On un-scene stories, far far away

ds106 assignment on Un-scene Stories; writing about a minor character in a movie or TV series before or after the scene in which they appeared.

Going off the given example of Star Wars (and trying to stick to something everyone would have a clue about), let's talk about Episode IV's A New Hope.

Movie: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Scene: These are not the droids you're looking for. After.
Character: The Force-influenced Stormtrooper.

So if you watch the scene you'll notice that it seems only the main "head" stormtrooper was brainwashed by Obi-wan, although the others probably kept quiet because he was the one in charge (evidenced by the guy's brown shoulder pad).

After the scene cuts however, word spreads among the other stormtroopers during break about their commander's strange behaviour.

"Don't you think those folks in the hovercraft were kind of suspicious?" goes one stormtrooper.

"Yea I know right? They had droids and everything!" agrees another. "And don't you think the conversation that old guy had with the commander was a little strange?"

"Definitely. I thought so too. Reminds me of a story I heard from one of the old guys a couple years ago. Spoke of a group of weird monk-people, Jedi I think he called them. Said that they had special powers and stuff. Do things like control your mind."

"Whoa Bob, that's messed up. Could you imagine if that were true? I mean, they could totally abuse that power to do all kinds of stuff! Steal credits, secrets, .."

"Or..get past a security blockade?"

And all the stormtroopers turned silent in an instant...

A week later the former commander of Stormtrooper Unit 13 sat in a dingy, badly-lit cell awaiting personal interrogation by the man known as Lord Vader. He had never seen the man personally himself, not many people do and under normal circumstances he would have been overjoyed at the honour of meeting the Emperor's right-hand man in person. But no, on the contrary he was shaking in his shiny, white boots as he imagined the horrors of what lay in store for himself. This was no courtesy call, it was an interrogation, and according to the stories he had heard of Lord Vader's "interrogations", not many people survive the life-changing experience...

UPDATE: Original illustration based on a photograph by Gary Sheriston. Illustration inspired by comments below, and made by...

1. ...first placing a new layer in Photoshop on top of the photograph.
2. Turned opacity (top of the Layers window) of the drawing layer down to have a translucent effect through to the photo.
3. "Traced" the main Vader and stormtrooper figures while simplifying their colours and shapes, sort of like the "silhouette" technique here, but just a bit more detailed.
4. Multiplied the stormtrooper figure to have a crowd.
5. Added original background (looks complicated but look closer it's just simple shapes) and text to finish.

On practical activities (mid-term submission)

So I'm here today to talk to you about one of the categorical assignments provided on ds106, and for the sake of choosing a specific category let's say I choose...oh "Visual assignments". So let's talk.

First of all there is the question of importance. Why is the visual category (in my opinion at least) one of the most popular and engaging portions of the ds106 site? Simply put, it's the simple attraction to..well, the visual. A picture paints a thousand words as the saying goes and you don't need to make something visually accomplished or attractive to have it resonate with a large audience (case in point).

Another layer added to this of course is the fact that many if not all of the assignments under the visual category have some clear relation to modern pop culture, and this definitely helps. Allow me to explain: When you tap into an aspect of pop culture what you're doing is basically tapping into an established brand, an image, with a certain audience that goes along as par for the course. You get free fans, as is the case when someone posts, say, a YouTube video on a SpongeBob SquarePants dance and gets over 4 and a half million views despite having no official relation to the cartoon series:

The same thing is happening when others evaluate editorial cartoons, as this guy Trevor Ross does in his blog on a couple of cartoons which also use the SpongeBob character. As Trevor says:

Cultural resonance: Both cartoons use pop culture icons because they use SpongeBob, which is a pop culture icon.  His character is used as a symbol, and both cartoons speak to a broad audience.

Note his points on cultural resonance and speaking to a broad audience. This is exactly the thing we're talking about (or, I'm talking about). People already like the thing you're referencing, so you get more people while doing less work. What a concept huh?

