Blog Assignment 4A

http://changethis.com/

One of the layers for reinventing yourself is called Acknowledging the lizard. In this section Godin talks about a part of our brains that doesn’t like to be laughed at and doesn’t like being insecure or when we take risks. Godin says that this is the part of our brain that shuts down our art as he defines it. He calls this shutdown the resistance. Which is the voice in our heads that makes us keep our heads down and follow instructions and blend in. Godin explains further that the resistance was the voice involved when we were being brainwashed.  Godin goes on to tell us that in order to do work and create art it is important that we acknowledge that this part of our brain exists. It is known as the lizard and we have to choose to ignore it.

In the layer called Connect Godin explains that today social media is like a crack in the wall that stands between yourself and the rest of the world. He explains that digital media gives people a chance to make connections in a way that in the past was never possible. It lets the individual person have an opportunity to be heard and to get noticed by the world. He says we grew up isolated but the future is connected and we can interact with anyone and everyone. He says it changes everything.

These two layers for reinventing yourself are connected to this blog I am creating this quarter because making the blog is accentually a way of doing what Goden says to do in order to reinvent myself. By creating the blog I am acknowledging the lizard and ignoring it by not being afraid to create art and not letting that fear of failure prevent me from doing work. I am connecting with others and getting my name out in the world so people all over the world can know me and see my work. I think these blog assignments are a good exercise because they get me thinking and force me to be creative. They also make me a better artist because when I know my work can be seen by anyone online I want it to be the best I can make it. On the other hand I feel like we should have more freedom over what the blog assignments are about and there should not be so many of them. When there is to much work involved with something like this people stop worrying about quality and how much effort they put into each piece and instead start worrying about just getting it all done. So in the end the quality of the work suffers and we don’t  get as much out of the work as we should.

Song Project Critique

http://www.divshare.com/download/13927338-a2c

Soundscape Critique

http://www.divshare.com/download/13927337-4cd

video blog

Blog Assignment 3A

Please refer to the songs on the side bar to the right --->

Black Sabbath and Cake are two extremely different bands because of their style but also because of the period in history they are playing in. Originally Black Sabbath played the song War Pigs and then Cake covered the song and added their own style to it.

The first things to consider about the two versions of the song are the affinity of the lyrics between them. In fact the lyrics are identical in both of the versions. Also the lyrics are didactic in the way that they tell a story and feed the listener information. They paint a clear picture of what the song is about.

In Cakes cover of War Pigs the song is much more ordered then the original, which is chaotic. The organization of the song is important because it helps us hear and know the rhythm. The rhythm in Cakes version is regular. It is much easier to pick out and is apparent throughout the entire song. Where as Black Sabbath played the song so it was difficult to be able to pick out the rhythm. In the original version there were points where I thought the rhythm had changed and in other places the rhythm matched that of the cover song making it irregular.

            Another thing to look at between the songs is the speed or the tempo. I Black Sabbaths version of War Pigs the speed changes throughout the song and it is very noticeable. The speed changes are not small changes either they are rather large changes in speed. But over all the speed of the original is slower then the speed of Cakes version. Cake definitely speeds up the tempo of the song and stays pretty much constant through out. The song has a more energetic feel to it because it is faster and more exciting.

Timbre of the cover song was complex. There were more instruments and more sounds like the fire engine and the addition of the trumpet and the background singers. There was just more going on then in the original which had a lot of almost silent parts. The original version only had a few instruments playing at any given time, sometimes only one, which made the timbre simpler and made the song less noisy. This could be considered a good or a bad thing. Personally I think it make the song bore boring and harder to listen to.

So in short Cake speed up the tempo and the beat, kept the same lyrics, added instruments and sounds which made it more complex, they made the rhythm more defined, and the melody easier to pick out, they took out slow boring parts, and shortened the song, which made it easier to listen to all the way through. Cake did all of this for the song all while making the song seem more organized. In my opinion this all helped to make the song more interesting and just flat out better. I have always liked Cake and I have always liked War Pigs. So I would have to say that I like the cover more than the original. 

Sound scape

sorry I have a different version of power point and the demo on blackboard didnt help much I posted separate files for the power point, what I thought was the movie, and the actual sound scape.

http://www.divshare.com/download/13838934-34c

http://www.divshare.com/download/13838914-88d

http://www.divshare.com/download/13838930-26d

Assignment 3

http://changethis.com/
http://www.divshare.com/download/13801218-a83

Assignment week 1b

http://changethis.com/

In 14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas Mitch Ditkoff gives readers a “quick hitting tutorial of what you can do to conjure up brilliant ideas.” He starts by explaining that there are two schools of thought that deal with the subject of new and innovative ideas.  The first he tells is based on the origin of ideas being conjured up through “a series of purposeful mental processes”, by individuals, to create new and different ideas. The second he explains “ascribes the appearance of ideas to a transcendent force.” In this approach he says ideas are not created but already exist in some form of collective unconsciousness and all we have to do is dig the ideas up. Ditkoff goes on to give 14 different ways of getting good ideas. For the most part a lot of what he talks about is ways to keep and nurture ideas and ways to almost train your mind and get in the right mind set for ideas to come to you and to mature.

