Here is a link to my song, "10". The picture isn't relevant, I just chose something from iPhoto, and figured this particular LOST photo worked since it has a "10" in "108.00"
oh and here's a link to Chad's song. If tumblr happens to be down, you should be able to find it on his blog here.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Soundscape
You can access my soundscape here. The emotion we had was "Sadness upon finding out the Easter Bunny isn't real"
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Finding Your "Howl"
In his article entitled "Finding Your Howl" Jonathon Flaum tells how one is able to find their own voice, or howl, through two stories. In the one story, Flaum recalls a 5th grade peer who wrote a 10-page short story that served as a commentary on life. In this story, there is a tiger who attempts to escape his cage by jumping out the top. He succeeds, only to find himself in another cage at another zoo. The point Flaum wants us to draw from this is that this situation of imprisonment dwells inside of us and will follow us wherever we go unless we get rid of our old, comfortable life to make room for the new.
Here is an audio clip where I read this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the bes tin others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." and explain why I like it so much. This audio clip hosted on my tumblr which can be found here.
Here is an audio clip where I read this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the bes tin others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." and explain why I like it so much. This audio clip hosted on my tumblr which can be found here.
14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas
I haven't begun to read the article yet, I just wanted to note that I like the quote from Albert Einstein at the top which says "Why is it I always get my best ideas while shaving?" because it is very relevant to my life. Okay, now I'm going to actually read the "14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas" article by Mitch Ditkoff now.
Ditkoff opens the article by describing how business people want to see innovation because they recognize that it'll bring in the money. It then goes on to compare how there are two main thoughts as to where ideas come from: the Western frame of mind emphasizes thought while the Eastern emphasizes feeling. Ditkoff then asserts that both of these claims are legitimate. What comes next, justifies the article's title: a list of 14 methods to aide you in becoming the next Leonardo da Vinci! Since the remainder of the article is in an internet-friendly list format, which is very convenient for those of us who like to switch between browser tabs in an ADHD fashion, despite being midway through an article. So, there's really no need for me to summarize the rest, however I suppose I'll just transcribe a compact list here so my "summary" doesn't just cover the introduction.
Ditkoff opens the article by describing how business people want to see innovation because they recognize that it'll bring in the money. It then goes on to compare how there are two main thoughts as to where ideas come from: the Western frame of mind emphasizes thought while the Eastern emphasizes feeling. Ditkoff then asserts that both of these claims are legitimate. What comes next, justifies the article's title: a list of 14 methods to aide you in becoming the next Leonardo da Vinci! Since the remainder of the article is in an internet-friendly list format, which is very convenient for those of us who like to switch between browser tabs in an ADHD fashion, despite being midway through an article. So, there's really no need for me to summarize the rest, however I suppose I'll just transcribe a compact list here so my "summary" doesn't just cover the introduction.
- Follow Your Fascination
- Immerse
- Tolerate Ambiguity
- Make New Connections
- Fantasize
- Define the Right Challenge
- Listen to your Subconscience
- Take a Break
- Notice and Challenge Existing Patterns and Trends
- Hang Out with Diverse Groups of People
- Brainstorm
- Look for Happy Accidents
- Use Creative Thinking Techniques
- Suspend Logic
Now, I'm going to take a closer look at three of these methods. The very first item on the list, "Follow Your Fascination" makes complete sense to me. If you allow yourself to pursue what you're interested in you're much more likely to stumble upon something brilliant than if you half-heartedly go along with something that you're apathetic about. This is simply because when you feel compelled to complete a task, you're going to work a lot harder at it than if you could really care less.
Number four: "Make New Connections" I find to be the most important on the list. In order to make new connections, Ditkoff advises us to go past the confines of what we already know. This is imperative when trying to come up with new ideas, because how could you possibly come up with something new by only exploring paths of thought you've already explored? To quote Einstein again, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results." You have to leave your pre-established comfort zone in order to discover new ideas. This brings me to the next method I would like to point out: Number ten: "Hang Out with Diverse Groups of People".
In order to make the new connections of number four, it's essential to practice number ten as well. If you only interact with a specific group of people, new ideas won't be introduced to you all that often. The more diverse your social interactions are the more ideas you'll expose yourself to and the more perspectives you'll familiarize yourself with. Even in the realm of creativity, we draw from what we know, so you should try and experience a wide array of things in order to bolster your creativity. This is why I find the internet to be such a brilliant place, since it makes it possible to interact with people from different walks of life, from all over the world.
This exchange of information and ideas across the internet brings me to an observation that correlates with the questions of method number nine: "What trends in the marketplace most intrigues you? In what ways might these trends shift in the coming years-and how might your most inspired idea be in sync with this imagined shift?". What I find interesting is the ongoing development of advertising and promotion of products on the internet. It's been more-or-less a recent phenomena for corporations to try and tap into the viral-nature of internet culture. From the Old-Spice guy responding to comments on the internet to Honda's rube Goldberg machine to Friskies using the population of the internet's obsession with cats to their advantage to an endearing online game for Shaun the Sheep to the intriguing website for Donnie Darko, companies are competing to capture the attention of internet users. What I like about these online campaigns is that advertisers are forced to make a video, game, etc. that is good enough that people are willing to go out of their way to watch or play it, and then tell their friends about it, otherwise it'll be a complete flop. Never before had I wanted to see a movie so bad courtesy of the marketing, than after I visited the website for Donnie Darko.
This leads me to believe that the online marketing trends are going to lean more towards the interactive multimedia in the future due to its effectiveness and the increase in casual gaming. There's certainly many interactive advertisements on the web, but the emphasis is currently on videos and banners, and I believe that's going to change. I acknowledge that this might be wishful thinking on my part, since I love both video games and the internet, and if the merging of the two became more prevalent, there would be more career opportunities in the field, giving me a better chance of landing my dream job in the industry. My most inspired idea would be in sync with this shift because it would be founded in it. Sorry to keep raving about the Donnie Darko website, but I just love how it adds on to the movie-verse, and to help with the development of an awesome supplement such as this would be amazing. To go back to the first method of the article, I'm fascinated by this, so it wouldn't be too surprising if my most inspired idea derived from this.
Number four: "Make New Connections" I find to be the most important on the list. In order to make new connections, Ditkoff advises us to go past the confines of what we already know. This is imperative when trying to come up with new ideas, because how could you possibly come up with something new by only exploring paths of thought you've already explored? To quote Einstein again, "Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results." You have to leave your pre-established comfort zone in order to discover new ideas. This brings me to the next method I would like to point out: Number ten: "Hang Out with Diverse Groups of People".
In order to make the new connections of number four, it's essential to practice number ten as well. If you only interact with a specific group of people, new ideas won't be introduced to you all that often. The more diverse your social interactions are the more ideas you'll expose yourself to and the more perspectives you'll familiarize yourself with. Even in the realm of creativity, we draw from what we know, so you should try and experience a wide array of things in order to bolster your creativity. This is why I find the internet to be such a brilliant place, since it makes it possible to interact with people from different walks of life, from all over the world.
This exchange of information and ideas across the internet brings me to an observation that correlates with the questions of method number nine: "What trends in the marketplace most intrigues you? In what ways might these trends shift in the coming years-and how might your most inspired idea be in sync with this imagined shift?". What I find interesting is the ongoing development of advertising and promotion of products on the internet. It's been more-or-less a recent phenomena for corporations to try and tap into the viral-nature of internet culture. From the Old-Spice guy responding to comments on the internet to Honda's rube Goldberg machine to Friskies using the population of the internet's obsession with cats to their advantage to an endearing online game for Shaun the Sheep to the intriguing website for Donnie Darko, companies are competing to capture the attention of internet users. What I like about these online campaigns is that advertisers are forced to make a video, game, etc. that is good enough that people are willing to go out of their way to watch or play it, and then tell their friends about it, otherwise it'll be a complete flop. Never before had I wanted to see a movie so bad courtesy of the marketing, than after I visited the website for Donnie Darko.
