Remediation and Film

     I picked the film chapter because I knew it would interest me and I believed I could understand what it was about.  Thankfully I was right, and this chapter was actually interesting and made sense.  This is what I learned from my chapter.
     Hypermediation was prevalent in early animated movies because of the lack of visual aids.  It wasn't like people were watching the movies and felt like they were really feeling it.  At he same time the strong human connections and the emotions that heartwarming movies like "Snow White" and "Dumbo" evoke brought some transparency to the movies as well.  Later on when films like "Beauty and the Beast" came out and digital animations looked like live action film, they became very transparent because it wasn't only the emotions that the movies had, but they matched it with good cinematography.
     Movies operate under a specific transparent immediacy that Bolter and Grusin call the "Hollywood Style".  In a good movie we see events take place and consider them to be a natural occurrence.  Whether or not these events would happen in real life isn't the question, but if the movie makes the audience believe what they are seeing then they are making the movie transparent.  On the flip side, when a movie has a scene or a camera angle that is too weird or unnatural, the film looses transparency and the audience becomes aware of the film as a medium.
     There are times in a movie or a scene in which the film calls for hypermediation.  In scenes of movies (in particular earlier movies) where the character is experiencing a dream or a mental disorder the camera may show things in a disoriented view, and when a character is in perfect balance and everything is ok, the camera would go back to it's normal way of viewing things.  This concept is a very intentional one, and the intentions of it are clear; the audience will come out of the transparency and see that something is different about the scene that is unfolding.
     There is another scenario that looks at hypermediacy and transparency that mixes the two together.  In fact, the line becomes blurred because in this scenario, the film has computer graphics that aid live action.  This interesting combo walks the line between the two.  On one hand the director wants the audience to be visually impressed which leans closer to hypermediacy.  On the other hand, the director wants the graphics to be credible and that leans closer to transparency.
     Finally the last point that the chapter makes is the idea that plots of a movie are all well and good, but sometimes all it comes down to for a movie to be transparent or not is the cinema of attractions.  If the audience is emerged in what they are seeing on the screen with car chases that feel like they are present in the car, or roof dangling scenes in which it seems as if they are about to fall, then the level of transparency grows.
     Transparency requires hypermediacy and vice versa.  When you watch a scene from a movie and it seems real to you then it is transparent, but when you break it down the moment following your observance and realize you've been fooled that moment requires hypermediacy.

Remediation Project

For my project I choose a project from my 2D design class.  Initially in this class I thought I would be doing a lot of drawings, but as it turned out I ended up doing a lot of hands on work like the one I'm about to talk about.  So for this project we were told to "Make our Face" and other than a few restrictions we didn't get a lot of instruction.  I was pretty dumbfounded at first on what to do, but after some thought, I came up with the idea to make my face out of two things that I love; tootsie rolls and starbursts.  It was a unique idea, but I was willing to try it out.
I think that my remediated version of this project can be some sort of a photo story of my project.  I'm not sure if I will do simply a photo gallery with captions, but I think it could be interesting if I could put the pictures I have on a video and overlay it with my voice.  The only thing that makes me hesitate this idea would be the ability to do it because I haven't done it before and I don't know if I have the right software for it.  Either way, that is my idea.
This project would be very hypermediated.  It is a step by step process and i'm looking to inform the audience of a process that I took.  It will be broken down into steps and it will not be transparent.  The different mediums I will use will be images for sure, and maybe video and maybe sound depending on figuring how to do a voiceover.
I think my key primitive is illustration because that's what my project depicts.  It's an illustration of my process and how I made my project happen.  The pictures will provide the visual element and my voice will illustrate how it relates to the process.

