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barrykoeghan · 5 years ago

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time to rant about how i think the dance in emma (2020) is way more effective than in p&p (2005)

let me explain (buckle up this is long)

“they feel like they’re the only ones in the room/they only see each other”

p&p (2005) tells it to you right away and then shows it to you

emma (2020) there’s a whole fucking journey to get to it

in p&p, it starts with this:

there’s a boy, there’s a girl

the camera follows them one at the time until they meet in the middle during the dance

the conversation heats up, they stop stopped dancing. effective.

then, they start dancing again

it’s the last shot you see before it cuts to this:

then they’re dancing alone in a room bla bla bla until it ends we all know how this goes

and then it cuts to this

the fucking cuts: - it inexplicably cuts to other shots that are not continuous with the last shot you just saw. why. i have no clue. it doesn’t really add anything. you’d think it’s like a quick reminder that oh they’re not alone in the room, but having watched it again, i don’t get that vibe. i just get “they’re alone, now they’re not” and there’s no explanation for it other than you know they’re gonna hook up and this was meant to be a moment. there’s no loud noise that brings them back that could explain this kind of cut, there’s nothing. - i would have wanted a smoother transition. maybe digitally remove people one by one, or use one of those secret cuts for one shots when people block the camera by walking in front of it to then, again, smoothly see that oh people were here but now they’re not but you’ve been here the whole time you didn’t have to fuck off somewhere in another room to be alone. it happened all organically. - really fucking irritated about it. i really like SEEING them alone in a room, but it feels a bit patronizing in a way, as if they weren’t able to convey it or were too lazy to show this feeling in other ways

it’s kind of ordinary? - having seen emma, i can’t find anything spectacular about the way this was filmed. it’s just the camera playing ping pong from the same spot, then the camera circles them. i love the flow this has because you get the horizontal match of ping pong at the start (as it reflects their discussion -- very nice) and then, once they’re alone, it starts flowing and moving more freely. fucking wonderful. but you could also do that with any other scene and it would lose this meaning because there’s nothing else that makes it special. - and because of that, it doesn’t seem to be much visual storytelling happening, and by that i mean if you were to only look at the screenshots or watch it without audio, it doesn’t give you much to go on. two people dance and seem to talk, they stop, they look angry at each other, then they’re alone in a room dancing again. the dialogue and the music basically provides most of the storytelling in this scene, which, you know, it’s perfectly fine, but you’d think a scene that has this much impact would have a bit more? - all you get are three images from the same pov: her alone, him alone, them together. do i want more? no, it’s perfect the way it is. HoweverTM:

they actually visually tell you they’re alone before they show you they feel like they’re alone in the room - the filming already preps you for the big moment. they only focus on them. that’s it. that’s the whole scene pre-alone scene. they focus so hard on the characters that you already know they feel like they’re alone; they’re having a heated conversation in public during the middle of a dance. they already feel like they’re alone. otherwise, what’s the purpose of it all? if i can assume this from the context and how it was shot, why do i need another reminder? why both? why not just one of them?

dumb complaint, but the opening shot... - it gives you zero context. a good thing about it is that they show mr darcy first as to say hey this doesn’t happen often, this is special, buckle up. but then again, it starts with a somewhat close up and they never go in or out until they’re in the room on their own. there’s no perspective to it. i’ll call myself out and say it’s a really stupid thing to be upset about because, for example, if i wanted to show someone feeling lonely, you could fill a frame with their face and show there’s nothing else but them, EXCEPT the most effective way to show this would be a wide shot where they are indeed alone or in a corner. both are GREAT it depends on the context of the scene, of course, but my point is, why not just take the opportunity you have. you can open with one wide shot and never come back to it. at least you’re acknowledging this isn’t just about them. (it IS just about them, but since we already KNOW this by looking at the scene before it cuts, them being alone doesn’t have as much of an impact as it could)

it’s stupid how much i used to LOVE this scene and now i can’t even find anything to ramble on. it’s the same two things. it’s not like i have much to talk about.

so now there’s emma who just fucking went for it and annihilated p&p’s dance

there’s a context shot. this is it. you’re not meant to spot them, you’re meant to know they’re going to dance with lots of people surrounded by lots of people. this is important for later on.

now you get introduced to two important angles (hell yeah)

this voyeuristic candle pov that makes me want to fucking nut. this is my favourite pov. it’s meant to be her point of view, but as you’ll see in later shots from this angle, the meaning also doubles as OUR pov, like we’re intruding and watching from afar. i think this is very efficient because you get variety, personal interpretation, and depth. depth as in you’re behind the candles and they’re in front, you ask? no! the most important aspect is the horizon line!! they become the horizon line, and the people we barely make out in the back become just shadows in the background, and therefore, unimportant. you don’t need to make them leave the room to make it seem like they’re alone.

and then there’s this one, his point of view, but still not an over the shoulder look, so it’s still as if we’re looking from the side, but we’re not intruding as much, because this just sets the tone, they haven’t even begun dancing. there’s no need for two of these candle shots. the horizon line & background people thing still applies to this, but in a less dramatic and obvious way.

then we cut to this:

the smartest thing about this is that

1. you’re still intruding

2. the camera faces the side of the room with the most people (take note of the band)

3. in the second shot, it feels very intimate even though they’re surrounded by people so much so they block us from fully seeing them

then we get the first part which is only filmed this way once. (again, as an introduction to give you context.)

there’s a few important things here

the movement because they don’t insist on focusing on them at first to give you the vibe in the room, you get a lot of people moving in front and behind the two we’re kind of supposed to be focusing on. i think this is brilliant. it makes you want them to be alone, but they’re not there yet. you have to wait for them.

the lookTM even though the camera moves often and the shots change, we see him looking in her direction whenever he can. it’s so SIMPLE and it adds to two aspects: 1. the whole voyeurism thing; you’re catching him do this, it’s not meant to be a focus point 2. they’re slowly starting to show signs that they’ll feel like they’re alone in the room. the whole “staring at someone and being so enthralled by them it feels like it’s just the two of you”

now we get a subtle change. the camera switches sides and faces the other way. there were five visible musicians and we don’t see them anymore. remember when i said i would have liked for p&p to slowly remove people from the room? THIS is how you can do it, and all that was done was filming from the other side of the room. not only that, but there are only two couples next to them from this angle, unlike the other where there were three or four i can’t remember.

this is a nice way of controlling the crowd. are there more people in the background? we don’t know because we get a couple hiding them from us, keeping yet again a low people count, and then we get our two idiots literally blocking everyone from us and them

this has the exact same intensity as when darcy and lizzie are dancing in that empty room and yet. you get the effect of an empty room without having to vacant the whole place down.

this is also when it starts to get real romantic up in here. up until the twirling, there were a significant amount of people in the shots, but now, you’ll start seeing less and less (with one exception) of them. doing it gradually builds up great tension and makes you feel like you’re part of it.

it takes up until now to have our first close ups. the neat thing about it is they’re doing the same moves that first introduced the concept of them blocking out people in the room. filming like this (from the outside in) also induces the feeling of blocking out people

then we get a surprise midsection shot:

i thought about this a lot because it has the same vibe as the cut in p&p, but the thing is,

all the previous shots were from head to waist and the face close ups. there were NO close ups NO focus on anything specific. it’s kind of the visualization of “what happens under the covers” and i don’t know about you but......

bedroom eyes much??

they still are in the room, people are STILL dancing, we still SEE them in the background, but the camera focuses on the two. they’re simple shots in theory, but along with the whole journey you’ve just been through, it means so much more. these close ups are more important than they should be. the more they dance the closer they get, the more isolated they feel.

now there’s this part which i ADORE. she advances to him, but in a way, since it’s not a typical over the shoulder view, it feels like she’s coming toward us too. it’s done so slowly too, almost hesitantly, and the next shot of her back preps you for the next big moment.

before it happens though, there’s a quick throwback to the fact that there’s still people. autumn de wilde really said i got you bitch they’re not alone. it’s a weird thing, i’ll tell you, but i kind of adore it. it’s like getting cold water thrown in your face because we forgot.

i would have gifed this part but i’m lazy. their dancing come to a stop. just like how it did in p&p (before it CUT) and emma just yeets away from him in that last shot to continue dancing, like she too forgot herself like what just happened to us with that cold water shot. (the next shots prove he too has been splashed in the face and it’s not a one sided thing, or something WE looked too much into)

having yeeted away to take their place to dance again, the camera pans over to them. it follows them. like they were trying to escape all this and what just happened was clearly private.

and then the shots become more like they were at the start. wider. there’s people in frame again. but then they twirl to stop in front of the camera, blocking them again. they know.

and then you see why they stopped. if you look closely in the background, they danced on their own. this isn’t part of it. nobody’s dancing, they’re still in position, waiting. these two just went off on their own.

because they feel like they’re the only ones there.

it cuts to her dress again, them holding hands again. we’ve been prepped for this, but this time, knowing they weren’t MEANT to do this, it feels much worse.

and they retract, because that’s that. what more can you do.

and then it ends here. it’s too late, and you don’t need another reminder they weren’t alone.

it doesn’t matter anymore.

#should i tag this????#emma #emma 2020 #*mine

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citrineghost · 4 years ago

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Why Compassionate Actions Matter (Yes, Yours Too.)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about communication. Communication and human interaction are both things I think of a lot, actually. The most recent thing I wondered about is why so many people seem to not care about the things their supposed friends do.

For example, I’m in a server with my 5 friends, all of whom are also my roommates. There have been a lot of times that I’ve posted my art or some short stories to the #share channel and then waited and waited and gotten no response at all.

It made me wonder, do none of them care?

I know that all of these people generally care about each other and each other’s happiness. They’re all fairly compassionate toward others. So why do they seem to ignore every effort I make to reach out and share the things I do? Why do none of them ever do the same? It’s not that I expect anyone to applaud me and tell me how good my art is or how compelling my writing is - I just wanted to be seen.

Feeling invisible has always been a struggle for me, being raised in a household where I was in “the forgotten child” role. So, in my friendships, this is a sore spot for me. It tends to make me move on after a while if my friends don’t ever seem to see me. This is also why I usually only have one or two best friends - people who feel the way I do about compassionate action.

What Is “Compassionate Action”?

When I say “compassionate action,” I’m talking about doing or saying things that don’t directly benefit you or that you may do purely to benefit someone else. It’s not an official term or anything, just an apt way to describe what I need to. This doesn’t have to be charity work or groveling or kissing up to someone. It could be as simple as letting someone know their message has been seen - sending a heart in the chat to let someone know you see their work and you appreciate it.

Compassionate action is what draws me to the best friends I do have. My boyfriend is someone who I can always count on to be supportive and give positive words no matter what I do. I do the same for him. If I draw a picture, he always responds to it, saying, honestly, that he likes it! If I get really excited about a formula I created for a spreadsheet and I send him a screenshot, even if he doesn’t know what he’s looking at, he’s really excited for me!

Why Is “Compassionate Action” So Hard to Come By?

Many of us, no doubt, have had similar experiences in regard to feeling ignored or unimportant to our friends. But, surely, our friends do care about us, right?

The answer is yes, in most cases. But, somehow, that makes the lack of response to the things we love seem even more confusing. So, this is where I began thinking the other day:

Why do people who care seem so uninterested or unwilling to interact with things their friends love?

I talked with my boyfriend about this the other day to parse out why this is happening. It’s something we’ve both experienced a lot in different friend groups over the years.

So, we sat down together - over call, since we’re in an LDR - and we talked about it. We tried to figure out why we both feel this way and others seem not to. For both of us, it’s important to us that our friends are happy. Even if one of my hydrologist friends posted some table he made, that he was really proud of, about stream flow data - something I’m only moderately interested in - I would make an effort to read and understand it and then give excited feedback. It’s not that I’m as passionate about stream flow information as he is, but I would be really happy to see his excitement and satisfaction with his own work. My boyfriend is of the same opinion.

But then, if our friends value our happiness, which we know they do, why don’t they ever give positive feedback about things we’re excited about? We talked over possible reasons for a little while before we finally found one that made complete sense - one that consistently fit the bill for all of the friends that we’d had who never gave us “compassionate action.”

Your Actions Matter

The result we came up with is that most of these people were dealing with depression or self esteem issues. They feel that their opinions don’t have value - won’t make a difference. They think that it isn’t important if they respond because, “Why would sending a heart matter? If I send a heart and don’t respond with an in depth review of how cool the thing is, my friend will just think I’m an ass for not saying more. It’s better if I just pretend I didn’t see it.”

My boyfriend and I both have had some pretty life-changing experiences where other people’s compassion, shown in small actions of recognition and solidarity, have kept us alive or changed our entire day for the better. We’ve learned through our experiences in suffering that those actions make all the difference, and we’ve put that philosophy to work in our own lives. However-

not everyone has realized that this is true for them too.

If you have depression, anxiety, or you’ve grown up in an abusive home, you might feel like your actions don’t matter. You might think this doesn’t apply to you - that you’re the exception and that your friends don’t care what you think.

You’re wrong.

The people around you, even people you don’t know very well, they care about the things you say. It doesn’t matter if you’re depressed or anxious, or an outcast, or kind of weird. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never spoken to them or if you’re best friends.

The things you say make a difference.

The sooner you realize that your opinions and your words have value - have POWER - the sooner you will begin to improve the connections you have with friends.

I grew up feeling like my opinion was worthless and that I should never give it, even when people asked for it. To me, it was obvious that they were only asking because they wanted me to feel included. I look back now and I see that that’s not true. The same way you desire to be seen by others, they desire to be seen by you. One such way that you can make other people feel seen is by showing them that you have put consideration into what they’ve done. You have formed an opinion on it.

When your friend shows you a drawing they’ve made or they sing you a song they’re working on, more often than not, they are not looking to just show off. They are begging for recognition and are asking to be seen by someone they care about (that’s you!). Give them that. Tell them what you think! Get excited for them!

It’s Not as Complicated as You Think

Not really the kind of art you’re interested in? It doesn’t matter. “Wow, you really put a lot of work into this!” That sentence is a huGE compliment. You are showing them that you find value in what they did and that you see how hard they worked.

Did your friend sing you a song they’re working on and they’re a little bit tone deaf? That’s okay! You don’t have to lie about how you feel to be compassionate. “You show so much emotion in your singing!” Those words will fill a singer’s heart with joy. Not everyone sings to sing perfectly, but to convey their feelings and connect with people. That would make their day!

Is your friend a weirdo like me who enjoys creating spreadsheets? “Holy shit, that must have taken forever!!” Those kinds of words are so so validating. It’s okay if you don’t know what you’re looking at. It’s okay if you don’t want to try reading the data in the spreadsheet. What matters to me is that you have taken the three seconds to look at it and form an opinion about me and what I’ve done, even if that opinion is just seeing that I have put a lot of time and effort into something.

No matter what your friends show you, there is a way to show them that you see them and care about them being happy. You don’t have to lie or compliment the work itself, you don’t have to open up your bleeding heart and write a poem about the beauty of their creation.

You just have to show that you see them.

If you struggle to feel that your words have value, I urge you to take a moment and think of the times you’ve tried to share something with someone and gotten no response. I urge you to consider how the tiniest acts of compassion by other people have gotten you through the day. Please know that your words have the same weight.

I can HEAR you thinking that you’re different and YOU’RE NOT.

