http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/45.02.FreakFactor
"The Freak Factor: Discovering Your Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness" by David Rendall is an insightful look at your personal strengths and weaknesses. Weakness is considered to be a flaw, or something that is wrong with you and a strength is considered to be a powerful trait you possess. However, Rendall explains to us that a weakness is also a powerful trait we possess but unfortunately it is frowned upon. Rendall tells us to work with both of our strengths and weaknesses to reach highest potential without being mediocre at everything. The three suggestions I found most interesting were numbers three, six, and nine.
Number three was the most compelling suggestion because I never really looked at strengths having a reciprocal . So after I read his strengths/weaknesses, I thought of some others. If your weakness is worrying, you are most likely cautious and if your weakness is slow, you are most likely precise. The two strengths and weaknesses Rendall mentioned that I found most interesting were patient/indecisive and reflective/shy. I found these most interesting because I have noticed these strengths and weaknesses in people and in myself. I am a fairly shy person the first time I meet someone, (Rendall talks about don’t try to fix your weaknesses in suggestion four but I do think being shy is a weakness you should work on because you end up holding yourself back if you don’t) but after awhile I loosen up. On the contrary, I realize I am a very reflective person which causes me to be a patient person, but at the same time I have become very indecisive because I think about each end of the spectrum and their consequences before I make a sound decision. Which takes entirely way longer than it should.
Suggestion six “Focus: You Can’t Do Both” was another engaging slide. The thing I liked most about suggestion six was the “Freak Fallacy: I need to be well rounded” and the “Freak Factor: No one will pay you for being mediocre”. I think this is completely true. In our study, its good to know a little bit about everything. Know how to work audio, know how to work lighting, know how to work set, know how to do programs, know principles of photography, know principles of multimedia. Be able to speak the lingo, but be able to shine in at least one of these areas. Our whole education is centered around a major that we chose so we can gain the knowledge to create our ideas. So along the way to graduation, take classes that you will benefit from that will help you create your most ultimate work in an area you need to be exceptional in. For me, video production. I chose video production so I must now understand everything I am doing or every class I’m taking will and should correlate to my major and I will learn from it so I can become exceptional in my field of study.
Number nine was my third favorite suggestion. The sub-suggestions I liked most about “Freak Factor: Putting Your Quirks to Work” was number 2 “Engage in permanent procrastination”. I like number two because I think it is truthful. If you are forcing yourself to like something, and telling yourself to do it while pretending to like it...its a total waste of time. There is no reason to forcefully pretend to like something or do it. It is also a waste of valuable time that you could be putting towards something you are interested in. For example, I keep telling myself to get involved with AVW but when I look at the projects I just think they are cheesy and cliche, (not trying to be offensive, just a personal opinion), and I think the material they are producing does not meet college-level expectation. So instead, I shouldn’t participate in something I don’t like, I should find a group of people or organization that I share similar interest with so I can work with something I do like.
After doing blogs concerning strengths and weaknesses, ideas, and “acknowledging the lizard” I have come to believe my biggest weakness in “the creative process” is being timid. When it comes to creating with other individuals in a group, I don’t usually express my ideas until there is a window of opportunity. I’m not exactly sure why I don’t mention my ideas. I’m not afraid of critique but it may be directed towards a lack of confidence (?). Sometimes in groups I tend to believe that other people have better ideas than mine but if I don’t voice my exact opinion, I will never know. I need to start doing this and I think with the start of media 240 in spring quarter, I will have to.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Blog 9A
Our group received an 83% on the game design project “O.U. Oh No!” which, honestly, is completely reasonable. As a whole, we were not as prepared as we should have been and we were not very thorough. We understood our game design but we did a poor job explaining our game design to the class. If it was not for the character drawings, we would have had a very boring presentation and the audience would have a general idea of our concept. We should have also made clear who our game design was meant for and what demographic. We failed to mention our game was an online game, played by college students, free, and meant for advertisers to invest in it. As a whole, I think our group needed to explain the RULES and OBJECTIVES of our game to make our presentation stronger and to get our point across.
