My thoughts

Well, the end of the semester is approaching and it's now time to reflect on the time that's passed. I enjoyed Digital Media and learned alot from this course.

First, I learned how to use Fireworks and how to edit pictures. I have always wanted to improve my skills in this and I am quite proud with the way things turned out. The CD cover that I made impressed jnot only me, but as well as my friends who were interested in what I was doing at school. I felt very good about the finished result.

When it came to Flash, I did not know what I was doing all the time. I have been using Flash since high school, but I was never inspired to be good with it. In this class, I was determined to make the best Flash project I could make and I was very happy with the result. I did the soundtrack to the drum machine and all of the animation. I liked it at least!

All in all, this course was lots of fun and I enjoyed coming to every class. I learned a lot about the internet, even though the Web test didn't display this. I have always wanted to learn how the internet works and how to make a website, and now I know the basics which I could not be happier about. This course was very informative and I can't wait to learn how to apply Digital Media to video. Thanks!

They make the internet on computers now?

I use the internet ever day.
We all do.
It's replaced television as our source for entertainment.
The internet is the future.
Oddly enough, how many people actually know how the internet works?

Prior to this class, I had always been intrigued by the internet. I never quite understood how it worked, and the whole concept was actually rather scary. We turn on this fantasy machine an voila!, instant access to a world's worth of information. This whole concept didn't make sense to me! I'd ask my friends how it worked exactly and a common response was, "Well, it's like waves..and they go...actually, I don't really know, man." Clearly, I'm not the only one with who doesn't understand this.


However, thanks to this class, I now understand how the internet works. To be honest, it's a lot easier than I had imagined. Yes, there are still some gray areas in my knowledge to this point, but it's the same thing with television. As a kid growing up, I never understood how it worked, all I cared about was the finish project.

This is the case with many inventions nowadays. Do we really care how computers are made, or do we just care how they work once we get them? We leave the hard work and thinking for the experts, which is what I did for the longest time with the internet up until now. Patton Osawlt, a comedian, put it best in his bit about Geroge Lucas and the the Star Wars prequels. He emphasizes how he doesn't care how Darth Vader turned evil, he just likes the finished package when he's evil and wearing the helmet. He says, "I don't care where the things I love come from! I just love the stuff I love!"

This brings us back to my original point. Yes, I understand the internet now and how it actually works. The internet code is complicated for me, as it is with most people. The idea of binary makes my mind spin, and the fear that the government is spying on us through this invention really just scares the crap out me. Thus, do I really care how the internet works? Sure, but all I really care about is what I see and what I hear. I could really go for a bowl of ice cream right about now.

WARNING! FOUL LANGUAGE!

Flash Idea

For my Flash Assignment, I really would like to make a drum machine. Here's the thing. I'm not very good with Flash. I sucked at it in high school, and to be honest, I think I was done with it. However, a challenge never hurt. In high school, I had to make a 30 second animation with no interactivity whatsoever, and I found that challenging. This time, I have to use interactivity. It might take awhile to learn but I am determined to make this drum machine work.

Ultimately, I would like for it to work by pressing keys on the keyboard. I understand that I'd have to use the code in Flash to make this work. This idea was inspired by the multiple drum sets I've found on the internet but have been difficult to use. This one will be different because it will feature different genres that you can play along to like rock, blues, and country. The songs will be created by me and the drum machine will be lots of fun to play.

Flash Artist Statement

So I can't post my Flash animation on here, although I am very proud of it. Flash has always been a challenge for me and I was happy with my result. Here is my artist statement to make up for it...

The main objective for my flash assignment was to create a drum simulator that people can have fun and play along with. It features some very simple riffs that are noticeable to the target market’s minds and has an interactive drum set containing real sounds made by actual drum sets. The goal of this project was to create a simulator that will inspire someone to play a real drum set, much like Guitar Hero did for the guitar.

Clearly, the main influence of Drum Hero is the popular videogame Guitar Hero. What Guitar Hero did for the video game industry was provide an interactive experience between the gamer and the game that allows you to feel like a rock star. For many people, the game inspired them to play real guitar and even if it didn’t, they still get to feel like a rock star even if they’re playing on “easy” mode. Drum Hero is obviously a much simpler version of the game and its intention is to entertain the target market during their journeys through the world wide web.

