#so we can better annotate scripts as producers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

filmsrus · 1 year ago

Text

CLASS WITH TIM COURTNEY

This week in on-set production, we had BAFTA winner Tim Courtney, a director from Inverness, come in and give us a lecture and do a blocking exercise with us.

We watched his BAFTA winning short, My Loneliness is Killing Me, which we talked about how he made. He met with the actors beforehand and got to know them on a personal level, finding things they had in common before the shoot. He spoke of the minimal soundtrack in it, that he likes to see and hear the spaces - the background noises and the breathing of the characters for example, to help the audience connect.

He annotates scripts by actioning a lot of the heavier dialogue to note dow what the character is thinking and feeling when saying the line, which I have been doing for Closing Night and it has definitely helped a lot to move things forward on set.

Scripts are constantly being amended after every HOD meeting where someone expresses a concern about the script regarding their department. Scripts should have 'Amend #' at the bottom.

HIS TIME IN TV

Courtney directed a few episodes of Hollyoaks. He said that soaps are a great training ground for directors as it forces you to think on your feet and use creative ways to solve problems efficiently, as well as teaching you to work in teams of crew and even cast who you may have never even met before.

He would first read the scripts then meet the team, ask questions and give suggestions knowing that they may not be taken as he is only jumping onto the project and does not have as much control as if it was his. It is the producers' project - not his. He has to be fully prepared to explain his plans to the DOP as only a few days later shooting begins so any special equipment has to be requested from the producers immediately. He would only get around an hour to meet only the main cast beforehand and would have only around 20 minutes to set up, block and shoot a scene. You had to get creative to have as little set ups as possible, keeping the shotlist simple. Soaps are very talkative with minimal action to churn them out as quickly as possible so getting the eyeline right is about the most important thing, rather than elaborate set ups.

He spoke of how all of this helped in his own projects as he went from shooting 30 pages in one day on Hollyoaks to around 6 a day in shorts. I definitely understand where he is coming from as during our rehearsals for Closing Night, we had only 2 hours to set up, block and shoot what we have set aside 6 hours for for the actual shoot, which makes me feel a lot more confident for our time management on set.

Andrew spoke of how in order to get onto a higher end TV production, you must have a certain number of hours of work logged in TV. I think I will definitely try to get onto Rivercity or something like that when I'm back from Germany as it sounds like great experience.

SCRIPT SUPERVISORS

Tim spoke of his newfound appreciation in script supervisors as he never had one on MLIKM, but said that on Hollyoaks his right hand was his 1AD and his second was his script supervisor. He described the role of a script supervisor really well, it made me realise that I didn't have a full understanding of it beforehand.

He recommended a book to us that expands on all of this more: Directors Tell The Story by Bethany Rooney and Mary Lou Belli.

A script supervisor is a second pair of eyes for the director - directing can be a pretty lonesome job but this is the person you can ask questions and ask for suggestions and bounce off of. They will know best if you have enough coverage, if there's a possibility for a better take. They may notice things you don't.

IN PREP:

you can ask your scripty 'how did you read that?' they will also have questions prepared and will take notes on your answers

This is especially handy on soaps when theres 15 interlinking storylines that have to be kept on top of.

ON-SET:

The scripty will annotate the script, drawing lines to represent what part of the script each slate covers, labelling that line with the slate and take number, and noting down a simple shot description such as 'wide'. They will also circle the slate/take that the director likes the most, and may also note down what one they think is best too.

They will also be taking continuity notes. For example, if a character crosses their arms in a script, they will note which arm goes above with a little doodle even and make sure that it stays consistent. This of course creates some devise between actors and the 'continuity police' as actors are told that their amazing performance is not usable because they stepped forward at the wrong beat or something. Especially when you're on a soap and don't know your actors.

IN POST:

They are the middleman between the director and editor. This is especially important in soaps where you only have 3 days for the edit, meaning the editor doesn't have time to watch all the rushes and will just go off the notes for the best takes. On soaps or reality TV shows like Love Island, the edit basically begins on-set, with precise note-taking.

Andrew said that he has had editors on set edit the footage as they film to get a rough idea of what you're missing and what is working - eliminate any surprise and ensure there is no continuity issues.

FLOORPLANS

Tim showed us one of his floorplans and talked us through the blocking stage.

He started with this position but it makes the characters quite closed in as the camera is pointing at the radiator and the desk, not the big open space.

He then condensed it to two more interesting shots and gave the D's character a more interesting movement. The DP wanted to keep the wide to capture D's face at his second point by the sofa, instead they compromised and Tim got D to turn around to the camera by the desk when delivering his lines. As D is not the main character, Tim argued that he doesn't need that close up on just him by the sofas.

Tim spoke of the difference between TV and Film DOPs. The former want to get the job done, the latter want to achieve a cinematic look. Of course this is not a rule but is the norm.

Tim told us to always have a call sheet on us as director to know everyones name. Andrew also told us to print off the actors' names and characters names, laminate them, and stick them to the camera so the DOP can refer to actors by their name when asking for things to do with blocking.

BLOCKING EXERCISE

We did a blocking exercise which I directed. It was pretty nerve wracking to do so infront of Tim as I obviously wanted to give a good impression but he revealed a lot of gaps in our learning and understanding of a film production which I had to adapt to on the spot. I'm not sure how much of the year I can speak on behalf of, but it appears as though almost all of us were under the impression that the blocking is up to the director but the shotlist is up to the DOP. This however is not true. A director should have at least a rough shotlist for the DOP for their first meeting - it is all up to the director. I'm not sure how so many of us were under this wrong impression for the last two years but I have since, as director, taken the shotlist that Ben, our DOP, for Closing Night, started to make and refined it and added to it, as before I thought that that would be me overstepping my role.

As we started running out of time, Tim swooped in and managed to condense the 3 shots I had planned into 1 through blocking. It was really impressive and interesting to see. It was a great exercise for that reason - it makes you realise how much you can capture with minimal set ups. I have already started trying to apply this where appropriate to the film I'm directing and the one i'm DOP on.

This was definitely one of the best classes we had. Big thanks to Andrew for organising that for Tim for giving us his time.

#on-set production

0 notes

fuckyeahgoodomens · 4 years ago

Text

Ineffable Con 2020 Fun Facts

Fun facts from the Ineffable Con 2 (2020) guest panels :):

Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

David G. Arnold (the music composer)

Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

1. Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

What do they have from Good Omens:

Rob has the statue from St. Beryls, all four motorbikes from the four horsemen, Crowley’s Devon watch, box signed by David Tennant with Crowley’s sunglasses and Aziraphale’s cocoa mug with Michael Sheen’s DNA :).

