How I succeeded and failed in Comm. Tech 08-09 (But mostly succeeded. Really.)

MULTIPLE EXPOSURE

"Did you win?" "Yeah. But I lost more than I won."

When we got this assignment, I thought it was gonna be pretty awesome. Five Jeds in a picture, all doing seemingly interesting things. Besides, it was all copy-and-paste. It'll look awesome, and it didn't seem too hard.

Then I actually got started.

I used ImageReady mode to copy and paste the five Jeds. It was made somewhat difficult, however, that my photographer forgot that she WASN'T supposed to move the tripod. But still pretty fun, having to try to cut pixel-perfectly from every picture. But the most annoying bit was that some Jeds were noticeably darker than others (I blame it on the lighting). Especially the Jed in the green shirt. But I made it through in the end, and I'm pretty proud of it.

CIRCUS THAT SURROUNDS ME COLLAGE

Nothing too hard, really, just scanners, a story chart made on Paint (since I didn't know about Illustrator at the time), a photo of my family, a text wrap tool, and a photo of myself that I probably should've taken in the white-walled video studio (it was pretty annoying to have to remove the sunroom background). Don't forget the eight or so layers involved and the text warping.


This DEFINETELY could've been better. Of all my pieces this year, I think I'm the least proud of this one. I mean, it was just a bunch of random things mushed up together. I know that it was the point of the collage, but still... (By the way, I was a juggler. Really.)

PATTERN/ECCENTRICK INSPIRATION

Mom: "Why do you need a picture of your little sister?"
Me: "...You'll see."


My pattern consisted of a bell, a hat, and a switch. To compensate for the seeming normality of the hat, I picked the most random hat I could find. They were pretty simple to vectorise, except for the BELL. The bell...it was bright in some areas but dark in others. But after vectorizing a Goomba during the tutorials, it wasn't too difficult. It just required a LOT of layers.

Then I got started onto vectorising my sister. I spent three hours vectorizing the WRONG things. I spent another three vectorizing the outlines. Then I spent another hour waiting for the darned thing to save. Looking back, I guess it could've done without the black outlines, and the pattern probably could've been better compressed. But I'm still pretty proud of it. Besides, my sis loves it. What more could I ask? And now, I'm a vectorizing master! Mrs. Powell was right; the pen tool is awesome! (Heh, I started using it in Flash for TIK just because it was so neat.)

WECCENTRICK VIDEO

(VIDEO REMOVED DUE TO BEING UNCERTAIN IF MY PARTNERS WERE TOO EMBARASSED BY IT.)


"Excuse me, can you hold my lightsaber while I get the tripod?"

I was a Jedi. Aristo was a ninja. What could go wrong with just an awesome concept? Lots of things, apparently.


00:03-Seriously, Aristo's not that fast. We just used effects to speed him up.
00:05-In order to freeze the frame, we had to actually take a screenshot of the film using "Print Screen"

00:38 - It's floating. Really.

00:40-Okay, fine, I got the idea from the Unit 15 film.
00:56-In order to make it seem like I was jumping really high, I lifted the tripod as high as it could go. Did it work out okay?

1:00- This is the first of Aristo's "now you see me, now you don't" scenes. These required splitting in EXACTLY the right place. It was so painful to split in the wrong spot, but it worked out okay.
1:07-We took a screenshot and inverted the colours to produce this scene.
1:20-Picture + Effect(3D Ripple). Okay, you can stop laughing now.

1:27-1:30-These were also the only two transitions used during the film (blur). Note also, the Effect (to make it seem like a flashback)
2:21 - In retrospect, music probably would've fitted perfectly at this point.
3:27 - Whoa. This part was so tricky to fix. I don't even think we fixed it probably.

Also, we decided to dub our voices using the Windows Sound Recorder into the film so that our voices would be clear for sure. Besides, we kept on laughing as we filmed because...it was pretty silly. Imagine the looks on the faces of random hikers. By the way, to eliminate the original audio, we simply muted all of it. I think I'll improve this video over the summer and Youtube it for your entertainment. Maybe. (UPDATE: Whoops. I didn't. Maybe some other time.)
Props to Kyle Michaels and Michael Chen, who we forced into helping us. Thanks, guys, I owe you big time.


CD COVER















"This. Is. A. Sick. Looking. Cover."

Photoshop was used to make the entire back cover, and to merge the swords on the front cover. Oh, don't forget the awesome-looking flashes of light on the back cover; courtesy of brightness/contrast under "Filter".

Illustrator was used to create the ying-yang symbol, jedi logo (yes, that is a jedi logo) using a combination of the circle tool, the pen tool, and the aid of the grids. In addition, both the text-on-a-line tool and the text-in-a-box tool were used to manipulate the text.

SO IN CONCLUSION...


It was a good year. Fine, so maybe the computers were slow to load (well, having several Adobe art problems crammed onto one computer wouldn't be too good for it) and maybe I vectorised the wrong thing, or maybe my movie files were too huge for my poor strained USB to handle, but it was an AWESOME year! From the hours spent in the comm tech room, to my first newspaper layout, to every neat little thing learned during the tutorials, to going into the forest after school to film, to getting to participate in Eccentrick.


So where to from here? Seeing as I'm not taking any tech course next year, I don't know, but I'm going to end up using these programs again in the future. Whether to help in a business or just for a hobby, I haven't seen the last of these programs. Mrs. Powell, thanks for everything!

RE: The Campaign Trail (wait a minute, this is old news, isn't it?)

"So Wassup?"

"...change."

"True."

Since it's been a good 6.5 months ever since I first saw Obama's WASSUP ad (wow, I'm just a tad bit late, ain't I?) and since I'm STILL able to recall what the commercial was about, I should conclude that this ad campaign - just like its Budweiser counterpart - was a very effective one.

You can pretty much sum up the message of the ad in the following phrase "The U.S. has a lot of problems. Obama can fix them."

Specifically, we're referring to the economy, the Iraq war, lack of health care, and natural disasters, several key issues in the election. The commercial is set up so that - one by one - the problems will be explained out. The fact that the commercial used 4 guys who - 8 years previously - were living an awesome, problematic life as they watched the game and drank Budweiser only emphasizes the fact that the U.S. is in pretty deep sludge if these oh-so-happy fellows can cry and get genuinely mad at each other. Then you enter Barack Obama and the guy on the couch smiles the second genuine smile of the commercial (the first belonged to Obama himself) as the viewer suddenly realises "This guy has it! Obama is the man!"

By the way, I wrote this entire blog post without rewatching the commercial. Like I said before, since I was able to describe the commercial and how it works as well as I just did, this commercial really does stick to the head and Obama's campaign had an awesome commercial. "True."

e c c e n t r i c k

One of the funny things about the whole Eccentrick experience was that I ended up signing up for security hours in the art room....even though I don't actually take an art course (hey, all security sheets looked the same to me!) Nevertheless, it was a pretty darned awesome way to spend my birthday week and take a little break from reality for a while.

This blog will take the form of a random list of memories, so here we go...

-Finding out how to shut down all the lights in the art area (so many switches...)
-Finding out that the art show apparently extended to religion and that weird hallway...the forest one...on the last day when it was too late to fully appreciate it.

-Trying to find a way to make one of those Grade 11 picture frames to STAY stuck on that wall (it kept trying to fall out).

-The SKULL. Oh my...the skull...that sound never got annoying, and it was always fun to watch people pull that thing with no idea what was going to happen. Come to think of it, it was also nice to look at all the different skulls. For me, it was a very sentimental piece (they were all based off of the dead, after all).

-Isha Pinto made a pretty darned awesome card rotating door. Oh, and the rest of the house was pretty neat, too.

-The distorted drawings past the Train area. Those were actually pretty awesome.

-Oh, and the train area. Some of my friends have very odd personalities.
-I would seriously pay cash money for those cabinets in the Construction Tech. area

-The box-like thing in the Freak area. It's a REAL shame that it broke.

-Come to think of it, everything else in the Freak area. Trying to think too hard about them makes my head hurt.

-Whoa! I haven't seen pop-up books in ages! Unfortunately, I only discovered them on Friday, so by the time I opened them up, it was pretty much broken.

-Entering the dark rooms and using that weird rotating door for the first time (seriously)

-So that's what the rest of my classmates' multiple exposures and collages look like! Mine doesn't really look so good anymore.
-My biggest regret during the art show? I watched only ONE film from start to finish during the whole thing, and that was only because I was touring St. Aidan's around.

-Realising with a heavy heart that I can't participate in next year's art show due to the lack of an art/tech elective. Sigh...

Cellphones: With Great Power Comes Great Responsability

"What did I say?" - My parish priest during the third time a cellphone rang during that Mass.


Cellphones are amazing. Cellphones are convenient. Cellphones are also VERY annoying sometimes. No one has ever actually established a proper etiquette for cellphones, but there seem to be a few obvious rules...or at least they SHOULD be obvious.

1: "So then, I have this really important thing to tell you...um...are you even paying attention?"

If someone's trying to talk to you, the general rule is that it's rude to simply take a call in the middle of the conversation. At least without excusing yourself. For an example of how this rule applies, let's look at Bob & Rob:

BOB: ...look, I don't know why I've been trying so hard these last few weeks...
ROB: Wait, hold on, my phone just rang...hello? Blah blah blah blah...
BOB: ...........

I once saw a woman talk on her phone in the middle of a FlowerDay presentation. Apparently, she was under the impression that she wasn't interrupting anything, when in reality, I could hear her and I was on the other side of the crowd. Wonder how her child felt that mummy wasn't paying much attention to her celebration.



2: "Using cellphones can be hazardous to your health."

Believe it or not, the above statement is true during some situations. They include:

-Cars: One's attention span is drastically reduced when talking on a cellphone. There's a REASON why several laws seem to forbid it nowadays.

-Airplanes: Cellphones are prohibited on most flights nowadays because it can interfere with its wireless communications. While I have not heard of such an incident, it would certainly be a shame for a plane to crash all because of a guy who was using a cellphone.

-Hospitals: Cellphones can interfere with several equipment on site.

-I heard of a train crash situation in which the driver's last moments were apparently spent texting.

3: "We now ask you to take this opportunity to turn off your cellphones. Not ask, actually, DEMAND."

Related to point #1. The only thing more rude than to talk on your cellphone while someone is trying to talk to you is to talk on your cellphone when someone actually ASKED you to turn off your cellphone. This applies in movie theatres, masses, etc.


Besides, it's just very, VERY embarassing when your cellphone happens to ring in an inappropriate place in where EVERYONE hears your cellphone. I saw an unfortunate man who's cellphone rang in church. The priest actually stopped and made a joke about it before continuing. Ouch.


4: "If possible, can you please get OUT of the room before you talk? I actually don't care about your conversation."

No, I don't care that Tommy just got himself a new girlfriend. Actually, you're not even talking to me, so you might want to get out of the room before Tommy - who is just a few metres away and is actually looking at you with a weird look on his face - approaches you.

5: "Can you please speak a little softer? You're polluting the air."

Sometimes, rule #4 is just impossible. Understandable if you're on a bus or somewhere where it's hard to maneuver. But still, complaining about how crowded the bus is on your phone using a really loud voice isn't exactly the best thing to do.

I saw a man outside Scarborough Town Centre the other day who was talking via Bluetooth. Granted, he was outside the mall and as many people as he would inside of it. But he was still getting looks from various shoppers who were saying in their heads: "Why is this guy talking in such a loud voice anyway?"

Meh. It's only advanced technology. Nothing special.

“It can always be better,” Anonymous

I have a confession to make; I’m guilty of being annoyed at computers for not loading fast enough, and complaining about how boring airplanes are.

Then again, we all have, right?

Every single technology out there is destined to be obsolete one day, if it hasn’t already been. New car models come out every year, and new computers, IPods, and other technologies are developing at a very scary rate. Back then, no one would have said that cellphones could one day be described as “mini-computers”, and that television would have life-like quality. Every single newfangled gadget out there is dated; even holographic televisions and floating cars won’t seem so amazing after they’re made because we’re always going to be striving for something better.

Lots of people talk about how “the good ol’ days” were, and about how our generation is rather unappreciative. The truth is that we’re not really an unappreciative generation – I think – but that we just have no idea what life was without today’s technology. By growing up in the world that we’re in, I don’t know what life was like back then. I can’t appreciate the easiness of today’s phones because I have never used yesterday’s phones. For me, colour television is a norm because I have never had to watch a black-and-white TV. We’re not really a “crappy generation of idiots” who just don’t care, maybe we’re just unknowing.

So since we don’t know what life was like back then, it’s gotten to the point where we can’t live without technology. Does anyone still remember that blackout of 2003? I still have memories of making an outdoor fire and not being able to use the computer, the telephone, and the television. While it wasn’t too bad for me, some people couldn’t use the subway and were stranded in downtown, while some businesses suddenly shut down for a while. The blackout informed us that we have begun to depend on technology so much that we cannot return to “primitive” standards and expect to survive.

Then again, during that same blackout, I spent a lot of technology-free, pure family time, and

now I realise that we managed to get along well without our precious technology.

So what’s the moral of this entire story? Well, if we have to depend on our technology, then we can at least be appreciative of it. I have a newfound appreciation of today’s technology; I’m happy with today’s technology, and I think I’m going to be using it for a long time to come. It’s ok to strive for something better, but we need to realise that technology was always a bonus for humanity anyway. It can always be better, but it’s good enough.

(Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Originally published on December 30, 1990.)

P.S. On Youtube, search up the (rather primitive-looking) Spider-Man cartoon theme from the 80s. As the text at the beginning says, it’s in color!

RE: Gaming Gone Wild

(Editorial cartoon by Grahm Harrop. Appeared on the Vancouver Sun - February 15, 2001)

"I think great video games are like favourite playgrounds...Wouldn't it be great to have a whole drawer full of 'playgrounds' right at your fingertips?"

-Shigeru Miyamoto - the man behind Mario and Zelda

For a few years, I had a reputation as a "Mario Maniac"; no one else knew as much or played as much Mario games as I did. Therefore, I've seen both the fun and the ugly that comes from these games.

I've invested so much time and effort in these games, in the process sacrificing loads of (my parents') hard-earned money, eyesight, sleep, homework opportunities, and various other things. Not only that, but after a few years, I began to think..."Do I really want people to remember me as a Mario freak?" Well, it's a little late for that...

So, what made me invest so much time in it? Well, Game Boys aren't just a mess of wires and chips, they're portals into another world! Where else can one beat up turtles, fly into space, train electric mice to battle for you, run at supersonic speeds, and save the universe? After all, the life of a princess-saver is definetely more interesting than the life of a schoolboy. The virtual world can sometimes make the real world seem bland in comparison.


There's also a sense of achievement. Looking throughout the internet, people love to brag about their high scores or post videos showing how fast they can run through a level. Playing through Level One leads one to try to get to the last level. Playing through the last level leads one to try to collect all the secrets in all the levels. And so on. And games like Tetris are made so that you do a challenge over and over in an attempt to get a high score, one of the most addicting things ever.

Way back when in my pure "Mario freak" days, I didn't know when to stop. My parents have disconnected and hid my gaming systems three times (possibly more, I lost count). To be honest, though, I have to thank them for saving my sanity. I've always been prohibited to "weekend-only gaming". Gaming is fun, but when it consumes your life, it's too much.

I've been gaming a lot less lately. Not to say I've given it up entirely, but at the very least, I do know that achieving an amazing score on Dance Dance Revolution isn't worth giving up my real-life achievements, and that surprisingly, real life can actually be pretty amazing.