2010年9月29日 星期三

Film in class: Mission to Earth

1. What is new or different about digital cinema compared to traditional filmmaking?
Since digital cinema has appeared, film can be stored in hard drives and DVD which are portable, small in size and the film can be projected stably while film projector is used in traditional filmmaking.  Film is in good quality, including image and sound, and film can be stored in convenient file format after digital cinema emerged.

3D movies and animation start getting popular while traditional filmmaking could only produce film in 2D.  3D movies does give a new definition to "watching experience".  Things on screen becomes live and audience no longer just sit there and watch the movie, instead, they seems like particitpating in the movie which enhance the theater experience. (Lev Manovich, "What is Digital Cinema", in Peter Lunenfeld(ed.), The Digital Dialectic, p.173)

Film footages become digitalized, a lot of digital mastering and editing can be done by digital technolgy, so on-location shooting is not the end point, things can be adjusted, changed and modified at the later stage (after the shooting), such as the audio, picture and colour, special effects can be added in the film.  It is a new era in term of the filmmaking process.  Moreove, it turns out that it brings job opportunities, because the field needs new skillful labor to do the special effects. (Lev Manovich, "What is Digital Cinema", in Peter Lunenfeld(ed.), The Digital Dialectic, p.178)

Because of the new technology, animation can be mixed with live actions, it mixes up the virtue space with the reality.  Fictional story is no longer fictional, it comes true now.





2. What other art forms does this film remind me of?
The visual composition of this film reminds me an abstract painting done by Piet Mondrian called Composition ll in Red, Blue and Yellow.  Both of them seem like having a grid of the screen, the screen is divided into different sizes of squares.  The coloured squares in the painting is like the little square screen in the film.

Digital and analog photography

1. Photographic effects

Colour filter can be done by both digital and analog technology, it can be done by just a click in the Photoshop or traditionally putting a coloured filter paper in front of a camera, then there will be a layer of colour on the top, just as the sample blow:

A red colour filter is used in this photo

And that is what we use as a colour filter in analog technology:

 Also, we can change the lighting by both digital and analog technology. By digital technology, we can adjust the brightness on the computer. By analog technology, we can also change the lightness of the environment in the real life, like the light setting.


2. ONLY done by digital technology

By using digital camera, you can take thousands of photos without noticing that, because you can delete what you do not like at anytime.  It makes people "taking photo" cheaper and more popular, because now you can plug the camera into the computer, then you can see the photos on the computer or print it out which is totally free and can be done at home.  By contrast, we had to pay and develop film which is quite expensive.  Therefore, people, nowadays, don't really take photo that serious and not really think about the composition when they press the camera shutter, because everything is too easy.

Apart from the side effect, digital technology does bring us convenience, for example, photoshop.  We can adjust or and process the photo at  a later stage.  If you cannot make it perfect on location when you are shooting, such as the lighting or even the make up on the person, technology can do it for you.  Let's watch the following video, then you will understand the power of technology :)

(goshhh! gossip girl is no longer gossip girl, 
hahaha, kidding, she is still gorgeous without make up!)


However, because of the amazing technology, people now start getting confused with photography and reality, things shown in the photo is not what you can see in the reality, and you may question "which is the truth?"  Everything can be happened in the digital world.


3. Differences

Analog photography:
- use film -- so photos cannot be seen right after we take the photo
- using chemical, darkroom

Digital photography:
- save in a memory card -- photo can be seen immediately
- pixels
- computer basis -- information can be changed and adjusted, we can delete photos which we do not like
- photos are more under control

2010年9月8日 星期三

which will you choose - OPEN source or PROPRIETARY?

For me, I will choose proprietary encyclopaedia.