Douglas has the playing cards from Episode 1 and heavily annotated Good Omens book they used for filming with inscription by Neil: ‘For Douglas, make us love, make us cry, 3rd August 2017’.

Neil has Aziraphale’s chair from the bookshop that he bought from the BBC and he uses it for Zoom meetings.

What is their favourite thing that was not in the book and was added to the TV show:

Neil: all of the first half of Episode 3 - an absolute joy.

Rob: also the beginning of Episode 3.

Douglas: David Arnold’s music and Peter Anderson’s front titles.

Could Aziraphale get out of the Bastille easily if he wanted to?

Neil: if he could: absolutely. Did he have any conception of the mess he was in: probably not. It’s one of Neil’s favourite pieces of acting - the absolute delight on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that Crowley’s there and then he turns around and rather petulantly, grumpily goes oh it’s you - that moment of joy on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that he’s been rescued is one of Neil’s favourite things.

Neil and yoghurt starter: I had this slightly mad thing where I would explain to everybody that fans were yoghurt starter. And I said, ‘Basically you start out with yoghurt starter and you put it into your warm milk and you leave it, and the yoghurt starter goes off and turns the entire thing into yoghurt.

Neil realized that there was a cat in his house (Neil doesn’t have a cat :)). After the panel Neil said that he was going to look for the cat with a can of sardines and Douglas joked that he would find Michael Sheen in a cat costume.

What was the best and worst about making the series:

Douglas: the best - the camaraderie, getting to know the people, the cast and crew.

Rob: the best - realizing that the book could be translated to the screen and watching it happen. The worst - coming to the end of the shoot and saying goodbye to everybody.

Neil: the best - the amount of love from everybody, the worst - fighting budget battles (producers wanted gone all of the cold opening and the death of Agnes Nutter).

Did they expect that Good Omens would attract so many LBGTQ+ people and how they feel about that:

Neil: Yes, absolutely. There are definitely people out there who seem to think that I accidentally wrote a love story with all of the beats of a love story including a break-up halfway through, without somehow noticing that I’d written a love story. And I may not be the brightest candle on the candelabra, but as an author who’s been doing it for a long time, I’m very well aware of when I’m writing a love story, thank you very much. And so from my perspective I knew that the love story would be one of the driving things that would get us from the beginning to the end. And I also made a bunch of decisions about our angels and our demons in terms of casting, in terms of gender that everybody backed me up on, which I loved. You know, the idea that the archangel Michael is played by Doon [Mackichan] is something that is... or Beelzebub is Anna Maxwell Martin, whatever, there’s... it’s not like we are going: these are women, there are men, we are going: these are demons, these are angels. They... this is not a thing. And also doing something like Pollution, where you go in and go: okay well if we were doing this in... if 1989 was now, if there were they pronouns, we probably would have done that. We didn’t think of it at the time but that’s no reason why we can’t do it now. And we did and I remember having a... not exactly a battle, but a... my very tiny skirmish with one of our execs who was very nice and very bright and was like: ‘Why are you saying they?’, and I’m like... and I... explaining, and he’s like: ‘Well I’ve never heard of that before.’, and I’m like: ‘Oh, okay, but trust me, just trust me, it’s all fine, just trust me.’

Douglas: And you know I have to say, just following on what Neil’s saying, I’ve been directing for quite a while, and I tend to notice if characters are falling in love, I tend to notice a love story happening in front of me, and I think it’s there, and everything is meant, guys, everything is meant.

Neil added: I would just say, there are some things that you do while you’re writing a script intentionally. The fact that... I wanted to do this, well, it was a thing I did that I really enjoyed doing... where whenever people accuse them of being a couple: they don’t deny it, they don’t argue, there’s no flustering on their part. They absolutely… you know, everybody… what I’m trying to say is: yes, other people in the story are perceiving them as a couple too. And here is Uriel perceiving them as a couple, here is wonderful Dan [Starkey, playing the passerby] …and you know, you do scenes like that because that’s... you are trying to make a point here and you’re trying to make a point on how people are perceived.

Season 2, yes or no [fiends, all three of them!]:

Douglas: What’s that?

Neil: Of what?

Rob: Is it muted for me as is for everyone else?

Neil confirmed that they are going to be Funko Pops. [yay!]

2. David G. Arnold (the music composer)

He didn’t read the book before he was approached to do the music. He was asked to do it by Douglas Mackinnon he knew from the Victorian episode of Sherlock and he said yes before even knowing what it was about because he wanted to work with Douglas again.

The first piece of music he wrote for the show was the brass band doing the Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon [Episode 6, in the park before the kidnapping].

The second piece of music he wrote was the lullaby that Crowley sings to Warlock. He always liked the lullabies like in Mary Poppins so he said to Neil: Why don’t we do it like Walt Disney, but if Walt Disney was possessed by Satan? That was about 7 months before he needed to write anything again while they were shooting and it kept going round his head the whole time - the melody stuck with him and when it came to the Opening Title of the show, this became the middle bit.

The original opening title was Everyday by Buddy Holly and each episode was supposed to be closed with a different version of it: a death metal version, an angelic choir version, a carmina burana version... and he actually made all those. But he likes to find the musical identity of the show and put it in the opening titles because it’s important and it tells you: ‘This is the word you’re going to experience’, so he wrote his own opening title with the lullaby in the middle and played it to them [probably Neil and Douglas] with Buddy Holly as the backup and: Neil just turned around in his chair and said, ‘That’s Good Omens.’. From that point the instructions were with no rules, just to create whatever he wanted: the further you can go the better, the weirder and the stranger you can think the better. It’s a rare thing to be shown a world like Good Omens and be let free to run around in it.

His favourite ending title is the Queen one in Episode 1.

One of the reasons he didn’t do a theme for Crowley and a theme for Aziraphale is that the theme of the show is theirs - it’s theirs and they share it and it’s both of theirs and there is no separating in that regard.

About Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship reflected in the music score: It’s interesting isn’t it, because the relationship changed in a way slightly frequently and majorly infrequently. It seemed right from the start that their relationship was somehow seeded and planted and had begun by the time we saw them even though they may not have realised it themselves, you know, with the pair of them on the wall, considering one is a demon in the Garden of Eden and one is an angel. They act very charitably towards each other and they act with a lot of things you might not expect. And underneath that there is a sort of sense of togetherness and support even though they both know that their paths are going to diverge and they have different responsibilities. So I always felt like, right from that moment, when the wing came up on the wall, that there was something special about their relationship. Three moments that stuck with him: in Episode 3 saving the books in the church when they completely rely on the other for survival in the way that they were very open about, one in the car outside the nightclub in 60s Soho - the Holy Water, you go too fast for me, that genuinely tearing, that there was reluctance in those words that he spoke and that sort of things as a composer is gold, it’s about making those moments more, and in the last episode in a scene they’re not event in when we see Adam and Dog in the fields and Anathema that music there which celebrates Crowley and Aziraphale’s music which is the theme of the show - their shadow has passed over everyone’s emotional journey, and everyone’s emotional journey is theirs as well. The argument in the bandstand was important as well.

His favourite leitmotif from the series is the lullaby.

About the scene in the car in episode 2 when Thomas Tallis changes into Queen: Terry’s favourite piece of classical music was the Thomas Tallis piece [Spem in Alium] so Neil asked if they can go from Thomas Tallis - a choral piece from 16th century - to We Will Rock You, and: ‘You never say no. You don’t say that you can’t do it. What you have to do is to be the first person who solves the problem.’ In the end it was a two-days work just for this little bit and he mentioned that he never had these sorts of challenges anywhere else before.

His favourite non-musical detail in the show - the crucifixion, how the scene was shot, how it was upsetting, and how it was made more effective by Aziraphale and Crowley’s inability to stop it, that they had to observe and watch it, that it had to happen. I remember seeing that at the time and thinking, I wasn’t expecting that level of brutal honesty, in terms of the pictures that I was looking at and what they chose to show. And I think all the more effective for it.

3. Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

When creating the costumes for the characters she started with mood boards.

Aziraphale - she knew that he needed to have something winglike in his collar so that’s why there are sweeping lapels very often. Using velvet [for the waistcoat] because that was nice and soft and had all the appropriate qualities. His watch and fob that has little gold wings hanging from it and other tiny bits of symbolism. Tartan bow tie. Beautiful cashmere checkered trousers - not quite tartan but a nod to it. A mid to late Victorian coat, Michael only made his decision on the coat a couple of days before the filming. Aziraphale in the present settled on a ring with angelic symbol and harp cufflinks, earlier his ring in ancient times has got a much more roughly hewn set of wings on it, so before jewellery making became sophisticated he modernised slightly - he magicked it up to be a bit more modern, more gentleman signet type of ring, but he never modernises entirely. His heart is much more in the past.

After they began to define Aziraphale they started to look at how the Heaven army of angels might look - the element of tartan came sort of from Aziraphale and the angels have a not-tartan kilt with a semi military type jacket and a military band across that might hold arms or not, because they are not really violent. She used spats to make them look quite neutral and genderless so hiding fastenings and concealing little details like that seemed a way to do that.

Gabriel doesn’t wear spats because he’s on Earth such a lot. His shoe has a cover with two buckles on the side giving the same neutral element. He wears a cashmere light-as-air suit.

The other angels are all in bastardized versions of what era they may have died in, so they could have died in the 1930s or the 1800s and the costume would have an element of that era about it - though of course as an angel you can change things.

The Quartermaster Angel - the costume is a combination of slightly Indian type military, maharaja pants, longer spats from another era, all combined pieces of military tailored to be magical and slightly nonsensical, as Heaven might be.

Crowley - she felt that he wrapped around like a snake sheds its skin so she wanted something double breasted because that seemed to envelope his snakey charm. David wanted to be more casual than wearing a suit. Under his collar he always has a flash of red like the snake that he comes from - the red belly. They put a red seam into the sole of his boots so always there is a hint of where he came from. The red tie in the blitz. He was more rock and roll than Aziraphale and modernised more to a snakehipped rock and roll star really. His present jacket - the fabric there is quilted, they found an 80s jacket that had elements of things they enjoyed - part of that was that it had a slightly quilted quality to the fabric which was like a textured snakeskin. It took quite a long time to create the fabric and then to make the jacket from that - they quilted some fabric and washed and whooshed it repeatedly to create a bit of puckering in it. He has a snakey scarf around his neck like a chain mail linked scales of skin scarf that he wore that complemented his neck chain. The trousers he wore in Victorian times are the same he wore in the 60s when he meets young Shadwell. His present trousers - slightly waxy denim - we just were looking for a slithery finish. Crowley’s neck chain - there is only one in the world - her tailor has a Gothic church full of interesting stuff like busts and drapes with old things, this chain mail scarf was there and David was looking for something to complete his costume and liked it.

Hastur and Ligur are her favourite characters - they were so enjoyable to create. She had an amazing book of 1920s and 30s criminals and they used that as a starting point, because they were all quite worn out and bedraggled and poverty stricken and like hell might be ideally. They burnt and decayed the bottom of them as if they were rotting from the Earth and rotting back into the ground - all demons have sort of gators as if they were rotting from the ground up.

One of the most difficult things was the demons - when they realized they had a few days to create hundreds of demons in South Africa (4-5 days for almost 200 demons). It was as if I had been dissolved in holy water when they asked me for another 150 costumes.

The sleeves of Anathema’s coat have been inspired by a Victorian cycling coat.

The historical costume that Newt’s ancestor wore influenced his and Shadwell’s costumes - they used elements of the historical costume to put a little cape on Newt and Shadwell and their wax coats to give them the quality of that look. Newt's costume has a lot of mustard to make him feel a bit awkward and uncomfortable - it's not the most flattering colour on a northern European complexion.

The nuns’ headdress needed to look a little bit demonic - she bought a whole book on nuns’ headdresses for research. They also used the V in the nurse's apron because that was nicely demonic. The nurses' watch has got this Satanic symbol at the top - a little take on the medical since old nurses’ uniforms used to have watches.

For Madame Tracy she went back into the 70s, slightly Biba-esque makeup and a cape. They had only one pair of her goggles so it was always a nightmare to find them.

Which part of the cold opening is her favourite: I love ancient Rome because there is at least 6 to 12 metre of fabric in a toga and that was quite fun wrapping that around the boys and creating those., and her favourite was the Globe.

The lapels represent wings in every way and every shape and every form. Wings are very important.

4. Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

The first thing that the director Douglas Mackinnon (with whom he worked on Doctor Who and Sherlock) said to him was: for all the graphics, for all the title sequence, for everything, I want you to promise me one thing, and that is very, very simple, promise that you send me emails that say: ‘this might be absolutely nuts, but my idea is...’.

The opening title it’s full of easter eggs - it’s a type of sequence that’s been designed to watch a thousand times, for example: on the escalator down to Hell there is one character running up deciding that he doesn’t want to go to Hell or the sea is full of plastic bags because we don’t look after the planet.

Every single face in the title sequence is either Crowley’s or Azriphale’s, they are repeated all the way through - inspired by Neil saying that there’s good and evil in all of us, so there is a grand procession of people of all the characters from the story - marching towards Armageddon - but all the characters have been taken over by good or evil. And along the way our two heroes are kind of playing tricks on each other, doing good, doing evil

The opening title combines multiple elements - two dimensional animation elements, three dimensional animation elements, CGI and live action (the people in the procession were created by live action on a travelator). So the result is a kind of strangeness - such as 3D figures with 2D animated tracked heads - which makes it unique.

Their first idea and version of the opening title was based on tapestries of old, subverting them, but then they wanted something more new and fresh.

Both Douglas and Neil were an important part of the opening title creation process.

The opening title sequence took about a year to make from the creative start with four intensive months towards the end.

One of things that inspired him was a Bauhaus theatre image from 1930s.

Question if the hand-drawn font for the graphics will be a purchasable font: no, because it was original and it’s unique and it was created just for this - it was for the love of the show and the story and it will be kept there.

In the scene where there are three photos of witchfinders - Neil and Douglas revealed in the DVD commentaries that two of them are their grandfathers - the third one is Peter’s great uncle.

Originally the signs telling us things like ‘Thursday’ or ‘Mesopotamia’ - were done as if somebody (who was living inside the television screen) ran up close to the screen and showed us the sign. In the end they simplified it, only showing the signs. The one time that it was sort of left in the show was when in Episode 5 a little demon in the video game shows a sign ‘GAME OVER’.

Outside of his work on it, what was his favourite thing on Good Omens: spending time with Douglas and Neil, and also working with Milk VFX - I think I can honestly say it's the best job I've ever worked on with the nicest people.

5. Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

He first read the book when preparing for the audition - the character wasn’t in the book but he got into it, loved it and couldn’t put it down.

He didn’t know about the name Eric until the script was published and people started calling the demon that, he really likes the name and thinks it fits.

There was a version of the script where the demon was going to be dressed in different costumes each time he was discorporated (for example one in long hair wearing a dress) - they would be all the same but different incarnations, in one version they had different accents.

The first scene he shot was the one where the demon goes to Heaven to deliver the Hellfire (and also wants to hit ‘Aziraphale’ which was cut). That first day was also his favourite moment of shooting because there was an immediate welcoming atmosphere and everyone was lovely and in love with the production.

Disposable Demon is like a permanent intern, running errands for the higher ups in Hell.

His favourite part of the costume were the eyelashes (though he loved the whole costume).

If he could change anything about the costume he would also want cool contact lenses - some brightly coloured ones.

Question what animal (like other demons have on their heads) comes to mind when we see the Disposable Demon: he didn’t think about it at the time, but later he saw people talking about his horns as bunny ears and found it interesting, and also the facts that there are so many of him and that he is quite happy and friendly for a demon so the bunny makes sense, so he might be a sort of a rabbit. Or perhaps something goat type because of the horns.

Question if there is another role in Good Omens he would have liked to have played: he always thought that the four horsemen were very cool and Pollution was his favourite so probably Pollution (also was the most jealous of Pollution’s contact lenses).

If there were a season 2, he would be there in a heartbeat.

Question about Eric’s feelings on Crowley, if he’s a bit of a Crowley fan: I think he might be. There is something about Crowley and how he is somehow a little bit different from the rest of the demons. - and the Disposable Demon has, much like Crowley, interest in the human world. He could well be 6,000 how many years old, the same as everyone else, but he seems to have this younger vibe and I think he thinks that Crowley is quite cool.

Good Omens fandom is his first experience with a fandom of this scale. It speaks a lot, the fact that this kind of very, this minor character, a character who is only on screen for a very short amount of time gets any kind of attention at all, it's quite amazing really, it goes to show how big and enthusiastic the fans are. I never experienced anything like that.

6. Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

When Crowley used a miracle to switch off the Bentley lights in Episode 1 at nuns manor it was done by: there was actually a very small guy called Louis turning on and off the switches quickly.

David Tennant was allowed to wear the snake eye contacts for only 3 hours a day otherwise they could damage his eyesight.

For Mary, the Bentley, it was the second time she was ‘blown up’ on film - first being in the Endeavour with Inspector Morse about three years earlier.

He was a bit nervous during filming the bookshop fire scene because the Bentley was so close to a real fire - not wanting the paint to blister. The car was moved off after a few minutes of filming but still.

About the damage to Mary: Unfortunately, we overran, and Rob my stunt driver had already booked a holiday and off he went and so when he returned in January, on the 10th of January, I had this new driver who really had no clue how to drive old cars, so I showed him around, I showed him to go around corners. He came around the corner, the door was not closed properly for some reason and the door flew open as he went around. And instead of slamming on the brakes which is extremely efficient and would stop him straight away he kept on going, hit another car and really smashed the door quite badly. It did take the car off the roads for 10 months. The door was completely remade because of this accident and it cost the total of £24 000 to rebuild the car to get it back to running as it is today.

The Bentley’s part most difficult to maintain and service is the engine.

Would Mary be available for a potential season 2: definitely!

2K notes · View notes

hangingslothcentral · 3 years ago

Text

Spirit Box Radio is Crowdfunding for Season Two!!

Atmospheric and engaging, Spirit Box Radio is an audio drama which will lull you into a false sense of security before pulling the rug from under your feet. If you loved the creeping sense of unease of The Magnus Archives, the weird whimsy of Welcome to Night Vale and the LGBTQ+ representation of Hello from the Hallowoods, you'll love Spirit Box Radio.

Now launching it's second season, Spirit Box Radio has been shortlisted for a People's Choice Podcast award for Season One. The full cast and original creator are back, and determined to make Season Two even better.

Donate £20 (or equivalent in your currency)

Check out the crowdfunder page

More info under the cut, plus at the bottom a more detailed Image ID than the ALT description has space for!!

