I've decided to stick with the blog post idea for my final project. It's simple enough. Write, edit, include links and other multimedia elements, post. I will need to remember to post them in reverse order, that way the story being told can be read chronologically. Like I said, its very simple, very straightforward.
I'll be using Blogger for this, but creating another blog entirely for this project. I'll play around with the settings too, try and make it prettier than this blog looks right now. It's gotta look good, not just read good.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Week 13 Digital Storytelling: Final Project proposal
The narrative found in my Photo essay was one where I explored how my tastes in comic books shifted. I want to expand on this and tell the narrative as to how I became interested in the things I am today.
The big thing is to keep to the idea of exploring different fictions and franchises, so hyperlinks will be key to this, linking to relevant Wiki pages or other pieces of the narrative. It is a linear story, but there are tangents to it. 'A' will go to 'B' but it could lead to 'A1' as well for a shorter point in the narrative.
I'm still debating what format this should be on, but I know video/podcast is out of the question. Maybe a simple Google Doc linking to other Google Docs will do? Or a number of blog posts, as each "chapter" will be brief. I know my story. I know how I want to tell it. And I have a good idea as to where I want to tell it.
The big thing is to keep to the idea of exploring different fictions and franchises, so hyperlinks will be key to this, linking to relevant Wiki pages or other pieces of the narrative. It is a linear story, but there are tangents to it. 'A' will go to 'B' but it could lead to 'A1' as well for a shorter point in the narrative.
I'm still debating what format this should be on, but I know video/podcast is out of the question. Maybe a simple Google Doc linking to other Google Docs will do? Or a number of blog posts, as each "chapter" will be brief. I know my story. I know how I want to tell it. And I have a good idea as to where I want to tell it.
Friday, November 16, 2018
Week 12 Mars
I feel that colonizing Mars is an inevitability. However, at this time, I don't at all think it is a good idea to go forward with colonizing a planet. We have no clue as to what we are doing here. Terra-forming is a science that's still a fiction. Getting people to survive the journey without major long-term issues is still being figured out. A human being hasn't even set foot on the planet yet, so why would we consider building a settlement on the surface?
Exploration missions are a great stepping stone, but constructing a colony is jumping way too far ahead. I expect the first few attempts at Martian colonization to fail. The whole thing is an investment, and one that doesn't show much potential for profit.
Instead of colonization, I'd much rather see more rover missions to other bodies in the Solar System. Venus is a great candidate for studying an extreme greenhouse effect, and Europa has something similar to Earth's water cycle but with liquid nitrogen and methane. Landing rovers on these worlds would also prove to be a nice challenge given their extremely harsh environments. Studies made on worlds like these can be much more beneficial compare to ones made on Mars, a planet covered in rust.
Exploration missions are a great stepping stone, but constructing a colony is jumping way too far ahead. I expect the first few attempts at Martian colonization to fail. The whole thing is an investment, and one that doesn't show much potential for profit.
Instead of colonization, I'd much rather see more rover missions to other bodies in the Solar System. Venus is a great candidate for studying an extreme greenhouse effect, and Europa has something similar to Earth's water cycle but with liquid nitrogen and methane. Landing rovers on these worlds would also prove to be a nice challenge given their extremely harsh environments. Studies made on worlds like these can be much more beneficial compare to ones made on Mars, a planet covered in rust.
Thursday, November 15, 2018
Week 12 Digital Storytelling
For my video project, I decided to answer a question I've been asked for the past year. Any time someone finds out I play Star Wars: Battlefront II (2017) I'm always asked "Why?" At launch the game got a stigma that even kept some of the most devoted Star Wars fans away from it. The year it launched was the year microtransactions in video games became a huge issue, and Battlefront II ended up being a catalyst for the backlash against the practice.
Despite the monetization system being removed hours before the game was available to everyone, the damage had already been done. To this day people still view the game as "Pay-to-Win." Since it's launch, however, I've witnessed huge changes come to the game, and next to all of those changes have been for the better. I mention in my video how I only played the game at first for the Star Wars brand. Now I play it because of how much the game has evolved and continues to show positive growth.
I brought up in my reflection for the Photo Essay that I'm not much of a photographer. Capturing still images isn't my strongest quality, so filming motion was going to be a challenge. Luckily for my video, I didn't need to use a real camera at all. The Xbox One has a built-in game DVR system. All I have to do is hit "record game clip" and the last two minutes of gameplay is captured and saved on to Xbox Live. The problem was that every time I wanted to use the game DVR, any gameplay after that point would be lag-city. Uploading those clips practically ate my internet connection, so I could only get one or two clips per match. It slowed down my filming process by a long shot.