            One way of getting a breakthrough idea that Ditkoff gives is to “define the right challenge”.  By this he means that in order to get a break through answer you have to ask the right questions. You have to know what you want to discover and you have to know what you want.  He says you must spend time to frame your challenge in a meaningful way so you know exactly what the challenge is. He uses the metaphor of a GPS, saying that someone who does not define the right challenge before looking for a breakthrough answer is like someone who leaves on a trip without getting the right address to enter in the GPS. I think this is an especially good way of getting started at coming up with a breakthrough idea. If I were to implement this into my own life I would likely find myself writing out exactly what it is I am trying to accomplish and what I am trying to achieve in certain projects. I might use it to clearly define what certain problems there are with my game designs so that I can address those problems more efficiently. Instead of just trying to figure out what I could do to make a game better I would first figure out what it is that is specifically wrong with my game and what could be done to fix the problems.

            Another good way of coming up with breakthrough ideas that Ditkoff gives is to fantasize. He explains that many breakthrough ideas get their start from fantasizing and that people should fantasize more often. This is a more self-explanatory solution to getting good ideas; it is really just saying to let your mind wonder. I think this is a very good idea as well because of its simplicity and its ability to be a powerful way of coming up with new ideas. If I were to implement this into my own life I would probably try and set aside time in my day to just let my mind wonder. I would purposefully try to come up with absurd and out of the ordinary solutions to problems. This is especially helpful to me because in animation and video games anything is possible and things are not even limited to the physical laws of the universe. If I want an army of microscopic balloon animals to be the reason we see color than that can actually exist in a video game.

            My personal favorite way of coming up with ideas that Ditkoff talks about is to brainstorm. He talks about not only brainstorming on your own but to brainstorm with other people, and to brainstorm in groups. I think this is a good idea because this is already something I will be doing for the rest of my life in teams of people. The more people you have throwing out ideas the greater the chance you are to have a worthwhile idea that might turn into something great. I already do this while I am working on team projects for game design. A way I might do this more often is to actually do as Ditkoff says to do and facilitate group brainstorming sessions and to think wisely about the people I invite and the topics and questions we brainstorm about.

            In one of Ditkoffs exercises he says to “State your most inspired challenge or opportunity as a question beginning with words “How can I?” Then write it five different ways. Which is the real question?” I am going to try this out so here it goes.

How can I…?

     1.)  Have the main character in my game relate more to the player?

     2.)  Help the players of my game relate more to the main character?

     3.)  Get the players of my game to feel more attached to the main character in my game?

     4.)  Get the player to empathize with the main character in my game?

     5.)  Make the player want to be like the main character in my game and therefore want to play the game    more?

      I think that the real question is number 4. How can I get the player to empathize with the main character of my game?

             

http://changethis.com/

Assignment week 1a

As a creative person I gravitate towards all kinds of art. I especially admire concept art for video games or for movies. There is something about the imperfections in concept art that makes me feel like I am closer to the level of a professional then the finished game makes me feel. I like 2d and 3d art. I like art that hints at a story and art that shows a character that someone has created. Character art is what I hope to do in the future. One person that inspires me is Jonathan Jacques-Belletete, art director for the video game Deus Ex Human Revolution. I read an article in the magazine, Imagine FX, about how Jonathan started from nothing when he built his team.  He had them create each and every aspect of the game and he held the artwork to a strict criterion so that it would not lack detail and so there would be a strong affinity between how the game world and the characters were seen. In the link are some examples of concept work done for this game. The picture that really caught my eye because of how the bright yellow of his skin and the window contrast with the rest of the painting, was the second picture, the one of the man sitting smoking a cigarette with a gun on his lap.  http://www.deusex.com/media/images?start=41. He is in the trailer too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6JTvzrpBy0. I really try to over exaggerate contrast of light and color in my work I feel like it gives my work style and it helps to convey emotion.

Often times ill focus completely on trying to imply narrative in my work because it helps me think more clearly and more in depth about a piece. I do this in hopes that ill someday be as good at it as Ralph Horsley, who worked with Wayne Reynolds to paint the cover art for the newest version of dungeons and dragons. http://ralphhorsley.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html

The image is the 9^th one down on the page titled Enter the Lair.

The image is a tribute to the original cover of the Ancient Red Dragon done by Larry Elmore. I think this is such an iconic peace of artwork because it illustrates the classic tail of good versus evil. The image of a knight fighting a dragon and what it represents is and always will be something others and myself will appreciate because it is engrained in peoples subconscious.

         Another kind of art that inspires me is the Pixar and DreamWorks animated movies, my favorite being How to Train Your Dragon. Some of the artists that worked on designing the main dragon in the movie were Takao Noguchi, Dominique Louis, and Simon Otto. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/4260975781_0eebd33152.jpg

I am always amazed when I see how their drawings transformed into cg models for the movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUhygdAZIw

Why I decided to be a SEGA major

Before I came here I wanted to be a psychology major because I was told throughout high school that I would never be able to make money drawing and being creative. Then I saw that there was a major where I could learn to be an animator and learn to design games. You can imagine my excitement when I realized this was something worth while and it sure as hell beats 8 years of school for psychology. This is what I have wanted to do all my life and this is what I have been preparing for all my life. I just didn't realize it until recently.