Shining Light in the Darkness

Posted on by jesse

Today, I watched “Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times”. There are a couple things I want to point out here.

First, depending on where someone lives and what they do for a living, the pandemic may very well be the darkest days they have ever lived in their life. Some people may have even lost their minds due to it. Individuals were told they had to stay home and socially distance from others. This led to a new pandemic that we are currently dealing with today: loneliness. For many, Second Life and other virtual worlds such as Animal Crossing were a great opportunity to connect with others and socialize again.

Second, I feel that this video relates to what we have done in this class because everybody who used these virtual worlds to find hope during the pandemic were essentially following their own hero’s journey by interacting with objects and environments that the developers of said world had created.

I can’t say that I personally know anyone this happened to, but I am very confident that the virtual worlds of Second Life, Animal Crossing, etc. probably saved many peoples’ lives. It gave them a chance to reconnect with society, establish and maintain relationships, and have a safe place to be themselves.

I would say the best way to market our project would be through the virtual world itself, social media, signage on the Peninsula College campus, and through the college website.

Marketing Me!

Posted on by jesse

It’s that time of the year again! It is time for the 10th Annual Moving Pictures Film Festival at Peninsula College. I submitted a few videos to the film festival last year. However, this year has been a little different. I have been extremely busy for most of the quarter and feel like I have been somewhat rushed to get my work done so I don’t quite feel that I’ve really been able to put my all into much. The one project that I really am putting my all into isn’t done yet either. That would be my documentary about the local non-profit, 4PA. I did throw together a quick trailer for it though! I will be submitting the trailer to the festival this year at least. I will certainly submit the final product to the film festival next year for sure. Like most creators, I’m probably just being a little too overcritical of myself and my work.

I have also had the honor of producing the film festival this year by putting all of the videos together into one video file. I’m also hoping that I will be available the night of the festival so that I can actually attend it. Sounds like I missed out last year when it was discovered that my friend who starred in a lot of my work was apparently already famous.

I will be very proud of my 4PA documentary once it is done and will market it heavily. You can count on that. I will also make sure I market the film festival on social media by sharing online posts.

Proposal Comparison

Posted on by jesse

I have read through several other immersive engagement proposals and looked for connections and similarities between them and my own. I appreciate the symbolic value of the objects that Kathryn wishes to create. I feel that the reward of her gold star at the end of the hero’s quest is very comparable to my holo-projector that will display a college diploma on it.

On the other hand, Danielle’s drawing tablet item compares more to my video editing workstation I wish to place in the world. I am also hoping that this object can help them consider if it is something they would be interested in learning more about at Peninsula College. Adobe Premiere Pro can be a pretty intimidating application from first glance, but it looks sleek. I’m hoping that potential new students seeing editing taking place using the software on the virtual workstation will inspire them to look into it more.

I also drew a connection between my holo-projector item and James’ map scroll. These items share something in common. They will be handheld items that can be picked up by the users’ avatars and interacted with. I am a little intimidated by attempting to create these objects given my lack of experience with 3D design and Second Life, but am more than willing to give it a shot!

My Ultimate Level-Up

Posted on by jesse

I would have to say that I had a couple different perspective widening experiences with media. The first was when I was in Stevens Middle School in 6th grade. We would watch a daily news broadcast on the TVs in the classrooms. The broadcast was produced by the 8th grade students in Mr. Edwards’ Advanced Media Technology class. I immediately knew what I wanted to do when I got to 8th grade. I thought it was so cool that we could produce things like this as an 8th grader. Next thing you know, I was in that very class when I was an 8th grader. I stood out from the rest of the class though. I didn’t help produce the daily segment with everyone else. I was off working on my own weekly segment called “The Jesse Report”.

The second experience was more recently as an adult. This hit me once I realized there was potential for me to practice my media production skills at my current job. This got me back into the game. I had a newfound desire to chase my dreams once again. After heading down this path, I started to discover all of the technological advances we have made in media production since I was in that Advanced Media class in middle school. I hadn’t really kept up with the times to be honest.

