Unique Blog Post #4

Late last week, Jovan Belcher, an NFL linebacker who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs, committed a murder-suicide. He killed his girlfriend, who he had a 3 month old girl with, and then proceeded to go to the Chiefs Stadium. While there, he confronted the head coach, GM, and linebackers coach. He thanked them all for the opportunity over the past 3 years (he was in Kansas City for 3 years) then stepped away and took his life. When watching football this past Sunday Night, Bob Costas, a long time broadcaster, discussed his "topic" of the week. This week it happened to be gun control. Here is the link to the clip with an article:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/bob-costas-advocates-gun-control-sunday-night-football-164208209--nfl.html

To me, this was taking advantage of peoples emotions. Earlier in the, in class, we saw the Budweiser commercial about all the troops coming home and how good we all felt to see that. I feel like this is the same type of thing. Millions of people are watching this game, then he says this, it sort of takes people by surprise and almost makes you want to help ban guns. This may not be the case at all, but given the circumstances of the situation and the timing, I saw it as a shot at our emotions. Whether it was or not, we will never know. 

Everything is a Remix

This video was fantastic. Before this video I never really thought of movies like this. Of course, growing up when we went to movies with our parents we were periodically told that this was a remake or based off this movie, stuff like that. I never would have imagined that almost all movies today are remixed in some way. It just seems crazy to think about. Like the video showed us, some of the greatest movies to hit the box office use scenes from other movies. For example, Star Wars had a ton of things in it that were almost exact scenes from another movie. Hard to image what it would be like had these movies not used any remixing. Almost seems impossible. Definitely an eye opener though.

Unique Blog Post 3

I found this video I thought was rather interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AFFWPkcOmE&feature=g-trend

It's about how developers have created a program that enables our virtual avatar to reproduce our emotion into the virtual world. He didn't really say what it was for, so hard telling what it would be used for. I mean most video games I know of (or play) do not involve me communicating with other people, unless through a microphone. And I do not believe this would be used for video conferencing programs such as Skype because obviously human to human is better than avatar to avatar. So I wonder what they will implement this program into? I think the idea is great and would definitely change the way we communicate in the virtual world, like he mentioned. I am just not exactly sure how. Anyone see a good use for this program that I may be missing?

Unique Blog Post 2 - Call of Duty

I was browsing the internet recently, looking at some of the information for the new Call of Duty: Blacks Ops 2 game when I came across this article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/call-of-duty-black-ops-2-halo-4-set-for-a-sales-shootout/2012/11/13/b321dfd4-2d8d-11e2-a99d-5c4203af7b7a_story.html

The article discusses revenue brought in by these two popular games over the last few years. I was honestly blown away. The first call of duty black ops brought in over 650 million dollars in just five days. To me, this was astonishing. It got me to thinking, what are we really paying for in this new video game? Sure, the campaign is different and the graphics have been altered slightly but what about this game is so different that it can generate over a half a billion dollars in revenue in 5 days? It's because it's a materialistic item. I remember growing up, always wanting the new video game. That is what they are doing here. You don't want to be the kid that doesn't have the new video game when everyone else does so you go out and buy the new one. Even though the game is not that different from the other 8 call of duties that you already own,  but you buy it anyways. It just blows my mind that we continue to do this, and I am totally guilty of this I will admit. It almost seems like manipulation. They could reprint this same game, exactly the same, just change the name and kids would still buy it. Another way they manipulate this series is through media. Here is a commerical for one of the games that came out a while ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD7WNmpKRW4

This old man basically tells us everyone is doing "it", if you know what the commercial is for, you know its playing call of duty. All the references he makes can be thought of in terms of call of duty. But even the people that do know this game know this old man could be referring about sex. I thought this commercial was wrong. It seems like they wanted to make kids laugh because they were references sex (kids laugh at sex jokes), and then it would let kids know the new game was coming out. This would lead kids to show all their friends how funny the commercial was and then all the other kids would know about the new game. Just seems like one big scheme to get the consumer to buy the next game, or just another materialistic item.

