Ask A NINJA!!!

To sum this assignment/video series up... It consists of a guy wearing a ninja suit, and answering questions and talking about random things. The video is low budget, plain, and doesn't really have any real high production value. While the design and show are rather simple, there are no commercials, and he interact directly with his audience by answering questions and discussing topics that they ask him. The show focuses on him, his antics, and his comedy. It allows the viewer to participate with laughing with him, at him, and encouraging him to continue his antics through various forms of communication, such as email, snail mail, and a phone hotline. However, with nearly 4,000,000 (yes... that is correct, and yes, that's a lot of zero's) views (each coming from a unique IP address) it's hardly fair to say that he isn't popular. In fact one of the best ways that this kind of medium beats out TV, is that you can see your viewer-ship immediately, and so he can show the popularity and ratings for his show as they come in.

Members of this group: Jon M, Rand, Josh, and Mike.

Kate Modern and Back on Topps

Back on Topps has audio and visual characteristics that zoom in and out, flashing to the next scene very fast and is constantly moving. It is geared towards those who like the office and is a parody on this show. This episode called "double crossed" is about stalking and also makes fun of Christianity.

In Kate Modern, there is violence, sex and youthful plot lines. It is a story about post modern life and it revolves around Kate-who is she? is she alive? These are two of the themes that is revolves around. I thought it was uncomfortable to watch both shows since I would never watch something like this normally. Back on Topps making fun of Christians was a bit unsettling and frankly I found it offensive...Kate modern was violent and seemed to promote it in order to get viewers. All in all, interesting viewing.
LisaCampbell
Liz Worden

Blog Post- Lonelygirl15

We choose to view and analyze Lonelygirl15 because it is a web based series and has an interesting approach. As we began to watch it, we realized that each episode has a different topic that was focused on and each season increased in it complexity. Originally shot with a vlog style approach, Lonelygirl15, after being discovered to be a fictional story line, the film style change slightly to a hand held style over the webcam approach. Also with the discovery, the story line became more complex. With more characters being introduced, the webisodes began to emulate television in a more traditional manner. Towards the end of the series, things like seriality.
Lonelygirl15 has some interactive components, for example comments by viewers and video responses by other vloggers such as “What the Buck” began to appear immediately. In earlier episodes, Lonelygirl15 was known to respond to viewer’s critics by making mockeries of their responses. Lonelygirl15 differs from traditional television in the fact that viewer’s immediate critics affect the direction of the show. Also for a scripted show, Lonelygirl15 was one of the first of its kind to be filmed like a vlog.


Leilani Stein
Morgan Finley
Monica Pena
Amy Arismendez

Lamborghini Poster

Standard Entertainment Single camera production. Produced by amatuer film producers for a situational comedy effect. The style is very consistant with political and moral themes. The episodes look like something that you would see on adult swim or even MTV.
If you register with the website you can leave comments about the episodes that you watch. The On Network website has other web shows that can be viewed on the website as well.
The episodes can be subscribe to via email or Itunes and you can embed the episodes on different internet sites.

Gerzain Peralta
Melissa Santiago
Greg Griffith
Marcus Hammonds

God of War III Demo

An interesting thing about video game demos is that rather than watch a video of the game in action, you get to play it and experience it for yourself. For a movie trailer, different scenes are carefully put together to showcase the movie without giving away too much about it.

Game demos are kind of the same way. Developers are often on the fence about them because they can give away too much about the game or actually playing it may turn away some gamers. Of course, really good demos may get people excited about it.

The latter was the case with the God of War III demo, at least in my case. I had never played the first two and had only seen images of the third one. When I bought District 9, it came with the GoW III demo. I decided to try it out.
The demo begins about halfway into the game (as I found out after buying the actual game) and you start off with weapons and power-ups you don’t actually have when you reach that point in the actual game. I should note that many demos do this; they give you items and powers earlier than normal so you can try them out. Anyway, you start out walking around a corridor and you see the lava titan climbing Mount Olympus in the distance. The depth and scale is amazing here and you can really tell how monstrous the titan is as he scales the mountain.

