Collapsus

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Karimanifesto and my manifesto

   Here and now is all we’ve got.

When reading Karim Rashid’s manifesto’s ten points,  “Here and now is all we’ve got” spoke to me the most. To quote an awesome movie, Kungfu Panda Master Oogway said, “ The past is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift that is why it is called the present.” This point spoke to me the most because I believe that everyday you should make the most out of it, because we are never guaranteed another shot or another day. When looking at his manifesto and the work he does I can see a correlation of unconventional, and very creative ideas being portrayed. It seems like he creates what he is feeling because the pieces themselves are beautiful artwork. His website even is very different, he has symbols used to represent certain sections and also adds a musical melody when you scroll on them. It’s very different and unique.  I would say his spirituality informs his art because he is creating because he is into his present. He knows that today is what we have been given so make the best out of it. His artwork shows that he is creating the best of what he can because he knows that to not take everyday as a gift, it will go to waste. He also believes that we could be living in a different world.

“Design is about the betterment of our lives poetically, aesthetically, experientially, sensorially, and emotionally. My real desire is to see people live in the modus of our time, to participate in the contemporary world, and to release themselves from nostalgia, antiquated traditions, old rituals, kitsch and the meaningless.”

His artwork shows that he wants to take the step and give us the push to become this different world.

    

What is most important to live and to live creatively? Now that is a tough question. The most important thing to live and to live creatively is to be: passionate in everything you do, never give up on something you believe in, try your best even when things are falling apart, shoot for the stars, think you can, give yourself brain food, enjoy the experience, forget rules, support yourself and be EXCITED! In today’s world I feel like people just take the jobs that have the best salary or will allow them to have the cool car or house. In reality they hate their jobs and are slaves to what they do everyday. 

It’s extremely important to be passionate about what you do! IT’S YOUR LIFE!!! Don’t waste it by doing a job you aren’t in love with, because in the end you gain nothing from it but cheap money. 

Never give up on something you believe in. Sometimes when people tell me that sounds stupid or that won’t work, it makes me want to push my idea even harder and create what I thought to begin with would be awesome. In order to get anywhere in life, you have to take some risks and giving up on what you believe is basically saying you want to play it safe always. This will not help you live, or live creativity. Go out there and make the world your playground and make it the way you believe it is meant to be otherwise change will never happen.

Try your best even when things are falling apart. Once you’ve started don’t give up. Do whatever you can to make it your best still. Sometimes when things don’t go as planned many will give up and say well that’s all I can do. I can’t do anything else to make it better. TRY TRY TRY! These mishaps or mistakes can be transformed into a positive if you want it to be. Always look for other ways, which will help in your life and thinking creatively!

Shoot for the stars, why not? Life is way to short, why limit yourself to thinking only this way or that way is possible. If you want, there are endless possibilities out there for you to discover and accomplish.

THINK YOU CAN!!! I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I can’t do it… I can’t do that… I can’t CAN’T, CAN’T, CAN’t!!!” That word needs to be taken out of the dictionary its overused. In order to be creative you have to think you can do anything, you can create anything or else you will be stuck with a mess that you don’t know what to do with because you can’t take control and do it.

Give yourself brain food… keep learning new things, keep up with the times and don’t just get adjusted to how things are. The best way to lead a creative life is to be constantly changing and learning, if you don’t you may find yourself with the same idea and nothing ever unique or different.

Enjoy the experience. I remember this years 48 shoot-out. I loved my crew and everyone I worked with. At the end of it all, we were late in turning in our DVD due to burning issues, but while everyone kept saying oh that sucks or what a bummer. I thought, no this still is our film, this still was an amazing experience and I’m glad I was a part of it. In order to live life creatively and just live you need to take in all the experiences you can.

Forget the rules. In order to live a creative life, you have to make your own rules and live life the way you want it to be. Life is unpredictable so rules have got to change constantly, which is why I would forget the rules.

Support yourself. You can’t depend on others all the time, now I’m not saying you shouldn’t be trusting but I am saying that you can’t just depend on others. You need to support yourself in life. It’s important because it gives you a sense of pride while also allowing you to build character.

Last but not least, BE EXCITED!!! Life and creating things you need to be excited in what you do and life in general. Life is a crazy ride, so hold on and make some amazing things happen.

FREAK FACTOR

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David Rendall's, FREAK FACTOR: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness is an article about not becoming the stereotypical well-rounded person. In fact it’s the opposite, Rendall wants people to regain their creativity and uniqueness while at the same time fixing their “flaws”. As he states, the basic three steps to self-improving are:

1.    Fix weakness

2.    Build on strengths

3.    Do BOTH

BUT… Rendall wants us to offer us a better alternative than the ineffective efforts to fix weaknesses.  After reading Rendall’s nine alternative suggestions, here are the three that meant the most to me.