Everyone! I repeat! Everyone! Has an impact! With their words!

Depressed people, anxious people, people who were abused, people with trauma, people with disorders, people with disabilities, people who have a hard time finding words, people who feel like they have no talent, people who don’t know anything about the topic their friend is telling them about, people who are young, people who are old, people who haven’t left their room in 3 days, people who haven’t sat down to breathe in 3 days, people who have forgotten to reach out in a while, people who have been self isolating because they’re sad, people who have scared away friends from their past, people who have left friends from their past, people who aren’t very fluent in the language their friend speaks, people who know their friends in person, people who know their friends online, people who are suicidal, people who think they’re not as good as their friends,

Everyone’s actions matter, especially yours.

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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I know you say that the Adam stuff in v3 was a good example of visual storytelling in rwby, do you think there is anything else, in your opinion

Yes! Let’s praise poor RWBY for once lol

I’m sure there’s a lot that I could choose from but that would require me combing back through old content to jog those memories. So let’s stick to Volume 7. Overall, I quite enjoyed the JNOR vs. Neo fight. There are plot convenience issues (the stupidity of having the group carry the relic around instead of putting it in the vault) and choreography issues (I’ve heard a number of complaints about the slow-mo and how Jaune and Oscar don’t integrate well with Ren and Nora), but the fight does a good job of conveying a lot of information visually. It’s one of the few moments in the volume where I felt like RT was successfully a) using the medium to its advantage and b) achieving more than one thing in a single scene.

Warning: Here be lots of screenshots.

First, I want to acknowledge that lately RT has been demonstrating a talent for horror-esque writing. RWBY obviously isn’t in the horror genre, but via the Apathy we saw that RT can crank up the creep factor when they choose to. This scene does something similar (though admittedly much more subtly) and it starts with the opening shot of the destroyed guards.

It’s a simple thing, but note how dark the room is, especially compared to the hallway outside. This is supposed to be a terrifying moment. The team has just arrived looking for Oscar and have instead found a disaster zone. There are scorch marks on the walls. The guards aren’t just lying powered down, they’ve been hacked to pieces. Though AIs without aura or souls, they’re designed to look like people and at first glance it definitely seems like we’ve got three bodies decorating the bedroom. Nora’s panicked cries tell us how bad the situation is, but we get that loud and clear from these visuals first. Also note how, despite being lighter, the hallway is dominated by a very deep red. I’d actually say to a certain extent this is a mistake - the pink/reds of the environment make it easy for Neo and Nora, with their predominantly pink costumes, to blend in too well during the fight - but in regards to color associations we get some nice shots throughout that convey danger and high emotions.

When “Oscar” comes on the scene we know, instantaneously, that it’s not Oscar. Not just because we as the audience know that Neo is off doing something nefarious, but because via the language of film/television that’s not how you re-introduce an established character. You don’t hide their face like that unless you’re about to reveal something - like the fact that that’s not really them. This is also the first of a number of medium closeups on the relic, putting emphasis on it first because someone currently holds it who should not have it, and then as a means of reminding the viewer what this fight is about.

Via some great attention to detail, we see again the clear wrongness about this “Oscar.” That’s not how Oscar stands. That’s not how Oscar smiles. More than just animating him differently, this shot pulls from those subtle horror tropes. He has the dead-eyed look of a doll or a supernatural being that immediately makes the viewer (if not Nora) go, “Wait...” It helps that Oscar is a short boy with dark hair. Put him in different clothes and he could play any number of possessed kids.

With Neo’s deception revealed, we get what the fandom knows is not good visual storytelling. AKA, Oscar charging down the whole length of the hallway while Neo just stands there and lets herself get hit. I don’t need to re-hash how stupid that was. What I like a lot more is the subtleties in how she communicates given that, obviously, Neo can’t rely on any dialogue. Coming out of the hit she immediately has her umbrella leveled at the group and pulls out the blade to communicate, “Yes. I’m taking you on.” The neat choice though is that she brings the umbrella down to do it. She takes her weapon off the group, if only for a moment. Jaune has just gotten done insisting that she should give up because it’s four to one. The blade says, “I’m taking you on” but lowering her umbrella likewise says, “I’m so confident about taking you on I’ll even make myself vulnerable for a second.”

Which retroactively makes her getting hit like that even stupider but it’s fine we’re moving on.

During this time we also get a lot of insight into Oscar. Check out how utterly bedraggled he is, showing us how tough the initial fight with Neo was and how lucky he is to have escaped. He clutches the relic close to his chest and stares, scared, at the rest of the team. Oscar hasn’t reached a point yet where he instinctively draws his weapon and prepares to defend himself (indeed, he didn’t even have his weapon out during that initial encounter. That’s one hell of a rookie mistake). He’s still a terrified kid who hopes he won’t have to fight at all, literally hiding behind more powerful friends. This is all great characterization, the only problem is consistency. Nothing about Oscar has been consistent. One moment he’s holding his own against Lionheart and insisting he fight Hazel. The next he’s getting his ass kicked by Neo and cowering at the prospect of more. One moment he’s positively done in by these fights, horrified, scared, unsure of himself. The next he’s confronting the general of a kingdom with all the wisdom of Ozpin. This guy:

and this guy:

Exist about fifteen minutes apart. Because though RWBY is great at visual storytelling within each scene, they don’t keep it consistent from one scene to the next. Which is why Oscar is (accurately, imo) animated as an inexperienced kid in Scene #1 and then inexplicably becomes a wise old mentor in Scene #2. Not because anything occurred between Scene #1 and Scene #2 to create that change (let alone such an extreme change), but only because the show suddenly wanted Ironwood to look like an unhinged character. How do you achieve that? Not by having the guy he’s talking to act as winded, wild, and emotional as him, but by having Oscar speak calmly, rationally, softly, sounding oh-so-persuasive so you don’t listen to the actual words he says and how nonsensical they are (you’re as bad as Salem). Instead, you pay attention only to the visuals (Ironwood looks crazier than Oscar so he must be wrong). Ironwood is a great example of how RT sometimes tries to get visual storytelling to outweigh basic logic/what’s been said on screen.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. The fight begins and I do still love how Oscar is depicted here, even if it doesn’t align with what we get later. The moment that umbrella and cane cross was great because who doesn’t love visual symmetry? Oscar grabbing Neo is wonderfully in character because he’s barely trained! He’s a kid! He’s flying by the seat of his pants and going with whatever vaguely successful act pops into his head. The absurdity of, “I’m just going to grab her” is tempered by Oscar’s furiously determined expression as well as Neo’s brief look of shock. It works up until they realize what Oscar grabbed was just a copy.

I mentioned early that JNOR often doesn’t work well as a team, unless it’s specifically in the context of Jaune giving orders and the others executing them. Oscar and his lack of integration is obviously exempt from this, being the newbie both to fighting and this particular team’s dynamics, but Ren, Nora, and Jaune have no excuse. The first half of this fight is a good example of what I mean. We see Nora attack. She’s tossed aside. Then Ren attacks. He’s slammed into the wall. Oscar attacks (umbrella vs. cane) and it’s only at the last second that Jaune arrives with his shield to stave off a blow that would fell him too. Why is everyone taking turns here? They know none of them can beat Neo one-on-one and Jaune just said that their victory lies in it being four-to-one. So why separate out all the attacks? Arguably we can read this as a major flaw of JNOR’s and visual setup for something they’ll have to overcome later. In reality though I highly doubt this was deliberate on RT’s part, leaving this as bad visual storytelling (in that it makes the characters look stupid) as opposed to good visual storytelling (JNOR will realize this flaw and work to correct it).

After Neo disappears we get a chase through the hallway that does a great job of showing us precisely how weaker Oscar is compared to his teammates. He doesn’t have their stamina, breathing heavily and falling further and further behind. At one point (screenshot #2) he arrives just in time to find the team turning back in the direction he’s just come, showing not only how he can’t physically keep up, but also his place in this team/the group. He’s literally not with them. Anyone who has followed my blog knows my thoughts on how the group has treated Oscar and if (again) I were inclined to think that RT was aware of that treatment and working to integrate it into the show with the intent to resolve it, this would be another great detail. As it is, I think Oscar as a character is just continually going to get the short end of the stick. In particular, the crane shot shows us exactly how far behind Oscar is. The others charge ahead without him, not caring where he is or if he can keep up. Which leads to this.

Oscar rounds another corner and they’re gone. Nowhere to be seen. If anyone had the thought, “He’s not that far behind. It’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be,” Ren, Nora, and Jaune were clearly moving fast enough to round another corner and leave Oscar stranded. Here those subtle horror elements come back into play, particularly the maze-like design of the corridors. The only unique marker we get is the info board, otherwise it’s all identical hallways, housing a killer, with Oscar now left alone in it. The long shot makes him look small and emphasizes his isolation.

Then he’s attacked and it’s suitably scary. The hand over his mouth. The dark room again. We only get the briefest glimpse of Neo-as-Nora before she attacks, but that one second is another excellent moment of animation. Nora has never sauntered away like that. Even the quickest look in an action-driven scene is enough for the viewer to go, “Nope. Not Nora.”

The attack itself is the one moment where I think the slow-mo serves a good purpose. We might know (via that quick shot, how characters act (Nora is unlikely to pull Oscar aside like that) and expectations for how a story functions) that that’s not Nora, but Oscar doesn’t know that. The slow-mo gives us - and him - the chance to focus on Neo’s eyes changing, that stomach-dropping moment of realization, and we see Oscar’s horrified shock in the close up on his own eyes. Though RWBY doesn’t always grapple with the emotional implications of every encounter, I think it’s worth noting that this can really mess someone up. Oscar thought he was safe with an ally and had the rug pulled out from under him. He will now forever have the image of Nora attacking him, regardless of the fact that it was really “Nora.” Jaune likewise exclaims in horrified surprise when “Nora” charges him down the hallway. The ability to turn into someone else is an advantage that Neo knows how to use to its fullest. Not just in regards to spying, but how to unsettle your opponent too.

Waiting for the day she turns into Pyrrha ngl.

We see that same work when she encounters Ren. Admittedly, I’m torn on this one. If only because I agree with others when they ask, “Doesn’t Ren spar with Nora all the time? He should be able to hit her.” The context of “Barely trained kid thought he was with a friend and then watches said ‘friend’ attack him” is not the same thing as, “Much more experienced fighter realizes the moment ‘Nora’ rounds the corner with an umbrella that that’s not her, has no doubt hit her numerous times in the past during training, yet for some reason can’t bring himself to hit her now.” It... doesn’t quite work. Here, I think RT does a good job of showing us Ren’s distress, it’s just that this is paired with a very bad job of establishing what that distress is and why it exists. This is what we needed to hear about during the party conversation. If Ren and Nora had actually talked rather than just kissing, we might have understood why Ren is suddenly incapacitated here when “Nora” looks at him sadly.

As said though, the emotion of the scene is great even if we don’t quite know where it came from. Neo’s pitiful look, Ren freezing in shock (check out the red there too), his dumbfounded expression as he just sits in the middle of a battle, and when we come back to him we see the tear tracks. Overall, this scene does a great job of incorporating lots of information beyond “Team JNOR is fighting Neo for the relic.” We just need to connect that information better to what came before this scene (Ren) and what comes after (Oscar).

Finally, Neo slams into the other guards and transforms again. I love this final shot of her, both for how she moves and the implications of the transformation itself. Meaning, Neo is a professional. She had a job and she did it. Once the relic was in her possession and she had an escape route, she took it. Neo doesn’t get distracted by taking revenge - these are some of the people we fought against when Roman died - or trying to take them out to please Cinder, or even just going after them because she’s Evil. Neo is focused, no unnecessary actions taken, and that, just as much as her semblance and skill, is what makes her dangerous.

#Anonymous #rwby #mymetas

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yukheii · 6 years ago

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— rocket.

+ genre and warnings :: med student namjoon + med student reader, not that this drabble contains an overwhelming amount of references to med school but allow me to be self indulgent for a little while, fluff, yoongi is namjoon’s annoying best friend but wbk

+ notes :: idk if you guys have seen that reddit post that’s been going around about this guy talking about his girlfriend washing his hair for the first time but it was really cute and he sounded so happy and in love and it reminded me a lot of joon, so i decided to write this!

+ side notes :: i can’t find the actual screenshot/post i’m talking about but if i do, i’ll try to add a link later to post it on my blog :’). also i swear yoongi isn’t a pothead okay

Yoongi can’t say he immediately noticed the pep in Namjoon’s step as soon as the taller boy walked into the café, but what he does notice is the dimpled grin and starry eyed gaze that grace his features throughout their conversation. And while Yoongi considers himself to be relatively attractive, he doubts the literal heart eyes being thrown his way are for him.

“Joon? Namjoon? Joon, are you good?” Yoongi asks, a dark eyebrow raised above his left eye. It takes three calls of his name for the younger boy to wake from his trance, looking up at Yoongi with that same, longing smile.

“Yeah,” he sighs, something reminiscent of a lovelorn cartoon prince when he rests his elbow on the table and his chin in the palm of his hand, “I’m good.”

Yoongi shifts a bit in his seat, but Namjoon’s eyes don’t follow; his brown irises stay trained center ahead of him. Yoongi turns his head to the right, looking for the object of Namjoon’s gaze, but is met only with the chipped, brown wood of the café’s booth.

Slowly, Yoongi leans forward, eyebrows pinched and lips pursed, “Joon, are you stoned right now?”

“What? No, I’m not high, Yoon, what the fuck?”

Yoongi simply shrugs, leaning back into the leather seat, “I don’t know, yesterday you were so stressed about your acrobatic salt cycle samples—”

“—it’s acetylsalicylic acid.”

“—and now you look mellow as fuck. Just thought maybe you rolled a good joint or something—not that I’m judging, of course, you could probably use some—”

“I didn’t smoke anything, hyung, Christ,” Namjoon sighs.

“Wouldn’t be so bad if you did. Seriously, sometimes you need a good—”

“Do you know what the half life of cannabis is? Up to ten days, Yoongi. That means that ten days—”

“—From after the time you smoke half of the weed could still be in your body,” Yoongi recites monotonously, “I know, Joon.”

Namjoon retreats with a satisfied grin, met with an unenthusiastic roll of Yoongi’s eyes. “Well, then what’s got your head in the clouds?”

Namjoon shifts in his seat now, pulling his hands off of the table into his lap. Yoongi’s suspicious brow is heightened again when he sees the faint blush dust over his friend’s cheek.

“_______ and I showered together last night,” he finally blurts.

“Oh, so you got laid—”

“—no, no, it wasn’t like that, nothing sexual happened,” he clarifies, continuing, the red on his cheek becoming more prominent with every word that spills out of his mouth, “She washed my hair. I know, that sounds dumb, but it was so... surreal?”

Yoongi should have suspected you had something to do with cheek to cheek grin on Namjoon’s face. Namjoon didn’t talk about his private life often; their conversations revolving around school, work, a mutual love for music, and occasional plans to get beers together.

Rarely ever did the younger delve into his personal life; never about his familial life, but Namjoon didn’t need to say it for Yoongi to hear it.

So, instead of giving him the side eye and sarcastic comments one Jeon Jeongguk would be on the receiving end of at the topic of his girlfriend, Yoongi nods, and encourages Namjoon to continue.

“I don’t know how to explain it, it was so—just, nice and relaxing, hyung. We don’t usually shower together, but this time we did and I was about to grab the shampoo myself, but then she took it from me and just did it herself. It felt so good, I felt like I was floating—like all the bullshit from school and home just melted away. I was beginning to think the stress was just going to perpetuate throughout midterms, you know? But last night she just hummed and washed my hair for like five minutes and I felt like it was all gone.”

Yoongi doesn’t stop the small smile from growing on his face; and he doubts Namjoon understands the depths of his newfound romantic bliss.

“It’s crazy, all she did was wash my hair, but I’m so happy? She was so gentle and she did it like it was normal, like an every day thing between two people—I swear, I almost cried right there. It was just… I don’t know, it just felt good. Made me happy.”

Yoongi chuckles into his words, “You really love her, don’t you?”

“Yeah… I think I do.”

Three days later, Namjoon finds himself alone on your bed, stomach to the mattress, ignoring the nomenclature review in front of him in favor of aimlessly looking around your room.

He notices things he hadn’t before. The small strip of images of the two of you in a clear mason jar, amongst other photos of you and your friends. The pens and pencils that the adjacent jar; two pencils stick out to him—they’re unsharpened, completely untouched, actually—and at the top, below the metal that holds the eraser at your initials and his.

When he looked over to your closet, he wasn’t surprised to find two of his hoodies, and his missing rugby shirt with the university’s crest embedded in the sleeve; what surprised him was that they were all next to each other, separated only by a hanger with your belts from the rest of your clothing. They were reserved, like they were special amongst the other fabric in your closet.

He notices the way his sweats and pajamas have their own drawer to themselves in your dresser, the way your fridge is stocked with a few of those probiotic smoothies you hate but he loves, the way his baseball cap sits among your other headwear like they just belong. Like Namjoon belongs.

Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t register the sound of the door closing, or your footsteps growing louder; doesn’t register any sounds of you coming home until you’re shaking your bag off of your elbow.

“Hey, Joon,” you greet, and something about the way you don’t make a point of him being in your bed makes his stomach flutter.

“Hi,” he smiles, a stupidly fond look in his eyes as he watches you unpack the contents of your purse and shimmy your sweater off of your shoulders.

He shifts to sit upwards on the mattress, long legs dangling off the edge of your bed. He eyes your silhouette, admiring the hollows and convexes of your figure while you take off your earrings, and the tiny, silver ring on your index finger.

When you’re finished you greet him for a second time, walking to the center edge of the mattress. Namjoon lets you perch your weight on his thighs, mindlessly securing both arms around your waist while your fingers crawl up the nape of neck and into his scalp.

“Your hair’s dry,” you comment, tilting your head to press your lips against his softly, “You didn’t shower yet?”

He shakes his head, craning his neck downwards to tuck the cold tip of his nose into your collar, and mumbles faint words into your skin, “Was waiting for you.”

“Yeah?” your syllables come out in chuckles, laughter heightened as Namjoon tickles his eyelashes against your skin, and rake your fingers through his hair gently, “That gonna be a regular thing, now?”

“Wouldn’t mind,” he confesses, words hardly audible in the cook of your neck. He tries his hand at tickling you again, but this time, you move out of his reach, standing to your own two feet, a single hand extended forward.

“Well then, come on. I bought two new loofahs today.”

He follows with a smile, giggling all the way to the shower. He relishes in the feeling of your fingertips against his scalp, doesn’t bat an eye as you mold his hair into a bubbly mohawk with far too much shampoo. It’s so mundane, so simple, yet so intimate, and it fills him to the brim with emotions he can’t hope to convey with words.

And when you’re finished rinsing his hair, you take your body wash on the ball of his new loofah and scrub away at his back, down his shoulders, across his torso; eventually, you abandon the sponge all together in favor of making his body sudsy with your own pressed against his, Namjoon can’t stop the tears falling from his eyes.

He realizes it must look bizarre to you, to be crying amongst the giggling and bubble beards, but he can’t help himself.

“Joon? Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he assures you, sniffling away anymore tears that threaten to fall, “You’re just… I don’t know. You make me happy, love.”

“You make me happy, too, Joon,” you reply with a smile.

You spend nearly five minutes like that, your arms wrapped around each other with water pouring over your naked skin. With every shallow kiss you press into his chest, Namjoon feels his heart physically swell; and it’s on the tenth, quiet press of your lips to skin that he lets himself let go.

“I love you,” he finally confesses, with wet hair stuck to his forehead, and teary eyes.

“I know, baby,” you smile, kissing his chin, then on your tippie toes, his lips, “I love you more.”

#bts smut #bts reactions #bts fake texts #bts college au #bts x reader #namjoon scenarios #namjoon smut #namjoon reaction #namjoon x reader #namjoon x you #bts x you #jungkook scenarios #jungkook x reader #yoongi scenarios #yoongi x reader #yoongi smut #jungkook smut

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precuredaily · 5 years ago

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Precure Day 151

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 03 - “Who’s the Precure of Effervescence?” Date watched: 3 October 2019 Original air date: 18 February 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/wUrfDcF Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

If you like drinking games, watch this episode and take a shot every time they say the word “effervescent” or variations and report back to me. Cure Lemonade’s title and role call describe her as “はじける” (hajikeru) which every translator to ever touch this show has seemed to agree translates best as “effervescent”, an uncommon word which can either mean bubbly (in the context of beverages) or lively and appealing, when talking about people. To reinforce my point, here’s every English sub I could get my hands on:

First off, here is the Arienai fansub from around 2007, the first ones to ever translate this episode to English and thus establish the use of the word “effervescent.”

Following Arienai’s disbandment, in 2009 TV-Nihon took up the task of subbing and I know from talking with him that their translator was very aware of the Areinai sub, and also pretty new to translating, so he probably took heavy inspiration from their choice.

Lastly, here is the version used by Pretty Cure Splash Subs in 2014, although they admit that they took the Arienai scripts for the earlier episodes and just tweaked them a tad.

Amusingly, “bubbly” in the sense of personality is a pretty good synonym. I can only assume that they keep coming back to “effervescent” because within the narrative, Nozomi and Rin are confused when Coco tells them there’s a Precure of “hajikeru” so they chose a less common word to convey that better. It feels a little clunky to read but what can you do. Anyway, enough about one word, what’s this episode about?

The Plot

Urara is auditioning for a show and the interviewers quiz her about her school life, since she seems upbeat. She’s unwilling to admit that she spends most of her time at school alone, and she can’t talk about seeing two upperclassmen turn into Precure, so she lies and says everything is great.

At school, Rin catches a Pinky with Coco, this time using a trumpet. He then explains that the two of them are the cures of hope and passion, and they still need to find the cures of intelligence, tranquility, and effervescence. (1 shot!)

Over in Nightmare Corporate HQ, Bunbee tells Girinma he’s not performing up to standards, so he bring in the next consultant, a portly man named Gamao.

After school, Nozomi takes Coco home with her as a fairy, gives him a cream puff (the signature food of this show) and turns on the television. When her dad sits up from sleeping on the couch she quickly tries to hide Coco and distract her dad by pointing out Urara on the TV, saying she knows her.

The next day during lunch, Nozomi and Rin see Urara sitting alone and goes over to talk to her, saying she can ask them anything. So, Urara comes right out and asks what Precure is, causing the two girls to fumble for an answer before running off when the bell rings for the end of lunch. However, Nozomi comes back to retrieve her left-behind bento and decides to skip class and take Urara on a tour of the school grounds. When Rin and Coco find out about this they’re upset and they run off to find her, but Urara seems to be having a great time with Nozomi.

They get to the auditorium and Urara comments that she will stand on that stage someday! At this point, Nozomi declares that the two of them are good friends and reveals that she is a Pretty Cure, and don’t tell Rin. Well of course who should barge into the theater at that moment than Rin, with Coco on her heels, angry at Nozomi for cutting class and generally being a bad influence on the underclassman. But before Rin and Coco can properly chew her out, Gamao reveals himself and demands that they hand over the Dream Collet. Nozomi and Rin transform, urging Urara to run away, which she hesitates to do. Eventually she gets out, but she trips in the hallway, and after some introspection, decides to turn around and run back to help the two girls who protected her. Her strong feelings summon a yellow butterfly, allowing her to transform into Cure Lemonade! She unleashes her special attack, Precure Lemonade Flash, which takes the form of a flock of butterflies divebombing the Kowaina, freeing Dream and Rouge and allowing them to defeat the monster. Gamao runs off, complaining that he won’t get paid for this, and the auditorium resets to normal.

Outside, the girls remark that Urara is the perfect fit for the Cure of Effervescence, and Coco says he’ll fill her in on all the details after she and Nozomi serve detention for skipping class. However, the episode ends on a happy note, as the three new friends agree to work together from now on.

The Analysis

What I like about these shows with a larger roster of Cures is that it allows each girl to have their own reason for fighting. While all three girls so far have done it to protect someone, the motivation behind that protection has varied. Nozomi wants to help Coco revive his homeland. Rin wants to protect her oldest friend, Nozomi. Urara wants to save her newest friends, especially Nozomi, who saw that she was lonely and made it a point to spend time with her. Becoming a Precure ties directly into a personal problem in each of their lives, and that’s..... magical.

Urara in particular may hit close to home for some people, because achieving your dream can sometimes isolate you. Since Urara was always rehearsing or going to auditions, she didn’t have the time to make friends at school, and she was hurting for it. Nozomi was the first person to take notice of her, beyond simply being a celebrity. Nozomi saw a new student who seemed kinda lonely, and decided to show her a good time. The fact that she’s an aspiring celebrity is a side note for Nozomi, a cool thing to tell her parents, but it’s not why she approached her. They clicked in their first meeting and Nozomi decided she’d make a good friend. Then, when they were friends, Nozomi decided to tell her about Precure and their fight against Nightmare. Sure, it’s partly because Nozomi has little filter, but also she saw someone she could confide in. Unlike the other three members of the team, she didn’t pick out Urara as a good candidate to be a cure, Urara earned her spot purely of her own will. She literally ran away from the fight, but her concern for the others and desire to face her fears brought her back.

There’s a recurring trope in the team-building shows that I don’t like, though, which is that the existing heroines somehow find themselves conveniently disabled or unable to fight, making room for the new girl to swoop in, transform for the first time, and save the day. In the two-girl shows, if both of them got tied up, they had to use their wits to escape. I don’t mind it happening once or twice but it seems to be the only way the writers ever know how to introduce a new character is by making the other ones into jobbers.

On the villain side of things, we get to see a little more of Nightmare, which is always fun. Their HQ is a giant office building with devil horns!

You kind of have to wonder if this is just in the middle of downtown or if the other buildings are all in some ~evil dimension~. Also, we find out what happens to under-performers at Nightmare.... they get dropped down a shaft. Seems like kind of a hostile work environment but it’s great for setting the tone.

While I’m discussing Nightmare, let’s talk about Gamao in particular. Gama means “toad”, which is why Gamao is a toad. SHOCKING. Anyway, unlike the go-getter Girinma, Gamao is very simple-minded: he wants to get the Dream Collet so he can get paid, and isn’t interested in wasting time laying traps or listening to the girls’ life stories. He’s portrayed as a very portly man, looking kind of sloppy in his human form, not at all up to the normal appearance standards of a corporation. he wears cargo shorts, a t-shirt (it actually has a giant T on it), and an unbuttoned button-down shirt. Everybody else in the company wears a suit. Nightmare must be pretty desperate for employees if they let him work for them. Also, we now have a bee, a mantis, and a wasp, so let’s lay out the motif of Nightmare. All of them are animals that prey on butterflies, which of course are the motif of the cures. It’s a very clever pattern that I hadn’t even noticed until it was pointed out to me the other day.

This episode shows us very clearly what Karen must have seen during the first episode, when the auditorium magically restores itself after the battle. (check the gallery) It’s never explained how this happens in most shows, but it’s a constant so at least they allude to it. Indeed, their battle does not go entirely unnoticed this time, since even though they’re indoors, the commotion of the fight causes the students in Karen and Komachi’s class to turn their heads and wonder what’s going on. Karen is going to check it out, but Komachi stops her because they’re in the middle of class. I really like how proactive they are in trying to solve the mystery and very soon their time will come.

I think that about does it for my thoughts this time. Next time, what’s that minty smell? Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 1 kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! PreCure 5 #YPC503 #PCD151

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beep-senior-preproduction · 3 years ago

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Inspiration Research Part 1

There are so many music videos I like, or I think were executed really well in one way or another, so I’m going to start listing them with some of my thoughts about why they’re good and how they could relate to this project. Splitting this up into more than one part because... there are a lot.

Study Me: Zutomayo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atvsg_zogxo

This is one of my all-time favorite music videos in terms of visual aesthetic. The dark blues and neon pink/green/purple are so electric, and this video is a huge inspiration for me as far as color palette and vibes. The sequence from around 2:46-4:20 has a tinted/limited color palette that I want to emulate, especially the single-tone shading that’s just a solid, contrasting color with the rest of the character.

The saturated blue and pink are really cool and striking together, but for my own project I want to use a warmer purple/yellow/orange/pink combination. I also like the brief shots that use super bright line colors. I want to do something like this but with pink lines.

I like the style of editing, how things progress in time with the song and follow the mood, but also how the sequence of shots feels organic almost like it was pieced together instead of created for the song. This could work well for a video with a more literal storyline like I want to have.

There are a lot of holds and shots without character animation, but what is fully animated is REALLY dynamic. I think most of the animation is on threes, with a 3D or computer generated background that’s moving on ones. I don’t mind this look; I actually think a lower frame rate looks really cool, and also means I’ll have an easier job animating. Especially for a music video, where the bpm is already not going to match up perfectly with however many frames I animate on, I think it’ll be pretty forgiving if I decide to animate on threes. I’m a big fan of the character design and art style in general of this video (I think I included a screenshot or two from the video in my character design moodboard). The anime-style facial features and exaggerated limbs are really expressive. The main character is pretty simple, though I’ll probably make my character designs even simpler to avoid giving myself unnecessary work.

As You Like It: Eve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nROvY9uiYYk

Another one of my favorite videos. Very different from the vibe I want for my project, but there’s a lot that inspires me in terms of how the animation is influenced by the music. The timing in this video is impeccable. It’s made up of short, kinda abstract clips that work together to convey the meaning of the song’s lyrics AND how the music feels: a little bit rough, and jumpy. This makes it easier for almost every movement to happen on a beat. It’s really hard to separate the music and the video since they both feel the same, which is definitely one of the things I admire most about this one. I want to try to have as much connection with the timing of the music as I can in my project. That might be harder to work in if I have a more structured plot with realistic actions, but I’m sure I can find a balance. Syncing things up to music is really fun for me and very satisfying to watch, so I think it will be worth it.

Night is Faint: Eve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y0_CVX1hok

I discovered this one recently, and it’s the music video for another Eve song. Again, the visuals and style of animation work extremely well with the vibe of the music. The vocals and chords are slower, while the drums have a ton of motion. This is translated into shots that are almost all stationary or have little primary action, with really energetic secondary action or some constantly moving detail. I also like how (in some shots, not all) the actual linework isn’t very complex. Like the previous Eve video, everything follows the beat, but it feels less rigid, more organic in this one. The art style is more rounded, and the animation itself is a lot more consistent and fluid.

