Freak Factor

http://changethis.com/manifesto/45.02.FreakFactor/pdf/45.02.FreakFactor.pdf

When you click that link, you will be taken to a manifesto that will help you discover your weaknesses, and instead of trying to help rid you of them, will help you to embrace them.

Essentially, the entire article describes 9 ways to harness your weaknesses, your disabilities and your addictions. Your “freak factor”. Not only to harness them, but to make them into strengths, and help you become a more successful individual. 

Of these 9 ways, I have found three different pieces of advice that I think are actually very helpful, and meaningful to me. 

#3: Flawless: There’s Nothing Wrong With You

Here, author David Rendall makes the claim that “each of us has unique characteristics. These characteristics have both positive and negative features.” He says that the strengths and weaknesses cannot be separated, they come only in pairs. He also makes a chart showcasing some of the most common.

Some of my “Strength and Weakness” pairs are here:

Creative/Unorganized, Dedicated/Stubborn, Reflective/Shy, and Passionate/Impatient

He goes on to describe the idea of messiness being a weakness, and why this shouldn’t be so. Many of the greatest minds of our century have been messy. Alexander Fleming, for example, found the cure for penicillin in his mess of a lab after returning from vacation. Albert Enstein has said “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, what is an empty desk a sign of?”

This makes me feel so much better about myself.

#5: Foundation: Build on your Strengths

In #4, Rendall says that you should not try to fix your weaknesses. That it is a painful and slow process that is actually more of a hindrance to us than a benefit. But in this section, he does say that we should work on building our strengths. He makes the claim that if you don’t use it, you lose it, so we should never think that our strengths will always be there. 

He also says three things:

“

1)It feels good. It is enjoyable and energizing to work on your strengths.

2)You have the greatest potential in your areas of strength. These are your natural gifts and provide you with your best chances for success.

3)Your strengths make up for your weaknesses. Well-developed strenths often make your weaknesses irrelevant.

”

This is refreshing and a relief to hear. I love the idea that our strengths make up for our weaknesses. 

#8: Freak: The Power of Uniqueness

In this section, Rendall describes how the Leaning Tower of Pisa was built. How they made every attempt to stop the tower from leaning, and for years afterwards, would even try to correct the “problem”. However, people, including this blogger and her family, have flocked by the millions to see this tower lean. (And strangely, all of the buildings in the same plaza seem to lean as well...) 

It is the thing that made it’s builders view it as a mistake that has made it such an impossibly huge tourist attraction today. 

In some ways I am reminded of Lady Gaga. Seriously, what a freak. But in all honesty, look at her. There can be only one Lady Gaga. No matter what she does now, now matter how crazy she gets or how many steaks she decides to wear to the Grammy’s, she will always be a unique and totally irreplaceable individual. It’s why she has such an incredibly strong following. She prides herself on being a freak, and that is what has made her famous. Although I don’t want to be Lady Gaga necessarily, I do want to be the only Maddie you’ll ever know.

Collapsus

www.Collapsus.com

Heroes and Villains

I looked at a few different Heroes and Villains assignments and I think I have come up with some that are pretty well-executed!

The first I would like to take a look at is hero and villain designed by Yingqi and her partner. Here's the link: http://yingqi203mdia.blogspot.com/2011/05/hero-villian.html I think that this pair of characters created had a great use of lighting. The villain, for example, was shrouded in shadow. his cape covers his face, he has a large hat that casts a shadow over him, and he even wears an eyepatch, which hides his face even further. Even his background is dark and shadowy. Dark and angular, he is clearly the villain. The hero here, however, is exceedingly bright and well lit. Although he wear a similar large hat, he keeps his head held high, and light covers his face. His face is also much rounder. There is such good contrast between these two characters. Both the colors used and the lighting differences really make them seem like they fight for opposite morals. However, the artist responsible also did a good job of making these characters seem like they come from the same universe or storyline. I like the obvious use of a point in time, sometime in the past, to give them a clear universe, and they were clearly done by the same artist, which always helps when looking for affinity between characters. All in all, I thought that this piece was very well done.