Spirit Box Radio is an indie horror audio drama which follows Sam Enfield, the unlikely host of Spirit Box Radio, a show for witches, arcanists, and the magically-inclined. Sam took over the show after the mysterious disappearance of his mother, the Illustrious Madame Marie, a renowned psychic. With no penchant for the Arcane Arts, Sam struggles to find his feet, and as he does, he discovers that Spirit Box Radio may be haunted by something much worse than ghosts: secrets.

Season One followed the mystery of Madame Marie's disappearance and uncovered Sam Enfield's true place in the conspiracy surrounding it. In Season Two, Sam, his sisters - sardonic Kitty and cynical Anna - and his snarky immortal boyfriend will try to unearth the mystery of the Man Who Walks Here and There (AKA The Man in the Flat Cap and Shell Suit, or The King of the Blood Rose Crown) whose many titles are found under almost every stone they turn. It's a story steeped in mystery, horror, trauma and grief, with plenty of softness on the side.

The show is made primarily by its creator, Pippin Eira Major, who wrote, directed and edited every episode in Season One.

Spirit Box Radio wouldn't be possible without the incredible cast of the show. Now 15 Voice Actors strong, the cast of Spirit Box Radio brings to life an array of characters, including; a shady but eloquent florist who cant be trusted; an Ominous Phone Guy; a trio of Inconvenient and malevolent entities; and numerous others.

Just like the characters in the show, our cast is mostly LGBTQ+ and many of us are young and trying to break into the industry. Here's who we are:

Pippin Eira Major (he/they) as Samael Apollo ‘Sam’ Enfield

Jessie Jeffrey (she/her) as Ekaterina Erzabet ‘Kitty the Investigator’ Enfield

Alex Peilober-Richardson (she/her) as Anastasia Morgana ‘Anna’ Enfield

Will Cummings (he/him) as Oliver ‘the Florist’ Boleyn

Billy Bray (he/they) as Scourge

Beca Barton (she/they) as Indi

Tais Grimberg (she/her) as Bliss

Kay Watson (he/she/they) as Ingra

Ellie Ripley (she/they) as ‘the Bog Witch’ Rhytidia Delphus and Stykler Snr.

Daisy Major (she/they) as Regular Caller Beth

Elinor Wood (they/them) as Additional Voice

Gary Major (he/him) as Additional Voice

Mars J Brown (she/them) as Stykler Jnr.

Rose Eke (she/her) as the Mystery Caller

Freya Meldrum (she/her) as Show-Caller Emily

If this crowdfunder is successful, we're also hoping to add five more fantastic VAs to our cast!

Being such a tiny studio, Hanging Sloths can't afford to compensate our cast for their amazing work and provided the amazing performaces you hear in Season One on a voluntary basis. They've all agreed to come back for Season Two on a Profit Share model, where they'll all get a percentage of the money made on this crowdfunder. Here's a handy graphic breaking that down:

Our main priority is to make sure the cast are making something for their hard work on the show. Up to our main goal amount, we'll be splitting the money like this:

- 50% towards the actors' profit share (which exludes me, Pippin)

- 25% towards guest writers and directors

- 25% towards other essential costs including hosting the show on Acast.

Our initial goal amount (£2500) has been worked out to make sure everyone (besides Pippin) who is providing acting, directing or writing for the show can be paid an industry standard amount.

If we don't make our full goal, whatever we DO make will be divided up according to the percentages you see above!

Anything made above that will go towards compensating Pippin for his work on the show, too.

A brief personal statement from Pippin on why the payment is being structured this way:

'As creator of the show, it's my main concern that everyone else who provides Voice Acting talent, writing, and directing is priotised for the amazing work they do. If we're able to raise enough that I can start to compensate myself, too, that would be amazing, but the main focus is on raising enough funds for everyone else.'

Please ensure you add your email to your pledge so we can contact you about your rewards!

Any amount - a huge thank you from the entire cast and crew of Spirit Box Radio Season Two! You're helping make indie audio drama happen.

£5.00 - your name in the credits of one of the first episodes of Spirit Box Radio Season Two

£10.00 - Name a Faithful Listener! Choose your name or any you can think of to be a writer or forum user in the show.

£20.00 - Advanced Edition of the Spirit Box Radio Season Two Official Soundtrack!

£40.00 - All the rewards above, PLUS a copy of the Spirit Box Season One Soundtrack

£50.00 - All the rewards above, PLUS annotated scripts for episode one (on day of episode release)

£100.00 - All the rewards, PLUS a personalised letter from Pippin, creator of the show.

£200.00 - All of the rewards, PLUS a private chat with Pippin (limited to 3) (no you don't have to chat with me directly if you don't wanna!)

£500.00 - All of the rewards, PLUS a producer credit on the show

£3000 - 'HOW NOT TO HOLD A SEANCE' BONUS MINI-SODE

This short, extra episode will be fully sound-scaped and completely finished, and will be set in the gap between Season One and Season Two.

£3500 - 'THE LIFE AND DEATHS OF OLIVER BOLEYN': A DIGITAL COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES

A digital collection of short stories penned by show creator Pippin Eira Major, telling tales from the as-yet mysterious past of the immortal florist, Oliver Boleyn. Amongst these tales will be stories from his time at the palace of Versailles, a chance meeting with a renowned poet which may or may not have led to the creation of a certain book about a particular cursed painting, and a perilous voyage at sea.

£4000 - 'RHYTIDIA HOSTS THE SHOW' BONUS MINI-SODE NO.2.

In this bonus Mini-Sode where Rhytidia Delphus (voiced by the spectacular Ripley) will host an episode of the Enlightenment Segment (or so she thinks).

£4500 - MUSICAL MINI-SODE

A short, bonus musical episode of Spirit Box Radio, with original songs written by Maybe Wednesday and performed by members of the cast of the show.

Donate £20 (or equivalent in your currency)

Check out the crowdfunder page

[IMAGE ID: a square image of the words 'Spirit box radio' glowing in blue, like a neon sign. it's on top of a glowing yellow pentagram, trapped inside a more brightly glowing yelllow circle. behind these, a red splatter of blood. Around the circle, glowing in pale purple, a variety of stars and sparkles around 'Season Two'. Under this image, glowing yellow, it reads 'Crowdfunding now'. The background is deep purple, broken by teal grey constellations and a pair of hands, cradling the neon words from behind. END IMAGE ID] [BANNER IMAGES: Puple backgrounds with pale consetellations and yellow neon caps-locked words as described in the Alt Text]

#spirit box radio #spirit box radio podcast #audio drama #crowdfunding #sbr #sbrp #lgbtqiia+#lgbtq creator #trans creator #nonbinary creator

35 notes · View notes

bopinion · 4 years ago

Text

Book of the month / 2020 / 11 November / Movie Edition

I love books. Even though I hardly read any. Because my library is more like a collection of tomes, coffee-table books, limited editions... in short: books in which not "only" the content counts, but also the editorial performance, the presentation, the curating of the topic - the book as a total work of art itself.