Levitating: Dua Lipa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N000qglmmY0

There’s not a TON of animation in the video but I like the one shot at 0:35 where there are multiple closeup shots in frames going across the screen. I think this could be a neat way to introduce multiple pieces of information (visual or conceptual) quickly. Kind of comic-book style panels done with editing.

Ghost: Mystery Skulls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlEb3L1PIco

This is just a classic. It’s such a good inspiration for any story-driven, cartoon style animated music video. The timing is really on point, and in my opinion this animation has a good balance between believable action and staying on the beat. The fact that something in the scene is always changing or moving to the rhythm makes the world feel very connected and contained within the structure of the song. I’ve already talked about timing for some of the other videos, so for this one I guess I’ll focus on storytelling. I know I want to have a linear plot, so the communication of ideas in my project will probably be more similar to Ghost than to the previous examples, which have a lot more abstract imagery. Ignoring the fact that there are sequals to Ghost that continue the story, this first video is very self-contained. Characters are introduced, we learn something about them, then they have conflict that gets resolved. Even though a more complicated emotional story is implied, it’s not absolutely necessary to know it in order to understand the plot as a physical sequence of events. It also uses tropes to give the audience expectations about what’s going to happen, that can be either used to save time communicating ideas, or subverted. By assuming the audience is already familiar with, for example, the concept of a haunted house, or the Scooby Doo franchise, there’s a lot less necessary setup.

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the-foxwolf · 7 years ago

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A Treatise on the Mediums of Magic Story Conveyance

I have returned with a Treatise to start off the new year! It’s good to be back. I’ve been quiet for a while, but the wait is over. I’ve graduated from Texas A&M University.

This time, I’ve brought a little bit of a different type of article for yall. Normally, I focus on Character Development or Story Progression. But today I’m going to talk about something just as important, if not- dare I say it- more so. The conveyance of the Magic Story is just as important as the story itself. What’s the point of having a great story if no one’s around to enjoy it? How a story is conveyed is vital to the survival and value of the story itself. So today, I’m doing to talk about the different mediums of Magic Story’s conveyance.

Gather `Round! It’s Story Telling Time!

Introduction

Magic: The Gathering brings people together. Cliché, I know. But it’s true. It gathers people around to play a game. And in some cases, it gathers people around to talk about the characters in said game. That’s the nice thing about Magic. You don’t have to pick and choose. Recently there has been a lot of effort to marry the story with the cards. I think it’s really showing. These days, whenever the topic of Liliana comes up (and around me, it comes up a lot) lots of people, regardless of their gender, know her only for her looks. But when they see “Oath of Liliana” or “Liliana, Death’s Majesty” or “Dramatic Reversal”, they start to wonder. Inevitably, someone makes the mistake of saying something along the lines of: “Did she change her dress?” “What’s she doing in the desert?” “What’s that thing on her head?” “Wait, is she a good guy?”

*shakes head*

The poor fools never see it coming... Their innocent little question reveals a passion that usually ends with people coming over to my place to play Commander or with them wanting to ask and learn more about the other characters and the other worlds. Most of the time, it’s both. So let’s talk, then, about that fun stuff that brings us all together beyond just the gameplay itself. Let’s talk about the mediums of Magic Story conveyance.

The Art

The biggest way for the masses to receive the Magic Story is through the art. It’s literally a single glance’s worth of effort and the information it conveys is expressed in ways that our human brains have mastered recognizing throughout our existence. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and I think that it’s a true statement. Our brains are literally hardwired to take a single glance at something and assess its threat potential. Imagine two glances. Imagine how much you can learn while hold that glance, captured onto a piece of cardboard, and holding it in your hand for several minutes at a time. It’s basic psychology. Art is the quickest form of information distribution possible.

I’ll try and stay on topic and only discuss Story, but we have to at least acknowledge the truth: Brand Recognition Is A Thing. And Art, obviously, is key to that. Tell me honestly. Who can forget the brand of Shaving Cream Dotson used in Jurrasic Park (the first one) to ship the dinosaur embryos? I can’t. Shoot, I use it two to three times a week. But enough of that. Returning to the subject.

Let’s take a moment to illustrate the value of art in Story Distribution. When you look at the following image, what do you learn about the Magic Story?

Chandra is involved in the act of hugging someone

The expression on Chandra’s face is one we rarely see in other art, indicating that whoever this person is, that they’re privy to the deeper and more intimate parts of Chandra’s life.

Judging from the appearances, the person Chandra is hugging is in an age range that would place her in the approximate age range of what we expect Chandra’s mother to be.

This older person has tears rolling down her face, but her expression is not one clearly indicative of anger or sadness or pain- all of which have very recognizable features.

Judging from the art alone, and these four features by themselves, a casual observer could easily come to the conclusion that these two are possibly mother and daughter reunited. From the art alone. Yes, there are other things it can be. But this exercise is meant to illustrate the value of art in Story Telling. No matter your perspective, you would be hard pressed to argue that this image doesn’t evoke the words “loved one” and “reunion”.

The Flavor Text

Another big player in Story Distribution is “Flavor Text”. “Flavor Text” is a term that has been appropriated by gaming culture as a whole. Every game that I’ve played that involves a sentence or two of story revelation on a card refers to that little blurb as “Flavor Text”. Agricola. Terraforming Mars. Arkham Horror. So many games that use small bits of text that reveal story information call them “Flavor Text”. So it should come as no surprise to any of you when I say that Flavor Text is one of the biggest means of story distribution. If you were to take the entirety of the Shadows over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon flavor texts, you would be able to read a story almost as detailed as someone who actually read the weekly releases.

To say that Flavor Text plays a big role in Story Distribution would be an understatement. While the art is unavoidable because it occupies half of the card itself, the text box occupies the other half, where you would find the Flavor Text. A clever scheme that makes it practically impossible to play Magic without getting at least SOME exposure to the story itself.

As before, let’s do an exercise to illustrate the value of Flavor Text. Look at this screenshot of the Flavor Text. What do you learn?

Whoever this text is referring to is involved in an embrace, in a hug.

The term “their” implies that there are two people involved in this reference, as opposed to a single person hugging a non-person entity. This isn’t definite, as there are circumstances where the term might be interpreted differently. But to a casual observer, the term “their” used in this context, would lead the casual observer to believe there are two or more people involved in whatever it is that is being reference by this text.

Whoever, or whatever, it is that is embracing has been separated from the embraced by great lengths of time

Whoever, or whatever, it is that is embracing has been separated from the embraced by enormous spans of space, or even dimensions.

The embrace involved in whatever this text is referring to is one of great intensity and possibly emotion.

The term “collapse” implies that there were barriers or walls constructed between the relationship of the two.

This flavor text alone gives us an understanding of: “At least two things are hugging. These two things have been separated by time and distance for a long time. They’ve met up at last.” I find it hard to believe anything could imagine themselves successfully arguing with me on at least that much.

The Card Names

Naturally, names also play a vital role in Story Distribution. Names are the words by which people refer to cards to one another. Sometimes, even parts of names can be enough to depict to another player what card is being referred to. Let’s illustrate. Pay attention what comes to mind when you read the following names?

You know exactly what I’m talking about. The fact that there have been several versions of Liliana doesn’t matter. The fact is that by simply saying: “Lili”, every single person I know who has played Magic for any amount of time knows that I am referring to Liliana of the Veil in particular. I concede that you can argue that’s just bias because of who I am. But the truth still applies to all the other words. In Commander, I literally only need to say the word “Path” and they know to start looking for a Basic Land. I can see my friend Austin reeling at the very mention of the word “Delver”.

Why is that? Here’s why. Because humans categorize things along lines of thought. Tags and labels, just as on Tumblr, define how humans remember things. You ever heard the meme that jokes that people can remember all the Kanto Region Pokemon better than the Periodic Table? There are SOOOOO many reasons. Pokémon names have memories, and art, and behavior, and sound, and so many more labels to attach to it. How are people supposed to remember the Atomic number of Francium when they’ve never even seen it? Just numbers and letters.

But in Magic, the name of a card carries with it so much information. Let me give you a painful one here.

How many memories of Magic Story came to mind? The image of Sorin umaking Avacyn, an expression of pain on his face. Those thoughts then lead into the memory that Sorin created Avacyn. That Avacyn went mad. That Emrakul is to blame for the loss of so much we loved. And so much more. All the battles you’ve played when your plans get ruined by a well timed Anguished Unmaking come to mind. The times when you top-decked it when you needed it most. ALL OF THESE MEMORIES....

I brought these back to you with two simple words.

Names are powerful entities. Let’s illustrate now using a Magic Card, to recall the value of names as methods of Story Distribution.

The definition of the term “Cathartic” is: an attribute that induces catharsis. “Catharsis” is defined as: “A release of emotional tension after an overwhelming vicarious experience, resulting in the purging or purification of the emotions.”

The definition of the term “Reunion” is defined as the act of “Reunite”, a term which is defined as: “To unite again”.

You cannot, I don’t care how stubborn you are, argue to me that this title doesn’t express that some kind of emotional reunion is happening.

Story Spotlights

Another way that the cards themselves can carry story heavy relevance cards is by the Story Spotlights. The Planeswalker sigil I used as the introductory image to this article.

In my opinion, it wasn’t until Ixalan that they truly started nailing the Story Spotlights correctly. Early on, they made mistakes believing that only Rares could have the Spotlight. They fixed that in Amonkhet. But I don’t feel like they finally nailed it until Ixalan. If I were to take all five of the Story Spotlights, I should see all the beats of the story. If rumors I’ve heard are true, that they’re going to start putting numbers on the Story Spotlights, then that’ll be a snipe-shot direct into everything a Story Spotlight needs. Even as it is, it’s doing a great job. Wizards, or at the very least Rosewater, has talked about how Cathartic Reunion should have been a Story Spotlight. But that was during a time when the idea was young and unexplored. But, if they could go back, I’m certain they would mark it as one.

Official Literature

Then of course we come at last to the most direct medium of story telling that Magic currently employs, their official literature. These days, that refers to the Short Stories they produce every Wednesday for most of the year. Here, we receive all the juicy little nuggets our fandom loves to talk, share, discuss, and rave about. I mean... their official literature is....like...Literally. Telling. Stories. So... yeah. It counts as a story telling medium.

Conclusion

Thank you all for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, hit that “Like” button for me. For more from me at Story Telling Time, hit that “Follow” button. Feel free to open up discussion on the reposts. Hit up my inbox. Or just shoot me a chat. I’m happy to interact with yall.

If yall would like for me to tag you in future Treatises, let me know in the “Replies” section and I’ll add you to my Mention List. Unless told otherwise, I’ll use the current Mention List and any requests I get in all my future Treatises.

If you’ve been tagged, it’s because you’ve been tagged before or have requested to be tagged. Please let me know if you’d like me to remove your tag from the list.

@askkrenko @foilmountain @vorthosthewillis @vorthosjay @actualborossoldier @unexpected-phyrexian @nantukohunk @gatewatch-central @sarkhan-vol @sheoldredsecrets @flavoracle @kytheon-hero-of-akros @chelsea-beleren-vess @hopelessly-vorthosian @magic--the--memeing @mtgfan @the-gitgud-toad @jori-en-ruin-diver @yawgmoth-lord-of-sin @bobstropajo @obi-one-drop @odric-master-swagtician @zomburai @baldore-of-the-boros @klarel25 @brandnewera @brandychan @animar-smol-of-elephants @commandtower-solring-go @commandtower @hereitsallalright @ecurps @iamafireplace @mazes-end @augur-of-colas @avacyntheangelofhope @wizardsmagic @elspethknighterrant @arkouchie @god-pharaoh-greg @teanecromancer @jedimb @luckystampede @hanzo-kirishima @kreetn @death-burst @livefromtheloam @perpetuallyfallingover @shorewall @kefnut-the-threski @thescorpiongod @the-nerdy-necromancer @pepperapb

See yall next time!

#treatise #premiere article #special issue #mtg #magic story #storytellingtime #story telling time #premiere issue

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purvitatiya · 4 years ago

Text

August: 3rd Week

Topics:-

Animation

Research for Background Score

Research for Editing

I am continuing to work on Animation, it’s taking me longer than I thought. Drawing each frame is difficult and time consuming. Initially, when I started with it, I used to draw each frame again and again, this was difficult as I couldn’t draw the exact same thing again. However, recently I figured out that I can copy paste individual sections of my work from previous frames onto next frames. This has helped me a lot.

youtube

Our animation starts with a tree. It looks like the camera is moving up and zooming in on the sun and then when it zooms out, it’s not a sun anymore, it is the DANAV’s head. We have shown it this way for two reasons, A) it looks very aesthetic and B) We wanted to make a distinctive feature for Danav, and showing that his hair/head is as bright as the sun, we are creating a distinction for him.

Our next scene shows DANAV and a boy walking towards the jungle. To create an illusion of forwarding movement, I took aid from many distinctive elements. First of all, I learned through a YouTube tutorial how to show walking human figures in animation. Drawing the whole figures was a little difficult for me, so I drew their silhouettes, so that emphasis on DANAV’s hair/head and his magical staff can be seen. Also, the silhouettes seemed visually pleasing in our animation and they made sense because we are showing night time. To make the figures seem moving forward, I reduced their size as they moved forward. To do this I drew a whole image of both the figures and then cut and copy pasted it as per the size requirements.

Second thing that I did for creating an illusion of movement was, increasing the size of trees on both sides. I drew them once and then copy pasted and adjusted size all along the frames. Hence, the combination of decreasing size of figures and increasing size of background (trees), created an illusion of forwarding movement.

I have tried to keep minimal movement in our next shot, as our previous shot was movement heavy, so to balance them both. In this Shot, the DANAV makes a few leaves hang in the air, with the help of his magical staff, while the boy jumps to get them. This shot portrays the magical powers of DANAV and his playtime with the kid.

I sketched a full side view of DANAV once and then only played around with his hand and his staff, to create an illusion of his hands moving around. For the kid, I watched a flipaclip related tutorial on YouTube. It taught how to make a cupcake (personified) jump. Below is the link for the same.

youtube

I used this and made my character jump in the air. Below is the video of my work.

youtube

Research for Background Score for Editing our trailers.

My teammates and I have also started researching about different types of background score to use for our trailers. We send links of music in our WhatsApp group.

Our trailer will require songs of many different paces and tension levels. For instance, the happy shots (children playing) will require something simple yet chilling and the corridor shot (vertigo + Dutch), firehose shot, etc, will require high tension music to enhance them.

We are also thinking about creepy versions of lullabies as background score in our trailers. This is because our story revolves around kids sleeping (or rather not sleeping) at night time. Hence, we feel that lullabies are going to be a good option to work upon.

There are two lullabies that we are currently considering using, a) creepy version of twinkle twinkle little star b) Ring-a-ring O’ roses.

Research for Editing

I have started researching trailer editing tutorials online. While doing this, I came across a site called, Film Editing Pro. They have both free and paid courses for cinematic editing. They have an entire section dedicated to editing trailers. I took their free course named ‘Trailer Editing 101’

They had three different videos -

Video 1 was called “Trailer editing 101: Secrets of the Craft”

This video focused on two things,

1) how to cut a trailer with style

2) How to edit professional montages

The thing that stood out for me here was montage editing. I didn’t know this much work went into editing montage. It said that montges should have focus travel i.e. if in the first scene, the movement on screen happens from left to middle, then in the second scene the focus point should move from middle to right. This will create harmony in montages.

