Recurring Developments

The other day I stumbled across a website called "Recurring Developments". This website, amazingly enough, maps out the entire thread of inside jokes within the popular TV show Arrested Development. This map shows the inside joke, which episode those jokes happen, as well as the description of the jokes, and fun facts of the episode.

For those of you who haven't seen the show, Arrested Development has a whole slew of inside jokes that the characters mention during not only the show, but during the whole series. This is one of my favorite parts of this show because it ties the whole show together. It makes even the most mundane of moments in the show funny because the character pulls out a joke that is just as funny the 10th time you hear it.

The website is so fascinating to me because it shows the level of thought that this show puts into each and every episode. The attention to detail is just inspiring. Each joke is woven into episodes and the process of doing so seems so effortless. All of the jokes work in each episode and they never seem out of place. My personal favorites are the jokes about Ann and the jokes about Tobias being a never nude.

I also found the mapping of the inside jokes to be quite impressive as well. There was a lot of detail in that mapping and you could tell that the people who made it knew their Arrested Development. I love that this show fosters so much interactivity of the viewers. Many viewers don't just watch the show. They go to websites like this to look more into the show and they become participants in the show by blogging or sharing their ideas. This show definitely promotes a cross-platform interactivity because viewers just can't get enough of it!

Sports Media

Over the break, a father asked me to videotape his son's football game and edit the good plays he makes into a high-light real. He gave me a hand held camera and told me the different angles to shoot at for where his son would be on the field, whether it was defense or offense. This was by far the hardest event I ever shoot at. Football is such a quick game and i was constantly losing concept of where the ball and Jon were. Jon played the running back position so he was pretty much on every play. Jon's father wanted me too be zoomed in as much as possible and to always have his son on camera.

Towards the second quarter, my hand was already starting to get tired, and there was nothing i could really do about it. A tripod would have rally been handy. After halftime, Jon rushed for a 47 yard touchdown, breaking three tackles and diving into the end zone. The best part was that he was running towards me the entire time, so the shoot does like pretty cool as i zoom out and refocus during the play.

In post, I added some music and labeled what each short bit was before playing it. Mr Struss, Jon's father, was very please with what I accomplished and said that if Jon's team makes it to the championship, he would ask me to do the same thing again. Then it hit me. There are so many parents that spend a tremendous amount of money to have highlight tapes shoot for their son or daughter. So currently, I am making a website that will be linked on my old school's website for parents interested in a highlight tape for their child's college resume. I already have gotten few phone calls, and have 3 jobs for when I go back home after christmas. I think I might really have something here. Once the site is finished, I'll post again and have a link to the main page.

TV Tropes

Don't forget this exists. It actually really helps with writing if you know how to make the different elements they mention work.

processing progress

For this class I am working on presenting all of my Processing sketches in one place. The most user-friendly way to do this was to create a blog that also functions as an interactive portfolio. Plus, I plan to continue working in Processing and updating the blog portion with information as well as great resources.  Blogger seemed like an obvious choice and something I could upgrade as much or as little as I would like - wordpress was another option but seems to reject a lot of simple html editing as well as not displaying the java applets correctly.* I'm still working on how everything looks but please check out http://processingprogress.blogspot.com/ . These sketches will also be on http://www.openprocessing.org/ because I hope to work collaboratively in the future with other artists.

*It seems like a lot of people have had similar problems with wordpress from what I have looked at online. Will blog more on that later.

Project Update

I was really impressed with how helpful the people at Publix were. I emailed the main headquarters last week and on Friday I got a phone call from the store manager of the Publix next to my house. He told me he got my email and asked me to come in. I went into the store today and he gave me a paper copy of the map of the store from when they do store sets. This is not usually made public to shoppers but he was more than happy to give me a copy. I made a digital layout to match.

the map is a good outline but it doesn't have the detail I'm looking for. I then went to the store and made aisle outlines. They are taking forever!!! Here is one.

I also started to work on my website design. I just got the look of it down. It's really simple because I hate websites that are hard to navigate.