Consuming vs. Creating

As Henry Jenkins says in “Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars? Grassroots Creativity Meets the Media Industry,” the Internet is changing the way we consume media. Fans are exercising their right to actively contribute to their own culture and getting into the mainstream industry. Jenkins explains, “…this new vernacular culture encourages broad participation, grassroots creativity, and a bartering or gift economy” (204). I agree, new technologies make it easier for amateurs to create their own content and the Internet allows them to share it publicly. Social media, in particular, provides a platform for fans to contribute to their own culture.

However, this poses a problem for the balance of power between fans and product owners. Jenkins addresses the media industry’s concern that “as fan productivity goes public, it can no longer be ignored by the media industries, but it cannot be fully contained or channeled by them, either” (205). Ultimately, product owners will have to give up some of the control to fans and allow them to participate in their own culture.

Additionally, Jenkins explains that fan culture is not changing; it is merely more public. He says “the web provides a powerful new distribution channel for amateur cultural production” and a vehicle for fans to fully participate (203). Through the Internet, there are now public platforms that allow fans to make their voices heard and their ideas visible.

I believe that the movie/parody “scene” has a bottom-up momentum. A popular Star Wars parody mentioned in Jenkins’ piece is George Lucas in Love. In this film, Lucas is portrayed as a regular college student. This depiction “helps to blur the line between the fantastical realm of space opera and the familiar realm of everyday life” (211). This parody created by amateurs became recognized in the media world and allowed fans to feel more connected to Lucas.

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Image borrowed from ecocollectivism.wordpress.com.

Image of George Lucas in Love borrowed from usatoday.com.

Post-Production

My group has been working together very well. We have collaborated on our storyboard, our script, and our video successfully. We were able to create the storyboard and the script on Google Docs – both were huge milestones for our project because they helped us organize our ideas. Having both of these tools to refer to while filming our video this week was extremely beneficial to us because we knew exactly what we needed to film once we got to the Career Services building and did not waste any time trying to figure shots out. We were able to get creative with focus changes and different shot angles. We used tight shots, wide shots, tilts, zooms, shot-reverse-shots, and match-on-action shots. I think the variety of shots we got will give our video a creative edge. Jenna and Kirsten appear in the video as students coming to Career Services for assistance, while I will be doing the voiceovers.

Our next step is to edit the video using Garageband and iMovie. We were told to use effects, such as freeze-frame edits and bullet points, to make some of our shots more entertaining, yet still informational. We plan on including those effects, background music, and various transitions. I think the two biggest upcoming hurdles we will face are: 1) editing the video in general, and 2) making sure that the video is entertaining to watch. We planned our video to be informational rather than comedic, but I think we managed to get lively shots that will impress our audiences and encourage them to keep watching.

We are all putting in a lot of effort to ensure that our edited video will turn out great and I do not believe our group will have any problem overcoming these hurdles next week.

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Image borrowed from Google.

BEFORE: Personal Thoughts on Group’s Creative Direction

My group chose to focus our final project on “1-on-1 Career Assistance.” Through this assignment, we plan to show how Career Services helps students choose their majors, develop their career plans, hunt for jobs, and land internships. We want to appeal to the young college demographic and I think we can be very creative with our digital presentation.

I want to reach out to Melissa to see if we can get a pan shot of the Career Services building, so that we can set a scene for the viewers. I know that natural lighting is much better to shoot in than the fluorescent lights we have in the school buildings, so I am hoping that most of our shots can be outside. I do want to have a shot of an advisor sitting down at a desk with a student and discussing her resume (prop). That will have to be an indoor-shot. This shot could be a shot-reverse-shot, where we show the back of the advisor’s head and the front of the student’s head, then reverse the view.

I think our digital presentation will be more attractive to viewers if we include varying shots, such as tight shots, wide shots, low angle shots, high angle shots, tilts, and zooms. I have an SLR camera and a tripod that I am hoping we can use, because then our shots will be steady and we can adjust the focus.

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Image borrowed from http://rutwist.com/blog/2014/12/03/senior-advice/rutgers-career-services/.

Midterm Blog

Please check out my midterm blog!

Designer Dorm

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Video Assignment Experience / Game Politics

I had more difficulty working on this week’s assignment than I had with last week’s assignment. Rather than solely working with audio, I also had to work with pictures, transitions, and movements within pictures. Once I situated myself with iMovie and discovered the different editing tricks, I had a lot of fun playing around with my screencast. I look forward to learning how to design a game for next week’s assignment.

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In “Playing Politics: Videogames for Politics, Activism, and Advocacy,” Ian Bogost summed up the relationship between games and politics well when he said, “Videogames afford a new perspective on political issues, since they are especially effective at representing complex systems. By understanding how games express rhetoric in their rules, we not only gain a critical vantage point on videogame artifacts, but also we can begin to consider how to design games whose primary purpose is to editorialize, teach, and make political statements.” A game might be able to convey politics by spreading support throughout networks, building communities, informing players about the history and policies of the U.S., and creating an experience for players to perform in. In December 2003, Bogost partnered with Gonzalo Frasca to “co-design the first ever videogame endorsed by a U.S. Presidential Candidate. The Howard Dean for Iowa Game was commissioned by Dean for America to help fencesitter supporters understand the process and power of grassroots outreach.” Their creation opened a new genre of political videogames. The game reached more people and gained more political support for the cause.

Designing a game that conveys politics can be tricky. As Bogost stated, there has been controversy over some games, such as JFK Reloaded, Kuma\War, and 9-11 Survivor. I think a good, safe idea for a political game would be to experience the 2016 political campaign virtually. Players could watch previous debates, learn stats about candidates, and raise support for their favorite candidate. This game would get younger generations involved in politics and make them more eager to vote, while also getting more support for candidates.

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Image borrowed from http://www.supercheats.com/jfk-reloaded/screenshots/.