This leads me to believe that the online marketing trends are going to lean more towards the interactive multimedia in the future due to its effectiveness and the increase in casual gaming. There's certainly many interactive advertisements on the web, but the emphasis is currently on videos and banners, and I believe that's going to change. I acknowledge that this might be wishful thinking on my part, since I love both video games and the internet, and if the merging of the two became more prevalent, there would be more career opportunities in the field, giving me a better chance of landing my dream job in the industry. My most inspired idea would be in sync with this shift because it would be founded in it. Sorry to keep raving about the Donnie Darko website, but I just love how it adds on to the movie-verse, and to help with the development of an awesome supplement such as this would be amazing. To go back to the first method of the article, I'm fascinated by this, so it wouldn't be too surprising if my most inspired idea derived from this.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Why "The Melting Point of Wax"?
“The Melting Point of Wax”(below) is a song by Thrice concerning the famous Greek myth about Icarus, the son of Daedalus, who flies too close to the sun despite his father’s warnings. Dustin Kensrue, the frontman of Thrice, looks at this myth from Icarus’s standpoint, and delivers a completely different theme from the myth. In this song, Icarus is following irrational aspirations, "But how will I know limits from lies if I never try?" He's following his dreams despite others telling him he can't do it.
Okay, I'm going to stop there before I go into full-blown song-analysis mode, and instead explain its relevance. If I were playing to my strengths, as one is usually advised to do, I would be majoring in computer science, math, or engineering. The majority of my creativity lies within these kinds of disciplines. You wouldn't usually associate creativity with math, however the ability to look at a problem from new angles could be necessary to solve it, which is essentially creative thinking. Despite how dauntingly far behind my peers I feel, and everyone encouraging me to do something in the hard sciences, I feel compelled to work in a media field. This is why I find that song's title to be ideal for this blog. I would also like to note that, fittingly enough, Icarus is traveling to Athens.
As is emphasized from the fact I turned to music to aid me in finding a title for this blog, I love music, so it therefore makes a huge impact on my creativity. What great music encompasses is Tension and Release. As Daniel J. Levitin said in his book This is Your Brain on Music, "Composers imbue music with emotion by knowing what our expectations are and then very deliberately controlling when those expectations will be met, and when they won't." Every time a song builds up through rhythm, dynamics, tempo and note progressions there is a rise in tension, and then when the build-up is done, and the song continues on and fulfills our expectations, there is release in the listener. Here I give you two examples that exhibit this fairly well. The first being "One Summer's Day" (from Spirited Away) performed by Joe Hisaishi. The second is a live performance of "Here's to Life" by Streetlight Manifesto.
Both songs have completely different styles and moods, but they both employ the delayed release to give the song more energy and momentum. This shows the importance of tension and release regardless of what emotion you're conveying.
Now it's certainly not just music that affects my creativity. Films also play a major role. My favorite scene of all time appears in Peter Jackson's amazing film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. In this scene Jackson employs Contrast and Affinity brilliantly. Beauty arises from the stark contrast of Pippin's fragile melodious voice and the image of Faramir bravely leading his men to certain death upon his father's will. The unnerving affinity between the two simultaneous scenes lies metaphorically in how Denethor, Faramir's father, is eating in a very gruesome manner all the while keeping an apathetic facial expression. The chomping on the food, breaking of the chicken leg, and a cut to a dribble of tomato juice, that looks uncannily like blood, preceded by the orcs firing their arrows, gives the viewer a haunting visual of how Denethor uncaringly sent Faramir off to his death. This scene is so powerful that even when I first saw it at the young and oblivious age of 12, I was chilled to the core. I believe that this scene (along with the rest of the trilogy since it had an amazing musical score) jump started my fascination and appreciation of music in film, and video games as well. I full-heartedly agree with Quentin Tarantino when he said, "If you put the right piece of music with the right scene and the right sequence, then I actually truly think it's maybe the most cinematic thing you can do. It's the most magical cinema can be."
