The Folio

I have essentially finished the folio. I decided it was best to develop a website that not only housed my work but that also doubled as a guide to those hoping to make their way into the film industry. The topics presented - from storyboarding a film, starting with short films and instructions on how to network - contain a few paragraphs of explanation which are proceeded by elements of my own work.

These pieces not only include my work in Digital Writing but also from Digital Video 1, in which I am about to start shooting a 'How to...' instructional video, short film screenplays I have developed in and outside of university, a few examples of short stories I have entered into competitions and will soon house my first professional music video for a Qld band named Ellington.

It is simple, yet hopefully effective, and I feel although there are few images my work should more than make up for this. My only real problem is the framework. I tend to avoid frames in order to reduce the chance of errors, and although I have no issues with it the frames are not recognising the titles of my pages. Instead, the page appears named 'Unittled Document'. I have done all I can to find the problem but have been unable to do so.

This is the end.

First Breath After Coma

I finished the Hypertextual Essay yesterday and I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. The argument was well justified, even if it wasn't entirely formal at times in it's presentation. I used rollover buttons, comic images and graphs to portray my ideas predominantly, but some video and audio, along with audio waves were also incorporated. Unfortunately not all of my videos were used - I had asked a group of people the same question to use on a poll but when it was edited it was only about twelve seconds long of people saying yes or no. Since the majority of individuals who answered the question were from online communities I felt therefore that the video was a waste.

I was glad to be able to use a background that is basic without making the essay appear boring. In fact, this was the case with most layout elements. I decided not to use frames because a standard layout not only seemed fine but reduced the chance of errors.

Speaking of errors, I only have one clash of code between IE and Firefox. For some reason in Firefox some DHTML coding pops up where it doesn't even exist. In the IE version the line appears where the code seems to be but it doesn't appear. Therefore it is imperative that all viewers, if possible, read the essay in IE.

And lo! The Devil was banished

I have completed the Flash assessment. As I mentioned in the other blog regarding it there were a few issues but in the end it worked out well. I used a lot of timeline effects to harness the ability to change opacity and rotate certain fragments of the text but the key effect I used was simply overlaying rectangles of colour to either speed up the pace or create a certain atmosphere. The ending is a bit slow, but I felt this was necessary as if it wasn't I would have had to elongate the rest of the piece and I did not want to bore the viewer with unnecessary pause.

I finished my Hypertextual essay yesterday and am about to begin work on the Folio. More on that later.

Folio? What Folio?

As Jason and I discussed, my folio will revolve around how individuals have injected themselves into the film industry. I would use my five slide story as a basis for storyboarding, my website as an example of fleshing out plot, my dispersed fiction will highlight character development and perhaps I will explain the flash text fiction in regards to dialogue.

Beyond that I am not really sure what I'll do. I will focus on the three important aspects of getting into the industry - making short films, competitions, and most importantly of all, networking. Perhaps this will be enough to create a folio that will appease the criteria, but I shall have to see.

More on this later.

Update on the Essay

My trial version of Dreamweaver has expired, so while I wait for the chance to use the prgram to actually create the site I have been herding my links, writing my analysis and making my images. I feel that the piece really sits on the line between a professional and personal essay, yet this is because a lot of the arguments stating that popular music is ruining the industry are personal findings. Popular music is embedded in modern culture so most people know to criticise it is futile. Yet I will use lyrics as an example of problems going unheeded. We have a gangster taking control of the biggest music network in the world, an artist getting rewarded for what most people think is an ironic pro-aids song, and known drug abusers singing about refusing to go to rehab. It is incredible to think that nothing has been done about these people, except if you mean giving them multi Grammy and Aria awards.

My images are very basic as I think the strength of my argument is found in the text. I have several videos and many links to allow the viewer to read into every facet of my essay. Overall it is shaping out well, and I look forward to publishing it.

Mitch meets the Devil

Truth be told, I have known him for half a decade. His name is Flash. No, not the man with the red lycra suit with the thunderbolt on it, but the software. Those who know me are aware of my problems with the program. It seems that unless the teacher who taught me Flash didn't know what she was talking about there is no reason why I face so many problems every time I use it. For instance, in the current project, I tried to rain letters down on the screen like water droplets, but when I tweened it the only thing visible on the screen was a single letter: N. Another time when I pressed F5 Flash did not insert frames as it should have; instead, it added them on top of another fragment of my work so that both sections appeared on screen at the same time, even though they were on different layers.

So work on the current project is slow but will soon be over. There isn't a lot of technical prowess shown in the piece, because I couldn't get most elements to work properly. It won't be as inundated with the variety of text involved in other students work, because using basic text and animations tends to hurt the pace. I worked with this though: what started as a stream of conscious ended up as a reaction to the piece. Indeed it goes further than this, entwining the monotony of working with Flash with the monotony of everyday living. I hope you enjoy it.

