This week's material focused on social bookmarking as well as cloud computing. Social bookmarking is a service that allows users to visit websites and save the websites to a neutral server like delicious. The user is able to categorize, adjust, name and describe the bookmark to make it easier to identify at a later date. For instance if a person stumbles upon a website they like pertaining to travel arrangements, they can label the bookmark as a travel bookmark and describe the service that it provides so that they will know what it is later. There is also a website called stumbleupon that allows for users to get randomly transferred to various websites within certain categories. If someone is interested in rock music, the website can help find other websites pertaining to rock music that the user would probably never stumble upon. Cloud computing was the other subject of the material this week and specifically google docs. Cloud computing is a very interesting idea in that it allows for a user to submit and edit content existing on the web and rather then send a copy of the work to someone, they simple allow the other person access to the online content. This takes away the need to send many emails and make many copies of the same thing that inevitably vary and become confusing and overwhelming. When working in a group for example, all members can make adjustments to the same document rather than having to send around copies of the various versions of the document.
I think that cloud computing is much more relevant to my major and profession than social bookmarking. Google docs could be useful to every major but also very useful to film making. When moving from pre-production to production there are many different versions of the same script that change all the time. It would be much easier for everyone to log into a google doc and view the script as apposed to having to make changing and send multiple copies. It would also be useful for scheduling purposes as well. Coordinating all of the people in a production could benefit greatly if there was a type of cloud computing scheduler or calender. I'm sure there is one out there and I will definitely look into google docs into the future for projects.
LINK: http://www.airset.com/AirSet.jsp#app.Home
The link I found is for a website that utilizes cloud computing to organize schedules and contacts and also allows you to create groups. I've already stressed that I think calendar applications for cloud computers in very beneficial but having contacts for a large business or just a social butterfly would also help. The service called airset allows you to hook up to the program using a smart phone or computer. Airset also allows you to safely backup files from your computer onto the "cloud" so that you can access them from anywhere. I'm sure many companies are designing cloud software including google but it is good to see that cloud computing is expanding to include many different aspects a person may need. I was not aware of any of this technology before but after looking around the internet I've found that there is a lot of different options to "cloud compute" and there are many different applications that seem practical and beneficial for pretty much every type of use a person may need.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Week 14. Games for Teaching and Learning
This week's material covered how games are being used for educational purposes. After watching the videos and reading the articles in this week's section I couldn't help but feel somewhat removed from what apparently is going all around me. I had never heard of "second life" but apparently it is very popular and teaching people things over the internet community that were once taught in a classroom. Through "second life" players are able to become immersed in the learning material as they act out plays in digital English theaters or explore ancient Rome. There are also scavenger hunts that allow for students to explore definitions and find information on their own as apposed to having information told to them. Avatars can even be quizzed by their environment and different objects. The articles in this weeks section also showed examples of games that helped education on politics, fast food and even computer science. People can go to a political candidates' site and play their game that centers around health reform and hopefully learn about the issue. The McDonalds game I found very disturbing. It goes through the process of farming and delivering food to customers but conveniently excludes the part where the cute digital cows go into a Wonka-esque machine for processing and little hamburger patties come out. I'm not sure I agree with tailoring games towards kids that highlight products with health risks and lacking any nutritional value. The computer science game was a bit dull for me and basically just added up numbers. Then again I no interest in computer science.
I cannot think of any way that learning games could really help in the film industry as film is highly creative and too technical for simple games. I could maybe see how second life would be important in the film industry in getting information out or possibly even screening movies in the online community. I don't think I would have any interest in doing it but I'm sure there are filmmakers who would like to gain exposure by showing work over the internet community through second life or other avatar based games. I don't really think the time requirements for making films lends itself to being able to create an entire online social community. Film making is a very collaborative process where social interaction is very important. I think that online gaming or social media takes away from these aspects and detracts from the most important aspects of film making.
