Songs by Others in MDIA 203

Juliette

Michael Stephens

Kramer

10A-Freak Factor

Freak Factor by David Rendall

4. Forget it: Don’t try to fix your weaknesses.

I agree completely with this assumption. Weaknesses are not the biggest problem in the world that people have to deal with. I like his point that weaknesses give us our uniqueness and they also show us what our strengths are. Weaknesses are different in eveyrone’s eye and there will never be a day when someone is able to completely be perfect in a sense to someone. I like other people’s weaknesses because it helps me see what that person truly is. We can work on really bad weaknesses like ones that hurt others but we should not have to change ourselves for others if it is painful for us.  It is very hard to change weaknesses and  no matter how hard an individual tries there will still be a little part of them that still has that weakness. This is why I think that everyone should have weaknesses because it can lead to great relationships. We can all help eachother out with our different weaknesses which will bring us all together and help us work together. If everyone had all the great strengths in the world, the world would be boring and no one would need another person.

5. Foundation: Build on your strengths.

I think that this is a very great thing that any individual can do. We all have different levels of strengths and we need to harbor those strengths and use them to our advantage. Working with our strengths will help all of us succeed in the real world. We also should enjoy our strengths and be able to find out what our strengths actually are. Our strengths are usually what we enjoy and what we use to get ahead and focusing on our weaknesses can destroy some of our strengths in a sense. We could start to not utilize our strengths and just focus on what our weaknesses are which can hurt us in the long run. We must work on our strengths in every aspect of our lives. And I do believe that if we utilize our strengths we are also working on our weaknesses without even knowing it. We are denying our weaknesses in a sense where we don’t focus on them and we are getting ahead with our strengths.

8. Freak: The power of uniqueness

I agree that everyone has a certain sense of uniqueness to them. We all need this uniqueness or we would all be the exact same person in a sense. I like my uniqueness. No one else is like me. No one can do what I can do. No one can help people like I do. No one can make people laugh like I do. I enjoy what I am and I do not want to change because others think it is wrong. I am a clutz and disorganized and always a mess. I enjoy what I am and I would never change for another person. No matter how hard I may try I wil never be able to truly fix all my flaws. And I am okay with this aspect. Being different is what makes other people like me more because I am different than them. I have different aspects of me that cause me to be unique. It is great to be unique and all of us are unique and we have to see it that way instead of flaws or problems. People will always try to fix our flaws but if they aren’t hurting anyone we should see them as great things that just make us different than others.

9B-Collapsus

Collapsus

I did not really enjoy what this "game" was doing. I enjoyed what it was about and what it tried to touch on but the way that it was played was not fun. It seemed to be trying too hard in a sense. It was very hard for me to follow because of the diactic and active learning it was trying to achieve. I think that it is hard for anyone to follow these two playing styles when they are put together. When they are separated and in different settings, it is much easier to follow but all at once it is very hard to follow what is going on. It is also hard because you never know what you are going to be doing or what you should be doing. These two different playing styles are so different. I enjoyed the work that we did over this course. I loved doing the blogs even though they were quite tedious at times. But it was a new experience and it taught me to share what I was doing with others. I learned how creative others were with their blogs and I really enjoyed watching other's work and what they really enjoyed to do. It was a very fun experience and I think that everyone has a creative side that they need to share with others. I am very intrigued by why others do things and what makes them want to be creative and these blogs really started to help me understand these things.

9A-Gaming

We had so much fun trying to figure out a cool and new game that everyone would want to play. We finally decided on a game about the Greeks in Athens, Greece. There has not been a game similar to our game’s theme. We thought this game would be appealing to male individuals between the ages of 16-25. This game is very similar to Halo’s and Grand Theft Auto’s set-up. Our hero Alixis was trying to defend the Greeks because the gods were starting to just mess with them for no reason. The king sent Alixis to fight Zeus but he lost automatically and was sent to Hell. During the game the player must defeat the three worlds to conquer the game and accomplish the main goal. The main goal is to conquer the heavens and defeat Zeus to save the Greeks. The first objective is to defeat Hades and get out of Hell. While the player is there, he must take souls and get their powers to defeat Hades. After the player is out of hell he must set the Titans free from Poseidon. The Titans hate Zeus and will help Alixis conquer the Heavens. So the player’s objective in this world is to defeat Poseidon and free the Titans. During this world the other objectives are for the player to get more powers by talking with scholars and other Greeks. Also, to get tools from the market and barter. The next step is to travel up Mount Olympus and try and conquer the Heavens. This is the final objective to reach the overall goal of defeating Zeus. He must fight off the watchers of the Heavens so that he can get to Zeus. He has help from the Titans. Then he must fight Zeus when he finally reaches the Heavens. The rules are very simple, there are none. The player has free wandering and is able to kill anyone. But if the kill is unnecessary there are repercussions. Fieries will start to build up and follow the player and slow the player down throughout the game as soon as he kills for no reason. SO there are no rules but there are things that will happen to the player. The hardest thing to describe to the audience is the mechanics. There is no way of really getting the real feel for the game unless the audience is playing the game. We tried by describing that everything would be free wandering and making references like halo and Grand Theft Auto. We showed pictures of what the game would look like but that is as close to describing what the game would actually feel like to play as we could get. I enjoyed this project and wished that we could invent this game.