What’s MY problem?

         When reading what Rendall had to say about his “problems” I could relate to what he was saying. Similar to him, growing up my teachers and family would tell me that I didn’t think conventionally… or better yet I was scattered brained.  Even once a teacher had to call in my mother to inform her of a standardized test I took in elementary school. See, there was a question on the test that asked if you have 3 blue marbles in a bag and 4 red marbles in a bag, what color marble would have the best chance of being pulled out? Seems like a simple question to answer, but no, I gave the answer…purple. Therefore, the teachers felt a little concerned with how my brain functions. It was evident when I was growing up I thought outside the box and gave strange answers to questions that a lot of people hadn’t thought of before. It was only until I was in high school that I began to use my creativity as my strength.

1.) There is nothing wrong with you.

Rendall is right! There is nothing wrong with me, I just think unconventionally

      2.) You find success when you find the right fit.

Rendall… you’re right again!  Film and creating different and unconventional things is where I fit in and I believe I will have success in the major I am in.

     3.)Your weakness makes you different.

WAVE YOUR FREAK FLAG!!! Who knows someone might like it!

FORGET IT! Don’t try to fix your weaknesses

         In this particular advise, basically tells us trying to “fix” your weaknesses… WON’T WORK!!! The logic behind such advise is:

>>> It is slow! Since it takes so much time to get anywhere on fixing our weakness why bother? Weaknesses are part of who you are therefore, it is a long and boring process to change who you were always meant to be.

>>>It is PAINFUL! OUCH! Who wants to be told over and over again that your weakness is still there, that it hasn’t been fixed or better yet, you don’t want to fix your weaknesses??? I know when I don’t want to do something, like eat steamed carrots, it’s the most painful experience I can go through!

>>>It distracts us from activities where we could make significant progress and find fulfillment. One, you’re wasting time, trying so hard to fix what doesn’t need to be fixed because you COULD be out and about doing things that add on to your strengths and abilities instead of dwelling on what you think needs to change.

>>>It doesn’t actually work.  Say you fix your weakness… will you still use it?

… I wouldn’t.

The POWER OF UNIQUENESS!

         In this section, it addresses… FREAKS!  It talks about the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Though buildings are usually supposed to be straight, this building began to lean after it was built. While most thought it should get fixed, it didn’t. Since then, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is considered a famous landmark, because the build itself is a freak. If one were to fix this building now, it would take away from its uniqueness and beautiful flaws. It would even possibly be said, that the “fixing” of the Pisa would actually make it flawed.

Now picture yourself as this AWESOME building, would you want to be straightened out and fixed? Who would want to see you then, you would be like any other building! BOO!!! As stated, it is good to be normal, but it is better to be exceptional!  So why would anyone choose to be normal? LET’S GO and BE FREAKS!

PERSONAL

         Personally, I think my strengths and weakness compliment each other in a way for the creative process. My strengths include: being creative, being a social person, ability to be outspoken and still approachable, and being able to be open- minded. My weakness would include: not being very logical, sometimes need brainstorming with others if I get stuck in a brain freeze and taking too many people’s advise or ideas, it sometimes makes me have too many thoughts. 

Arielle's villain and hero critic

Arielle’s hero/villain animation I couldn’t watch, the video wasn’t working for me, however Stevie’s animation from my interpretation made the superhero kind of clumsy and shows how he transforms into the superhero, then back to his nerd form and walks away. From the drawings, the football player and the nerd contrast in color. The hero is in white and while the Red Bullet was in brighter in color but darker in the type of color used. The Red Bullet also uses more saturated colors than the hero Stevie. The red and black colors that are used for the Red Bullet separates him from the white and black hero actively because red and black are colors used more for violence or to view someone as evil or bad, where as white seems more of an innocent color. This informs the viewer of who is the villain and who is the superhero. Another contrast between these two characters is their shape, the Red Bullet is very muscular and squared faced, to give him the extra strong and bully look, whereas, the superhero Stevie is a rounder face, showing that he is the kind and hero type of character. The hues of these two characters are the white and black for Stevie and the red and black for Red Bullet, which as stated earlier, is there to symbolize the villain and the superhero. Overall I think the villain and superhero animation idea was interesting and was well thought out. Everyone likes the stories of where the nerd defeats the bullies. 

