Going into the MEDP Prequisites felt like a waste of time, to be honest. With more elective credits than I can shake a stick at, I was goal oriented on every credit going towards something useful. However, upon completion of the year I found the work well spent. While I had some experience in the technologies utilized, it is always beneficial to have a solid grounding, a holistic experience in creating media. In the end Ive put out material I was proud of, and some not so much, but the peer-experience in making media together is not something to be overlooked. 


I would have preferred a more portfolio oriented assignment distribution, where we receive all the project handouts at the beginning of the year. Periodic dates throughout the semester are when students must show their lab instructor that they've done SOME work towards the project, but in general everything is due and reviewed at the end of the year. While this takes more self-discipline, I felt myself sort of stunted in some aspects waiting to see what the next assignment would be. I realize the grading timeframe is still somewhat similar 


My other request is that the F&M dept. remove all references to the old media production classes(151 & 161) that MEDP150 & 160 have replaced. It was confusing at first because different sources said different things about requirements and prereqs.

Production Report

Shooting a film is no simple task. A collaborative process is nothing without true collaboration. Luckily, for my partners and I, collaboration floweth like water. The token actor of the group, I was tasked with answering real questions about my character's backstory, motivations, inspirations, and how he achieved the stamina to run without pause!

Francisco was our groups dedicated cameraman and general director of photography. He did an excellent job scouting out locations and keeping a steady hand. Steven posed as the director of our little troupe, reviewing my performance and giving notes and direction. In the editing room, Steven was also the most proficient. While we together made artistic choices in post-production, it wad Steven who took all our work and pooled it into the final magnificent product. The film simply was not possible without the swift teamwork we put together and for that we are indebted to eachother.

Of the lessons I'd learned throughout this processes, the most important is the difficult coming to terms with the fact that imagery in the mind's eye is not as easy to transfer to the screen. Unfortunately there is that real world barrier, that emulsion that will indefinately block the finest details from the silkscreen of the theatre.

Additionally...a practical lesson I realized is that lighting truly IS everything! Without the proper lighting equipment, the lens does not capture sufficient light as the naked iris does. Unless the magnificent Sun is illuminating a subject, you may as well not bother; for images will become grainy and overtextured for proper use in presenting them to audiences. Of course, you work with what you can and I believe we did so to the best of our abilitues.

Sound I hear

If Skyscrapers, apartment buildings and other multi-story dwellings are to be the iconic living situation of those who reside in cities, it is only logical that the Bus would be the most used form of transportation to get around. I live one block from a public school, I work at another, and live across the street from an MTA Bus stop in Queens. I've been exposed to the very different noises put out by these engines and have almost made it a science identifying them.

As I exited my house early this morning listening for a cue, all I could hear drowning everything else were the very distinct sounds coming from very distinct buses! I have appreciated the sound of the MTA buses for years. The newer ones go something futuristic like  "Chu-u-u-u-u-uuuu." I might liken the MTA bus to the drummer in a three piece band. School buses are definitely the guitar in this automotive symphony. They have a much more aggressive, old school engine-y sound to them: "Hrmmm-vrmm-mmm.....creeeak." Garbage trucks are also quite defined, if creepy. They have a constant "hisssssss" that emits out of their rear end and can be heard from several yards away and indoors, too! Wether it's the air pressurized mechanics or just the smell, it is admitedly a sound that chills my spine. Most other miscellaneous buses like Access-a-ride are generally uninteresting, reverberating a quiet, bass-like "HummMMMmm." While different sorts of buses operate in all sorts of places over the world; I feel these automobiles only in unison truly present city life as it is.

This media course has been a great benefit to my skills as an artist. I enjoyed the introduction to the idea of New Media towards the beginning of the semester, as that may be what many people are going to move towards. The in-depth historical basis for moving pictures, like the zoetrope, was quite fascinating to me and it sort of shows how technologies and mediums of art are are really just a reiteration of what has come before it.

