Heavy Rain

Jason!  Jason!.... Jason?

Heavy rain is one of the few games recently that hits every mark.  Not just every mark for a gamer, but even if your not a gamer, it will hit a mark of somesort, pro or con.

First, from a gamer perspective, Heavy rain does a LOT of things differently.  The game starts out in a suesy homemaker home.  Before the game even gets rolling you have to get out of bed, take a shower ( with a full naked ass shot, but thats nothing ) get dressed and head on down stairs.  While your in route, you can feed the bird as well as relieve yourself if your feeling a little "heavy" on the rain.  Your wife comes home and your instructed to help set the table, play outside with your two boys and have a nice dialogue about how other people are stupid in mundane life.  Additionally Heavy rain boosts a unique control system that requires specific rotations of the thumb pads in correlation to the activity your currently acting upon.  Sounds like another remake of the SIMs?  Well not quiet.

From here, still within a locked in narrative, your wifey and the two tots go to a store where one son, buys a balloon.  A red one to be exact... and then suddenly vanishes...   Chasing the red orb, you call out for your boy and almost catch him when *WAM* hes hit by a car as you try and pull him out of the way.

Finally roll the intro credits to Heavy Rain...  Your wife has left you, You've lost your son, and your remaining child is completely distant and could careless if he is in a foster care or your rundown house, as long as theres a TV to occupy his time.... and NOW its time to play...

Heavy Rain explores the narrative of a serial killer called the Oragami killer.  He prays on children, leaving them to drown, hence the title "heavy rain".   Its a good thing you still have one child right?  Well when ol dad takes little timmy down to the park, suddenly HE VANISHES TOO!  You sure are turning out to be dad of the year and lucky your wife doesn't circumcise you for killing TWO of her babies...  Atleast theres a consolation prize, and thats your new found buddy, the Origami killer..  who could infact be you...

One of the biggest and dicies parts of heavy rain is the fact that the father whom would do anything to save his remaining son, actually must, do anything to save his son.  This includes, cut off his own finger, drive 5 miles into oncoming traffic in the rain and a multitude of other feats.

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!  Not only do you get to play this insane father who thinks hes actually the killer, but also a overweight PI and a Special Fed who is addicted to super drugs that allow him to access a nano-type crime fighting interface that makes you think of Time Cop.  Pretty damn cool...

So what makes this not only a twister of mind and dexterity?  Well Heavy Rain works akin to a choose your own adventure book.  If you botch a particular part of th game, the story completely changes...  I experienced this first hand when I picked up my fiance's game ( because who really has time to play games when your a game major..   its much easier to watch your girl play while you coach her through eh hard parts..)  I really hadn't had the time to get use to the controls and was deep into a mission when i started to play and instead of escaping as she did, I was apprehended by the police....  My game instantly took a different narrative then I had watched and I had no idea that this game held so much depth.   And thats my point.  Games have come to hte point where they are the ultimate narrative entity.   I mean why watch a movie or re-read a book if you know the ending?  Well i can tell you for certain if the ending changed each time based on the choices you made, you would certainly give it a GO on round 2.  As we delve into media that has the ability to change as the reader/viewer/player chances, so do their experiences...

Still feel like watering your duck on the farm?

Asterious Polyp

First off id like to say, im not very into graphic novels.  Although I find it extremely pretty, i find that my most enjoyable consumption of media to be either through audio or visual ( video ).  Thats not to say that i dont like to read, quiet the contrary.  But when you have two kids, a fiance, work a job and am in the guinnepig game art major, and have never practiced art till 5 years ago, its safe to say that some sacrifices have to be made to just "keep up".  I did enjoy Mazzuchelli's play at both saturation and negitive and positive space within the piece.  I felt that each character and situation was a world to its own due to how it was portrayed on the page.  The greek influence within the novel is very prevent.  Instead of a standard hero's journey archtype, line, weight and color influence your opinion of the characters and dictate the emotional and situation.   Although the reading was rushed and skimmed towards the end, I did enjoy it.

Pattern Recognition

Pattern Recognition by Gibson is a modernest look into our interest into trends.  The story follows Cayce Pollard the "cool hunter" as she investigates the trends in a series of internet videos and tries to find out who created them ( or a way for her boss to capitalize on the  mass market )   This book is very different from Neuromancer which I read by Gibson a long time ago.  Although I find the plot interesting,  the fact that all these modern idols are so commonplace today, it leaves the imagination a bit dry.  Neuromancer in the 80s was completely revolutionary in its predictions of the future.  Pattern Recognition on the other hand feels less molded in the what could be, commenting on the what already is post 9-11.  With all the travel, it has a touch of James Bond-esc feel as Cayce travels  and the Scifi-esc inserts from the EVP kept me interested through the story.  However Gibsons use of language creates a bit of a blockage, requiring constant internet searches or dictionary lookups to understand his context.  Unusual as it is, this book questions more to how we look cynically at our past, where as Gibson is best known as the creator of "cyberspace" and predicting the future.

