Okay, I think this might end up being a fairly long entry as I have a lot to talk about. This evening I had the privilege of sitting in on the monthly(?) round table at the FTI, focused on the topic of 'Film Etiquette'.
'How do you look professional and ensure that you'll be hired again? Everyone else knows that you should turn your cell phone off, but what else is there that you need to consider?' - Excerpt from the FTI website.
I discovered a lot of useful information from this small talk ('Bout 20 people turned up), there were three key speakers though who had been asked to come along in order to give their experience and what they believe is good film etiquette. Two of them were people mainly in film while another was an animator who was in one of the first Animation Diploma groups at FTI. I was surprised to find how much more loud the two film people were compared to the animator, the archetype really does stand for the two different mediums. Strange. Anyway, I'll stop being stupid now and reveal the key speakers names. Primarily there was Producer Susie Campbell, a lady who'd certainly fought for her spot in the industry; she had some interesting stories to tell of how her career almost came to a sprawling end, it's scary really as all the issue revolved around was a pair of tap dance shoes (It brings me up to a topic I want to bring up personally later on in this post). I quickly noted down bits of her career, primarily the big piece of information that she let everyone know about. that being her 350 hours of broadcast for children’s television; she originally began her career after searching for a connection to film in WA. She discovered PIFT (Perth Institute for Film and Television, now better know as the Film and Television Institute [FTI]) joining to find some opening and obtaining a job, her observations and quick thinking (translating all of this from what came across a little braggy, but entertaining the way she spoke) left what people would consider a decent impression in the industry.
Second, and this speaker was the primary person for us Animators (Who all turned up mind you!), was Chris Toovey (Note: I originally misspelled it as Tubee, don't make that mistake again), a 3D artist and student of TACA 2; the second group of Diploma Animators from the FTI. He worked alongside Ebbie, our Facilitator, in the 26 weeks but ended up working on the opposite final project, titled Grotters, than her own chosen pitch. With this immediate connection between Chris and Ebbie made conversation a lot easier, it wasn't until Graeme actually introduced him and explained he was an ex-student that I sank in my seat that I was in the presence of success. Sure Susie made it to the top with a pitchfork and tire iron, but Chris had actually been in the same program as I, albeit likely much different, and made a huge success from it. This was someone all us animators could relate to and learn from; I can't help but think there was a greater force (Watson of Graonimus) who purposefully asked Chris to attend in his spare time and share his knowledge; it makes me really happy that all of the animation students came along. Anyway; enough glorifying. Primarily after Chris finished his Diploma he made his way into the industry, the beginnings are a little hazy for me to recall but it's more or less a leap from the FTI to 2D Millipede. I must have blacked out a bit here, sitting right next to the guy and I can't remember anything about 2D Millipede. I did a search but it just lead back to the FTI website and a newsletter about Elspeth Brooks joining 3D Millipede, (Note: Learn more of these two entities), so I'm going to assume it was 3D Millipede. It makes sense as Chris ended up falling into 3D modeling visualization for architecture in housing and industrial sectors. Chris too worked for Excalibur connected with FTI before moving onto Last Pixel; Last Pixel creates 3D architecture both locally and abroad, in the economic lull though they've recently branched into TV and commercials; the team of 10 or so also do their best to help out beginner or emerging film makers with their movies if they request 3D animation.
Finally, the third speaker of the evening was Karen Farmer. Now she wasn't a former FTI film student as far as I know, she attended a university (the name eludes me) attending a particular course for 3 years before getting into the prototype of the film course the institute was firing up. What was important about Karen's presence is she was a familiar face to me, Graeme had introduced a handful of us Animators to her at the WASA's several weekends earlier I'm sure; this was a milestone as it was a face I'd recalled meaning my networking is ending up successful. Continuing. Karen ended up being a 'Guinea Pig' as she preferred to call it, for her institute when they first started the film course. It ended up being a year of just, "Do what you want and such", for her and a number of other students. At the end of a year they'd all created a short film together. Sounds like a dream come true to be honest, or at least the right place at the right time.
My networking went out further than just the 3 key speakers though, I met yet another former FTI Animation student called Ooman (I was seriously dyslexic when it came to names this evening, I hope to god I got the guys name right plus I didn't learn his sir name) who was a part of the Animation group before mine, T0807 (Sounds like a Terminator or something). He worked on the chosen pitch called Patience which Tim had been kind enough to show us weeks ago meaning I wasn't ignorant, plus he also worked on Tifficate and Sir Loin which I was able to relate to a lot more considering its connection to video gaming; we ended up having a fairly decent chat on that behalf.
