Mitchell Botter, 1:29pm, Week 7, Day 3, June 10, Final Sleeping Monk video

Mitchell, 4:06pm, Week 7, Day 2, June 9, Homework

(Daily meds pg. 73)

1, Word (“Storage” pg. 76):

Putting a mic into a drawer and closing it, then opening it.

2, Experiment (Doing nothing):

Part of dealing with stress is taking time just to do nothing. As mentioned in an earlier blog, usually when we are lying in bed or in the shower is our time to just think and do nothing. Doing nothing can be hard to do, especially if you have trouble sitting still for more than 10 seconds, but doing nothing gives us time to calm down and just think.

3, Dose (What you are):

Sometimes we do feel that we are superior or better than others, but we must step back and look at the big picture. No person is ever superior to another, as we all have our individual strengths and weakness that balance out and make us who we are. While we may be better than someone in a specific area, we are never better overall. This is also true when you look at a team, whether a sprots team or a production team, everyone has their own strengths and all are needed for the team to function effectively.

4, Action (Connect – don’t separate):

when performing, a performer will often draw off the energy of the crowd. This is also true in general, as we tend to draw energy off the people we are around, which can alter the way we feel. Its important to recognize this and value those who are around us.

Mitchell, 4:48pm, Week 7, Day 1, June 8, Homework

(Musical meds pg 66.)

1, Word (“Eliminate” pg 67):

I connected “Eliminating” with crossing something off a list, so I recorded the sound of “X”ing something out with a marker

2, Experiment (What about you):

Something I would like to do that I haven’t done in a while is to simply play hockey. With the wrapping of the house league season back in March and lacking the skill to play at a higher level, I’m stuck with playing NHL video games. Good ice, Friends who are interested in playing hockey, and free time can sometimes be hard to come by.

3, Dose (Intelligence Only Goes so Far):

Intelligence is sometimes over valued when compared to dedication. An example is NHL players who are viewed as very intelligent, or skilled in this case, and not much focus is put on the hard work that went on behind the scenes. Many NHL players will say they began skating and playing with a stick and puck shortly after they began walking. Throughout there childhood, there was a great sacrifice made in their family, paying the enormous fees to keep playing, as well as the time there parents took to get them from rink to rink, sometimes town to town. A level of natural skill is required, but no professional athlete no matter the sport would be where they are without a tremendous amount of dedication.

4, Action (Rich in Emotion):

One of the most important parts of music is emotion, we may be drawn to a certain song when the emotion of the song matches ours at the time. Strong emotion can also help us generally connect with a song, a song which we may remember for a long time.

Mitchell, 4:33pm, Week 6, Day 4, June 4, Homework

(Daily meds pg. 26)

1, Word (“Light” pg 38):

Turning a light switch on and off

2, Experiment (Gambling):

We take gambles every day, such as when we get an idea and decide to peruse it to completion. The idea we have may be good and lead to a great final product, or the idea may not really go anywhere and waste our time, its a gamble. We take gambles in small ways, whether to go out when bad weather is coming for example, we take gambles every day.

3, Dose (Standards):

We all have standards as to what we like and what we dislike, some people prefer one thing while others prefer another is based on personal preference. When a new game is announced, some people will become more excited than others because, some may be okay with limited information about a game before launch and become excited, some people want more information and have higher standers before they develop pre-launch hype. Peoples standards for excitement differ and some people require more before they become excited about an upcoming video game.

4, Action (Unconditional Love):

This is related to the concept of staying positive. Even when we hear bad music we have learned something about our selves and our preferences. In the wider word, when we have a bad experience, we learn a lesson from it.

Mitchell, 4:15pm, Week 6, Day 3, June 3, Homework

(Daily meds pg. 34)

1, Word (“security” Pg 35.):

A lock locking

2, Experiment (Removing Expectations):

Going into any project u have expectations as to what you would like the outcome to look like and what its purpose will be, sell a Ford, Make an interesting beat out of random sounds. When you remove expectations and just get to work, you can get interesting results. This is what I did with my “Do whatever” video project:

I started by putting some footage of a game I had recently been playing into premier pro and playing around with it, after combining some more footage together I decided to make a “Explain the story in 1 min” sort of video, but at some point it turned into a trailer for the games 2nd episode. This video ended up being my favorite video that I have made in this whole course.

3, Dose (Not for the faint of heart):

Stress is something that we all experience and can alter not only our physical health, but how we act as well. Someone under a lot of stress will sometimes act in a unfriendly way, absorbed in what they are dealing with and the deadlines they are on. Sometimes letting go and saying “whatever happens, happens” is not a good thing, as the world will not wait for you to take a mental health day. However it is important every once in a while to let go, and let your day play out as it does, and focus on keeping stress down.

4, Action (Follow your path):

Similar to the dose, sometimes its good to just “follow your path” or let your day progress naturally and not worry so much about deadlines and meetings.

Mitchell, 4:00pm, Week 6, Day 2, June 2, Homework

(Daily meds pg. 13)

1, Word (Wait)(Pg. 12):

I associate waiting with the sounds of a clock ticking by

2, Experiment (Rush Hour):

Rush hour is a hectic time when trying to get around, even in a (relatively) small town like Kitchener. The few times I have driven at that time in Kitchener, the traffic is heavily increased and makes getting around slower and harder, generally people are in a worse mood as well. The sounds are generally of running car engines and the occasionally honk or screech of tires. The smell is usually of car exhaust.

3, Dose (What is a few minutes):

when working on anything, 2 minutes can be a lot of time and that time spent can help spark a new idea. If u look at a sport like hockey, those 2 minutes become even more important. There is an old attage that it takes a second for the puck to cross the goal line, and when you look at the speed of hockey and how fast a player can go from one end to the other, those 2 minutes can mean alot of scoring chances. In the 2013 NHL playoffs, the Toronto Maple Leafs where up 4-2 with a minute to go in game 7 of their first round series, a win meaning advancing to the second round. Boston rallied and scored 2 goals in that minute to send the game to overtime, and quickly scored in overtime to win. The Leafs went from ellasion to heartbreak in around 2 minutes, showing how quickly things can change, and how important 2 minutes can be.

4, Act (Spiritual self care):

I connect this more to your mental health, and taking time to relax and keep yourself from becoming too stressed, which is very important.

“Do whatever” project: “Life is Strange” video

A link to the video I presented today in class, just so there is a copy of it on wordpress:

Mitchell, 2:51pm, Week 5, Day 5, May 29, Homework

(Daily meds pg. 57)

1, Word (Take Apart):

The sounds of me taking apart my coffee maker quickly.

2, Experiment (Removing the Next Step):

Knowing your next step is important for successfully building on a project. Knowing your next step in a project can help shape what you are currently doing, knowing what you are building up to. Without knowing where you are going, you can end up creating something that does not work with your final idea.

3, Dose (Human after all) Pg 55:

This goes back to the old quote “to error is human”, basically that making mistakes is part of being human. We are taught from a young age that making mistakes is ok, that it is part of the creative process. Every time we make a mistake, we learn from it and learn how to avoid that same mistake next time. Someone who try’s to always be perfect, a perfectionist, can find themselves obsessing over small details and making no mistakes at all, to the point where they may miss something and accidentally make a big mistake. Not worrying about our mistakes and learning from them is an important part of the creative process.

4,  Action (A deeper connection):

When it comes to creativity, thinking deep can help you in the creative process. Thinking about a connection on a larger scale, such as how something affects parts of your life, can help you create something that has a deeper effect on the person viewing your work.

Mitchell, 4:30pm, Week 5, Day 3, May 27, Homework

(Music meds pg. 52)

1, Word (Ascending):

Ascending means to being going up, such as on stairs in this recording.