Superstorm Sandy Interactive

Recently, I have been fascinated by this Super-storm Sandy. The fact of a cold front mixing with this tropical storm/ hurricane and producing feet of snow, I thought was very interesting. I was recently looking at articles discussing this storm when I came across this article.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411491,00.asp

Inside the article there is another link, to an interactive map on google.

http://google.org/crisismap/2012-sandy

On this map you are able to check multiple things. This would be especially helpful for the people experiencing the brunt of this storm up the east coast. You are able to check hurricane evacuation routes, current conditions in specific locations, checkout videos of the storm, find emergency shelters, see where the power is out, etc. All from one site. This website is awesome because it allows people that are being affected and not being affected, interact and look at what this storm is doing in that area. I found it to be pretty fascinating. Also, in this link, there are websites getting extra attention from this.  For example, when you click on the link, you are able to check other information and maps on other websites such as ready.gov and theweatherchannel.com. It made me wonder if these websites just put the information there so people would click on their websites and get their websites more attention.Then, once you click on the websites such as twc, there are plenty more advertisements and other websites to click on. It seems to me like this Super-storm Sandy is a big way for websites and companies to get their names out there by offering information regarding the storm. It's almost as if this storm is an advertising propaganda.

Communities

After reading Steinkuehler's article, it was obvious that him and Vonnegut have different ideas of what a community is or can be. Vonnegut, firm in his belief, said that a community could only be defined as a physical space. As he put, "Electronic communities build nothing." On the other hand, there was Steinkuehler's article, and she believes in something completely opposite from Vonnegut. Steinkuehler believes that through massively multiplayer online games (MMO), a community can form.

Vonneguts article I think I would agree with more. Like Vonnegut, I believe communities must involve real life actions in a real life world. In his article he talked about going to the post office and buying a manilla envelope. Those are real life events with real life humans. Steinkuehler's article is about real people interacting in a virtual world. Sure, I think that could be considered a community just the same type of community Vonnegut talks about. As Steinkuehler put "Participation in such virtual "third places" appears particularly well suited to the bridging social capital (putnam, 2000), social relationships that, while not providing deep emotional support per se, typically function to expose the individual to a diversity of worldviews". I do agree with that, however, to compare this community to the one Vonnegut discusses, a physical place, they are not the same. I get that online you meet new people and connect but you do that in real life too and you actually get to interact with these people in person; It's more humanistic.

Piano Player

1. The fictional society in the book involves big advances in technology that remove the need for a human workforce. Is our society today headed down the same path?
2. What does the title of the book mean?
3. Is technology today really helping us more than it is hurting us?

MP1 Update

I am still making final adjustments to my video. I am not sure how i want the video to end though so still trying to find a good way to end that I think fits the video. I am pretty confident that I am done with my paper, will make some final edits tonight. I did my video on the rivalry between Ohio State & Michigan so I decided to write my paper as a script for a college football show. The two people that are in the paper with me are Brent Musberger, who is a college football broadcaster, and Erik Kesten, who is a sports film writer and director. He created an hour long documentary on Ohio State and Michigan documenting this rivalry.

Pine Point & Test Tube

After exploring these two links I thought that the test tube link would be hanging out and welcome to pine point would be messing around, I think. Neither of these were very interactive and honestly confused me. The test tube guy talked fast and he I didn't really understand what he was saying. That could have been more interactive had we been told to answer more questions or participate more. Not sure how they could have included us more in that experiment though. In welcome to pine point it just made feel like I should be more involved in my life, again, I think? I mean it was about a town that does not exist anymore and made me wonder what it would be like to have my hometown just disappear. That is where I think welcome to pine point became messing around rather than just hanging out, when they make you think about life without your hometown. Again, like the test tube experiment, I'm not really sure how we could step up a level. I think the easiest way for us to be geeking out would be to discuss the possibility of removing our hometown with someone else. I think that doing that would move us up to geeking out. After I looked over both, I definitely enjoyed pine point more. The fact that I was lost in the test tube didn't help it but i just wasn't sure it was even about in the first place. No clear point was made to me as to what that was about. Also, in pine point it made me think about a possibility I never honestly really thought of. It was really interesting to think about, so I definitely enjoyed pine point more.