As far as "blogs" the influence my daily life, I frequent www.polycount.com  Digital artists however usually dont spend as much time in blogs as they do in Forums where a plethora of users post and discuss.  This can be akin to Cayce's use of chatrooms or the mass exchange of information in the late 90s during the big boom of chat.  Nowadays people tend to meet and exchange through social media sites such as facebook, however in the late 90s, pre-myspace, the experience of the chat soley based on who was online.  I feel that we are moving today into a archived world where the moment isn't exactly necessary and conversations, information and exchange happen not only at a pace that doesn't have to live in the instantaneousness, but will be displayed for all others to read long after the conversation has closed.

McLuhan's Media Theory

Boogie Nights - Screenplay

For this assignment I read the screenplay of Boogie Nights by Tomas Anderson.   I hadn't seen this movie since the late 90s so even though I had a familiar memory of the movie.  While reading the script the first thing that came to mind was how much depth was to each character.  Each character has a social taboo that both strengthens and limits their lives and lifestyles.   The mother who looses her child, Frank the porno director who acts as a threshold guardian for both his family and peers, or works in porno, yet is obsessed with the fact that his wife is acting.

Each character has the goal of obtaining something, whether drugs, sex or even their own identity.   We take this and identify with each character in a deep sense, which is something you dont generally connect to in a movie about porn and drugs.

Frank feels like a father figure to his porno family and is the threshold guardian to Dirk.   Its an interesting concept to think of a porno director whose main focus is to put story ( something completely not required for the completion of the final product)  to porno.  He films his family in intercourse, which of course would be taboo, but leads Dirk whom left a shattered family to join frank, is actually a boon to growth.

As far as changing the screenplay, honestly I feel it was a masterpiece of written drama and comedy.  I completely related to all the characters and feel that their development was exotically executed .

Educational Projection

For my community projection I am going to showcase sculpting in Zbrush.  I can use their input to sculpt either a character or environment and show them the wonders of 3d.  The Zbrush interface is a bit overwhelming, even for us that use it.  I'll be looking to just let them explore and maybe build some shapes or color an existing model

--

Update:   Well besides this project putting a huge crux on my GM submission, I did enjoy my time with the kids. Only a few of them wanted to actually play with the software, but those who did I think had a great time.  Lu and I partnered together for the assignment.  He brought his laptop, which the kids would use, and then I would demo how to create some shapes on me.  For the first two kids, I tried to actually have them build and create something, such as a human face.  This didn't turn out so well.  Zbrush is just too much for someone to just pick up and use.  After the first few kids, Lu and I took a different perspective.  Instead of just having them start out in 3d, we would have them start out with a 2d sketch program inside of zbrush.   This allowed them to get use to the wacom pen and a bit of the navigation.  A few of the students didn't want to take it much further then that, but a few did.  Lu and I then loaded a premade humanoid model and allowed them to color it with Zbrush's painting tools.  David's son was the only one who wanted to take it further then this.  We then loaded a few custom sculpting brushes and he sculpted on a dog model and a rhino.

Overall i thought it was a really fun experience.  Unfortunately due to the how Zbrush works, when a student would "blow up" the model, which is really the only way i can describe what happens when someone uses zbrush that isn't intimately familiar with how it works, we would have the clear the canvas ( basically start over ) for them to keep going.  This didn't allow me to take any screenshots for me to upload to this post.  I hope a few of the students may take up 3d work on their own and progress it to a future career.

Frances Coppola

I chose Frances Ford Coppola for my Auteur due to his interesting journey and exposition in film making and to the media as a whole.   Coppola was gifted with the genes of entertainment being that his father was a composer and mother was a successful actress.   His interest in film originally came from photography where he forged his creativity, recovering from his Polio affliction.   Going to school at UCLA, he made became friends with Spielberg and Lucas and went on to film some of the acclaimed movies of all time, The Godfather Series, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now.

Now speaking from the box-office point of Hollywood, a great director creates a critically acclaimed movie that brings in substantial return for the studio.   Being an auteur on the other hand, implies a innovative precision to both work and ideal when creating films.  Coppola’s film history would make him critically acclaimed, however his “next life” of film pales in comparison.