Although I could continue going on about music in film for forever and a year, no list of my influences is complete without JK Rowling. As with all good authors, the genius of Rowling's novels lie in the subtext of her writing. The actual text of the Harry Potter is simple and straight-forward enough for a child to understand, but the themes, symbols, motifs, and other literary devices that exist in the subtext allow people of all ages to appreciate and enjoy the series. Although some of the themes in Harry Potter are delivered didactically in the text: "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." as said by Sirius in The Goblet of Fire, other themes require the readers to be more active in reception of them. Throughout the series, "mudbloods" and house elves are persecuted, and the wrongful nature of this is always emphasized. In the real world, there's obviously no "mudbloods" or house elves, but the reader surmisses that this is related to the persecution of people based on their race, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, gender etc.
Okay, I'm going to stop there before I go into full-blown song-analysis mode, and instead explain its relevance. If I were playing to my strengths, as one is usually advised to do, I would be majoring in computer science, math, or engineering. The majority of my creativity lies within these kinds of disciplines. You wouldn't usually associate creativity with math, however the ability to look at a problem from new angles could be necessary to solve it, which is essentially creative thinking. Despite how dauntingly far behind my peers I feel, and everyone encouraging me to do something in the hard sciences, I feel compelled to work in a media field. This is why I find that song's title to be ideal for this blog. I would also like to note that, fittingly enough, Icarus is traveling to Athens.
As is emphasized from the fact I turned to music to aid me in finding a title for this blog, I love music, so it therefore makes a huge impact on my creativity. What great music encompasses is Tension and Release. As Daniel J. Levitin said in his book This is Your Brain on Music, "Composers imbue music with emotion by knowing what our expectations are and then very deliberately controlling when those expectations will be met, and when they won't." Every time a song builds up through rhythm, dynamics, tempo and note progressions there is a rise in tension, and then when the build-up is done, and the song continues on and fulfills our expectations, there is release in the listener. Here I give you two examples that exhibit this fairly well. The first being "One Summer's Day" (from Spirited Away) performed by Joe Hisaishi. The second is a live performance of "Here's to Life" by Streetlight Manifesto.
Both songs have completely different styles and moods, but they both employ the delayed release to give the song more energy and momentum. This shows the importance of tension and release regardless of what emotion you're conveying.
Now it's certainly not just music that affects my creativity. Films also play a major role. My favorite scene of all time appears in Peter Jackson's amazing film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. In this scene Jackson employs Contrast and Affinity brilliantly. Beauty arises from the stark contrast of Pippin's fragile melodious voice and the image of Faramir bravely leading his men to certain death upon his father's will. The unnerving affinity between the two simultaneous scenes lies metaphorically in how Denethor, Faramir's father, is eating in a very gruesome manner all the while keeping an apathetic facial expression. The chomping on the food, breaking of the chicken leg, and a cut to a dribble of tomato juice, that looks uncannily like blood, preceded by the orcs firing their arrows, gives the viewer a haunting visual of how Denethor uncaringly sent Faramir off to his death. This scene is so powerful that even when I first saw it at the young and oblivious age of 12, I was chilled to the core. I believe that this scene (along with the rest of the trilogy since it had an amazing musical score) jump started my fascination and appreciation of music in film, and video games as well. I full-heartedly agree with Quentin Tarantino when he said, "If you put the right piece of music with the right scene and the right sequence, then I actually truly think it's maybe the most cinematic thing you can do. It's the most magical cinema can be."
Although I could continue going on about music in film for forever and a year, no list of my influences is complete without JK Rowling. As with all good authors, the genius of Rowling's novels lie in the subtext of her writing. The actual text of the Harry Potter is simple and straight-forward enough for a child to understand, but the themes, symbols, motifs, and other literary devices that exist in the subtext allow people of all ages to appreciate and enjoy the series. Although some of the themes in Harry Potter are delivered didactically in the text: "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." as said by Sirius in The Goblet of Fire, other themes require the readers to be more active in reception of them. Throughout the series, "mudbloods" and house elves are persecuted, and the wrongful nature of this is always emphasized. In the real world, there's obviously no "mudbloods" or house elves, but the reader surmisses that this is related to the persecution of people based on their race, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, gender etc.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Media 203... first day
I have to do this blog for my Media 203 class, and we're supposed to do a sample post. So here it is....
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