The information privodeed by proprietary encyclopaeida should be more accurate and reliable than open source. The proprietary encyclopaedia should be published by different related scholars and experts, so, actually, the information there are supported by strong scholarship. For example, professional editors of Brittanica keep revising and correcting the information published on the encyclopaedia. that kind of information have a higher credibility. However, open-source encyclopaedia is up to the public which mean everybody to provide and edit the information. So, who are the editors? And how reliable are the information? No one can guarantee the quality indeed! It is opened to public, yes, there maybe some elitists editing articles, but who can guarantee the qualification and the professionalism of that "elitist"? He just claims himself elitist on the internet.  And the thing is, Wikipedia allows him to edit the article not because he is proved that he is the export, is just because he is one of the public.  "Wikipedia in fact had a third more inaccuracies than Britannica." (from http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf)  That's why university students are not supposed to use information from, for example, wikipedia as their supporting document in thesis. The accuarcy of data is especially important when we need some factal figures.

Of course, to set up a proprietary encyclopaedia is more expensive than an open-source encyclopaedia, for example, to hire those qualified exports and scholars.  I know it sounds like very attractive that the open-source encyclopedia is free. As setting up a  proprietary encyclopaedia costs certain amount, so proprietary encyclopedia won't be free for access. Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, charges $70 a year for full access, actually, if it can be the only encyclopaedia in the world, then people should pay it anyway if they need it.  It can compensate the running costs of the proprietary encyclopaedia and it is affordable to general public in fact.  And proprietary encyclopaedia provides articles in good quality which is ethical to the society, so it is still worth.

You may say that open-source encyclopaedia is having open-editing approach, so different people from different countries or cultures can edit articles, it can satisfy any needs of particular cultures, so it is better than proprietary.  But, as Dale Hoiberg, the senior vice president of Encyclopaedia Britannica, said that they have more than 4000 scholars and exports around the world, so I think they can manage different cultural needs as well.

My another concern is the ethical matter.  As the articles on proprietary encyclopaedia are based on trained editors, fact-checkers and more than 4000 experts and scholars, so the quality can be guaranteed and should be higher.  Let's imagine, Wikipedia becomes the only encyclopaedia in the world which we are not sure if their articles or information are true or not, then a big question here: WHAT IS THE TRUTH? We do not know the truth forever.  It will become information flooding in the whole world but we never know if they are true or false.  It will not be happened if proprietary encyclopaedia is the only one can be remained.  Also, even feedbacks from readers will be checked by qualified editors before they are released,(from [Will Wikipedia Mean the End of Traditional Encyclopedias?] ) it can ensure the interaction, discussion and debate healthy, in good quality and meaningful.


This all my opinion, so please feel free to give me comments, cheers :)

Modern (Digital) time

1. Technology can bring convenience and efficiency.  The whole industrial production becomes systematic. Machinery can speed up the whole production, machines can work faster than manpower, and it can omit a lot of steps which need to be done by manpower before, it saves manpower at the same time. It also makes sure that each product is identical, quality can be guaranteed.  As the production can be speeded up, it saves time and mass production can be implemented.  Since camera has been invented, it shortens the distance between  people, boss can communicate with workers through the camera, he doesn't have to come down physically and talk to workers in front of them.  He can still talk to his workers even if staying at his office.  Obviously, if manpower can be reduced, efficiency can be increased, then it can help the company to make more profit and, of course, the boss can benefit from that.  Workers can benefit from it as well as the production procedures can be well organized.

2. Firstly, these technologies brings convenience to the main character, Charlie, as mentioned in no.1.  However, it brings negative impacts on him too.  Since the technology is invented, as time goes by, it seems that technology starts leading and dominating human. Charlie and other workers cater to the machine, the circuit tape.  Also, technology isn't, eventually, human mind, error can be happened and become out of control and ruin human.  Finally, Charlie starts having illusion and confusion between working with real people and working with machine.  We can see that Charlie can't stop doing the same action even if he is off from work and does it on human, not only on product.

3. In fact, computer and internet really bring convenience to us. Just one click, a lot of information can be found out, even international information. Computer and internet can save us time.  However, since everything can be done at home or we just have to sit in front of the computer, I think we start lacking of experiences. There are still something we better go to experience it rather than just get it from the internet, such as culture, it should be different.

2010年9月1日 星期三

call me Rain-bow

yep, i'm rainbow.
well, i know my blog's name is kind of... odd,
but... please don't ask me what it means,
it just popped up in my mind.
btw, have fun in HK Disneyland~
i took this photo there.
Xxx