in something other than drugs doesn’t mean that it’s positive and should be considered a strength.

6: I think something that is blatantly wrong with this point is the fact that he strives so hard to emphasize that strengths and weaknesses are connected and related to each other, and then treats them in completely different ways. He says that if you focus on your weaknesses then it will diminish your strengths, but acts as if the opposite is not true. He doesn’t try to support it in any way he just assumes you won’t question the idea that if you focus on your strengths then your weaknesses will becomes larger.

8: Once again I think this point is an example of something that he seems to think supports his point but in reality, it does nothing of the sort. If you just take a step back and look at how he is trying to compare (in order to support his argument) a failed architectural attempt, to the farthest stretches of human personality, it just seems a little ridiculous.

As for my own creative strengths and weaknesses, I have definitely discovered some of my own after being in this class. First off, I would say my greatest strength is working by myself, and therefore my greatest weakness is collaborating with others. Every time during the class that I worked with others, (all but once) I felt like my creativity was being held back. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the people I was working with, but rather that many of my ideas were so different than what the others collectively wanted to go with that my ideas weren’t incorporated as much. The one time that I was able to work by myself however (animation project), I felt much better about my final product. I wasn’t able to complete the animations to the degree I would have wished (mostly because of time restraints) but I was definitely able to make them represent what I had in mind.

Freak Factor by David Rendall

Blog Assignment 9B:

Audio Critique

Collapsus

Blog Assignment 9A:

I think that overall we got across most of the points that we were intending when we gave our presentation. I think the one thing we could have improved upon is getting across the point of how isolated the player would feel playing the game. We tried to give that impression when talking about the ambient music but I don’t feel it completely got the point across.

I think the best thing we could have done to get this point across better would be to have actual examples for the kind of music and the kinds of sounds that would be used. Actually hearing these very deep sounds would make the isolation appear much greater that way.

One thing I think we got across strongly was that it would be fun to play. The premise of the game wasn’t entirely original, but the humorous design choices for some of the characters seemed to have people laughing a bit.

I think that mechanics are the easiest of those 4 things to talk about. All of the other 3 things are highly dependant on the plot, and if that isn’t completely clear then those other things become more difficult to understand. The mechanics however are completely independent of the plot. They can be easily explained with not only a simple description, but more than likely a video can be found that shows similar mechanics to that of which you are trying to create in your own game.

Blog Assignment 8B:

#1: Mary Swick

Mary’s hero and villain were Finnigan Strongjaw and Sinastra Pikespear. She did and excellent job of using contrast and affinity to differentiate between the hero and the villain. The villain looks much more evil than the hero making the difference easily noticeable. The villain is also much pointier, which usually is symbolic of evil. The villain is also much more shadowed and darker which continues to add to that effect, as well as that of the mood. The evil eyebrows and the curled pointy finger also create a sort of subconscious sense of evil that helps differentiate between the hero and villain.

#2: Michael Garrett

Michael also made good use of contrast and affinity for his hero and villain. The villain is much more sinister looking and includes much darker colors so that you can easily tell which one is which. The shadow on the villain helps add to a much darker mood, something that is not seen on the drawing of the hero. The spikes on the villains outfit are also very likely symbolic of evil. As with Mary’s villain, the spikes on Michael’s villain also create a subconscious sense of evil in the character helping to differentiate between the two.

#3: Michael Mulig

There weren’t any pictures included in the post, but from what I can tell from the animations these characters also used contrast and affinity in order to differentiate themselves. The hero was bright green and the villain was very dark hues of red. The villain is also significantly less bright as well as less saturated which adds to his look of evil. The animations also give a pretty objective idea of who is the hero and who is the villain. In the hero’s animation you see the hero helping out a child, and in the villain’s animation you witness him stealing a jewel and (possily?) killing a person.

Blog Assignment 8A:

FLIGHT:

This American Life: Act 1

I couldn't get the audio to embed so here is a direct link to my audio.

Characters:

Villain:

Hero:

Blog Assignment 7

I used the video posted here to compare to our video.

When it comes to the talking about space in the two videos, you pretty much couldn’t be more opposite. Our video was very closed in the entire time, even when outside. All of the inside scenes were in pretty narrow spaces. When we did go outside there was always something behind the characters so it was still a fairly flat shot. On the other video however there were quite a lot of outdoor shots that gave the video an overall very open feel.

The use of shape in the videos was also present, but in different ways. In our video, shape was used more in the toys that Jimmy was playing with. The train was rather round, and so was the small ball he was playing with. Both of these shapes represent a sort of innocence from being a child. In the other video shape was also used to depict the characters but rather than being done by toys, it was done in the face shape. The male characters face was more of a round shape, which once again gives an impression of innocence.

Both of our videos also make use of tension and release, however in different ways. Our video really messes with tension throughout the entire video. Whenever Jimmy curses it creates a bit of tension as he is just a young kid and the mother doesn’t want him speaking that way. You get a bit of release when the mother interjects but then right away you get more tension when she starts using the language herself. The other video uses tension in a much more linear way. It just builds more and more as you realize that the girl might not be as nice as she seems.

Our videos also made use of contrast and affinity. Our video for the most part made use of affinity between the mother and son, mostly in their language used. The other video on the other hand made use of contrast between the characters, which was made more apparent by initially creating a false sense of affinity between them.