You fight your way through enemies, which include skeleton creatures, centaurs (which you can gut), harpies, and a chimera. You reach a point where you kill the sun god Helios, by ripping off his head and using it as a lantern.
You walk through dark caverns, lighting them up with your newfound lantern. You finally reach the chain of fate (I think that’s what it’s called) and you fly up the chain with your wings (taken from Icarus). You dodge beams, walkways, and falling hot Cheetos (actually just lava rocks) until you reach the end and you see the lava titan in front of you. He reaches to grab you as Kratos (the main character) flies at him with a blade ready to stab. As he approaches the titan the screen goes black and the God of War III logo slams onto the screen, ending an action packed demo.

The demo is actually one of the best I’ve ever played. I immediately wanted the actual game and did in fact buy it because of the demo. The demo was different from a trailer of the same game in that you get to experience it yourself. You get to press the O button repeatedly to rip off Helios’ head. It ended right as it was really picking up and left on a cliffhanger, making you want more.
I’ve seen some great movie trailers but they never had the same feel as a good game demo. A movie trailer isn’t too hard to put together (not that I’d know) but selecting different scenes to show off is quite different from deciding what part of a game you let players experience.

This is tricky because some games have slow parts with little to no action and some games take a while to get good weapons and power ups. If you let players demo a slow part of the game, it might turn people away. If you give them too much, the same might happen as well. Creating a good demo is difficult and some developers refuse to do it. If the GoW III demo had me solving puzzles, I might not have wanted it afterward (especially the puzzle that took me 20 minutes to figure out). On the flip-side, if the demo was the fight with Poseidon (one of the most epic fights ever put into a game) it would’ve killed the rest of the game, because how do you top a fight on that grand of a scale?

The demo was exceptionally well done but that’s not always the case with game demos. I think overall, crafting a good demo is far more challenging than making a good trailer, because so many more elements go into it. It’s not just a visual showcase; it’s an experience – an experience that should leave you wanting to play the actual game when it comes out.

~JV

Kate (not so) Modern

The web-based TV series that Lori and I (Natalie) studied was KateModern. The audio characteristics of this video are that it is a non-diegetic sound. Everything in the background sounds like techno music. She also has several sound effects for instances when she is trying to levitate a sandwich. As far as visual characteriestics, the video shots cut back and forth a lot. You will see a close up of a sandwich, then she is magically next to her Shia poster trying to talk to him, then you are given a close-up of her face. It is also evident that she is filming herself in the 3 videos we watched. The shots are shaky and sometimes sideways sometimes. The audio and visual characteristics can only be described in one way: amateur. You know that she is trying to be portrayed as a girl, just in her bedroom, but in reality she is really trying to act and it's not really working for her. The style is consistent, with all of the cutting back and forth and her obsession with Shia Labeouf. She is trying to achieve a normal TV style but as the viewer you know that it is not done as well, it's all first person style. There is nothing interactive about watching the videos, but you can participate on her site. She has friends and followers and they can make comments about her videos. She has had almost 100,000 views and has 4,000 subscribers, so the series has incorporated fan participation. What makes this experience different from traditional media objects is that the character does it all. She handles all aspects of creating the video, which lends to it appearing amateur. Overall, Lori and I would not recommend this web-based TV series. KateModern came across as annoying and I felt that she was trying too hard. You be the judge!

Katie Savage
Kathy Bowman
Mary Wienke
Brittney De Clercq

The Guild

This is an serial youtube show that chronicles the lives of a local area guild who play World of Warcraft. This is a scripted show with each episode lasting between 2 and 8 minutes.

The video switches from high quality video and audio to a webcam vlog style of video and audio. This is done for aesthetic reasons because the show cuts from Codex' video diary to the events she is talking about. Kind of like a memory being shown to the audience. This style is fairly consistent and persists throughout the series.

The guild is shown during a television program so that explains the style of the show. It is very similar to television because of its serial nature but the content of the show is fairly adult and includes obscene language which due to FCC regulations is not available on television. I think this aspect of the show makes it seem more plausible. Bleeping and cutting of language breaks from the reality of the media when it is done in television and movies. This medium allows you to become fully absorbed.