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/08/falco-sl-machinima.html
I found a very strange link that pertains to film making within the online game community of "second life." There is a German film maker who takes footage from within second life and cuts it up into movies. The movies he makes are god awful and as soon as the first one started playing I broke out into laughter by the juxtaposition of serious dialogue coming out of computer characters' mouths but I have to admit it is clever in some weird way. There are a lot of people in this online game who would consume this bazaar content and appreciate it. I'm not sure I would consider this film making as much as animating but whatever. Interesting look into how games are evolving into the film industry and as far as learning goes, the editing of these movies can teach real life practical editing skills I guess.
I cannot think of any way that learning games could really help in the film industry as film is highly creative and too technical for simple games. I could maybe see how second life would be important in the film industry in getting information out or possibly even screening movies in the online community. I don't think I would have any interest in doing it but I'm sure there are filmmakers who would like to gain exposure by showing work over the internet community through second life or other avatar based games. I don't really think the time requirements for making films lends itself to being able to create an entire online social community. Film making is a very collaborative process where social interaction is very important. I think that online gaming or social media takes away from these aspects and detracts from the most important aspects of film making.
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2010/08/falco-sl-machinima.html
I found a very strange link that pertains to film making within the online game community of "second life." There is a German film maker who takes footage from within second life and cuts it up into movies. The movies he makes are god awful and as soon as the first one started playing I broke out into laughter by the juxtaposition of serious dialogue coming out of computer characters' mouths but I have to admit it is clever in some weird way. There are a lot of people in this online game who would consume this bazaar content and appreciate it. I'm not sure I would consider this film making as much as animating but whatever. Interesting look into how games are evolving into the film industry and as far as learning goes, the editing of these movies can teach real life practical editing skills I guess.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Open Source (Week 12)
Open source software is software with a source code that is open to be manipulated or modified. Open source software is usually free and comes without restrictions on downloading or advertising as well. Open source software can be the combination of many developers' code. Websites like sourceforge.com allow for software developers to publish their source codes onto the internet and allow for other developers to see the code and tweak or change the code. Open source software ranges in its uses. from web browsing with firefox, checking mail with thunderbird, word processing with open office, or even photo editing with gimp. Open source software is definitely an original creation of the internet generation. Much like the internet itself, open source is a collaborative effort. There are no disks or dvds to download and also, much like everything else on the internet, the content is free. Open source programmers have figured out ways around many costly software packages provided by major companies.
Open source software is very important in my major and field. The film industry is growing daily and tools are becoming cheaper and more accessible. Avidemux for windows allows for pretty much anyone with any computer to edit video non-linearly. This means that what becomes most important for film makers isn't the technology used, but rather the quality of the story and technique. This also means that kids can start messing around with relatively advanced programs much earlier. I used to have to hook up two VCRs together and edit tape to tape when I was really young, now kids can start utilizing computer programs early on which gives them a head start. Having cheaper alternatives provided through open source software also forces major companies to bring their prices down in order to compete. The same AVID system that was worth thousands upon thousands of dollars just a few years ago has come down in price drastically. This can allow for film makers to put more of a films budget into other aspects of the picture.
LINK: http://open-source.gbdirect.co.uk/migration/benefit.html
The article I found starts out by describing open source software as being much more focused on quality over software features. Where commercial software attempts to load a program with features that make the product more marketable and easier to sell, open source software doesn't have to worry about marketing and focuses more on stability within the program. The people who make open source software regard peer recognition as very important. They seek to impress their peers with clean design, reliability and maintainability. This trickles down to the normal program user who gets a very efficiently designed program with a lot of reliability. The article also describes that a relatively unknown benefit of open source software is auditability. This is the idea that where a consumer has to trust a commercial company that says their program is safe and secure, open source software isn't hidden. Anyone can physically look at the source code and determine if the claims made are indeed true.
Open source software is very important in my major and field. The film industry is growing daily and tools are becoming cheaper and more accessible. Avidemux for windows allows for pretty much anyone with any computer to edit video non-linearly. This means that what becomes most important for film makers isn't the technology used, but rather the quality of the story and technique. This also means that kids can start messing around with relatively advanced programs much earlier. I used to have to hook up two VCRs together and edit tape to tape when I was really young, now kids can start utilizing computer programs early on which gives them a head start. Having cheaper alternatives provided through open source software also forces major companies to bring their prices down in order to compete. The same AVID system that was worth thousands upon thousands of dollars just a few years ago has come down in price drastically. This can allow for film makers to put more of a films budget into other aspects of the picture.