First, since the assignment requires it, I’ll mention some themes of his “old career”.  Coppola use of light and shadow can easily be seen in the God Father Series and Apocalypse Now.  In a dissention into madness, his characters traverse their inner demons to the brink of humanity.   As his characters emerge from the darkness, we as the audience thrillingly go along for the ride.  Or as in the case of the Conversation, as he plays his Saxophone amongst his ruined house, the audience too is stricken by sadness.

During the latter part of Coppola’s career, he seemed to have fallen off the film radar.  His Bram stokers Dracula was heralded as a masterpiece of horror cinema.  He created a few pop movies in the 80s as well, however due to some financial pitfalls, it seemed that Coppola’s time had come to an end.

Away from the assembly line of Hollywood, Coppola branded his “new life” in film cinema. All of Coppola’s movies deal with family structure and social relationships; themes have been grounded in his own upbringing.  Coppola wanted to ground his film career in the same fashion, creating movies for him and not the masses.     Veering from Hollywood’s focus on gross profit, Coppola has separated himself from the modern film industry by financing his own films and producing them in different countries.   He his quest of being a next generation film maker, he only works in digital film and hires 100% of his work-force from the country he films in.  

Coppola explains this difference in an interview with The Film Talk group. “Through digital photography we now have the ability to compose a film in the same manner that a soundtrack is scored.  You don’t cut the film in a sense, you compose the film.  With this you have total freedom over the images and thus how those images relate to one another.  The cinema process is more of a composition process then a cutting process. ”   

Coppola has filmed two movies currently in his “new life”: Youth without Youth and Tetro.  When watching these films you get a distinctive difference the rehashed Hollywood scripts.  The delicate battle of cinema and soul witnessed within Tetro it hard to describe.  Not only is the production and mis en sang revolutionary, but you realize that these aren’t hardened actors, but everyday people like you or me.   

Maltese Falcon: Detective Stories

Maltese Falcon:

As I read the Maltese falcon I thought of the many types of detective stories that I have read over the years.  Although the Film Nior genre is very enticing, the one type of story that rings out in my mind from my childhood was reading the Dick Tracy books and comics.    This types of stories work upon the same thread as the adventure tales, however they add a puzzle as a twist.  We as the reader are tempted to help solve the case, crime in a game of literary “who dun it”.  It brings us into the fold and helps us to be engrossed in the tale.  Some of the other heralds to the detective story is the classic red herring.  Letting the reader believe one thing then revealing another spices the story and our perception of the characters.   This is taken a step further in Spy novels which build upon this genre. 

With spy novels ( at least in my opinion ) I always suspect that there is a double agent and am always waiting for his reveal.  With a detective story, there may or may not have a Judas in the crowd.  This fascination for looking behind the scenes into the crimes that are committed in our mist helps readers put a face to the headlines of murder and treachery in the tabloids.  Modern day CSI stories or “detective” + “science” genres still further placates this desire for the public to put a face to the crimes that are committed every day.   Whether it lessens the impact of the true nature of the vicious crimes or it is a way for the public to look past the gruesome nature of the crime is still the greater mystery that these stories present.  

Lolita Recap

I chose the following caption to recap.  

This then is my story. I have reread it. It has bits of marrow

sticking to it, and blood, and beautiful bright-green flies. At

this or that twist of it I feel my slippery self eluding me, gliding

into deeper and darker waters than I care to probe. I have

camouflaged what I could so as not to hurt people. And I

have toyed with many pseudonyms for myself before I hit on

a particularly apt one. There are in my notes "Otto Otto" and

"Mesmer Mesmer" and "Lambert Lambert," but for some

reason I think my choice expresses the nastiness best.

When I started, fifty-six days ago, to write Lolita, first in the

psychopathic ward for observation, and then in this wellheated,

albeit tombal, seclusion, I thought I would use these

notes in toto at my trial, to save not my head, of course, but

my soul. In mind-composition, however, I realized that I could

not parade living Lolita.

Even through all the madness, the author still has the mind not to not publish his work till after both he and Dolly had both died.  His hurt both internally and externally ( from imprisonment to death ) is weighed on how his desires were never fulfilled, however I feel that his distain for himself and her is in the same comparison as someone dying from cancer. 

You don’t hate the cancer, but you hate the spread.  The individual desires don’t measure in his mind, but how the his entire being aches for the passion of the “whole”  When we look at what people feel sorry about or what their needs are, rarely do we have a small list with bulleted points.  More or less we have a lacking sense of ourselves, a yearning beyond our sense of comprehension.  Lust tends to do that, but its because our desires are not reciprocated.    Now if Dolly had never lead our author on, those yearnings would never have been stoked in the fire of lust.  Lust only holds to our base presumptions of what could happen, but never will.  Secretly everyone who lusts ( or loves unconditionally without equal reciprocation ) knows they will never have what they desire, but the temptation to “maybe” get it if you try hard enough outweighs the logical reasoning.

