Moral Combat

We watched a documentary called Moral Combat which focused on violence in video games and compared and looked at both sides of the argument, it compared games like Grand theft auto and manhunt and talked about whether they influence children to become more violent in their nature. I dont agree with what was stated in the documentary about violent games influencing children to a level where they will commit crimes based on games they have played. The documentary did show however people who have claimed that they were influenced by games to commit crimes as their defence, i think that if someone is influenced by a game to commit a crime or violence then it is in that persons nature to act like that anyway as from personal eperience I have played tonnes of violent video games and i am not a violent person at all.

Here are my notes on the video.

Moral Combat - Realistically violent

Video games - storytellers

Abes Odysee - Deeper understanding, change in motives.
                      - A man actually didnt commit suicide because the game had that much of an impact on his life.

GTA - Huge landmark in game history - ability to make choices

Postal2 - Whats the point of violence in this game?

Sex and violence sell £££

We are getting closer to a world where a virtual world is real.

Diablo 3 Artwork Competition

As a personal study and interest (and with a little encouragement from tutors) i decided to enter an artwork competition, this is one of the few competitions i have ever entered. I am finding that when it comes to work like this i am never happy and anything i do never feels finished, i have actually finally finished the work now (6 weeks since i started it) spending a total of about 20 hours staring staring at this same image. When the entries to the competition start I will be sure to keep checking wether my work has gotten anywhere and will be looking at the other work that is being entered and what wins to see how mine compares. Here are also a few 'in development' stages my work went through over the weeks. Enjoy

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/blog/3746479/The_Portrait_of_a_Champion_Contest_is_Coming_-21_02_2012#blog

A History of Type

From the lectures i missed i looked them up and made some notes and did a little research into the subject matter, i have included the notes that i got from looking at the lecture presentations as best i can and think that it was a good exercise to do to catch up on anything i may have missed. (THIS GOES FOR THE LAST FOUR LECTURE NOTES)

History of Advertising

Fashion as Photograph

High Culture VS Low Culture

High culture vs low culture

Digital Media Artefact

Before editing my video i looked at maybe editing only pictures to get my point across as i think my speciality is working on pictures and not on film, i produced one picture i am happy with which is the Gears of War picture, i changed the colours in the picture and simply put it changed the entire dynamic of the piece and think that it stresses the point i have been trying to make across. I did want to do this for the ODST title picture and put it on the end of my sequence but think as individual studies it works better.

This is the clip i produced for the Digital Media Artefact which demonstrates my understanding of how title sequences effect the audiences understanding of a film or game. This is my finished piece with which i am overall happy with, i think the music i have chosen to go with it suits the feel i am going for very well, and i am also happy with the edited sequence of the clips. I took the original (Below) and took all clips of the humans winning any of the fighting, i also included clips from the ODST live action trailer (In an earlier blog), again taking out all scenes with the humans winning, and edited them in for more of a variation in the piece than the original. This also gave the video another dimension in that it makes it look as if two different battles are being lost in different places at the same time, giving the impression and overall feel of loss, losing and defeat.



The original video end with another spartan coming and picking up the bomb, flying with up in to the enemies ship and throwing it in, detonation it, completing the mission and overall winning. With my piece being cut off a little earlier and with the music climaxing at a different point along with the scenes never actually showing the human force winning i think i have successfully changed the outcome opinion of the piece from, Warfare with Hope, to, Inevitable last stand defeat.



Another reason these clips were a good to edit together were the fact that they dont actually belong to a film, they are simply teasers to a film that doesnt exist and as such are perfect clips to edit as if noone has actually seen the end product these teasers or title sequences are portraying then the only concept of the film they are going to understand is that of the teaser, in which case i have edited and experimented with and hopefully changed peoples perspective of what the film to these trailers would be like.

Anything Else OUDF401 Related

A few other things that were included in the OUDF401 project that i found while checking if there was anything i missed from the module. I have included these to show i have done a little more research than only what i have posted up.

Social Media and Communication Lecture

The notes i took during the social media and communication lecture, this was a rather interesting lecture and related very much to us as it talked about Facebook and the communication age which we are all very much a part of.

I personally am not a big fan of facebook, i find its use a little limited to gossip, dont get me wrong it is very useful for making connections and arranging things but i find it is all a bit too superficial for my liking. I will long on maybe once every two months but dont want the fact that i dont really like superficial gossip to get in the way of opportunities that may arrise by making connections with people, which is why i will probably make a educational/connections version of my facebook account to make it a little more practical and useful.

*I had labeled this post OUDF401 it is now correctly labelled 402*

Visual Communication Lecture

My notes on the Visual communication lecture showing what i have learned about the subject.

Media Specificity Lecture

Notes i took during a talk about transmedia storytelling.

Communication Theory Lecture

My notes on the communication theory lecture. There are enough notes here to show that i understand the concept of signs signage and the meaning of signs communication and effectively commnicating and getting your point across on a way that you want your listener to understand.

Film Theory Lectures 1,2,3

Film Theory 1 Lecture Notes

From the notes i took in the first film theory lecture i have found things like, Hitchcock is a big figure in early film making (i have looked at him in more detail in another blog) he used things like the dolly zoom   (Hitchcock zoom) he created feelings of vertigo with mechanics new to films and he was interested a lot of the time in his films in creating shock to the audience, also suspense, and is also known for liking blondes playing characters in his films and them having a sexual or metaphoric meaning within them.

Other points were brought forward in the lecture which interested me like that birds are meant to be harbingers of doom, and are used in many of Hitchcocks films.



Film Theory 2 Lecture Notes

My notes from the second lecture show i understand things like the new wave of cinema were primarily in Britain and France, and were about things like life in paris and they used actors that were just normal people. I also understood the mechanics that were used in films like spaghetti westerns for example The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966), the mechanics used in this film were a good use of montage, cutting, use of eye shots, fragments of the body.






Film Theory Lecture 3

Film lecture 3 was about cinema and how films were considered 'not the art of scholars, but of illiterates' - Werner Herzog. It was about how cinemas became a social gathering rather than a quiet sensible place, especially in italy around the 1970s.

Postmodernism Lecture

From what i already understood of post modernism i have learnt a lot about the range and bigger picture of it all from this lecture, i now understand just how hard the subject is to categorise and that it is very hard to sum up in a simple definition when it covers such a broad variety of things, ideas, meanings, movements and opinions.

Simply put post modernism is the era after modernism, when people started to reject the ideas and principles about what a piece of art is and started to think more about what the meaning of art is and essentially is everything art if looked at in a different way. It led away from traditional oil on canvas paintings and anything typically like that, and instead tried to tell stories with the work being produced, the paintings became more of subject matter containing street life in paris or a busy bar scene or compositions that are meant to be similar to photographs (people half way out of the shot), also much work let the way the piece was composed to tell the story of the work, like the man on a balcony in paris painting by N.F. Karlins. 

In conclusion post modernism has always been a confusing subject for me and i have learned a confusing subject for most people who debate post modernism, as it does not have a sound basis for being described it is recognised as many things in one, movements, ideas and concepts and even though i know i will never fully understand postmodernism i feel i have come to understand more of it at least.