Billy Wilder's "Some like it hot"

Alison Castle, Dan Auiler

Movie documentary / 2001 / Taschen publishing house

Samuel Wilder was born in Austria-Hungary in 1906. Via Krakow, Vienna, Berlin and Paris, he finally emigrated to the USA in 1934, where he became immortal as Billy Wilder. The director, screenwriter and producer succeeded in writing film history in both drama and comedy. His work includes films such as "Woman without Conscience", "Twilight Boulevard" and "Witness for the Prosecution", but also "The Apartment", "One, Two, Three" and "The Girl Irma la Douce". Wilder's movies were style-forming work, his oeuvre of timeless relevance. He was nominated for an Academy Award 21 times, 6 times he took the Oscar home with him.

In 1959 a sensation came into the cinemas. Marilyn Monroe proved that she really can act - and sing. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon skillfully took the mickey out of themselves - and set the travesty standard for eternity. And Wilder didn't need color to create dazzling colorfulness - and created the funniest movie ever (according to the American Film Institute). "Some like it hot" was a pop cultural phenomenon. And his favorite movie because "it contains the fewest mistakes".

One could almost call Wilder the expert for the iconic in film. Marylin Monroe, for example, would certainly not be considered the sex symbol of the 20th century without the scene from "The seven Year Itch" in which a subway shaft blows up her white dress. "Some like it hot" also boasts numerous cinematographic references: "Friends of the Italian Opera" became a winking synonym for the Italian-American mafia, the surreptitious advertising for Shell with the iconic shell was not yet subject to commercial declaration, the puns with the film title are countless, and Monroe's song "I wanna be loved by you" became an evergreen. And only the abundance of quotations from this film: "Water polo? Isn't that terribly dangerous?", "Don't fight it!", "I used to sell kisses for the milk fund", "Mice?!", "If my mother could only see me now.", "It's not how long you wait, it's who you're waiting for!" and of course the unforgettable final phrase "Nobody's perfect!".

Mainly "Some like it hot" is a wonderfully amusing film. During the Prohibition and Roaring Twenties, two musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) from Chicago escaped from the Mafia by dressing up as women and travelling to Florida with a ladies orchestra (with Marylin Monroe). There, between the different roles, various misunderstandable love affairs occur. But the film is ingenious above all because of the comedy of the acting. Thus Jack Lemmon celebrated his final breakthrough as a comedic actor with depth with his roles of Jerry and Daphne. And also the supporting roles are brilliantly cast, especially Joe E. Brown as Osgood Fielding III is great. As I write this, I can't stop grinning. It's about time I show this masterpiece to the kids. I'm sure the Digital Natives will enjoy this humor too :-)

Of course there must be book material for such an epochal film. Without doubt, the standard work on "Some like it hot" comes, as so often, from Taschen. And it was a premiere for the publisher and me: Taschen's first film monograph. My first book from Taschen. My first book that didn't fit into a plastic bag (yes, back then there were still plastic bags - we didn't know any better). And this book literally has it all.

In collaboration with Wilder himself (at the last minute, so to speak, he died shortly afterwards), a scientific catalog raisonné was created: Interviews with Billy Wilder, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, among others. Excerpts from the first draft of the screenplay. Photo documentation of the shooting (in color!). Original advertising material and countless accompanying objects. Annotated and illustrated Billy Wilder filmography. Above all, of course, the complete screenplay with stills of every scene. Reading is incredibly fun, head cinema at its best. My (even bigger) original edition in yellow velour still contains - the current one unfortunately no longer, but therefore with a DVD - a facsimile of the script by Marylin Monroe including her handwritten notes as well as a bookmark with "Portrait" by Billy Wilder.

"Bibliophilic eight-pounder" (Der Spiegel), "A Book as Declaration of Love" (Film Dienst), "A Wilder gift you couldn't find for film fans" (USA Today) etc. My summary is simply "A feast of humor for the eyes and the mind". So: first watch the movie and in the days after with a good cup of tea browse through this beautiful book and never stop smiling. Enjoy!

P.S.: The inscription on Billy Wilder's gravestone in Los Angeles reads "I'm a writer. But then nobody's perfect."

And here the trailer for "Some like it hot":

https://youtu.be/rI_lUHOCcbc

youtube

#book #book review #taschen #billy wilder #some like it hot #tony curtis #jack lemmon #marilyn monroe #comedy #movie #funny #shell #nobody’s perfect #Youtube

3 notes · View notes

kaibutsushidousha · 5 years ago

Text

Artbook Data - Development Team Interview

For context, here’s the tutorial for Salmon Fishing.

Interviewees:

Shun Sasaki: V3′s director. His main roles included mediating all the development teams and managing the schedules. Additionally, he will also talk in this interview about his own personal project: the bonus modes.

Taichi Kouno: One of the developers. A DanganRonpa fan who joined the team for Ultra Despair Girls. In V3, he was in charge of the Class Trial scenes and its minigames.

Takahiro Suzuki: Joined the V3 production as a developer and handled the non-Trial parts and the e-Handbook. Like Kouno, he was a DanganRonpa fan who joined the team for Ultra Despair Girls.

Fans become members: the style of the DanganRonpa team

Interviewer: Please tell us what parts you did as a developer.

Taichi Kouno: I built the entire game system for the Class Trial and also did the minigames for the daily life part. Other than that, I got to do some work on the Academy map, blueprinted the base and produced the data the graphics guys need to draw.

I: I see how about Suzuki?

Takahiro Suzuki: I was almost completely focused on setting up the dialy life/investigation parts. And the system for the e-Handbook.

Shun Sasaki: I supervised Kouno and Suzuki’s work (although the final decisions were by Kodaka) and managed the schedules. Then I focused myself on the bonus modes. Thanks to Kouno and Suzuki’s good work, I was able to make the bonus modes as I wanted.

I: You couldn’t have implemented the bonus modes without their support, all right. You said that one handled the Trial parts and the other handled the non-Trial parts, but can you be more specific about what you did?

