Hunter Nolan’s Final Portfolio

Final Project:

This video demonstrates the various uses of media and also comments on the anonymity of the internet and games.  It also comments on the different personas that the anonymity can harbor.  Subconsciously or consciously, most people are different on facebook then in person or on a forum or in a MMORPG.  It also shows how media and technology can never replace some things (i.e the actual thrill of snowboarding or attending a football game, or better yet, playing in a football game).

Gaming Video:

DDR mash-up.  Sometimes games aren’t as cool as  you think!  I found out the hard way…

Remix Video:

They seem so much more corny out of context!

Podcast:

Hannah and my podcast…thank god she is talking over my singing.

Paper Project:

Here’s the view of our giant fortune-teller from the outside.  We thought the spiral would add some pizazz.  As you can see below, we really wanted to play up paper’s potential for size, tactility, and three-dimensionality, so that was our main tack in making a giant version of something we used to all make in grade school.

Here’s the view when you flip it over, and unfold it to show the exterior of all the flaps: “The possibilities for manipulation of paper are endless.”

Here’s the first flap.  We tried to demonstrate all the various things you can do with pencil and pen.  The sentences around the edges read: “Pencil can be erased, and pen can always be crossed out.  Your reservoir of fonts is limited only by your imagination.  With graphite or ink, one can smudge, bleed, and perform other distortions.  Writing “freehand”, one is not constrained by lines.”

Next up, we used printouts to examine things from a slightly different perspective.  It reads “Comp. screens have: Limited space, limited fonts, limited texture, limited senses, limited manipulation, limited possibilities!”  Plus, I had to pay to print that page off, so that sucks.  Then, next to some beautifully handpainted trees, we have a picture of trees with the text superimposed: “But nowadays, it’s a frequent concern that paper draws heavily on our natural resources.”

Next up, my personal favorite.  We wanted to further demonstrate paper’s potential for dimensionality, so we said “paper can be cut through”, and we cut through it.  We glued some newsprint behind to make it look cool, and some creepy guy’s face ended up lurking right underneath the “U”.  Then, it says “Or, [paper] can POP UP!”  I’ll let the picture speak for itself.  It’s pretty friggin sweet.

Our last flap showed how paper can engage the other senses.  It’s hard to translate to the nets (obvi), but it says “with some writing utensils, you can even SMELL [which we wrote with smell expo marker] and FEEL [which is painted on in a super-chunky way]“.

Look at that texture!

There you have it!  We’ve done the impossible: translated a project meant only for paper to a blog post.

Self Evaluation:

Well it goes without saying that my blog and twitter participation has been less than ideal.  I had a fairly strong start the first half, but by the end I really died off.  I’m going to do a couple throughout the rest of the finals week because I’m pretty much done now and finally have some time.  Other than the weak performance in blogging and twittering, I think I have contributed a great deal to the discussions and labs in class and I think I showed a real interest in the topics.  I only missed two days of class the entire semester and emailed you in advance with a legitimate reason both times, and I played an active role in class all of the other days.  Pretty easy to do with such a great class (with the exception of Mark Whalen of course)!  I think my final portfolio showcases some very creative, complex, and critical works, and think they boast of some quality time, effort, and talent put into them.  All in all, I thought it was a fun and informative class, and I think I was interested, engaged, energetic, and with the exception of my weak performance in the blogging and twittering, I think I succeeded pretty well in the course.  Thanks for a great semester, professor, and thanks for making me a The Wire addict!

Final Project Remix video:

Due to an incredible serie of problems (software that did not work, problems of files’ compatibility) I had to give up my project on the virtual self. Instead, I propose a remix video- a medium that I find really interesting. Indeed, video images working with a specific soundtrack are a powerful mean to convey emotion. Music manages to instantly create a mood and its capacity to add another dimension to images is amazing. The video comes from the movie “The Fall”, I made this choice because of their incredible esthetic quality. The song is from the french electro band “Bonobo” that is famous for the etherial feeling you get while listening to their music. I find the match quite relevant and that is why I hope the remix works.

video game project:

http://sites.middlebury.edu/glmediatech/

remix video:

Mad Men Remix

Audio project:

audio project

Paper project:

The class format was ideal to participate during the discussions. I think that the points I made during the discussions aimed at bringing material for the debates.