I would like to get inside your head and steal your imagery

I found myself at http://directory.eliterature.org/ but didn't know which path to take. Somehow I appear at Machine Dreams & Webbed Arts by Carolyn Quertin, and everything seems alright. She discusses the fingerprint of the author, both the digital and physical fingerprint, but through the explanation of the process an artist goes through to create a piece. Her site map is fragmented but each section is simply structured. This reaffirms the idea she portrays: that the author is like a pair of greedy hands, stretching across the universe and twisting materials into a single entity - a work of fiction. Quertin is not so literal though, as can be seen in the example below from the page 'Eruption':

An eruption of the blossoming of a transformation, out of body, to regain the body. These x-rayed bones are merely the mechanics of the form.

Here, take these supple limbs, this beating heart, this twitch of the tongue, curl of the lip.

Enter with a kiss.

Her physical portrayal of the writing process is not entirely original, but is stunning in it's simplicity. Though it makes no real definitive and final point - and it can not be reprimanded for this, because it is a hypertextual piece - the reader is no doubt left with an impression on their mind.

Another work that is powerful in it's simplicity, Cipher, by Linda Carroli and Josephine Wilson, is very much a piece of dispersed fiction like the ones we worked on earlier in the year, working through e-mail messages sent between two individuals. It uses two primary colours - white and red; the two colours of the rose and symbols of love. The beginning, simply a group of photos timed to change every few seconds, was not appealing. However, the themes that dominate the latter part of the piece, and the intriguing quality of the character's - M and C - who seem to be confused by their actual location (there are suggestions that they are in Germany, Russia and Australia) is enough to keep us enthralled until the truth is discovered. The ending is quite surprising, and I expect there is nobody that has gone through and not been surprised with what they have found.

The final piece, Storyland, by Nanette Wylde seemed nonsensical at first - and I suppose it still does now, as I am inferring rather than stating - but now seems to be a group of metaphorical statments, many of which are based off biblical stories. The author announces cryptic statements and ends with a summary that forces the reader to relate characters to their actions. The truth is I can not understand many of them, even though there tends to be a repetition of structure. The hypertextual side of the piece is basic - it uses a single button to generate the story and has some animation and audio.

And so it was, or at least that's what I assume.

If Strong Bad says it's cool, it's cool.

Homestar Runner is a flash animation that has grown popular not due to it's amazing graphics and technical finesse but through the development of character and dialogue.

The main characters are created using simple animations and the basic tools found in Flash but have been crafted in such a way that they are still intriguing.

Homestar Runner, the protagonist of the series, is a morose athlete and it is because of that that the character is enjoyable to watch. He has no arms, so his animations are limited to the blinking of his eyes. However, his main attraction is his stupidity and his 'dopey' voice.

Coach Z is constructed in a different manner. He has no mouth and his eyes are nothing but blank circles. His head is his most animated feature, moving when he talks. He also uses simple arm movements.

The Cheat, a cat-like creature squeaks rather than speaks, and a translation of his noises is generally provided. His eyes reflect the emotion his pitch can not.

Strong Bad, the antagonist and perhaps the most popular character on the website, is the most detailed. His head totes and emblem and unlike the others he tends to angle his head. Because of this detail his body is barely animated and the shape of his mouth is always a circle or a square.

Marzipan is the only female character in the group, and this is portrayed solely by her long hair. She is shapeless - resembling a broom more than anything - like Homestar she has no arms and has small facial features. Her head rotates on an axis when she speaks and interacts with things.

Pom Pom is a circular character who makes bubbling noises. To accommodate the fact that he can not talk he generally uses arm movements to portray what he is trying to express.

The creators have said they still use Flash 5, and this is hardly a surprise. Scenes are generally composed of a matte background decorated using the square and circle tools and a couple of characters whose animations tend to loop. But the comic is fleshed out through small details. These details could be trivial objects such as an animated bird sitting in a tree or a character dressing up in a costume. Still, these are generally developed using the most basic of tools, but this is the appeal of Homestar Runner. It is simple, but in it's simplicity is a great deal of detail and well written scenarios.

Of the Essay...

I have chosen to do the hypertextual essay due to it's connection with the subjects we cover in class.

My first thought was to do the essay on the redundancy of mainstream music and it's corruption of the industry and the art. I would focus on the history of mainstream music and recent sale figures. From there I would highlight a quite famous study by an American university post-graduate who, by merging two songs from popular band 'Nickleback' onto each other, discovered that the band uses almost the same sound in every one of it's songs. The same study has been undertaken in regards to 'Linkin Park' whose latest album went platinum in a matter of weeks during a time period where the music industry is said to be suffering.

However, I do not know whether this argument will provide me with enough information that can be considered factual rather than subjective, and thus hinder me from constructing an unbiased essay.

Therefore I think my subject will be the lack of support given to writer's in industries where celebrity and wealth are more highly regarded than talent. To prove this I will look to the past, when ingenuity and creativity were both encouraged and applauded. Evidence from both the literary and cinematic realms will be harvested and portrayed to uncover the truth.

Of course, I will have to think about it further, and soon.