2, Experiment (Maybe if I…):

I have tried many different ides for my current project, the Ford commercial. First I used a small toy car and threw diffrent things at it, including cereal, to make the point that Ford cars can stand up to whatever is thrown at them:

The next idea I had was to use the song “we didn’t start the fire” to represent the passion for has for building cars and how that is shown over their 100 year history:

I then had the idea to use the song “sea of voices” and sync up the audio to cuts in the video. This commercial focused more on Henry Ford and his legacy. This is probably the best one I have done, though not my personal favorite:

Using the suggestion of finding my passion, I connected Ford to hockey, specifically Paul Kariya and his most famous moment of toughness. Apparently this one was “Hard to follow” so I scraped the idea:

The most recent one I created was another hockey themed commercial. It shows off an amazing save by goalie Carey Price and connects his reliability on the ice, to Ford’s reliability on the road. This one is my personal favorite, however I suspect it suffers from the same issues as the Paul Kariya commercial, however it was never shown to the class so Dave never got to rip it apart:

Looking back at these different iterations of my Ford commercial does help me figure out what works, however I came out of it with no solid idea or 1 good concept.

3, Dose (One Note at a Time):

One of the most basic pieces of advice we receive is to take things one step at a time. This is true for video games, as well as music, as in the case of a small video game designed by 1 person, only 1 thing can be worked on at a time. First the basic concept of the game, then the basic story, then basic programming and coding, furthering the story as u go, advanced art assets etc. While u are working on one part, u may come up with idea for another bit of the game. It can also be a daunting task to create ur own game, no matter how small, and it can sometimes take a year to create one, but you have to go one step at a time, and before you know it, your finished or nearing completion.

4, Action (Bright Side):

Keeping things and perspective and admiring the bright side of life and what we gain from any particular situation. “Regret Nothing, Always Learn”

Mitchell, 4:55PM, Week 5, Day 1, May 25, homework

(Daily meds pg. 51)

1, Word (Excess):

Excess means alot of something, so I connected that to a shelf I have full of DVD cases. By lightly pulling one out, the whole thing collapsed. This is the sound of the collapse

2, Experiment (Superhero):

Becoming a superhero is a good way to fully look at our creativity. Becoming a superhero is usually seen as removing limits, being able to do anything you wanted. For me, I always respond with the power of flight, may not be most creative but it would make getting around a lot easier, Plus capturing the sound of the atmosphere would be cool for this project.

3, Dose (Power and Control):

when I saw the theme of power and control, I couldn’t help but think of a lesson from my history class, about how a government that rises in a revolution looks alot like the one it replaced, in other words “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. An example of this is the american revolution, which was a war fought between the 13 colonies, who wanted independence, and great Britain, who wanted to retain control over its colonies. In the end, the american colonies where victories and became the United States of America. Looking at the power given to the office of president, that person would be a lot more powerful than the king of England ever had, showing how the revolutionarys chose to bestow much power on their leader to control the people and to keep their young nation safe and productive.

4, Action (True  collaberation):

Collaborating and getting help from others is an important part of the creative process. In class, we used to show our progress on Ford videos, allowing for everyone to input their ideas, giving the person an idea on how to continue to develop their idea.

mitchell, 4:51pm, Week 4, Day 5, Homework

(Daily meds pg 56)

1, Word (Fullness):

Connected fullness to my wallet which is full of coins. Recorded the sound of the coins jingling in my wallet

2, Experiment (Positive Attributes):

When working on a project we often focus on the negatives of the project, such as how much work it is going to be. Focusing more on the positives, such as our ability to use our creativity, which helps to hone our creative mind, should be the focus and makes any project alot easier to do.

3, Dose (An Obsession):

No obsession is healthy, too much of anything is bad. We have talked in class about becoming too connected to an idea, which makes it hard to move on if necessary. Game developers often have the same problem, as they put months, sometimes years, into a game, months of blood, sweat and, tears and it can be hard to accept if this game then turns out to be garbage, which you could not see earlier because of how you become obsessed with the idea of the game. Not becoming too attached to an idea is not helpful on any project, as a passion for what you are doing is good, but uncontrolled, can be an obsession.

4, Action (look):

taking a moment to look around and appreciate the world around us can help give us inspiration. Its important to take a moment every day to appreciate whats around us and what we can gain from taking a moment to look.