I would have liked to see specific examples of lenses, I did not think this was hands on enough, I would have liked to see one taken apart. I also was curious about light lenses and filters and would have liked that section to have been a bit more hands on as well. Replicating a studio and the lighting of a subject was a great exercise that introduced me to some of the real world applications of lighting concepts.

I was certainly not crazy about the portfolio template given to us. It suited it's purpose, but I would recommend having 3-4 base templates for students to choose from, and then encouraging customization later in the course when learning HTML and CSS.

Readings were hit or miss, sometimes I found them quite interesting, but many times they felt somewhat unnecessary, especially some of the content out of the textbook. The textbook actually did not seem all that necessary to the course, in hindsight. I much preferred the links outlined on blackboard.

It seemed to me like everything about the browser and HTML could have been explained in half a class, and that some of it was a reiteration of things earlier in the semester or from Media 180. It was great information, but just a little long.

The lectures were very effective in teaching. It was useful for me to go through the slides on my own in review. The specific components of the still image was what best stuck out for me as new and exciting, and I will very likely take it with me and consider the components in any future picture I photograph!

The Museum of Unnatural History is a quirky exhibition by Washington, DC based artist Oliver Munday.
It is a play on the long standing traditional natural history museums of the world. While natural history museums showcase dioramas and presentations of animals in their habitat, and other scientific wonders, the Museum of Unnatural History showcases things of a slightly different nature. "Unicorn soup" and "Existentially Distraught Wood" are among some of the mock items created for this project.

My attention is brought to a specific Species Identification Flowchart that Munday has put together to give this  project a great touch of sarcasm. The first thing that stood out to me was the overall form of this document. It really fits together, almost jigsaw-like. One can tell that every line is deliberate, every twist and turn of the lines is intended to be a piece of the overall composition.

Color is quite seamless in this document as well. I appreciated the background having an off-white, or manilla tint to it, making it not too harsh on the eyes and providing some texture. The badges all follow the same color scheme, with a black badge denoting questions, and green ones providing answers or actions. In the case of the "Gross" badge on the right hand side, it stands out because it is a mere border of the other green badges, yet, still we can see that it is a member of the green family of badges.

Wether or not you even follow the flowchart in the manner intended, the image has a pleasing flow to the eyes. All the lines, shapes and fonts are quite smooth, leading me to believe that the artist utilized vector graphics in his creation of this piece. The flowchart is riddled with humor, as in the first few levels "Is the specimen devouring you? Can you see it? From the neck down? -- It's you!" Whilst traditional species classification systems use a system based on latin names and different trees and families, this system throws that out in place of the practical. The title denotes it is "Field-Tested." This chart is not for scientists and laboratory assistants, it is for true trekkers, facing any sort of danger in reach of scientific exploration!

Apple of my Eye

Samira Makhmalbaf's The Apple is a 1999 film that blurs lines between genres. Blending elements of documentary, fiction, and dramatization, The Apple is indeed a special case in film making. Makhmalbaf's vision began when she read the story of a family who had kept their twin daughters locked up for eleven years until the state welfare department came out and handled the situation. Makmalbaf (who's father headed a production company in Iran) decided to get in touch with the specific individuals mentioned in the story, and decided to cast them in her movie, stressing to tell the stories and perspectives of each family member.

The film begs the viewer to consider the difference between realism and fiction. The characters are real, but situations are scripted to an extent. The film has an extremely gritty feel to it. While portions of the movie were filmed on video, most of it was captured on film. This variation in quality coupled with the frequent handheld camera and tracking shots effectively brings the viewer into the streets of Iran, validating the reality of the movie in the audiences eyes.

The Apple is a relatively simple film, but perhaps that is why it works. Makhmalbaf utilizes longer scenes to exemplify symbols and imagery in her production. In one scene that goes on for three to four minutes, the two girls jump and reach for an apple dangling on a stick, certainly representing their freedom. In another scene, the girls observe flowers in the distance, and make handprints on the wall of their "cell" resembling the flowers. Observing the outside world, and trying as hard as possible to recreate it while locked up. Towards the end of the movie, in a climactic five minute long struggle to unlock the gate from the outside in, the girls find power in their ability to take their father out to buy them some watches. These extended scenes do well to hammer in the central themes and motifs of the film.