I find the lines interesting where he states that he did not write these memoirs to explain to others why this happened or why he did what he did, but to confess these desires to his inner soul who drove the madness in hope of self forgiveness.  Although not completely in line with the nature of Lolita’s age, most older men tend to desire younger women ( lets say 18-26 ) not necessarily because of the woman’s age or beauty.  But, just as a midlife crisis, its makes them feel young again.   Having someone younger desire you is akin to an expert praising your work.  It gives purpose to what you do and who you are at the primal level of satisfaction.

Jaws and the history

Jaws:  the history and situation:

During the 70s, Hollywood was beginning to suffer from a financial depression.   Instead of creating hundreds of movies at a time, studio’s had shifted focus into trying to create “blockbusters”.  This meant that the studio’s would dump more money into a few select movies, hoping that a few would pay for the other losses.  Before Jaws,  not many movies created a surplus of funds.  Restrictions on language, sexual content and violence had dropped and the target audience was the youth of America following the New Wave movement from France.

  Advertising had grown in media and Jaws set this precedence by releasing the movie during the peak of the summer to maximize on its thriller content.   For the first time, advertising for films became the primary focus and this was the birth of the summer blockbuster.   HBO (home block buster ) was created around this time and demonstrated it popularity by releasing programming like Jaws akin to the advertising firms.  Using a TV marketing campaign which cost $700,000, Jaws appeared in 500 theatres simultaneously and grossed over 100 million dollars leaving it as the highest grossing film at that time.

Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived high up in the mountains by herself.  She couldn’t remember how she got to the mountain top or where she came from.  The only thing she could remember is that she loved to play with dolls made out of clay. 

The clay from the high mountains wasn’t like normal clay.  When the girl created something out of this special clay, it would appear in “another place” where she could visit and adventure.  First she would fashion a small ball out of the clay about the size of her head.  Thinking that a bare rock was a pretty boring place to be, she created rivers and oceans for life to grow.  Going to this new land, she felt awfully hot, so she created some trees to shade her from the sun.   Green fields and meadows appeared and lush forests sprung from her feet.  Walking around her new world was very exciting for it was much more interesting than the fog filled mountains from where she came.  Remembering how great this world was she fell asleep on the mountain top.

The next morning she woke up and went for a walk in her new world.  Feeling lonely she created a large cat and other animals to keep her company.   Birds flew overhead and fish swam in the seas she created, however these as she talked to these animals the never responded.  She felt happy to have all these new pets, however she longed for someone to talk to.

“Dear lion” she would say, “why don’t you ever say anything interesting.  It is good to have you here following me around however I want someone to talk to.”

She thought about the animals she created and realized that they needed a voice to respond back.  Walking to the nearest lake, she looked deep into the waters and touched her reflection.  Like morning dew, the reflection stuck to her finger and she flicked it onto her newest piece of clay which resembled her, but only in a larger form.  The creations multiplied and spread through her world and she felt that it was time to introduce herself.

“There, now I will have parent to talk to and ask why I am here and what I am to do next” she said.

So she went down to see her new creatures and talked to them from the heavens, however they cowered in fear. 

“Hello!  You are to be my parents and help me understand why I am on this mountain”

As she spoke to the new creations they covered their ears for her voice was too mighty to understand and they fled even further into the forest.

“Look our God speaks to us” they would say, we must appease it by giving sacrifice and maybe it will spare us from the booming voice from the heavens.  So they took to the wilderness looking for something worthy of their god and they found a giant lion.  Killing the lion, the creations looked unto the heavens looking for sign, however the girl began to cry and the oceans of the world began to overfill.  

Seeing her creations drown under her tears, she quickly built a raft and placed a few of her favorite dolls on it.  Being distraught at how horrible this had turned out when she tried to talk to her little friends she scraped away the overflowing oceans and set the little raft down on the newly created land and left them alone so that she wouldn’t frighten them anymore. 

Dialogue

The ground reeked of death although the bodies had been buried for a week or more.  The attack left many dead, but many more were wounded in their minds.  A young boy walked down by the orchard once filled with trees, now covered by ash and char.  Walking amongst the burnt trees, Samson looked down and saw his own reflection in a puddle below. 

Letting his mind wander he saw the trees and fields around him alive with laughter.  Suddenly his reflection moved out of the corner of his eye and stared at the boys heart.  Samson’s heart beat faster and stepped out of the way.  Looking back, only his reflection remained. 

