Digital Media Story

The media story was scary for me to do because I am inept at using movie programs. Thankfully I had friends who knew how to use them and they were very helpful. If it weren't for them my media story would have turned into a slide show with subtitles. The media story I made was about Nierste and his love for an anime called One Piece. He's gotten a lot of his friends to watch it with him, and now that I've been working on this story that list includes me. Its an anime that is able to balance lighthearted humor with seriousness and action. My favorite part of making the story was when Nierste, Joel and I were crowded around the computer picking out clips from One Piece that reflected what Nierste was talking about in the interview. My favorite clip was when Okamawe, the cross dressing villain with the ability to change his appearance to that of anyone he touches, turns into Nami and Sanji goes crazy in love everytime he sees her face. I'm kind of hoping that Nierste's interview will make other people want to watch anime, or at least One Piece.

Art Nouveau

It looks like art Nouveau is making a comeback. It was really popular in the 1890's in architecture and advertising and jewelry. I think its really beautiful because it has heavy outlines and and rich colors. I think this style developed from the people who made stained glass windows. It is easy for me to imagine these pictures of colored glass set in lead outlines. It is one of my favorite styles of art because it draws from 1890's and the 600's. It recreates some of the paintings and tapestries in the middle ages, so you can see how it draws from that as well. Art Nouveau is really a conglomeration of many things.

Medieval painting

Art Nouveau Architecture
Stained Glass

Art Nouveau Jewelry

Media Debate and Politics

The debate that we had on Thursday was exciting. Batting ideas back and forth stimulated my brain. I had some trouble with speaking my thoughts, but I always have trouble speaking so thats nothing new. We got so into particular arguments that we got sidetracked from what we were really arguing. Debates are interesting because you have to have a clear focus on the topic or else get lost along the way. I probably shouldn't bring this up, since we're not debating the topic anymore but I just can't resist. The final arguments were completly screwed up. The negative team (my team) just kept repeating the same arguments over again like a broken record. And, while the affirmative gave some pretty interesting resolutions to the argument they were no longer arguing their position.

One resolution was something along the lines of : If we are ignorant of what is happening around the world it is our own fault (which is probably true) we can always look up the information on the internet. I thought that this was disheartening. The media obviously isn't doing its job of informing people if we have to search for it. The internet is a public domain and only a small percentage of website fall under the power of media conglomerates. Most information online is provided by individuals. If important news is not presented by a media conglomerate isn't that a form of censorship. They decide just to edit it out. News organizations are not supposed to pick and choose what they are willing to show us. Someone else stated that media conglomerates are not political. I can only imagine she was thinking that the conglomerates are not running for election, nor do they have seats in the senate. But media conglomerates are political. Conglomerates have platforms by the fact that they support certain beliefs and values. In itself a conglomerate is a political organization. Control of the media is the basis behind controlling the populous, it is a giant political machine and there are many historical examples to support this like book burnings in Nazi Germany, the good old USA and also in Qing China.

Hollywood Simulation

I read Deanna's response to the Hollywood simulation and I can't help but respond. I was pretending to be Vin Petrol's fabulous agent. So what am I supposed to do but promote my client, get him a role that will boost his career and a fat paycheck. Needless to say I failed, well at least at getting money. We approached Deanna to hire him on as an actor which was simple because the other actors and agents were elsewhere. We were confused at first because the writers were trying to get actors for their script, but didn't have a company backing them. So I went for the money..... well I asked the studio to pay my client the amount of money that the paper said he usually gets paid I didn't fight for more. As I was saying I am a sucky agent. My client could do better without me, he just whined for more money and Deanna gave in just to shut him up. (I would have too). He ended up with an outrageous sum of money... and I forgot to negotiate my fee hence I am a starving agent. When the Deanna was picking a script I kept pestering her saying "Deanna pick this one, pick the sci-fi one its cool." Maybe I should have worked for the writers. I felt really bad for the writers who weren't able to get their scripts chosen to be produced. Its not like they didn't have good ideas, there just wasn't enough money to go around. I never want to be involved in the Hollywood race, its scary. And to tell the truth I'm not that competative.

Hybrid TV Pitch: City Under the Sea

I was trying to think of a two genres I could put together, but every thing I came up with already had a tv show to go with it. mystery/sci-fi= eleventh hour, mystery/drama= CSI, mystery/reality=mole..... well maybe there is one- reality/sci-fi.... 30 people from a variety of occupations live in an underwater city cutoff from the outside world. They are given the tools to cultivate and catch their own food and combat bordom. How will they survive in this hi-tech city: creaty their own utopia or drive eachother insane. It would be a combination of Captain Nemo's Nautilus, the Biodome, and a Marxist social experiment (courtesy of Thomas More's Utopia). I think it would be interesting because the people involved would have to be committed to the project. They would need farmers, scientists, doctors, electricians, and the like to keep it running. This is no Survivor, vote them off the island deal, each person selected would be needed in the community.

Media Log 2: a week of vacation

Over vacation I thought that I would get ahead of the game. Read for all my classes, do some art, and clean. Unfortunately when I'm home I feel like I'm in a time trap and nothing gets done. This week I watched TV or movies every night with my parents for four hours(my brain is turning into mush). My excuse for turning tv is that I don't have the internet at home. I admit I am an internet addict, and I find watching tv to be tiring.

I did read a lot for my Author Studies class. I hope that balances out with my tv watching. I was reading The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion. They are pretty interesting books to have for homework. I think I spent about two hours reading each chapter. Even though the book looks small don't let it mislead you: there are 42 lines on each page single spaced 10 point font. Those books make me feel like I'm not making any progress.

Media Log= Normal School Week

During the school week, when I'm not in class, I am online. I do most everything online. I read manga or look at art on Deviantart or check my email. I spend about 60% of my online time on Deviantart commenting on artwork or advertising for Snow Palette. I spend 20% reading manga. 10% to researching random things like publishing, jewlry making, and Japanese. The rest of the time I'm checking on all of the communities I'm attatched to. I would say it was a waste of time if I didn't think that most of the things I did online didn't have a purpose... ok so reading manga is not productive, but it is entertaining. I don't watch TV shows or movies or play video games (even though I have several games I've been meaning to play). Outside of that I read for classes about 1-2 hours a day.

Alltel The Series

I love the latest Alltel commercial. You know the one where the angry trucker takes the four dorks hostage and Chad comes to the rescue offering a better cell phone plan. These commercials are amusing because they are like episodes in a mini TV drama or a comic strip in the Sunday paper. The audience recognizes the characters and is more in tune with their comical story than with the fact that it is a commercial selling a product. The company does a good job of incorporating their latest offer of phone bill freedom along with the comedy. There are four other commercial series that follow the same format. Verizon who used to be a competitor of Alltel, but is now owned by Alltel made commercials spoofing horror movies. Geico has commercials with the gecko and the caveman that don't have to 'sell' their product because what they sell has been established through previous commercials with their characters and only need to restate their tag line "so easy a caveman could do it" or flash their logo.

2012 The End?

2012 is the date slated for the Mayan Calendar to end. It was thought of as the most accurate calender ever created. Now people are in a frenzy because of this and other sign that 2012 marks the end of an age which people are interpreting is the end of the world. Earth will appear to line up to the center of the universe because it wobbles on its axis. This is like a repeat of the Y2K scare, in which the year 2000 was a date not programmed into computers and would have caused computers to go off line, and other errors. This scare is social not technological. This is just one of the many doomsday scares used to sell tabloids and other products. There always people proclaiming the end of the world because of signs like the Hale Bop Comet and presently global warming and the financial crisis. Maybe these people just want the world to end so they don't have to deal with it anymore. Other people use these signs to cause mass hording of goods. 1999 was a good year for the battery companies and bottled water.

Feminine Curve

You know the abdomen? The area of a woman's stomach that orbits the belly button. I think of it as 'the pouch' (if we were marsupials it would be a pouch). In art it is glorified as the essence of womanhood. Its the small protrusion of the stomach that houses the womb. In media today the feminine curve has been obliterated by washboard man like abs. Many fashion models sport flat stomachs because it has become the ideal for women who want to be thin. I think that the women who are trying to be fit and thin see the feminine curve as a remnant of fat. They don't realize that it is natural and beautiful. On the other hand a lot of modern artists paint the feminine curve into their art. Compare Mcey from Next Top Model to Art Germ's character Pepper.