We're All Freaks and We All Suck (at something)

Read this:
"The Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness" by David Rendall (will open PDF)

            In David Rendall’s “Freak Factor: Discovering Uniqueness by Flaunting Weakness,” he examines how instead of working to fix the weaknesses of individuals, it is more beneficial to embrace them, focus on building up existing strengths, and finding ways to embrace your individual differences.  He explains how it is simply not worth the effort to focus on improving on weaknesses.  When you do this, it takes away from the time that could be used to develop and build strengths, which will be more beneficial in the long run.  If you try to do both, it will result in mediocrity on both ends, something that will not make you stand out over others.  I feel that this is a very valid statement.  Historically, people that are considered to be great in their field, whatever it may be, have dedicated a great number of hours throughout their lifetime developing their skills; often more hours than those around them that they end up surpassing.  It makes sense that in general, improving strengths is a better use of time than trying to improve weaknesses.  Even so, wouldn’t any individual rather spend time on doing what they do best as opposed something they are not so fond of?  However, I disagree with Rendall’s idea that that being well rounded is not necessarily a good thing.  I understand that it makes sense to be really good at one thing as opposed to sort of good at many things, but being a well rounded individual will come in handy very often in life.  The whole strength and weakness concept, however, reinforces my ideas about myself as a creative person.  It reiterates the time that I must put in harnessing my strengths and developing my craft working with music.

            Being really good at something is great.  However, unless the skill or talent is being used in the right way in the right time and place, it could be considered essentially useless.  For example, the best closet musician is not going to make it very far; the same goes for the closet graphic designer or idealistic thinker.  This is the constant pain of the talented creative person whose talent is their hobby as they work an unrelated day-to-day job to make ends meet.  Until they find the right spot, their hopes and dreams will remain dreams.  Once they find their niche, they will unlock the key to success.  This will likely involve finding the right team of people to compliment each other’s strengths and weaknesses.  While one person may be very good at one thing, they are not good at everything.  They must find the proper environment and circumstances to allow themselves to succeed.  Rendell uses the example of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  At first, Rudolph is made fun of and ostracized from all the other young reindeer because of his abnormally glowing nose.  When he found the right situation where he could use his abnormality to benefit the greater good, he received a great deal of praise.  Personally, I’m not exactly sure what kind of work I want to be doing after my schooling is complete; I just know that I want it to involve music in some way.  As a guitar player and a future recording engineer, I’ll have to find my fit and see where I work the best and spawn the most benefit.  Got to find the right fit.

            It is good to be a freak.  To be different is to stand out, which if used the right way will get you very far in life.  Historically, some of our world’s great thinkers and inventors are the ones who dared to do something different.  These are the people who in their lifetime suffered great scrutiny from those around them that conformed to their time’s society.  Often after the fact, their ideas and inventions caught on and changed the world.  Even in a more modern context, if someone is making music or art that looks or sounds like already existing material; the artist is not going to make it very far.  It can be very good art, but if it does not fill a niche, it won’t catch on; if it is similar to art of the past, their potential audience will just flock to the already established greats.  I really liked Rendell’s example of this concept involving the Tower of Pisa.  He discussed how throughout history, there have been a few occasions when diplomatic leaders tried to see for the straightening of the leaning tower.  If the tower were straight, what appeal would it have?  Sure it’s a nice tower, but if it were not for its faults it would certainly not be a widely recognized icon around the world.  This concept is something I have thought about with my music.  If I make music that sounds like somebody else’s, any potential audience is going to listen to the artists that I’m mimicking.  However, if I gather influence across the board and create a new sound that people haven’t heard before, it will bring more of an appeal to my music. 

            I like the creative process.  From a young age, I feel that I have been practicing creative thinking in drawing, creating characters, stories, music, and more.  I suppose now that I think about it, I am able to see some of my strengths and weaknesses in the creative process.  When it comes to songwriting, I feel that a strength is coming up with a good foundation for a song, a good base chord progression and melody.  However, sometimes I get caught up in the tune and am not able come up with a contrasting B-section for relief.  Often I can and it works out great, but sometimes I have trouble completing the overall product beginning to end.  With that, however, I feel that I have a good sense of imagining the overall picture or sound and understanding what small details must be added to complete the picture and make the finished product that much better.  As far as the creative process, I feel like one of my strengths is having an idea and building upon it with details to bring it to life.  Also I feel that I am very good with logistics in planning, coordinating, and executing events.  This is one of the things I’ve considered as a career path, but only time will tell.  This question is difficult to expand upon, because the “creative process” is a very broad term.  I have various strengths and weaknesses in different sects of the creative world, whether its creating characters, stories, shooting films, making music, or whatever the nature may be. Hmm.