Another post I looked at was by Anthony Aerni and his partner. This hero and villain pair were actually a can of Pepsi and a can of Orange Crush. Here’s the link to their animation: http://m2d0i3a.blogspot.com/2011/05/herovillain-assignment-8a.html I liked this idea, and the animation is funny, although I wish they had included the colored versions of their characters, at least the pictures, in their post. I know that these two characters employed a good use of color, the can of Pepsi in blues and reds, and the can of Orange Crush completely orange. But their animation also used a good deal of movements, and used it very well. I loved the way that they expressed the powers of the two characters. The characters had a clear weight, and seemed quite heavy, which I can imagine is hard to do when trying to design two cans of soda as “super”. They also used overlapping movements very well, when Pepsi envelopes the convenience store clerk (a banana?) in soda, for example. Another good example of this is during the “Mortal Kombat”-esque fighting scene. I think that the hero and villain in this case are very good examples of tension and release as well. The villain is so ANGRY looking. Furrowed brow, angry eyes, sharp teeth. He simply looks like a meany. But our hero is, while at times angular, a much happier looking character. An orange slice cements his smile at all times. It was a relief when he finally arrived. 

The final pair of supers I would like to take a closer look at were created by Nolan Alexander and his partner. Here are the links to the hero: http://soulbrotha91.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-super-hero.html and villain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36B1VsilJsM Unfortunately, the person in charge of the villain did not post a good picture of their villain in color. But as you can see, the hero, B-Girl, shows how well color was used in this set of individuals. B-Girl is meant to be a bionic ninja. Since she is a ninja, she has to be shrouded in darkness, and so her colors are darker shades of darker colors; Blues and purples. In spite of this, she still seems good to us because she is so whimsical. In this case, you almost have to suspend what you might know about colors and how they should be applied, because the hero isn’t always bright, is he? Batman, for example, runs around in black, but we still hold him above other people, even above public servants at times. I think that the colors they decided to use were extremely effective. 

Superpowers

Here’s a link to a podcast on “This American Life” about superpowers. It’s pretty interesting, take a look!

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/178/superpowers

Animation Time!

Here is the animation that I made, alongside my partner Katie Mack!

Video Jokes

This was, honestly, one of my favorite projects from this class. It was so much fun to take up the roles I am so interested in making a career out of.

And I was so excited to have my script chosen to be made into one of our videos. We actually chose two extraordinarily different videos made. One, a romantic comedy, the other a western.

Our first video, entitled "La Boite" (and written by me!) was a silent film and a romantic comedy. Written to be performed without any words spoken, it follows a day in the life of a not-so-talented mime. He ends up falling in love! It's very Charlie Chaplin-esque. The joke in this video, therefore, had to be conveyed by the movements and the emotions of the characters, as opposed to any dialogue.This means that the movie was largely focused on movement and rhythm, and that this movement was largely character-drawn. There is a clear link between the movements on screen and the music used in the movie, an example of this would be when the mim character walks into frame for the first time, and his footsteps match the beat of the music almost exactly. The colors in this movie were also very important, with the red of the suspenders and his cheeks contrasting with largely green backgrounds.

Our second video, "Hey There, Harry" was a traditional western. We also made this a silent film, but instead of leaving out all dialogue, we added in slides with the words on them. This movie was rendered to be in an old-timey sepia color. In this video, we largely tried to convey the joke by using movement, as in our other movie, but also by using space. As it was a silent movie, the characters had to use bold movements, but there is also a clear use of depth when looking at the scenes.

There is both contrast and affinity between both projects. For example, one could say that the use of movement is similar in both jokes, but that there is a clear difference in rhythm and space between the two. The coloring of the projects also adds to this contrast, quite literally. One is extremely bright and colorful, while the other is more monotone, dark, and even colorless.

It's hard to say which video portrayed the joke better. I think that, when looking at the joke itself, it is more clearly defined in "Hey There Harry", where it is said almost literally, while in "La Boite" it is implied as a plot device.

Videos!