Hokay, soh, I should probably get onto the actual 'Film Etiquette' part now. Bare with me, these notes were being jotted down as fast as possible:
"Nobody tells you what to do. You already know what your job is," - Susie Campbell
- Primarily Susie started off with using your observation skills, not considering your environment is the greatest sin; asides from not turning your mobile off. If you take patterns and everything from the big picture into considering then you can keep up or stay one step ahead of everyone else on set.
- Prioritization, this wastes thousands of dollars if not taken into account according to Susie. If you ask to go to the toilet when everyone is on set you'll be told no, it's something you should have done during break time. A figure of 70,000 was used for dollars per minute by Susie, whether that's exaggeration is beyond me but I'm guessing it's fairly close to the real figure; or how Producers look at it anyway. Time is money, Film and Television commandment No.1.
- Susie said that if someone barks at you, bark back. I didn't quite grasp this part as it could potentially get you nicked in the rear. Might just be another addition to the dyslexia buildup tonight.
- Let people know if you can't do something. One interestingly obscene story Susie told the group was of this one girl she had asked to photocopy a phone list(? [darn my note taking skills]) for everyone else involved with the project; catch is she'd never used a photocopier before but took up the job regardless so she didn't sound stupid. The photocopied image came out wrong, somehow, so she used liquid paper to cover up a particular part of the original phone list to make the copies stand out better. It came out worse afterwards, so she resorted to using more liquid paper. She resulted in destroying the original, and building up a pile of useless copies. Needless to say Susie exploded at the situation causing the girl to panic, otherwise bottled in. The lists were supposed to be mailed out; Susie received a call from another co-worker explaining how there was nothing in the envelope he'd received. It turned out that Susie had freaked the poor girl so far that she'd forgotten to place the photocopies into the envelopes she listed stamped and mailed the same day. Consider this an exercise in honesty.
- No phone on, period. On set primarily. Apparently with every phone that goes off on set approximately $54 dollars are lost in the process; money that would have been preferred well spent.
- Closed in shoes on set only. I wanted to ask what the operation was if there was a particular scene requesting an actor/tress to have bare feet, but even with my professional social skills I wasn't able to find the perfect window of opportunity to chime in and ask. You don't raise hands here, you literally have to butt in; something I've been conditioned not to do. Yeah, don't judge me if I keep my mouth shut.
- Keep an eye on the weather up and coming, if it's bad and you aren't prepared someone on set will ask you whether you want to step out from the conditions. You say no when really you're wet and miserable. Not sure how this refers to etiquette, more of be sure you're the one to keep an eye out for others who are wet and miserable.
- Don't hover around people. Susie explained how a lot of the time people like to buzz around the monitor as the Director views for specific things which is off putting. Strange especially when you have the real thing right in front of you.
- Get out of the actors eye line when they're acting, it can be off putting and could get you in serious trouble from them. Susie shared how she literally dropped to the floor and tucked her head between her legs just to get straight out of an actors eye line.
- Don't touch equipment that isn't a part of your job, if something has been knocked then leave it to the art department. Touching or moving things could leave you liable for it.
- Being on time, show up.
- Actors are precious and can crack easily. Treat them with respect and don't buzz around them. Susie explained how there had been plenty of child actors running off crying after being shouted at for mucking about on set; and hour and a half of money goes down the drain as they calm down and get makeup reset.
- NO Drugs.
- NO Stealing.
- Find better ways to do things
"Not washing your coffee mug," - Chris Toovey
- Chris started off by tell us how all animators have a specific lighting for them to work effectively. Some prefer dark, some prefer bright, some prefer dim. Take into consideration of everyone and their preferred environment.
- Not being able to take proper criticism, being thick or a know-it-all ego. It gives you a bad impression and isn't how studios work.
- Thinking that your department is better than another, speaking so. Every department is equal in the project, without it it's similar to an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.
- Manner of communication, speaking politely makes things go much farther.
- Good planning/storyboard for green screen is a necessity; keep a dummy role in mind, keep on your feet. If you forget where something is on green screen then time and money will be wasted.
- If the client isn't clear, guess.
- Computers: Big one; take care of what you put on or take off the working server for your job. Anything from copyright infringement could occur or if information from a project is leaked onto the net then it'll lead back to you and bad things will follow.
The night was wrapped up with a little mingling and food. Everyone except for Evangeline left at 8:30 for the sake of getting home, but otherwise I feel it was an excellent evening of learning and networking.
Aaawkwaaard
This is a part I thought might be fun to add into each of my industry posts just for some humor, whether sour I don't know. Tonight’s awkward moment was when I introduced myself to Ooman, there was a distinct lack of dialogue for several seconds before he began talking. I'm not sure whether it was my selfish side for the networking unit, but I had to quickly ask "And your name?" before feeling like I was speaking to the invisible man. Regardless, we had a good chat about Tifficate and Loin otherwise over writing the bad moment before.
That's it from me at the moment; I'll have to follow up with another SPAA Log seeing as how much I've been lagging on it recently. Definitely slacking off in the research sector.
Ciao!
--------
It's clear that animation doesn't have as much to take into consideration than film which is something, after tonight, is what makes me feel sorry for the Film students; they certainly have their work cut out for them. It's ridiculous how on edge you would constantly have to be in order to hold onto your career. Susie potentially had a break down when she couldn't get a pair of tap dancing shoes because of store closing time! What the hell? This part really placed a hole inside of me; all of the small things are blown right out of proportions. Give it a couple of hours in the morning to get the shoes; but it turns out those hours are thousands of dollars. Why? I wish I'd asked to be honest. But really, there's this stupid, morbid battlefield which is the film industry which goes on every day. I'd prefer boot camp and warfare over tackling anything in film.
You have employers who are next to the crankiest beings on the face of the planet, and employees who cry themselves to sleep at night that they could be out of the job in the morning.
By no means take my interpretation to heart; this is merely as I see it.
I feel that it comes from the lack of training, really. It's not until tertiary education that you actually have the opportunity to fire up in it; you could be a froufrou up to this stage only learning mathematics, English and science through school while you eagerly wait to attend that film course you've been dying for. No one's been prepared, save for a handful of talented geniuses, and those who make it to the top seriously have to improvise. The shit they're put through on the way turns them into trolls who snatch at those make their way through their own career.
If children were educated in subjects such as this, creative subjects that they're given plenty of time in to really evolve their minds into some new, then this process would be less grueling. Eventually you'd have a generation of super genetic humans who don't have panic attacks from fuckups on set because their employees don't fuckup because they've been prepared. Currently it's all a game of luck, even the most adlib winging nut can crash and burn. This is ruining opportunities and destroying potential talent.
I salute those film students who keep up their positive demeanor: when they step into a room of film executives, they're stepping into a room woven from the cords of sourness itself.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
SPAA Log 1
SPAA is the acronym for 'Screen Producers Association of Australia'.
So it turns out not only am I supposed to make a note of all my industry involvement and networking but I need to keep track of my given topic (Which is the SPAA, or more narrowly their website and all about them). After a quick brows of the front page I instantly moved to what industry events they hold, primarily to see whether or not I could attend any of them. Seems things are a little more Sydney based though for the Screen Producers Association of Australia.
>.>
Anyway, the event which grabbed my attention and what I ended up spending a good 2 or so hours reading up on was the SPAA Fringe. It's what appealed to me the most as the Fringe is specifically designed to help out beginners in the screen industry; not student animators like me but more someone who's between me and someone who might have a full studio setup persay. Regardless, it'd rock to attend, airfares would put a dent in my wallet though.
Attending the Fringe lets you witness speakers at the top of their field in the industry. This falls into: Producing, Writing, Directing, Editing, Animation, Gaming, Design and probably breaks down even further for those interested in a particular branch of work in Animation, etc. Last year (2008) 400 delegates attended the Fringe, apparently; I'm assuming 'delegate' is the emerging artist so it's not a very open function. Couldn't find a price tag for the ticket anywhere but I'm guessing it'd be pretty expensive.
Essentially you're there to learn from the best, some of last years keynote speakers were: Rick McCallum, Producer, Star Wars; Ben Batstone-Cunningham, Creator, Secondlife; Andrew Mason, Producer, The Matrix; Amy Hobby, Producer, Secretary, 2008 SPAA Fringe.
Among hearing what each person in the industry has to say about their experience and expertise there are plenty of other functions setup for people to attend. Obligatory opening and closing night drinks, Workshops, Interactive Activities, access to Industry top Producers (Not sure what SPAA means by this yet; I mean, you have access to Industry top everything you could dream of), Roundtable Discussions with up to 40 participants, Industry professionals share information on the organisation of their company.
