MTAA: Yes vs. No

Thought this was kind of interesting. Two new media artists, known collectively as MTAA, put together a conceptual art piece which uses software to combine different pre-existing video clips of the two artists saying "yes" or "no". The computer randomly selects which clips will appear from each artist, so they can agree or disagree in any number of combinations:

Yes/No

Are we the cutting edge?

While watching TV, I saw this ad from Cisco, who makes the switches that run the Internet. They were pushing just in time convergence: they had an add where a inventor makes a prototype of a skateboard and users use it and give him instant feedback via IP phones that have video camera's in them. The inventor continually improves his prototype using their help until its "perfect"! It was a very geeky ad that I am guessing went over the heads of lots of people. What I found interesting is that it requires the kind of media savvy that we are learning in the program.
At the same time my buddy mentioned that while there are tons of videos now on the net, must of them suck. He was arguing that making media by the masses dumbs down the quality. I tend to think my buddy missed the point: every time you make the bar easier for the masses, you get more content for free. Now there will be a lot of junk out there, but there also will be a lot of interesting or important content (see Rodney King, etc.). What do you all think, and how do we make sure the quality stays high as the quantity jumps?

Assignment for February 27

I know you guys are on top of this, but wanted to keep our assignment posts alive.

1. Develop one page treatment for "simple task" (if you want to inject some narrative, that's okay!) Goal is for final video piece to be not more than 2 minutes long.

2. Bring treatment into class.

3. Charles, can you sign out two cameras from Ken Fye before class (I'll drop you a note about this as well).

Second Life

Hi all,

My boss asked me to check into this. Oddly enough, employers are using it as an addtl resource to market their companies to students looking for employment. Does anyone have any feedback about this or know first hand what its like? I've been looking at the website but I'm not finding anything about networking with employers. Any feedback or insight is appreciated.

http://secondlife.com/

PS- im still working on my animation. Not nearly as savvy as all of you. I've been having some technical issues but I solved one of those Friday night during the storm. I know, I'm a nerd doing homework on fridays but what can you do... I'ts coming soon- hopefully tonight!

Later,
Alex

Treatment/Simple Task Assignment

How to make the best damn sandwich in the world

1. Take two slices of fresh Wonder bread and place on a small plate.
2. On a cutting board, cut a medium-size banana into 7-to-10 even slices. Place to the side.
3. Take a jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise (not the fake stuff, Miracle Whip). Spread two dollop of mayonnaise on one slice of bread.
4. Take a jar of Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter and spread a generous amount on the other slice of bread.
5. Place the bananas on top of the bread slice that is covered with mayonnaise.
6. Being very careful, combine both slices of bread to make a peanut butter, mayonnaise and banana sandwich.

Bon appetit!

Treatment Assignment: How to make toast (Berger)

The premise for my movie is simple: imagine Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss's the Cat in the Hat making toast. Now imagine that my kids are Thing 1 and Thing 2.
I see one child opening the fridge and bringing out a loaf of bread, then throwing a slice at the other. Then they might both run around the house holding slices. Eventually bread gets into the toaster, then the toaster might be set on too high a setting. Smoke pours out. Alarms go off. Children smile. Toast.

I blipped my swf

If you click on the image, you will see the Flash movie in a new window.
Interestingly, blip.tv does not like .swf files so much either. It tries to convert everything to Flash video, .flv format, but since this is not a video to begin with, it can't do it. The result is that it uploads it but it does not put its nice player around it. :-(

ecstacy again

Click to Play

Let's try this!

ecstacy

Here's the mesmerizing piece we made last week.

Click to play.

CHARLES HUGHLEY: FLASH ANIMATION

This is my animation nothing special just a bunch of shapes...

New Syllabus

I've uploaded a copy of our revised syllabus onto my site.

Berger's Flash Movie

My movie exported to Flash as a 12kb file. However, since Blogger won't take Flash files, I had to make it a movie. The same movie was 13.9 MB proving Ravi's point that vector is smaller and better than raster (if you have vector content). As you will see, I got better with Flash, but I still find a lot of the interface awkward.

Slip slidin'

Okay -- it's official "my friends" (that's my little John McCain-ism), we have started to slip a bit in the class. It all happened with the animation stuff bleeding over... but hey, I got my shapes to move around in Flash during my demo!

So here's where we stand during this Presidents Day week:
- your assignment for this week is to work with Flash and FrameThief and strut your stuff in class.
- so this week we'll start stepping into Module Three this week, but Module Four will probably get the short shrift (sp?)
- I'll try to revise our syllabus and post that online to keep us all together.
- I'd like for us to do a field trip to the List at MIT, but unfortunately their late night is Thursday (until 8pm), so let's see if we can find a time for all of us to go. We can do a weekend maybe? (in lieu of a regularly scheduled class)
- I apologize if I've not been as active on our blog due to some life-business, but kudos to those who are keeping it fresh!

Stop motion project

This is my stop motion project.

Kellis

Flash project

This is my flash project.

Kellis

Flash Woes

So I figured out how to bounce a ball, sort of, and I was proud. Then I tried to draw something else and bring it to class, and I was humbled.
Flash seems to use some hybrid of Illustrator and Photoshop metaphors for drawing, but really neither. And it confuses me no end. I look forward to help from all of you in my attempt to learn it.
- Mike

"You Don't Understand Our Audience"

I found an interesting article in Technology Review.

"You Don't Understand Our Audience"
What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC.
By John Hockenberry


Mr. Hockenberry used to work at Dateline NBC as a news correspondent. This article is about NBC News Networks' refusal to embrace new media to communicate to its audience members. Mr. Hockenberry reports the network felt its audience was not interested or sophisticated enough to receive information by this method. He said he found it frustrating that the network was hesitant to use new media, such as the Internet, while the advertising world was embracing it.

interesting pics

I recieved an email with alot of these pictures, all were done with only one sheet of paper...thought they were pretty cool.

Assignment 1 & 2 - Michael's Redo

Much happier with these. Tried to use Photoshop as demonstrated in class and went to some online tutorials for help, but couldn't figure out how to do it...

Some book binding links

Some links for you guys:

Book binding blog

PDF of Japanese stab binding

Some more examples of artist's books.

Some Japanese book binding techniques.