Here are the links to the two videos my group did for MDIA 203. Hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rB2umBQ5O4&feature=channel_video_title

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc4TI9HvqKo

Sound for Blogs 5B and 6B

Here are the podcasts that go with the blogs below. The podcasts are named after their similar blog. Enjoy!

The Dark Knight

This blog post is meant to coincide with a podcast I made about The Dark Knight, so be on the lookout for that!

The Dark Knight is one of my favorite movies, but it is the way that Christopher Nolan has directed the shots for this movie that have helped to make this world and these characters so believable.

Here is a clip and a few screenshots from one of my favorite scenes in the movie, The Interrogation Scene:

Batman:Arkham Asylum (6B)

I decided to analyze one of my favorite video games, with one of my favorite characters: Batman:Arkham Asylum. This is seriously one of the most fun games I have ever played. It's dark, dirty, has a storyline that not only makes sense, but keeps the action moving, as well as keeps you on the edge of your seat. 

Here is a video from YouTube, which discusses the gameplay:

Here are some stills from the video game as well. 

Keep a lookout for my audio commentary to accompany this! It's sure to be riveting!

How to be Creative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyPgCyum6es

And here is the link to the manifesto we were asked to read and analyze. VERY INTERESTING. Enjoy!

http://changethis.com/manifesto/6.HowToBeCreative/pdf/6.HowToBeCreative.pdf

Visual Framing

I have always been drawn to comic books. Ever since I was little, there has been a fascination with them that I can't explain. So it's no surprise to me that, for the purposes of this blog post, I was drawn to the selection of work by Roy Lichtenstein.

Here is one of Roy's pieces I was drawn to:

And here is this photo, resized:

This image really caught my eye. Aside from the fact that I love the artist, I was drawn to the warmer red and yellows of the piece. I decided to reframe it this way because this is where there is the most tension in the piece. And by this, I mean that this is where the action is happening, where the punch was landed.

I think that the artist chose to frame the piece in the way that he did because of a number or reasons. For one, by using the rule of thirds, our eye is drawn to the fist in the top left of the picture, as well as the text "Sweet dreams, baby!" The rule of thirds also helps to lead us across the "POW!" to the face in the bottom right corner of the picture.

The way the artist has used lines is incredibly intense as well. The lines that represent the motion of the fist not only lead out eye up and down, but in fact create a visual movement. We understand that the man's fist came up and hit the man in the bottom right. The extreme close up shot also brings the viewer into the moment, right into the middle of the action, almost umcomfortably close.

The artist also uses great contrast and affinity. The extremely warm and loud colors of the hitter's sweater, the background, and the word "POW" are all contrasted by the Man being hit. His face is considerably more in the dark, as opposed to all of the other colors, which seem to fit together.

Song Assignment

These are the songs that my partner, Yingqi, and I created for our assignment. We decided to use two of the same instuments, an acoustic guitar and a piano track. We also decided to have different tempo, my song being much slower, and her song being much faster. Let me know what you think!

Cover Songs

I would like to talk about the song "Just Like a Woman" by Bob Dylan, and a cover of this song. Here is the version by Bob Dylan.

The cover of the song is a version by Amber Rubarth. Although I have her CD, the format is wrong and I wasn't able to upload the studio version, so you'll just have to enjoy this live version. It is still a very good cover.

The musical qualities of both are very different. A prime example of this is the tempo. Dylan's song is much faster, allegro, even. Amber Rubarth's version is much slower, andante, or possibly even adagio. The rhythm in Dylan's version is caused by, I believe, the harmonica sounds. Harmonicas tend to be drawn out, but have very high pitch and change very quickly. In this way, the drums and the guitar have to follow this speed. But with Ambers version, the rhythm comes from her own voice, and the guitar itself.

The timbre of the voices is also very different. When one hears Bob Dylan's voice, it is almost impossible not to recognize it. His raspy, almost wheezing voice has become iconic to many. Amber's voice is much sweeter sounding. The organization and instrumentation is different as well. While Dylan utilizes a variety of instruments, harmonica, drums, and guitar, Amber uses only her voice and a guitar.