This next one is the largest part of the Fringe in my opinion. 50 one on one conversations are hosted which allow the candidates to talk candidly for 30 minutes with a senior industry player about their project, career, and funding opportunities; that would potentially be the best jot down of notes you would ever be given the opportunity to jot down!
I searched a little further to see whether or not there were any communities I could join freely, but forums seemed oblivion to the Fringe and the 2008 Fringe Facebook communities haven't been active since November last year.
Oh well, I enjoyed getting caught up in reading it regardless; leaves a slight hole in my heart that something like this doesn't function in Western Australia...either that or I haven't heard of one that big yet. One can dream.
So it turns out not only am I supposed to make a note of all my industry involvement and networking but I need to keep track of my given topic (Which is the SPAA, or more narrowly their website and all about them). After a quick brows of the front page I instantly moved to what industry events they hold, primarily to see whether or not I could attend any of them. Seems things are a little more Sydney based though for the Screen Producers Association of Australia.
>.>
Anyway, the event which grabbed my attention and what I ended up spending a good 2 or so hours reading up on was the SPAA Fringe. It's what appealed to me the most as the Fringe is specifically designed to help out beginners in the screen industry; not student animators like me but more someone who's between me and someone who might have a full studio setup persay. Regardless, it'd rock to attend, airfares would put a dent in my wallet though.
Attending the Fringe lets you witness speakers at the top of their field in the industry. This falls into: Producing, Writing, Directing, Editing, Animation, Gaming, Design and probably breaks down even further for those interested in a particular branch of work in Animation, etc. Last year (2008) 400 delegates attended the Fringe, apparently; I'm assuming 'delegate' is the emerging artist so it's not a very open function. Couldn't find a price tag for the ticket anywhere but I'm guessing it'd be pretty expensive.
Essentially you're there to learn from the best, some of last years keynote speakers were: Rick McCallum, Producer, Star Wars; Ben Batstone-Cunningham, Creator, Secondlife; Andrew Mason, Producer, The Matrix; Amy Hobby, Producer, Secretary, 2008 SPAA Fringe.
Among hearing what each person in the industry has to say about their experience and expertise there are plenty of other functions setup for people to attend. Obligatory opening and closing night drinks, Workshops, Interactive Activities, access to Industry top Producers (Not sure what SPAA means by this yet; I mean, you have access to Industry top everything you could dream of), Roundtable Discussions with up to 40 participants, Industry professionals share information on the organisation of their company.
This next one is the largest part of the Fringe in my opinion. 50 one on one conversations are hosted which allow the candidates to talk candidly for 30 minutes with a senior industry player about their project, career, and funding opportunities; that would potentially be the best jot down of notes you would ever be given the opportunity to jot down!
I searched a little further to see whether or not there were any communities I could join freely, but forums seemed oblivion to the Fringe and the 2008 Fringe Facebook communities haven't been active since November last year.
Oh well, I enjoyed getting caught up in reading it regardless; leaves a slight hole in my heart that something like this doesn't function in Western Australia...either that or I haven't heard of one that big yet. One can dream.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Mary and Max
The title of this post is the title of a stop motion feature film created here, in Australia, Written and Directed by Adam Elliot; creator of the well known short film titled 'Harvey Crumpet'. First I'll give a brief description of the film before explaining the unique way I managed to gain a ticket for the first public screening in Perth.
Mary and Max is a dark comedy portraying the life of two people at opposite ends of the who, under quite childish curiosity circumstances, become pen pals. It's based loosely on a true story of Elliot and his own pen friend. Mary is an 8 year old school girl from Melbourne, and Max is a 44 year old overweight Jewish man with Aspergers syndrome from New York. Through out the course of two decades Mary and Max write to each other, each letter seeming to spark some sort of scenario; both characters learn from each letter and as they grew older, the friendship grew greater albeit from many bumps and spikes along the road.
I had the privelage of helping create a short ten second stop motion animation for the opening of the night, with help from Daniel, Crystal and Ebbie. The presenter from the ABC had requested it specifically asking that it was made to look very bad, or "crappy" if to quote everyone. So we set out to deliberately make this stop animation crappy, the morale of it is stop motion isn't an easy type of animation to create and present. The ABC Presenter pretended for it to be his own creation that took him 2 weeks to complete (2 days for us), but in the end we were given an honorable mention for taking up the role. Thus, Crystal, Daniel and I each received an 'Admit 2' pass for the first screening of Mary and Max in Perth. It couldn't have felt any more Awesome to help in the presentation of an even more Awesome stop motion animation!
