Getting my hands on a Wii remote (Wiimote) in the studio was a surprisingly inspiring experience. What was essentially a class of playing Wii games, gave me a taste of what this controller is capable of outputting. It is clearly more sensitive than I expected, with the ability to send parameters from subtle movements, through to sweeping gestures. With my earlier look into OSCulator for Sound Media, it wasn’t long before I stole one of the controllers away from the Wii console and connected it up to my MacBook.
OSCulator makes it obscenely simple to get data from the Wiimote. It’s just a few short steps from first connecting the MacBook and Wiimote via Bluetooth, to getting OSCulator to change the Wiimote data into MIDI and sending it on to Ableton. Whilst my setup is still clearly unrefined, it was just a matter of minutes before I was using the Wiimotes as drumsticks to trigger Ableton’s inbuilt drum machine, Impulse.
Although I’ve had Pro Tools 8 installed on my computer since K.Rudd sent me the stimulus cheque in March, I haven’t really used it much. In fact, aside from poking around at the new plugins, it’s been doing little more than taking up space on my hard drive. I’m much more comfortable playing with Ableton when sketching out a quick sound or two – it’s simply a more enjoyable experience. However, when I was forced into the linearity of the Pro Tools sequencer in class, I must say that PT8 seems to have raised the bar with it’s latest update. Aside from having a Logic-esque facelift (which has also just received a facelift of its own: a “Pro Tools killer” according to my Apple-employed friend. With their decision not to support PPC Macs anymore, it screams “Apple: business as usual” to me), there are a few workflow related enhancements in PT8, which should go a long way to making this semester a smoother one.
Controllers appreciate a nice view too, apparently.
I was encouraged by the broad scope of the introductory lecture and tutorial for Screen Culture this week. It will be the first – and only – strictly theory subject I’ve taken this year and probably a nice break from the weight of project based work.
I had expected Screen Culture to look primarily at film works and to talk about the ideas and philosophy behind important cinema. However, the subject takes a far more broad approach, and looks at all kinds of screens: interfaces for devices (mobiles, MP3 players, ATMs); the way we monitor and observe both individuals and data via screens; distribution and consumption on screen (film, television); and the way the screen impacts how we see the world – particularly the way it compresses time and space (think of the internet).
It will also look at the term ‘media’ and what this actually means. Obviously it can represent both the medium of communication as well as the institutions and organisations controlling the flow of (mis)information. Of course we’ll be touching on McLuhan’s work, which fits in nicely for me, as I’m bumbling through Understanding Media right now. Mostly I’m really enjoying the book, but there are some parts that I feel as though a few crib notes would go a long way.
I’ve been looking forward to starting Digital Video 2 for a while now. Motion graphics are one area that I’ve never really had the opportunity to really try my hand at, but unlike my struggle with 3D last semester, I’m still quite enthusiastic to learn.
After Effects is also an exciting prospect, as it’s one of the few programs that I hear mostly good things about. Perhaps it’s because there’s a smaller community using it than say, Photoshop or Illustrator, but it sounds as though it’s one of those rare beasts: software that’s mostly enjoyable to use. It’s going to be our best friend for at least the first two-thirds of this subject.
Less impressive are Adobe’s lessons, found in their tutorial book. Similarly to my experience with Pro Tools and Ableton, the content provided in tutorials is pretty cheesy at best. Nevertheless, it was exciting to dig around in a CS4 product that appears to have finally followed through with Adobe’s long-touted promise to make their products play nicely together. Being able to take a Photoshop document, mix it with a Quicktime movie, Illustrator vectors and MP3s files, then composite and animate it whilst retaining the editable layer styles from other programs, and finally outputting it as, say, a Flash movie, is a pretty exciting prospect.
Research
Perhaps Adobe learnt from the train wreck that is Digidesign’s dTV and decided to use content from the excellent lynda.com. After watching a couple of their ‘Getting Started’ videos, I’m hopeful that there’s going to be quite a lot of information out there for a novice like myself.
I decided sometime last year that interactive/installation work was something that I really want to pursue. For me, the term ‘interactivity’ has little to do with the internet and fares little better when it comes to gaming (so far). I hope to take my own practice in the direction of dynamic and temporal installation design. Sound and light are two worlds that interest me greatly and when they’re coupled with exploratory interaction, I think some really amazing experiences can occur.
So, I’m quite happy to continue using Processing after the first Multimedia Authoring subject during semester one this year. Unsurprisingly, some of the students in our very small new class of five (!) were expecting to find themselves in a Flash design workshop and so the conversation took the path of explaining why concept is more important than software package. I’m really tired of hearing the complaints of people wanting to come to university just to work through Adobe/Pro Tools/Final Cut and then expect to walk into a top-level job in an international company. I can’t imagine that those organisations got to where they are today without innovation and amazing conceptual work. Not by knowing a simple program inside out. But I digress, and even I’m getting tired of this digression. Onto the semester ahead…
Wii remotes are a pretty nifty piece of hardware. Well, at least they were when the Wii exploded onto the market a few years back. Now, it seems the technology inside a Wii remote is carried around inside the pocket of every iPhone bearing Apple fan-boy around the world. The information being generated by the movement of this device is what we’ll be using this semester for interactivity, rather than continuing on with the camera-based work of session one.
