Procrastination

For my El Anatsui project, I have decided to take on the theme of procrastination. More specifically, I will be examining how procrastination can be a barrier to success and the completion of goals.

One reason I felt that procrastination would be a good topic is because I feel it is a universal barrier. While some may be worse than others, everybody procrastinates to some degree at some point or another. It's human nature - when faced with a task we find unpleasant, we can't help but be tempted to avoid it, pretend it's not there or convince ourselves that there will be plenty of time to complete it later. Often it ends up being an internal struggle; in the back of our minds, we know we're screwing ourselves over, and that ultimately we will suffer consequences. But the human mind has an amazing ability to rationalize, and it's not difficult for the more pleasant option to win out.

While we all know that procrastination can prevent us from achieving success in our school, workplace, or other areas of life, often we don't realize how complex a problem procrastination really is. Often we associate procrastination with laziness, but this isn't always the case at all. In fact, procrastination can be linked to a wide variety of factors - many perfectionists have a huge procrastination issue. The University of North Carolina wrote a very interesting article regarding procrastination, it's causes and ways to prevent it. It can be found here. Just from scanning through it, you can see that it is not a simple issue.

I intend to display this barrier in my El Anatsui project by showing a subject caught up in distractions which keep him from doing his schoolwork, a symbol of success. In our society, a good education is often considered a mark of success as well as a pathway to success in the future, so the symbolism seems appropriate.

Film Noir Rough Idea

Genre: Film Noir

Issue: Teen Suicide

The idea I have for a short film noir is a message about teen suicide told from the perspective of the teen themselves. Similar to how many noirs are narrated by a person who has been murdered, my story will be told by the dead teen. The opening will either be the teen recording a suicide tape, or a group of people playing said tape out loud for the first time. While the beginning of the tape plays, a shot will display of the dead body, pistol in hand. The teen eventually makes a comment about starting the story from the beginning, at which point the scene will change to past events.

I haven't quite decided what the literal events will be, but generally I want to tell the story of a teen affected by the media in such a way that it completely destroys their self-esteem, eventually leading to their suicide. The plan is to make it gritty and depressing, watching the destruction of a once head strong and optimistic protagonist. The final shot will be the suicide itself, cutting right as the shot is fired.

Misa Digital Guitar

I came across something very interesting a few weeks ago. A company by the name of Misa Digital (Flash required) has developed a touchscreen controlled digital guitar. This isn't the first time this has ever been done - several similar projects have been hacked together by ambitious individuals - but this is the first time something this clean and professional has been produced.

Using many sensors in place of frets and strings, the left hand still plays very similar to how it would on a regular guitar, except with no need to apply pressure. The right hand, however, has much more adaptation to do. No longer is there any strings to pluck...instead, a large, visually pleasing multi-touch screen fills most of the body. There aren't detailed instructions on the website, but from what I can gather from the video, tapping in certain areas seems to play single notes, while touching and sliding triggers various effects.

Misa Digital heavily stresses that their product is in no way intended to be a replacement for the electric guitar. Their digital guitar is a completely different instrument, with its own advantages and weaknesses. On the one hand, it lacks the beauty of analog sound - the subtle velocity changes that come with plucking a string, the pure sound of a string actually vibrating through the air. On the other hand, it is an instrument that puts everything at your fingertips - you can modify the sound in real time with simple touch commands which seem fairly natural.

Oh, and it looks awesome too. I think it would be pretty awesome to watch a digital guitar player up on stage, rocking away on that thing.

It can be difficult these days to do anything truly innovative in the world of music, but Misa Digital does just that. Their digital guitar caters to the eyes, the ears and the hands, and it will certainly be interesting to see what it's used for when it becomes mass-produced.

If this kind of thing interests you, check out the laser harp. While this instrument has ACTUALLY been around since the 70s, it has become well-known again since this guy created one in his own house and began releasing videos.

Soungle

While doing my Avatar trailer sound assignment, I found that I needed a variety of sound effects that I couldn't record myself. I began searching for websites which offered royalty-free sound effects for free download and I came across a particularly convenient one. Soungle, developed by a company called Southern Codes, provides a quick and easy sound effects search engine for royalty-free sound effects. Rather than searching various websites, however, Soungle searches its own ever-growing database of both user and developer provided sounds.

The goal in mind is simplicity - search, preview, download. Soungle achieves this very well. After searching for a keyword, ten results are displayed per page. Each one has a short description, the frame rate, duration, bit rate and a large play button to preview the sound. The information is organized into a simple minimalist interface which is both attractive and easy to use. ALL sound effects are royalty-free, and the website itself is free to access and use, although there are some unobtrusive advertisements and they do accept donations.

Avatar Trailer

I have uploaded my Avatar Trailer sound project to YouTube so that anybody on any platform can view it. It can be found here. The original version of the trailer can be found here. Neither can be embedded directly into this page because they contain third-party copyrighted content, but both can be viewed fine from YouTube.

