Thursday, July 21, 2011
4.3
I really liked my group that I had the privilege of working with. I had a lot of fun working with them and we were really productive and creative as a group. I think that one of the weak points of our presentation was the pitch. I think we were all nervous when we presented and that was really broadcast through our voices. I think that if we would have spent some more time on rehearsing the pitch it would have been a bit smoother and would have sounded/made us more confident. I think a strength that we had was how well we worked together. We didn't have any problems with making up the game or the PowerPoint. We were all on the same page when it came to making the characters and the actual game play it was pretty much smooth sailing. The hardest part of designing the game was probably the rules. The rules were already set out for us because it is was a well established board game we adapted. However, we did add the elements of items and abilities. Coming up with procedures that made sense with the traditional game and make it more interesting to play level to level. We just kept the traditional chess delimiters and gave the player abilities that surpass some of the delimiters.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
3.1
For this blog entry I had to choose a picture and then edit it in iPhoto to show a new perspective of it. I chose a photo done by Ben Goosen, because he is a pretty crazy artist. I chose the owl and chair photo because it was unusual but also pretty normal at the same time. It had a lot of linear lines in it that drew your eyes just about everywhere. Your eye gets led across the photo by the diagonal lines made by the edges of the box. There are also a lot of lines in the chair too. Those lines frame the owl up and also point directly to him. It is also one of the only points of interest in the piece. The only difference between my edited picture and his original, is that I cropped mine about 30% or so. It was a pretty wide shot in the original. I wouldn’t say it was wide enough for an establishing shot but I would say wider than the normal wide shot. I brought it in to a tighter wide shot and took out some of the background. It is quite humorous too that I took it in 30% because of the 30° rule. I also thought that with the poor resolution of the image when I got it, I would just keep from cropping too much to loose quality. I did loose some quality but I countered that with framing the owl on the second point of interest according to the rule of thirds. If you were to cut the frame into a tick-tack-toe board you would see that the owls head and eyes rest on the second intersecting line. This is something that I like to do with everything that involves framing because it gives you a good looking image and a pretty evenly weighted frame.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Cover Songs 2.1
It was hard to think of a good cover to write about that people wouldn’t know already. So I dug deep into my iTunes library. I found some of my local music and other underground bands in other cities covering each other’s stuff. I thought that would just be too much. I finally settled on a tasteful and modest selection. The original song that I chose is from a pretty well know band, The Postal Service. The original song I chose was “We Will Become Silhouettes”. This song has been a favorite of mine since sophomore year of high school. It really got me into the indie electronic scene a lot more than I anticipated. It really sparked my interest in a different sort of music and re-kindled my appetite for searching for new music. In my search I found another indie rock band that has definitely stuck with me. This band has come to make a reputation as The Shins. They covered The Postal Service’s song on their album Such Great Heights. Their cover was a fantastic new look at their electronic poppy song.
The Postal Service’s original song is fantastic track to listen. It starts with a beautiful piano riff. The piano riff starts with a soft intensity. The piano is acoustic sounding but there was some definite reverb effects placed over it. It had a very deep quality to its overall sound. This piano riff is a nice calm to the start to their song that would help build some tension. The entire song’s tone and emotional architecture is calm with some inspiring overtones. The guitar riff just reiterates that theme, or motif. They have very warm tones and deep hypnotic sounds and effects mastered over the song. The beginning keyboard loop is followed by another harmonic, more manipulated keyboard. The organization was very ordered with choruses and verses. This also helped with small amounts of tension and release throughout the song created by layering of instruments. The timbre was very tonal because it uses a lot of piano and electronic effects with some electronic drumbeats to create a very deep and tall song.
The Shins’ cover is equally fantastic and addicting as The Postal Service’s original. It starts with a count in of acoustic drums followed by more acoustic instrumentation. They play acoustic guitars with an acoustic drumset. It is arguable whether the bass is acoustic or not. From the beginning the song is of modest intensity. I say it is modes because it is not as quiet as The Postal Service’s original, but it is not loud by any means. The tone of the song is very warm because of the warm sounding instruments and the lead singers calm and friendly singing style. The emotional architecture is happy and up beat because of the chord structures and again because of the instrumentation. It never really changes from happy but it does get a lot more intense with more layered effects. The Shins have changed the focus from a quiet electronic song to a happy sunny day kind of groove. Both of the songs have their source in their drumbeats, which make it easy to bop your head a long with. The organization of The Shins cover was also very ordered with choruses and verses because they do not change any of the lyrics and follow the same song structure. The timbre matched The Postal Service’s original because it was also very tonal. All of the instruments were very ear pleasing and not noisy by any means. All of the sound had a very clean quality to them.
It is hard to say which song I would like better. I did find out about The Postal Service first. I do think that I would owe some sort of allegiance to them. However, I have not been as indulged in the electronic scene for as long as I have been marinating in the traditional style bands. I can identify with The Shins more. I have always been into harder music since I was a child and learned to play instruments from grade school. I just find more interest in people that play the instruments instead of creating them on computer programs. That is not to say that I do not respect that music by any means. I completely respect electronic artists and everything that they do. I just don’t understand it as much as I do running sound for live more acoustic bands with instruments. Therefore I would have to say that I side with The Shins version of the song.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Blog 1.3 Post Links
Andrew http://artistmdia.blogspot.com/2011/06/mdia-203-audio-reflection.html?showComment=1309454366768#c3134519373415648102
Jack http://mdia203blog.blogspot.com/2011/06/soundscape-project_27.html?showComment=1309427176911#c2073969522379059661
Kirby http://kirbykilwalski.blogspot.com/2011/06/soundscape-vid.html?showComment=1309427593556#c5824525104162028110
Jack http://mdia203blog.blogspot.com/2011/06/soundscape-project_27.html?showComment=1309427176911#c2073969522379059661
Kirby http://kirbykilwalski.blogspot.com/2011/06/soundscape-vid.html?showComment=1309427593556#c5824525104162028110
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