9a

Personally, I think our group presentation of Hell Charms interested the class with the out of the ordinary storyline of the game. However, there were some points that were not clearly or fully expressed to the audience. To review a little bit of what the game is about, you are playing the character of Lilith who is Lucifer’s wife. You have been casted out of Hell by a curse and must get the seven pieces of your soul in order to get back into Hell.

The first point that may not have been clearly explained is how you get the pieces of your soul. Every level has a different piece of your soul and the levels represent a previous life that the character had.  Basically, your character has had seven lives, and now needs to go back to each one in order to get the pieces.  As the levels change, so does who you are, what weapons you can use and what powers you obtained. Which I think is a great idea, because it is like creating one game that has seven mini games in it. Next line of business, once you are near the item, you will be challenged by monsters that guard every piece, this increases the anticipation of finding the next item if the gamer is into only the fighting parts of a game.

Another point that was not fully explained as well is the pet. During the presentation we mentioned that your character gets to choose a pet to help aid in finding items, fight off monsters with you or heal your injuries. However, we did not completely explain how it is possible. The main idea with having the pet is so the character can have a better chance of survival as well as assistance on searching for pieces. The pet is a computer program, and is programmed to follow your character around until you order it to do something, a.k.a. “Battle”, “Help I’m Hurt” and “ I Can’t Find It.”

My group overall could’ve made the presentation stronger by going into more detail about the aspects of the game since it is a complicated and complex idea. Another way we could’ve enhanced the presentation’s overall effect would be by providing better slides and examples of what exactly we mean about the game.

Though there were some weaknesses in the presentation, I think we had some really good strong points. The story line and plot is extremely well thought out and intriguing, not many video games have such mythological and adventures in one game. Which I think helped gain the audiences’ attention and interest into our presentation.  Also another strong point would be that our game is really never ending and can be changed with how you decided to control and play the game. So there are different outcomes, which I think is something people like to think about. A game that has multiple possibilities and only you can cause the outcome.

Objectives I think the most difficult concept to discuss with others.  Since objectives are elements a designer puts in a game that takes the player to different tasks, is a difficult concept to explain. The only reason I think it is the hardest is because when the designer has the idea and image pictured in his or her head, it might be hard to create for others to see let alone just explain what they are seeing in their head.

Mechanics is the easiest concept to explain to others because at one point or another many people have played a video game.  Since mechanics is about what buttons to press and what buttons do what, I think a simple manual or explanation of what the buttons would do the job. Also, it would be really easy to create a game that only requires very few buttons making the understanding of the game and discussion of mechanics extremely easy.

SUPERHERO POWERS

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blog 7

For the joke videos, we created two different concepts of the joke about a blonde who walks into an elevator and keeps saying T.G.I.F. while the other person is saying S.H.I.T hinting to her it is Thursday.  The first joke, we decided to make it a Spanish soap opera theme and the second video, we decided to do a futuristic robotic theme to the joke. Rhythm techniques were used to contrast the two videos, while the space was used to compare the two videos.

The rhythm in the videos is an element that contributes to the contrast of the two. The rhythm of the Spanish soap opera video in the very beginning was choppy and had segments of the video cut and put together to introduce the characters in the joke video. This is a seen in typical soap opera television shows, so this rhythm technique really puts the audience in the mood or setting of a soap opera. As the video progresses the rhythm changes back and forth looking at Leon or Andrew as they say T.G.F.I and occasionally you see another character giving a reaction shot of what is occurring in the elevator. Then the rhythm changes again when Leon gets a number and smells the girls hair, it is slowed down the slightest bit to add that extra cheesiness to the story. The rhythm used in the robot video was very limited.  While editing we decided to make the edits as robotic as the scene and theme. As each level gets higher and higher we get the “break” from what is going inside the elevator.  We also changed the rhythm to speed up in the clips when the girl robot is getting more and more frustrated at the man robot. Overall, each of the rhythms puts the audience in the mood or feel of what they are watching.

Space was used to compare the two videos.  Since the scene of the joke was inside an elevator, the space we had was limit to flat. Limited space is used in the first Spanish soap opera video when Andrew is walking to the elevator, but as for the rest of the video it is limited to flat space. The robot video was pretty much flat space, which was intentional to give the viewer a sense of mechanical plainness and futuristic feel.

Both of the jokes were didactive because the joke was explained and tells the audience what to think at the end of the joke. There is no questioning at the end of the film what T.G.I.F. or S.H.I.T. means.  And there were a few contrasts in the films.  While the Spanish soap opera was in color, the robot video was filmed black and white.  Another contrast is, in the Spanish soap opera video had spoken audio, while the robot video only used mechanical noises and songs to express a language.