military games

Video games are an ingenious means of recruitment for the military. The most interesting aspect of the topic of war or shoot 'em up games i thought is the ethics problem. How do you go from games where you celebrate killing the "enemy" to portraying what would in real life be an emotional experience of taking another life? I like shooting targets, I do not want to join the military and take lives. It's quite incredible how through video games the military is getting the notion of war being fun to seep into this generation's subconscience. How sneaky. Brainwashing?

disney templates

The video showing how many of the dance and action sequences in Disney movies are exactly the same came as no suprise. I noticed when I was much younger that all Disney movies have very similarly drawn and similar characters, and of course the plot is always the same. And why shouldn't it be? They've obviously found a formula that works for them. And nobody seems to mind- I'm sure we all know when we sit for a Disney movie that good will undoubtedly conquer evil in the end no matter what gimmick the journey has. I love how this video of the templates is edited, showing that many scenes throughout Disney's movies are in fact identical. Even the character ratios are the same, if the one on the left is tall and the one on the right short that stays the same in each example. Of course this is back in the day when the cartoonists had to draw every individual frame, so I think anything that they could get away with to make their jobs easier was a great idea.

flip books

This was a fun assignment. I went with moving shapes and spirals and played with their movement due to lack of a better idea, but I was really impressed with the storylines some of the class came up with. Noteably in that aspect Ellery's had a colorful environmental message and I liked the repetitiveness of the tree re-growing only to be destroyed. Gina's Pinocchio continued to look happy even after getting his nose clipped, is this a statement about circumcision? Regardless, it was funny. Greg's was very creative and well done, I especially liked the movement of the title and how someone was trying to get through the paper. Maria took a different route than everybody else by cutting out actual pictures which was a great effect -like watching an old movie- and avoided any drawing (I wish I had thought of that). Kasey's cute little ant had to work pretty hard to build it's little hill, only to get rained on but at least it got a flower in the end. Also I like how Cara's very colorful and adorable batman apparently killed himself. Other flip books had clear and often fantasitc transitions and were more playful and abstract. Dylan's read like a poem to me, I liked the parachute guy. I really liked Andrea's bird and the 3D perspective of how it moved back into the pages. Lea had some fun transitions- bouncy ball to weather to tree to fire to boat- there's some kind of storyline in there. Brin's was especially happy with all of the hearts and people jumping. Mike's was particularly abstract subject material with very creative and well done transitions and movement. Speaking of abstract, Cara's homicidal storm of stoves was both creative and funny. All in all it was really interesting at how different everyone's approach to this assignment was. Before I only had a few ideas of what to put in a flip book but now I have a ton.

singing in the rain

Wow, what a difference from the elated happy-go-lucky 1950 version of Singing in the Rain to the disturbingly violent A Clockwork Orange 1971 edition. Clearly something drastic happened in these 21 years and I think I figured out what it was: the 60's. The stereotype of the 50's was the perfect nuclear family with two kids, a dog, and a white picket fence. Then the 60's happened, which it needed to. Could you imagine living in the 50's? It seemed so oppresed. So the 60's happened with all of the protests and rights movements and drugs. It seems much of the population couldn't handle the cookie-cutter expectations of the 50's any longer. So by the time 1971 roles around the common public has got to be familiar with all of the changes going on in the world around them, whether they agree with them or not. This makes it possible to take what was such a cheerful song and twist it into a scene of violation, completely taking away the naivity of the 50's and throwing it into a modern, all be it ugly, world.

earthquake (or lack there of)

Neither of the parental figures i asked has seen the movie "Earthquake." I tried to describe it to them, but they didn't know what I was talking about. Appearently they didn't go to movies when they were younger. However, I would imagine that seeing a movie so devestational like that back in the day would be terrifying. Especially with the brand new surround sound and how loud and realistic it was. I'm sure the people who lived in and saw it in L.A. where it was set were likely horrified and incontinent. Isn't it impessive how new technologies may be scary to the public at first but are soon integrated into every day life and become something we expect.