What type of player am I, you ask? Why, I am definitely a cross between the achiever and the explorer. I love playing games like Bethesda’s Fallout & Elder Scrolls series plus the entire Assassin’s Creed franchise. The AC games are great for the integration of historical events, landmarks, and locations into a fictional storyline. These games offer a huge open world that is ripe with many different locations to discover, quests to complete, and collectibles to find.

I want to level up in life by completing the Multimedia Communications program at Peninsula College and seeing what the future brings.

Side note: I had really hoped to find an old video on YouTube of the Stevens News Network from back in the day, but had no luck.

Best Advertising in the Country

Posted on by jesse

The once-a-year Super Bowl commercials are a thing for several reasons. Firstly, the Super Bowl is the most watched event in the United States of America. The only event in American history that had more viewers than the 2023 Super Bowl was the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. From a marketing standpoint of view, this is obviously going to be the best opportunity to make sure as many people see the ad as possible. Not just that, it’s also the best opportunity to make sure they are actually paying attention to it. The commercials at the Super Bowl are renowned for being powerful, emotional, funny, and unique. Therefore, some people probably watch it just for the commercials!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/prospernow/2012/02/06/the-power-of-super-bowl-advertising/?sh=a61e3472cbb5

The more emotional commercials, like the ones used as examples for this assignment, tend to show the more human side of the company. In my opinion, I would be willing to bet that most of the time this is done, it’s purely for profits and not so much for just doing the right thing given the fact that these advertising slots can cost millions of dollars for a single minute. The marketing professionals with these companies know that if they pull on your heart strings, you will be very engaged with the ad and giving it your full attention. Your brain will be storing it in memory more efficiently. Therefore, once you are fully immersed in the powerful and emotional story of the ad, you will tend to remember the brand name that is displayed at the end better.

https://youtu.be/TSJEKU9qKJI

My Motivation

Posted on by jesse

Video games motivate their players with mastery all the time! I am living proof of this. Some of us grew up wanting to master sports in school. Some of us wanted to master computer and technical skills. There were also some of us that grew up addicted to video games and the only thing they were worried about mastering was the Xbox Live achievements for Assassin’s Creed II. In case you’re wondering, yes, I am referring to myself there. I was what some would call a completionist. I couldn’t just play the game and finish the storyline. I had to make sure I went through and found all of the different locations, found all of the collectibles, and completed all of the side quests. These games were intentionally designed with all of this extra content to motivate players to put all of this time into it so they could get the “achievements” as a reward. While completing some of these tasks in these games can be very daunting and repetitive at times, it would help the player get tens or hundreds of hours of gameplay out of a $60 video game which made it so much more worth the price.

Another very neat aspect of the Assassin’s Creed game series was the fact that there was so much history incorporated into it. You would travel back to ancient times and go through locations such as Italy, Egypt, Syria, and Greece. You would encounter historical characters and work alongside them during historical events as the game developers devised a way to tie your fictional game character into the event somehow.

There are many different ways people can be motivated by information, education, and mastery, but I can whole-heartedly say that the thing in my life that motivated me the most in all three of those areas was certainly the Assassin’s Creed video game franchise.

Respect & Responsibility

Posted on by jesse

Those are two very strong words when it comes to the world of art and ingenuity. When it comes down to it, one of the biggest driving factors that inspires creativity is the incentive of recognition. I’m very sure that it would be completely devastating to spend countless hours, days, weeks, months, or years on a new project or piece of art, just to have someone else copy it and take all of the credit for it. I kindly ask anyone reading this to put themselves in that person’s shoes. Just imagine for a moment what that would feel like. It is absolutely inhumane if you ask me.

To be honest, I was very disrespectful and inconsiderate in the creative realm myself before taking these classes. I suppose I just hadn’t ever stopped to think about the fact that using copyrighted music in my video projects was rude, wrong, illegal, and disrespectful. I’m glad that I can see that now today and act accordingly. After all, if we don’t practice good ethics and let all responsibility go out the window, the incentive of recognition becomes compromised. With that jeopardized, the flame of inspiration may be short-lived in what could’ve or would’ve been potential new artists.

