.wk12.Special Effects.

• What was the name of the film made by Edwin S Porter that made use of a double-exposure to show a train window view of passing landscape? 
• The Great Train Robbery, circa 1903 
• Who invented the traveling matte shot in 1916? 
• Frank Williams 
• How many weeks did it take to animate the main character in 1933’s KING KONG? 
• 55 weeks 
• Which film made use of the ‘slit scan’ process in the 1960s? 
• 2001: A Space Odyssey 
• In his essay “Industrial Memory” theorist Mark Dery argues that the silver fluid T1000 cyborg character represents a ‘masculine recoil’ – but from what? 
• From the feminization of electronic technology. 
• Tim Recuber in his essay “Immersion Cinema” describes the key idea – that of immersion cinema itself – what is it? What makes it unique? 
• Immersion Cinema refers to how technology has effected how the viewer experiences cinema using projection, audiovisual advancements, hi-fi and 3-D. Never before has the viewer been able to be so completely immersed in theatre and be almost physically affected by it. The viewer is able to feel as if they are an active participant in the story. 
• In the special effects history links, in the Time magazine history of special effects, there is a description of ‘motion control’ cameras developed for “Star Wars” in the 1970s. What is motion control? 
• Motion control allows for complicated camera movements during filming. The original motion control system, the Dykstraflex, allowed for specific series of shots to be automated, saved, and re-filmed in the same series. The system was completely digitally controlled and allowed for 7 specific movements: roll, pan, tilt, swing, boom, traverse, track, lens focus, motor drive, shutter control, and then the duplication of the moves for many takes. 
• Out of the 14 minutes of Jurassic Park’s dinosaur footage, how many minutes were computer generated imagery or CGI? 
• 4 minutes were computer generated, the rest were created using animatronic models. 
• In the ‘denofgeek’ website, what is the name of the film that features an army of sword fighting skeletons, made in 1963? 
• Jason and the Argonauts 
• In the ‘denofgeek’ site, which 2005 film used a special effects shot to sell the idea of a remake of a famous science fiction story to Steven Spielberg? 
• War of the Worlds

.wk11. Theme Parks & Shopping Malls

•  In Margaret Crawford's Essay "The World in a Shopping Mall she outlines that 'the size and scale of a mall reflects "threshold demand"' - what is meant by this term? 
• Threshold demand, according to Crawford, is the minimum n umberof potential customers living within a geographical range of a retail space to enable it to be sold at a profit. The larger the mall or more stores involved in it, the larger the geographic space it appeals to.
• In the same article Margaret Crawford describes something called "spontaneous malling" - what does this mean?
• Urban spaces are transformed into malls without the addition of new buildings or developers to create the mall. This happens simply by closing off streets and designating them as pedestrian zones intead. 
• According to Michael Sorkin in his essay 'See you in Disneyland', how did Disneyland have its origins? 
• Specifically Disneyland was paid for by ABC in a deal made by Walt Disney. The ideas for Disneyland stem from a trip to a Railroading Fair and a visit to another amusement park in which he was disgusted by it’s horrible hygiene. 
• Michael Sorkin writes in his essay that Disney's EPCOT Center was motivated largely by frustrations Disney felt at his Anaheim CA park. What were those frustrations? 
• He was unhappy that the success of Disneyland prompted a mass building of hotels and “low commerce”. Disney was frustrated with the sullying of Disneyland and wanted to create a utopia of cleanliness for EPCOT. 
• In his essay "Travels in Hyperreality" Umberto Eco describes Disneyland as 'a place of total passivity' - what does he mean by this? 
• At Disneyland, everything is regulated and dictated by the park. The visitor is discouraged from going off the path and is sort of corralled into certain movements and directions based on the design. 

.wk10.Second Life Funfair Experience.

This funfair wasn’t at all fun, at least not for me, but I wasn’t able to go during the scheduled class time so I went later.  The experience really emphasized how for some people, second life is truly a second life, and for others maybe even a first.  I guess I don’t understand at all where the fun comes in from just walking around and talking to random people or having a character interact and do things that are not real.  During the game play, the only semi redeeming feature for me was the visuals.  It’s kind of neat to look at all the things people made and inspect parts of them.  But the graphics aren’t really nice enough to make it worth actually playing the game.  It just seems like a waste of time.  If you have to spend real life time and real money in order to do imaginary things, why do it?  Maybe if there were more challenges within the game that rewarded you with points to use to get other things, then it would be more of a game and less of an experience.  But who knows, maybe there is and I didn’t realize it in my short time played.

As a place to meet, I think second life could be interesting, but ultimately a basic video conference would be more effective for everyone involved.  For game design and component design, Second life is a good tool for practicing and getting used to gaming systems, but I don’t really see it as an effective gaming tool.

.wk9.Wikileaks.Mindmap.