TK: The Class Trial has not only the usual dialogue, but also various minigames, like the Nonstop Debate, the Panic Debate, etc. My job was to think how would this be presented on the screen, where it would be implemented and how the player would interact with it. To actually make the interfaces I had to go over with the designer team, but I can draw, so it was easier because I could send a drawing of the screenshot I wanted. It’s much easier to explain myself when I can just go there, show a drawing and say “This interface represents this, it’s going to move like this and I want it to have this functionality”. I even started making extra drawings for whenever I wasn’t being illustrative enough.

I: Oh wow, I didn’t think you would also give ideas for the visuals, not just the system. And how about the non-Trial parts?

TS: The basics are the same. I look at the general conversation and the ideas Kodaka sent me and build the visuals from it. In most cases, I received the bases necessary from the programmer and designers. Since DanganRonpa is a series, I try not to wreck these bases, so the fans of the previous games won’t get confused. That said, keeping everything exactly the same is boring, so I’m very conscious about what I have to emphasize or improve. Being more specific, “Keep this set identical to the previous game but improve this aspect here” or “Change this interface to this”.

I: I see. So you’re the one who made multiple characters appear on the screen at the same time.

TK: That was decided from the start, but it was hard to leave it the way it is now.

TS: VERY hard (pained laughter). We used to display the character as 2D sprites, artificially placed in a 3D map. This time we placed 3D character on the 3D map but displayed in 2D.

TK: We started displaying multiple characters in dialogue scenes because we made this system of using multiple cameras to show many characters at the same time for the Panic Debate. If we could do it for the Panic Debate, we could do it for normal dialogue.

I: So basically, there are all the character in a 3D map and each of them has a personal camera to display them?

TS: Yes. Each character is their own camera in pre-established positions and we keep switching cameras to match the flow of the conversation.

I: This sounds like a lot to adjust.

TS: It was difficult to choose where to place each character in the 3D map, since we were giving each of them pre-established positions. Depending on where they were, the could be covered by the scenery or cause a slow loading.

SS: We switched hardwares, so it feel like we gained as many new hardships as we gained new possibilities. Increasing the number of characters on the screen was hard, but this time we could place characters side by side or in front or behind each other, making the group shots look a lot better than before.

TS: That said, we almost couldn’t make it for the Vita...

I: Yeah, that’s a lot less potent than the PS4.

SS: Yes, but we want to perfect V3 as a game that could be enjoyed equally in both the PS4 and the Vita with dropping any functionality idea, since the DanganRonpa series started as portable series, on the PSP.

TK: We could stop hearing that “It’s not impossible, you can find a way” (pained laughter)

I: Like a sports coach (laughs). When did you start working as developers?

SS: As I answered in the Direction Team interview, we started working on V3 while we were making DanganRonpa: Another Episode. Kouno and Suzuki started working in a different project immediately after they finished their roles in DRAE. I added the two to the V3 team as soon as Kodaka finished structuring the plot for V3 and we started making the game’s system and other elements.

I: Is this the first time you two work on a DanganRonpa numbered title?

TS: Yes. I was just a player before.

TK: I was just a fan too. My first time on a numbered title.

I: Which means you already thought about what you want to change or fix from a fan perspective, right?

TK: Of course I did. The one thing I really wanted to implement for this one was the Voting Time. I never got over the fact that it ended without me voting when I played 1 and 2... In V3 the story’s ending was about synchronizing the player with the character’s feelings, so I thought could make this happen by finally implementing the voting system.

I: I agree, by participating in the voting yourself and sending a student to die, V3 made me feel more responsible for it than the previous games.

TK: That’s exactly what I aimed for. I want the players to feel responsible for what was happening. I thought making the Voting Time playable was necessary to make reinforce the experience of “This character died because you chose it”.

I: I see. And how about you, Suzuki?

TS: Since our specs were increasing, I took care of ironing out the visual style as far as I could. Also, those are just minor QoL updates, but I added more shortcuts to the maps and adjusted the icons to be more easy to identify. That said, I didn’t go too far to maintain the game’s DanganRonpa identity.

I: And you had Sasaki making these decisions?

SS: No, Kodaka was making all the final decisions. If we made things too functional, Kodaka would come over and say “no”. Not because it would be too convenient, but cause it would generate too much loading and the menus would look weird. Many people in our team don’t like this. I personally the loading screens and like the menus, so in many occasions I thoughts “Are we really not having a function this convenient?”

TK: Some took issue with it being too convenient too. For example, if the map has too many shortcuts taking you absolutely anywhere, what would be the point of walking?

TS: That’s why I instead increase the movement speed to make it more comfortable to go around in that huge school.

I: That’s something you wouldn’t consider back when you were just a player. How did you decide who would handle each part when the development started?

SS: Oh, this? The role where just split with nothing special to say about it. As I said in the beginning, I just asked Kouno to do the Trial parts and Suzuki to do the non-Trial. And that I would do the bonus modes, counting on their help later (laughs).

I: What’s the first thing to do after deciding the roles?

TS: Pitching ideas for the game, of course.

TK: We get a lot of time to pitch ideas. We all read Kodaka’s entire script before discussing anything, and it has some vague annotations, like “I want this game to have more minigames than before” or “it would be nice to have a minigame where you can answer with images”. First we have to do what Kodaka is asking there before we can start thinking about what we want. Then in the business meeting, we polish and adjust our ideas.

SS: And then discuss it with Kodaka and Sugawara, and they tell if we can or can’t insert each of our ideas.

I: And what is more important for their decision? If it’s fun or it fits the lore/worldbuilding?

SS: Good question. There are sometimes when ideas are fun but we don’t find any good place to fit them in the story, so we have to cut them, with tears in our faces...

I: Did you have to give more ideas for this game, since it’s much larger than the previous ones?

SS: Until now, Sugawara and I were the only developers, but this time this became too much work for just the two of us, meaning we had to hire Kouno and Suzuki to help.

TS: I was so happy when I got called. I was goint to be on a numbered title.

TK: So was I. Unbelievably happy. Another Episode was also an amazing experience, but I only joined the production halfway through. This time I was there right from the start and most of my ideas where implemented. Being a developer is no fun if I’m not getting things my way.

I: The DanganRonpa team all looks very motivated, from the sounds of this interviews I’m making.

SS: Making a game is still hard, though (pained laughter). But when we were implementing any component, I don’t remember anyone saying it would be impossible. Every member did what they could to include everything they wanted.