Liberation

Posted on by jesse

It would seem that so many people have found what you could call liberation through virtual worlds such as Second Life. This platform gives the user the ability to fully customize their avatar. The possibilities are limitless. Like one individual said in the video, “People treat you the way you look.” This is unfortunately sad but true. With Second Life, people can change the way they are dressed, their gender, skin color, ethnicity, race, or species at the click of the mouse. They can change it as often and as much as they like. This gives the users the ability to create their own version of their selves that they feel more comfortable with and portrays who they really are more accurately. For many, this can be a life-changing experience. Especially for those with disabilities! This is truly freedom from the bondage of our natural bodies.

Aside from the avatar aspect of Second Life, the platform is special in many other ways. I had no idea before using it that it had it’s own in-world economy and a unique currency with a fluctuating exchange rate! Users can build, create, and design items in the game that can be sold for in-world currency. Users can even find a paying job inside the virtual world!

I am very amazed at how much Second Life is capable of. It is like discovering a whole new world that you never knew existed. I am happy for all the individuals who have experienced the freedoms and liberties that come with it’s use and I can’t wait to explore it more.

Size Matters!

Posted on by jesse

I want to start off by saying “100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People” is probably one of the most interesting books I have ever read. It’s a blessing when you are very interested in and intrigued by a textbook. It is so much easier to absorb the information and get as much out of it as possible! The section where the author is discussing the use of fonts covers several different reason why fonts matter and what they do for reader retention.

First off, the simplicity of the font allows the reader to easier recognize patterns in letters, words, and sentences. A lot of what we are doing when we are reading is actually just pattern recognition! For example, cursive can take longer to read because it may be harder for someone to recognize patterns compared to arial. It is also believed that if the font is harder to read, than the reader tends to perceive things such as written instructions for tasks to actually be harder to accomplish than if the font were more easily readable.

The author also states that we should keep font size in mind. They explain differing perceived font sizes due to the x-height of the font. This is the height of the lowercase letter x. This can vary between fonts and make them appear to be different sizes when they are actually the same point size. Lastly, the author touches on contrast. It is always important to make sure that your text contrasts well with the background. The book gives us a couple pointers such as the fact that black text on a white background promotes the best readability. I have learned tons of new things since I started reading this book. Super neat! One thing the book doesn’t cover though is the fact that different fonts can send different messages. The following YouTube video talks a little bit about that.

Inspirational Education

Posted on by jesse

Here are three documentaries that I found to be inspiring. The first is titled, “The God Delusion”, by evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. In the film, Dawkins sets out on an adventure to document the absurdities of religion as we know it. He interviews preachers, priests, televangelists, creationist activists, and more. I think I have Richard Dawkins to thank for what I would call a revelation. It is his works that helped me get to where I stand today as far as theological views are concerned.

Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion

Another documentary I loved, was Neil Degrasse Tyson’s take on Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos”. I spent countless hours watching this series when it first came out. I do remember receiving harsh backlash from religious groups, which I found interesting. It wasn’t just the content of the series that was intriguing, it was also the way it was delivered. Neil Degrasse Tyson was very inspirational in his presentation. Even at 30 years old, he made me want to run out and pursue a degree in astrophysics. It wasn’t until today that I discovered he actually made another follow up to it as well in 2020. I will certainly be checking that out!!!

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: Possible Worlds trailer

I couldn’t come up with a documentary about an inventor, artist, or leader that I had seen off the top of my head, but I did watch one recently about multiple different world leaders. It was a documentary about how the Russians interfered in the 2016 election. I found it very informative and it inspired me to stay more up to date on politics and current affairs. I’d also be lying if I said it didn’t inspire me to want to join the CIA, but let’s be realistic here.

HBO’s Agents of Chaos trailer