Sburke42's Blog

Final Project: Author’s Statement and Analysis/Reflection May 14, 2010

Our South Park/Facebook Mashup

Authors Statement

I think our final project piece turned out very well.  I think it effectively combined digital networked media with mashup aspects while telling a digital story.  It also used as well as criticized emerging digital networked tools.

Facebook has become synonymous with the relationships that we have with other people.  You write on your closest friend’s walls and comment on their pictures.  It also creates pseudo-relationships between people that would not otherwise have them.  I say ‘pseudo’ because these relationships are based solely on the interaction that you have time for in your online social life.  As Danah Boyd says, “Social networks provide valuable insight into people’s practices and interactions, but they do not confer meaning…I would love to find the strangers that I regularly share space with as I traverse Boston. But we cannot assume that these are my friends or acquaintances. Yet, there seems to be a tendency to overlay meaning-laden terms on top of these networks, to assume that high connectivity means friendship.”  This is one aspect that we were trying to show in our video.  Some of the relationships that you make on Facebook are not even real, physical relationships, yet we apply meaning to them as if they are just as important.  Most people would not share their own, personal space with a complete stranger, yet that is exactly what many of us do on Facebook and other online social networking places.  In our video, Stan is stopped on the street by a man whose friend request he denied.  When asked why this was, he replied that he did not know him.  This is the response that you would think most people would have in this situation but that is not always the case on-line.

We also wanted to show the immersion aspect of Facebook and other social networking devices.  I myself have been immersed in the world of Facebook and let it distract me from things occurring in my immediate, physical world.  I have even gotten involved in and spent hours playing stupid Facebook games that don’t even matter (maybe our video made me realize the inanity of these games).  This is one of the points where the virtual and physical worlds meet.  Jane McGonial discusses this when she says, “The increasing convergence and mobility of digital network technologies have given rise to new, massively-scaled modes of social interaction where the physical and virtual worlds meet.”  I hope our video, much like the original South Park episode, can convey the meaninglessness of some parts of this virtual world and put some things in perspective.

I hope that you enjoy our South Park/Facebook mashup and can take away some new ideas about social networking.

Analysis and Reflection

There have been numerous songs made about social networks.  Some of these are meant to make fun of and criticize the importance of social networking like Rhett and Link’s Facebook Song, but some of these are real songs that show how much this aspect of their social life means to them.  I may not be able to understand what they are saying in this song, but it is obviously about Facebook and obviously serious on some level.  It also shows how universal social networking can be.  We wanted to use a song that discussed specific things that can and do occur in the world of Facebook.  The song we used, Facebook by Kle Shay featuring Ryan Andrew and Basil Amer, uses the beat of a popular rap song while talking about aspects of Facebook.  This song is a mix of serious Facebook use and making fun of it.  The song is about a guy asking a girl to get on Facebook so he can talk to her with the main chorus line, “Why don’t you get on Facebook?”  In the South Park episode the we took from, the characters are trying to convince Stan to get a Facbook and become immersed in that world.

There is also a part in our video where Cartman is impersonating Jim Cramer from the Mad Money show.  Where Jim Cramer guides you through Wall Street to help you make money, Cartman guides you through Facebook so that you can have the most Facebook value which is friends.  This is a funny spoof and effectively shows how much importance some people place upon these digital network technologies.  There have been other parodies that have used Mad Money to convey how much importance some people place on things or in an attempt to create fake importance for something, such as in this car dealership commercial.  Also, the technique that Cartman uses to spread his Mad Money-esque show is through a blog in Facebook, another digital media tool that we have used and discussed throughout this semester.

Our video is also similar to my original mashup video that I did for Participatory Cultures.  That is because this South Park mashup also uses a song in the background with different video.  Also, both videos use songs that talk about, describe, and feature a specific thing (vehicles and wheels for my original mashup and Facebook for this one).  We also tried to use one of the same techniques in both videos when we made the video lip sync the song at some parts.  This was also easier than in my first video because lip syncing to cartoons works much better than to real people.  However it is also different from my original mashup because we did leave a couple of the original audio tracks from the South Park episode in the video.  For my first mashup, it was effective to leave all of the rap video’s audio out of the track, but for this project, having a couple of the original video’s audio added to the overall idea that the project was trying to convey.

Digital Story- Tibia Machinima May 13, 2010

My Digital Story involved making a machinima by screen capturing footage from the MMORPG Tibia.  I used to play this game when I was younger so I was already familiar with the concepts and constructs of the game.  There were many parts of the video that I wanted to employ.  Some of these were normal things that you would do in the regular process of playing the game.  However, these became even more interesting since I could add commentary to them.  The rest were things that could only be added in using video and audio editing.  These things like the drug trip and prostituting were also the most fun parts of the video to work on.  This was because it was fun and interesting to do things outside the normal use of the game and put in scenes and ideas that were not even actually possible.  These parts were very similar to the “My Trip to Liberty City” video that we watched in class.