At the end of the screening there was a Q&A session with Adam Elliot himself along with Melanie Coombs who took up the Producer role of Mary and Max. Elliot explained before the screening that everything visible in the film was hand made and that there was debate that the animators would digitally create the rain, water, fire, and smoke animations; in the end it was settled that they would stick with the primitive method of just using physical products in the stop motion aspect. I couldn't help but put my hand up and ask how they did the smoke animation as it was the one separate of water and fire that eluded me the most, looking so realistic. It was a little complicated in description from Elliot as to how it worked, they ended up using a sort of white wire with a particular clear product, fading it out slightly and just bending it each picture as you would anything else in stop motion; The end result looking excellent.
That pretty much covers my night, unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to the screening of the WAM Bam competition animations; something I'm very upset about. There just wasn't enough time to make it down to Fremantle. Hopefully I'll be able to see the end result at school on Wednesday. Ciao!
Mary and Max is a dark comedy portraying the life of two people at opposite ends of the who, under quite childish curiosity circumstances, become pen pals. It's based loosely on a true story of Elliot and his own pen friend. Mary is an 8 year old school girl from Melbourne, and Max is a 44 year old overweight Jewish man with Aspergers syndrome from New York. Through out the course of two decades Mary and Max write to each other, each letter seeming to spark some sort of scenario; both characters learn from each letter and as they grew older, the friendship grew greater albeit from many bumps and spikes along the road.
I had the privelage of helping create a short ten second stop motion animation for the opening of the night, with help from Daniel, Crystal and Ebbie. The presenter from the ABC had requested it specifically asking that it was made to look very bad, or "crappy" if to quote everyone. So we set out to deliberately make this stop animation crappy, the morale of it is stop motion isn't an easy type of animation to create and present. The ABC Presenter pretended for it to be his own creation that took him 2 weeks to complete (2 days for us), but in the end we were given an honorable mention for taking up the role. Thus, Crystal, Daniel and I each received an 'Admit 2' pass for the first screening of Mary and Max in Perth. It couldn't have felt any more Awesome to help in the presentation of an even more Awesome stop motion animation!
At the end of the screening there was a Q&A session with Adam Elliot himself along with Melanie Coombs who took up the Producer role of Mary and Max. Elliot explained before the screening that everything visible in the film was hand made and that there was debate that the animators would digitally create the rain, water, fire, and smoke animations; in the end it was settled that they would stick with the primitive method of just using physical products in the stop motion aspect. I couldn't help but put my hand up and ask how they did the smoke animation as it was the one separate of water and fire that eluded me the most, looking so realistic. It was a little complicated in description from Elliot as to how it worked, they ended up using a sort of white wire with a particular clear product, fading it out slightly and just bending it each picture as you would anything else in stop motion; The end result looking excellent.
That pretty much covers my night, unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to the screening of the WAM Bam competition animations; something I'm very upset about. There just wasn't enough time to make it down to Fremantle. Hopefully I'll be able to see the end result at school on Wednesday. Ciao!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Wam Bam Spectacular!
This evening was the beginning of the WAM Bam Speed Animation competition hosted by WAnimate in association with FTI, I left the Annex feeling a bit remorseful that I wasn't actually taking place in the competition but the thought of seeing what the outcomes of each animation is going to be at the screening on Sunday will make up for it.
Those out of the loop, in Wam Bam you're given 49 hours to create an animation based on 3 words randomly picked out of a hat. The animation can be whatever you want as long as it holds those three words one way or another.
Evangeline, Daniel and I were the only Animation students to attend the opening; we all agree that performing in the competition is something we'd want to do, alas other responsibilities take place and we all left an hour and a half after the initiation. Talked to Kate Vyvyan, inevitable obviously but for the sake of networking it was good to bump into her again after the WASA's. Also saw Khrob Edmonds, who the whole animation class had been introduced to a couple of days earlier as our 3D Animation lecturer; why he was there I'm not sure as the mans humor seems to revolve around masking answers to questions but I'm guessing he'd be judging much like Tim at the screening. Doubly assuming he's a member of WAnimate. Evangeline, Daniel and I also met a stop motion aspirant named Liam in the FTI kitchen who planned on entering the competition; he showed us some of his maquettes he'd created. So it'll be interesting to see what his team ends up creating.
Above that, just went around to each group and asked them what their words are, what ideas they had cracking. Some people seemed little to less interested in really having a conversation with a couple of students outside of their group but it was fun to find out what some people had going just from a couple of words. Tim also pointed out some other particular people in the industry(?) who's names I didn't take in extremely well, still something I need to get better at. Had a chat with an FTI graduate from T0803 who worked on Yo-Yo Wolf. Overall a fairly decent evening in terms of networking, it's something we're all still getting used to so all we can really be is optimistic in the social aspect of the industry.
Mary and Max plus the WAM Bam screenings on Sunday, should be fun ^.^
Those out of the loop, in Wam Bam you're given 49 hours to create an animation based on 3 words randomly picked out of a hat. The animation can be whatever you want as long as it holds those three words one way or another.
Evangeline, Daniel and I were the only Animation students to attend the opening; we all agree that performing in the competition is something we'd want to do, alas other responsibilities take place and we all left an hour and a half after the initiation. Talked to Kate Vyvyan, inevitable obviously but for the sake of networking it was good to bump into her again after the WASA's. Also saw Khrob Edmonds, who the whole animation class had been introduced to a couple of days earlier as our 3D Animation lecturer; why he was there I'm not sure as the mans humor seems to revolve around masking answers to questions but I'm guessing he'd be judging much like Tim at the screening. Doubly assuming he's a member of WAnimate. Evangeline, Daniel and I also met a stop motion aspirant named Liam in the FTI kitchen who planned on entering the competition; he showed us some of his maquettes he'd created. So it'll be interesting to see what his team ends up creating.
Above that, just went around to each group and asked them what their words are, what ideas they had cracking. Some people seemed little to less interested in really having a conversation with a couple of students outside of their group but it was fun to find out what some people had going just from a couple of words. Tim also pointed out some other particular people in the industry(?) who's names I didn't take in extremely well, still something I need to get better at. Had a chat with an FTI graduate from T0803 who worked on Yo-Yo Wolf. Overall a fairly decent evening in terms of networking, it's something we're all still getting used to so all we can really be is optimistic in the social aspect of the industry.
Mary and Max plus the WAM Bam screenings on Sunday, should be fun ^.^
Monday, March 23, 2009
Getting Serious
Notice how I didn't use "Why so serious" instead.
So Screen Australia is working with the ABC to support Educational/Training games and present it to a wider, public audience.
Being a gamer myself it seems like a bit of a toss up, mixing education and entertainment is like baking fish in cake; it hasn't appealed to me in the past and after working on an assignment relevant to said 'serious games' in highschool it's not an easy thing to pull off. Since that's the case the scale ends up either leaning towards education more, making the game a chore and no more fun that listening to a monotone lecturer talk about various types of plastic, or entertainment more at which case you don't learn anything. There's the issue of getting the 'message' across, which is obviously the crux of the whole scheme; doing that inside interactive entertainment doesn't really sound plausible.
Why? Well, being a gamer I've come to criticize games in the past for elements; those being story, graphics, sound, and other deeper things, etc. Plenty of past video games solely based on entertainment have wrapped up a message in all of its programming and visuals, true, but those are generally morals. Morals and Education are two very different things so try not to get them confused. Anyway; looking from a particular artistic standpoint, Interactive Entertainment is the most difficult medium to manipulate and bring together successfully as there are so many other mediums that need to be focused on in the process (Many would disagree as IE is still an emerging form of art, go watch 'The Most Powerful Person in the World'* if you do). Fixing education into it? making it a hit so that its purpose is actually fulfilled? Encouraging more of the same edutainment products to be developed? It's like you've taken the most difficult medium and turned it impossible.
You can't force feed someone certain information if they're not interested; majority of gamers could likely cut out the message in favor of entertainment, or not purchase the game all together. That involves both the core and casual market. Core: Obviously there for bragging rights, they'd prefer competition and challenge with a hemmoragingly deep story to get engrossed in over being bugged by the worlds typical issues that they're bombarded with every day. Casual: Similar deal, they're purely playing video games for the short burst of entertainment their mind requires just to get a break from the nag of reality. Try seeing it as traveling to another planet and attempting to mind control a heard of moose like aliens. You're targeting a poorly researched audience with a still emerging medium, good luck.
You might be seeing the quote "At least we know the message has been received by some people" in the future. This just turns the idea on its head, for me, as it's wasted time and resources which could have been spent on other more practical ways to get the message across; the same time and resources that could have been placed into actual Health and Safety, money that would be better off pushed into the current economic and environmental crisis. I won't tap into politics too much as it's a subject I'm clearly ignorant of, but I do understand that any support towards said crisis is support spent well rather than winging it on assumption with some other lackluster idea.
Then there's the other half of me which hopes this actually hits home and changes the world, at which case I'll likely stop blowing crap out of proportions.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUbyMxSfSs4
You know Stan Lee agrees, and he supported comics when they were emerging and considered a childish form of entertainment with no orthodox methods of art anywhere to be found. Notice the pattern? (This part was out of the way so I didn't stray from the main topic, but I had to give an honorable mention)
So Screen Australia is working with the ABC to support Educational/Training games and present it to a wider, public audience.
Being a gamer myself it seems like a bit of a toss up, mixing education and entertainment is like baking fish in cake; it hasn't appealed to me in the past and after working on an assignment relevant to said 'serious games' in highschool it's not an easy thing to pull off. Since that's the case the scale ends up either leaning towards education more, making the game a chore and no more fun that listening to a monotone lecturer talk about various types of plastic, or entertainment more at which case you don't learn anything. There's the issue of getting the 'message' across, which is obviously the crux of the whole scheme; doing that inside interactive entertainment doesn't really sound plausible.
Why? Well, being a gamer I've come to criticize games in the past for elements; those being story, graphics, sound, and other deeper things, etc. Plenty of past video games solely based on entertainment have wrapped up a message in all of its programming and visuals, true, but those are generally morals. Morals and Education are two very different things so try not to get them confused. Anyway; looking from a particular artistic standpoint, Interactive Entertainment is the most difficult medium to manipulate and bring together successfully as there are so many other mediums that need to be focused on in the process (Many would disagree as IE is still an emerging form of art, go watch 'The Most Powerful Person in the World'* if you do). Fixing education into it? making it a hit so that its purpose is actually fulfilled? Encouraging more of the same edutainment products to be developed? It's like you've taken the most difficult medium and turned it impossible.
You can't force feed someone certain information if they're not interested; majority of gamers could likely cut out the message in favor of entertainment, or not purchase the game all together. That involves both the core and casual market. Core: Obviously there for bragging rights, they'd prefer competition and challenge with a hemmoragingly deep story to get engrossed in over being bugged by the worlds typical issues that they're bombarded with every day. Casual: Similar deal, they're purely playing video games for the short burst of entertainment their mind requires just to get a break from the nag of reality. Try seeing it as traveling to another planet and attempting to mind control a heard of moose like aliens. You're targeting a poorly researched audience with a still emerging medium, good luck.
You might be seeing the quote "At least we know the message has been received by some people" in the future. This just turns the idea on its head, for me, as it's wasted time and resources which could have been spent on other more practical ways to get the message across; the same time and resources that could have been placed into actual Health and Safety, money that would be better off pushed into the current economic and environmental crisis. I won't tap into politics too much as it's a subject I'm clearly ignorant of, but I do understand that any support towards said crisis is support spent well rather than winging it on assumption with some other lackluster idea.
Then there's the other half of me which hopes this actually hits home and changes the world, at which case I'll likely stop blowing crap out of proportions.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUbyMxSfSs4
You know Stan Lee agrees, and he supported comics when they were emerging and considered a childish form of entertainment with no orthodox methods of art anywhere to be found. Notice the pattern? (This part was out of the way so I didn't stray from the main topic, but I had to give an honorable mention)
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Western Australian Screen Awards
Or better known as the WASA's.
Getting involved with the industry being a particular unit itself in my course it's relatively a mandatory move to step into some of its functions; with the WASAs being potentially the largest and most sophisticated, it seemed the correct place to start. I placed my name in for some voluntary work at the Octagon Theatre, at the UWA (University of Western Australia). I was hoping to catch some of the ceremony but unfortunately the role Sally had given me involved working during the majority of the screening; I snatched up a programme for the sake of finding out the names of films and people though.
Slight occupation rundown: Started 3pm. Spray painting large, several gallon drums gold and moving them to/from the courtyard at the middle/end of the ceremony. Setting out each individual award programme on each seat in the theatre. Starting up heater things which generally disagree. Fetching speakers for the resident DJ, and cleaning up the courtyard once the party was over.
Slightly disappointed with the lack of Animation students not volunteering in the same area of work as me, but I established a friendship with a couple of the film students giving me a decent network into that particular group; considering Animation and Film students appear to stick to their own groups from my observation, I can ask help of them where required or they can do the same vice versa.
