Lecture 3 - Reading Signs

This lecture i found really interesting. We learnt about semiotics. I found arbitrary + iconic and connotation + denotation very interesting. I even used these forms of semiotics to do my essay.

The closer a sign is to what it represents then it is iconic. For example a photograph is very iconic. The opposite to this is arbitrary which is how far away the sign is to what it represents for instance a scribbled down drawing of someone is arbitrary, unless the scribble is uncanny to the person it represents. Iconic and Arbitrary is typically a scale in which to see the sign. For example in the first Legend of Zelda game, all the people where pixel squares put together to make a basic representation of a person, this would be on the arbitrary half of the scale. However modern day legend of Zelda games they use CGI animation for any cut scenes and the game graphics have improved massively making them more realistic and life like making it more iconic.

Arbitrary-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------Iconic

 

The sign itself is denotation. For instance a poster of Rocky, that’s a basic denotation, however connotation is what it mean, what the poster could suggest. The poster for instance could be Rocky holding his hands in the air, the connotation here could suggest victory/triumph. So by seeing this clear poster of Rocky by the way it connotes you can get a suggestion of what the film is like.

Lecture 2 - Communication Breakdown

In this lecture we learnt about communication and how it can be broken down or affected. We were shown some videos as well of a very reptitive video which would then suddenly change after a while making it more unpredictable.

The term noise in communication is referred to as anything that is added into the information before it reaches their destination. For instance talking to someone over a radio crackling is a form of noise which is interfering, even distortion into the sound or disruption is noise interfering with the information. Another example could be trying to talk to a friend in a night club, but the music being too loud and people all around talking can make it hard to communicate and for the other person to hear which is a breakdown in communication affected by noise.

We also went through forms of communication such as redundancy and entropic.

Redundancy is basically conventional information which starts off further communication. For instance it is predictable to be greeted when you enter a hotel, which then leads on to further communication for booking into your room at the hotel.

The opposite of redundancy is entropic; this basically means anything that is unpredictable, unconventional information. An example of this would be if you were reading a new Superman comic and superman was to kill Lex Luthor, this would be out of character and really unexpected making it entropic

Lecture 1 - Rough Magic

From the first lecture in media histories and cultures, the main article that stuck out for me and interessted me was looking at the first frame by frame film, the first photograph(s) and the first game made. Looking back on these historic pieces of media and comparing it to media I'm more familiar with growing up interessted me on how much technology and media have progressed over the years. For example the first photograph took 10 minutes to capture and anything moving wouldn't be in the photo; in the photo you see an empty victorian street with one man getting his shoes shined, you only see this man because he is getting his shoes shined and has stood still for most of the 10 minutes. Whereas now cameras can capture in seconds.

Media convergence is simply the middle of two relationships (the medium). An example of this is that with the earliest mobile telephone you could simply ring people and most games could only be played on a console (for instance an atari to play snake). An example of media convergence is more modern phones, where now you don't need a game console to play games as you can play games on your mobile phone. A more recent example would be that a few years ago you would need a computer to use the internet but now you can use your phones to access the internet. Mobile phones are now more like mini computers considering their main function is meant to be a telephone. 

For example the iPhone (left).

Culture is a difficult topic to define. The opposite to culture would be nature, but neither of these words can be defined clearly. The basic understanding of culture would be that culture is man made, its the way we live, the stuff we enjoy. Whereas the basic understanding for nature would be that it is something untouched and unseen by anyone.

The Blog Assignment

I have figured out I have been doing this blog wrong.

Anything above this blog are the blogs for the assignment.

Starting Assignments - Just a Quick one

I under estimated the time consumption of these assignments, i had been doing my planning on the computer since last week but never really made a proper start in my A3 sketch pads, i have spent half the day catching up with the work. 

For anyone who hasn't started their assignments, start them now!
I have caught up with the great machine project, made a small start with the DVD covers (will do more work on that tomorrow afternoon/evening). With the virtual world I have started my planning and wrote down many ideas and what to research and go back knowledge I already know on some of the stuff I plan to research (such as from games and TV shows), just need to put everything I got on the computer and in my head to paper.
My plan is to have enough work in my A3 sketchpads to be able to start the main project itself next week!

Second Blog Entry - Week 3

I'm now in my third week and I have learnt a lot of new skills in Illustrator, Photoshop and have now learnt some action script 3.0. I have used nothing but action script 2.0 except for making flash video players in the past with my interactive animations. I now feel comfortable with action script 3.0 after completing some of the follow up work, I was encountering a couple bugs when I was in class but I managed to fix the error by myself and now feel really confident with learning a new action script.

I have been motivated to keep up with work and have been doing all the follow up work and researching for my assignments. That said i still need to print out my research, make a spider graph / an imap of ideas and information to base my work on. As well as producing a story board and make some designs. Unlike last year i have organized myself now so i know when i can socialize and relax and when to do independent study and so far i feel i am on track.

Unfortunately this week i missed a day due to being unwell but i went on to study net and worked through the work sheets and read up on the lecture notes of what i missed and caught up in PPD on the Thursday.

First Blog Entry

Admittedly I have started the blog a bit late, I will have to keep reminding myself to post entries at least once a week at minimum.

I did computer science at my first year of uni. However I found myself losing allot of interest in the course. Except the graphical, creative + media part of the course, this is how I stumbled on this new course. 

Already I can tell this is my kind of course, I am quite experienced in web development, photo editing and especially Flash Animation.

My first couple of weeks I already fill quite settled, the tutors are very patient with their teaching and they don't go too fast, more importantly they answer any questions you may have and are always there too give you a helping hand. This for me is very reassuring as I struggle with dyslexia so I find learning a little difficult and a slow process.

Although I have been animating for about 7 years already in my first 2 weeks I've learnt some new handy tricks in flash animation. I have also learnt allot already in photo shop + Illustrator, stuff I have never even done before.

Hopefully I will keep progressing on this new course and will do well with the assignments in the future.