Truman Show

I really enjoyed watching the Truman show. This movie makes you think about your everyday life and if you are truly being watched. I think there is some truth to this movie. I do not believe people are watching my life or your life as much as they watched Truman's butt i believe we are all being watched some point throughout our day. With all the cameras watching us out there today, I believe we are almost always on camera; this is a scary thought to know we are never in privacy. We are not necessarily being "watched" (viewed by someone else at a particular time) but there are always cameras looking at our every move. That is was is the most creepy. It is sort of like the panopticon idea. You put people in an environment with evidence that someone could or could not be watching you and it molds their behavior. A scene from the movie that emphasizes this panopticon idea is when Truman's wife is trying to advertise the products. If no one was watching that show, she would not have made such an emphasis on the product. However, since she knows people are watching, she takes the time to point out the product and make sure people think about that product.

3 voices for assemblage

For my three characters I want to use myself, a sportscenter anchor, and Eric Kesten. My mashup is about how Ohio State and Michigan is the greatest rivalary in sports. Eric Kesten wrote "Michigan vs. Ohio State: The Rivalry." I want the sportscenter guy to critique my work, sort of being against me and the idea that Ohio State and Michigan is the greatest rivalry in sports. Since Kesten did a whole documentary on this rivalry, the sportscenter anchor will ask for his take on my mashup and ask if it proves or disproves my point about this rivalry.

Spurlock's Documentary

I loved watching "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold". In the documentary, Morgan Spurlock showed us how advertising really works. I think after watching it, what fascinated me the most was the control the advertising agencies have. For example, when Spurlock was talking to that guy who knows how to place products well and he was discussing the placement of the alka-seltzer pill with the movie director. He basically put the director on the spot by saying if the pill was used in the way he intended, he would take back all the cars they were lending him too. That amazed me. Also, I loved how no huge companies were willing to be in the movie. I think it just goes to show that theses businesses are strictly profit; they do not care about the consumers. I believe businesses should be about profits, but it seems like from this movie that very few top companies care about consumers. People need to be made aware of how much they are actually marketed each day. I think Ralph Nader said it best when he said the best place to be, away from all this advertising, is asleep. That is really the only realistic place you can be to not see advertising. In the movie, Morgan visits a very large city in Brazil, Sao Paolo. This is a city that has almost 19 million people in it, 7th largest city in the world, and yet they have no outdoor advertising. I found this to be simply amazing. How could this get passed into law? Don't get me wrong, this idea is brilliant. Yet, I don't believe anyone in the political system here in the U.S would ever suggest this. I couldn't imagine all the ways this person could be criticized. With all the ads for political positions today, if someone brought this up people would begin to blame him for wanting to destroy businesses and all sorts of things. That doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. In Sao Paolo, 70% of the people reported that removing the advertisements was beneficial to them. I think it would have the same effect here. After seeing that city with no advertising outdoors, I think it just goes to show how overwhelmed our country is with advertisement.

Assemblage

For my assemblage I want to do a mashup of the Ohio State Michigan Rivalry. I believe this is the best rivalry in all of sports and I want to make a mashup of these two playing eachother. I plan on using plenty of highlights from these games including big hits, big plays and even fights. I want to use the song by Linking Park called "Figure 09".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-icIi6xuJ3w

There are thousands of videos on youtube about this rivalry. There will be plenty for me to use when assembling this video! My intended audience for this video will be Ohio State & Michigan fans and even college football fans in general.

Here are just a few links to the videos I plan on using:

I will use the entrances for both teams, the david boston & charles woodson fight here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCgHiFXY2e4&feature=related

This woody hayes speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ps_7MFIWSQ

Summary of what I watched

With the iPhone 5 getting a lot of hype, I had to watch a video about it! I wanted to see what was new about it and if it would be worth getting one! Definitely was cool to see the new features.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aURcUhYstEw

