Blog 20 (The YouTube Screening Room)

Blog 20 (The YouTube Screening Room)

I watched a short film called “The Apocalypse”. The movie was freaking awesome! The idea was that if anyone had any thought whatsoever, their head would explode. The 5 minute video which starts with a group of 4 people ends with everyone dead. The movie seems to be poking at how our country went from and industrial society to a technological society and people have stopped thinking for themselves. The movie starts with the group of 4 sitting, watching TV and being board. They are trying to think of something to do, then, when one has an idea his head explodes. Near the end their are 2 characters left and they discovered that thinking causes the head explosion. But, they still both die. The last character dies because a good looking girl “from upstairs” comes into their apartment half naked from the shower and asked the guy what they should do. 

The movie ends with two people who weren’t original characters who are both not very intelligent. They have to force themselves to come up with an idea on what to do in the situation (which is comical) then before their heads explode the movie ends.

This was a very creative short film and was not at all what I expected it would be but it was still very good. 

WARNING<-------- VERY BLOODY and GRAPHIC

BLOG 19 (Warner Brothers Studio Tour!!)

BLOG 19 (Warner Brothers Studio Tour!!)

After checking out the website for this tour I'm hooked. If I lived in California or had the money to fly there, I would go on the Warner VIP tour! The tour allows you to go through some of the most famous sets ever used in movie and TV history and they have a museum that has props from almost all of their movies. This would be a really cool experience to see where the movies are actually made. The website itself for the tour was also very well done. It was easy and fun to use. There was lots of videos and pictures to see and you can read about all your favorite Warner brothers shows.

The VIP tour isn’t too expensive at $50 a person and $250 for the deluxe tour although i’d probably stick to the VIP tour since the deluxe is pretty expensive. 

Check out a video on the VIP tour:

BLOG 18 (The Weather Channel Virtual Tour)

BLOG 18 (The Weather Channel Virtual Tour)

After taking this tour and comparing it to the New York Times digital tour, I can confidently say that I like the NYT tour much better. This is an unbiased answer too because, if I had to choose a favorite company between the two, it would be the weather channel. Of the two tours, I expected The Weather channel tour to be more advanced digitally and easier to use since the weather channel does much more via website and apps than does the New York Times (just my opinion). But, surprisingly the New York Times tour was much better and more fun to use. The NYT tour was more intuitive and was laid out much better. I also felt the the NYT video had much more info and things to see compared to the Weather Channel Tour. In fact, While going through the Weather Channel “Tour” section of the website, I was worried I was actually in the wrong place because it didn’t even really seem like a tour to me. On several occasions I went back to the original link the instructor provided just to be sure I was in the right place. 

The NYT tour and the Weather Channel tours are great examples of how to properly do a digital tour (NYT) and how to not do a digital tour (Weather Channel). 

Below is a screen shot and link of both tours. If you haven’t been to them yet, check them out and see for yourself.

http://www.weather.com/tv/studio/index.html

video can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11/20/arts/20071120_TIMES_GRAPHIC.html?_r=0

BLOG 17 (New York Times Tour)

BLOG 17 (New York Times Tour)

All I can say is WOW! After the blog we did a few weeks ago about newspaper not doing so well because of the evolving digital newspapers, I may have been wrong in my blog. If they can afford a tower building like this in New York, they must be doing ok. 

The most interesting design of the building, in my opinion, was the metal frames on all for sides of the building. The video explains that the metal frames were designed for light enhancement inside the building. Personally, I think it ruins the look of the building. 

But, thats not why I think that feature is interesting. Its interesting to me because I believe that that frame actually serves another purpose. Many government buildings and embassy also use similar features on the outside as a way to block signals that may be coming into the building. This keeps people from listening in on the building and assists in retaining sensitive information. This is just a guess by the way and it probably seems like some conspiracy theory. But, thats what it looks like to me :)

I’m probably way off on my guess but, that is definitely the most intriguing part of the tour video to me.

The rest of the building (catfeteria, lobby, newsroom) look very nice! I definitely wouldn’t be too upset if I had to work there.

As for the tour, I think its great! The tour gives you a good feel of what the building is like and shows you all of the main parts of the building. The tour is incredibly educational and was very pleasing to go through. I think that more companies should start doing virtual tours like this.

Here is a video of the building

BLOG 16 “The Recording Industry”

BLOG 16 “The Recording Industry”

The recording industry’s evolution to me is incredibly intriguing.  During my first attempt at college (12 years ago) I was very much into music and was in a band. Back then, although there was computers and the internet, music was still mainly recorded in analog formats unless you were rich or had a very famous band. Now days anyone with a computer, smart phone, or tablet can record at a minimum of a 5 track song. 5 tracks meaning you have the ability to have 5 different recording the you can change and mix as you please. The Beatles used a 5 track recorder on several of their albums in analog meaning that it went onto a tape. Analog recording quality was incredibly sub-par in todays music recording standards.  Almost all forms of music today are recorded digitally (music saves to a computer) and can have an unlimited amount of tracks that can be recorded. 

This is amazing to me. In a very short amount of time the music industry went from analog recording to digital, then to having trouble financially. 

Once the ability to record your own music and then share and download either free music or paid music that people illegally downloaded for free became available, sales plummeted and the recording industry had to start being more friendly in terms of pricing. The creation of the original version of the file sharing service “Napster” also directly contributed to the evolution of the recording industry.

I cant wait to see what is the next evolution within this industry.

Here is a video of the recording app “Garage Band” on an Apple iPad: