Modding and Machinima

In the Bethesda Softworks game “The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion”, the game was released with a ‘construction kit’.  This construction kit, allowed everyone and anyone who had the game to create anything they wanted to add to the dungeons of Oblivion.

Leo Berkeley explains, “machinima can be seen as an offshoot of the broader phenomenon of game modding, where fans seek to modify game engines to extend and customise their gameplay experience.” If Bethesda Softworks has become comfortable enough with their fans having a construction kit, (which ultimately allows them the make better machinima), then I feel that the acceptance to machinima from all producers is soon to come.

Both Bethesda and Frictional Games (creator of first person horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent) have an understanding of their fans that others in the entertainment industry would do well to learn. As I said in my previous blog, if the entertainment industry weren’t so busy fighting the internet revolution, they could see that theses mods, gameplay videos and machinima only promote their games and create a positive personally around the game studios that fans always respond to well.

Come on guys! We only do it because we love you!

In light of this, here is my favorite machinia vid to date:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke9wtbzGjCI

And a how to machinina vid for Oblivion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHs0O0-qbYU

Enjoy!

-Berkeley, L. (2006). Situating Machinima in the New Mediascape. Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society. 4(2): Pp.65-80

Entertainment Industry vs. The Internet

          In his article, The Canadian Copyright Bill: Flawed But Fixable, Michael Geist summarizes the Bill C-32, what he calls the “long-awaited copyright reform Bill.” The reform has brought some extensions that provide more legroom for Youtubers and videos created as satirical or educational. Geist describes a few of these changes as “provisions worth fighting for.” He may be fighting for the wrong thing though.


         All of these legal wranglings are really the result of a much larger problem. The entertainment industry is still living in the early nineties and can’t seem to deal with the internet revolution. If the industry, tried to adapt to it, rather than fight against it, they may realize that people would stop downloading illegally if it was more readily available online in the first place.


        The CRTC recently tried to set us back even further, by allowing media corporations (such as the unscrupulous Bell) to influence a decision about internet use. Had the bill been passed, Canadians would have faced a significant increase in internet fees, a result that seems suspiciously connected to major networks’ decline in TV subscriptions. Increase internet fee’s = keep people watching TV.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/02/01/internet-usage-based-billing-clement.html


       It has been hinted at by fellow internet users that the reason this bill almost went through is because the big shots on the review board for the CRTC are the big shots that run Bell and other such networks. Someone should be cutting down these monopolies to size. Let’s hope its done soon before its too late.

- Michael Geist (2010) The Canadian Copyright Bill: Flawed But Fixable. http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5080/125/

- Can I Use Someone Else's Work? Can Someone Else Use Mine?' U.S. Copyright Office. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html

How To Become A Successful Blogger

            Faulkner’s and Melican’s “Getting Noticed, Showing-Off, Being Over-Heard: Amateurs, authors and artists inventing and reinventing themselves in online communities.” Is almost a “How to” for successful blogging. Though not the paper’s intention, it talks about how a couple of people become financially successful using blogs, reputationally successful or succeeding in ‘not getting caught’.


            Apparently it’s all about appealing to a niche market, which at some point everyone realizes they like the same things and it’s no longer a niche. I guess I don’t feel the same way about this blog. I guess I’m not doing it for other people. To be honest, I’m doing it as part of a course project, and although it was initially the professor’s idea that we would be posting these online, it is no longer required, and I believe the only person actually reading this is my T.A. Oh well.


            I don’t hope for others to start reading this, I do this for myself, or at least, if I continue to write, it will be for personal reasons. Though if there is some one out there who happens across this writing, I hope you manage to take something interesting away from it. A recommendation for a reading mayhaps? Or an interesting thought? If not, but your still reading this, then sorry. There’s probably something more interesting on Youtube.


I personally suggest the following:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHPgCdGhbng&feature=related


Enjoy!

- Faulkner, S. and Melican, J., (2007). Getting Noticed, Showing-Off, Being Over-Heard: Amateurs, authors and artists inventing and reinventing themselves in online communities. In Proceedings of EPIC 2007: The Third Annual Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference.

Screw You Fox News!

                  In 'A Taxonomy of Digital Video Remixing” E. Horwatt says, “many filmmakers and video artists voice variations on the belief that media has colonized our imaginations and found footage films are a means of resistance and critique – an unauthorized way of redeploying hegemonic visual discourse to introduce dissent.”1

The following is the best example of this found footage remixing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUmqbiPazRU&feature=related

         I love this clip. It truly depicts my feelings towards Fox News. I only wish they had thrown in a crazy quote from Bill O’Reily in there for good measure.

         In the article Horwatt quotes video artist Nam June Paik who states, “Television has been attacking us all our lives, now we can attack it back.”

         YouTube appears to be the perfect opportunity for this to happen. Many ‘vidders’ use these remixes to make a point with regards to often fabricated or just down right bad reporting that is done by channels such Fox News or CNN. One user, LiberalViewer has dedicated an entire channel on YouTube to ‘reporting’ on the fact and fiction on Fox News.

         I heartily encourage these types of remixing, ‘reporting’ and all round bashing of the manipulative and biased channel Fox News. After watching (against my will), many hours of it in my youth, I find it hard to believe that there are educated people out there who actually believe the shpeel that FN comes up with. It’s thoroughly disturbing.



1- Horwatt, E. (2010). 'A Taxonomy of Digital Video Remixing: Contemporary Found Footage Practice on the Internet'. In Smith, I. R. (Ed.), Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation. Scope 17.  Pp.88-108

Self/Other: Camera Frenzy.

In the article “Take back the Tube!” Buckingham, Pini and Willett make one very interesting point. They say, “One of the abiding imperatives in the publications [they] have reviewed is the need to distinguish between the serious or committed amateur and the more casual everyday user. The serious amateur is defined to some extent in terms of social class and gender, but also through the ‘othering’ of the naïve everyday user, who is seen to remain forever trapped within the unreconstructed ‘home mode’.”

At first read I thought that the term ‘othering’ might be too extreme a word in contrast to the self/other relationship to colonialism and orientalism. But then I think in the pure sense of self and other, this could not be truer. I’ve seen and experienced first hand what happens when one with no prior knowledge tries to engage in conversation with an amateur photography of filmmaker. I’ve received turned up noses, lectures and even ended conversations and friendships for reasons such; as not knowing what an iso setting is; what a Leica is; or thinking that a Sony could be better than a Canon.

My problem is when people get too proud of the product to see that their work is bad. Whether professional or amateur, the work you produce will always be better if you enjoy what you are doing. When you get too hung up on the quality of picture or the best optical zoom and you stop having fun, that’s the day that you have let down the camera.

Sex, Porn and Abuse: The dark side of it all.

         In the book Sex at Dawn, C. Ryan and C. Jetha discuss the history of sex; in juxtaposition to this C. Sarracino and K.M Scott speak about the history of pornography in The Porning of America. From the bashing of Darwinian theory to the arrest of “Deep Throat” star Harry Reems, it appears that the repression of sexually nature only fuelled the flames of the “sexual revolution.” In the 2005 film “Inside Deep Throat”, we can see that in the years following the release of the first scripted pornographic film “Deep Throat” there was not only an up roar from religious conservatives claiming that the obscenity was bad for society, but also feminist groups who claimed that porn subjugated women.


         Although I do agree that in many porn films, women are treated in a compromising fashion, I do not think that porn is responsible for the degradation of women’s rights nor that porn is bad for society. I feel however that after the sexual revolution, porn is just one type of media that shows us what has always been there, and what has always been part of human nature.
        
         What deeply worries me is the rise in child pornography and rape pornography. It’s clear from a reading of any legitimate history book that paedophilia and sexual abuse of men and woman alike has been around as far back as human history goes. The fact that these things are now becoming an industry unto itself literally frightens me. I don’t think that porn is necessary, but I feel it is a right to anyone of age to be allowed to have it. But when it goes to a level against all human rights, maybe it’s not worth it. If taking away all porn meant that innocent women and children didn’t have to get hurt anymore just so Mr. Pervert next door can get his rocks off, then I’m all for banning porn, but I know its not as simple as that.


         I don’t offer any solutions here; I just had to point out the horrifying side to the porn industry that shake’s me to the core. How do we stop it, without taking away the rights of free people? Maybe we can’t.

Lovers, Haters and WEIRD People

In “Searching for the ‘You’ in ‘YouTube’: An Analysis of Online Response Ability,” Patricia G. Lange studies the “complex and potentially contentious” nature of social networking today. She examines the extent to which social communities forming on YouTube should be controlled by administrators, parents and the participants themselves. Some participants argue that any form of control is censorship and against their ‘right’ to free speech, while others say that ‘haters’ need to be controlled so as to not discourage creativity.

            After reading this article, I was led to ponder what I would do if I were to participate on YouTube. What would I say? And more importantly, what do I have to say that I need other people to hear so badly? This may be a hugely contradictory statement when taking into account this participation in blogging, but nevertheless is an important question for any hopeful Tuber to ask. I came to the conclusion that, although I haven’t lived quite the normal suburban lifestyle and I’ve travelled around the world and seen many things, I have nothing completely original to offer. Anything and everything I have done, someone else out there has done as well, and most likely done it better.

However, now it appears that this might be more then just a personal thought. It could be a deeply ingrained cultural difference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQGgDY1C1mk

Or please read:

            It appears that I might not be WEIRD, or at least did not grow-up in a Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic culture. But it is very clear that it is these WEIRD people who are so individualistic that spend the most time on YouTube.

I worry about the narcissistic nature of the vlogging that goes on today. I can see the value in vlogs that speak of a larger topic, and maybe relate personal experience and insight where insight is needed, but when any random person with a webcam and a modem thinks what they have to say is vitally important… well, lets just say its getting harder to find the needle in the giant stack of garbage.

            I don’t feel like I need to add to that, and I plead with tuber’s to consider the same questions before going online.

-Lange, P. (2007). 'Searching for the 'You' in 'YouTube': An Analysis of Online Response Ability', In Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings 2007(1): 36-50.

Citizen to (Non)-Professional?

A close friend of mine, A.S, started a blog (that I shall not name) in June 2006. This is NOT a story of how a blog managed to shoot to fame; one day with three followers and the next day with 5,000, no; this is not that kind of story. But… five years on, she has just over 300 followers and approximately 2400 views, which is no small feat.

 Her blog, which states, “Repatriation to a borrowed patria: politics, adventure, and life in the United Arab Emirates...with a few stops along the way” talks about the various interesting things that happen everyday in the little country she and I call home. While not all of her postings can be considered journalistic, she did report on the happenings of our town, things that you couldn’t read in the newspaper. More over, her work landed her a job with a new national newspaper.

In a short period of time she went from budding-citizen journalist to professional journalist. What an ideal opportunity to bring the peoples views to the people. The newspaper promised to be a fresh and an uncensored look at the news in a country where all other newspapers are either government owned or strictly controlled to government standards.

A.S was initially given free reign to write as she pleased about anything in our hometown. Bit by bit editors started to cut more and more from her articles, and soon she was told what and what not to write about. With this, A.S happily returned to blogging, as most people in the UAE still do for honest information.

In “Exploring The Second Phase of Public Journalism” J. Nip writes “participatory journalism represents an attempt of news media to incorporate the change in relationship between professional journalism and the people made inevitable by technological change, and as championed by public journalism.”

An attempt and ‘fail’ on the part of this newspaper. Clearly these changes will not come about until some changes are made in the government. And how would the people bring about these changes if they are not well informed? We can only hope that more people turn to citizen journalism and make that necessary change.

- Nip, J. (2006). 'Exploring The Second Phase of Public Journalism, In Journalism Studies,                     7 (2). 212-236.   

Peeping Toms and Tammy’s

The “Canadian Criminal Code Part VI – Invasion of Privacy” states that “Every one who, by means of any electro-magnetic, acoustic, mechanical or other device, wilfully intercepts a private communication is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.” Thirty-five words out of an 8,429-word document (not including the definitions). The other 8,394 words state when someone IS in fact allowed to invade your privacy.

Many of the reasons come under the categories of believed harmful intent or illegal intent, and that can obviously cover a lot of things. To be honest, I think them mostly rational grounds for invasion of privacy, “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.” I believe in the statement more so now then ever before, due mostly to the growing exhibition on the Internet today. With a third of the entire population of Canada on Facebook(1), and the hundreds of millions around the world all connected to the Internet, sharing even the most intimate details of their lives to complete strangers, its hard to see why anyone would have cause to complain about these rules, nor even care about them.

I thought we had reached our pinnacle of Peeping Tom phenomenon when the UK based reality show “Big Brother” hit television screens in 2000 (the original in fact was a Dutch Big Brother which had started in 1999). However, this seemed only the catalyst for “Peep” shows everywhere as Big Brother alone spawned 42 versions of the show across the globe. It seems that now the reality TV “Peep” show has reached all new heights with its newest addition “The Jersey Shore”.

I cannot express how much of a “Fail” on society this show is. The fact that these “people” continue to make this show, and even worse, people continue to watch it, it’s just staggeringly disturbing. The “character” Snooki seems to embody the collective want of fame that every person in the world has. It makes me ponder, what’s next?

1. Niedzviecki, H. (2010). "The peep diaries: how we're learning to love watching ourselves and our neighbors"- Introducing Peep Culture.

The Growing Monkeysphere

Baumeister’s “Beasts for Culture” discusses the three worlds that human beings live in: the physical world, the social world and the world of culture. He explores the nature and development of culture and the impact it has had on society at large. Baumeister states, “Culture is an information-based system that allows people to live together and satisfy their needs.”1 Rifkin’s discourse in “Theatrical Self In An Improvisational Society” covers the differences in the dramaturgical consciousness of Generation X and the Millennials, and the impact on society of growing up in a lifestyle fully embedded in the Internet and social networking.2

Both touch on (Rifkin more so than Baumeister) a new global culture being formed over the Internet. With more than two billion people now connected, the sizes and variety of “friends” that people now have online far outweigh that of the social connections people had even ten years ago.

This lead me to think of Dunbar’s number (or Monkeysphere), the theoretical number of people that one person can maintain social relationships with. The average lies between 100 and 250 people, but with social networking at its current height of popularity, these numbers seem to have more than doubled. On Facebook alone, anyone can now keep in regular contact with more than 500 people, checking “statuses” and “tagged” photos.

When one’s monkeysphere becomes so large and meeting face-to-face regularly is not required, people seem less concerned with social etiquette. In many cases, this “friend gathering” has turned into something of a competition, a topic that is referenced in the 2010 South Park Episode “Your have 0 Friends”. A race in popularity, which was once based in schools, has now moved online. As a result, boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour are being pushed, manipulated and even broken. Social behaviour that we would hope to never see in person is now becoming widely acceptable amongst impressionable teenagers, as their online lives take over their whole lives. When did it become acceptable to post on your Twitter page: “That awkward moment when you walk into the toilet and the person before didn't flush. >.<” I’m sorry TeenDreaming, but does anyone actually want to read this? Would you say that to someone in public? I hope not. But something makes me think that she/he would.

1. Baumeister, R. F. (2005). Beasts for Culture
2. Rifkin, J. (2009). The Theatrical Self In An Improvisational Society.