I imagine someone who got the phone early made this video. Another possibility could have been apple gave their phone to someone in exchange for them to make a video like this to help promote the product and get it hyped up more! The purpose seemed clear to me; to promote the iPhone 5.
The target audience is probably iPhone users or cell phone users. I imagine this audience was intended for people interested in purchasing the iPhone 5. I believe they wanted prospective buyers to see the phone and what it has to offer, in hopes to persuade them to purchase it.
The use a simple video, with different shots of the phone, and they add words on the screen and some music. The music choice seems a bit disturbing for the iPhone. Not really sure why that song was chosen. They persuade people by telling them what they want to hear. They want to hear that this phone is much better than the old one and its worth spending hundreds of dollars more to upgrade a few things. Seems a bit ridiculous in the grand scheme of things but I definitely think it will work. They did a great job of showing new things and comparing them to old ones. Definitely can see this item getting a lot more popularity, as if it didn't already have enough.
I think that the message being implied to the audience is to purchase the iPhone 5. I think this video was designed to show us that this new phone is much better and "cooler" than the new one and sort of bash on the old one. Basically that the new one is much better and the old one is not worth having anymore.
The information used is specifics of the phone. They use information from the phones attributes such as thickness, processor, features, weight, etc. to sort of explain or persuade us to buy the new phone. I think the information is definitely credible. I don't see any reason why the information would not be credible. There were actual pictures and video of the phone that seemed to line up with facts that they gave us.
Stuff that was left out was probably stuff that might stop potential customers from buying this phone. A big one was price. If this phone is released at carriers across the U.S. and people wait around to get it and then find out after waiting in line that it costs $600 or something ridiculous, I think that will hurt potential customers decision to buy it. Also, I think there were probably some features of the phone that were left out that people might not like. They may have removed something on the phone that people would not like, so of course they left that out. They only want the customer to see that this phone is amazing and nothing less. They wouldn't tell you anything bad about their product, especially if they know if could potentially cost them a lot of money!

Reading Meshes of the Afternoon

After our class discussion of reading film, I thought that "meshes of the afternoon" was easier to read. In class, we discussed ways to read film and when I watched "meshes of the afternoon" again, I paid closer attention to the ways of reading film. When you know how to read film, something as confusing and weird as "meshes of the afternoon" can seem much easier to comprehend. I noticed that throughout the movie important things are more obvious when using the rule of thirds. Also, using background to foreground and left to right helped play a role in understanding this film. Also, in this short film, I noticed there were scenes with nothing on the rule of thirds? It seemed as if they purposely left something off the rules of thirds "lines" to get the shot more complex? This is when i used the other methods such as left and right to try to figure out what the film was showing us. This helped because not every shot in the movie used the rule of thirds so I had to sort of slowly process the movie using other rules and re-watching certain shots time after time to understand what they meant, using other rules. Even after I watched the movie again using all the rules we just learned, I still found it difficult to understand at points. Yes, the rules make it more "readable" in a way, yet the movie is still hard to understand. I really think the creepy Japanese music and no verbal communication makes this movie that much harder to understand.

Picture

This is a good picture my dad took of my siblings and I. This picture makes me think of my family.

Director vs. Actor

After watching "Meshes of the afternoon" I am a little lost. That was a very confusing film. I think it was so confusing because of the constant change in character and camera shots and then the sound coming on and off. In this little movie there is a lady who seems to have a wordless discussion at a table with herself included three times. I am not really sure. I took from the movie that maybe this lady is just crazy and had lost her mind and happened to kill herself. Not really sure what happened but it was definitely a film that made you think!

I believe that in today's technology, most of what we see in a visual media is from the director. The one counter I had for this argument was that the actor is the one who has to portray the directors thoughts. Therefore the actor is sort of a middle man and should get credit for half the work because he is acting it. Because the director is wanting to put his message on screen, he can chose the actors to help get his message to the audience. This gives him control over most things that help him relay his message. Who acts the part, how the audience sees the part and etc. However, the director could also remove an actor because it might not fit his vision as well as he had hoped. With the director having so much power of what actually gets shown on screen, I believe the director should get most of the credit for the final product. I am not saying that the actor does not get any credit, because he does. He is a middle man. But, the directors message goes through the actor to get on the screen so we may see the message as if it was the actors, but in the grand scheme of things, it is the directors message.

I think a lot of what we as audience members think and feel help make the movie what it is. Because we are all humans and have different values or beliefs, we all see the movie in a different light. I have different thoughts than you so I may take away a different movie than you might have, even though we both are watching the exact same thing. Peoples views in life and what they believe in can contribute majorly to how a movie is viewed in their eyes versus someone else with completely different views. When watching scary movies its like we are trained to be warned that when certain music comes on we know something is about to pop out and scare us. This makes the movie that much more intriguing for the audience! Not knowing yet knowing, its a great factor that contributes to our part of the media. Also, if someone has a certain belief, they may be more biased throughout the movie if it is against their beliefs. Rather than someone who might enjoy the movie more if it is in their belief system.

