Concept Album

Coheed and Cambria is a rock band from the 2000's. They have come out with a 5 concept albums that combine into one large concept album. 1 concept album is a daunting task but 5 albums combined into 1 large concept album is extremely different. The lead singer has a very interesting voice especially because you wouldn't expect that sound to come out of the guy with the long fro-ey hair (standing in the photo below). It's high pitched and whiney but it works for the alt-rock style they're going for. They have a pretty large following and are successful in their genre.

Torn between music videos!!!

After thinking and thinking about which video to post to the blog, I chose Brad Paisley's "Online" because its a really funny song, fitting for the class, and a complete story video that matches the lyrics. However, my second choice was Alicia Keys "Like You'll Never See Me Again" because it is a beautiful song and emotional song/video.

The video plays with the concept of time by showing you the story in reverse. It begins with Common in the emergency room crashing on Saturday at 1:45am. The story unfolds in reverse by showing you that Common was on his motorcycle, then he was in a fight with Alicia Keys at their apartment, then he was on his motorcycle again, then he was waking up on his friend's couch, etc. The video is pretty self explanatory. The song is all about not knowing when you'll see the people you love again so make the most of every moment you have together and be sure to say goodbye when you part.

Lyrics:

If I had no more time
No more time left to be here
Would you cherish what we had?
Was it everything that you were looking for?
If I couldn't feel your touch
And no longer were you with me
I'd be wishing you were here
To be everything that I'd be looking for
I don't wanna forget the present is a gift
And I don't wanna take for granted the time you may have here with me
'Cause Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed

So every time you hold me
Hold me like this is the last time
Every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you'll never see me again
Every time you touch me
Touch me like this is the last time
Promise that you'll love me
Love me like you'll never see me again

Oh Oh Oh

How many really know what love is?
Millions never will
Do you know until you lose it
That it's everything that we are looking for
When I wake up in the morning
You're beside me
I'm so thankful that I found
Everything that I been looking for

I don't wanna forget the present is a gift
And I don't wanna take for granted the time you may have here with me
'Cause Lord only knows another day is not really guaranteed

So everytime you hold me
Hold me like this is the last time
Every time you kiss me
Kiss me like you'll never see me again
(can you do that for me baby)
Every time you touch me
(see we don't really know)
Touch me like this is the last time
(see everyday we never know)
Promise that you'll love me
(I want you to promise me)
Love me like you'll never see me again
(like you'll never see me again)

Oh oh oh oh oh

After Effects

I HATE After Effects. It is entirely too complicated for what it should be. The entire interface is NOT user friendly and the help section is worthless because it just does a Google search!! It took me over 4 hours to figure out how to do a 007 blood drip down the screen and then we didn't even use it. I was also having a terrible time trying to figure out how to speed up some portions of the video and slow down others. I had to cut the footage, separate them into two levels and then speed up and slow down accordingly...which wasn't very smooth. I tried doing that in Premiere...still not intuitive. That took another 3 hours. At about the time I was ready to smash my computer because I hate Adobe, I gave the files to another group member to work the sound. 20 minutes later he tells me he CANNOT see anything I did! Then, he could see the blood drip and no video or text. So he and another member tried to figure out how to see it. The third member who got involved saw it, changed it, and sent it back out right when 2nd group member got to see my video! Its really stupid that After Effects doesn't save and export the video on it's own...as in if you don't have the actual footage you can't see the composited AF video! To make it even less useable, you can't export it into any format other than AF or Flash! Thank you Adobe for making a completely unintuitive, non user friendly, and unhelpful product built by masters for masters...

What is interactive??