Samson said, “ I wonder if this is our future, to rape the land and its people in war and discord.”

A voice below replied, “Tis the future of those who don’t look to the future for aid.”

Samson jumped at this reply and looked down only to see his reflection looking back, not in the shock that stood upon his face, but stern in resolve.

The other Samson said, “You future will come and the choices you make will reflect the land and the people whom live on your land.  Your people.  You must understand that the head doesn’t always know the suffering carried by the feet.  Weight must be bore from the bottom up, however those at the height of power only reap but never sow.”

Suddenly a foot clad in iron stepped into the puddle and broke Samson’s daydream.  “We must continue to move young prince, the river is a bit further down. “

Walking along with his escort Samson could only wonder to what was the meaning of his daydream.

Years passed and Samson had turned into a man leading armies towards his father the King.  The King had planned an attack on a neighboring citadel.  Samson had been filled with rage over the years of war and death.   As was his custom before a battle, Samson walked down to the water and looked over the large lake.

Samson spoke aloud, “I know I have not listened over the years since my scholars said that you were my imagination.  I ask you if you are there to come and hear my call.”

Hearing the sounds of laughter, Samson looked down at the water and saw young children playing in a forest.  The children chased each other into the nearby forest except one young boy.  This young boy looked a lot like himself when he was younger. 

The boy approached Samson and said, “I thought I told you to look to the future.”

Samson said, “I did look to the future and  in that future I saw war and oppression from my enemies and their god.”

The boy asked, “Their god?  Does it make any difference that they are defending their  god as you kill for your god?

Samson said, “My god is right and just and my actions for god is excused for he is the creator and my enemies are heathens. “

The boy asked, “Does your god allow the murder of heathens  or is murder against his ideals.”

Samson said, “He said thou shall not murder, but this is different.”

The boy asked, “How exactly is this different?”

Samson said, “Well they are against god”

The boy said, “Against your god, is their god any different.”

“How should I know?”,  Samson stated.

The boy replied, “Well maybe you should find out before you betray your own integrity and your own gods laws”

Suddenly the forest behind the boy vanished and a city took its place.  This city resembled those held by the heathens and a young boy walked through the Square.  This boy resembled himself when he was younger, the only difference being the clothing favored by those in the neighboring countries.

The young boy in the water went into a large building which stood as their place of worship and listened to his elders.  The words the elders spoke sounded very similar to the ones taught by his own scholars and scribes.  It had seemed to Samson that their two worlds were very similar.

Just then Samson awoke from his dream and saw the error of his ways and how the hatred of others had filled his mind with poison.  Thinking to his youth and how happy and carefree his life once was he vowed to change his ways and put peace into the land and his people

My situation

My situation when it comes to media, reading and lit falls into a fast paced mentality.  First, i prefer to archive most of my media through technology.  Reading on the computer or other device enables me to keep my passion for knowledge and access it on the go.  Over the last few years at ringling, books haven't been my source of knowledge, but tutorial dvds to sharpen my digital art skills.   I do love stories and am always engrossed by a good tale, but I rarely get time to delve into a good book, especially in the reading sense.  However my time as a truck driver trainer gave me a unique opportunity to be drawn into the audio books.

Audio books, in my opinion helps me reach the pinnacle of my needs for speed and quality.  It takes a bit longer to listen to an audiobook then it would to actually read the work, however I can continue to preform my daily tasks while being engrossed in a captivating world at the same time.  Looking at Plato and the discussion of oratory and its merit, an audio book gives the value of listening and perceiving the authors message through the energy of the person reading the book.

PHAEDRUS

While reading Phaedrus one of the main topics into which it delves is rhetoric and whether the spoken or written word is the most adapt. Written text is a sense is immortal.  It never changes, wanes but is always interpreted.  We can assume the writers opinion, however without the chance of discourse or rebuttal with the author, we are still only assuming the final message.  Oration, however, allows us to hear the energy, and rhythm of the author.  Discourse allows us to refine our understand even further into the minds eye of the author.  The obvious disadvantage to oration is obvious, an immediate proximity to the author is needed. Oration also changes as stories are passed down and may (will) change from orator to orator.  So the energy may remain, the context will shift overtime. 


Looking at this in contrast to the lovers and non-lovers:  How can a non-lover understand something they have never delved into.  One may know that water feels cool, wet, refreshing...  but do they know the pure extacy of a refreshing swim on a hot summers day?  One may say that a non-lover may have their wits, but they only know a muddy representation of what it means to truly love.