Acknowledge Your Lizard: Reinvent Yourself in Today's Society

Read this:
Seth Godin's "Brainwashed: Seven Ways to Reinvent Yourself" (will open PDF)

To acknowledge the lizard is to acknowledge the little piece of our mind that has the second thoughts about doing something different.  Often the people that are successful are the ones that are doing something different and doing it well.  To get there, we must know that the lizard is always present, but by understanding it, we can learn to avoid it and get to where we want to get, breaking through a textbook society and avoiding living cookie cutter lives.  Connecting to people around you (physical or virtual) is one of the most important things an individual can do.  Not only will each individual benefit by way of the whole community’s collective intelligence, but also having the support of a community in whatever endeavors each individual may take can make or break and idea.  Being generous is another huge important concept.  Within a community and in life, often what goes around comes around.  With this, if one is generous with their ideas, creativity, and care, their generosity will spread like wildfire, making the community as a whole better off.

Throughout this here blog that every student in the Scripps College of Media Arts and Studies must build during their time in Mdia203, we are challenged with fairly open-ended assignments that exercise our mind in processes of creativity and analysis.  In many cases, we must find and select a bit of media, whether it’s a video, a song, a classic that we love, or something that we just stumbled upon in the efforts of completing the assignment.  Whatever it may be we must be confident and selective in our decisions; we must take our lizard within and shove it to the side.  In acknowledging our lizards, we must overcome the fear of scrutiny and follow through in our drive to do something different.  Personally, I feel that I have overcome my lizard in the selection in some of the material I have examined.  When we get to choose any scene from basically anything that we are able to work from and complete the assignment, naturally I (hopefully most others, too) tried to think out of the box to present something that I truly love that others may not have seen or heard.  I landed on the “Dental Hygiene Dilemma,” an excerpt from Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels, a very avant-garde work.  I know that the whole thing is pretty out there by just about every standard, but I enjoy it and had a good time dissecting it.  In lieu of the lizard concept, Frank Zappa is a prime example.  He made highly academically technical but socially unacceptable music and art throughout his lifetime.  Many considered him a genius and many a nut, but regardless he was confident with his creations (just watch some of the work he did with claymation artist Bruce Bickford).

Being primarily for class assignments, this blog is not really intended to connect with more than the ones grading these posts.  However, it is on the Internet.  This means that really anybody can access it as long as they are able to find it, so there is potential for this blog to spread across a mass audience, connecting people, and in turn somehow benefitting social welfare.  However, due to the nature of this blog and the lack of personal effort to springboard promotion and the spread of this information, I don’t really see it happening.  Regardless, because it’s on the Internet, it has the potential for mass connection.

            This blog is pretty generous, I’d say.  It presents the reader with thought-provoking ideas along with some useful information in the ways of dissecting certain elements of creative media.  Being in today’s technological age of information, this blog adds to the unbelievable amount of information available at our fingertips.  Perhaps, when people see this and learn how color, light, and shape creates mood for a character or how to storyboard a scene, they will be better off.  Also, perhaps it will inspire them to make information available to others just as was available to themselves, adding to the greater good and our people’s collective abilities and intelligence.

            These assignments and this blog help to make us media students more well rounded in our fields with just that much more experience under our belts; just as this class, as well as the 203-204-205 cluster aims to do.  While some of these assignments are very time consuming and monotonous, many were fairly enjoyable and did help me to gain practice in various aspects of the field and in different ways of creatively thinking.  In retrospect, good job.

More than just Squares and Cubes

BEAT from or bar-el on Vimeo.

I feel that the theme of this animation is about not letting a creative mind go to waste.  It reminds us that within us we all have the potential to do something different, think creatively, and come up with something new even in today's highly structured society.  Sometimes the drive to do something different may sit a little uneasy, not only for the owner of the creative mind, but especially for an outsider looking in.  However, when the creative mind is allowed to roam and wander as it pleases, it often results in satisfaction and a feeling of freedom.  This is an active theme, as we know just as much as the main character and the information we receive is released slowly through his actions, as opposed to blatant reoccurring broad thematic ideas, actions, or statements.