There is an intensity in Amber's version of the song that is unlike Dylan's. While they both have intensity in their own ways, Amber uses meaningful emphasis in certain words in the song. This is how she also makes the lyrics different. While the lyrics are technically written the same, and Amber doesn't rewrite any of the words themselves, with Dylan, the song is very fast paced, and the words can seem to be thrown out into the wind. The sounds surrounding the lyrics don't seem to have a connect with the lyrics themselves.
When you look into the lyrics, they can seem very sad.

"Everybody knows the baby's got new clothes, but lately, I've seen her ribbons and her bows have fallen from her curls."

Bows have fallen from a baby's curls? But the baby got new clothes! The way the lyrics talk about the woman who is "just like a woman" seem to say that she wronged someone, the narrator perhaps,  in some way.

Amber's version seems to more aptly express the lyrics themselves, by slowing them down. She enunciates them and puts emphasis on words like TAKES, MAKES LOVE, ACHES, BREAKS. By using different musical qualities, she makes the song so much more emotional. So much sadder, so much more emotionally heavy. It makes the listener feel sad, and we can all relate to the heartbreak the song implies.

I think that is why I like the cover of this song so much more. It seems like Bob Dylan didn't really know what he had his hands on in terms of the lyrics. The version by Amber Rubarth just makes me FEEL so much more. I can connect to it so much better. Amber really helped o express what, deep down, I think Dylan was trying to say with the song.

New playlist3

Soundscape!

This is the soundscape that Becca and I made. So good man! So good!

We combined different types of sounds, some musical instruments, and sound effects as well. Let me know what you think!

New playlist1

14 Ways

For my MDIA 203 Class, the assignment was to read “14 Ways to get Breakthrough Ideas”, by Mitch Ditkoff.

The link to download this file can be found here: http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/49.06.14Ways

You are so totally welcome.

This was actually a very fascinating read. It put a lot of focus on the creative aspects of discovery, things that the fields of science and mathematics have apparently been keeping under wraps. 

The article has, shockingly enough, 14 suggestions for how to begin thinking and get on your way to discovering:

1. Follow Your Fascination
2. Immerse
3. Tolerate Ambiguity
4. Make New Connections
5. Fantasize
6. Define the Right Challenge
7. Listen to Your Subconscious
8. Take a Break
9. Notice and Challenge Existing Patterns and Trends
10. Hang out With Diverse Groups of People
11. Brainstorm
12. Look for Happy Accidents
13. Use Creative Thinking Techniques
14. Suspend Logic

I have chosen three of these tips to talk about in detail.

Follow your Fascination

This tip says to take whatever new idea you have and run with it. “Don’t dismiss it as trivial. Give it room. Give it time to breathe.” Mitch Ditkoff explains that when you are fascinated by something, it is supposed to be that way. There is a reason why you are drawn to a particular idea, and that this is reason enough to delve into the idea. He remarks that the origins of the word fascination should also lead us to this conclusion, with the core “fascinus” meaning “enchanted or delighted”, and that anything that enchants or delights us is sacred, similar to immaculate conception. While I find that comparison to be a little bit over the top, I do think that this tip is a good one.

I think that, since I have gotten to college, I’ve had a hard time following my own personal fascinations. From now on, I’m going to make a point to go out and do things when I am drawn to it. One of those ideas that has been nagging at me since I started school is the idea of going and tagging the wall at Seigfred, under the building, by the stairs. Before the end of this quarter, I’m going to do it. I’m going to create a design and then make it come to life on that wall. It doesn’t need to be big, just there!

Fantasize

For this tip, Ditkoff shuns the idea of fantasizing as only being for “perverts or children” (quite the opposites...), but also as being used master chess players, for people in the business and corporate world, and for dreamers of all types. He makes another point about the roots of words, this time between “fantastic” and “fantasize”. They share to common root of meaning “use the imagination”.

This is, I believe, another good tip. Honestly, it’s one I already actively participate in. After watching a movie, after a particularly good book, enacting conversations and fights with people in my head, “She would say that, and then I would say this! Yeah that would get her!”. It gives me the chance to develop my own ideas and put myself in situations, helping me decide what the best course of action would be to accomplish a certain goal.