Objectives:
A major weakness in our presentation was explaining the game’s objectives. Our challenge was putting our ideas into words. More visual references of each level and the map in its entirety would have helped explain our game much better. Although it is difficult to put your ideas in words or an image, being able to do so will separate you from other groups/people and make your creation unconcealed. In order to make our objectives more clear, we should have drawn out each map and we should have drawn a game interface so the audience would be able to grasp our concept in a visual standpoint.
Rules:
Another major weakness our group had during the presentation was explaining the rules. We intended to explain to the audience the procedures and delimiters of the game. Unfortunately, we explained them vaguely and did not provide examples. For procedures, we said the player has three chances to pass each test that comes there way and if the do not, they get caught by the police of knocked out from a fight. What we forgot to mention was how do you encounter these tests. Without including examples, the ill-defined rules added to our generalized game design. We should have said,
“In one level, you will get into a fight. If you manage to lose your balance or get hit a certain amount of times you will get one of your chances taken away. If you happen to fail three times, youwill have to restart the level.”
For delimiters, we should have better explained the restrictions placed on the character. The character is weighted so you have to constantly be using the left and right arrow keys to keep your character walking straight. If he/she falls over you will get a strike and if you get three, you will have to pass the test.
In conclusion, using visuals and in-depth explanations, our group would have been able to make clear of our game design, our group would have earned a better grade, and our group would have been able to explain all aspects of our game design to our audience.
Objectives:
A major weakness in our presentation was explaining the game’s objectives. Our challenge was putting our ideas into words. More visual references of each level and the map in its entirety would have helped explain our game much better. Although it is difficult to put your ideas in words or an image, being able to do so will separate you from other groups/people and make your creation unconcealed. In order to make our objectives more clear, we should have drawn out each map and we should have drawn a game interface so the audience would be able to grasp our concept in a visual standpoint.
Rules:
Another major weakness our group had during the presentation was explaining the rules. We intended to explain to the audience the procedures and delimiters of the game. Unfortunately, we explained them vaguely and did not provide examples. For procedures, we said the player has three chances to pass each test that comes there way and if the do not, they get caught by the police of knocked out from a fight. What we forgot to mention was how do you encounter these tests. Without including examples, the ill-defined rules added to our generalized game design. We should have said,
“In one level, you will get into a fight. If you manage to lose your balance or get hit a certain amount of times you will get one of your chances taken away. If you happen to fail three times, youwill have to restart the level.”
For delimiters, we should have better explained the restrictions placed on the character. The character is weighted so you have to constantly be using the left and right arrow keys to keep your character walking straight. If he/she falls over you will get a strike and if you get three, you will have to pass the test.
In conclusion, using visuals and in-depth explanations, our group would have been able to make clear of our game design, our group would have earned a better grade, and our group would have been able to explain all aspects of our game design to our audience.
Blog 8B
Lena Al-Hashemi and Joe Battaglia did not have their animation projects posted at the time I was doing my blog critique. I emailed you on March 1st.
Adrian Andrade and James Watson’s animations are most noticed by their use of COLOR. Adrian’s superhero, Eric Williams, used two different primary HUES, blue and yellow. These colors aren’t exactly split complementary but when they are used together it gives the character an energetic feel. It also SUBCONSCIOUSLY makes the character seem enthusiastic, alert, and authoritative.
James Watson’s villain is colored with two different tints of purple. The villain’s looting bag is a SATURATED purple and the villain’s hat has an average purple tint. The diamond he is holding is blue, roughly the same color as the superhero. The purple on the villain is analogous to the super hero’s blue outfit which makes the villain seem less intimidating and less destructive. However, he is clearly noted as a bad guy because the purple looting bag is complementary to the yellow on the super hero’s cape. This subconsciously shows that super hero and the villain CONTRAST each other.
Another part of the color scheme I found interesting was how the diamond was colored blue, similar to the super hero’s suit. This tells the viewer that the diamond was stolen and belongs to the good guys. The purple on the villain delivers a different mood than the blue of the superhero but also complements from the super hero’s yellow cloak showing the difference of the two characters. The blue diamond is the variable in the drawing that subconsciously tells the viewer’s each character’s motivations. The bad guy stole from the good guys and the super hero must retrieve it.