I consider my blog’s participation as unsatisfactory as well as twitter’s because I never managed to integrate these activities in my everyday life. Also I think I did not match with the original format of this class that is to actively use these technologies in which I am interested to understand but I do not know how to make a good use of them. Overall, Middlebury’s emphasis on participation has always been a problem to me as I am not used to get involved at home institutions and it is not something primordial neither back there.

Nevertheless, I have learnt a good deal about new medias and the way they influence our lives and the projects were refreshing assignments I enjoyed doing. I think my projects always tried to work on the core of the subject, that is to say the medium in itself used for the project.

Paper Project: Paper Facebook–  For the paper project, we tried to examine some of the properties of paper, and see how those properties fit into other forms of media.  We created a paper facebook as a means of highlighting the characteristics that paper has by showing how they apply to universally used online medium.  The paper facebook had limited space, the changes were often times permanent, and it existed only in one place.

Podcast Project: Emotions and Sounds of the Beach–  For the podcast project, we wanted to look at the different uses of sound and their effects on human emotions.  We had the same audio track describing a day at the beach played twice.  For the two different read-throughs, a different soundtrack was added to the background.  The project illustrates that a completely different message and emotional response can be evoked from different audio stimulations as was illustrated by the two soundtracks.

Remix Project: Movie Title!– A compilation of movie titles quoted in the actual movie.  This project acted as a means of getting inside the heads of the web “geeks” who compile lots of clips in order to make their fan videos.  By using a variety of different film clips we were able to illustrate both how easy it is for fans to get their hands on large amounts of content to play with, while also simply commentating on films in general and how certain dialogue can seem quite comical or cliche when taken in a certain context.  There is a certain feeling of pride and being in on the joke when you watch the remix video and recognize movies you know.

Gaming Project: DDR In the Real/Gaming World–

For this project we decided to look at the game Dance Dance Revolution.  The game seemed interesting because unlike most video games where you are using just your hands to control play, this game uses your whole body and tries to mimic actual actions from the real world… i.e. dancing.  Another amazing phenomenon of DDR is how it is a very good social and spectator game, where many people enjoy simply watching others play.

The video tries to highlight these two qualities, the way in which the crowd can come into play with DDR and the link between dancing for DDR and dancing in the real world and how they are different.

Final Project: Fictonal ARG for ‘Lost’–  For this final project, we tried to illustrate what goes on with an ARG (alternate reality game).  Using the TV show ‘Lost’ which already has its own ARG, we created an online scavenger hunt that would promise “players” additional story lines to go with the show and the potential for easter eggs of information.

In the fictional ARG we had players go across several online media including twitter, gmail, youtube, and various blog/news sources.  In the end, after searching these blog/news sources, following a twitter account closely, and using corresponding emails that lead to a youtube video, the player only gets a one minute long video with little information.  This is a commentary on how alternate reality games can only go so far in terms of linking to the actual story of the original show.  It also points out how time consuming an ARG can be for such a little reward.

For this particular project, most of the work ended up being the actual creation of the ARG.  The final video which demonstrates how it would be played (in fast motion), does not necessarily demonstrate how much time and energy it might take to actually to play the ARG let alone be an actual creator of one.

Self Evaluation- I enjoyed this class very much and feel like I was an active participant both in group discussions and group projects.  The one area where I feel like I should have been more participatory was in my blogging.  While I tried to be an active blogger, and often times wrote about programs/games/videos etc. that we used and discussed in class, I did not meet the requirement of three blogs a week.  I am not exactly sure why this happened.  I suppose I felt (and still feel) a certain amount of insecurity in terms of my online voice.  I still feel as if what I am saying cannot possibly be that insightful or interesting and therefore to publish it on the web for anyone to see seems foolish.  While I felt confident enough to blog about things we discussed in class, often times bringing up my own topics and blabbing about it was difficult.  I did end up using twitter a fair amount by the end of the semester.  I was totally against twitter at the beginning of the class but am now a changed man.  The balance I had trouble with on twitter, was knowing that both the class (and Prof. Mittell) and my friends outside of class would be reading my tweets.  I was embarrassed to put things too personal/casual that my professor might read, but also embarrassed to put media-tech stuff that my social friends might read.  Despite this, I have become a twitterer and continue to tweet via apps on my phone and computer.

