Week 6 - A consumer Nation

Week six’s lecture was about consumption and production of the big and small screen. It covered the different mediums, which are available today for consumption and the different ways in which we can distribute our own productions.

There are many different options for media distribution and consumption today. These include small screen media, like mobile phones and media plays like iPods and Zune’s. Then there is big screen media distribution like the Cinema, TV and computers. Large-scale companies have utilized both of these distribution methods for some however there has been a growing amount of ‘consumer distribution’ and the main reason for that is the Internet.

The Internet plays the largest part in distribution of media made by the consumer. Consumer distribution is where consumers take something that already has an established fan basis and change it slightly in a way that completes them more. There are many different types of consumer media out there, they include FanFilms, Mash Ups and many others. The most popular distribution method are social websites like YouTube, Facebook and MySpace.

The only problem with consumer made productions using mobile phones is that it generally is horrible quality however this may be a thing of the past as many new phones are having increasingly high resolution some even capturing film in HD.

Just a Link

http://www.filmsite.org/

A history of Video Production (Wk 4)

That was the topic of this weeks lecture. It was a majorly shortened version of the entire history of film and screen, but managed to cover all of the key points. I’m not so sure how to summarize this so here goes.

· 1895 – The word cinema was coined from cinematographer

· 1897 – The first cinema was made for the sole purpose of showing films

· 1903 – The first narrative film ever, The Great Train Robbery

· 1906 – The first feature length film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, made in Australia

· 1909 – Movie palaces began opening throughout America housing from 1000-3000 people.

· 1913 – The studio system was born; pre-planning and budgeting were made to help with production.

· 1914 – The first movie star, Charlie Chaplin

· 1921 – Believed to be the first film with sound, D.W. Griffiths “Dream Street”

· 1923 – “The Ten Commandments” was the first film to feature parts in Technicolor.

· 1927 – The birth of Talkies (movies with sound), Warner Brothers “The Jazz Singer”

· 1929 – The first film to use both Technicolor and Sound was “On With The Show”, first shown in NYC on May 28, 1929

· 1933 – The first Drive-In theatre, actually called “The Automobile Movie Theatre”

· 1937 – Snow White, the first feature length animated colour film.

· 1939 – What a year, T.V. Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and much more

· 1941 – Film Noir (noir is black in French) was a new style of film which focused on showing the darker side of life.

· 1952 – 3D was introduced to help bring audiences back to the cinema and to compete with the growing market of T.V.

· 1952 – The first video tape recorder was created.

· 1960 –Psycho, the best horror film ever was directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock

· 1963 – The first Multiplex cinema

· 1967 – Sony made the first consumer Black and White video camera

· 1978 – The video Laser Disk

· 1983 – Tron. The first film to heavily use 3D animation.

· 1986 – Pixar’s Luxo, Jr. was the first film to be fully computer generated.

· 1988 – Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a breakthrough in using animation and live-action film together.

· 1994 – Pulp Fiction used a whole range of techniques to deliver one of the best films ever.

· 1995 – Toy Story. The first fully computer gernerated feature length film ever which had a run time of 81 minutes

· 1997 – The first DVD’s (Digital Versatile Disks) began being sold in America

· 1998 – The first HDTV sets started being sold in America

· 2006 – YouTube has over 100 million videos being watched per day :O

So that’s it basically LOL.

Week 7 - Free Internet

Last weeks lecture was mainly composed of what i already wrote about several weeks ago. That was the post on your rights on the internet. It covered Copyright and Creative Commons.

Although I had already spoken about this we went into more detail about Open Source, which is free software that anyone can use modify and repackage for use by others. Open Source ( originally "Free Software") is a movement that believes that software should free for everyone like it was back in the birth of computers. These people work endlessly to make software just as good if not better than the companies that charge huge amounts of money to deliver the same stuff. They are free versions of all the software that people regard as being one of a kind out there. Microsoft Office - Open Office, Adobe Photoshop - gimp, MSN Messenger - aMSN and much more. Some of these programs actually work better than their counterparts because the makes quickly address issues that occur and release a patch rather then waiting several months before doing anything. Not only free software but there is even Operating Systems. The much loved Linux is a completely free download alternative to Mac OSX and Windows and offers many of the same options in a completely free environment.

All these things generally make Open Source the future in computing technology, now all we need is free for all Internet :)

Week 3 - Language of the screen -

This weeks lecture was on the language of the cinematic screen (the movies). It started by talking about the different kinds of shots you would get in a typical film.

VLS/WS: Very LS/Wide

Shot

LS: Long Shot

MLS: Medium LS

MS: Mid Shot

MCU: Medium CU

CU: Close Up

BCU: Big CU

ECU: Extreme CU

The lecture then continued to show how different shots can create different meaning within the film and that some shots have become recognized as being a characteristic of a certain mood, for example a close up on a clock shows the time, a close up of someone shows who. From that the subject of headroom and talking room came up generally leading into the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is that there is a set of standard accepted ways of framing a shot so that the viewers get the most pleasure from watching. Also in a film every shot needs to create a moving feeling, without this the film often feels dead or empty.

Thanks for viewing :)

Social Media

Tute Task Wk4 - Online Scavenger Hunt

Most of this task was complete using the search engine DogPile, which apart from being slightly slower than the other major players like Google, had sufficient results and could do relatively easy advanced searches, which was needed for some of the questions.

What did Alan Turing wear while riding his bicycle around Bletchley Park?

Alan Turing wore a gas mask while riding his bicycle around Bletchely Park, which his neighbours found quite odd, but he believed it was the best cure for airborne diseases. http://www.historyarticles.com/enigma.htm

On what date did two computers first communicate with each other? Where were they?