Adrian Andrade and James Watson’s animations are most noticed by their use of COLOR. Adrian’s superhero, Eric Williams, used two different primary HUES, blue and yellow. These colors aren’t exactly split complementary but when they are used together it gives the character an energetic feel. It also SUBCONSCIOUSLY makes the character seem enthusiastic, alert, and authoritative.
James Watson’s villain is colored with two different tints of purple. The villain’s looting bag is a SATURATED purple and the villain’s hat has an average purple tint. The diamond he is holding is blue, roughly the same color as the superhero. The purple on the villain is analogous to the super hero’s blue outfit which makes the villain seem less intimidating and less destructive. However, he is clearly noted as a bad guy because the purple looting bag is complementary to the yellow on the super hero’s cape. This subconsciously shows that super hero and the villain CONTRAST each other.
Another part of the color scheme I found interesting was how the diamond was colored blue, similar to the super hero’s suit. This tells the viewer that the diamond was stolen and belongs to the good guys. The purple on the villain delivers a different mood than the blue of the superhero but also complements from the super hero’s yellow cloak showing the difference of the two characters. The blue diamond is the variable in the drawing that subconsciously tells the viewer’s each character’s motivations. The bad guy stole from the good guys and the super hero must retrieve it.
Blog 7
The two videos we made were from my script, Tony Pepperoni, the Meatball Lovin’ Son of a Bitch and Justin Matzen’s Toy Train. Both scripts followed a similar guideline but each writer included their own personal twist. For example, I added a flashback and Justin added a father into his script. Both scripts show CONTRAST and AFFINITY.
AFFINITY between the two videos are in MOVEMENT. The movement is similar because the only movement in the video is of the character because we were not aloud to use camera movements. In Tony Pepperoni, the shot of the mother stirring the pot while Tony plays with his train is an example of simple movement because they are only using there arms to move. The mother is moving her arm in a curvilinear direction and the son is moving his arm in a horizontal direction. In Both videos, when the son is being reprimanded, the mother is walking and flailing her arms showing an example of complex movement because several parts of her body are moving in different directions at different rates. Another similarity is that both videos are DIDACTIVE. There is no information you need to figure out for yourself.
CONTRAST between the two videos are in the SHAPE. Both of the mother’s in the videos had square faces, but the shape of the boy’s faces were different. The mother’s had square faces to show power. This was also SUBCONSCIOUSLY shown by camera angle. The difference of shape was shown in the boy playing with a train. In Tony Pepperoni, Tony had a circular face so he seems less harmful even though he is getting into trouble and swearing. In Justin’s video, the boy playing with the train has a triangular face to differentiate himself from his mother. This subconsciously shows how he is the antagonist. He also appears to be a troublesome character because of his triangular face.
Tony Pepperoni, The Meatball Lovin' Son of a Bitch
Toy Train
AFFINITY between the two videos are in MOVEMENT. The movement is similar because the only movement in the video is of the character because we were not aloud to use camera movements. In Tony Pepperoni, the shot of the mother stirring the pot while Tony plays with his train is an example of simple movement because they are only using there arms to move. The mother is moving her arm in a curvilinear direction and the son is moving his arm in a horizontal direction. In Both videos, when the son is being reprimanded, the mother is walking and flailing her arms showing an example of complex movement because several parts of her body are moving in different directions at different rates. Another similarity is that both videos are DIDACTIVE. There is no information you need to figure out for yourself.
CONTRAST between the two videos are in the SHAPE. Both of the mother’s in the videos had square faces, but the shape of the boy’s faces were different. The mother’s had square faces to show power. This was also SUBCONSCIOUSLY shown by camera angle. The difference of shape was shown in the boy playing with a train. In Tony Pepperoni, Tony had a circular face so he seems less harmful even though he is getting into trouble and swearing. In Justin’s video, the boy playing with the train has a triangular face to differentiate himself from his mother. This subconsciously shows how he is the antagonist. He also appears to be a troublesome character because of his triangular face.
Tony Pepperoni, The Meatball Lovin' Son of a Bitch
Toy Train
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
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