Music Video Trailers

Music can diffidently impact the setting and feel to a scene I think we'd all agree. It's kinda like a way to bully your audience to feel what you want them to feel through auditory influence. Well I'm sure they do the same thing to Movie Trailers.

Trailers inherently are kind of manipulative. They cut the movie into little bits and smash some of the most interesting parts with some of the most open ended dialog cuts together, and present it to you as if it gives anyone a real clue of how this movie is going to play out. It gets you excited, without really telling you much, and that's kind of the point. I don't think anyone is really arguing that no one realizes this.

So music, this funky little device can amplify the whole trailer thing. Take Suicide Squad for example, perfect trailer cut, with this beautiful kind of shiver inducing tune in the background turns a pretty good trailer into an influential one.

Or Fallout 4's the Wanderer trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3IlHBBGCIw
This short little cutie of a game trailer can make any Fallout 4 fan shiver. All you really got to do is find a neat song that fills the mood you want and pace the video to the audio and BAM cool trailer.

The entire movie Sucker Punch is like one big action music video. The music amplifies the scene and kinda makes it what it is. What do you think about the power of music in trailers?

Attention Span

My attention span or lack thereof, is kinda amazing. It has many disadvantages, but a few advantages I think, however I still believe I train up and improve my attention span. I often feel like my mind is constantly searching for something, a thought, a sight, a glimmer of  interest, some would compare this to some sort of ape, but I see it more like a focused gold miner sifting through waterbed soil in search for the glimmer. You see I would believe that this generation's lack of attention span is a sign of lost intelligence if it wasn't for the fact that we also have the ability to become incredibly immersed, and combine that with the incredible amount of information we have to sort through.

We get bombarded with information and somehow we have to sort out this information from important and useless, something that makes us feel like we learned or gained, from something that is dragging down our mental bandwidth, so we search constantly, what is out there? what is here? why is this important? Our lack of attention span isn't that we can't care about the subject, it is that we ask to many questions of whats around us.

Where is the problem. Well for starters it is incredibly arrogant of us to believe we know what important. Not all that glitters is gold and it's real easy to get pulled by something truly not useful to us.

So that's the challenge, don't be ashamed of you wee bitty attention span, be proud, but also be weary, it has it's weaknesses, and one must learn what is gold, BEFORE it judges what is valuable.

Dat Ghibli Though

So many of you are probably familiar with Studio Ghibli, but those who are not, they are a Japanese animation film studio based in Tokyo. They have been around since the 80s and have made some films you may be familiar with(if you arn't you should:D) like KiKi's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and The Wind Rises. They have many more movie, but those are some of the most popular.

Besides being one of the ol classic Japanese animation studios that holds some power in Japanese Animation, and striking a deal with Disney to international distribute their movies, these folks hold a lot of power in my world, and in my childhood.

They are a humble studio that isn't afraid to present murky feeling animation to hold artistic value, than perfect moving super realistic representations, and they don't like to hide behind entertainment value, to me these guys make movies that have something to share, not to say, and they capture me every time.

Looking at Spirited away there top grossing film to date, they came to Disney and turned in a loose, kinda of whacky, and totally invigorating of a girl whos parents get transformed into pigs and a girl who investigates a magical spirit world trying to save her parents.


Or looking at The Wind Rises, a movie taking place in Japan, just before World War II really kicks off, about a Japanese plane designer, and his story that takes place in this turbulent time. A slow, almost crawling paced movie that doesn't seek to hold you attention and entertain you with constant action or constant intensity, but rather settles you in to whats happening and keeps you captured with it's murky style.






I think Ghibli is awesome and I hope you guys too, what are your favorite Ghibli Films?

Why He Aint Baad

So my homeboy Jesus didn't kick some folk's asses, and y'all think he's weak. Okay...Okay...Okay. Let's talk about why Jesus didn't kick ass, but is still superior to Neo's ass kicking.

So Jesus came down and took the believes of God and shook it up. Reading the beatitudes and the sermon on the mount, than applying that to the beliefs of the time, he turned the system on it's head. Jesus did what as Unexpected by preaching these things, and practiced them. Many times he goes at odds with his disciples when he wants to do some thing his way, and they disagree. His disciples resisted Jesus sometimes because they still have remnants of the world in their hearts. Of course Peter would want Jesus to open a can of whop ass on the soldiers, and of course even know we would to, but that is because we haven't let learned to be like Jesus enough to see his point of view.

He could smack em around, he could call down the legion and wipe the Romans off of the face of the earth, he could wield immeasurable against his enemies, but he doesn't. Because that would destroy the foundation of his message.

I don't know if you guys like Dungeons and Dragons, but I do.