Video 2 was about how sound affects trailers. The thing that stood out for me here was the use of SFX to make things so much more impactful and powerful. I did use a few SFX in my AS project but I believe that a dark psychological thriller’s trailer would require much more SFX to convey to the audience what we want.

In the third video, they just deconstructed a pre-existing trailer for us in terms of narration of story, montages, Background score, music, sound and SFX. This was really helpful and inspiring.

I also read their E-Book on 50 film editing tips you must know. Below are the points that I found most relevant and hope to work upon when I edit my trailers.

If the pace is too fast, people get lost and if it’s too slow, they get bored - keep appropriate pace.

Using reaction shots - they don’t have to just tell what the character is feeling but they have to make sure that the viewers feel the same way.

Compress time to prevent boredom.

Use of match cuts for both videos and audios.

First rough cut, then refine.

Cut on movement (match on action).

Using insert shots.

Watch an actor’s eyes to know when to cut.

Using jump cuts

Cut when the viewer is distracted.

Fades to black, start new scenes, cross dissolves indicate passing of time

Vary Camera angle between similar shots by at least 45 degrees.

Use dissolves on heads and tails of audio to prevent popping.

Dip music and sound effects under dialogue.

Don’t use cheesy VFX

Time your music editing for maximum impact.

Make sure your audio levels aren’t peaking.

Use audio to transition scenes

Use sound design to shape moments and build and release tension.

Customize and use keyboard shortcuts

Organize your work source material

Zoom in on the timeline.

Use multiple camera angles and shots with fast cutting to build intensity and impact.

Vary your pacing and sound levels to create contrasts.

Fake camera movement when necessary (Like creating vertigo effect, which I mentioned in my previous blog)

Use cross cutting to build intensity.

Carefully sync your sound and music to the picture.

(screenshot of mail, pdf, etc)

I also studied a checklist for trailer editing given by them, below is the link for the same.

https://www.filmeditingpro.com/trailer-editing-checklist

Below is the link for film editing pro’s trailer section webpage:

https://www.filmeditingpro.com/how-to-edit-a-movie-trailer/

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enthralleddd0112 · 7 years ago

Text

[170811] Some Consolidated Kyungsoo-related Fan Accounts from The War Fansign

@hello_apriler/64bcb26595b14a2

I asked Kyungsoo what kind of pet that he raised. He said it is toy poodle, their name is Mogmool (먹물/Ink) and Hoochoo (훗추/Pepper). Mogmool is 1 year old, a black toy poodle; Hoochoo is 7 months old, a grey toy poodle. (Later “Mongmool Hoochoo” was trending on Twitter)

@hello_apriler

A fan gave Chanyeol a sparkling magic wand and Chanyeol played it with Kyungsoo. He seems to enjoy it and so bight, so cute.

@DoMelocoton

Kyungsoo played with an Ice Cream punch toy (if you pressed down the button, the Ice Cream will fly away) with Chanyeol, and Chanyeol attacked him with a bubble soap gun.

@sehun_1223

Kyungsoo, Chanyeol and Jongin went to washroom together.

@MoncherDo

Kyungsoo held and played with a soap bubble toy and another toy that looked like an ice cream that will fly off when you click/press on it.

@sehun_1223

Chanyeol attacked Kyungsoo with a soap bubble toy but then Kyungsoo kicked him and then Chanyeol collapsed.

@dyohyun9293

When Kyungsoo was doing his ment, the boys went “Almokyung, Almokyung” (it means unpredictable Kyungsoo).

@dyohyun9293

Chanyeol said if Kyungsoo kept a brown poodle, it would probably be called Deonjang (soy bean paste).

@dyohyun9293

Sehun said Mongmool and ViVi took a photo together before and he will upload the picture! Then Sehun asked Kyungsoo hyung if he can upload it and Kyungsoo approved it. The fans below said thank you. (In the end Sehun posted it on his Instagram and “Mongmool ViVi” was trending on Twitter)

@05BH06

I asked why he’s been hanging out so well with Chanyeol recently. Kyungsoo say that’s because Chanyeol keep playing with him, so it appears that way. My hand is injured and when we had eye contact, I smiled and said, “Kyungsoo, don’t get injured.” Kyungsoo then looked at my hand and said, “I hope your wound wouldn’t hurt anymore.”

@s2ninis20114

Kyungsoo personally explained how to easily do the trick he always does with his hands/fingers.

@Only_k_s/@dyo_right_

The boys were saying “I love you (saranghae)” one by one. Kyungsoo: I love you. Bakehyun: I think it has been a while I heard Kyungsoo saying I love you.

@Dearcloi/@Only_k_s/@s__sh9412

Kyungsoo is the the cutest thing in the universe, seeing him between Chanyeol and Jongin but not paying attention to their games. He commented that the weather this morning was really nice, that on nights like these when the dust levels are low (level 9), it’s good to visit a playground or go on a walk in the park or by Han River with your loves ones. He also said “Be careful and not catch cold. Have a yummy dinner and thank you!”

@xoxo_elephant

I said to Kyungsoo “Kyungsoo-ya, you got many schedules lately so it must be hard. You seem to lose weight too”, so he asked, “I lost weight?” and I answered, “You seem to have lost a lot, your face got slimmer.” He said, “I did not do that on purpose, but seems that I got thinner.” Don’t lose weight, Kyungsoo.

@hello_apriler

Sehun sat down after finishing his ment, when it was Kyungsoo’s turn, he kept talking to Kyungsoo. Like when Kyungsoo said “Today’s weather is nice so go to Han River~” then Sehun talked to him “Let’s go together! What will you do after this?”

@neri_1227/@xiu2_xiu2

Kyungsoo said he’d like to take a walk if there was time today, so Sehun asked what he was doing after this (since Kyungsoo didn’t hear it so it was left unanswered). Kyungsoo has two more schedules and he’d come to the fansign from another thing too.

@hello_apriler/@neri_1227

Kyungsoo talked about his pets because so many people were curious. He said he’s keeping two and when EXO-L said “cute~” he asked why that was cute haha. They’re toy poodles and he named one Ink because it’s black and one Pepper because it’s grey. When he bought the grey one home, the members competed to name it. Baekhyun suggested Dust. Junmyeon then said the other should be called Fine, so when put together, it will mean “Fine Dust”.

@gr__tee

Sehun sat down after finishing with ment and while Kyungsoo was speaking, Sehun lowered his head and said into the mic, “Hyung have you eaten? What are you going to do after this end?” He was asking questions like this, it was really cute.

@veritas_9401

When Kyungsoo said he is raising toy poodles, there were a lot of applause and cheers, but he got puzzled and asked “why?” with a heart shaped smile.

@o_sehuni

I was asking Kyungsoo about the Gallaktang (baby octopus and beef rib stew) he mentioned liking during Cultwo radio show. Kyungsoo shared the restaurant’s name but not its address. I’m a little lost, Kyungsoo shared that the restaurant is at Nonhyeon-dong.

@zzyuuuxx

But you know, talking with Kyungsoo in person, his way of speaking was a lot sweeter and softer than we’ve heard.. I’m not sure how to word this, but his voice is still ringing in my ears.. It was his usual soothing and proper way of talking, but his natural voice is somehow very different.

@pooky_04

OP had Kyungsoo write: Will feel that you’re pretty after looking at you in detail, will feel that you’re cute after looking at you over a longer time. You are like this too!

@sehunin_0412

When I had finished getting Kyungsoo’s sign and wanted to move to the side, I don’t know where should I go so I asked where should I go? Kyungsoo heard it so he asked me where am I going. I then replied, “I’m going to get water” (imitating Kyungsoo in <Knowing Bros>) and Kyungsoo laughed.

@exogy0408

Me: Oppa, what pet are you raising? Kyungsoo: I have a toy poodle. Me: Please draw it. Me: Isn’t this white? Kyungsoo: It’s black.

@dyo_right_

A friend of mine went to the fansign and told him that her friend was a huge fan of his and requested a doodle on the photocard. She also asked how his shoulder muscle pain was doing but he was so absorbed in doodling that he didn’t reply haha. She asked about three times before he said “Yes..? Yes. I’m okay!” So cute ha..

@do_xoxo0112

OP requested Kyungsoo a doodle on the photocard, Do Kyungsoo emmmmmm…

@Loralie_0118

A friend of mine who’s in Korea got into today’s fansign, managed to get Kyungsoo’s autograph for me, and even conveyed my messages to him, so I’ll think this is considered half a fan account.

Because everything was very last minute, and there wasn’t enough time, I didn’t manage to buy him any present and only managed to deliver a small note to him, to which he secretly received. I believe he’ll definitely read it. He’ll then know, how much we love him. The screenshots include: - my conversation with the friend that went on my behalf. She shared that Kyungsoo is very kind and the best person. He was listening to her intently as she spoke. He’s very sincere and very cute. - the note that I wrote to Kyungsoo, telling him that there are many Kyungsoo cfans who really love him. That we hope he will put himself first in everything that he do. We will lay the red carpet for him so he just needs to go ahead to pursue whatever he wants.

My silly piglet, mummy’s (referring to herself) name is so simple and you still could have gotten it wrong. I really could laugh myself to death because of you. Kyungsoo-ah, you are the best and no one else is better than you. We’ll meet in Autumn, I love you.

Conversation between friend who attended the fansign and OP

OP: Also, the paragraph below, could you help me write it on a small piece of paper and pass it to him OP: (message in hangul, will be separately translated) Friend: To write on a note Friend: It may be confiscated Friend: But I'll try OP: Ok! OP: I've previously seen other fans who hid it. Friend: Yup OP: And they succeeded Friend: They were pretty strict with the checks the last round Friend: (Notes) were all torn up. OP: If you don't succeed, just convey the message that cfans love him OP: Just 1 statement will do Friend: Ok OP: Come back and tell me how he looks like OP: You're going to see him upclose OP: Please help me praise him more OP: He likes being praised OP: If you have a chance tomorrow, ask Kyungsoo what breed of dog he's raising Friend: 1 minute Friend: I doubt I can ask him that much Friend: I think he's the first one OP: Yes, I hope the SM staff wouldn't stop you OP: Just have him help me write Peter Pan will do Friend: Ok OP: Just thinking about him writing my name OP: I feel like crying Friend: I'm thinking about how to speak mandarin to him Friend: (sends across autograph) OP: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh OP: What did he write OP: Did he write wrongly OP: My name is so simple he wrote it wrongly... OP: My silly piglet Friend: He initially wrote your name wrongly as I wrote it on my arm and he saw it in the opposite direction. When I told him, he replied, "어?그랬구나" "Oh, it's like this", so he crossed what he wrote and re-write it again. OP: Ahhhhhhhh so cute OP: (crying emoji) OP: I am (going) crazy now. I'm in heaven Friend: And below he wrote, "Always your Peter Pan" OP: So silly, my piglet OP: Still "Oh?" (referring to his reaction when he wrote her name wrongly) OP: I want him to draw a piglet for me Friend: I forgot ㅠㅠㅠ Because your name was written wrongly, so that took up some time, but I did convey the message that you wanted me to tell him OP: Did you manage to pass him the note! Friend: Yes. I secretly pushed it to him. He took it slowly by his side in his direction. His hand was moving bit by bit. OP: Ahhhhhhhhhh my baby did he read it OP: Did he open it? OP: (anticipating emoji) Friend: Exactly if he read it, I'm not sure. But since he got it, I believe he will read it. I feel, I feel he was really sincere to me. OP: He has always been like this.... OP: Did you tell him to take care of his health. The second of this year will be challenging, and that cfans love him Friend: I told him everything. I told him that he has many cfans and he even repeated that again in Korean in a doubtful questioning tone. OP: I'm running to the neighbourhood park to cry now OP: Why was he using a doubtful tone?? Friend: So he asked me, "ah, so there's many fan? in China?" I answered yes and since he was writing and his head was bowed, I couldn't see his expression but his tone sounded pleased/touched. OP: I'm dead. Really. I'm dead. I'm f*cking dead. I'm wailing. Friend: I also conveyed about asking him to sleep well, eat well, to put himself first and to pursue whatever he wants to do. OP: wuuuuuuu (crying expression) I have a visual (of what her friend just described) OP: That he is writing my name seriously. He's looking at my name seriously and writing it. OP: I can't take it anymore. My heart has stopped. Friend: All things aside, I really want to say this. I feel that he was really very sincere to me. My other friends also said the same. The moment I went up, he looked me in the eye, his expression seemingly to take in my face, wanting to commit to memory, nodding to me. He didn't speak much, I did most of the talking, but he's really earnest. OP: (crying emoji) OP: Help me call an ambulance OP: Send me directly to the crematorium Friend: He only just wrote your name wrong ㅠㅠ he's really cute really sincere Friend: His face is really small. But his eyes are extremely?! big?! OP: He must be handsome in real life OP: When would I be able to see him that upclose Friend: His eyes were huge. Extremely huge. Really huge. Because he was looking at me so intently, I really find his eyes really huge. Friend: Anyway, he's really very earnest, when I was talking, he was listening to me intently, unlike the rest. I think he's the kindest amongst all of them today, really good. I think he's the best today.

OP's note to Kyungsoo

With the recent comeback and the dance practices, it must be very tough. Dont get sick, don't get hurt. If you feel unwell, please visit the doctors. If somewhere is hurting, be sure to voice it out instead of shouldering it alone. I love you a alot. From head to toe. Besides my father, I love you the most in the world. The most handsome, my ideal type. Also, there are many of your cfans here. More than you can imagine and we will keep doing our best to support you. We will lay the red carpet (for you) and we will work hard to give you even more/better. Go ahead and brave forward with no regrets. I hope you get to eat whatever you like to eat and do whatever you wish to do. As long as you're healthy, safe and blissful. No matter what, I will be supporting you. Love you.

Edited/Added:

@dyo_right_

Kyungsoo is signing and when Chanyeol was waiting for the next fan to come, he was staring at Kyungsoo intently, not looking away at all.

@Sabor_a_DO

Today, Chanyeol kept showing toys to Kyungsoo, so each time Kyungsoo is done signing with one, he will turn and look at the toys. After he was done with all the signing, he actually went through and touch all the toys, and even held the toy that made noise to the side of his ears.

@icontact_JD/@icemilk_tea

When they were role-playing and Kyungsoo was acting like an outlaw police, even when he hasn't done anything, Chanyeol already started running to the backstage, then Kyungsoo used his fingers to do a "the end" pose while slicing it across Chanyeol's waist level.

@xiu2_xiu2

Chanyeol was teasing Kyungsoo a lot, so Kyungsoo used a bottle to fight back, Chanyeol held his tummy and let out a "ah" and pretended to have been taken down ㅋㅋㅋ after sitting back down, Chanyeol continued to attack Kyungsoo with the soap bubble toy, so Kyungsoo followed suit, stood up and used this knee to attack Chanyeol from top down, this is totally re-enactment of what happens in the dorm.

@sehun_1223

After playing around with Chanyeol for a while, Kyungsoo knelt and bowed before heading to the washroom. Chanyeol used a mini fan and soap bubbles toy and kept spraying the bubbles at Kyungsoo and even after returning from the washroom, Chanyeol is still spraying the bubbles at Kyungsoo.