Commercialism

No, film and video are never free of commercialism. Commercialism is always there. When I think of commercialism the first thing that comes to mind is advertising. When you a see a commercial something is being advertised. Every time you watch a video something is being promoted. Commercialism is a business; plain and simple. Businesses now know that advertising is the easiest way for people to see your product. Nothing is free of commercialism, not even the most basic videos, blogs. For instance, the one thing I thought might be free of commercialism is a personal blog. That is a video. If someone is blogging about their life they are promoting their life to you. They are telling you all this stuff that happens to them and they want you, the audience, to watch it. They want you to subscribe to them and watch their videos. That is what they are selling you! People create videos on YouTube for people to watch. If people knew ahead of time not one single person would ever see the video, they wouldn't post it. They want people to watch their stuff and continue to watch their stuff. Therefore, they are commercializing themselves.

I do not believe a message can come to the screen purely. Sure, a director can try to get his message out their clearly but that does not mean that everyone will see it that way. People will see the movie differently than other people will. This makes it tough for the directors message to get through if people are seeing the movie in all sorts of ways. There are just too many things that the director cannot control, leaving his message undelivered.

Wesch vs. McLuhan

After comparing these two stories, I felt that these two men were similar in a way. McCluhan's short article talked about how humans are losing their social skills. People are interacting in ways that weren't even an option years ago. Today people are more worried about how other people view them online than how people view them in person. People in today's society would rather sit on a computer and talk to someone over a small glass lens. Why? Wesch made an interesting point when he said "When medias change, human relations change". Meaning, when technology allows us to interact with each other through this glass lens, we choose that option. People are now able to connect with people all over the world without leaving their computers. This is hurting social skills in today's society. There is something to be said about seeing someone in person. This is how social skills are developed. Sure, when your chatting someone online, you are talking, yes. However, it is different in person. When chatting online, there are ways to make you seem there without being there. Yes, you are actually chatting with the person although you can go the whole conversation without practically looking at them. You are able to browse the internet, among other things while in this conversation. Yet, when you're in person, you are not given options to avoid the conversation. The conversation happens and you learn to interact with humans through speaking face to face, not lens to lens. And that is what I think both of these authors were getting at.

 A point I really liked from Wesch's article that I think relates to my earlier comparison between the two is that YouTube allows you to experience humanity, without fear or anxiety. For some people, speaking to millions of people would be a hard thing to do. Yet, with YouTube you can do this from wherever you choose, without feeling the anxiety you would feel if you actually spoke to all the people that viewed your video, in person. When you make a video or vlog on YouTube, you are only speaking to a glass lens, that nobody is currently watching. Wesch made another great point when he said "It's like everybody is watching, yet there is nobody there". This is why people chose to interact online. The fear you have of speaking in person to other people, is gone, online. You don't have to see anybody and you can just be yourself. No anxiety, no fears.

McLuhan Response

           In the first half of this article, McLuhan tells us that today's "television kid" is updated constantly with adult news such as rioting, war, taxes & inflation. This is so true. Any kid out there with access to a television could be up to date with current issues throughout the world in a matter of minutes. Nowadays, information is abundant. Obtaining information in today's society can take as little as 10 seconds. With current technology, answers to questions we never could have answered years ago, are available at the click of a mouse or even a remote.
           Today, digital technology is forcing people to adapt or change. I am a business student and like most of my peers I know that when I get out of school, I will be looking for a job. In some cases, a job may require us to change or adapt. In today's society, digital technology has made it much easier for companies to make sure they are hiring the right candidate for the job. This is causing candidates, such as myself, to change or adapt to these standards that different companies may have. For instance, companies may be looking for someone who can do this job. However, we might be able to do that job as well as others. Therefore, we are forced to adapt or change our ways in order to better ourselves as candidates.
          Another good point McLuhan made was "As soon as information is acquired, it is very rapidly replaced by still newer information." I could not agree more with this more. Today, information is changing constantly. The more you know the better off you are. This relates to the point I made earlier about changing or adapting. Keeping up with current information can allow you to be the best candidate.