8B-Hero/Villian

Connor Gartland & Michael Stephens:

I am going to critique Connor and Michael’s villains and heroes. They decided to have two villains and one superhero. What I first noticed about these characters is the colors of each one. They are very misdirecting and different than what a normal super hero and villain would be like. I really like the choices of colors that they picked. The hues of the hero are very dark and powerful. They chose to use a dark deep red and that may symbolize power because the character appears to be very powerful with his square body and straight up stance. What I first noticed of the hero was his hand. It is a bright yellow with a star on it and it stands out more than the actual character does. The two villains are both drawn in white and the brightness of these two is what I was drawn to. This color usually symbolizes good and not evil but I like that they chose to draw them in white to make them stand out against the hero. Since they are in white there is no saturation that really goes on in their drawings. They chose similar contrast colors that go with the hero. The one villain has hints of yellow around him and as I remember it is because he is the one that is greedy and wants all the money. The other character is more mechanical looking. They seem to be good in the color sense but the visuals and the way that they composed their faces makes them look and act evil.

Juliette Rocheleau & John Mikesell:

The next character critique I will be doing is of Juliette Rocheleau and John Mikesell. Their characters are a two year-old Eros who is the villain and the hero is Captain Stickman who has a soul patch of justice. These two characters are very interesting to me because they are not your normal hero and villain. It is a two year old and a stickman for the hero. The way that the used the colors in these two characters is interesting. They chose to use the deep reds and oranges to show that the two year old is evil. But they really showed the mood of the villain by her movement in the picture drawn. She has her hand up like “don’t talk to me or get away.” It really shows that she is not to be messed with because of her movement. The other thing that they touched on is symbolism with her heart that is drawn on her overalls. If a person was to  just look at the heart they would think that she is just a nice little girl and that she’s not evil but in her soul she is truly evil. Juliette talked about how Eros wants to be a cat and that is why she drew her hair the way it is. Her hair looks as if she has ears because they are set up on top of her head in two pigtails. The villain is drawn in a nice warm blue and his mood is shown with the smile that they chose to draw on his face. He seems to have a happy demeanor instead of the negative one that the villain has.

 
Tanner Simmons:

The next hero and villain duo will be Tanner Simmon’s characters and his partners. His characters are a young roman gladiator and what seems to be a leader in the roman world. These characters appear to be normal in the way that they are dressed because of what the norm was back in the day to wear. But during the video I rememeber that is was apparent that these two characters were not normal in any sense. The first character that I will discuss is the hero. He is just a normal gladiator it seems but he has super powers to fight the evil of the roman world. I can tell that he is the hero because he is drawn in a way that makes him look misunderstood. This is the mood that they are setting for him. He does not appear to be the biggest gladiator or the strongest but he looks like he wants to do some good.  The villian’s mood and stance makes him look like he thinks he is all powerful. He is standing with his hands up in the air and does not seem to have a care in the world. His facial expression shows that he is angry and mean. He does not appear to care about what others think of him and looks strong and able to use his body to destroy people that he does not like. These are just the assumptions that are coming from the mood that these characters are putting off.

8A-This American Life

This American Life

I know this may be a very weird “superhero” to want to be but I would want to be a Greek goddess. I would think that it would be better to be the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality more than an actual superhero in a sense. I was deciding between wonder woman and Aphrodite and I chose Aphrodite. She doesn’t technically have super powers but she is the goddess of love and anyone that is the goddess of love is all-powerful. Love is what makes the world go round and everyone needs love to live. I would enjoy being able to make others love more than being able to just help myself. I would try to help others in every sense in their lives because that is what is important to me. I love making others happy and I feel that everyone needs love in their life and this goddess is the reason that people love. Plus being a goddess always trumps being just a super hero.

7-Jokes

These two videos were completely different in almost every aspect. The shots were similar and the way that we collaborated was that same. We also worked together on almost every aspect of the process. The scripts were completely different and had a similar sense. The one video that I acted in was close to the exact joke script that we were given. We used a simple approach by not speaking and playing a song by crash test dummies to show so that everyone would focus mainly on what was happening on-screen. In this video about the car crash, we used a lot of tension at the beginning with me driving the car while drinking out of a flask. This was the very first scene that was shown to create the tension. The next scene was Ashton driving while being very upset, these are two things that one should never do while driving because it is distracting. The tension continued to build as the viewer saw Ashton get more and more angry and as I was still seen drinking three or four times out of the flask. The tension continued to build and then finally it explodes into the release. The release happens when the cars finally crash because the viewer knew it was bound to happen. The cars appear to have been in a crash and this is where spacing comes into play. The space between our cars needed to be perfect to show that we had crashed. We also used space pertaining to where we would be sitting for the camera. We tried to stay close together to appear that we were bonding after the crash. The rhythm of the video is similar throughout entirety. It is a steady build to the climax then a release and then the movements and actions start to build again and then another release happens at the end of the video as seen when I call the police at the end because I have forced Ashton to drink the rest of the wine. This is also a very good use of misdirection. At first the viewer may think that we are bonding and that I am going to drink the wine, too. Ashton thinks the same thing. But what he doesn’t know is that I am putting my finger over the bottle so that I am not really drinking it. Only the audience sees this and he thinks that I am being a great friend. Our other video has a very similar sense of rhythm because it builds up then lets down then builds up again and releases at the very end when Ashton asks the girl out instead of dumping her. The movement of both is similar because there is not that much movement and we are really just sitting and talking during the videos. This video is also driven by misdirection by Ashton asking the girl out and during the phone call everyone thinks that he is going to dump her. The videos are similar in format but different in the scenes and stories.