The target market is teenagers between the ages of 11-17. Many of these kids are entertained by some of the simplest things. Hopefully, Drum Hero will entertain them as well. It’s “rock star” text allows for the participant to imagine themselves at a real rock concert, jamming along to an amazing blues riff.

The soundtrack was provided by myself, as I decided to record several different samples of genres. The ones that made the cut were the country, blues, and rock riffs. They are very simple and almost anyone can click along to the beat. The challenge of the game is to master the art of clicking the right drum at the right time. Though it may seem easy at first, it is actually quite hard and requires practice. Therefore, I decided to put a practice level in the game so people could practice playing drums and if they want, play their favourite song through their computer’s speakers and jam along to it.

One of the biggest challenges in creating Drum Hero was to use the keyboard to trigger the different drums. Through much investigation, I could not find a simple way to do this that matched with my knowledge of Flash. There was no clear way and I found this rather difficult.

However, the game is still effective with the mouse and is actually much more challenging. As well, I could no figure out a way to lower the volume of the different songs. Though it is not too much of a problem, it is still something I wish I could have improved.

All in all, I am not that great with using the Flash program. However, as time went on, I slowly became more comfortable with using it. I discovered how to use scenes and hot to jump between them using buttons. Though I may have been stressed at times, Drum Hero’s production allowed me to view Flash in a way I had never seen it. Now I am able to understand the program and when the time comes that I must use it again, I will not be afraid to put my effort in it.

Twitter This!

I couldn't tell you why, but perhaps the biggest discussion the Class of RTA 2012 has had was when the topic of Twitter came up in a recent class. This idea that having your friends update you on the fun and irrelevant facts of their lives disgusted many people in the class, and I am not using the word disgusted loosely. Yes, it may seem a bit weird. Maybe I don't want to know what my friends are doing all the time. I decided that my opinion was useless unless I actually got a Twitter account.

The idea does seem a bit strange. It's basically a Facebook status update without the "is" that seems to be ignored anyways. I only have two friends that Twitter. One of which is my brother, who's Twitter actually tells me more about his life than he does personally. The other is a friend from Montreal who's Twitter fills me in on some of the important parts of her day that she feels she should post about. How could it be that having only 2 Twitter friends could get me so excited about the website? I feel like I am connected to my friends and family in a different way. I know that if more people that I know use Twitter, I will have more fun with it. Twitter entertains me.

Therefore, for anyone that feels that Twitter is just showing the downward spiral that our society is then I dare them to get a Twitter account. All it is doing is brining the world together. It is not a subsitute for physical communication as you can only post 140 characters at a time.

If you're reading this, add me on Twitter.

5 Characteristics of Web 2.0

1) Dynamic Content - Bloglines
Bloglines is a website that lets you keep track of blogs on one website. It is very similar to an RSS feed. It lets you views the internet on one simple page, as your favourite websites and blogs will be posted on your personal site.

2) User Contribution: www.absolutepunk.net
AP.net is a punk rock news website that features up to the minute postings about music news and important issues. It features a community of users that submit news as soon as they find about it, and if the moderators find that it's true, they will post it on the website. AP.net has become famous for its users being honest about the music they post about. If they don't like a band, the will say so, and this will be open for discussion.

3) Social Media: Avatars United
Avatars United is an online community for gamers to meet people who have similar game interests (ex. Warcraft, Age of Conan). The site connects people in a unique way as it's through their gaming interests and techincally, their online identity.

4) Online Applications: Google Docs
Google Docs features free online software such as a word processor and spreadsheet. This is very convenient for people who want to post these types of things online. For example, a spreadsheet may convenient for a vinyl collector to keep track of what they have and show people online who have similar interests.

5) Harnessing Collective Intelligence: Vinyl Collective
Vinyl Collective is an online store run by Suburban Home Records owner Virgil Dickenson. On top of his record company, Virgil runs an online store and keeps track of a message board for the vinyl community he gathered. Virgil often puts out exclusive vinyl that you can only get from his website. The main page before you enter features news updated daily about the website and uses tags such as "news" and "preorders" to keep it organized.