I – like many – believe that The Chaser has passed its use by date. Not that the creators aren’t filled with talent and ideas, but the format is starting to feel a little tired and more forced with each episode. With the final airing next week, my guess is that even The Chaser team agree.
What’s even more dull though, is the weekly effort by other media to point out any ‘offensive’ sketch that The Chaser puts to air. The assumption that we can’t make up our own mind about what is in good taste and what we choose to watch on television really gives me the shits. I don’t doubt that a lot of ‘journalists’ tune in eagerly each week, just waiting for an opportunity to grab a quote from the nearest ‘expert’ about how upset they are that The Chaser made little Tommy cry when they cracked a joke about overweight, mentally-challenged kids with red hair.
What is surprising though, is that it was SBS that inspired me to unleash this little rant. Even they can’t seem to help themselves, but to cry foul of yet another Chaser sketch. I have been starting to wonder if SBS’s generally high quality news is starting to slide of late, with more and more current affairs style journalism and human interest stories creeping into their bulletins.
Obviously, The Chaser leave themselves open as targets, because to them, everyone else is free game for lampooning. I’ve little doubt that they don’t need my support to continue on, and in fact probably benefit from the bad press they attract. My concern is that we’re being told that we should be outraged by media organisations (and in turn, politicians eager to be seen as upholding moral standards). That we should hold the same values that they do and be furious at those daring to step outside those boundaries – whether it is satire or not.
The interesting point here is that The Chaser gets attacked from all sides, but for vastly different reasons. Media organisations beneath the News Limited banner will generally accuse programs like The Chaser for wasting honest, hard-working (white) Australia’s tax money on television that attacks honest, hard-working (white) Australia, whilst it seems SBS bends over backwards to be seen as everyone’s left-leaning, politically-correct, best-friend. Meanwhile, The Chaser continues to be a cash cow for the ABC, so apparently most of the population isn’t listening to the bullshit coming from either camp.
I always thought it was the duty of a journalist to report on the news, not to invent it. I understand that with the editorial slant that each media organisation puts on their own paper/television channel/radio broadcast, that the details can be spun, muddied, embellished, or in the case of tabloids – totally twisted. I didn’t realise the pressure that journalists must be under to get the story out as quickly as possible. This is where I think journalism becomes something more akin to… creative writing.
I can’t say I followed much of the Channel 10 series, Masterchef, over the past few months. Apparently I’m in the minority. I did catch the final episode however. Something that Erin McWhirter may not have done. Which is surprising, considering that she wrote a story for the Daily Telegraph’s website about that very subject.
For a long time, Murdoch’s News Limited hasn’t been associated with high quality, investigative journalism, but are they actually encouraging their staff to create stories before the fact, so that they can get them out immediately, into their ever-hungry, highly-comsumptive internet audience? Last night, I was pointed toward this post suggesting that they’re doing just that…
…if you’re not up on the latest Masterchef news, Poh actually lost the final to fellow contestant, Julie. Oops.
It wasn’t long before Twitter and Facebook messages alerted news.com.au to the fact that they’d screwed up, and the content of the post was replaced with what must have been the ‘back up’ story. However, the address structure of their CMS managed to out-smart even their brilliance and the page address remained the same. It wasn’t until today that this page was removed altogether.
It was only a few weeks ago that I watched News Limited CEO, John Hartigan, wax lyrical about the pride he had in his organisation’s journalism on the National Press Club. He also went on to say that every journalist that moves through their ranks has the very highest News Limited standards impressed upon them. Is this really the best that the Telegraph has to offer? If Hartigan truly believes that the way forward is to create a new, subscriptive model for delivering news content on the internet, I think most people would like to see them lift their game. Until then, I guess we’re just getting what we pay for.
Edit: mUmBRELLA also spotted this Telegraph slip-up. The comments to their post make for some interesting reading.
There are precious few free Internet video ‘channels’ that offer anything outside lolcats and porn. TED is one that springs to mind as breaking the mould of user-generated rubbish and actually offers something worthwhile. I understand the value of breaking down the barriers of content creation and with YouTube being an outlet available to everyone, great things have indeed happened. The images still making their way from Iran are a case in point.
But sometimes I really feel the need to escape the noise of ‘related’ content, context-sensitive advertising and lolcats and instead watch something a little more… confined. SlowTV is a channel I came across when reading The Monthly. In fact, it’s a spin-off of the magazine itself and pretty much follows the same premise: politics, society and culture, mostly delivered by academics. It sounds dry, but often isn’t. Just like TED, the videos are sometimes surprisingly entertaining and inspiring. And also like The Monthly, I find that the selection of speakers is quite good.
It’s great to see that the Internet is allowing the presentation of current affairs, without an editorial, but still retaining a level of direction and research. SlowTV certainly isn’t alone in doing this, but just the latest site I’ve added to the list.
I’m also interested to know how projects like SlowTV are funded and what The Monthly gains by providing the service. I don’t doubt that there is potentially a viable model of quality current affairs issues being presented in this way. Maybe some of the old guard members, like John Hartigan need to rethink their view of how a population will be willing to subscribe to their media and in fact, what is considered ‘newsworthy content’ by the increasingly tabloid media.
To avoid any complaints about a ’serious’ post, here’s a lolcat…
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