All and all I had a very positive experience in the course, and hope that I was able to bring some insight and experience to the table in terms of our discussions and projects.

Project #1 – Paper

Here’s the view of our giant fortune-teller from the outside.  We thought the spiral would add some pizazz.  As you can see below, we really wanted to play up paper’s potential for size, tactility, and three-dimensionality, so that was our main tack in making a giant version of something we used to all make in grade school.

Here’s the view when you flip it over, and unfold it to show the exterior of all the flaps: “The possibilities for manipulation of paper are endless.”

Here’s the first flap.  We tried to demonstrate all the various things you can do with pencil and pen.  The sentences around the edges read: “Pencil can be erased, and pen can always be crossed out.  Your reservoir of fonts is limited only by your imagination.  With graphite or ink, one can smudge, bleed, and perform other distortions.  Writing “freehand”, one is not constrained by lines.”

Next up, we used printouts to examine things from a slightly different perspective.  It reads “Comp. screens have: Limited space, limited fonts, limited texture, limited senses, limited manipulation, limited possibilities!”  Plus, I had to pay to print that page off, so that sucks.  Then, next to some beautifully handpainted trees, we have a picture of trees with the text superimposed: “But nowadays, it’s a frequent concern that paper draws heavily on our natural resources.”

Next up, my personal favorite.  We wanted to further demonstrate paper’s potential for dimensionality, so we said “paper can be cut through”, and we cut through it.  We glued some newsprint behind to make it look cool, and some creepy guy’s face ended up lurking right underneath the “U”.  Then, it says “Or, [paper] can POP UP!”  I’ll let the picture speak for itself.  It’s pretty friggin sweet.

Our last flap showed how paper can engage the other senses.  It’s hard to translate to the nets (obvi), but it says “with some writing utensils, you can even SMELL [which we wrote with smell expo marker] and FEEL [which is painted on in a super-chunky way]“.

Look at that texture!

There you have it!  We’ve done the impossible: translated a project meant only for paper to a blog post.  Actually it wasn’t that hard.

Project #2 – Podcast

We discuss the possibilities for amateur music recording through the context of a song that Patti’s been working on.  Enjoy!

Disclaimer: When working through the vocal process with her friend Aubrey, technical difficulties prevented Patti from recording her vocals with the effect we most commonly think of as “Auto-Tune”; instead, a less conspicuous form of pitch correction was used.  But we just really wanted to talk about Auto-Tune!  The Lesson: Though these technologies may be easily accessible to a much wider swath of people than before, there is simply still the obstacle of the knowledge needed to operate software which can often be quite complicated.

Project #3 – Remix Video

Hannah and I made an example of a remix video to show how documentary films strongly rely on the use of pre-existing footage, to tell a story. In addition to this type of remix, we told the story of how YouTube allows new stars to be born, by using footage strictly from YouTube.

The first story is of Justin Bieber, one of the newest singing crazes, topping the charts and number of YouTube views. He got his big break when Usher and Justin Timberlake found his videos on Youtube. The videos he originally posted were of his performances in singing competitions so that friends and family members could watch them.

The second story is of Tay Zonday, singer/songwriter of “Chocolate Rain.” His story is an example of how not only is talent found on YouTube, but people seem to be attracted to whatever is WEIRDEST, which gives birth to a very unusual “star.” Other YouTube users made Tay and “Chocolate Rain” famous by creating their own renditions of the song. Check it all out in our remix documentary.

Project #4 – Gaming

I don’t want to preface this too much, but what I’m trying to show in this video is how, though The Sims 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV are similar in that they are ‘open and expressive’, they portray fundamentally different vision of ‘success’ and ‘the American Dream’.  I tried to bring out the humor in this.