Luckily, my roommate Joe came in and saved the day yet again. He let me borrow his elgato (an external game capture device that avoids lag) and I got the last of my footage easily. After all my footage was recorded I would quickly cut some clips and save them onto my flash drive. Audio was easy enough to record and cut; I had audacity on my laptop, so that task was completed within an hour. Video, on the other hand, was going to take a trip to the library.
I don't have Adobe Premiere on my laptop, and it's the only video editing software I'm familiar with, so I had to use the Owen library computers to finish my project. While I did do some minor cuts to the footage I recorded, they were very rough, only cut to conserve storage space on my flash drive. I spent about two and a half hours cutting together my video essay, then I needed to export it. Last year I used Premiere 2017 to edit my videos. This year it was 2018, and Adobe drastically changed how to export video files. I was lost until I figured it out later in the Mac lab. I exported my video, and it went very poorly. Clips were playing the wrong section of footage, audio in some sections was out of sync, some footage was extremely jerky, etc. I ended up going back to the library and using the same exact PC I edited the project on to export it, and it worked just fine. Macs and PCs really don't get along.
Uploading to YouTube was simple enough, and I made sure to share it with some of the people I play Battlefront II with. Their feedback gave me a lot of confidence in the final product. I'm glad I stuck with this project to the end. The most challenging part was filming, as most of the footage I needed to capture was left entirely to chance of what map I got in multiplayer (getting that shot of the AT-M6 on Crait took a lot of patience) and the DVR lag was not helpful. After all my footage was recorded, the rest of the project was a breeze.
Despite the monetization system being removed hours before the game was available to everyone, the damage had already been done. To this day people still view the game as "Pay-to-Win." Since it's launch, however, I've witnessed huge changes come to the game, and next to all of those changes have been for the better. I mention in my video how I only played the game at first for the Star Wars brand. Now I play it because of how much the game has evolved and continues to show positive growth.
I brought up in my reflection for the Photo Essay that I'm not much of a photographer. Capturing still images isn't my strongest quality, so filming motion was going to be a challenge. Luckily for my video, I didn't need to use a real camera at all. The Xbox One has a built-in game DVR system. All I have to do is hit "record game clip" and the last two minutes of gameplay is captured and saved on to Xbox Live. The problem was that every time I wanted to use the game DVR, any gameplay after that point would be lag-city. Uploading those clips practically ate my internet connection, so I could only get one or two clips per match. It slowed down my filming process by a long shot.
Luckily, my roommate Joe came in and saved the day yet again. He let me borrow his elgato (an external game capture device that avoids lag) and I got the last of my footage easily. After all my footage was recorded I would quickly cut some clips and save them onto my flash drive. Audio was easy enough to record and cut; I had audacity on my laptop, so that task was completed within an hour. Video, on the other hand, was going to take a trip to the library.
I don't have Adobe Premiere on my laptop, and it's the only video editing software I'm familiar with, so I had to use the Owen library computers to finish my project. While I did do some minor cuts to the footage I recorded, they were very rough, only cut to conserve storage space on my flash drive. I spent about two and a half hours cutting together my video essay, then I needed to export it. Last year I used Premiere 2017 to edit my videos. This year it was 2018, and Adobe drastically changed how to export video files. I was lost until I figured it out later in the Mac lab. I exported my video, and it went very poorly. Clips were playing the wrong section of footage, audio in some sections was out of sync, some footage was extremely jerky, etc. I ended up going back to the library and using the same exact PC I edited the project on to export it, and it worked just fine. Macs and PCs really don't get along.
Uploading to YouTube was simple enough, and I made sure to share it with some of the people I play Battlefront II with. Their feedback gave me a lot of confidence in the final product. I'm glad I stuck with this project to the end. The most challenging part was filming, as most of the footage I needed to capture was left entirely to chance of what map I got in multiplayer (getting that shot of the AT-M6 on Crait took a lot of patience) and the DVR lag was not helpful. After all my footage was recorded, the rest of the project was a breeze.
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Week 11 Digital Storytelling: Storyboard
My story-board became a bit unconventional. I wrote my script over the weekend, and I then restarted it 2 days later. I'm much more satisfied with the 2nd draft. For my storyboard, I ended up highlighting what shots I would be using for each sentence of the script instead of physically drawing it.