@ice_xiu0326

Back story: It seemed like Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were playing around alot after finishing with the signing and according to those who were in the venue, it should be that Chanyeol kept spaying bubbles at Kyungsoo's face, and even paired it with a mini fan (to make it work better), so Kyungsoo returned the attacks by using bottle, his arm or his knee to hit Chanyeol back.

Conversation during the fansign (in enclosed in tweet): Chanyeol: Very good very good~ Keep it coming~ Keep it coming~ Junmyeon: As expected of Kyungsoo Jongdae: Don't be alarmed everyone, this is daily life for us in the dorm~

@mana_chen

(🇯🇵 represents in Japanese) Me: May I ask what you’re raising? Kyungsoo: Toy poodle. Kyungsoo: Black and....silver white ✌🏻 (2 of them) Me: 2 of them! What’s their names? Kyungsoo 🇯🇵 : The black one is...Mogmool (in Korean), the grey one is Pepper (in Korean)! Me: Boys or girls? Kyungsoo: Girls Me: Both also? Kyungsoo: Yes Kyungsoo 🇯🇵 : ✌🏻 (2 of them) How do you say that in Japanese? Me: Ah? Er, the meaning? ｢にひき｣（2 in Japanese) 暻秀🇯🇵：にひき…にひき！Thank you (Time was up) Me: Thank you~ (On the post-in below, Kyungsoo had handwritten the names of his two puppies, “Mogmool Pepper”

@BDGZ_9293

Me: Do you know Kyungsoo’s expression? Kyungsoo: (pointing to the penguin) It’s this, it’s this. Me: Yes, can you please draw it for me? He conscientiously followed and drew. I didn’t expect him to have drawn the eyebrow. And the best part of Kyungsoo was that whatever I said, he listened to every words with a really sweet expression and replied to it...Warm-hearted Doh is the best ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ"

@Just_For都暻秀应援站

OP's friend went to the fansign yesterday, and gave Kyungsoo the support item - a kittendyo handfan - from fansite J (@Just_For都暻秀应援站), and told him it's a cfan fansite, his fansite, Kyungsoo was very pleased as he accepted the handfan, really happy, I really wanted Kyungsoo to know that there are many in China that really like him.

@matuannai

My friends help convey the news of my marriage.He gave me my blessing. Thank you.

Message from Kyungsoo: "Wish you have a pretty baby"

Cr: The War Fansign, sources as quoted above (2017.08.11) Chi Trans: weibo @都暻秀吧_DohkyungsooBar, @Nacho_都暻秀资源博, @來一杯嘟嘟加点邊白, @大眼嘟企鹅, @ChocoHun_吴世勋资源博, @Moitie, @灿嘟糖果贩卖机, @nakedplanet Eng Trans: twitter @serenadyo, @kyeongsew, @doyeolove_aya, @dyostined, @swevenode, @exonyeondan, @chocohun94, @DeeDotOhDot, @enthralleddd, tumblr @fydk-translations Fan Account Consolidation & In partnership with: IG @channel930112

#the war fansign #exo comeback 2017 #exo #do kyungsoo #kyungsoo #d.o.#도경수 #디오 #170811

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dinomightofficial · 7 years ago

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Progress in Development - Digital puzzles, Level Design

28/09/2017 - 03/10/2017

Max and Oscar has been busy in developing the assets and mechanics of the game via Unity. James has also been helping out with assets and modeling but in the meantime he is busy with developing and designing some of the physical puzzles for our installation. I myself have designing some of the design elements in the digital aspect of our levels. I have been conjuring up some disagreements with some of the team members opinions on level design and planned difficulty in learning.

Once I had set up the Arduino with the custom controllers and made the arduino.IO to communicate with Unity (Thanks to the Max teaching me the basics). Max began to further integrate them into the script so that it the values that Unity receives from Arduino will act control a mechanic in the game. The physical is steadily interweaving with the digital.

Oscar working on assets mostly in the sound department. He has steadily shifted to getting the basic narrative sorted so that further asset development can continue. Oscar and Max had been discussing ideas as to conveying the artstyle of the video game; Persona 5. They want to implement the same sort of instructional or perhaps even a narrative driven guide to teach the player as to how the mechanics works and what the objective is. Although I do very much like the visual aesthetics of the Persona 5 dialogue system with the cartoon like speech bubbles I however have to disagree with implementing this into our video game.

The reason why is because I fear that our game may ‘hold the player’s hand’ as you will, too much. As a video game player myself I know that players hate being told how to play, they don’t want to arrows pointing to the next exit to the next level or have a narrow point of view to direct the player exactly where to go. There’s no sense of exploration in that, there is no going to find out what else is in the game, being told where to go and being told how to play in every moment of a game is like someone next to you explaining everything that’s about to happen in a movie that you are currently watching. There seems to be a somewhat rise in these types of games now a days where big triple A titles expect to have an extremely large target audience they sacrifice this self learnt aspect of the game with the mentality that since EVERYONE will be playing it, it will need to be brain dead simple and easy to understand. Personally, I despise this very much and I’m sure a lot of people would agree.

This is I guess similar to what James had been researching prior where he found out that when people are solving puzzles the point is that people don’t NEED to be smart to solve a puzzle and have a rewarding feeling but instead need to FEEL smart. When Ricardo came by last week to see our group progress in development of ideas he questioned us; well what is the incentive for people to want to come and engage with this thing and even then what is the incentive to continue playing? Well simple to theorize but difficult to put into practice video games need to make you FEEL like either you have accomplished something grand, make you feel smarter about yourself, or it could even be the purpose of watching an interactive movie. There are many reasons as to why the incentive to ‘waste’ our precious time on digital simulations exist but for our purpose of this project, experiments and installation is to make the player FEEL smarter about themselves.

How are we to give this feeling to the player if we hold their hands throughout the game and explain to them where to look, where to go, what to press and how to play?

Level Design and Digital Puzzles

Here below are some of the screenshots from our current game, it is expected to change drastically as development continues. This is just simple three room building to test out basic mechanics and other assets.

In terms of designing the levels I wasn’t really satisfied with James’s previous level layout so I decided to develop my own. However, I knew that one thing that I needed to keep in mind is that the layout and the difficulty in design for each level isn’t as simple as just put obstacle here and next level. Not only will I need to eventually figure out the level of complexity for each room but I will also need to design them in such a way so that the level of difficulty increases linearly and will need to also keep in mind the sort of skills required and learnt by the player at every level.

The difficulty designing a level layout is that because our estimated installation run time per player is going to be at a maximum of just around 10 minutes we want to jam pack each level as much as the player can learn with stability.

This is the first iteration below on the yellow paper. This layout steadily changed to be basically the same but simplified in such a way so that the space used is reduced whilst the layout is somewhat the same. This is still yet to be heavily tested and is likely to change as we develop.

Designing the first level I tried to make it abundantly clear to have the vent access incredibly obvious that will allow the player to make a mental note as to where it is and that it could be a possible exit. It’s just mere a matter of time for the player to reach the end of the level and find out about the mechanics of changing gravity. This will be done via perspective of the camera, the height of the room and the thickness and layout of the wall thicknesses.

Another idea that I got from designing digital puzzles through the use of obstacles and visual/mechanical and narrative ques I got an idea for a physical puzzle. Perhaps we could label files that the player interacts with and color code them in such a way so that the player needs to stable the corresponding colors together to reveal a combined message as the transparent papers could infuse to reveal perhaps even a map.

Basic layout in which I will need to further polish, test and finalize each level in terms of the difficulty, skills learnt and possible orientations. I assume that testing these and level designing these will take much longer than I originally would have thought. Room 4 was an interesting idea I had where there would practically be two levels in technically one level. The player will be able to decide how they would want to accomplish Room 4 and will be a part of the exploration aspect of our game.

These are the 4 iterated ideas as to how to teach the player on how to go about Room 1. The iterations began from the top left to right then to the bottom left to right. The final one being the bottom right is a complicated mess on paper but once digitally white-boxed (Thanks to James for implementing it) it looks rather simple but mechanically and educationally complex.

This is merely the level eyeballed out and will need to be play tested by others to see how they would interact and complete this level.

James had been play testing his ideas on some of the physical puzzles that we would need for accessing each door to enter the next Room. So the idea being that we want to implement both the physical and digital into the realm of the player in a video game scenario but mask it in such a way that it is so much more than that. To creating an incentive for the player to explore this duality is our goal I think.

Our revised Timetable/deadlines

By monday 9th

Physical/digital level and puzzle design completed

Fully functioning engine to suit requirements

Persona 5 dialogue art (liaise with max for implementation).

Secure a place to get building materials

By monday 16th

All assets created

Physical puzzles functioning in correspondence with game

Have building materials and have a plan for office construction

By monday 23rd

Have physically built office installation.

Design and print any physical assets we need for filing cabinets etc.

Pray

By monday 6th

Everything completed

All fuckups/mishaps solved

Fully functioning game

Oscar’s first iteration of our basic narrative (likely to change)

Story outline

Madz is an office worker working for an energy company. His boss demands that Madz completes some file work late one evening. Upon stumbling across a sensitive file eluding to a strange conspiracy within the company - an unknown third party (Ricardo) makes contact with Madz through a walkie talkie.

Madz is convinced by Ricardo to dig deeper into the conspiracy. In order to deal with the traps and security Madz will have to deal with, Ricardo gives Madz the ability to hack technology. After solving the first puzzle, Madz discovers a another document revealing more details about the conspiracy.

Ricardo decides Madz will need another ability in order to deal with future challenges. Ricardo gives Madz the ability to manipulate gravity.

After completing the second challenge, Madz finds a third document revealing further information about the conspiracy. Following this - Madz finds the room where his boss, (Mr Hiroshima) is. After realizing that Madz has caught onto the conspiracy, Hiroshima activates the final puzzle and runs into another room. After solving the third puzzle, Madz perseus Hiroshima into the next room where he lies in wait. Ricardo appears and goomba stomps Hiroshima. Plot resolved, conspiracy successfully unraveled.

#CTEC503Movement #CTEC503

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xhostcom · 6 years ago

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Website Fonts That Compliment

Fonts for Web & Wordpress Design

In website design, people often overlook minor details, like typography. I know what some of you might be thinking. How important can a website’s font really be? Believe it or not, something as simple as choosing the right font can have a major impact on conversion. Plus, website fonts affect the overall appearance of your site. Now it’s unlikely that you’ve been on a website and thought, “Wow, this font is great!” It doesn't smack you in the face & it just isn’t something that our minds are trained to look for and I’m not expecting you to find a font that’s going to “wow” your website visitors. But, I can guarantee that you’ve been on websites that have fonts that were generic, unappealing, difficult to read, or felt out of place. You obviously don’t want people to have that impression of your website.

Why your website font matters

Here’s something to consider: different website fonts can change the reader’s perception of a particular topic. Errol Morris conducted a survey in an article published in The New York Times in 2012. He included a passage from a book that claimed we live in an ear of unprecedented safety, and followed the passage up with two questions: Is the claim true? (yes or no) How confident are you with the answer? (slightly, moderately, very) As it turns out, Morris didn’t care about anyone’s opinion. He just wanted to know if the font could influence their answers. Forty thousand people unknowingly participated in this experiment. While everyone read the same passage; they did not all see it in the same typography. Check out these results.

This graph shows all of the respondents who agreed to the first question. Morris took their levels of confidence in the second question and assigned a weighted value to each response. In doing so, it’s clear that there was a difference between how confident people were in agreeing with the claims being made based on the font they were presented in. Now let’s look and see the results of respondents who disagreed with the passage.

Compare the two graphs. Do you notice any similarities? As you can see, the Baskerville font was ranked highest for weighted agreement and lowest for weighted disagreement. Comic Sans font ranked lowest for weighted agreement, and ranked high for weighted disagreement. Based on this data, Morris was able to conclude that fonts can influence the way people perceive information. Basically, the typeface can actually affect the credibility of your website. In short — yes, website fonts matter.

The best Google Font pairings for 2019

You don’t want to have the same font everywhere on your site; that’s too boring. Mix it up! But make sure you pick fonts that go well together. I created this guide to help you do just that. There are plenty of platforms for finding free fonts, but Google Fonts is my favorite. I identified the top Google Fonts pairings for 2019. So check out my list, and pick out a combination that works best for your website. Open Sans and Roboto

The header of this screenshot is Open Sans semi-bold. The paragraph below it is Roboto regular. I think the semi-bold header just ads a bit more punch than the regular weight of Open Sans, but it’s fine if you go with that option as well. The reason why these fonts work so well together is because they are both crisp and extremely legible. You’ve got lots of different options here to consider for your website design. This combination could be used to convey the value proposition on your homepage. Use the Open Sans header as a point of emphasis, and then elaborate on the subject using Roboto. These fonts work well together if you swap them as well. You could use Roboto as the header, and Open Sans for the paragraph. In this case, I’d recommend going with Roboto medium, and Open Sans regular. Playfair Display and Montserrat

This font combination works best for shorter text on your website. I wouldn’t necessarily use it on a blog post or something like that. However, this pairing is perfect for a product title and product description, especially for ecommerce shops in the fashion industry. The lighter weight font, like Montserrat light, gives the text a certain level of elegance that fits with a luxury brand persona. Interestingly enough, if you swap the two and use Montserrat as the header, the persona changes to something that feels futuristic or techy. That combination can work well for some of you who are promoting a game, or even on a landing page to download your mobile gaming app. Either way, these two fonts work well together. It depends on the theme and overall message that you’re going for on your website. Lora and Alegreya

Lora bold is strong and legible, which is why it’s perfect for title pages. While the typography is powerful, it’s still friendly and inviting. Alegreya regular compliments Lora really well, especially when used for captioning images. While Alegreya is definitely legible, it can be challenging to read for long stretches, which is why it’s better for short text like captions or quick descriptions. I would not recommend experimenting with any other variations of Alegreya. Adding weight or italics to this font loses the legibility. Now if you swap their positions, Alegreya bold works fine for title and header text. Lora regular is legible, so you could consider using it for longer text. I think this combination would be perfect for something like a customer testimonial or short case study. Merriweather and Lato

Merriweather light and Lato regular is a very clean and professional combination. It’s a popular choice because the options are so versatile. Merriweather light is modern, tasteful, and appealing. When it’s followed up with text written in Lato, the pairing feels trustworthy. I’d recommend using this combination on your homepage. For those of you who have a design that involves scrolling to learn more information, this text combination will work perfectly. I’m picturing a website visitor scrolling down your home screen, seeing an image on the left side of the page and this font combination on the right. When they continue scrolling, the next image will be on the right, and the text will be on the left. If this sounds like your current design, definitely consider using this combination to add a touch of professionalism to your content. Amatic SC and Josefin Slab

The font combination of Amatic SC bold and Josefin Slab italic is definitely not for everyone. I can’t say that I would recommend it to the majority of websites, but it’s an ideal combination for artsy websites. If you’re a musician, painter, or photographer, these fonts can be used sparingly on your pages. The key here is to make sure that the text has plenty of space to breathe. I’d recommend using it against white or very light backgrounds. So check out my post on the top trending website color schemes of 2019 as well. If you sell ceramics or sculptures, this font can be very appealing to your audience and fit nicely with the overall theme of your business. Just make sure you don’t go overboard. Using too much of this on the screen is unappealing and challenging to read. So pick something else for longer blocks of text, such as your biography or about me pages. Cinzel and Raleway

Cinzel is a bold font (no pun intended). It’s all capital letters, which makes it more suitable for short text as opposed to long blog posts or things of that nature. It’s complemented really by a font that’s a bit more traditional, like Raleway. These two fonts are perfect for websites in the food and drink industry. You could consider using this to spice up your online menu. Have the menu categories in Cinzel black, the meal titles in Cinzel bold, and the description of the item written in Raleway regular. If you really want to be unique, you can swap the two and use Raleway for headings and Cinzel for the body text. This could work well for local coffee shops that update their website with daily specials or weekly brews. PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans

PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans is a classic combination. This versatile choice will work well for nearly any website in 2019. Since both fonts are so legible, you can use it for text in short-form, as well as long-form content such as blog posts. I like these fonts because they are easy to read, but not too generic and boring. PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans are inviting, so consider using them on home screens and landing pages.