Project #5 – Final Project

Mark and I made our own pseudo-alternate reality gaming based on Lost, much like the Lost Experience ARG that went down a few years ago.  But really what we created is a screen capture video simulating the experience of playing an alternate reality game, because to really experience one of these games is a process that is spread out over time, and we thought this was the best way to succinctly show how a ‘game’ like this can function, and all the different online venues through which this can occur.

WOW!  What a semester it has been.  I have learned a lot about the internet, gaming, computers in general, the infrastructure of our network, blogging, tweeting, podcasting, remixing, mashing, and EVERYTHING in between!

http://sites.middlebury.edu/littleepstein/2010/03/10/paper-project/

Starting with my first project, the Paper Project (makes sense that we began with it since we progressed through technology from there on out) I saw the limitations and also the possibilities that paper brings to the table.  I had a great time working with Hannah and Guillaume and produced the project that I am very.  From the creation of the tangible design to the folding to reveal new characteristics of it, we really utilized the medium to come up with a great final product.  It is funny because it is easy to share all of the other projects since they are on the internet but not this one!  In terms of making changes, I really think that I would keep it the exact same.  We got our point across well and were able to create something that we all felt good about.

http://sites.middlebury.edu/huehunter/2010/03/08/audio-projekt/

What came next was the Podcasting project.  I think that Molly and I worked well to try to see what we could do with audio and we came up with a creative idea that showed that.  I wish that we had been able to spend a little bit more time adding some subtle commentary to it but I was having a hard time not using Final Cut!  I like the message that it sent because it is definitely not something that we use for news broadcasts or presidential speeches as much today.

When Liya and I started the Remix Video, we weren’t exactly sure where we were going to go with it.  I had a vision  in my head from the word remix of doing a music video mashup but I quickly realized that I could come up with much better to fit the criteria.  I think that our message comes across but that if we had been able to fin more clips to use in both of the videos in different ways that we could have made our message even more clear to the viewer that didn’t know what the point of the project was.  SO if I were to do it again I think that we would have spent more time on the development of the clips and the overall feeling of the two opposing arguments and what they present.  I am definitely satisfied, but as always know that with more time could have come more precision of our message.

The gaming video that Hannah and I did turned out to be just about exactly what we had envisioned in the beginning.  The whole process of capturing footage and using machinema was very interesting to me and opened up a whole new world of video capture and cinema.  I think that one thing I would have liked to include would have been the character dying at the end and then cutting to me standing up and powering down the console so to show that no matter how into the game you get, it isn’t going to affect real life in the same way.  Otherwise, I am super happy with this product and am glad that we collaborated to make such a fun project!

Last but not least is our final project.  What we were going for here was to show how a person can almost get sucked into the “reality” of video games and digital/online personalities.  Though it is just Shane in his room for most of the time, in his mind he is playing at huge stadiums, jamming at a concert, snowboarding some of the biggest mountains etc.  It is easy to get wrapped up in games and to develop different persona’s as Ian has for example in World of Warcraft.  I think that we communicated it well and that it shows a fair amount of what we have learned about during the semester.  We chose that genre of media specifically because we think that it is pertinent to our lives at the moment and the people who are growing up at the moment as well.  All in all GREAT TIME.

Thank you for sharing your insight with us during the semester Prof Mittell and Joe, I had a great time and am taking a lot away from the class.

Best,

John Hunter Nolan

Paper Project:

Podcast: http://sites.middlebury.edu/huehunter/2010/03/08/audio-projekt/

Video Remix Project:  http://sites.middlebury.edu/mwhelan/2010/03/30/video-remix-movie-title/trackback/

Gaming Project:

Getting Away in GTA: Gaming project

Final Project:

Self evaluation:

What I did well:  I think i kept up with my Twitter a good amount, and got pretty into it.  I’d definitely say I am more of a “follower” than a tweeter, but as the semester went on, I started feeling more and more attached to my Tweetdeck and more and more compelled to tweet interesting stories that came up on it.  I am also happy with my in-class participation and really enjoyed all of the assigned readings.  I felt prepared for each discussion and know that I contributed to each one.  As a senior, it was especially nice to have such engaging assignments and readings.  I also really enjoyed the intimate class environment and the feeling of getting to know the other students in our discussions and through our projects/critiques.  It isn’t always easy to have good chemistry in a small class, but this group really worked well together and I think we all helped each other learn.  I’m really happy to leave Middlebury with the knowledge that this class gave me and am proud to share my opinions in conversations with friends and others about, well, media technology and cultural change.

What I didn’t do so well: BLOGGING! I hated it.  I found it kind of egocentric–why does the world care what I think about a given topic?  They shouldn’t.  I had a really hard time coming up with topics that I felt strongly enough about to write a paragraph or two to post on the internet.  I’m sad about my measly 16 posts, and that they have the potential to bring my grade down.  I really cared about and valued everything else in the class.  I even value the blogging experience, however negative the revelation might be, I did discover that I am not a blogger.  There is just something about live conversations like the ones we had in class that I don’t think can be recreated online.  My other weakness was that I had to miss a couple of classes for interviews, which I regret, but at least they resulted in a job!  And one in advertising to which I am excited apply some of the knowledge I learned from this and my other Mittell/FMMC courses.

Art is imitation

Post of Final Project–a statement on the dichotomy/continuum between creativity and originality in art.

Below are the projects that I worked on over the course of the semester and the final project that was the accumulation of all that we had learned over the course of the semester:

The paper project:

To highlight the differences between paper and digital technology Mark and I decided to make a paper version of Facebook, basically an example of how people used actual message boards before the internet existed. We wanted to show the limitations of paper in terms of space, longevity, and permanence. For example, a paper version of anything is limited in the fact that what you can do is limited by the space of the paper, once the paper is destroyed so is the information that is on it, and when you make a mistake often times there is no choice but to start over on a new sheet.

The podcast project: 

To highlight the way that sound technology is different from other platforms we decided to record a music track using auto tune. By distorting the actual voices into a different one, we were able to show how anyone can be a recording star in this modern age. While the auto tune that we used is not a very extreme one, the message remains the same. The podcast itself also delves deeper into the reasons for why we chose our concept.

Remix video:

A remix video by definition takes images from one context and mashes them into another completely different one. Following along these lines Hunter and I decided to take footage from public service announcements against drunk driving and rearrange them into a commercial that encourages it. By showing how easy it is to take something out of context and create a whole other message we showed why remix videos are so popular today; it is because anyone can do them.

Gaming video:

In our gaming video Patti and I did a mash up video that combined NCAA Football game footage with real life footage. By making a montage out of the footage and setting it to a backdrop of a pump up song we wanted to highlight the incredible realism of the game. With the excitement of all of these components we wanted to capture the excitement of the video game that avid players see every day and express why people find such video games so appealing. By capturing the spirit of a real life football game and interjecting it into the video game, we hoped to show that video game play can be just as exciting as the real thing.

Final project:
Project Website

Throughout this course I felt as though I participated in every aspect of this class. I was a constant contributor to class discussions and kept up steadily with the blogging. I must admit that I did not utilize Twitter as much as I could have, but I did tweet articles that I thought were pertinent to the subjects that we were discussing in class at the time. As far as the projects are concerned I thought that each project succeeded in portraying an idea and message. I am especially proud of the final project, which I think is a good summary of all of the concepts that were discussed during the course of the semester. The final project itself explains all of the ideas and messages that we wished to express, so please explore all the different components of the website.

I recently saw news that they are making a sequel to Clash of the Titans, which was recently released. I don’t know if anyone else saw it, but it was horrible. I usually find mythology movies really interesting story-wise, but this movie was ridiculously bad because basically it had no plot, or character development for that matter. So when I saw that they were making a sequel I couldn’t help but wonder: huh?

Well apparently, the movie ended up grossing $300 million world-wide, and not because it was a good movie, but because it was in 3D and people went to see it for the effects. In fact the release date for the film was delayed so that it could be converted in 3D and so that the theater could charge movie goers the additional $5. In class we discussed the 3D phenomenon and whether or not it was a fad or something that was here to stay. In my opinion this example shows that 3D movies are here to stay: at least for now. The studios have discovered a wonderful gimmick that causes audiences to flock to the movies, even the bad ones. The best thing is that this gimmick also allows the studios to make even more money because they can charge more for these 3D movies, even if they are quickly and shoddily made. The fact of the matter is that those that call the shots only care about one thing: box office performance. Since 3D movies are still proving to perform financially for the studios, they will continue to make them until audiences stop lining up to consume them.