One of the fun things about MMORPG’s is the interaction with other people and other characters.  I was able to use some people in the video without them even knowing it (some may have even been solicited by me as a hooker).  I also did not have control over all aspects of the game so some scenes took very long to create the setting I wanted to and end up with a scene that worked well for the overall video.

Originally, I thought that I would have to use successive screenshots with audio overlaid, but I was able to find a simple (and more importantly, free) screen capture software for Windows, AviScreen Pro.  I had to take some time to learn how this program worked, but eventually got the hang of it.  Screen capturing rather than many screen shots also made the project a lot easier and I think it works a lot better than my original plan would have.  The game of Tibia is also a pretty simple MMORPG which also helped me.

I think this project effectively made something new using emerging digital networked tools.  I think the project was also pretty creative outside of the normal constructs of Tibia.  I also hope that maybe even just a few of the scenes can get a laugh out of viewers.  Games are designed to be played a certain way, but it is when people get creative in these games that I think a lot of fun can occur.  I actually had fun making this project and am pretty happy with how it turned out.  Enjoy!

Sidewinder Part 8…good thing this isnt getting weird.. May 10, 2010

Part VII

“Damn it, Wilde!”, shouted Sidewinder.  “How are we ever going to stop Weishaupt if you keep fucking around?!”  Sidewinder stepped forward in front of Wilde and before he could even open his mouth to argue, Sidewinder  grabbed a steam powered rifle and shot Wilde right between the eyes, killing him instantly.  “What the hell!”, exclaimed the other heroes, as they were splattered with Wilde’s brain matter.  “Relax”, said Sidewinder, “thats not even the real Wilde anyways.  Its just one of my damn clones.  And Ive been waiting to do THAT for a long time anyways!”.  “Well this seems to put a damper on our relationship, doesnt it Sidewinder?”, said the real Wilde as he stepped from inside the zeppelin onto the deck.  “Not hardly, Wilde.  I’d say you have killed me a dozen times or so when I’ve read your ‘novels’”, said Sidewinder.  “But this is no time for sword measuring.  We have got to get to 1776 somehow!”

The heros then looked at each other in unison, and without saying a word, they knew what had to be done.
________________

Our heroes walked up the hill to Mount Vernon with determined looks.  How they had gotten here was not important.  What was important is what they had to do next.  Sidewinder threw open the door to Mount Vernon and our heros gasped as they realized it was too late.  Weishaupt was standing in front of them holding George Washington’s head in one hand and the very same axe that Washington used to chop down that cherry tree in his other hand.  “It seems that he could tell no lie”, said Weishaupt for dramatic effect even though it didn’t seem to make much sense in this context.

“You bastard!”, our heroes exclaimed.  “You will pay for this!”  “But how?” queried Weishaupt.  “Ive already killed the one man that your country had a chance of rallying around.  And now I will be the first president of the United States and as my first official decree:  You all will die!”

Part XI

April 23, 2010

Mashup Project

I was pretty happy with my finished project and happy that it came together like it did, but i still see changes that I could make.  Some transitions are a little choppy but its hard to fix these at times because of the other timings in the video.  I had also hoped to do a lot more scenes where it looks like the rapper is lipsyncing the song lyrics but this turned out to be a LOT harder than I had anticipated.  Another difficult aspect was finding rap clips that were at night which was surprising.  Since the chorus talks about that a lot, I thought it might look stupid if the clips shown there were during the day.

As I said I am pretty happy with this project and glad that it turned out like it did because I think it is an interesting way to look at country and rap music.  Many people dont think to compare these at all because of how different they are, but this video is a great example of the similarities that they have.  Even though both songs talked about completely different aspects of vehicles, they were easily put together to look like the same thing.  Since these communities are so different and even seem opposite of each other sometimes, it doesnt seem like they could coexist but some people like me can and do enjoy both genres.

FUN…the wonder that is Bali Pong. April 7, 2010

Bali Rodriguez

Going along with and continuing our class discussion of fun, I introduce to you, Bali Pong.  What is this mysterious and mystical game?  Well friends, it is a game based in the ping pong universe.

So what if it was drunkenly created at 3:24 in the morning?  So what if it got its name from the smokin hott poster of Bali Rodriguez?  Its fun not only because it is based on ping pong, which I already enjoy, but because it takes the game to a whole ‘nother level.  There are more rules and cooler things can happen.  Typically, more rules mean that a game is more limited and sometimes less fun, but these rules allow for more things to happen.  The main rule that it has is if the ball hits the poster that is in the middle of the table, equal on both sides, then you have as many bounces as you want to play it to your opponents side.  Besides this, you can also play off walls, block shots, and their are even some certain score rules (Ex.- Score is 9-11, salute America).

