Just a placeholder for an idea–a bit of prose, a life event or narrative in hypertext and images, or a short film clip. Audio reading (if poetically sound) plus background noise (music?) and some text and titles.
Oh yeah…and a story.
Just making a link to one of my favoritist animation film clips now that I’ve found it again: The Pretty Unlucky Head
It’s been nearly impossible for me to force myself back into the creative groove, and this, based on what I’m trying to learn, adds about a hundred cargo cars to the engine car of a train heading uphill. Uphill without directions. And like with an aerial map instead of street turns and a big red star.
I thought I knew what I wanted to do and what I needed to learn in software. After watching many, many short film clips, there’s now a kettleful of ideas that go nowhere. The different forms of animation, the different methods of presentation, the simplicity and the intricacy all appeal in some way until I view something entirely different and want to go that way for a while. Excitement builds even as doubts about ability grow. Even the end goal is just a case of self-satisfaction rather than a career since age is most definitely not on my side.
Mass confusion is what I am. Wonder how that would look in video.
Found this rather comprehensive site that’s free for the sign-up and gives some excellent lessons towards drawing: Drawspace
Excellent for the beginner or anyone interested in the growing field of animation and new media.
Very strange: I’m watching people at the WSVG ’07 watching people play people.
In the first "event" I caught, it was a boxing match and two players chose their characters and well, boxed them. After the fight, the two discussed why they chose their particular characters and mentioned their particular skills (programmed in?) so that it’s the computer programmed character as well as the player who has input on the result.
CBS World of Sports (and Intel) hosts this event, so I consider gaming then to be a "sport." Now boxing isn’t the particular sporting event I would tend to either watch in reality, as I feel it’s ridiculous to allow two people to beat each other up for "sport" and entertainment while you’d be arrested for punching a guy who made a remark about your wife or mother. But let’s just look at the pros and cons of gaming as a substitute for the real thing.
For one thing, nobody really gets physically hurt. That’s a good thing. But the entire sport has changed (and this would apply to all except virtual reality games) from throwing a physical punch to an entirely different move of either clicking or moving a joystick.
I gotta think some more.
On TV right now, coming up: World of Warcraft. Just over: Kentucky Fights (?) boxing. More later–just thinking of the psychological and cultural impact this is having…
Ah’ll be bach.
No doubt about it, fantasy has enjoyed the lion’s share of the video gaming market, and here’s the reason why:
Even the name “Chore Wars” sounds exciting. But that’s all this website is really, is a method of organizing and competing as you do your chores and score as you complete your task. And I’m talking real chores. That’s about as exciting as it gets. But oh, the graphics!
There’s something about fantasy cape-clad humans and weirdly colored creatures that is undeniably attractive. The solid bright bold colors with lack of shading, thte black lines that emphasize by contrast, the hourglass-shaped women with coned breasts and the V-form shaggy-haired, square-jawed men, these are what sell the game, story, or website for housework.
Something to think about.
From Mark Bernstein, a post on Game Debate and a link to an interesting point made in a discussion by Roger Ebert concerning literature presented in the new means of new media.
I remember how long it took me to accept with rolling eyes and tongue-clicking aplenty to accept Barthes as my Savior and turn my back on this kind of thinking as necessarily a bad thing:
"Ebert: He is right again about me. I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist."
Bernstein also includes a link to HBO Voyeur which I’ve watched and sent around but am not sure I have it included as a link here yet and it is one that is both entertaining and fascinating in concept. A keeper for reference.
With the clouds thinning out to wispy threads streaming south in the sky of my mind, I’ve once again clicked open the Alice software and diddled around in it just reacquainting myself with its format. There’s Socrates standing in the middle of the garden, hailing a rather odd character that’s unsure of his surroundings as he enters and approaches the other man. In another scenario, there are a man and woman with their arms at odd angles standing hip-high in a maze.
What was I thinking?
Slowly it all comes back to me and it turns from a spectator sport to movie director. Now I need the key grip, the cameraman, lighting and more to bring it back to life.
A quick flip through the Learning to Program with Alice book is inspiring with its simple-looking directions and wonderful full color images that are meant not to intimidate but to welcome an attitude of learning.
A sky? Maybe better: an ocean of mind, where the flotsam and jetsom of shipwrecks bounce away on the waves of time. Crystal blue waters that beg exploration, flashes of bright colored fish darting around, and a promise of treasure below.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology