I Meta Blog, it was very nice.

Honest to blog – a line used in hipster slick Juno, by Jason Reitman (of whom I wrote about in my second blog post). The reason I write this is that I finally get it Mr Reitman, I get it.

It’s not that I didn’t get blogs, like, I got them, i could read them, laughed where I was supposed to, etc. , but now I get why so bloody many people think that they need to share their snowflake-ish uniqueness with the rest of the world and assume people care…

It’s because it’s fun.

I found that I actually enjoyed creating the idSync banner up there, at the top of the page (with Photoshop). I enjoyed making that little square that is currently sitting right up on your browser tab, do you see it? it says ‘id’ and has a tiny little guys mouth. What is my point?

These are all details that I know no-body cares about yet I actually enjoyed it. I found myself re-reading some of my posts and getting sucked into this whole narcissistic vibe. I liken it to play-publishing, like when kids find it fun to play house, or pretend to drive cars. A blog is validation, but only of the self, where the true ego explodes is when your view count goes up, and god forbid, somebody comments on your stuff and says ‘that was cool’ or something along those lines.

Not that I really know what that is like, here are my stats for my humble blog:

When you factor in my sneaky little re-reads, 1 view per day is not really crash hot.

As you can see bellow, as I try to breakdown what was succesful, it is quite hard considering the high proportion of single view posts.

Because the home page doesn’t really count as a single post, I will have a crack at why ‘Project A rationale’ had a whopping 9 views: Other students. It’s simple, the only other people reading my blog are to do with networked media production (whether it be teacher or student). You can see the way I shifted focus of the blog as I realised this. My first post is all movies, and as the blog progresses, the later posts have a tiny bit at the end for movies, and you can see how I have tried to find or at least create links between the two worlds of web 2.0 and the film industry.

My favourite blog post that does this is ‘3D Movies & Web 2.0 – Fad, Meme or Zeitgeist?’

One of my other posts that conveys the way I like to think is ‘Retro~Fit’. This is one that was directly inspired by the Networked lecture and I was able to find layman commonalities between HTML and stuff that I relate to much easier.

‘Gephi- unsuccessful branding, very successful program’ is another of my favourites. It is a much more ‘bloggy’ kind of post. I throw up links to a program that I am sure not many people have heard of, and something that is intrinsically linked with data visualisation. Not only that, but I linked some pretty pictures and show examples of data visualisation that doesn’t need fancy animation to be effective and transmit data in a layered way.

I hope that you have enjoyed my writing, that you liked the little visual touches, that my rants weren’t too ranty and that my wit was at least a bit witty

(did you know that I am the third result from the top if you Google ‘idiotsyncratic’ – the benefits of inventing words)

~end~

Project B -Rationale-

I had a bit of trouble with this whole project B thing. As you can see by my previous posts, I was going to do some data visualisation through Gephi. Well that didn’t quite work out, as Gephi decided it didnt want to work on my macbook or my PC.

So, as i went back to the drawing boards, I though that a compelling geo-narrative would be quite hard.

I wanted to tell a story, as I’m sure there are a million “I traveled here and here in my gap year” geo-narratives. I didnt want to use any stock images, and I wanted it set somewhere familiar, but not quite Canberra.

I decided to write a little thriller/horror story, but from the point of view of the killer, not the victim. I thought that a stereotypical hitch hiker structure would serve the geo-narrative format. I decided to be ambiguous with prose, as I wanted the reader to assume that the killer, or hunter, was the driver of the car. I didn’t really want to keep this pretense up for that long, as the gimmick would sacrifice the story, so about four photos into the narrative you find out that it is actually the girl who thinks these sordid things, and her motives become clear.

I added links to very self contained situations (like lipstick links where our heroine uses lipstick in the photo) even though the story may not be relating to that (although I did have some links that went hand in hand with reveals).

I also tried to be a bit crafty with the photos, only having one coloured object, or person, in the frame, which helps to lead where I want the focal point to be. This helps in the first few frames, as the first person narrative keeps mentioning “her” and the girl in the picture is either highlighted, or parts of her are.

I think that this geo narrative is quite original, based on the  story’s progression, and the potential interactivity that this medium facilitates.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=-35.05698,149.853516&spn=2.113342,4.938354&z=8&msid=112213989077430159208.000486779f61bca14719b

Gephi- unsuccessful branding, very successful program

Gephi. The reason I say that is that I could not, for the life of me, remember the name of the program that I think is perfect for the project B data viz. I had to email my tute, as I was that frustrated and google was being a stubborn unhelpful wench.

Gephi is basically photoshop for data visualisation. It lets you input what you want (including a handy import feature from excel) and plots it out to your own specs, but you dont have to have a PHD on internetz to make something quite cool. My biggest problem, is that I can’t think of anything worth while to visualise. It’s like i have this amazing tool at my disposal and now I am extra selective as to what I use it for – with great (data) power comes great (data) responsibility.

I know this is nerdy, and not the new age, geek chic mac-nerdy, but old fashioned hygienically and socially inept brand of nerdyness, but I have found some great data from a video game I am playing. basically, if you log on with your gamer profile this game has some amazingly deep stats, and it’s own brand of data visualisation. The game is Halo 3, which is a first perosn shooter online multiplayer game. The kind of data that the website provides, are things like the exact number of people I have killed, the exact number of times I have died, which weapons i favour, where, on the map (a single game level) I do most of my kills, or die the most. This is shown in a very functional heat map.

This represents my kills on this particular map. The hotter the red, the more kills in that specific area. Just with this information, I can see exactly where I tend to go, and where I tend to do well:

And here is the same map, but with my deaths:

Apart from showing that I am awesome, and kill more than I die, it again shows that I have certain play paterns and stick to certain areas.

I was thinking of utilising the rich amount of personal data that this website has on me (I have been playing it with my mates for the past 3 years) and finding a visuaally interesting and functional way to transmit the data with Gelphi (which needs a new name, because it is very forgettable for some reason).

Although, knowing me, I will probably change my mind in a day or two (a day or two I really need to utilise!)

~end rant~

Pretty Pictures ≠ Good Data

Okay, so this week I have kind of lost interest in the critic data stuff, its far too uninteresting and I can’t really think of a way to make it visually appealing or relevant. Although, all this trawling around the internet, looking for data visualisation stuff, has made me realise just how irrelevant the data can be, so long as the pictures or moving bubbles look nice. I know a lot of it can be kind of useful and what not, but honestly, most are undecipherable but lovely looking. It is kind of funny that with this flash bang way of presenting the information, it has made me never question the validity of the source info, I suppose it’s because my subconsious is thinking ‘this would have taken far too long to make, so whoever made this made sure the data is right’.

I realise this is an odd and irrelevant little rant, but I just found it kind of amusing. The interllectuals (i just made that word up, it means internet intellectuals – Mac user, BA, early/mid thirties, male, jumps on high brow internet memes like data viz and blogs before nomal people) seem to love this stuff, according to forums (you can always tell an interllectual on a forum because they type their posts in word first, to avoid the shame of common spelling mistakes and poor sentence structure). Many link to ‘revolutionary’ data viz stuff that, in a basic sense, do nothing more than tell me that people use twitter and that planes seem to fly in perfect arcs, all over the world.

movie time-

Just saw Iron Man 2, and I was sorely disappointed. It had a promising start, nice amount of smart arsery, with a sprinkle of forced villainy. Then the complete middle lull, where a series of scenes of two people talking, then another two people talking take over. The whole whiplash villain seemed like a terribly contrived Dark Knight Joker (manipulator, jailed, talks to protagonist, I won by not beating you blah, blah) and the last act, where there is some actual conflict, is over before they can say ‘oh no, i could die in this situation’.  There were some nice Avenger references, but ultimately that’s all this movie seemed to serve – a taste of promise that you will have to wait for (Thor, Captain America, Iron Man 3 and The Avengers).

~End rant~

Data viz yo

So this week is all about making ones and zeroes into pretty pictures (data visualisation). In class I presented a bit of data visualisation that some guy did that showed the correlation between dumb people and dumb music.

He took data from facebook, took what school they go to and what they listed as their musical interests, then it takes the SAT average of a whole bunch of schools, and represents that as a scale of dumbness (nickleback is apparently smarter than Jay-z, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce).

Why am I telling you this? Well, before this weeks tute, I had no idea what I was going to present as my Project B. But now, with a little sprinkle from last week, I can try and correlate the data from reviewed movies and basically make a pretty picture of who (both individual and studio) makes better movies, using a bunch of reviews and an eclectic selection of movies.

Damn it, just writing that out made me realise just how much work that could take, so let’s not set that idea in stone…

Movie blah

I have been very slack of late, in the movie department. I used to watch at least three movies a week, but now time is being an elusive mistress. It could be a sign that i may be getting a life, but let’s not get hasty.

I watched Saving Private Ryan again, and it is still good. I wont go into it because anything said is about ten years late. Matt Damon is still famous, Vin Diesel peaked very early and Daniel Faraday from Lost was always a loser. Although, i did catch myself saying “wow, that is so realistic” and then caught myself catching what I said and said to myself “how would you know?”. So, yeah, thanks Spielberg for both adhering to reality and creating that reality in my head just so you could adhere to it”.

~end rant~

Critic Critic

What a surprise, my networked media tute group website idea thingy, is, wait for it, based on movies! This week was all about the collective (I said “corrective” in class, and it was criminally underwhelming as pun based education). Our group idea (let’s be honest, spear headed by yours truly) was to have a site dedicated to reviewing reviewers, critiquing critics, etc. I had the idea after reading a really positive review, by a professional critic, on the latest Indiana Jones monstrosity. Seriously.

So the idea centralises around you, the user, rating about a dozen movies that you have already seen, out of 5 stars (the movies will vary and be rather polarizing as far as genre and critical reception. Then, after you add your rating the computer will magically match you , as closely as possible, to a professional critic somewhere in the world, who has very similar tastes to you. The point is so that in the future, when you aren’t sure you want to see a certain movie, you check your critics latest review and you have comfort in knowing that they have very similar opinions to you, and will therefore be well matched.

The amount of collective data could also show you, for instance, a particular reviewers favourite genre (based on five-star-whorage), favourite actor, director, or even which studios they give the best reviews to, just to see if maybe they are in somebody’s PR back pocket.

I know full well that the demographic isnt particularly mainstream and a bit geeky, but with a corresponding iPhone app, facebook app or twitter whats-a-ma-doozie, it could work.

Oh, it will never happen though, due to a tenacious lack of technical skill and an abundance of laziness

~end rant~

Kick-ass trends

This week was all about the creation of media on the net, which snowballs the success of said media, encouraging more creation. Look at Twitter, Facebook & Youtube. Facebook would be useless if nobody added any content to it, even if it is seeminlgy for themselves. If everybody you knew looked at facebook, but did not add any pictures, status updates or, god forbid, if they did not want to know which Twilight character they are, then facebook would fail. Same goes for twitter, and imagine Youtube where nobody added videos…
This is all well and dandy, and interesting, but the best thing about the lecture was the unveiling of google trends to my mere mortal mind. Now, i am probably very late to the party on this one, and wish i knew about it earlier, but it is a fantastic idea. It has the power to end arguments, to make peace in troubled lands and to make you wonder why, for a brief period in 2005, that Uwe Boll was more popular than Scorsese (and again in 07…?).
Yesterday I saw the film ‘Kick-ass’ which really was a great movie. I remember seeing the normal previews and not thinking much about it, but then when the red band trailer was cast upon me, It seemed more my 20-something male middle class movie. (according to google trends, the rise of the red band trailer has been affected by Kick-ass’s release).
Oh, the red band trailer is an R-rated trailer for a movie, usually only shown before R rated movies at the cinema, but these days, thanks to online marketing conglomerates and Youtube, they are very easily accessible.
The reason that Kick-ass’s red band trailer has generated more buzz lately is because of some parent groups slamming the way the film is being promoted. On the surface it seems like another Spider-man esque super hero movie, where in actual fact it is a concoction of Superbad mixed with Kill bill, taking a piss on Spider-man and The Dark Knight (It has a 12 year old girl dropping C-bombs and henchmen).
It is directed by Matthew Vaughn, who has made Layer Cake (or L4yer cake..?) which is fantastic, and Stardust (or crappy-crap crap…?) which is crap.
Now Im off to see the google trends between Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and self harm, to see how closely they are linked.
~End Rant~

~Project A Rationale~

This week has been all about Project A. I am actually quite happy with my end result and this blog post will serve as my rationale.

My online exhibition centres heavily around short film production, and more specifically, mine. It was more difficult than I thought, trying to find similar sites or blogs relating to the demise of special features. I know that blu-ray is supposed to herald endless gigs of behind the scenes stuff, but then you have to consider it to more than likely be the last type of standard physical media that we will see. My exhibition is an internet contributors voice in how we will be able to access these features when we access our movies from Netflix, or other similar (legal) streaming sites over the ever bandwidth-expanding internet.

Another reason I thought I would transmit my failings with my short film was simply because it is a resource I would have loved to see with other films. It doesn’t matter how bad or good the films are, its what made them bad or good and how I can avoid or emulate the processes involved. I know it is for a very specific demographic, but I feel that there are enough film school students and digital filmmakers that need this stuff in order to evolve as an industry and stop making the same crap short films over and over.

I decided to embed my film from youtube, but to change things up, I made a “directors commentary” with my producer. I uploaded it as a podcast and embedded the podcast player directly under the youtube video. I did this so that, on a second viewing, you can mute the video and listen to the podcast whilst playing both.

The next step was showing the final draft of our script by taking screen grabs of the print preview, uploading all eight pages to flickr and then linking them to one screen grab on the site. After that I outlined some of my inspirations, like Robert Rodriguez, and embedded a video of him as well as some links to his movies and to his book. I also embedded The Lionshare, which is a full feature length film on youtube (legally) and outlined how it helped my filming style and the way that the filmmakers used P2P actively for exposure, and not lambaste it for piracy.

