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.