Look for Happy Accidents

This is the final tip I would like to talk about. In this tip, Ditkoff explains that we need to wait around and keep an eye out for things that happen accidentally. Saying that sometimes, it isn’t about the idea, but what can happen without even thinking, when you just notice something is different or new or unexpected. He also talks about how some of the most world-altering inventions and discoveries happened by accident. 

Honestly, in comparison to some of the other tips included on this list, this one is a little bit disappointing. It just seems to say to me, “Sit around and wait for something to happen,” which is the lazy route. I don’t want to be relying on the fact that eventually something will give me an idea or the fame and fortune or whatever will just come to me. That’s just silly. 

Activity! Yeah!

At the end of each tip, there is a prompt, a little activity, to get the wheels in your head turning. I decided to use the prompt from Tip #4: Make New Connections. It prompts you to Make three lists, parallel to each other, one with nouns, one with verbs, and one with adjectives. It then says to find new and intriguing connections between those words. Here are the words I chose:

Nouns:

Puppy

Sorority Girl

Planner

Movie

Blanket

Paris

T-Shirt

Fence

A bouquet of flowers

Laptop

Verbs:

Run

Dance

Sing

Paint

Read

Activate

Destroy

Push

Slash

Smash

Adjectives:

(For these, I needed a little help from the good old internet! Random Adjectives, oh yeah!) 

Clumsy

Jilted

Belligerent

Fantastical

Deranged

Defensive

Exceptional

Fuzzy

Wonderful

Sloppy

I started seeing connections almost immediately, and it was all I could do to try putting down adjectives that I was already connecting with between the nouns and verbs. Even after finding the most random of adjectives, I found connections. I’m going to try to outline a story, or maybe a short film,from some of these words in a few sentences:

Open on a girl with her laptop, outside, on a sunny day. She is engrossed in her work, checking her planner. She looks defensive. A boy and a puppy on a leash walk up to her. The puppy is clumsily stumbling over it’s paws, which are too big for it’s puppy legs. This is where the relationship begins, the puppy noticing, going over to the girl, sniffing her. She looks down, smiles, and tries to go back to her work. But the puppy is belligerent. The boy apologizes and tries to lead the puppy away, although he himself doesn’t want to. After a little more Badgering by the puppy, the girl puts her things down, begins to melt, playing with the puppy, and a conversation between the boy and the girl starts. Flashes of picnics on blankets, dancing, a bouquet of flowers on a table, Paris, the girl in the boy’s T-Shirt, a wedding all exceptionally lovely moments, memories.

I thought of making it a love-lost story, with verbs like smashed, slashed, and destroy, and with adjectives like deranged and jilted, I certainly could have done that, but I decided to keep it nice. 

Bottom Line: Anything with puppies in it has to be nice.

I really liked doing this. I didn’t think it would be very fun, but now I have a few ideas for a short film, or a short story, or whatever! These tips really did end up being helpful.

Who Influences Me?

"C'est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose

  qui fait ta rose si important."

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Le Petit Prince is a wonderful book. Full of wonderful quotes. And this quote is one that explains the way I create, and how I work as a creative person. Roughly translated, it means "It is the time that you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

My room is a mess, and I procrastinate like no one else. But when the inspiration hits me, I can focus as if I'm a completely different person. When I would work on my AP Art pieces, I would spend days getting the details right. It is always important for me to have my works of art be exactly how I see them in my head, to be perfect. And I chase that perfection until I am thoroughly satisfied with the end result. 

One thing that has always had a way of influencing me is music. It just gets into my head, and can change the spring in my step to more of a stomp. (And vice-versa)

One of my favorite artists is Panic at the Disco. Their theatricality and their style of music-- which is a combination of emo, pop-punk, acoustic, big band, electro-pop, and was even described on Wikipedia as vaudeville-- resonates within me.

This is their song “The Ballad of Mona Lisa” (which contains the lyrics that are now the title of this blog!)