Image: Egads! by libraryman through CC Licensing 

To tie this back into the ds106 visual assignments though, I would say that this is precisely why many of the assignments are in some way related to or reference modern pop culture, as is the case here. There is at once a sense of recognition when I look at the assignment, and immediately see references to both Harry Potter and Star Wars. I feel more like doing this assignment if I see these references, and I think you would too, be it because of nostalgia or the desire to go along with what's "hip and trendy" at the time. This is pop culture after all, and incidentally while not of a visual nature, this also happens to be the concept behind my "1 Quote a Day" initiative on Twitter.

Join me?

Image: "Come with me if you want to live..." by cango_uk through CC Licensing

On mid-terms

Hi guys. So we have mid-terms tomorrow and I thought I'd share my answers for the questions provided. Please have a look, and if you spot any errors lemme know (in particular some answers are marked "check" and I'm not quite sure of those). Bon appetit:

MCQ (15 questions; 10 from below, 5 unannounced. 2 points each for total of 30 points)

·        What was Napster and when was it launched? Peer to peer file sharing site (focused on audio files); started in 1999.
·        Where did he come up with the name Project Xanadu? Place name in Mongolia. Taken from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kublai Khan".
·        The first real network to run on packet switching technology: Arpanet.
·        What was the very first webpage about? Information on the WWW Project.
·        What is the first webmail service launched in 1996? Hotmail (but not the first ONE OF the first).
·        Which year was As We May Think released in the Atlantic Monthly? July 1945.
·        What is the popular file format to share songs and albums via the Internet? Mp3.
·        When was Wikipedia launched? 2001.
·        Facebook’s original name and target in 2004? The Facebook; Harvard students.
·        What is the Twitter Fail Whale? The image (character) displayed when Twitter experiences an outage or error.
·        What is Derp? A meme used to indicate something silly, dumb or stupid.
·        What does www stand for? World wide web.
·        Besides the mouse, what other devices did Engelbert consider for interfacing with the computer? Touchscreens and light pens.
·        Tim-Berners Lee created the www. True or False? True (with Robert Cailliau).
·        Does flickr allow you to upload photos from your phone? Yes.
·        Name 3 things Engelbart invented. Mouse, shared-screen teleconferencing, windows (more available).
·        Who coined terms such as hypertext and hypermedia? Ted Nelson.
·        When was the first computer mouse prototype released? 1963.
·        Mentally compare and contrast Facebook and Twitter and give 1 example of a difference. (open question; own opinion supported by evidence)
·        If the hashtag number for Daily Shoot is 665, how would you tag this to Twitter? @dailyshoot #ds665 (optional: Photo description) shortened link to photo.
·        When was the year that brought the first unsolicited commercial email message (spam)? 1978.
·        You can message someone on Twitter by putting what before their username? @.
·        Who created the idea of the Memex? Vannevar Bush.
·        Which is the first modern emoticon in 1982? X-).
·        In 1971 Ray Tomlinson first developed what? Email on Arpanet.
·        Google went live in which year? 1997 (domain name registered. Check).
·        Who had the first video conference? Doug Engelbart (check).
·        What does NLS mean? oN-Line System.
·        Who allegedly claimed to have invented the Internet but obviously didn’t? Me (bad question; anyone known is technically a right answer).
·        Who designed the first automatic computing engine? Alan Turing.
·        Which words make up the name Memex? Memory and Index.
·        Ted Nelson’s first attempt (Project Xanadu) on implementation began and was successfully released to the world in 1960. True or False? False.
·        Anyone can suggest their idea for Daily Shoot assignments on Daily Shoot. True or False? True (check).
·        What was Twitter originally going to be called? twttr (this is not one of the provided answers; I believe the choices have a typo).
·        What is the top of the Memex? Transparent platen (check).

BLOG POST (20 points):
·        Embed YouTube video via html (not Blogger’s shortcut method).
·        CC licensed (“share alike”) Flickr image with attribution.
·        Link to 3 other related blogs.
·        2 or 3 paragraphs on topic.
·        Topic provided during exam.

Also, it's dangerous to go alone so you can refer to Justin and Rimi's posts on a similar topic. Good luck. :)

I choose you

ds106 assignment on Messing with the MacGuffin.