EDIT: I have decided to go back to the popular music argument. My site will include pages regarding the proof that Nickleback, Linkin Park and Powderfinger just release the same song again and again, the importance of celebrity and image in selling albums, the ignorance and stupidity housed in pop lyrics, album sales, the change in music culture, the effect of pirating and the thoughts of those that support popular music. It will be quite informal but at the same time informative and perhaps even inspiring. Hopefully it will turn some people to the true artists in modern society.

This is a story...

My web story tells of Mr William Shatner and his journey to discover why he has woken up in heaven after a death he can not remember.

Originally my tale was essentially going to be a 'pick your own adventure', but after storyboarding it I realised it would take too long, and more importantly, it detracted from what it should have been focusing on - the adventures of Shatner.

My first step was creating a collection of images to use in the story. For the sake of swiftness (ironically, as you will soon discover) I decided to use some basic images which I would manipulate according to the scenario. The task was not easy however, taking 6 hours to collaborate the required objects.

Since the journey occurs through heaven and hell it is a psychological venture and deals with the thoughts of many groups - from the people who are waiting to enter the Pearly Gates to the devil-penguins drafted to overtake Heaven. As you would assume from the previous statement it is light-hearted, but it has still been quite hard to come up with ideas that don't distract too much and at the same time didn't feel forced. To accommodate this factor I have put captions where the links are placed that subtly say that while they lead the viewer on different paths the main story still follows the obvious road. The links themselves will navigate to such things as verses statistics between the angels and demons, propaganda posters, a song, and at the end an alternative ending.

Addendum: I was going to add the DHTML later when I had confirmed which scripts I was using, but it took quite some time to actually find ones that would work. I had a couple of problems with certain ones, even when I copied and pasted them unadulterated into my page. Thus some are pretty underwhelming but some of the ones I wanted worked perfectly. From the start I wanted flying objects on one page, and the demon penguins work well. I mainly used text effects so as to not disturb the layout of the page, but at some points I have used some page effects such as stars flying around the Pearly Gates.

In the end it has taken me roughly 27 hours to finish this project, and I feel this is because I tried too hard. Instead of creating images in Photoshop to work around I should have gone directly into Dreamweaver. I expect this way too I wouldn't have had so many issues with dhtml, and in some cases been able to provide more professional effects. I hope both quantity and quality on the site are adequate.

For a Man Without Eyes He Sure Sees a Lot

In the comic, the narrating character attempts to explain two topics:

1) The seemingly unlimited potential for computer technology to expand until humanity (or computers) cease to exist and
2) The future of comics, and graphic design as a whole, as this technology is developed.

He begins discussing the first of these topics by introducing the reader to the 'Whirlwind', a giant vacuum tube computer developed in the 1950's. The character explains the design of the computer, and then contrasts it with a computer in the 1970's as a point of reference to show how computing has developed. From there he moves to Moore's Law, the theory that the circuit density of semiconducters would double every one and a half years. While an incredible assumption, the narrator follows up with an even more incredible statement: In the current era it would be foolish to bet against the law proving true.

Soon after, he discusses the six assumptions about computing that he believes are well founded:

1) That as they become more powerful, computers will become cheaper.
2) Hardware will decrease in size.
3) Computer-media communications will get quicker.
4) Display technology such as monitors will be improved.
5) Web commerce will thrive.
6) As computing develops, more and more computing appliances will appear.

The reader is provided with examples that justify these assumptions.

In regards to the second topic, the narrator begins by mentioning the greater amount of functions on a computer that could aid and even improve an artists work. Many of these tools are classical; pieces that can be produced in the physical world, but others are specific to computers. Yet this is not good news for all artists. Artists well founded, the narrator explains, sometimes find it hard to make the transition from physical art to computerised art, and are soon replaced by young artists who are well versed in the use of software. This is a recurring cycle, however. In time to come present artists will age and be replaces by new artists with new software. We are shown a few examples of theoretical future art as the computer is further developed, and finally the narrator explains a semi-current emergence, that of pre-set images in software. Where once an artist would have to 'map' an image and then create the skin, the maps have been built into the software, allowing the user to focus only on creating the external design of the object.

The comic works well to develop its author's findings. By using visual keys it does not have to go into the detail like that found in essays, yet it still provides the reader with intelligent, factual evidence. In some cases - such as that found on page 130 - the artist uses cinematic angles to provide meaning as well. When discussing the difference between the narrator's old and new computer the 'camera' is positioned on a high angle to represent the enormous contrast between the machines that the character is announcing. These sort of visual aids invest the comic with more meaning. When the author focuses on very deep information, as he does on pages 134-135, he uses symbols to explain his findings. This allows readers of all intelligence levels to understand what is being said. In the same vein he uses humour (see the 'interface on page 139) to keep his subject light, and also he uses examples of work on page 140 to allow the reader to see the types of art that is being made on computers so that they do not have to visualise them. Page 147 helps the reader comprehend the comic's theories. Since he is discussing the art of the future it would be near impossible to understand what the author is imagining without seeing it for ones self.