This was the first film by Samira Makhmalbaf, and it was no small start. While she has since gone on to direct more acclaimed films, her technical decisions still remain effective to portray the realistic, multi-faceted story of The Apple.

Media comes from a need to distribute information, to entertain, to inform. While it still does all this, it is not the individual necessity that it might have been in the past. Today, if you would like know what's going on locally, there are many outlets to find that out. Whereas previously there was just the radio, or just the paper. We have been provided the luxury of choice, a luxury that many have taken for granted.

Media is going increasingly and extremely digital, though not solely. Hard copies of content are still very prevalent, I don't believe libraries and hard text will ever quite die out. One of my favorite zines, 2600, among others, are only available in a hard copy. Simply because we are moving down a path that promotes technological progress does not mean that it is wholly embraced. Groups like the Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists have turned preservation and exploration of antique forms of digital hardware into a hobby. You have not seen convergence until you have seen Guitar hero played on a commodore 64!

Convergence is also saturating the dying medium of television, if it has not already. With DVR's and slingbox units and the integration of other devices and software are starting to create some sort of TV+ amalgam. While it is pretty much the same content and hierarchy as before, the way it's consumed is generally becoming more portable.

What does this say about our daily habits? Are we becoming a society of digital nomads? The rise of cellular networks is another factor that can attest to this; what once was your home base for external communication, is now in your pocket. Is this beneficial? For realistic things, it can help if you need to access to this or that, although many times these habits can serve more to be a distraction from the literal world around us.

With this increased accessibility though, (much as “big media” may not want to admit) comes independence. One example I have seen is this rise of these, often one person, independent game developers. Their success never could have been possible in the early stages of computers and convergence. In many cases, origins for media creation are straying from profit and consumer demand and more towards the love of the art, whatever that may be.

Distribution services are becoming much friendlier to self-sufficient producers. The Steam platform is a digital service for games and other software that has seen much success, partly due to their drive to host these polished independent games. Self distribution has become easier and especially more viable then ever, with the ability to reach thousands of individuals over social networks or bookmarking sites. Many individuals have seen success in various mobile app stores, rising in parallel with the success of smart phones and other portable gadgets. Brick and mortar stores are not an effective location for digital content anymore. Why buy a CD when you can purchase and download content straight to your home. It harms the (often predatory) preexisting middleman, and in most instances, cuts them out entirely.

Forms of radical material is much easily spread now then it was before. Unfortunately, official monitoring of said media is a lot easier in if proper precautions are not taken. In 2005, the search giant Yahoo gave up information to the Chinese authority regarding the journalist Shi Tao, who was writing for political reform in China. He is currently serving out his ten year sentence. 

What is interesting about this case and others like it, is that it prompts even more subversive media like the FuckFlickr software put out by the Free Art and Technology lab. This admirable program was a retaliation to Yahoo's practices, calling it an “image gallery software that won’t narc you out.” Regardless of its success in competition to the actual site it duplicates, it promotes awareness of the situation, which is more crucial in the long run.

Media is also going places it never has before. The One Laptop Per Child endeavor strives to give energy efficient, custom learning laptops to young persons in the so-called “third world” countries. It is beneficial in terms of these computers are geared towards learning, however one must be wary in the idea that over time it may develop into a form of digital colonialism. Spreading a dominant culture on those with other notions about the world is easier with endeavors like these, so it is a complicated and situational subject, one that can not be generalized by good or evil.

All of these developing factors in media are all very inspirational to me and those around me. To realize that what someone could create is more accessible than ever before is an exciting prospect. The fact that there is an increasing amount of individual created content out there is a humbling notion as well. Hopefully in the near future more possibilities for independent, converged, content will spring up and more individuals can produce content with less expertise.