Freak Factor
In David Rendall's "Freak Factor," his main message is to accentuate your freak factor. Let your freak flag fly. Accentuate the positive in you, and eliminate the negative. In most aspects, he's right; why focus on what's wrong with you instead of harnessing and being proud of what you're good at. Some are good at sports, but excel in art or music. Some excel in academics and suck at sports. Some are good at sports and academics, but have no creativity. What Rendall is saying is if you've found something you're good at, your strengths, spending your time strengthening your strengths is more valuable then trying to fix your weaknesses.
2. What's my problem?
Here, Rendall's explains that why dwell on your flaws or weaknesses, when you have the ability to use these flaws to your advantage. In questioning your weaknesses, you're viewing yourself in a negative way, when you can channel these weaknesses into something productive. Like he says, being talkative could be seen as a negative quality in a person, but rather than working on learning how to not be talkative, use this quality to your advantage; be a stand up comedian, be a talk show host, be a professional speaker. Sometimes people with ADHD see it as being a flaw to themselves, but those with high energy can definitely be put to use better than people with low energy.
4. Forget It: Don’t Try to Fix Your Weaknesses
I don't completely agree with this point. In most situations, it is more beneficial to concentrate on enhancing your strengths rather than working on your weaknesses. However, I think it would be a good idea for someone who's an asshole to spend some time trying to not be an asshole, while balancing their time working on their strengths...so this isn't entirely true. Then again, assholes finish first. If Mark Zuckerberg wasn't such an asshole, he wouldn't be where he is today...like before he's utilizing one of his flaws to be beneficial to him.
6. Focus: You Can’t Do Both
I believe this is true. Personally, I'd rather be super good at something and not work to be good at something I suck at. I see no point. Maybe others don't but if you think about it, it makes no sense. Many artists have horrible addiction problems, but instead of trying to perfect their art while working on their addictive personality, their art becomes even stronger as its focused on more. That's how rock stars are known. Many have died but they've made history. If they had spent all their time working on their flaws, they wouldn't have produced their music in such an epic way. Besides, like Rendall says, what would you enjoy more: strengthening your strengths, or working on a weakness. Focusing on your strengths is just going to make you feel better overall than being miserable trying to fix your weaknesses.
As for me, sometimes I wish I was better at more of the different media outlets we have learned in class. I'm not very good with animation, and I don't play videogames, but I really enjoyed creating soundscapes and using garageband and recording software. But I guess I feel better about myself thinking maybe I have more strengths where someone else has weaknesses, but I respect others have strengths where I have weaknesses.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Collapsus
Collapsus.com
As technology progresses, forms of media have been woven and combined together to create truly unique experiences for their users. In other words, trans-media is becoming a more prevalent form of media. Today, we can combine plots, storylines, interaction, animation, fictional, and non-fictional elements to create new forms of media. By doing this, involvement in the story and how applicable it is creates something an audience or user can connect to on another level. Media is no longer limited to single forms, or single outlets. They are combining and intertwining, and Collapsus is doing just these things.
Collapsus is an interactive transmedia piece developed by Tommy Pallota. Its design's purpose was to allow the user an interactive look into the future, particularly the near future and what will become of the energy crisis. The user sees the possibility of how the energy crisis may cause mankind to look to alternative energy sources for energy rather than fossil fuels. What's interesting is through the interaction of the user and the piece, the story line goes between fact and fiction. And yet, the fictional characters in the piece can be applied/mimic people in real life experiencing the current energy crisis. The fictional aspects of the piece, however, are realistic examples of what could be the world to come. I believe this is what makes the piece more powerful to whoever is experiencing it.
At the beginning of the quarter, I never took a step back and looked at what exactly we were doing. We aren't simply making an animation, a song, a video. Now, an animation can be combined with music and audio; the same goes for videos. I think we have built up how we began to combine types of media into more complex forms of media. Beginning with our soundscape, we then created songs, video jokescripts, then videos with audio and music, then animations. Finally we've created a video game, and even though we simply came up with the concept, the video game combined all of these elements. It's interesting how Palotta has combined forms of media outlets that are out of the ordinary, such as animating what is already captured on film, and then combining that with interaction such as in a video game. The more individual elements of media, the more creativity comes out, and the more the content hits closer to home.
As technology progresses, forms of media have been woven and combined together to create truly unique experiences for their users. In other words, trans-media is becoming a more prevalent form of media. Today, we can combine plots, storylines, interaction, animation, fictional, and non-fictional elements to create new forms of media. By doing this, involvement in the story and how applicable it is creates something an audience or user can connect to on another level. Media is no longer limited to single forms, or single outlets. They are combining and intertwining, and Collapsus is doing just these things.
Collapsus is an interactive transmedia piece developed by Tommy Pallota. Its design's purpose was to allow the user an interactive look into the future, particularly the near future and what will become of the energy crisis. The user sees the possibility of how the energy crisis may cause mankind to look to alternative energy sources for energy rather than fossil fuels. What's interesting is through the interaction of the user and the piece, the story line goes between fact and fiction. And yet, the fictional characters in the piece can be applied/mimic people in real life experiencing the current energy crisis. The fictional aspects of the piece, however, are realistic examples of what could be the world to come. I believe this is what makes the piece more powerful to whoever is experiencing it.
At the beginning of the quarter, I never took a step back and looked at what exactly we were doing. We aren't simply making an animation, a song, a video. Now, an animation can be combined with music and audio; the same goes for videos. I think we have built up how we began to combine types of media into more complex forms of media. Beginning with our soundscape, we then created songs, video jokescripts, then videos with audio and music, then animations. Finally we've created a video game, and even though we simply came up with the concept, the video game combined all of these elements. It's interesting how Palotta has combined forms of media outlets that are out of the ordinary, such as animating what is already captured on film, and then combining that with interaction such as in a video game. The more individual elements of media, the more creativity comes out, and the more the content hits closer to home.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Character Design
The video is in Yuxi's blog post
This is Yuxi's animation
Color
Although the hero and villain in the animation outfits with colors that are not completely opposites on the color wheel, they contrast with their hue, saturation, and value. The hero's outfit is a brighter, less saturated outfit, with minimal value. This keeps him brighter, and allows the viewer/ tells the viewer he is the good guy or hero. In contrast, the colors in the villain's outfit have a stronger saturation. The hues of his outfit are blue/purple...and combined with the saturation is a deeper value, which makes him appear more grey and dark. This subconsciously tells the viewer he is the hero's nemesis.
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