I did this because a brief description of the shots I needed worked better than visualizing them. Most of my footage is coming from the video game Star Wars: Battlefront II. My video essay is on why I'm still playing the game despite the negative stigma it has. I am my own cameraman in the game. There are plenty of shots that might be difficult to achieve in multiplayer, but a few I can easily make happen in arcade.
I've attached my entire script here, each sentence highlighted with a comment for what shots I will be using. Some shots I've already gathered, others I will need to work on soon.
I did this because a brief description of the shots I needed worked better than visualizing them. Most of my footage is coming from the video game Star Wars: Battlefront II. My video essay is on why I'm still playing the game despite the negative stigma it has. I am my own cameraman in the game. There are plenty of shots that might be difficult to achieve in multiplayer, but a few I can easily make happen in arcade.
I've attached my entire script here, each sentence highlighted with a comment for what shots I will be using. Some shots I've already gathered, others I will need to work on soon.
Friday, November 2, 2018
Week 10 Digital Storytelling
Hotel Chavelier: I always enjoy going to a Disney/Pixar film in the theaters for the animated short before the feature film. Not every story has to be condensed to a 90-120 minute film, or stretched out to meet a 13 episode quota. Sometimes the stories are brief. This short film gave that Pixar feeling of brevity. Obviously there are elements in here that you wouldn't find in any Disney or Pixar project, but the overall short and simple nature gives that vibe.
"Everything Sleeps but the Night": Man, poetry goes right over my head every time. I have no idea what was being said, but the visuals were really neat. I especially loved how one of the first visuals is the moon with shards of broken glass in front of it, then towards the end those same shards are moving in the opposite direction, and behind them we see a tunnel with the light at the end taking the moon's place. Pretty creative visualization.
"The Most Important Game of 2017": I decided to go off the syllabus for this last one, and I looked at the YouTube channel Raycevick, a widely appraised video essayist who focuses on video games. Here he does a breakdown of the game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. After this video, I was sold on wanting to play it, and soon enough I did. Raycevick's mix of criticism, delivery, and editing style all combine to create a stellar video essay each time. I don't suggest just watching this one video, but looking at all his work.
"Everything Sleeps but the Night": Man, poetry goes right over my head every time. I have no idea what was being said, but the visuals were really neat. I especially loved how one of the first visuals is the moon with shards of broken glass in front of it, then towards the end those same shards are moving in the opposite direction, and behind them we see a tunnel with the light at the end taking the moon's place. Pretty creative visualization.
"The Most Important Game of 2017": I decided to go off the syllabus for this last one, and I looked at the YouTube channel Raycevick, a widely appraised video essayist who focuses on video games. Here he does a breakdown of the game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. After this video, I was sold on wanting to play it, and soon enough I did. Raycevick's mix of criticism, delivery, and editing style all combine to create a stellar video essay each time. I don't suggest just watching this one video, but looking at all his work.
Week 10 Mars
"Points of Origin" was fun, especially from an astronomical perspective. It looked at human expansion within our solar system (referred to in many SF works as "the Sol System"), and it didn't just stop at Mars or Pluto, it went all the way out to the Oort Cloud. I really like the idea of that. Humanity hasn't gone to other star systems at this point, but we've gone literally everywhere of note in the entire Sol System. We didn't just stop at Mars and call it a day, then move on to Alpha Centauri, we went to Europa, Titan, anywhere we could stand, and even places we could not.
It's cool thinking about just how recently we actually had our first (and so far only) man made object pass the farthest reaches of our star system with the Voyager probes. I believe that was back in 2012 this happened? One of the neatest parts about this is how in the game Elite: Dangerous, players have actually tracked down the probes, and you can listen to the Golden Record.
I do want to know more about the culture of people who live in the Oort Cloud. I assume these small modular ships meet up often and families "interact" for some genetic diversity, which is essential in a community like that. I know the Quarians of Mass Effect do something very similar with their Migrant Fleet.
It's cool thinking about just how recently we actually had our first (and so far only) man made object pass the farthest reaches of our star system with the Voyager probes. I believe that was back in 2012 this happened? One of the neatest parts about this is how in the game Elite: Dangerous, players have actually tracked down the probes, and you can listen to the Golden Record.
I do want to know more about the culture of people who live in the Oort Cloud. I assume these small modular ships meet up often and families "interact" for some genetic diversity, which is essential in a community like that. I know the Quarians of Mass Effect do something very similar with their Migrant Fleet.
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