How to pick the best website fonts

Now that you’ve seen some of the best Google Fonts combinations of 2019, how can you decide which one is best for your website? The first thing you need to do is determine what type of content the font will be used for. Decide if the fonts are for your blog, homepage, landing page, product description, or navigation menu. You’ll also want to consider the type of business you have, as well as the audience you’re targeting. Does the font need to be professional? Or do you have some room to be a bit unique? The key to pairing two fonts together is contrast. The fonts should be different enough that each is distinguishable, but not so different that the reader is distracted. You may want to use a few font combinations on your website, but don’t go overboard. Keep it simple. Each page should just have two fonts; three at most. If you want to use more, consider using variations of the fonts already on the page (light, italic, medium, bold, etc.) instead.

Summary

Fonts are important, so it time to get rid of the default. Google Fonts is one of the best resources for free website fonts. The platform has some of the top site fonts that compliment each other. Open Sans and Roboto Playfair Display and Montserrat Lora and Alegreya Merriweather and Lato Amatic SC and Josefin Slab Cinzel and Raleway PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans And to get an idea how to differentiate between the different types of font check out this Creative Bloq article. Read the full article

#fonts #webdesign #wordpress

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abpettiford-blog · 6 years ago

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Organizational Structures Reflection

Project 1: Overview This month’s class covered motion design in detail. There were two major projects worked on regarding our chosen city. The first project was the dynamic vision board. This assignment required us to conduct research regarding motion graphics, history, and trends and apply it to our static vision board from last month’s class. Static into motion was the focus. The project details were pretty broad and general with only the time limit of 30 seconds being a major factor. It was very challenging to figure out how to tell the story of most or all of the vision boards elements within such a short time limit. What helped the process was completing research on the process of motion graphics and then creating storyboards. This allowed me to flesh out all of my ideas and figure how they’d worked together given the 30 second time limit. The text Animated Storytelling we were assigned to read this month also gave great insight on the process from conception to final deliverable.

Project 1: Process The screenshots below highlight the initial draft completed of the storyboards and narrative.

Revisions were completed and the final story was fleshed out. The screenshots below highlight the revisions of the story and the additional research completed.

The screenshots below are frames from the final dynamic vision board.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/Ynlmh2Snjxg

Connecting, Synthesizing & Transforming Correctly timing the text shown throughout the video benefited from research. Taylor emphasizes as a rule of thumb you need to be able to read text three times out loud at a regular pace (Taylor, 2018). Due to the time limitations of the video, this meant that the text shown on the screen should be short and to the point. Aldredge discusses that when working with text in video, you’ll need to make sure the text isn’t obstructing the image behind it (Aldredge, 2018). As a result, I edited the narrative copy and typography section in order to maximize the time limits of those sections while keeping the text on a legible background that didn’t interfere with itself or the background. Utilizing this principle, the text retained maximum legibility and readability normal pace.

Problem Solving The design problem was to position the city of Marrakech so the audience would see themselves as explorers instead of tourists. The work solved the problem by placing the audience in the shoes of an explorer. The motion piece features a map for exploration, map lines, location stops, and local imagery. Using these elements transforms the audience from mere voyeurs of a series of information bits into true explorers who are exploring this motion map and discovering new treasures around every corner.

Innovative Thinking Against similar videos in this style, this animation utilizes movement either by zoom and pan camera moves throughout enhanced by sound effects and background music. Vossen concludes that sound effects should be used to enhance motion graphics (Vossen, n.d.). Combining camera moves and transitions with sound effects throughout the video keep the viewer engaged while providing a novel experience.

Project 2: Overview The second project this month was a motion piece marketing the chosen. The project offered the opportunity to work with several different motion styles including kinetic typography, cinemagraph, 2.5D parallax imagery, animatic, motion poster, and general motion graphic. The decision was made to use the 2.5D parallax motion style. In this style, the background image usually moves more slowly than images in the foreground, creating the illusion of depth and immersion (Techopedia, n.d.). This depth pulls the viewer that much more into the narrative which allows them to more intimately engage with the brand. Sherbin discusses how the parallax motion style technique is immersive. Sherbin also discusses how using layers gives your viewer the feeling that they’re moving through the page in 3D (Sherbin, 2013). In the case of this motion graphics piece, it is the screen that the viewer is moving through instead of a web page. This style accentuates the authentic depth and intimacy needed to resonate with the target audience, which is millennials. Due to time constraints, only one motion piece was able to be completed. The parallax motion style can easily be transformed into a series of motion pieces.

The story the motion piece will convey to the audience is that of daring exploration. As an explorer in Marrakech, there is adventure around every corner. Marrakech is an exciting adventure igniting fearless exploration in those who dare to navigate its endless passageways with an underlying don’t let fear paralyze you theme.

Project 2: Process The screenshots below highlight the storyboards for this motion piece.

The screenshots below are frames from the final 2.5D parallax motion piece.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/Q6jrxmLkdWI

Connecting, Synthesizing & Transforming The researched used to arrive at the design conclusion was to explore the different motion styles presented. The motion styles included kinetic typography, cinemagraph, 2.5D parallax imagery, animatic, motion poster, and general motion graphic. After reviewing all of the styles, 2.5D parallax imagery was chosen to be the motion style for this project. The parallax motion style was selected because it introduces depth into a static image which further engages and immerses the viewer into the narrative. The narrative speaks to daring exploration. The depth really allows the viewer to experience the exploration in an intimate way.

Problem Solving The design problem the motion piece is attempting to solve is to allow the viewer to identify themselves as an explorer in Marrakech and not just a tourist. The motion piece solves this problem by showing a man boldly and confidently ready to daringly explore the unknown passageway he is standing in front of. Because of this, after watching the parallax video, the viewer has an intimate view of what it will be like once they are in that place in Marrakech ready to experience their own adventure and daring exploration.

Innovative Thinking The approach the motion takes is innovative because the secondary motion was introduced through the blinking light of the central lantern. Adding the secondary motion extends the depth of the motion piece beyond simple parallax motion and into a more complex, visually interesting, and defining narrative. Driving innovation in this motion piece using secondary motion will resonate with the audience as it further extends the tone and personality of the city of Marrakech, which is dramatic, exciting, and energetic.

Audio Identity The established brand audio identity has been used to further excite and dramatize the brand’s tone and personality. The music provides an upbeat, melodic backdrop which allows the visuals to be curiously and playfully explored. Using the brand audio in this way helps to create a connection between the feel of the music and message in the visuals.

Acquiring Competencies Throughout this month I leveled up my skillset and confidence using After Effects. By storyboarding the motion piece prior to jumping into After Effects, I was able to conceptualize easy methods of building the projects and Pre-Comping certain elements to make the animation cleaner, smoother, and more engaging. The elements I pre-comped included the text writing effect for the headlines in Project 1 and the ending screen elements in Project 1. I also learned how to animate in Photoshop to produce parallax image animation. I continued learning how to research topics deeply traditional books and Internet sources. I am also continuing to become better at managing my time. I still procrastinate concerning certain assignments but I do it a lot less now. I contribute this to having so many assignments due at once that I am unable to wait until the minute to get everything completed. This has also brought my weekly stress level down consistently.

My Experience In Organization Structures This class proved to be challenging. I associate this with the amount of research needed to be completed in order to make logical and sound design decisions. Graduate-level research for design work continues to prove difficult with certain specific subjects such as 2.5D parallax effect. There were a lot of resources available regarding using 2.5D parallax in web design but very few sources discussing its use in video production.

I also had a difficult time keeping my story journal. I didn’t start it until Week 3. Once I started it, it was fairly easy to keep but the assignment requirements introduced additional work that made it pretty cumbersome. I am grateful that I did not have to learn After Effects during this month because I don’t know how I would have done that and keep up with all of the assignments.

Overall, I feel like my time wasn’t well spent in this class over the month. I would have liked more time to work on the second project. Perhaps splitting the time between the two main projects equally would have provided me sufficient time to get everything done unto perfection. From here, I plan to continue mastering After Effects, 2D, and 3D motion graphic design so that I can offer better creative execution on both graduate and work-related projects.

References Aldredge, J. (2018, April 04). 5 Things You Should Consider When Adding Text to Video. Retrieved from https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/5-considerations-adding-text-video/

Pettiford, B. (Photographer). (2019, March 1). Bernard at the Moroccon Pavillion, Epcot [photograph]. Orlando, FL.

Sherbin, M. (2013, December 09). The Ups and Downs of Parallax Design for Content Marketing. Retrieved from https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/10/visual-content-potential-pitfalls-parallax-design/

Taylor, A. (2018, June 28). Taylor, A. (2018, May 01). The benefits of storyboards. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-tutorials/benefits-storyboards/625942/734737-4.html

Vossen, C. (n.d.). The importance of audio in video. Retrieved from https://www.522productions.com/the-importance-of-audio-in-video

What is Parallax Scrolling? - Definition from Techopedia. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.techopedia.com/definition/29141/parallax-scrolling

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socialattractionuk · 6 years ago

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How To Text Women – Intermittent Texting

You can find the original article at http://www.socialattraction.co.uk Connect with us Google+

Intermittent texting is about taking control of our dialogue and putting the necessary boundaries in place to manage our mental wellbeing.

The idea is that we only text women back during allotted slots throughout the day. Being less available is not only a highly alluring character trait, it also allows us to relax during long periods of our day where we can remain uninterrupted in working towards our goals.

Once we begin utilising intermittent texting with women and start to see the results, we can then push this further into our lifestyle with all of our digital interactions.

Step 1 – 3 x 1 hour windows

Initially we need to get used to only responding to text messages in set hours throughout the day.

This will feel uncomfortable at first; but very quickly we begin to feel a sense of ease because we’re only “available” at set times, so can relax more during our day to day activities.

Example times are:

12pm-1pm

5pm-6pm

9pm-10pm

youtube

How To Text Women (Intermittent Texting)

Step 2 – 2 x 1 hour windows

Once we are comfortable using intermittent texting we can then go one step further and put bigger boundaries in place to ensure we are more relaxed and less “available”.

What we find at this point is that we are less reactive to the digital world and more relaxed and able to respond with logic and thought.

Example times are:

2pm-3pm

9pm-10pm

Step 3 – 1 x 1 hour window

This is the holy grail of text messaging; one solid hour to respond to any messages.

Just imagine the control we can generate in our dialogue with the world; to build from this solid foundation to set more boundaries in place for the rest of our daily activities.

Example times are:

7pm-8pm

Text Messaging Grammar

Bold – emphasises a word.

This is a really good tool to add some depth to our online conversations.

“Hmm… I’m not convinced that you can handle a 5k run.”

“Italics with inverted commas” – for quoting someone.

This can be utilised for quoting something they have already said, or we can take a quote from a famous person to add some humour into the interaction.

So rather than replying literally to their messages, we can reply with a fun quote.

Girl – “So do you think your event will be a success?”

“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” Albert Einstein

Girl – “I’m trying to remember everything for my exam tomorrow.”

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Albert Einstein

(Brackets) – include information which isn’t necessary to the main point.

These are really good to use if we can’t fit what we are trying to say into the main flow of the interaction.

“I bet that you’re going to study Economics at University (not that you currently know anything about it)”

“I’ll meet you at 1pm (by the café where we met)

Exclamation point – indicates a strong emotion!

Only use one! If we use too many it comes across as harsh and try hard!!!! One is powerful when implemented correctly.

“I highly doubt that!”

“Yes!”

Ps – Is an afterthought.

This is great to inject some humour in to the interaction especially when we’re organising a date.

“I can do Monday at 6pm or Wednesday at 7pm for cocktails; which one works best? Ps we both know you’ll only be able to handle one!”

“Sure sounds good. P.s I expect I’ll be 10 minutes late as usual.”

Top 10 Messaging Strategies

1. Questions game to get to know each other

This is a great game to play to allow us to get to know women in a simple and easy manner. The game is also great for first dates and can be played in group settings.

It can be played on Tinder at the start of new conversations and also act as a bridge between real life meetings. Remember when playing this game via text, we also want to ensure that we are implementing the rest of our text messaging strategies.

“Let’s play a fun game; there’s only 3 rules …

Rule 1 – You ask me the first question

Rule 2 – I ask you one back

Rule 3 – It can’t be the same question that we ask each other.

Ok you can start …”

2. Making statements to add value to the dialogue

The main point here is not to enter interview mode by asking women loads of questions.

Questions tend to turn women off as they’ve probably been asked the same ones hundreds of times already.

Some questions are ok; but generally speaking statements are more powerful and ensure we are adding value to the conversation.

“I bet you’re from Greece”

“You seem more boring than adventurous”

“I bet you’re into yoga!

3. Not answering questions to build mystery and intrigue

The aim here is not to be controlled in dialogue.

Anytime a girl ask us a question we can utilise the principle of being vague and mysterious. (there is a great example below in the screenshot area)

The important part to remember in all conversations is to lead and not to follow. This means that we don’t do as we are told and we go against the grain. In my experience this leads to flirting and is the inception of creating sexual tension.

“Where are you from?”

“I’ll give you three guesses”

“It begins with an E”

“I’m surprised you can’t work it out.”

4. Conversation threading to convey our most attractive traits

Ideally when we are living information to women via text messages we need to ensure that we are building our value in the interaction. We should imagine the conversation to be like a log fire that needs feeding with more fuel.

The fuel that we add is anything that conveys intelligence, creativity or leadership. We also need to ensure that we are not negative or judgemental as this tends to highlight our insecurities and turns women off.

“That reminds me of when I was last in Barcelona and did a walking tour; the guide was really funny too. I bet you’ve never done a walking tour…”

5. Role plays to add a different texture to the interaction

Role plays are a great way to keep the flow of an interaction between real life meetings.

Our aim is to keep the fire burning by using some fun emotional dialogue; see the David Bowie example screenshots below for a full example.

We can also use role plays for future projections as a way of building an emotional connection with women.

6. Three dots for mystery…

Three dots are the best way to add mystery and depth to our messages…

They allow us to keep the dialogue open and for women to interpret our message as they see fit. When we employ mystery it keeps the fire burning and allows women to respond quicker as they can never be too sure what we mean.

Utilising three dots also makes it easier for women to reply to our messages without asking them direct questions.