Pokemon. Serious business.

UPDATE: Gonna talk a bit on my process here. So I was looking around ds106 for interesting assignments and I was attracted to this particular one because of a very interesting earlier submission.

One of the reasons I figured the thing worked though, was because it specifically drew on a movie that was really popular and that virtually "everyone" would recognise; the laugh is not only in putting new lines on pictures but also about having the original mood of the scene juxtaposed with your new work in the viewer's head.

It's with these concerns in mind that I worked on my own submission for the assignment, firstly looking through most of the past submissions to see what well-known franchises were already covered and trying to do something that had not (The Matrix). While looking through Google images for an appropriate picture I managed to stumble upon the one above, which I thought evoked enough of the "I know what this is from!" vibe while at the same time being ambiguous and strongly emotive enough to reappropriate.

Ironically with another well-known franchise: Pokemon. :P

On triple trolling

ds106's Triple Troll Attack assignment.

Photo: Ronald McDonald
Quote: KFC
Signature: Burger King

So. Who's up for some pizza?

UPDATE: A little bit on my thought processes for this work. So basically one of the key elements that makes for an interesting submission here I think, draws from the fact that you're trying to relate the 3 photo, quote and signature elements together somehow with something that draws them all together. Thinking about it though it's most effective when that connection becomes quite obvious and not too "loose" as to seem arbitrary, which is what IAmOdessa does in a submission that is quite different thematically, but which shares the same concerns, I think.

In this way the draw for my work above, or so I hope, is that one is able to laugh just a little harder seeing not only the disparate elements put together, but simultaneously how they jar with each other in terms of the accepted differences between various fast food chains.

On 4 icons

My 4 Icon Challenge submission for ds106.
What movie???

...

Aaand the answer:

Here's the How:

1. Think of 4 images/concepts as per the assignment (in this case a visual "X", "Man", a Nazi swastika referencing WWII, and a mushroom cloud to reference the clash between the main characters Professor X and Magneto).
2. Search for suitable images on Google images (keywords "male toilet sign", "nazi swatika", "mushroom cloud"; the "X" was made easily enough :P). Images provided below.
3. Put images together on Photoshop (but any image editing software will do).
4. On Photoshop, just for style, turn all images into silhouettes. Alternatively people can just add the word "silhouettes" to their Google image search to find more suitable images that do not require editing.
5. Submit. :D

Images from Google image search.

The planet

A second take on minimalist travel posters, this time based on The Planet of the Apes, because I occasionally check Apple Trailers and the new entry in the series keeps popping up.

Here's the how-to:

1. First, think of a location that would have sufficient cultural recognition and that can be simplified into a minimalistic image. Little point (or at least less) in referencing something that no one can recognise. For me, I found it easier to work off of sci-fi or fantasy movies for this purpose, probably because these movies also have to introduce you to the fictional locale the stuff takes place in, on top of telling the story as was the case here, or so I would think. Doesn't mean you have to go sci-fi/fantasy, but it probably makes your job easier.
2. Tagline brainstorming. This was just to accent the poster and is totally unnecessary, but I think it helps make the poster both memorable and possibly funny.
3. Searching for appropriate reference images on Google image search ("earth" and "gorillas" in this case).
4. Drawing out the silhouettes on Photoshop. You don't need 1337 skillz for this. Basically what you wanna do is copy a photo of something from Google etc., open up Photoshop, create a new layer above your copied image and using the brush tool paint over your desired object. It's basically tracing (colouring in the lines) and requires no real drawing skill. This only works for silhouettes though. :P
5. Making random small circles for stars. Like, seriously. All the background portion is is different-sized circles and a gradient. Minimalist is the word. :D
6. Doing a free fonts search for Planet of the Apes :P. Found. Installed on computer and tweaked a little. If you need help on installing fonts I've got a little walkthrough here.
7. Submit. :D Click. Button. On your mouse, use your finger and click the lef-..okay just kidding :P I'm sure we've got that part covered. Right? RIGHT??