Looking back at past readings, looking forward to the essay about the movie-making process

The process of creating is what stands out in these exercises. Figuring out which tools to use when and why is pretty interesting. Sometimes, during the writing process you feel a certain way about how you want to sound, but in re-reading it, it no longer sounds "right" and figuring out what to change is actually pretty rewarding. Using words is still a chore for me. For instance, editing video feels a lot more like fun, but that's also something I can learn at home. Learning to write and revise is something I wouldn't even know how to do on my own.

Making a video was the best kind of group assignment I've had. Everyone had really good ideas, which we pooled and organized collectively. Not only were the examples and media (dry erase, lincoln logs, balloons etc.) the product of ALL of our creativity, but the story boarding and assembling of the film itself was a collective effort. I think we did talk about some of the McCloud ideas with regards to transitions, but mostly we mimicked the format of 1950's educational films. We felt that we could get our ideas across in a simple yet entertaining manner within that format. McCloud could certainly say a few things about our narrative technique and visual simplicity, and I think he would agree that our goal was aided by these conventions.

Blog 14: YouTube/Low-bridge videos

So far the collaborative movie making is going great. We all have good ideas and miraculously, we've been able to film a few of them. I decided not to mess with editing it at home, since I use a PC and we'll be using iMovie in class, but I did do some background music searching.

Well, the video process is all about sharpening your abstract ideas and turning them into something which can be effectively communicated visually. So far, we've been able to do that. This is probably because what we're talking about in our film is pretty straightforward.

Using "low bridge" technologies is certainly best for our project, since our main intent isn't to dazzle any viewer with our production value but to translate our ideas as clearly and entertainingly as possible.

I find the process of film making to be very much like writing in that you have to cater your point to the medium and audience of each outlet. The tough parts are the same.
1. Your thoughts and ideas must make sense.
2. You need to balance developing and supporting your ideas with embellishing the format.
3. We, as classmates need to work together either in peer review (which is a kind of collaboration) or as direct collaborators in film.

Both are laborious and rewarding to varying degrees, and always challenging if you're doing it right.

Peer Review #3

When we discussed our paper and peer review in class, the peer reviews I got the next day were very, very helpful. Since I specifically said in class that I felt like I ran out of things to say, my peer reviewers came up with tons of excellent suggestions about bits from our readings I could reference and portions of my paper which could easily be expanded upon. I think the discussion before or during peer review this the most productive peer reviewing session of the three.

McCloud pt.2

Even though many students have already blogged about McCloud's "The Right Number", I thougt it had enough in it to warrant some more notes.

http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics2/trn/

McCloud uses both "narration" and "speech" bubbles in this comic, as well as an interesting amalgam of the two. He also places text within the frames, but with no bubble at all, perhaps to emphasize the artwork and the importance of the moment, bringing the narration out of its hiding place, but freeing up more room fr the illustration as well. This technique first occurs on panel twenty.

The most interesting or at least unconventional use of bubbles occurs on panel thirty one, when the narrator is relating something Jodie actually said. Since he is narrating it as well as drawing it as it happened, the dialog is both a closed bubble AND has a speech "wing" or "leg" denoting that the words also came from Jodie at the time this scene took place. Word up, Holmes.

In the opening panel, we have narration. This isn't someone's inner monologue in response to an event or during a conversation, but rather the voice of the narrator setting us up for his story, unattached to the Beginning on panel six, some actual dialogue bubbles appear. These are used to show speech which actually took place. Rather than writing, "Most nights would find me in the library, leaning on a desk and chatting up this nice girl Jodie, who worked there..", McCloud draws the scenario and writes the words, using both narration and speech bubbles. I know McCloud uses the term "balloons" not "bubbles", but this is my blog, and I think the term "balloons" is less accurate. Also am I selling "dialogue" wrong? spell checker says it should be, "dialog", but that looks wrong to me. Am I just being pretentious?

McCloud Comics Pt. 1

(Edited 11/03 to fix links, typos, and add an image. -RT)

I just read 14 pages of THIS.

It's called "2nd Shift" by J. Gray.

I really didn't think that there was anything interesting to write about with this comic, but I'm too tired to go back and start searching again. I chose this one because I thought it was going to be about some kind of aliens working at a copy shop. That sounded great to me. No aliens as of yet.

Luckily for me, I reached page 14. This page was the first one which interested me to any great degree. Oddly enough, it was the first page to encorporate a whole slew of neat comic writing techniques.

First off, we have narration on this page, not simply traditional dialogue. Most panels on this page have both dialogue and narration running simltaneously. McCloud talks about the "desperate device-ness" of the dialogue bubble (word balloon) and references some attempts to subvert it on page 134 of his Understanding Comics guide, and this comic uses an excellent creative solution here. In addition to the traditional dialogue bubble, the author uses a drawing of a torn-off page from a notebook with hand writing on it, rather than standard comic font text.

This is quite effective in communicating the tone of the words. The character we're watching perfrom the action is almost interpreted as a background to the narrator's notes. While the "handwritten" notes are on the bottom of each panel, they're interpreted as the foreground of the panel.