This video is, I believe, a good indication of text and subtext. Firstly, we cannot take the actual text, the lyrics, very seriously at face value, with the “main character” being a woman called Mona Lisa. As we all know, Mona Lisa was once painted by Da Vinci, and cannot be the actual person in the song, especially if she’s surrounded by gin. There are also some seemingly-nonsensical or contradictory lyrics, like “let the sun rain down on me,” and while the lyrics are meant to tell a story, it is not a story we can decipher by just reading the lyrics themselves. 

This is something I like about Panic at the Disco. It allows me to make my own opinions about what they mean, put myself into the shoes of the songwriter-- “What could he mean by this? Who does he mean by Mona Lisa?” 

The music video itself also adds to the subtext of the music. The entire song is performed by the singer at a funeral, who also resembles, pretty exactly, the ghost of the man who is being honored at the funeral (in fact, it is the lead singer, Brandon Urie, playing both parts.). The singer also goes in and out of focaus, and can be seen in triple. This creates an unreliable narrator. It takes place in an unrealistic, steampunk-styled world. It’s completely fantastical and really makes you look behind what they are merely saying.

This next song is called "Bad Day", and is by the artist Darwin Deez. It’s very electrical, and is a great example of tension and release.

The song begins with a very jarring, high pitched, electrical beat. It almost hurts the ears to listen to. It continues just until you cannot take it anymore, and then the song changes to a very different style, with guitar, drums, and a tambourine. It is very much indie in it’s style.

The shrill sound comes back in the middle of the song, creating that tension again before continuing with the song. It’s very effective, reinforcing the theme of the song, “I hope that every day is a bad day for you, because I just don’t like you.”

The song also has a way of using only quick, short guitar chords, or even the sound of maracas shaking, in between the chorus, setting up the tension again until that easy chorus comes right back in. 

I would like to end, perhaps shockingly, on a movie that is my considerable favorite, "The Dark Knight".

And here's another scene:

Now these videos can’t show every scene I would like to talk about, but it should give a good idea.

I think that the dark knight does a great job of visually using contrast and affinity. The scenes with the Joker, who is loud, colorful, warped, and dirty, contrast considerably with those scenes with Batman, who is dressed in black, is considerably cleaner, has no rough edges, and thrives on silence and the ability to come and go without notice.

Through those differences, we see that Batman has a set of rules he abides by, he is clean, clean cut, and stands tall. The Joker is hunched, warped, dirty, and he is simply crazy. He has no rules. One affinity between the two would be that they both rely on fear to make people do what they want.

Batman also contrasts with the character of Harvey Dent, before he becomes Two-Face. He is seen in bright light, with a certain halo-like effect given by the lighting. With this contrast, we can see that Harvey is meant to be a savior for Gotham City, and he is even often referred to as “Gotham’s White Knight”. However, Harvey Dent also shares this “halo” and “bright lighting” with Batman’s secret identity, Bruce Wayne.

These are all things that inspire me in some way. Things that make me want to do more, to achieve more, to explore more. 

MDIA 203 Post #1 Baby!

God, why did I sign up for the 8-10am lab? I am really feeling the drag this morning. Ugh... sluggish, tired, achey. And this is after a night in. In all honesty, I had my pick of the lab times. Why didn't I choose something later in the day?

Maybe I chose this time because, at the end of last quarter, I was feeling a little more ambitious, a little more productive. "Hey, as long as Winter quarter is over, I can handle anything." Or maybe I wanted a little more time to get things done before friday night. "If I wake up early, I'll push myself to do more in the day."The fact that my sorority has brunch every Friday at 10:30 certainly was a factor. (I refuse to miss out on eating breakfast food.) I even knew of a friend or two who would be gracing the 8-10 lab with their presence.

As tired as I am now, maybe it will all pay off. I really hope I can get used to it, even learn to appreciate it. The reasons I listed were all real reasons I chose to take this class early. I would like to get more done during the day, or at least feel like I haven't wasted the day by the time I wake up. I love being able to see my sorority sisters at brunch, I really would hate to give that up. And the fact that I know people taking it, suffering the early morning heavy eyelids with me, makes me feel like this will be far from impossible.