Blog checklist for feedback

'Sup?

As promised during class today, here's a (hopefully) comprehensive list of the tasks you are expected to have done up until now, in preparation for me giving individual blog feedback next week. There should be:

- An introduction of yourself
- An analysis of a video game from a narrative perspective
- A summary of your MindTrek experience
- An analysis of a music video (what's the genre & how do you identify it?, what role does gender play in the video? and what world view is being put forward?)
- A summary of your group's Reality TV pitch from today (see the PowerPoint and do this task by yourself if you were absent today)
- Approximately 6 media diary entries

For some of you, that's a lot to catch up on and for some of you, it's not much at all. I'll continue to be flexible about this, but the more you do now, the less you'll have to do later. The above list is only going to grow as the course goes on.

Any questions, just ask.

No Week 6 pre-task

Hello Realists,

For those of you keeping tabs on this blog, you'll be delighted to discover that there's no pre-task for this week's class, where we will be looking at reality.

Consider yourselves most very welcome.

UPDATED: wee pre-task. Look at these quotes and consider what you agree with most. Sorry I lied.

MindTrek comedown

Hello Trekkies!

Two things I wanted to share with you, post-MindTrek.

The first is the keynote from last year's event (which was much more enthusiastically attended) from Brie Code, founder of the TRU LUV studio. This was a real antithesis to this year's opening speech. Well-worth the watch.

The second thing is a link to an article I mentioned when talking to Dylan and Toni about the short film project they're working on. Poetry on Screen or Visualized Jokes? An Approach to the Genres of Short Fiction Films by Finnish film-maker Saara Cantell. Enlightening.

As you were.

mINDtREK!

Hello Mindful Trekkers,

Your mission, should you choose to accept it (to be honest, you don't have much choice), is to document your MindTrek experiences in your blogs. How you do this is up to you, but I'd like to see what the highlights were and I'm very happy to see videos, pictures, illustrations even, and some writing. Show how you got involved and what you learned/got out of the experience. Interviews with presenters and/or fellow participants will be looked on particularly favourably.

This is in addition to your weekly Media Diaries, so keep up with them.

If anyone has any questions, I'll be at MindTrek, so feel free to come and ask me.

Week 4 pre-task already!

Hello Formulators!

Next Thursday (4th of October) we will look at genre and representation, here is your pre-task

Read the Malcolm Gladwell piece for The New Yorker, from 2006 (no apologies for the age of this piece), titled The Formula, about predicting success in the movie business. It's quite a long article, but interesting, well-told and worth the effort.

Consider the following questions and DO NOT create a blog post about your answers. We will discuss this during the class:

a) Do you agree with William Goldman that in movies (and art in general) "nobody knows anything"? Why/why not?

b) Is there a problem with producing media content based on a formula?

c) How much do you consider your own media content creation as business and how much as art?

Facebook is [insert noun here]

Hello Social Media Enthusiasts!

The latest episode of HBO's Last Week Tonight includes a takedown of Facebook and especially its role in the Myanmar Rohingya crisis. This lasts slightly less than 20 and John Oliver's style isn't for everyone, but interesting nonetheless.

I couldn't embed the video for some reason, but this link will take you there.

Week 3 pre-task

Hello Game Gamers!

This coming Thursday (27th September) we will look at narrative and how it can work as an analytic tool to help understand media.

You have three tasks to do before we meet:

1. Play through a "game", Welcome to God Club. The game itself is about fundamental principles of narrative and it doesn't take long to play, maybe less than 10 minutes.

2. Read the first section (only up to the Spacial Stories and Environmental Storytelling section) of the essay Game Design as Narrative Architecture by Henry Jenkins. Feel free to read beyond the first section, if you find it interesting, but that's what we'll be discussing in class and I don't want to saddle you with a whole book to read at this stage.

3. Pick a video game you are familiar with and write (this can be your "media diary" entry for this week) about how it works as a story.

NB: I changed around the groups slightly to even them out.

Good luck!