Attempted the odd mingle with several complete strangers but received awkward response most of the time, so both parties ended up back in their groups as predicted (Film substantially larger than Animation). After an unknown amount of time I spotted Graeme Watson (Our course coordinator), deciding to exploit the fact that he could introduce us to people and suggest to our small group of, Evangeline, Shani, Daniel and I that we move in that general direction. The suggesting paid off and we were introduced to Kate Vyvyan, Secretary of WAnimate. Our chatter covered several topics, namely the Wam-Bam competition which I was most interested in, and also Adam Elliots appearance the Sunday of the same weekend as the Wam-Bam; plus several other 'mingle' things. I was hoping in our time with talking to Kate that someone else would randomly join our group and introduce themselves but at this stage I've filed that under wishful thinking; if I actually want to 'chat' and get involved then it's something I'll have to push myself into rather than just hope it stumbles across me. Regardless, I was glad to meet someone in the industry tonight, more proud to think my suggestion lead to it albeit through Graeme.
After that it was a slow road to the Animators all heading home leaving me there with the selective hearing Film students. Fortunately graced by the presence of Ebbie, our course facilitator, who introduced me to Clancie (Sir name currently unknown) who was in Ebbie's Animation class with her. That conversation pretty much went over Tiki the Weasel and D20 Role Playing.
It got to a stage where everyone Animate wise eventually left, I chose to just wait until Packdown time considering it was around that stage where everyone was too intoxicated to mingle with successfully. Finished off the night at 1am cleaning up the place with Greg from Film, Graeme, Sally, and the crew from the Octagon.
Wam-Bam'll be up next. Assides from that I've established my Facebook profile among other things. It all seems to be sliding into place.
Getting involved with the industry being a particular unit itself in my course it's relatively a mandatory move to step into some of its functions; with the WASAs being potentially the largest and most sophisticated, it seemed the correct place to start. I placed my name in for some voluntary work at the Octagon Theatre, at the UWA (University of Western Australia). I was hoping to catch some of the ceremony but unfortunately the role Sally had given me involved working during the majority of the screening; I snatched up a programme for the sake of finding out the names of films and people though.
Slight occupation rundown: Started 3pm. Spray painting large, several gallon drums gold and moving them to/from the courtyard at the middle/end of the ceremony. Setting out each individual award programme on each seat in the theatre. Starting up heater things which generally disagree. Fetching speakers for the resident DJ, and cleaning up the courtyard once the party was over.
Slightly disappointed with the lack of Animation students not volunteering in the same area of work as me, but I established a friendship with a couple of the film students giving me a decent network into that particular group; considering Animation and Film students appear to stick to their own groups from my observation, I can ask help of them where required or they can do the same vice versa.
Attempted the odd mingle with several complete strangers but received awkward response most of the time, so both parties ended up back in their groups as predicted (Film substantially larger than Animation). After an unknown amount of time I spotted Graeme Watson (Our course coordinator), deciding to exploit the fact that he could introduce us to people and suggest to our small group of, Evangeline, Shani, Daniel and I that we move in that general direction. The suggesting paid off and we were introduced to Kate Vyvyan, Secretary of WAnimate. Our chatter covered several topics, namely the Wam-Bam competition which I was most interested in, and also Adam Elliots appearance the Sunday of the same weekend as the Wam-Bam; plus several other 'mingle' things. I was hoping in our time with talking to Kate that someone else would randomly join our group and introduce themselves but at this stage I've filed that under wishful thinking; if I actually want to 'chat' and get involved then it's something I'll have to push myself into rather than just hope it stumbles across me. Regardless, I was glad to meet someone in the industry tonight, more proud to think my suggestion lead to it albeit through Graeme.
After that it was a slow road to the Animators all heading home leaving me there with the selective hearing Film students. Fortunately graced by the presence of Ebbie, our course facilitator, who introduced me to Clancie (Sir name currently unknown) who was in Ebbie's Animation class with her. That conversation pretty much went over Tiki the Weasel and D20 Role Playing.
It got to a stage where everyone Animate wise eventually left, I chose to just wait until Packdown time considering it was around that stage where everyone was too intoxicated to mingle with successfully. Finished off the night at 1am cleaning up the place with Greg from Film, Graeme, Sally, and the crew from the Octagon.
Wam-Bam'll be up next. Assides from that I've established my Facebook profile among other things. It all seems to be sliding into place.
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