Teaching Through Story

   

    Should you teach through your artwork? It depends on what your trying to teach. Do you have authority to teach the thing you are trying to teach. I have considered this thought before, but what could I teach others? When a topic would come to mind, I could think about how I could incorporate this into a story. The resulting story might end up being too peachy, or seemingly trying to force feed information to the audience who is watching. The audience knows this and isn't easily tricked. The best process to consider when wanting to teach through art, is to tell a story that teaches instead of teaching through a story.
    People feel like they are doing something beneficial when they are writing fiction to teach. Maybe to stroke their egos a bit, feeling like they have done something beneficial for society.  I have taught the children many things and they will grow up to be the most intelligent of generations. I have not taught them to follow societal norms, and do not develop their own decision making processes in a way that is beneficial in any way. Somehow I have still taught them something, I'm not sure what it was.

Noah Stinson

To celebrate me finishing my Blogs, please admire this man...

Paper Mario's Perfect Lemons!

                 Paper Mario has always been one of the most creative game series in the Nintendo line-up, but their newest title takes it to a whole new level. With the kingdom having had all its color taken away by bowser, Mario must repaint the world, or something. I honestly haven't played it yet, but one thing I can say for sure is that the animations and art style is the best Nintendo has to offer. With attacks ranging from lemons squeezing juice into the enemies eyes to blind them, to a good fortune cat charm from Japan crushing them, to a giant fan blowing them out of the solar system. Not only are they creative they are simply beautiful. I remember the announce trailer only had the lemon attack and I rewatched it 100 times trying to figure out how they made the lemons look so realistic. I was honestly speechless for some reason. The paper characters in extremely high res 3d modeled rooms also adds to the paper effect in a hard contrast type of way if you know what I mean. Since they have released all the finishing card attacks and they all look just as impressive, some even more so. I'm just trying to say this game is both insanely creative and visually beautiful.

Categories

    Most people tend to enjoy putting things into categories. This goes here, and this goes here. One or the other black or white. Most people I believe aren't necessarily wanting to do these things, its just an automatic response in humans to easier make sense of complex things. It creates limitations within ones own mind, trying to place something in a category where it doesn't belong. Certain people are places into categories as well as stories and types of art. Certain forms a music are seen as cool in one era and them boring in the next. These social cycles tend to move back in forth between generations. This doesn't necessarily only mean music, it could mean fashion, language, or pretty much anything that isn't set and stone. This isn't necessarily a bad thing per say , in fact It can bring people together, find a common conversation topic. It brings generations together, and can separate other generations. This is when conflict can be created through misunderstanding and relationships ruined. Ironically categories seem to have a grey area within theirselves, meaning the effect of categories is exact opposite of what categories end up to be in the first place.

Blog Posts

Well, with three minutes left until the deadline, what better way to wrap up writing the blog posts by writing about the blog posts. I regret not being able to write as much to the required amount, but over the semester I either had trouble with coming up with ideas to write about or how to write about these ideas in general. Of course with this being the last day to write the blog posts I'm suddenly able to figure out what I want to write, but I did what I could do and now I'll just have to deal with the consequences. I have to say that it was fun reading everyone else's blog posts though, about what you all are interested in and what you've learned throughout the semester. Kudos to those that were actually able to write all twenty-five blog posts that were needed.

Nintendo Nostalgia Pt. 2

I left off with my purchase of the beloved silver Nintendo DS Lite, which was not only cool for its wireless connection for multiplayer, but it had a touchscreen! How cool is that? This was obviously pre-iPhone, and the touchscreen was pressure based, not capacitive, like today's touchscreens. But for that time, this was one of the coolest aspects. I don't remember what I first played on the DS, but some of my favorites were Kirby Super Star Ultra, Drawn to Life, and later, Sid Meyer's Civilization Revolution.

Civ Rev was a significant step in my video gaming career because it was one of the first strategic world simulating games I ever put a large amount of time into. I had achieved a new level of gaming, a more serious game with more thinking involved than the typical platform games of my past.

Moving on now from the DS and finishing off the Nintendo saga, enter: the Nintendo Wii. Nearly every household with children had a Wii at some point, probably a Christmas gift, that's where my family got ours, a Christmas gift from Santa a couple years after the console's release. The Wii had huge appeal to families for many reasons; great marketing, family interaction, physical movement, family-friendly game selection (Nintendo has for a long time had a market on having almost exclusively family friendly games), reasonable price, high tech appearance. The list goes on, but the bottom line here is that between the years of 2006 and 2009, Christmas morning included swinging Wii remotes around hitting virtual tennis balls for an enormous percentage of US families, including my own.

For You

In February 2007 my family and I lost a big part of my family. My Grandma passed away on February 18, 2007, and from that day nothing has ever been the same. Throughout my life she was always the one to lean on through adversity in my family. No matter what anyone needed she would always be there. I have never had a closer relationship with anyone besides my grandma, ever. A few weeks before she passed my grandma and I took a little walk to the local market. During that walk I remember my grandma would talk about her grandchildren and how before she could pass she wanted to be able to watch all her grand kids graduate from college. Being her oldest grandchild I knew I was gonna be her first one to see walk. When she passed I was absolutely devastated. Just two weeks before we had that conversation and I thought that her wishes would be granted to see us all walk. I remember at her funeral I gave a speech about how wonderful she was and about the last great walk we had together. That day I made a promise, a promise to finish the job for her. She wanted to see my graduation one day and I promised I would do that for her. I pursue my education with the motivation of her in my head. Everyday I live is with a sole purpose to get it all done for her. This is FOR YOU.

Star Wars - Anakin's Transition to the Dark Side

I really don't consider myself to be a Star Wars nerd, but I'm realizing that I've been raised on it more and more now and that it was one of the most enjoyable parts of my childhood.

I remember that I was in the first or second grade when Revenge of the Sith came out. At the time, I had a friend who asked me if I had seen it yet. I asked my parents if I could, but they told me it was too dark and that I couldn't watch it yet.

Despite what the critics say, I think the tradition from light to dark and the seeming destruction of a prophecy was done exceptionally well.

Think of this; by the end of the prequels, we needed to have a story told about the beginnings of Darth Vader, we needed to see the referenced "Clone Wars" that Luke's father so valiantly fought in, and we had to better understand how the Empire became what it was.

Look me in the eye and tell me the prequels didn't do those things well.

Anyways, Anakin begins as an innocent boy with a single mother and no father. He leads a simple life, much like his son will eventually, and doesn't know much of the Jedi.

All of that changes when Jedi arrive at his house and tell him that they need some help.

After losing his mother and being told that he should not fear her and needs to let go of her, he becomes angry, but has to hide his love and mourning deep down inside.

When he falls in love with Padme (not too creepily), they can't make their love known because it is against everything that Anakin is being trained in.

When he returns from the Clone Wars and finds out that she is pregnant, they now have twins when he shouldn't even have feelings for her in the first place. Then, Darth Sidious tempts Anakin with power and he is corrupted out of his insecurities and love of Padme, already having lost his mother, and having the ability to have power.

The Jedi order had always hid information about the dark side of the force, and it is their fault that Anakin lacks the mental ability to be able to spy on the Chancellor effectively and is ultimately a traitor to the Jedi Order.

Quiet

    I have often been called quiet or shy depending on who you talk to. Some people are perfectly fine with that, other times of have gotten complaints about people being somehow offended my how quiet I am. There's no particular reason for this, and there's not much I can do to fix it without forcing myself to do something I would rather not do, which isn't entirely out of the question. People have different ideas of what quiet is, quiet could mean shy, and some people believe quiet automatically means shy. I don't really consider myself to be shy necessarily, but I am definitely a bit less talkative then a lot of people. That is usually because I don't find a reason to talk to someone. I could talk to them, but how would I benefit from doing so. What could I get from it? It sounds selfish and awful, but I have a genuine love for people, their inner workings, and solving issues for them. Usually what comes out of one of my conversations is that afterwards I feel like I have wasted their time with my existence and ideas. I have no reason to tell anyone my opinions, what benefit would that give to anyone and that would just give too much information about me that I would rather people now know.

Creation Process

    Alot of artist tell there thought process as allowing their hand to create while having no ideas for what it might come out as. Trusting the process and trusting their own judgement to create something that at least they will like. There are some people who admire complexity for the sake of complexity, but something that may seem complex to someone else may not seem as complex to you. Something you think of that may seem obvious, or the most basic thing you could have come up with, may seem admirably complex to another person. People don't have the same thought processes as you. Something that may seem obvious to you, may not be something that someone else would ever think of in a lifetime. The "Quality" of art is entirely personal, meaning if something seems terrible, boring or basic to you, it might not to another person. There's no way of truly knowing how someone else thinks, so it's probably in your best judgement to follow you own judgement. Not imagining those critics in your head who to tell you what you have created has already been created by someone else exactly the way you have. Telling you that your ideas are boring.

Characters

    Once you've created a character for a story, what is there motivation? What is the inner workings of their mind like. What are their hopes, dreams and what are their deepest fears? What is the story that envelopes around them? is it realistic, is it some sort of si-fi. I have reason to beleive that a story should be a dream of the main character. Their immediate consciousness, there deepest fears being revealed to the audience. It's simply an analogy that I have been thinking about for a while now, considering its importance. When I'm writing a story, I want it to feel as real and refreshing as a dream, no matter how surreal. It seems that only way for this to be achieved is to write without fear and without any sort of blockade. Using a character as a catalyst can separate you from your story, feeling less like you are letting people into your head that don't deserve to be there. You can project your own fears and ideals onto a fictional character, develop their personality, develop their flaws, then find a way to teach them about life. Show them their own flaws, allow them experience their biggest dream, or force them to live though their worst nightmare.

Dreams pt2

  I came across text in a language that I did not know sprawled across some sort of machine. I don't quite remember what the machine was, maybe a washing machine or something? I reached my hand out and brushed the text with my hand. As soon as I competed brushing off the dust I had this intense feeling that I had done something wrong. As soon as I felt this feeling I was sucked in through some sort of wormhole, is the only way I can explain it. I found myself in nothing. Everything was black. There was no gravity, no energy, not even any stars as far as I could see. Slowly a giant grey expressionless face appeared in front of me. It said nothing to me, not a word, but the feeling that I had done something wrong grew more intense. Like this was the place the feeling was radiating from. It felt like it was staring at me for at least a minuet, but I don't even think it had eyes. This entity was some sort of controller, or overseer to something it was protecting. Something that I had accidentally stumbled across. Suddenly I was thrown back at intense speed, falling into infinity, almost like I was being thrown back to earth from space. I woke up in a cold sweat, literally feeling like I had been thown into my bed at incredable speed.

Dreams pt1

    Dreams are still a mystery to scientist and people of all types of studies. There are people who trying an understand them, giving names and definition to certain recurring themes that may occur. Some people's dreams are realistic and seemingly normal and other's seem to have the type that never seem to make any sense. Surreal visions that many assume to be messages from a higher power, whether they may be or not. Some dreams are remembered and other completely forgotten about. How many dream have you had that you've forgotten about? Are they about your fears, about your desires, something even you don't realize you want?
   A lot of my personal dreams tend to be pretty normal and boring, and are usually about a certain feeling rather than an easily explained event. Nostalgia for a certain feeling I've had in the past, or simply a repetitive task such as work. There are those ones, yes those which are not easily explained surreal occurrences of a feeling that can't be explained through the english language. One of the dreams I remember most vividly is one I had a few months ago. I was in some sort of underground tunnel filled with old technology, like it was the refinance of a war. There were a few other strangers around who I did not know or recognize exploring along side me.

ReMoved

In this two part short film, a girl is taken away from her abusive parents and separated from her infant brother, who she cared for deeply, and was placed in the foster care system. The girl is moved from foster home to foster home and with being already damaged physically, emotionally, and mentally, it only causes it to become worse. She is eventually able to stay in a foster home with a woman who is able to reach out to the girl better than the previous homes had done. The girl begins to slowly heal and when the woman is able to foster her infant brother, she is able to heal even quicker. However, the brother was eventually adopted by another family and the girl relapses into the state she was in before. The goal of this short film was to bring awareness to the foster care system and also the issue of siblings being separated from each other to possibly never being able to see each other again.