I divided the HTML into two columns, but made the left one much bigger than the right, so as to have a side bar. I outlined the film competition rules as well as links to their website and facebook page. I also added an RSS feed for Slash film, which is a film blogging website that often has ‘filmcasts’ with directors, which sort of sparked my podcasted directors commentary. I found a site that would host any RSS links you feed it and it gave me an embed code.

I actually thought that the coding would be harder than I thought, but after I made some of my own div classes and understood it holistically. I used the colours of the layout to match the text and style used in my film. I found making those simple div classes, like having half of a word into a text exception that turned red (for most of my headings) really helped it aesthetically very easily.

Oh, and here is the website, incase you happened to have read this rationale first: Misguided: Special Features

3D Movies & Web 2.0 – Fad, Meme or Zeitgeist?

What is the difference between a fad, a meme and a zeitgeist? pff, I dont know, semantics? It seems that everything we do is governed by what comes next, not what is now. This blog post will attempt to use the film industry to see how it relates to Internet culture, only in a very lazy and terribly planned way, so, you know, the usual.

Something that seems to be friggen everywhere is the ‘3D phenomenon’ with big studio pics, thanks to those freedom fighting smurfs. I can’t stand the direction it seems to be going in, as all of the slated live action 3D movies are all converted in post, thusly making cardboard cutouts instead of depth. Avatar had a pretty piss weak story, but you have to admit that it was incredibly immersive and pretty because it did the 3D well.

Cameron actually shot it with 3D cameras and it shows. Clash of the Titans, on the other hand, has been converted completely in post, and critics are already panning the lack of depth and the feeling of a pop-up book on screen as they review previews and such. Warner Bros have said that they will now release every tentpole movie in 3D. That means the new Superman, Batman 3 and any other marginally blockbusterish movie.

Surely this has gone a bit mad, and I know it is to fight piracy and to charge $20 for a movie ticket, but can’t they see that flooding the market will drown the novelty? oh, and I saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D and it was bloody terrible, which goes to show that no matter how many wizz bang things you have coming out of the screen, it can still be an incredibly flat and dull experience (especially if the movie itself is flawed, poorly cast, poorly written and rides on the coat tails of a director that hasn’t made anything noteworthy since Ed Wood).

But wait, you say, what has this to do with the internet two point oh?

Well it feels similar to the youtube vlogging thing that was massive around 2007/08. I know these stupid videos still garner plenty of views now, but back then it was all about ‘me me’ and now it seems to be a dying meme (pronounced meeem, social version of a gene, social evolution blah blah wiki-fricken-pedia it).

I personally find the blog to be going in the same direction, just much slower. I feel that, although it is great getting your thoughts and ideas out there, it is the same thing as this 3D thing, the market is flooded with blogs and 99.99% are terrible (like this one) and the other 000.1% is still, at the end of the day, just some guy or gal’s selective bias that does not go through any channels of editing or fact checking. I think that if there is some magic system that actually works to monetize online newspapers, more and more people are going to chase the free option, which will be the aforementioned 000.1% blog with no editorial obligations.

-end rant-

oh, and i totally called Mo’Nique getting the Oscar

(sorry about my terrible punctuation, but it wouldn’t be much of a rant if i stopped to make it actually readable, now would it?)

Retro~Fit

So this week is all about HTML and CSS and all that jazz, but something that Michael mentioned in the lecture kind of struck me. He mentioned that HTML was invented in 92 and that everything we do now still pretty much revolves around it. He said that if it were to be made today, it would be much different.

How many things does that relate to these days? The film making process? food? books? language? (actually no, i like the old language when lol and wtf were not acceptable in the daily lexicon).

Back to that film making thing…

Now I know that ‘Hollywood’ (as it is always referred to as this cannibalistic entity) does the remake, and they are always crap, etc. but what if the whole process began today? would everything be in 3d and based on Pocahontas?

will movies  be like Youtube? where the big studio pick will be replaced by some narcissistic people sitting in a badly lit room giving their opinions on the latest Kanye West meme?

I know, I know, theres is that whole evolutionary thing that kind of contradicts this post, that the modern process of doing anything only exists because the old stuff acted as building blocks. If HTML never existed and all we had were these disposable and un-universal web surfing methods, would web 2.0 be more like web -7.0?

-end course related rant-

-start film related rant-

So I saw ‘Precious‘ the other day, and I just couldn’t get over the terrible editing and midday movie like sheen. The story is more depressing than ‘Schindler’s List‘, and has no hope at the end (although Mo’Nique should get a supporting Oscar nod, and I literally never thought I would ever say that sentence).

So, excellent date movie fellas.

Oh, and I have really gotten into a TV show called ‘Modern Family‘. It is like ‘Arrested development ‘meets the ‘American office’. If that does not pique your interest, please never read my stuff again.

-end all rants-