The mood of the original trailer was very tense, rising with the action and giving a very suspenseful feel. Rising music and quick-changing visuals emphasized action but didn't show enough to take away suspense. I decided to make it feel more emotional, more sad, which to me fits the mood of the actual movie better. I put in slower, sadder music which fit the timing of the cuts well, leaving the visuals untouched because the action scenes then became scenes of destruction and sadness.The voice-over says it all..."sacrifice is always the price of freedom." This concept has been proven over and over in human history and has been used as a theme in all forms of media. The pain of that sacrifice is what I tried to get across with my trailer.

I hope you all feel the mood it was meant to make you feel, especially if you have seen the movie yourself.

Portfolio Research Assignment

Sheridan College - Bachelor of Fine Arts (Animation)

Sheridan College is one of the most well-recognized schools in Canada for its intense animation program (Program Website Here). The portfolio that each applicant must present has several components, falling into different streams. Only certain streams have size restrictions.

The specific pieces required are summarized in the following:

• Life Drawing
  
  
  • Observational Life Drawing - three drawings of the human figure, preferably nude
  
  
  • Animal Drawing - two drawings of an animal figure
    
    Note: Any two of the above drawings should show stillness, while the others should show the subject in motion.
  
  
  • Hand Drawing - two freehand line drawings of a human hand, the first anticipating action and the second carrying out that action.
  
  
  Note: All of the above drawings should be drawn from life, not books or photographs. More emphasis should be on structure than on shading.



• Animation and Character Design
  
  Design one original character to be used in the following drawings:
  
  
  • Character Rotation - Draw your character in five different rotational positions. Each view should be on a separate 8.5" x 11" sheet.
  
  
  • Action Pose Sheets - two action shots of your character, rough and loose. Also on separate 8.5" x 11" sheets.
  
  
  • Expression Sheet - On one sheet only, draw your character's head with 5 different expressions. Show dimension by changing the angle of the head for each expression. You may draw the heads larger and then cut and paste if necessary to arrange all five on one 8.5" x 11" sheet, but you must include original drawings and reductions.
  
  
  
  
  
• Storyboarding
  
  
  • Storyboarding - choose one of the character designs (provided to applicants) and use a four-panel storyboard to show the character as it goes through a predetermined narrative.
  
  
  
• Layout
  
  
  • Household Objects - create two composition sheets of household objects (e.g. fruit, a box, a tin can, a plastic funnel) based on these geometric forms: sphere, cube, cylinder, and cone. Do not use a ruler, compass or stencil.
    
    • one freehand line drawing showing an accurate observation of these objects
    
    
    • one freehand line drawing based on the first composition drawing (from the same point of view). Using your imagination, show how the objects would look if they were affected by some external force. This should tell us a story of what happened to the objects (e.g. a heavy wind, an earthquake, a snowfall etc.)
    
    
    Note: Do not shade or colour the above works.
    
    
  • Room Line Drawing - two freehand line drawings of a room in your house
    
    • The first drawing should be an accurate observation of the room and should show a person, drawn in scale, sitting, standing or reclining in that space.
    
    
    • The second drawing should be the same room from that person’s point of view. Unlike the first drawing, you should apply your imagination to interpret how the character sees the room.)
    
    



• Other - Personal Artwork
  
  • Five pieces of personal artwork that show versatility and quality.

All of the specific details can be found in a pdf file here. Sheridan is also holding an open house on May 1 where more information will be provided regarding portfolios and applications.

Immersion

These days, media is all about immersion. Big screens, surround sound, and high definition are musts in millions of homes across North America. Technologies such as motion control and 3d movies are becoming increasingly popular. Movie theaters have begun adding rows of moving seats, allowing the audience to "feel the action".

I could go on about hundreds of advancements in immersion technology, from mind-controlled games to holophonic sound, but one advancement in online video game programming has particularly piqued my interest. For many years, gamers have been able to play with each other online, and even communicate with each other through microphones and headsets. This is neat, but in competitive games, it becomes hard to strategize with those on your team if everyone in the game can hear what you're saying. Eventually options were created so that only teammates could hear what other teammates were saying, but problems arise from this as well; players aren't able to communicate at all with the enemy team, and from an immersion standpoint, it is unrealistic to be able to stand behind an unaware enemy while yelling at teammates or discussing plans.

Recently, innovations in video game sound programming came up with the most realistic solution - when a player speaks into the headset, the game judges the distance between them and other players and outputs volume accordingly. In other words, the farther away you are from the speaker, the quieter their voice is. This solution provides the greatest level of immersion; if you're sneaking up on an enemy, you actually need to be quiet. If you need to say something to your teammate, you actually need to get close to them. If you need to yell something across the battlefield, you actually have to yell.

Sometimes we forget that the simplest solutions are often the best. Immersion is about taking a fantasy experience and making it feel real. That's the idea behind 3d movies, that's the idea behind motion control, and while it seems like such a simple concept, sound distance programming makes an online gaming experience just a little more real.