LINK: http://open-source.gbdirect.co.uk/migration/benefit.html
The article I found starts out by describing open source software as being much more focused on quality over software features. Where commercial software attempts to load a program with features that make the product more marketable and easier to sell, open source software doesn't have to worry about marketing and focuses more on stability within the program. The people who make open source software regard peer recognition as very important. They seek to impress their peers with clean design, reliability and maintainability. This trickles down to the normal program user who gets a very efficiently designed program with a lot of reliability. The article also describes that a relatively unknown benefit of open source software is auditability. This is the idea that where a consumer has to trust a commercial company that says their program is safe and secure, open source software isn't hidden. Anyone can physically look at the source code and determine if the claims made are indeed true.
Distance Education (Week 11)
The whole idea of distance technology is to provide educational services to students off site that is comparable to the education given to students on site. Many private as well as public institutions offer distance learning including almost all universities. The types of distance education varies and can include correspondence through regular mail, internet correspondence, courses over the television or radio, courses downloaded from a CD as well as courses offered over a mobile device. However in recent years, distance education has come to blend the many forms. The benefits of distance learning include the ability to learn at your own pace. It also allows for adults to continue their education in situations where they are unable to attend classes regularly. The draw backs of distance education include; the students enrolled in the course have to be very motivated in order to get the benefits out of the programs. Since there are no ways of forcing people to watch materials or participate, students have to motivate themselves or they can fall very behind in the course.
I don't see distance learning really helping me personally in any way but I could see how it could help other people wanting to get into the film industry. Many of the programs that do things like editing, compositing or music composition are extremely elaborate and very technical programs. I could definitely see benefits the makers of the programs to provide online courses that help get users started using their products. There are many websites that already exist that post forums where users help each other out but I think a company issued distance learning program would still help out a person just adopting a new technology or program emensely.
LINK: http://www.mediacollege.com/video/editing/
I found a very interesting website that provides tutorials on some of the popular video editing programs as well as other technological tutorials. The website mediacollege.com seems to give out the basic tutorials for free but requires a payment to see more advanced examples. The way the website works is that it allows you to select the specific program you want to use, then it gives you a list of topics that you might be interested in learning and then explains how each is done. I think this form of distance learning is unique in that it doesn't make content once students are enrolled, it makes the content before it has students and then waits for interest to grow. I have seen that there are tutorials on the internet but haven't really thought of them as distance education until now. I think that this is the most practical form of distance education for people in the film industry.
I don't see distance learning really helping me personally in any way but I could see how it could help other people wanting to get into the film industry. Many of the programs that do things like editing, compositing or music composition are extremely elaborate and very technical programs. I could definitely see benefits the makers of the programs to provide online courses that help get users started using their products. There are many websites that already exist that post forums where users help each other out but I think a company issued distance learning program would still help out a person just adopting a new technology or program emensely.
LINK: http://www.mediacollege.com/video/editing/
I found a very interesting website that provides tutorials on some of the popular video editing programs as well as other technological tutorials. The website mediacollege.com seems to give out the basic tutorials for free but requires a payment to see more advanced examples. The way the website works is that it allows you to select the specific program you want to use, then it gives you a list of topics that you might be interested in learning and then explains how each is done. I think this form of distance learning is unique in that it doesn't make content once students are enrolled, it makes the content before it has students and then waits for interest to grow. I have seen that there are tutorials on the internet but haven't really thought of them as distance education until now. I think that this is the most practical form of distance education for people in the film industry.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Digital Story Telling (Week 8 pt 2)
The selection of articles from the LA times are good proof of the importance and shift to digital storytelling. The articles all focus around digital technology and how movie's and loads of other media are being offered and provided through the internet. The internet has become extremely important to the entertainment industry and has caused people to raise their expectations for what they get off of the internet. People are not satisfied with simple html websites anymore, they want interactive and progressive sites. Web 2.0 content and digital storytelling is increasingly important. Being able to use technology to communicate to an audience is critical. The material from the week also describes the different formats of audio that exist. There are basically two types of digital audio categories; uncompressed or compressed. The formats that are predominate in uncompressed are wav and aiff. compressed formats include mp3 and OGG. Compressed takes an original file and shrinks it to a more manageable size. This causes loss of some quality. Uncompressed is the entire raw information without any loss of quality.