Music Videos

I have always been a huge music video fan. As a kid, I was introduced to Much Music and MTV at a very early age, mainy because of my illegal satellite dish that gave me access to MTV, MTV 2, and VH1 (don't report me!). I even remember watching MTV's special where they counted down the videos they've shown from 1 million to the first one ever. As we all know, it was "Video Killed The Radio Star". I've watched shows on the most expensive videos, and the worst videos. I am a music video addict.

Today, Much Loud is always the first station I flip to when I turn on my TV. I can just sit there and watch bands I don't even like make fools of themselves. I see bands who try to look bigger than they are, and bands who may have tried a little too hard. Yet, it doesn't matter how much moneya band put into a video, because I find some of the most effective videos are the live performance type. When videos started, this is what it was all about. However, with the invention of MTV and Michael Jackson's "Thriller", the music video became more of a production. Now, the more expensive your video was, the more attention it got. Sure, there have been some cool videos that have higher budgets, but it's pretty clear that it wasn't about the music anymore. It was all about how you can brand yourself.

Rap videos take this too literally. When I say it's all about the money, I mean the production. When rappers hear this, they hear how much useless stuff they can show in their videos that cost them lots of money. Girls, cars, and bling. It's less about the music quicker and quicker.

However, now videos are beginning to go back to the music. Live performance videos are popular once again and now anyone can make a video and post it on youtube. I find the trick for bands these days is to not takw themselves too seriously as no one will really care. What shows more credibility and talent?

This...
Attack in Black "Hunger of the Young"


or this...
Britney?!!
If you don't have the talent to do it live, then it doesn't matter how much money you have in the video. Nowadays, it's up to the viewer to be the judge. Hopefully they make the right choice

Typography in the Media

This is a poster for Barack Obama, the presidential nominee for the Democratic party. This piece of political propaganda is an excellent example of the effectiveness of typography. The word "hope" is in bold letters, that gives the impression that Obama is a strong and reliable leader. This is very effective and maintains the theme throughout the rest of Obama's posters.




This is the movie poster for the popular movie franchise known as The Matrix. The typography for this poster is very effective and original, as it was one of the first movies to bring the idea of "the digital era" to the big screen. The movie was widely popular and this type of font, a digital and futuristic font, can be found commonly today.



The new Guns N' Roses "Chinese Democracy" has been in production for over 10 years and this past weekend was FINALLY released. Whether or not the music is good is a different story, but one thing's for sure, a little extra effort could have been put into the album typography. With an album titled "Chinese Democracy", one would think that the typography would be something like this...

But no, the band went with the most generic font they could find, leaving the album cover without a lasting appeal. This album cover looks very rushed, which is ironic considering the album took 10 years to make.

CD Cover Assigment

What I wanted to accomplish with this Against Me! CD cover was to create a cover to a live album that would stand out if I were to come across it in a record store. Many album covers these days are very complex with lots of Fireworks and Photoshop work done on them. Sometimes, the simplest album cover can leave the biggest impact. The cover for Against Me!’s latest album, New Wave (image provided on this disc), was very simple, however it had a huge impact on the music scene. The cover features an outline of a panther growling on top of a black background, leaving an impression of epic proportions. This image sums up the album in one image. After all, what could be stronger than a panther growling in your face? I drew inspiration from this album cover, as I decided to make their live album go with the theme of
“a little can be a lot”.
The main image is a picture I took of lead singer Tom Gabel in his signature “rock star” pose. Originally, the background was filled with colour, like Mr. Gabel is in the picture. However, I realized it would be more effective if the background was black and white, as it would make Tom appear larger and more important. I then blurred Tom’s head and strumming arm to emphasize the singer playing his music as hard as he can.
Next to Tom’s head is the band’s name in bold “punk” letters with a yellow glow. The purpose of the yellow was to keep the New Wave theme apparent in their live album, as black and yellow are the main colours featured in the album art. Since Against Me! is a punk band, the idea of this type of font in big letters reflects the intensity of their music. At the bottom, in a basic yet futuristic font, the words “Live In Toronto” lay faintly across the bottom. The reason for this is that the listener should realize this is a live album before ever listening to it due to the live image of Mr. Gabel.
Essentially, I wanted to design a simple and effective cover that I would be proud to see if it were laying in my record collection. I am very happy with the way the CD cover turned out and am proud of the way I turned an ordinary image into something more interesting. This cover would appeal to Against Me!’s demographic, which is usually males and females between the ages of 16 and 24. It captures the intensity of an Against Me! show, as the band’s name on the cover is rather “in your face”. Anyone who’s experiences Against Me! in a live setting will not hesitate to describe the experience. I feel I have captured the essense of an Against Me! show in this one image, just like their New Wave album cover inspired me to do.