I’ve been sitting here working on final projects that require being connected to the internet, which makes procrastination WAY too easy. I was of course on AIM and facebook periodically, and finally chatted to my friend Sam, “I CANNOT GET ANYTHING DONE!” and he said, “I have your solution. where are you sitting?”

He came to my spot in the library and introduced me to the solution to (half) my problems. The program to download is called “self control.” It is a program that allows you to assign websites to be disabled on your computer. So I typed in www.facebook.com. Then you get to choose how long you want to be blocked for. I chose 30 minutes. Click START, and a timer pops up as a widget on your desktop. You can x out of the widget, close the program, and even delete the download…. your disabled websites will still not work until the time period is up. It’s fantastic!! It’s also really pathetic that I want this to confirm the will power to not go online.

But I’m certainly not the only one who is benefiting from computer-induced self control… walking up and down the aisles of carrels in the library, I think more people have a timer widget on their computer, than not. It’s bad that we’re so addicted to these websites like Facebook. Or maybe it’s not that we’re addicted to the website, but that we’re addicted to procrastinating, and sites like Facebook are the easiest way to access procrastination while sitting at a desk. Lucky for us, we now have synthetic self control available just as easily as procrastination.

synthetic, digital self control. weird.

http://visitsteve.com/work/selfcontrol/

I must admit that I have put Twitter on the backburner because honestly I don’t find it that useful a tool, because I know that the amount of people who read my twitter are infinitely less than the amount of people who I am friends with on Facebook and therefore read my status. Nevertheless, recently I have received a couple of emails notifying me of new people that have started following me on Twitter. These people are strangers and while I understand the one-sided following aspect of Twitter, I don’t really understand why strangers would want to follow me, after all I’ve only tweeted a handful of times.
However, the most interesting group that has decided to follow me is without a doubt Gao International. With a little investigating, I discovered it to be a Twitter page dedicated to following and connecting people with the last name Gao. While I understand that the internet is a place for people to gather, they usually have common interests or something that connects them together. To me it just seems superficial and arbitrary that people would assume that a person would want to get to know someone just because they share the same last name. Anyways, it was something funny that happened this week that I thought I would share.

Last week I had my orientation for my study abroad program. The orientation was in NYC, and I was in vermont. I made my appearance via Skype, which was a weird experience. At first, I chatted one on one with the orientation leader which was completely normal video chatting, like I’d do with a friend to catch up. She saw me, I saw her, we talked. However, once the other students came and settled into the room, she put me up on the projector screen where the powerpoint would later be. I was introduced and said hi to the other kids and they all introduced themselves. This was nice, but then the leader told me she was going to point me toward the classroom so I could see the other kids, but minimize me while they did the powerpoint. This was weird. First of all, I was being minimized. Second, I was like some fly on the wall who could see everyone in the classroom, but they couldn’t see me.

As for the powerpoint, no worries… the leader e-mailed me the file before the meeting started, so I had it pulled up in the corner of my own computer screen so I could follow along. Then when she wanted to show a video, she asked that I watch along on the website, but that I put in headphones so that they wouldn’t hear my audio through the Skype while they were watching it.

I was weirdly nervous to attend the orientation over skype… more so than had I been going in person. Not really sure why. But anyway, it all worked smoothly, and I’m glad I didn’t have a problem “attending” due to my distant geographic location.

Who say’s my generation is the only one obsessed with their portable electronics, and being connected? I called my mom this morning to wish her a happy mother’s day, and the first thing she needed to tell me was that she couldn’t find her cell phone. Her exact words were:

“I can’t find my cell phone… I feel so discombobulated. It’s disturbing. I called the nail salon thinking I left it there – that was gonna be my last hope. And it’s not there. So now I’m really worried. I mean, I haven’t been able to check if I’ve had any texts from you for like 24 hours.”

Now, does that sound any different from how one of us youngins would react? Looks like I’ve dragged my mom down with me…