Saco River Project and Omeka 3

I had difficulty choosing my last exhibit, but what I ended up doing was showing UNE's involvement with the project.  Obviously they were with the project all the way, but I had a few items that showed who and how they made it happen.  I also added how they informed people about the project via flyers, posters, etc, and what kind of feedback that students have gotten.
All together this project was a success, but is still a work in progress.  We have a total of 199 items on our site and that is more than I ever thought we would have, but there is so much more that this project has to offer.  Somewhere down the road this Omeka project could be picked back up and taken to another level, but our part is taken care of.  We provided a base and a solid foundation for what this project includes, what sorts of species live in and on the river, where the river is located, and even given added some of its history.  When you look at the project as a whole we've done a lot and it feels good to make a contribution.
Omeka was a great site to use, and after learning the ways around the site, it was easy to add things to collections and exhibits.  I wouldn't hesitate to use Omeka in the future if the opportunity presents itself.

Saco River Project and Omeka 2

As we continued along in the Omeka project we all were experimenting with all of the Omeka features and I think we all understood a lot about it, but there were still things I hoped to learn.  I learned how to make a collection and how to put my items in it, and I learned how to embed videos into the site.  My biggest current issue is how to get the videos I put on the sample pages of our site into collections or exhibits.  I tried a few ways, but it doesn't look like an option.
Another project within the project I have to work on is my exhibit.  I'm not sure what I would like to exhibit from the project, and I know I have to get it done soon.  I'll continue to work on looking at what I have and seeing what kind of exhibit makes sense.

Saco River Project and Omeka

Right from the start we all divided into groups to decide who would work on what for the project.  I was happy to find out that I got the publications and the media part of the project because that is what caught my eye first.  Although I didn't have a partner to work with, I was still happy with the results.  In the beginning of the project we all got straight to work adding items and filling out the dublin core for each of them.  This took some getting used to, but it wasn't difficult work.  My first problem that I came across was with the file size limit.  I had items that were far larger than the 2MB I was allowed and I couldn't put certain items on the site.  Thankfully this was resolved and now the file size limit is 100MB.
When we went to the Mcarthur Library I was able to help out other people with their projects, and I believe that if I need help later down the line, I will have plenty of classmates willing to help me.

Omeka

The collection I chose to examine was Hero's and Villains: Silver Age Comics.  Out of the selection of Omeka collections this particular one looked fun and I wanted to know more about it.

The collection is broken down into six different tabs: About the Exhibit, Comics Timeline, Browse Exhibits, Browse Collections, Browse Items, and Resources.  About the Exhibit gives the viewer a small description as to why the collection happened and has a video to go with it.  Comics Timeline goes through the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and the Modern Age and tells us what was going on in the world and how it affected comics as well as when super heros made their first appearances.  The browsing options make it easier for a visitor to find what exactly they're looking on the site.

With this site you can search for your favorite superhero and find a list of comics they were in and discover a history of when they were created.  For example, when I looked up Iron Man, I found six different covers of Iron Man, each of which tells me the title, a description, the publisher, coverage, etc.

Ecoding experience

After my first night of TEI, I was wondering if I could finish the leaf.  I don't know if it was reading Thoreau's scribble or all the symbols associated with TEI, but I was exhausted.  GIMP was a great source to use because of it's abilities, but I still couldn't read a good amount of the words, and the different codes to remember was just too much.  I had to take several breaks throughout the process because I just couldn't focus on the project.  When all was said and done, I had many errors in my encoding, but it was just a first draft.

When I went to class on Monday, I learned about a few more tricks that could help me out with my leaf, and I was feeling a little more optimistic.  Probably the biggest help was the reading document that was provided to us in dropbox.  When I went home and started to read some of the document, I realized that I had seen a lot of the same sentences in my encoding, and all of a sudden, the words that were at first "illegible" became very much legible.  This document changed the project for me and suddenly I was picking up steam and reading Thoreau's handwriting much easier.

As far as the encoding goes, I learned something new about it each class.  The first class I learned the basics(which wasn't quite enough).  The class following that, I learned a lot more about adding things to the encoding, and that is also when I discovered the reading doc.  Last class I got a better grasp on strikethroughs and deletions as well as metamarks.

I'm fairly confident that I did well on this project.  I know I'm just a beginner in text encoding, but with the pieces of advice that I got, I was able to produce something that shows my comprehension.