GIF's

I am a member of a message board. The name of this board isn't important, as that's not what I'm about to discuss. What I enjoy about message boards isn't the conversations you can have with people, but rather the 2X2 avatar images people have under their names. For example, here is a personal favourite.









and another:

I never quite understood how people made them. In fact, I still don't know how people do them. However, thanks to the digital media lecture last week, I now know the difference between JPEG's and GIF's and understand that GIF's are the only format that can show animation.

CRAP Pictures

1)This is a poster for the band Stars from their Toronto show on June 7, 2008. This poster is an excellent example of contrast, alignment and proximity. The big orange letters spelling Stars is an excellent example of contrast, because the letters stand out from the blue and green background. It is the first thing that grabs your attention when you look at the poster.

The poster is also an example of alignment and proximity. For one, the letters are aligned perfectly next to eachother and follow the same direction. As well, the buildings, as well as the letters, are also close together and not scattered throughout the page. Since it's a city landscape, the artists knew to keep the buildings close together, as they would appear in real life.


2) Upon entering the subway for my daily journey home from class, I noticed a teenager wearing an Alexisonfire shirt. Usually, I wouldn't look at someone's shirt so critically, but this one I took a moment to take in, especially since we had just talked about the CRAP principles in class. The shirt is an excellent example of the CRAP principles. The white really contrasts with black and red, the darker colours on the shirt. As well, they words "Alexisonfire" and "Crisis" are perfectly aligned and repeated several times. The words are close together so your eyes don't wander too far. This shirt is an excellent advertising tool for the band as any person walking by will get the band name subconciously stuck in their head.

3) This is a newspaper ad found in the National Post for the Lotto 649 lottery. The orange lottery ticket is an example of contrast, as it jumps off the page and catches your attention right away, mainly because of the plain white background. The ad also has a nice alignment to it, as all the text and images are centered, except for the man in the left corner who is doing his "happy dance". I feel they could have done a better job placing this man, as he seems a bit out of place.

4) This ad was also found in The National Post and is for Porter Airlines, a new airline that takes off from Olympic Island in Toronto. This ad has a good use of repetition with the maple leaves featuring different prices. The use of the maple leaf delivers the message that this is a Canadian company that people can trust. The leaves are aligned quite nicely, as they fall down the page and lead your eyes to information and their mascot (the raccoon).

Digital Media. Media that is Digital.

Prior to my first lecture, I was well aware of the term "Digital Media". In high school, I began taking digital media classes in Grade 10. Though I may not have been the best in my school, I was satisfied with the amount of knowledge I had for programs like Adobe Photoshop, In Design, and Final Cut. My experience on the school newspaper and my hobby of making creative videos and documentaries helped inprove my skills in the Digital Media field.

In the days following my first lecture, not much has changed. However, I was very interested when we began talking about how normal television has become more interactive and has moved onto the internet. The idea of fans getting more involved with their favourite television show really appealed to me. This may be because I have thought about this topic before, but have never shared my thoughts with anyone. In class, we talked about a kids cartoon that moved its show onto the internet in order for fans to get more involved and create a new character. This reminded me of Lost, one of my favourite shows. I watch Lost every week and have sene every episode. However, people are always asking me if I have kept up to date with the online content of the show and truthfully, I don't have time for this. I have other things to do then to spend hours online watching scenes that may be important somewhere down the line. Regardless, the fact that this thought passed my mind in the first class, which was mainly introductions, shows how interested I am in Digital Media.

The knowledge of Digital Media is essential for a new RTA student. Since the world is moving at such a fast pace, and TV and radio have moved online, students must know the skills that are incorporated with this in order to survive in the industry. I feel it is very important to know and students will only benefit from the knowledge, even if they don't do well in the class.