According to James only humans can be interactive with one another. He said that games are not interactive because the choices and paths are predetermined. So Brittany asked him why is there a class called Interactive Storytelling then? He said he couldn't speak for the class or the teacher because he wasn't in charge of it. So I said, if interactivity can only be between two humans why do we take Interactive Storytelling, because everyone in the class is making a game, which according to him is NOT interactive. He said that the class projects didn't need to have anything digital...so I said then WHY is it a mandatory class offered by the DIGITAL World's Institute, because that would imply to everyone that your work in these classes should be digital. He proceeded to say that just because you go to the University of Florida doesn't mean you only learn about Florida. To which I responded that if you attend the Fischer School of Accounting you learn about accounting or the business school you learn about business. I suggested DWI change the name of the class since it is currently impossible to be interactive with a computer...according to the program's Director.

House of Horror

Since I was one of the three AP's for the House of Horror I was required to attend both nights. Since I was in charge I'm sure I won't receive extra credit but I'll blog about the vent anyways! The first night was the movie portion of 2 night horror fest. We worked all day setting up the Digital Worlds hallway and staircase and finished just in time to get into costume for the first arrivals. At the beginning, the turnout looked grim...we had all of 6 people attending at 7:45. Finally a large group arrived and we ended up with about 15 people for the movie night. It went well, Xingy's Chinese friends were scared during the movie and she did a great job of scaring them more! She dressed up as Sadako (the little girl in Ringu) and walked next to the audience at a suspenseful part, her friends actually got up and moved seats to be in the middle of the auditorium! Then she crawled under the seats and grabbed her friend's ankle, scaring the crap out of that person!!

The second night went much better! The game night had a turn out of about 25 people. People played Left for Dead 2 and Dead Rising 2 on the huge Reve screens. Chris had a whole bunch of fun dressed up as a scary vampire downstairs, he jumped out and screamed at the unsuspecting gamers entering the Reve. Everyone had a good time playing the games and scaring the gamers.

Overall I think it was a success!

Run Lola Run

So, I FINALLY saw Run Lola Run. Yes I'm a little late but it took a while for it to arrive from Netflix. I have to say that I'm not a fan of it. I didn't understand why or how the two got to "redo" the day 3 times. It also didn't make sense to me that sometimes she remembered bits from the previous storyline but she didn't remember everything...for example she remembered how to unlock the safety of the gun and the guy's bike is stolen in story two but she never remembered that her father isn't her real dad or that he is cheating on her mom.

Also, what is the point of the side stories? To show that life can be different if there is a tiny difference in your day? I think they are just distracting. I wanted to know the significance of the side stories and hoped they would tie in to the main plot in some way. Also, the characters that had side stories were stupid characters! There should have been a side story on the bum who took the money or the woman cheating with the father...characters that I'm actually interested in.

Overall, I didn't think the movie successfully played with the concept of time. Yes, it showed three different sequences of time that somewhat correlated with each other but they didn't explain how or why we watched 3 versions of the same story....FAIL!

TIME

Today in class we discussed the concept of time and how people are fascinated by manipulating it. Zack Morris was hands down THE coolest Saved By The Bell student, not just because he was the heartthrob or main character but he could TIME OUT time! Hiiro in Heroes can travel through time, slow it down, freeze it, and speed it up. He encounters the age old issues with the philosophy of time travel such as; you can't change the past without altering the entire course of the future, and you can't really change the past only the now which creates an alternate future. Time travel is a theme in many movies: The Time Traveler's Wife, The Time Machine, Back To The Future, Terminator, The Butterfly Effect, Hot Tub Time Machine, Groundhog Day, and 13 Going on 30.

Everyone has had the feeling that if only I could go back and redo that situation, or pause time to study more for a test, or fast forward to next week. Unfortunately the present is the only time humans can alter, and by alter I mean react, live, and make choices that will change their future.

Something that has always bothered me about time is that people always say, if the universe ends time will still persist. I think time is similar to money in that it is a human invention. If no one is around to monitor and keep time it will not continue only the cycles of the universe. Granted, how long stars, galaxies, and the universe live will be determined by an indeterminate amount of time. But who cares "how long" it will take? People care about time, the stars, galaxies, and universe don't care about time. The objects in the universe experience cycles, but time is not a factor to them...time is only important to those who keep it, therefore, if there are no beings to track it then it ceases to exist.