Its also a lot of fun because my roommates and I created it, so we create the rules.  This also lends some exclusivity to the game as well, because even good ping pong players aren’t very good at Bali Pong..at first.  We even call the front room with the ping pong table in it, the “Bali Room”.  Countless laughs, injuries, and even a few plays that could have made it on SportCenter’s Top 10 have occured.

Thats fun…

Capt. Sidewinder continues.. March 31, 2010

Part III

As Henry, Jules, and Alex embarked on their journey to the center of the earth, I mean Mark Twain’s underwater steam powered laboratory, an eerie silence fell over the three men.  Where were Twain’s trained fish and dolphins that usually came to inspect newcomers?  Bell quickly pulled out his steam powered rotary phone and called Twain’s lab.  “No answer”, he said solemnly.  “How far away are we, Jules?”.  “Just about 20,000 leagues, I’d say”, said Verne with a smirk as Henry and Alex rolled their eyes in unison.

As they approached the lab they could see that it was still smoldering.  They were at first confused as to how a place could be smoldering underwater, until they got closer and realized that it was covered in lava.  “It seems that Weishaupt beat us here”, said Billy.  “Lets go back and report to Sidewinder before he leaves our time.

Sidewinder’s ginormous zeppelin still loomed outside his temporary headquarters in Manchester and the three men hoped that they weren’t to late to catch the other two..

Part V

My Experience with IF: Adventure and Shade March 10, 2010

When we learned about and discussed interactive fiction in class, Adventure was the first one I had ever played.  Because of this and my limited knowledge on interactive fiction, I had to read to help pages and FAQs to get my bearings down for this kind of media.  These were mostly things like learning commands like “look”, “pick up”, “turn on”, and so on.  I also found that you have to use navigational commands to move locations like “east” or “west”.  I eventually got the hang of this thing (kinda) and started to traverse the world of Adventure.  I then finally found out that there were even short commands for the IF like just “e” for east and I found myself traversing the countryside of forests and valleys with just the touch of a single button..what power!!  But alas, my fascination with this was soon ended after I fell down a dark pit and died.  I was reincarnated but it just wasnt the same after that.
With Shade, I thought the whole thing would be much easier.  No valleys or forests to explore.  Just this tiny apartment area.  However I found this was not the case.  After a good 30 minutes of looking where I thought was everywhere for those damn tickets, I couldn’t take anymore.  Just when I was about to quit, I looked in the closet one more time and when I looked inside the jacket…there they are!  Success! Now I can continue, right?
Wrong.  After this meaningless search for the tickets, I thought I would finally have some kind of motivation of purpose for my interactive fictional life, but no..i was unfulfilled.

This was when I discovered that IF just wasnt for me.  Not to say that its not for everybody.  In the middle of class, I looked over at JoDee’s screen and what is she doing? Playing Adventure.  Replying to my puzzled look she said, “I just cant get enough of this stuff now!”

Collaborative Narrative continues..somehow. March 9, 2010

Previously..

“I see you have met MY new trusty sidekick.”  Mrs. Jones looked puzzled, but then her fears were cemented when Brett let out a cackle as he walked to stand beside Ocheltree.  “Brett, how could you?!?”, Mrs. Jones exclaimed, “after all these years”.  “You know why!”, snarled Brett.  “I cracked after your class. All those damn blog posts and that horrendous collaborative effort narrative. You know what a mess that turned into!”.  Brett was steaming now and had to be calmed by Ocheltree.  Gary then turned to Mrs. Jones and said, “You obviously have no idea whats going on here, do you?”.
(he might as well have said this to the readers of this story..)

Next Time on Collaborative Effort Narrative!..

Shirky’s College from Scratch February 24, 2010

Shirky’s College from Scratch

Clay Shirky’s idea was to (through Twitter) ask how to build a college from scratch and the end result was the above link.  Can you really build a college from scratch? Or is this an oversimplification?

Higher education is a huge industry in America with many facets.  More so than just the education it gives, college is a business.  This business grows every year and has millions of employees with billions of dollars.  As a student and as a part of higher education, I see these institutions as more than what is just presented on this wiki.

However, even as an oversimplification this “college from scatch” is a good starting point as well as a great example of a collaborative effort.

The Story Continues… February 23, 2010

Previous

“Its…Its…David”, her father gasped, barely able to speak.  How could this be? After what had happened so long ago, this couldn’t be true.  The vision of the last time she had seen her brother flashed in her mind.  She could see his mangled body laying below her mother’s rigid figure on the operating table.  But now he looked so new, so different..

Next!