Get The GLASS!

This an interactive website is a "Got Milk" advertisment hidden in the guise of a story that follows the Adachi family. There are living a life of fugitives for attempting to break in and steal "The Glass", for they can't imagine a life without milk. How the website interests me and how it's different in telling it's story is that it presents the story as a board game. You roll dice to continue the story of the Adachi's to play through the game,letting the events unfold as you follow them in their adventure to break in to a fort to steal "The Glass".
Here's the link.
http://www.gettheglass.com/index2.html

Reflections on MEDP150

The lab classes controlling and handling a camcorder was very exciting. Being able to take pictures and scenes made for a fun and interesting class. The group I was placed in was exceptionally likable and responded well to feedback as we were shooting. I happened to enjoy the group work I participated in. Also, being the "model" to sit in the chair with the hot light glaring on me was an awesome experience. It made me feel slightly famous while I was learning about 3 point lighting (key light,fill light, and background light). This hands on approach gave me an insight on what happens behind the scenes and the reasons for different kinds of lighting. Also showing us the basic steps on blogging, and editing a site was very informative for those who had no experience in web production. Overall this made MEDP150 a very engaging class.

What I felt those is that reading with the diagrams for the camera were nice supplements, but found my self just looking and studying the diagrams instead of the content of the readings. Just relaying us the diagram in the lecture slides might of been better, in my opinion.

Honestly, I didn't really need to get the media book(Although I purchased the book just incase). The lecture provided by Lucas was sufficient enough. Focusing on lecture and paying attention while taking down notes on what he is saying kept me on pace with where the lecture was going. Having the lecture slides to look at later is pretty much essential for me as it helped me focus on the concepts explained in the lecture. These lecture slides are a very welcome study guide to make sure anything missed during note taking in lecture could be recapped later. If students were not able to get the lecture slides, it would be very hard to copy what was in the slides and focus on what Lucas was lecturing on, as the slides moved at a slightly fast pace.

One of the things that I felt helped expand my perspective as a media maker is the hands on approach of using the camcorder and learning to take creative shots from certain guidelines to see what aesthetically works and what doesn't.

Opening to an anime "The World God Only Knows"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZRSAHRVurk
This is the opening to an anime "The World God Only Knows"

The pacing of the music to the images used in the opening. Both music and imagery is important to creating the design of a successful anime opening. Usually most anime songs are catchy and easily recognizable. The constant change of "feel" of the music keeps the imagery moving forward and a sense of consistency. In the example of "The World God Only Knows" there is divine imagery and an assumption that the figure walking is in control as he is the one not changing, but his environment is. Most of the environment of the opening video begins with a technological looking scene as if one is swimming through a sea of circuitry. The design of this opening gives the audience a sense that this is the main character and he is in control, with the use of his PSP looking device. The feeling of epic quality as the opening ends solidifies that the main character is the focus of the opening and will be mainly about the main character. In my opinion the opening of an anime should give the audience an idea of what kind of anime they are about to watch.

Here is a quick plot background taken from wikipedia:

"Keima Katsuragi, a second-year high school student, is an avid bishōjo game player. He is known on the Internet as "The Capturing God (落とし神, Otoshi-gami?)" for his legendary skills to be able to "capture" any 2D girl in games. However, in his actual school life, Keima is known as otamegane (オタメガネ), a derogatory portmanteau of the two words otaku (オタク) and megane (メガネ-"glasses") and is considered nothing but an intelligent yet gloomy geek with glasses.At the start of the series, Keima receives an e-mail offering him a contract to "capture" girls. When he accepts it, thinking it is an invitation to a game, a demon from Hell named Elsie appears. She asks for his cooperation to help her in catching runaway spirits. These spirits hide themselves inside the hearts of girls, and Elsie suggests that the only method to force the spirits out is by "capturing" the girls hearts—making them fall in love with him and filling up the gaps which the runaway spirits hide in. Interested only in 2D girls, however, Keima is appalled by the idea and refuses the assignment as he has no romantic real life experiences whatsoever. Nevertheless, with the contract already agreed, Keima has no choice but to help Elsie no matter what as they will be beheaded if they fail.While the series focuses on Keima and Elsie adventures on capturing spirits, the series also makes fun and parodying common and popular cliches about dating sims, anime character stereotypes and pop culture."

Now once you see the opening or rewatch the opening, does it represent the anime well?

What I see

JACKASS 3D...what I see..

It had a documentary like feel as they go through comedic skits. Each skit begins with them introducing the name of the skit, and the participating “jackass” name. After the skit was done everyone that was watching the skit,including the camera men join in at laughing at the act. Also, after some skits people ending up vomiting and others laughing. It sets the pacing to help it make it more comedic as well as giving time to space out each skit to allow for a good amount of laughs each time. Throughout the movie it's paced out as first introducing the skit and actor. The skit plays on in which the audience is expected to laugh during the period of the skit or after the skit. Each skit varied in length and comedic value. After the laughter dies down in the skit, it allows the audience to calm down again to prepare themselves for more laughter as another skit begins to set itself up through another introduction. This pacing of the movie played out during the entire movie and worked extremely well.

For this movie they had implemented 3D to create a realistic effect in which you feel as if you were with the actors spectating the skit. From watching fecal matter explode upwards as if you were near the actor doing the skit,to the use of the camera closeups on other cameramen vomiting creates the feel if you were there making these skits with them.

Another technical choice they used is that they recorded at very high fps to create scenes of over dramatic slowing down to create a comedic effect. The opening sequence is when actors were jumping sideways while shooting towards the audience, while being shot at by actors behind the camera men. The scene panned from left to right and the sequence took about almost a minute to play out. At the ending credits they played the opening scene in real time and this only lasted 15 seconds. The choice of slowing down a fast paced skit made for an entertaining opening. Another technical choice they used was a lot of medium shots to frame the right amount of action within a movie setting.

Where is Media Going/ And Where Is It Coming From

Within video games there are the game mechanics,rules , the genres, the target audience and distributed throughout different platforms upon which they are played. Essentially video games are supposed to give players entertainment. Games seem to have "evolved" or at least branched off from simple board games or sports games into digital media. Within a lot of video games there is a convergence of cinematic qualities and scenes that are mean to give a video game a “movie” feel. In a sense, video games have become a medium of story telling. Like books they have their own genres. For example there are horror games, adventure games, shooting games, and strategy games. New games that are currently being made tell their own story through the player. His or her actions depicts the story. Even if a game does not or can not tell a story, new games currently are made to at least create a personal experience for the player. Even in facebook games, there is a sense of social competition between friends to see who has a higher level or has the most points/items. This sense of competition creates an experience, even though a player's friends are not physically close.