Digital Story telling and audio are very important topics in my major and profession. Movies are stories told digitally now through editing software and audio mixing. Knowing which types of audio formats to use and the differences between them is very important. For example when storing audio files for later use you should save them as uncompressed files so they can be manipulated in the future. When releasing audio files online or for soundtracks you can compress them to make them easier to download for other people. Also when mixing sound for a theater it is important to make sure that the sound is at full quality as the sound system will play all the intricacies of your composition.
http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/quality/
The link I found relates to sound quality. It is from mediacollege.com and troubleshoots some very common problems that people face with sound quality. It breaks the problems into categories, distortion for example, and then explores different solutions within the category. The website does a good job at considering a large number of issues that a user could face and addressing them all in depth. This could be useful for creating effective podcasts with quality audio or for other outlets of digital story telling as well.
Digital Story telling and audio are very important topics in my major and profession. Movies are stories told digitally now through editing software and audio mixing. Knowing which types of audio formats to use and the differences between them is very important. For example when storing audio files for later use you should save them as uncompressed files so they can be manipulated in the future. When releasing audio files online or for soundtracks you can compress them to make them easier to download for other people. Also when mixing sound for a theater it is important to make sure that the sound is at full quality as the sound system will play all the intricacies of your composition.
http://www.mediacollege.com/audio/quality/
The link I found relates to sound quality. It is from mediacollege.com and troubleshoots some very common problems that people face with sound quality. It breaks the problems into categories, distortion for example, and then explores different solutions within the category. The website does a good job at considering a large number of issues that a user could face and addressing them all in depth. This could be useful for creating effective podcasts with quality audio or for other outlets of digital story telling as well.
Podcast Blog
http://www.filefront.com/17416825/podcast_1-2.aif
I could definitely see how podcasts could be used for presentations. Even knowing how to use sound and edit sound in garage band or audacity can prove useful for most professions I think. Sound is a big part of effective presentations and is very important. I don't think podcasts would be helpful to film making itself but could be helpful in the promotion of a film and as a special type of feature for people to be able to stay involved and get information early about a project. Sound editing itself is definitely extremely important and can make or break a production. People are more forgiving of bad images than bad sound. Bad sound can jar an audience right out of the intended experience.
I could definitely see how podcasts could be used for presentations. Even knowing how to use sound and edit sound in garage band or audacity can prove useful for most professions I think. Sound is a big part of effective presentations and is very important. I don't think podcasts would be helpful to film making itself but could be helpful in the promotion of a film and as a special type of feature for people to be able to stay involved and get information early about a project. Sound editing itself is definitely extremely important and can make or break a production. People are more forgiving of bad images than bad sound. Bad sound can jar an audience right out of the intended experience.
Digital Story Telling
LINK: http://vimeo.com/13873907
Digital Story telling is at the root of everything I do in my profession. Film making is essential the combination of many different forms of digital story telling and making them all work together. The example I provided is a commercial I did that uses kinetic typography with animation elements, sound effects and voice over to try to give an overall sense of the restaurant and the atmosphere I was marketing. In creating this commercial I had to use programs like Shake for compositing and animating, Final Cut Pro for editing and Logic for sound design and music composition, all tools of digital story telling.
Digital Story telling is at the root of everything I do in my profession. Film making is essential the combination of many different forms of digital story telling and making them all work together. The example I provided is a commercial I did that uses kinetic typography with animation elements, sound effects and voice over to try to give an overall sense of the restaurant and the atmosphere I was marketing. In creating this commercial I had to use programs like Shake for compositing and animating, Final Cut Pro for editing and Logic for sound design and music composition, all tools of digital story telling.
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