Internet Exhaustion

 

  Have you ever felt exhausted after using the internet for a while? Using the internet is passive, right? You just sit back and let it entertain you. Scrolling down an endless page for hours on end, whether that be Facebook, Instagram, or any other form of social media. Sometimes having ads and endless content constantly thrown at you can being to feeling draining. Your thoughts start to feel clouded and your thoughts seem to move on their own. By then you start questioning your own success, comparing your life with the lives of these "successful" people that seem to be everywhere. You start changing your own personal definition of success after a while, imagining what it would be like if you had a life like theirs. Being able to do the things they do and having the wonderful friends that they have and you don't. Somehow feeling jealous, but never really caring too much for them, being overwhelmed by the seemingly vast amount of "them" who seem to be out there. Then you see that ones who seem to worship those who are higher up the chain, having a false sense of security in their perceived talents. Then putting down their own talents, simply on the fact that they don't have the same mind as the one who they consider successful.

Boyhood

Boyhood was such a creative and experimental movie that I thought really leaped through time as someone growing up through the same era as I did.

The choices made early in the process to be able to make this film were incredibly risky and smart which is what really brought the movie to life. This kid, who we see experience childhood in some positive and negative ways really lives in the time we live now.

Many films and television series really bring out the fantasy of what real life is but Boyhood showcases life in it's fractured state. The optimistic end to the film really hits me hard especially after having to watch what he had to go through in his childhood, yet he still had the optimism to continue.

Boyhood for me is really just about life and what it means to be living in our world as it is now. It's interesting to see a movie portray something as simple as growing up, but put it on a pedestal like this for many to connect to.

I really connect with the main character because he is so much like the audience who has grown up in the time that he did. Overall, the film is spectacular and really deserves a watch from all of you out there.   

Sand Castle: Why People Create

 

    Why do people have the need or want to create something? Is it selfishness, a need, or something more? Everyone has different reasons for wanting to create something. For the majority it seems to be self-confirmation or having the ability to give something to someone from a distant place. For me it seems to be the need to connect with other people, swapping thoughts and opinions about certain topics. Maybe even finding a way to talking about something that you would never usually bring up in a conversation with a complete stranger. You can create for others, or you can create for yourself. Creating for yourself may seem selfish, but it usually involves teaching something to yourself. By teaching yourself you may find a way to teach someone else. It can be difficult creating for someone else, because you never really know what someone would want to see until you see it yourself. Creating to please others just creates a mental blockade and doesn't allow for your ideas to flow as smoothly as they may have otherwise. In the end, finding a way to teach yourself about something is usually the best way to teach others about it. People definitely have different learning processes, but story is almost entirely universal.

Intro to Digital Media Arts

For this post, I wanted to reflect on the semester as a whole.  Coming into this class I was unsure about a lot of things.  To be honest, I did not even really want to take the class but I was forced to for my major and the fact that I was a transfer student and it is my first semester at Huntington.  Now looking back on the whole semester, this might have been one of my most productive classes.  Even though this is not my major, I can now see how media and what we as viewers are consuming has so much effect on how we live our lives.  Our discussions and the films that we watched in class only expanded my thought further and further.  I was really able to get in that deep critical thinking zone during these times.  Dr. Leeper did an excellent job teaching and guiding the course.  I would absolutely recommend this course to anyone that has not yet already taken it or if they are thinking about taking it.  It is not just a class where the teacher puts on a movie and you fall asleep.  This class will push you too your limits and will make you become an all around better student.  In conclusion, I truly enjoyed this semester of Intro to Digital Media Arts.

Pete's Dragon Remake

 

    Pete's dragon was is an old live action and traditionally animated musical that was recently updated with modern technology. I went to see this movie not really expecting too much out of it. I had seen the trailers and it just seemed like any other generic live action recreation. I can't say that it was one of the best films to come our this year, but I can say that I was at least pleasantly suprised. The story seemed like to was going to be very basic and bland, and it was to a point. What I did not expect was how refreshing and new it felt, even though it was so simple and didn't really seem to bring anything new to the table. This confuses me and almost makes me angry thinking about it, because I can't pinpoint exactly what it was. Proabably nostalgia.
    One other thing that I was getting ready to hate was the dragon itself. In the original the dragon was completely traditionally animated on top of the live action footage. So I don't really have room to complain about the CG when in the original it was literally a drawing. The dragon was acually pretty amazingly animated. They gave it thick fur and somehow managed to make the giant creature as cute as in the original.

Trailer of Baywatch

I recently saw the trailer of the upcoming summer hit of Baywatch. The movie was starring Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, and many more to cast as the stars of Baywatch. As far as the history of Bay watch I have never seen the original but know that it is a classical hit. Being a California native I understand the whole by the water scene and being from a nice area like Southern California. The movie stars Dwayne Johnson who plays as the head lifeguard of his team. With conflict seem to be arising about a local resident along the water Johnson seems interested in finding out what the deal is with his house and why it is bringing such brutality to the beach he oversees. Through the trailer I could tell through a few scenes that the movie might be a little cheesy but is probably worth the watch. My entire life I've been a Dwayne Johnson fan, from his wrestling days fighting in the WWF to his acting days now in Hollywood. This comedy seems to be a hit with a lot of advertisement behind how funny it should be. So I want my moneys worth because this summer I'll be headed to the movies to watch this comedy.

Anastasia

Anastasia is the most badass, sassy, witty, and underrated princess, and it is mostly because she is not a Disney princess. In this film everyone has a different body type and that didn't take away from the story line or how attractive the characters were, and in fact I would argue they were more relatable and I enjoyed the story more. I think it is really important to have a princess and a potential role model that young girls can aspire to be. This woman was not weak or privileged even though she was a princess. She was still beautiful and kind and strong but with an awesome personality. She was never afraid to speak up for herself and she had all the sass. Other characters as well, did not follow the stereotypes that Disney films fall trap to. The main romantic interest was a scheming con artist and he was very smart. He had street smarts and a lot of book smarts but Anastasia surpassed him in a lot of activities that were stereotypically for males. Another character, Sophie, was presented as beautiful and charming even thought by society's standards she would have been considered overweight. Instead, she had more confidence than any other character in the movie.

Mysterious Universe

    If you have it in your head that the world is boring, uninteresting, and completely sane your thinking of a completely wrong world. Mainstream news can be off-putting and depressing, and just plain mindless. You just sit back and let the newscasters tell you their opinions about the world. They tend to hide little details about incidents, and completely ignore stories that just would not fly on mainstream television as "real" news. What you see on the news isn't always the complete story. If someone was claiming that they saw the grim reaper or a sasquach, most news stations would just pass them up. Mysterious Universe is here to give the weirdest,  most surreal news stories that are happening right now. They have intelligent discussions around these stories and question their truth. So even though they are talking about these stories, they may not always believe what their saying. There simply telling it like it is and letting you decide from there. Many of their stories involve aliens, monsters, and other things that you would never even think of. The hosts are hilarious and manage to make even the most surreal things easily understandable to anyone who is willing to listen.

Master of None

Master of None is a comedy written and performed by Aziz Ansari.

It's about the life of Dev a recently graduated student who is trying to go through the struggles of adulthood. The show is just that, about his life and what it means to be living and it's interesting to see his perspective on how our society works. Dev moves around the world in an odd way, kind of unsure of almost everything he does and yet is still progressing in what he wishes. His parents have an incredible influence on him, and he still feels the responsibility to be able to make them proud, yet still struggles with trying to live life on his own.

It's interesting to watch because I will have to live through the same situations that he does in my life, and it is coming up very soon. From his perspective there is an unsure feeling about everything he does, which makes me realize how much people in real life have everything under control.

Master of None may just be a title, but it does really reflect Dev's struggle as well as how much he is able to take on life. He is not entirely able to make it out in the "adult world", but he is still getting by.

In some ways his picture is painted grimly, while on the other hand it really gives me hope that even if I don't have everything figured out now then I will at some point.