“I bet you’re a psychologist…”

“I’m not convinced you’re fun on a night out…”

“Hmmm I’m not convinced…”

7. Correcting their spelling to initiate flirting

Anytime a girl makes a spelling mistake or an obvious grammatical error then it’s really fun to point it out; the reason for this is because we are conveying our intelligence by illuminating their error.

Be careful though, because if we then make an error ourselves be prepared for a girl to highlight it right back to us.

“It’s “their” not “they’re””

“I think you’ll find it’s “tomorrow””

“Your last message made no logical sense.”

8. Dictionary definitions to be playful

This is a powerful tool if a girl uses an unusual word; just give a definition of her most emotive word.

I just copy and paste the google dictionary definition as below. It usually generates a fun response from women.

“playful

fond of games and amusement; light-hearted.

“a playful tomboy who loves to dress up”

synonyms: frisky, jolly, fun-loving, lively, full of fun, high-spirited, spirited, in high spirits, exuberant, perky, skittish, coltish, kittenish; More

“he gave me a playful punch on the arm”intended for one’s own or others’ amusement rather than seriously.

giving or expressing pleasure and amusement.

“the ballet accents the playful use of movement””

9. False choices to set up dates.

Ideally we want to set up a future date when we are physically with a girl for the first time.

If this is not possible then we are able to utilise false choices to allow women to select one of two potential date times.

We want to make it easy for women to agree to see us again in person; so by limiting the options to two choices, we are making it very easy for the girl to commit to seeing us again.

“I’m free Saturday for a coffee at 3pm or can do cocktails Tuesday at 7pm; which one works best for you…”

“I’m going shopping on Saturday at 11am and the Tate Sunday at 2pm; join me for one …”not both though

)”

10. In response to an emotive question

This is my favourite part of text dialogue; we only tend to ask questions when we want to know more about someone.

So when women ask us questions, we can be playful with our response and withhold the information that they desire. This is the most powerful tool to get women to become more invested into our interaction.

So when women ask us a questions, we can use this opportunity to be playful and allow the interaction to flourish.

“I’ll give you three guesses…get it right and the first cocktail is on me…”

“I’ll give you three guesses…get it right and the coffee is in me.”

“I’ll give you three guesses…get it right and I’ll take you bouldering.”

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myrcoco-blog · 7 years ago

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The App Store Optimization Checklist: Top 10 Tips

App Store Optimization, or ASO, is a way of ensuring your app meets app store ranking criteria and rises to the top of a search results page. But how does a marketer optimize for better discoverability in an app store?

To help you boost your app marketing strategy (along with your app store ranking!), I’ve put together a list of 10 favorite ASO tips, many of which have their roots in well-known SEO strategies marketers know and love.

Let’s dive in!

1. Understand your customer and your competition

How well do you know your customers and your competition? A well-formed ASO strategy hinges on understanding how your customers use your app, along with a deep view of your competitive landscape. To start, ask yourself the following:

What language do my customers naturally use? How would they describe my app? What are their top reasons for downloading and using my app? What is my competitive advantage? What keywords do my competitors target? How easily can I compete against these apps on the same keywords? Should I target the obvious keywords or the less obvious (and less trafficked) keywords that better speak to my unique offering and points of differentiation? Your ASO strategy begins with putting yourself in your customer’s shoes. Your goal is to improve discovery in app store searches and target those keywords that drive the most traffic. The best way to identify these optimal keywords is consumer research — finding out exactly what search queries brought your customers to your app and the natural language they use to describe it. It’s equally important to survey your competition to identify which keywords are being targeted by apps similar to yours. You can then determine whether or not it makes sense to target these same keywords or a separate set of keywords unique to your individual value proposition. Similarly, you’ll have to decide if it makes more sense to rank in the top 10 for a few highly competitive keywords or to rank in the top spot for keywords with a lesser search volume.

2. Choose the right app name

Coming up with a unique name for your app isn’t just a matter of branding. For best results with ASO, include relevant keywords within your title, as this text heavily factors into app store search results. In fact, our friends at TUNE recently conducted a study of the top 25 ranking positions and found that apps with a relevant keyword in their title ranked, on average, 10.3% higher than apps without a title keyword.

Titles in the App Store can be up to 255 characters, allowing for plenty of keywords or keyword phrases. However, don’t take this as an opportunity to stuff every keyword you can think of into your title; after all, your app’s name is, first and foremost, your first impression to a potential mobile customer. Longer titles, however, will be truncated on a search results or top chart page. Titles are typically truncated after the 23rd character (including spaces) in the App Store and the 30th character in Google Play. App titles for installed apps in a device’s navigation menu or home screen are truncated after 11 and 14 characters, respectively.

To ensure that your app can be clearly identified, keep the actual name short and sweet. You can augment this short title with nonessential keywords after the name, typically preceded by a dash or vertical bar, to associate your app with select keywords.

It’s also important to use only URL-friendly characters in your title, particularly in the App Store. Special characters or symbols will detract from your ASO strategy and cause iTunes to refer to your app’s numeric ID, rather than its name, to scan for relevant keywords.

3. Maximize your keywords

While many of these strategies apply across the board when it comes to the different app stores, the App Store and the Google Play Store have two very different approaches when it comes to ASO keywords.

The App Store

The App Store has a 100-character keyword field. It exclusively uses title and whatever keywords or keyword phrases you include in these 100 characters to determine which search strings your app will show up for. With this in mind, it’s important to use all of the allotted characters and carefully research your keywords to maximize your organic traffic.

Google Play

On the other hand, the Google Play Store takes an approach more similar to modern SEO. Google does away with the specified tags and scans your app’s description to extract relevant keywords. In this scenario, you’re given 4,000 characters to describe it in natural, customer-facing language. Without trying to jam as many keywords into this text as possible at the expense of your messaging strategy, try to sprinkle relevant keywords where they logically make sense. A recent Sensor Tower study showed that the optimal number of times to repeat a keyword in an app store product page is five, at which point you will maximize the likelihood of ranking prominently for that keyword. Additional mentions have little to no effect on ASO and may even turn off potential customers if your description appears intentionally repetitive.

With this in mind, everything consumer-facing in your app’s product page should be designed not for an algorithm but for the customer. If its description is a hodgepodge of contextually irrelevant keywords, that coveted rank will become meaningless, as your wordy description will struggle to entice customers to take the next step and download it. For best results, write for the customer first, and make small edits for keywords next — remember that the ranking algorithms take both keywords and conversion metrics into account.

4. Create a compelling description

With the exception of a few of the aforementioned strategically placed keywords, your app’s description should be targeted toward your customer base, rather than a search engine index. Your description should be viewed as a call-to-action for potential customers. Describe what it does in simple and concise language, list the unique benefits it offers, and compel the reader to download it. You’ve already convinced the app store that your app is relevant to a specific list of keywords, and now it’s time to convince your potential customers that it meets their needs.

We recommend focusing the bulk of your energy on the first three lines of your description to immediately grab your reader’s attention. Given the ever-growing number of apps in the marketplace, customers are sure to have a few — if not several — alternatives to consider when evaluating yours. Make their decision easy by immediately communicating what it does and why they should use it.

Your app’s description, as well as the rest of your product page, should be treated as a living document. As it changes with each new update, so should your description. Each time you submit an update, take the time to reflect the changes in your product page’s description and screenshots to call out new features and accurately portray it.

5. Stand out with a unique icon

As your potential customers browse a nearly endless list of apps, your visual icon is the first impression they’ll have of yours. It’s important to make it count!

When approaching your icon design, it’s important to note that the App Store and Google Play vary in their approach to, and rendering of, app icons. Both stores have preset standards for the ideal size, geometry, and color scheme of app icons, designed to match the rest of the OS.

For iOS icons, the most important thing to note is that icons should be sized to at least 1024×1024 pixels, the dimensions required by the App Store. From here, the Apple OS will resize your icon for any other applications, including app icons (180×180), navigation icons (66×66), and tab bar icons (75×75). Your image must therefore be designed with the meticulous detail of a 1024×1024 icon and the simplicity necessary to still look good scaled down to the smallest size.

Additional resources: iOS 9 Design Guidelines and iOS Icon Sizing Reference Chart

When designing an Android icon, the only difference is that Google Play requires a 512×512 icon, rather than 1024×1024. While not required, Google recommends designing app icons in accordance with its material design guidelines, which details everything from icon anatomy to lighting and shading.

Additional resources: Android Material Design Guidelines and Android Icon Sizing Reference Chart

Regardless of which OS you’re designing for, you need an icon capable of breaking through the clutter. Icons should be clear enough that they immediately convey what your app does, even in its scaled-down form within the apps menu. As such, don’t overcomplicate your icon with unnecessary words or logos that demand extra time from your customers.

To get an idea of what works historically, simply browse the top-rated apps in your category or Google/Apple’s top picks. Across the board, you’ll see a trend toward bright colors, unique shapes, and simple imagery. Few icons use words, and some will incorporate a border or drop shadow to make them pop, regardless of their background. And once again, it’s important to do a little competitive research to ensure that your icon is different enough to avoid having your app confused with a competitor’s.

6. Include screenshots and videos

Like icons, screenshots in your description may not have a direct effect on search rankings, but they do drive downloads. Images convey more about what it actually is and bring your descriptive text to life, allowing potential customers to visualize using your app before they make the download.

While you can upload up to five screenshots for an iOS app and up to eight for an Android app, only your first 2–3 screenshots will show in the gallery on page load. Take special care in ensuring that these screenshots speak to your biggest customer benefits and are strong enough to convince the reader to browse your additional screenshots or download it.

While the app stores prefer images that are representative of the customer’s experience in your app, you can technically upload any graphic into the screenshot field — including concept or character art. Commonly, publishers will blend graphic design with their screenshots to incorporate a text overlay describing key elements or new features. For example, Candy Crush Saga adds a graphic overlay to its screenshots to promote its new update.

Whatever your approach, your screenshots should show off your app’s most pivotal features, latest updates, and the pages on which your customers will spend most of their time. Skip the pretty splash pages and show the customer what they can expect during everyday use. For best results, A/B test different screenshot sets to determine which screenshots drive the most downloads.

7. Localize your app listing

When it comes to global marketing, a “one-size-fits-all” approach simply won’t cut it. Today, only 31% of app revenue is generated by North American consumers. And of those consumers outside the English-speaking world, 72% prefer to use their native language when shopping, even if they’re fluent in English. These two statistics speak to the massive opportunity available to app publishers. That is, those app publishers who are able to tap into this market by catering to the unique preferences of its customer segments.

In other words, if your audience goes beyond the English-speaking world, consider adapting your brand communication and language to the wants and needs of each audience segment.

At the most basic level, speak to your customers in the language they use at home. There are myriad solutions for low-cost translation or localization services that can translate your app’s title, keywords, description, and screenshots to the languages of your largest segments.

Both the iTunes App Store and the Google Play Store allow you to localize your listing to make both discoverability and readability easier for customers in different countries. By doing so, you can increase both adoption and conversion, as more customers find your app using keywords in their language and as more customer download it after seeing a welcoming product page in their language. Together, these two effects can add up to as much as a 767% increase in downloads.

For example, Clash of Clans publisher Supercell translated its app description and screenshots to capture the Chinese market:

8. Increase traffic with outside promotion

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that on-page optimization is just one tool in your mobile marketing kit. And this is where your SEO knowledge really comes in. It is widely believed that both Google and Apple factor in your app’s total page visits and product page backlinks when determining your search and overall ranks.

Simply put, the more traffic you drive to your listing, the higher it will rank in search results. To drive traffic, build an online presence around your app with social media and content, soliciting press and reviews, and investing in online advertising.

For many publishers, app indexing has proven the most effective strategy for driving traffic to an app’s product page. A relatively new concept, app indexing is the process of making Android or iOS app content searchable and linkable from a web or mobile web search. Customers who see you indexed in a search result can click on your link and be deep-linked to either it's product page (if they don't have it installed) or to the page in your app from which that content is indexed (if they have it installed). Indexing, therefore, helps with both re-engagement and acquisition by promoting your content in new channels.

App indexing allows you to drive downloads and app store traffic directly from a search engine results page.

App indexing has quickly shaken up the world of search, with 40% of searches now returning app indexed results. The world is going mobile, and those apps ahead of the curve in ASO and app indexing trends will be those that nab market share from traditionally web-dominated search results. (For more ways to move beyond the app store with your marketing strategy, check out our guide The 2016 Guide to App Marketing Channels.)

Additional resources: How to Get Your App Content Indexed by Google

9. Update frequently

Mobile customers are looking for apps that are constantly improving, with regular updates based on customer feedback. Apps that are frequently updated are seen, by both the app store and the customer, to be of a higher value and more customer-centric. Consequently, app updates highly correspond to better reviews as each new and improved version of the app should naturally receive higher ratings than the version before.

Of course, releasing the update is only half the battle. The next step is to encourage existing customers to download the update. To help sell your next update, try these three strategies:

Entice customers within your app (such as a note prompted at login, a push notification, or an update link prominently displayed in the main navigation) notifying them of the new update and what improvements they have to look forward to. Update the app description and the “What’s New” field in your app store product page to outline new/improved features with a compelling call-to-action. Maintain a large volume of five-star reviews for your app, and especially its latest version. Our 2015 Consumer Survey revealed that one-third of existing customers check an app’s ratings before downloading an update. Maintain a positive rating for an easy win. To come up with a general recommendation for update frequency, we scoured the 500 top-ranked apps and found that the average update frequency was between 30 and 40 days. Keep in mind, however, that each time you update an iOS app, your ratings reset — and with that, your rank temporarily plummets. As a result, frequently updated iOS apps experience slightly higher app store rank volatility, while frequently updated Android apps experience reduced volatility.

10. Encourage ratings and feedback

Last but certainly not least, a consistent flow of positive reviews serves as the highest possible validation of your app’s quality and one of the highest determinants of rank. In our analysis of the 500 top-ranked apps posted last year on the Moz blog, we found the highest correlation between ratings (both average rating and rating count) and ranks than any of the other factors we tested. Across the board, apps with a large volume of positive ratings dominate the top charts.

We also found that rating volume almost always trumps rating sentiment when it comes to determining rank. The app stores are looking to recognize apps that have the largest fan community — and the best proxy for determining that is the rating count.

The apps with the highest rating counts are those that keep their customers engaged and proactively solicit customer feedback to shape their product roadmap and future updates. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that app store ratings provide just a myopic view of customer satisfaction. Typically, only your vocal minority — those who either love or hate your app — will take the time to write a review. In reality, most of your customers lie somewhere between these two extremes and require that extra engagement or prompt to give their feedback. With intelligent rating prompts, you can boost your rating — and ultimately, your rank — by prompting only those customers most likely to give you a 5-star review.

Wrapping it up

Backed by an understanding of the data and science behind app store ranking algorithms and these top tips for App Store Optimization, you’re well on your way to a bullet-proof ASO strategy. With careful measurement and a little trial and error, you’ll soon catapult past your competitors in the app store top charts.

Of course, App Store Optimization is an ongoing process, thanks both to the continually evolving ranking algorithms and to the competitive nature of the app stores. A successful ASO strategy requires a keen eye, a penchant for analytics, and regular check-ins. Manage this, and your investment will pay off many times over.

See you on the top charts!

#App Store Optimization #ios #ASO #aso optimization ranking

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