So this is kind of a strange subject in general, but especially in the light of digital media. For those of you who do not know, Dungeons and Dragons is a dice rolling roll playing table top based game that was invented in the 1970s. In the game you have two types of people, players and the Dungeon Master. If you try to imagine this in a video game kind of way, the Dungeon Master is the narrator, the referee, and represents all the characters in the game that are not player controlled. The players play a character they've created and interact with each other and the world that the Dungeon Master has portrayed.

It is a highly creative and imaginative game, that some could argue were the grass roots to the development of role playing video games. It has gone through many popularity shifts, and in recent years has gain popularity that numerically rivals the 80s. That being said it has been taken to the internet and one can find podcasts, animated recreations of their adventures, and general discussions. Having such a large impact on role playing games, I am happy to see it coming back. It's largest weakness and will probably always be it's weakness is just how nerdy the game really is. Short of Larping it's a bunch of folks siting around a table verbally pretending to be elves and dwarves fighting dragons and such, but as the times move forward and our society develops more and more people willing to step out of their comfort zone I think Dungeons and Dragons can come back and make some neat impacts on our culture.

TED(Going back to documentaries)

TED stands for Technology, entertainment, and design. It is a conference held in many places all over the world that brings in inspirational, intelligent, and generally successful people to come in a speak in front a live audience, but also recorded for the general public. Ranges of topics truly covers the spectrum from how to tie your shoes better, to inspirational speeches impersonated by modern voice actors, from social injustice, to how to live a better life TED goes all over the place. Their slogan is "Ideas worth Sharing" and they really do share some ideas.

Now a days TED conferences still happen, and they have since moved to radio, podcasts, and viral videos. TED sorts through millions of people and finds the ones that have something to say. They are truly interesting.

As one TED speak said having mentors in your life is one of the single best ways to obtain success in any endeavor. You find the people who have something to share and you listen and gain. He reads a book a day searching for the parts of the book that can tell him something so he can learn from the great mentors long dead. TED in essence is a general life mentor, it can give you information and thoughts and ideas from people all over the world so you can learn across all subjects.

I love these kinds of viral shows that can really provide some good information. If you like them to here is a list of some really good you tube channels for learning stuff.

Vsauce(An interesting man who asks strange questions and provides awesome answers.)

Crash Course(The Green brothers made a channel organized by subject that seeks to teach anything from physics and anatomy to world history and government, in a entertaining and relate able way)

Minute Physics( a Chanel that seeks to answer all these works of the world physics questions in a way everyone can enjoy)

Sci Show(A funky show with another of the Green brothers that also answers strange works of the world questions)

here are some others
Extra credits, mental floss, apsap science, and smarter everyday.

Why we love audience participation.

I'm not psychologist, but I'm going to take a crack at it. We love audience participation for the same reason we like OK-go's videos. They are genuine. They are some goofy guys who came up with an idea and without producers or social polls or anything, they went in there backyard and had their sister teach them some moves and they danced. There is something so real about that, something that doesn't make me thing they are anywhere but in my reality. I cannot speak for everyone, but being a generation that grew up with technology, I also feel like a generation that grew up with a bombardment of advertisement on scale the world hasn't seen before. It feels like a biblical flood of someone trying to sell you something, and we've know ever since we got our first action figure that doesn't actually fly like the commercial made it look that most of this stuff is an exaggeration of the truth.

We are tired of exaggeration. There is so much around us that isn't what something cracked it up to be that maybe we want something simple. Maybe we want honest words, and genuine feelings. So when you apply this thought to audience participation, it gives us something real. People who just say and do things, and have quirks. Something no writer or actor could create, real an honest life.

A show that I really love is called an Idiot Abroad. It is a show about a man named Karl Pilkington. He is a uniquely pessimistic and honest man. He is sent to places all around the world to do these amazing things, and visit unique people, and all the show is is Karl being Karl in these fantastic places around the world.
 
What is great about this show isn't just the uniqueness of Karl's remarks, but just how honest they feel. He once said that "Armstrong visited the moon, but hasn't ever gone back. It must not have been that good" or his comment on Petra and how from a cave you get the great view of the Petra, but form Petra they just see his ugly cave. So you're better off in the cave.