2. On October 2^nd 1969 the first messafe was sent from one computer to another successfully. The message was ‘L’ and ‘O’. One of the computers was based in UCLA (University of California – Los Angeles) and the other was in Stanford University in Palo Alto almost 360 miles away. http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5842105.html

What is Bill Gates’ birthday and what age was he when he sold his first software?

3. Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in the USA. He sold his first piece of software at the age of 15 with the software Traf-O-Data, which measured the traffic flow in the Seattle area. These answers were found at http://www.woopidoo.com/biography/bill-gates.htm and http://www.entrepreneur.com/growyourbusiness/radicalsandvisionaries/article197526.html … using the search engine Dogpile.

Where was the World Wide Web invented?

4. At CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), in Switzerland. http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/inventedwebwhere.html

How does the power of the computer you are working on now compare with the power of a personal computer from 30 years ago?

5. The power of the computer I am working on right now is massively different to that of what was used 30 years ago. It follows the theory that a computers power doubles ever 18 months and thus far has been true.

What is the weight of the largest parsnip ever grown?

6. The largest ever parsnip recorded weighed over 40 stones (254 KG) and was called Colin. http://www.thevoiceofreason.co.uk/2009/08/Parsnips.htm This link was found via the AltaVista web search site. Although i have reason to believe that this may not be true.

When did Queensland become a state and why is the Tweed River in New South Wales?

7. Queensland became a separate colony in 1859. http://www.parliament.curriculum.edu.au/qld.php3

What was the weather like in south-east Queensland on 17 November 1954?

8. Although the results have been slightly mixed it is either a flood in south-east QLD or a cyclone but I’m not super sure. It was coincidently the same day chopper reid was born in Melbourne.

Why is is Lord Byron still remembered in Venice?

9. Lord Byron is remembered in Venice for his acclaim that on 200 consecutive evenings he ‘had’ a different woman. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/byron.htm

What band did Sirhan Chapman play in and what is his real name?

10. Sirhan Chapman was in a band named The Black Assassins formed in 1981. Although I have no sufficient proof redirections from search engines to other 1051HUM New_Com_Tech blogs believe this to be our lecturer the great Professor Stephen Stockwell. http://www.myspace.com/theblackassassins

http://for1501hum.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/ten-questions-and-answers/

Playing an Online Game

When one plays a MMPOG (massively multi-player online game) they in sense take on the identity that they have chosen in the beginning as being themselves (in that world) i.e. your avatar can be a smooth looking billionaire, where as you your self could be living in your mothers basement eating microwave burritos for dinner every night). On the Internet no one knows who you are and because of this freedom people allow themselves to let loose and act in a total different way to that which they would in a setting with real people. These are the qualitative differences between textual chat rooms vs. 3d chat rooms, when someone plays a MMPOG they feel like they are in the game and it is part of their lives, without they have lost a part of who they are and many users become somewhat addicted and disconnected with the human world. When someone uses a chartroom they are not showing a little character of who they would like to be, what other people see and think of them is based on what they say in writing.

WoW Addiction

This video illustrates the mental capturing that some of these online games have on people. This is just one of many on YouTube.

Media Wk5

Technology is the study of mechanical arts and their application to the world. When we talk about what is commonly called “Social Media” we are talking about different ways in which we use technology to communicate with other people in a social setting (because it means social there is no need to call it “social Media”). On the Internet there are many different ways of doing this and the most recent popular type of this is social networking on websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Live Journal. Each one allows the user to send messages to their friends, post pictures, videos and music and also gives us the pleasure of giving status updates so we can know how our friends feel all the time whatever they may be doing. Of course there are many other types of Media on the net/ transferrable by the net. Another large one is Instant Messaging (IM) and video chat. Both allow the user/s to communicate to each other either by text conversations or face to face conversations, however each different type of communication on the net has its own distinct feel and people will act accordingly to what they are using i.e. they would be more respectful when talking face to face with someone as opposed to IM chat where your emotions are only displayed by text and emoticons. J

Your Rights On The Internet

Image (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons)

When talking about rights on the Internet you have to understand that there isn’t many. On most websites that your are freely allowed to join and post videos, blogs or photos you are bound to what is called a Creative Commons (this is the reason why MySpace and Facebook display random images of people on their home site). Social networking websites such as the largely used Facebook and Twitter all share what is called the Creative Commons (CC) meaning that while you own the picture or information that you put on their website they are allowed to used it for advertising purposes. Other versions of the CC allow others to share and redistribute your work as long as it’s not for profit and that they always credit you.

Other laws that apply on the Internet are the all-famous Copyright, which is means that all rights (or most) are reserved solely to the creator. And then there is SouceForge which was created to allow people to edit a piece of code however they like and to redistribute it freely however not for profit. This allows this allows code editors to rebuild programs to suit their needs while still having the core of the original program.

Tute 2

Pictured Left Steve Wozniak

Picture by gabemac on Flickr.

This is Steve Wozniak co-founder of Apple Inc with Steve jobs. He worked on making the componentes of making home PC's smaller so that they would appeal to a wire range of market after the release of their first home computer.

A video (story clip) from our first Lecture about Jesus as a cocaine dealer.

Todays lecture comprised of learning about the history of computers dating back to Industrial Revolution with the Luddiets who were opposed to the introduction of knew machines which could possibly take away their work and so would sabbotage them. In the late 1930's Britain and Germany started forming ideas that machines could do lafrge computing of numbers.

The 1960's saw the introduction of the transistor which in all means micromanages ellectrictiy which is now used in all computers because of the small size and its ability to handle large flows of electricity to a microchip.

In 1965 Gordon Moore wrote a paper stating that the computing power and capasity of microchips would double every 18 months and so far this has been true.