I also found this to be the most compositionally interesting page of the comic. If we look at the first panel, we see the figure on our left hand side in the foreground, is logically much taller than any of the other figures and her line of sight is fixed towards the bottom right hand side of the panel. since the figure on the right hand side is in the background, he is smaller and less "weighty" composition wise. Intelligently, the author has repeated the figures form in the line of customers to the right. This helps balance the frame.

The second panel is excellently symmetrical. Equally sized figures stand on either side with dialogue on the top center and narration on the bottom center. If feels like a nice, square box. This compositional style follows for the next three frames until the last frame, which mirrors the composition of the first frame where a line of weight implied from top left to bottom right. In the final frame, the artist actually draws a lightning bolt reinforcing the line.

The last frame is also an anomaly so far in the comic in that is isn't a drawing of two people having a conversation. There is a break in the linear narrative which signifies a momentous change on the horizon. We'll see how and if that comes to fruition.

This page also functions most effectively as a self-contained, active narrative.

The characters and background artwork is what McCloud would call, "Cartoony" which leaves more room for the reader to superimpose themselves or their impressions onto the characters, rather than focusing on the beauty of highly-stylized artwork.

Scott McCloud, in his book, Understanding Comics, discusses the different impacts of various drawing styles. He states that the more simplified, iconic and "cartoony" the character is, the better the reader is able to project his own image onto that character, whether that image is the reader themselves, or a person imagined by the reader. If the character is drawn more detailed and realistically, then there is less room for the reader to fill in the gaps with their imagination. Thank you for pointing out that I didn't explain that at all!

Also, here is a screen shot of page fourteen, the page I wrote about, just click on it for a larger view. Enjoy!

Picturing Texts on the Web

This site is a little different from what a person might expect to run into or a few reasons.

1. It doesn't try to sell you anything, at least not overtly.
2. It uses virtually no text, making it available to people regardless of their language or literacy.
3. The visitor has to be a little creative and curious in order to get to all the content, rather than having the content be as obvious as possible. For example, doing the same thing repeatedly often yields different result, in direct contrast to the popular mantra that repeating the same act but expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

Much like the road sign or airport security poster, this site utilizes (fairly) universal iconography to entertain and stimulate the viewer.

Can you get the Spaceship Tramway car to work? It can be done. And each step along the way is fun and surprising!

If you want to check out more of this stuff, here's the home page.

Peer Review Recap Pt. 2

I haven't uploaded my essay yet, so there hasn't been any peer review.

What Would the Community Think?

Will's blog sums up a couple of my main reactions. The book is dense. There are many concepts which require more than a single cursory reading in order to apply them to my own writing. Also, I feel especially critical of my writing, especially because I know it's being read by at least one person who has read or is reading Williams' book. I have deleted several words and changed others in an attempt to make this post as concise as possible, and in doing so have erased much of my own voice from the entry, and consequently diminished my sense of ownership of it.

Several classmates noted the difference in format between the two books, which effects both how the information is (or isn't) absorbed, referenced and utilized.

I agree with Simone (if I understand correctly) that Strunk and White are far more pleasant to read and access. I would be more comfortable reaching for Elements of Style if I had a question or concern, but I think the two books need to be used in conjunction, big picture conceptual stuff (Williams) and detail oriented guidelines (Strunk and White).

Williams vs. Strunk & White

I'm almost bitter about having read so many awful, cruelly long and self-indulgent sentences.
The adult in me says, "Great, now you can stop the cycle of abuse.", but the petulant youth in me says, "Make them all pay, you had to read it, so you should have the freedom to do it yourself if you like." Then the rational, scrupulous voice in my head says, "What would be the point?, sure you could write annoying sentences which fulfill that occasional impulse, but why?"

I was about to say that it's more fun to write sentences with rigid structural rules, but....it isn't.
If you must first write a "no holds barred" draft in order to keep your ideas coming, do it! But don't be afraid to spend a great deal of time restructuring and re-writing afterwards in on order to bring the readability of your end result up to the level of your ideas.

I suppose the advice in The Elements of Style are much, much easier to follow whereas Williams' in depth look at readability can be overwhelming and even annoying. I would never recommend sitting down and reading the entire book. What I think works better is the format we've been using to get through this book. Reading a few chapters and then discussing them. I would actually prefer to have stopped and discussed each chapter or section, but I recognize that this is impossible and impractical in our class.

Strunk and White ma have been grumpier, older men, but that actually helped make the book more entertaining. I would say that Williams' book is far better, more useful and more in-depth, but also harder to use.

Revising with Williams

I didn't find anything in these chapters that I could not see myself putting to use at some point in my writing. Not everything felt like advice I could have benefited from in the past, and not everything sounded as thought it had been catered specifically for the type of writing I am likely to do in the future. More importantly, each of the topics are excellent food for thought and will help me think critically as a writer and to write with the reader in mind.

Some of my favorite bits were:

Building a cohesive paragraph:
Williams emphasizes clarifying your sentences not only by turning them into character-driven action phrases, but also by filling in context which you may take for granted, but other readers might not have the benefit of.

Each paragraph should contain an introduction in an appropriate place, such as the beginning, and then proceed to make its discussion.

Diffusing Strings:
By repeatedly using the best (most effective and accurate) words to describe the action in your sentences, you avoid confusing your readers by needlessly throwing in synonyms which will ultimately make it more difficult for your readers to absorb your meaning.

LMNTS OF SYLE

Yea, this is a pretty good book. This type of criticism was never welcome when I got it as a kid, but I think these are fantastic recommendations, which help ones writing sound so much more thoughtful, clear and literate. I would never want someones personal voice to become lost in the pursuit of "perfect" grammar, uniform sentence structure and vocabulary, but you can easily see how most anyone would benefit greatly from using this manual.

I happen to enjoy common misuse of words and phrases, because they're often funny, and they demonstrate that the speaker ultimately owns the language, not a textbook or a tradition. One of my favorite non-words, which I actually used to use, and then kept using because I liked the sound of it, was "irregardless". I still like that one.

That having been said, even I, a writer with an inscrutationable vocaballary, will benefit.

Ain't nothin' gonna stop me now but my innate inability to process cognatious thunk.

some links to other people's work

Recently, I've been exploring the musical stylings of Andy Jenkins, the differently talented brother of Thomas Jenkinson, AKA Squarepusher. This photograph is about 10 years old.


His music is quite interesting, it tends to sound something like this:

You can hear and download tons of his music for free here:

http://www.ceephax.co.uk/Music.htm

He also has an excellent collection of jumpers, (sweaters):

http://www.ceephax.co.uk/Ceedrobe%201.htm

Peer Review

I normally loathe group work, but peer reviewing is another story. Just having a 5 minute conversation with someone about a paper helps make the assignment feel like something that I've acknowledged as part of my life, rather than a task to be agonized over and then forgotten. Also, the suggestions of a friend or classmate encourage me to think of improvements as a much less daunting task. Looking at classmates essays also helps give me an idea what mine might look like. This way I'm less intimidated by the blank piece of paper in front of me. Marisa and Steve were very helpful! Good stuff.

Light and Time

Usually I create writing using a PC and a keyboard. I have a folder on my PC which houses no only my academic assignments, but anything that might fall into the category of primarily "text" documents. This includes letters I have written which I might like to keep records of, Downloaded texts, excerpts and instruction manuals. Virtually everything else on my computer is set up for audio and visual editing.

I only began to regularly use a computer for word processing once I purchased my first computer in 1998. Prior to that I hand wrote, which was unreasonably difficult for me. My hands would cramp up almost instantly, and my handwriting has always been wildly inconsistent. I actually enjoy handwriting now quite a bit for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I tend to hand write for shorter periods of time than I did when I was in grade school.

This time-lapse photography thing came about rather spontaneously. I wanted the medium and the text to be related. I wanted to write, "Passion" in lighter fluid on the wall of my apartment building, but obviously, that wouldn't look good to any passerby. Then I thought about writing "Ants" on my kitchen floor with honey, allowing the ants to join in and promote their own species linguistically and nutritionally.

Ultimately, For this experiment I had to use my imagination and come up with words I could:

A. Spell with a laser pointer within 15 seconds (the minimum shutter speed of my camera)
B. Somehow convey the essence of using a non-text visual cue.


Word up, Holmes. Hope you enjoy!

What is style

Style is something apart from substance.
Like flavor.
Traditional music notation is mostly obsolete with regards to modern music, where
the inflection and sounds are the defining characteristics.
One thousand musicians will likely play a written piece of music one thousand ways.
Style is how billions of humans differentiate themselves from one another.

Sometimes, style is the point.
Sometimes function and format are incidental, like the 12 bar blues.

The format is just there so you can forget about writing a format and get on with the
business of expression.

I will now liberally quote one of my favorite books of all time, The Manual: How to
Have a Number One the Easy Way, by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, A.K.A.,
The KLF.

"We await the day with relish that somebody dares to make a dance
record that consists of nothing more than an electronically programmed
bass drum beat that continues playing the fours monotonously for eight
minutes. Then, when somebody else brings one out using exactly the
same bass drum sound and at the same beats per minute (B.P.M.),
we will all be able to tell which is the best, which inspires the dance floor
to fill the fastest, which has the most sex and the most soul. There is no
doubt, one will be better than the other. What we are basically saying is,
if youhave anything in you, anything unique, what others might term as
originality, it will come through whatever the component parts used in
your future Number One are made up from. "

This phenomenon is prevalent in the field of visual art as well. 

Figure 1.
TKS


Figure 2.








In this case, the artist has taken the source material, the three letters "TKS" and turned them into something unrecognizable, so that they have merit entirely independent from the source.

For example, this nine second drum solo: (1:42-1:51)

from an old soul/gospel record has been sampled, reworked and mutated across a slew of genres, in many cases leaving the original drum pattern totally unrecognizable.

Such as in this case:




I'm having a hard time putting this post in a tidy package. I think I need to learn a lot more about multimedia blogging before I can inflect it with any style of my own.

Vocoder test