Let's Talk About Vevo

VEVO is a multi company owned (Google, Sony, and Dubai entertainment) hub for music videos. They describe themselves as a Hulu for music videos. Here are some other notable descriptions. They are the largest partner of Youtube by 1.5 million subscribers, and even more impressive they lead in views in the last 30 days at 13.5 Billion, that is 8 billion more than the runner up. One of the largest contributes to the rise of the music industry since 1999. The replacement for MTV for the new online generation, and of course most cost efficient branch of the music industry.
A side note of VEVO is that they are 100% ad sustained. Through Youtube partnership(which is ad funded) and stream lining sponsored ads. they can be one of the largest music hubs in the world without selling a single piece of merchandise.
So what power does VEVO have? Well much like the music radio of decades ago(and a little now) and the MTV of the 90s, they drive the popular artists in the industry. Without VEVO many of the most famous artists wouldn't be as nearly publicized as they are, and future artists are going to need VEVO's backing to land anywhere in the scene.
On the topic of music videos, and VEVO being the largest company invested in music videos, this can be a blessing or a curse. VEVO being relatively new, especially in the industry itself, it;s rise has been staggeringly fast. My question is will they be a posative force on the artist freedoms of the artists, or will they manipulate the scene beyond the editing of explicit material?

Music Videos!

This post doesn't have much intellectual content besides some images from really good music videos from my high school days.
When I was younger I lived fairly distant from school. The furthest I could live from school and still have bus service actually. My bus never arrived at my house at the same time, it was usually within a 20 minute window, so I would watch music videos before school until my bus arrived.
For me personally this was an awesome time to be into television music videos, the good ones of this era were The Foo Fighters , Pretender video.

Bulletproof by La Roux


And those are just the ones I remember vividly. I enjoyed class today because it brought me back to those mornings and made me rethink those videos. I believe some old videos were just poor advertisements, but I'm glad I watched videos much after they became more of a reflection of the song, and hold some moving power.
Like Kings of Leon's Sex is on fire



Or Hurt by Johney Cash that we watched today.

I Love Documentaries

So documentaries are for sure one of my favorite things to watch in my spare time. They have a lot to say, and can provide you with a ton of information that for the most part will always be on topic. I really enjoy Netflix documentaries, documentaries on food, and Planet Earth. My personal favorite documentary is a documentary called Life in a Day. This has been done before, but basically these people told everyone, show us your daily life. From morning wake up to going to bed, show us your day. People from all over the world sent in footage, these guys sorted it and gave us a documentary.


You can find a documentary on just about anything, and if it hasn't been made it's probably in the making! From a telling of the story of The Kings of Leon, to Woman's rights in third world countries, people have something to say about, and documentaries are a pathway for this communication. It's the next step in the interconnectedness of the world. I can speak to anyone willing to talk to me I want around the world, but like any conversation you have with people it's hard to get the whole story, to see the whole picture of what it means to be them. Documentaries give me a reference, a way to see into the life of vegetarians, warrior tribes, social activists, Siberian Leopards,  revolutionaries, cancer patients, Buddhist monks, Lions, the list goes on. In no way shape or form do documentaries make me an expert on anything, but they give me a deeper glimpse into to things that before I would be limited to a Wikipedia page. I love documentaries, because that make more information more accessible, and inspire learning.

Let's talk about women being portrayed in Video Games

So for a long time woman in video games were more of sexy place holders. Woman always seemed to fit in as the fan service, by either being scandalous outfits, or fitting some sort of stereotypical personality type that doesn't do women justice.
I'm not going to talk about that. Those things represent the past, and I am not going to claim it doesn't still happen, it totally does, but I want talk about the road we are going down. I want to reiterate that I am not claiming we're very far down his road, but we are going a good direction when it comes to this topic.
Lets hit up some companies that have done or are doing woman some justice.
Naughty Dog
These folks make some strong girls, from Jak and Daxter to The Last of Us, these guys flush out their female characters into strong story carrying folks. They aren't the damsel is distress, and even though situations like that happen in the game these females prove they can handle themselves, but appreciate the help.
Looking specifically at Elli in the Last of Us, she is a young girl, and she alone is immune to an infection that has crippled humanity, and needs to traverse a broken world to reach a facility to develop a cure. In this game you play as Joel, a grown man who through some events I wont disclose is now escorting Elli across the country to the facility. One one hand you have his father daughter relationship developing between the two, but Elli proves that even though she's young she can handle all of these intense situations. She has her faults, but she is a true character, she has depth and a personality that reflects a person, not just a place holder.
















Irrational Games
This is another example of a company that is throwing woman into the games mix without abusing shallow stereotypes. These folks made Bioshock. Many of you probably played this legendary game. What makes them special in this game is to introduce secondary and tertiary characters that are uniquely not sexy or stereotypical. I'm talking the doctor who interacts and guides the main character at times, but especially the female enemy. In this abstract city of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, The city fell into chaos after body enhancements and political power structures collapsed society, and now you have a bunch of crazy gene junkies running around. The female enemy are just as crazy and messed up as the male enemy. I find it wonderful that these enemy types aren't exploited into some cheesy or shallow version of enemys that many companies fall into.
Those are just some small examples of Companys portraying woman in a better light. There are tons and tons of other companys and games that are driving this is good directions and escaping fan servicy bland female characters.