In this animated video, Or Bar-El sets the scene by portraying the high level of affinity between all of the cube beings working in this giant yuppie cube enterprise.  To establish the level of conformity in this place, all of the angles are squared up with the many establishing lines in the picture, such as the parallel lines running down the walls, along the desk, around the pen, and even throughout the character.  All of the shots toward the beginning are very standard shots and are easy on the eyes.  As the main character has his revelation and begins to alter the routine and add in different musical rhythms, the angles of the shot are more cockeyed, portraying feelings of insanity and opposition to everything that makes up reality in the world.  This makes the plot interesting by adding contrast between this one character and the other seemingly infinite number of block people.  The rhythm of the editing adds to the establishment of the theme as well.  After the block dude starts his revelation, the shots and the editing become more sporadic to mimic what is happening in the story and to release the tension that has been built up by the simple, standard, on-beat shots complimenting the audio and the character’s actions.  When block dude starts to freak himself out a bit and draw all over the walls, the shots change much quicker than they have been up until this point.  By the end, the shots are mostly at bizarre, cockeyed angles and jump from establishing shots to close-ups and many are shaking erratically.  The decisions that are made in building the shots really do a lot in subconsciously portraying the plot and theme to the viewer in a highly stylistic, artistic way.

Cruisin' Down The Street in my 6-4

Ker-Splat

The Many Hues of Popeye the Sailor Man

In the still of Bluto (what a punk) from the Popeye cartoon, he is standing at the corner of the boxing ring, trying to look tough before his face-off with Popeye.  The hue of his skin tone is a fairly average tan for portraying a Caucasian in a cartoon.  His skin tone however is a bit more saturated and bronze than Popeye’s.  Aside from that, black seems to be his overall color scheme.  His black boxing shorts in conjunction with his thick black beard and black hat send the message that this guy is a crook.  The background is fairly bright and very plain, with the floor of the boxing ring and the background sporting the same tan-ish green-ish color.  The dark area obstructing view on the left side adds contrast to the overall picture.  The image contains no shadows.  The mood of the photo is fairly positive as it contains many bright neutral colors, but Bluto’s dark colors portray some darker feelings.  This relates to his deceptive character and how the boxing match to come is highly unfair because Bluto has sabotaging any of Popeye’s chances of winning on the way to the fight.

In the image of Olive Oyl feeding a disheveled Popeye some trusty spinach, the overall image has a much darker hue.  This is probably due to them being underneath the boxing ring that Popeye just fell through.  In the background, contrast is made between the brightness and saturation of the floor and the dark underside of the ring.  As the outside walls of the ring are totally black, to allow for a sense of space and shape, their “ceiling” is a dark gray.  As far as the characters, Popeye and Olive Oyl both sport a red hue of different saturations.  This continuity links the two characters as a team or partnership.  Olive Oyl’s dark skirt and heels allow for a very conservative look.  Popeye’s bright white hat lets the audience know that he is the loveable protagonist.  This image contains some shadows as it takes place in a dark crevasse with little light.  The green spinach represents hope and a release from the tension in the episode because it gives Popeye the power he needs to defeat Bluto.  The mood is one of hope.  It is somewhat dark and scary where they are, but brightly colored Olive Oyl has a big smile on her face as she assists Popeye to his victory.

Dental Hygiene Dilemma Dissected

In the “Dental Hygiene Dilemma,” the art director certainly followed all of the basic rules for setting up shots and scenery.  At no point in the entire scene does the audience’s view cross over the 180 degree line.  For the most part, the angles are fairly squared off and keep a consistent perspective of the room.

The artist did, however, make good use of the rule of thirds throughout the scene.  In the intro sequence with the scholarly duck, the dental equipment is placed in the left third of the shot.  With the bouncing duck small and centered in the shot, the focus is on the right third of the shot where his screen is flashing sporadic dental-related images.  After entering Jeff’s room through the mouth on the duck’s screen and zooming out from the close-up of the television, the view of the entire bedroom is set up using the rule of thirds.  The main focuses in this shot are on the television and on Jeff lying anxious on his bed.  Dividing the shot into thirds, the brightly colored television is in the upper right third and Jeff is lying down on his bed, centered in the lower horizontal third of the shot.  When Jeff stands up, he ends up vertically in the left third of the shot.

All the cuts, pans, or zooms obey the 30-rule as they change at least by 30% or 30 degrees.  Most of the changes are from a wide shot of the room to a close-up of an object in the room.  For example, in the intro the shot zooms in at least 30% to get from the view of the duck in the dentist’s office to the screen on the wall, as well as zooming from a wide view of Jeff’s room to the close up of the television.

The shots in this scene are very simple and straightforward, as they obey all the basic rules without cutting any corners.  The directing of the scene is well done but it certainly does not jump out at me as being especially artful and creative in setting up the shots.  However, I feel that more artful and creative focus was put into the content of the scene and the avant-garde morphing of the objects within, such as everything going on in the television.