Sheryl Oring

Oring's work focuses on critical social issues through projects with a goal of telling stories and examining the publics opinion (mostly political). She receives the public's opinions via typewriter, and sends them off to the president. I think it is a great way to get voices heard that wouldn't have had any type of oppionion otherwise. I think she is an extremely worthy artist that wants to make a healthy difference and is using her creativity in positive ways. She's awesome!

http://iwishtosay.blogspot.com

Here is the link to one of my favorite letters that I found, focusing on funding of the arts at a school in Arizona, where the writer's job was just eliminated due to lack of funding.

Persuasive Games

I thought it was cool how some of the games target a specific audience. For example, the game "Jetset," targets business travelers who are continuously waiting at airports. I found the game "Fatworld" very interesting because it connected politics and nutrition together in the United States, since our obesity rate here is over 30 percent. The game's goal is not to tell people how to eat well or how often they should workout, but it demonstrates the connection between having money and BEING ABLE to eat well. These games were intriguing because they all had meaning and could be in someway educational.

Advertising vs Propaganda

Advertising can encourage your desire for consumer goods using images and captions that lure you in. An advertiser's main goal is to sell, and to sell they have to make the product look desirable, and make you think you want/need it. Advertising uses multimedia techniques to promote products, and persuade the audience. However, the motivation to buy the products comes from propaganda. While propaganda is also a powerful media tool, it does not try to encourage the sale of a product. It is usually used to change or promote attitudes about a particular person or subject, most commonly used in politics.

Video Game Revolution

Over the past few decades, video games have become a HUGE part of our culture. As kids, we begged our parents to play games for a few minutes, and today there are kids playing the games all day long! The game industry has become a multi-billion dollar behemoth. The coming about of video games was very similar to that of computers, sort of like a fascination that turned into billions of dollars and spread all over the world. Through this I've learned that these video games create false realities for the consumers, and start up a line of addicts. These games may be fun and kill time, but they may trick kids into not know what is real verses what is not real.

Triumph of the Nerds

I had no idea there was so much behind the making of computers before watching this documentary. Even though I didn't think I had much interest in the subject, it was so interesting to expose myself to the competitiveness behind these computer companies, and the fact that what happens behind the scenes really does relate to us, because we are the consumers. This documentary was very detailed and offered opinions from VERY useful resources, included the top CEO of many companies. I thought it was interesting to see how these computer companies started off from nothing, basically as only a dream or fascination, to almost ruling the world.

I had no idea the Steve Wozniak was the big brains behind Apple, and that Steve Jobs was more of the marketer. It's funny how the name we recognize is Steve Jobs, not Wozniak, because everything is about selling. If you don't know how to sell, you can't succeed.

Bill Gates' goal was to have his software running on every computer existing. He cut down people who got in his way, and his promotional launch of Windows 95 was amazingly successful. He used pictures instead of words in order to make OS more intriguing, which ultimately worked. Steve Jobs became an icon in the "personal computer" world, while Bill Gates was a developer of Operating Systems. However they still competed with each other. Jobs predicted that soon all computers would have graphical interfaces, and was correct.

I thought it was mainly interesting to watch this movie now that it's almost two decades later. Computers and technology have advanced so much, included iPods, iPads, iPhones, Driods, etc. It is so amazing to see the rapid progression of technology and how its affecting the world/its consumers, and how it will continue to affect the future.

Flip Book Projects

Brian- I liked how he had an overall theme of basing his flip book around the history of the operas. It was extremely creative and well though out. You could tell that he knew what he was going to do before he started drawing, where some of us just started drawing with no plan.

Gina- I like her idea of basing the book on nature because it was very similar to mine. The colors were very vibrant, especially when you get to the pages with the tree, sun, and water.

Leah- I thought her idea was very cute. It was almost comical how the bugs had conversations with each other, and I really like how she created dialog.

Holly- Her book was extremely well drawn and detailed. There were very cool elements of nature and she tied the themes and ideas of the pages together very well.

Kaitlyn- My favorite part was the rope in the beginning, and how the little frog character popped out. It was drawn so well that it seemed realistic. However I thought she got burnt out after that and lost the detail and creativity. After an AWESOME beginning I was expecting more.

Andrea- Amazing! I liked how she basically made a picture story-book. It was not only EXTREMELY well drawn, but very easy to follow along with because you kept wanting to know what happened next.  Awesome job.

Kyle- I liked his Boston themed book, because you could tell it is a city that means a lot to him by the Red Sox logo (he was obviously "repping"). My favorite part was how the building grew and became very detailed, and I also like the handwritten fonts.

Raph- Loved the colors! The hot air balloon and circus theme really lit up the book and made it vibrant and attracted. The colors matched the theme perfectly. I could tell all of the pictures took great patients because they were so well colored-in.

Spencer- Nice job! I loved the skateboard idea (similar to mine) and my favorite part was when the pokeman character stuck out it's tongue. Very well detailed and thought out.

Stop Motion Animations

Stop motion animation is one of the most influential and/or trendy film-making techniques today. It is a type of art that makes a physically animated object appear as if it's moving on it's own. It works by shooting a single frame of an object and then slightly moving the object, and then shooting an other frame. This then creates an illusion that the objects (that are still frames) are actually moving. Here are a few videos I found through my research that I found as interesting examples.

This animation called "Gulp," is the world's largest stop animation set, stretching over 11,000 square feet. I like how they used live characters, but my only question is how they filmed sideways, because the person looks as if he is standing. My favorite part is how they drew in the sand to create what looked like real life nature and/or animals, and changed it after every frame to make the surrounding sand look untouched. I thought that was fascinating.

This video, "Post-it Note Arcade," took great patience and creativity. I like how the artists took two of his favorite arcade games and and made the video look like an actual arcade game. It kind of felt like you were actually playing it!