TK: Saying it’s impossible is easy, but then what next? Saying it’s impossible makes me feel defeated, so this get more motivated to find a way.

TS: The programmers all feel the same way when working, so it’s very easy to be a developer like this. Thanks, guys. Every time I say the idea I gave them is too difficult, they mock me and show me that they can do it (laughs).

The secret origins of the Death Road of Despair, the minigame that brought many players to despair

I: Kouno, did get involved in the Death Road of Despair? It’s not in the Class Trial part, but you said you were in charge of the minigames.

TK: I did. It was my part.

I: I heard from Kodaka he asked you to “make a crappy game”.

TK: Kodaka told me to make a game like Dragon’s Lair. When he actually played it, he couldn’t make any progress. “What the heck is this game!?” (laughs)

Everyone: (laughs)

TK: So, I tried to analyse Dragon’s Lair and come up with my own game where you die in places it doesn’t look like you’re supposed to die. And the Death Road of Despair what the result of me throwing in every idea and trick I could, as far as the time and budget allowed.

I: The characters are all slippery and hard to control. And the students behind you just keep dying.

TK: Yeah, in the request they told me to think about how Luigi slips more than Mario. I absolutely loved that unrealistic inertia. (laughs)

I: You probably have a lot of experience in being told to make things easier, but not as many opportunities to make a game utterly unplayable.

TK: That’s Kodaka’s style for you. I was really motivated to reach his style when I was building this, so I want to see the platformer experts out there doing their best to reach the goal. It is possible.

I: Did you beat it, Kouno?

TK: I can’t. I just used the debug mode to assure all obstacles are clearable. One guy on the debug did manage, though. He said took him 1 or 2 days and he only beat it by a miracle.

I: I saw some videos of people doing it.

SS: Everyone in the office was talking about them.

TK: I cried tears of joy (laughs). There’s even one guy who posted a No Damage Run.

I: A No Damage Run!? In that long of a stage? I’m impressed that they didn’t make any mistakes.

TK: So long that the background changes 3 times. By the way, at the end of the sewers area there is a set of bombs spelling “CLEAR”. I always wanted to do that. Sidescrollers always have those parts saying “CLEAR” not even close to the end. I absolutely wanted to recreate it (laughs).

I: (laughs) Speaking of minigames, there are a lot of them in the Class Trial. Were there any beta ideas for them?

SS: Not many, as far as I remember.

TK: As we said before, there’s the Mind Mine deal. “We should have a game where the player answers with images”. From that basis, someone suggested the minigame they wanted to make.

I: What minigame did you want to make, Kouno?

TK: I want to make a minigame like DR2′s Logical Dive. First I suggested a minigame where you controled a jet, but Kodaka said “A car is better” and so was born the Psyche Taxi minigame.

I: The Psyche Taxi’s world is quite unique.

TK: Kodaka said the world should look like Hotline Miami, so we settled with that.

I: Last but not least, the Hangman’s Gambit 3.0. As usual, it’s completely different from its predecessors.

TK: DR2′s Improved Hangman’s Gambit was harder as a puzzle game, in my opinion. But for this one we already added Mind Mine as a puzzle game, so we decided to tone down all the puzzle elements on from the Hangman’s Gambit and focus more on the action part.

I: I see. Kouno, did you come up with this game’s newest addition, the Debate Scrum, too?

TK: The Debate Scrum was already an idea before the project officially approved.

SS: We had already decided we wanted to do a group vs group debate, but we didn’t have anything concrete besides that, so we exchanged ideas as usual.

TK: The Debate Scrum was a challenge. The pre-approval images looked awesome and Kodaka loved the idea, but I couldn’t for the life of me decide what to do with that... New tasks kept piling up in the meanwhile and things were starting to look bad, so I had to pass the bucket to Sugawara, since the Debate Scrum was his idea to begin with (pained laughter).

SS: Hold people responsible for their own ideas, people (laughs).

TK: But leaving it to Sugawara was the right idea. The “negotiating” between the character are one of the the Debate Scrum’s charms. This setup is difficult to make if you’re not a writer as good as Sugawara.

I: Sounds pretty tough to have to come up with all these minigames styles in parallel. Sasaki, you said you made the bonus modes all by yourself. What was the hardest part?

SS: Nothing really, the bonus mode were just me doing whatever I wanted. I could choose the genres by preference.

I: The bonus modes are all linked together, adding a lot of replayability. Was this all planed from the start?

SS: It was. I planned it to be played in a cycle. I said the dungeon would have 50 floors, but I ended up making 100 floors for it.

TS: I also liked how the bonus modes used the characters from the previous games. I knew people would love to see the V3 characters interacting with the ones from 1 and 2.

SS: I absolutely had to but the past game cast in this, since I made it a story where we could have characters from anywhere.

I: The bonus modes are really well polished.

SS: But there are some pieces I regret not being able to implement. For example, the Dangan Salmon version where Akamatsu is the protagonist... Chapter 1 has Free Time, so we prepare 2 events per character to use with Akamatsu. For the Akamatsu Salmon Mode, we want to fill up her pieces all the way to end. But as you would expect, the project was too big, so we left it aside.

TK: There was also the idea of choosing to play with Saihara or Akamatsu.

I: I see, if you make events for Akamatsu, the workload would double... So, after the work in the bonus modes was done, Sasaki moved back to the main game. Was that it?

SS: Yes. I finished the bonus modes pretty fast, so I could focus all my attention to the main game afterwards. For the main game, we were expecting a delay down to the last minute (pained laughter), so I did what I could to finish the bonus side fast.

I: In the director team interview, you said many new elements were added for chapter 6.

TK: That was 3 months before the remastering, wasn’t it? We decided to add a lot of new stuff to chapter 6 and everyone started going “We’re doing it like this now?!”.

TS: I recall something to that effect.

I: You said you had to come up with how the chapter 6 scenes would work from the scratch, based only on Kodaka’s script.

TS: Yup, from scratch (pained laughter). The script wasn’t too detailed about it and I had no indications as to how to makes everything flow together. But that part of the story was filled with scenes and twist everywhere, so we 3 were at our wit’s ends, weren’t we?

TK: Kodaka came up in the middle of our work and said some very unfortunate words. “I’m writing chapter 6 right now, but the sequences are turning out too similar to DR2, so I’m considering making Ki-bo destroy the school”. At the time I thought “Destroy how exactly? Do we really have the time to make new models? I don’t think so.”, then when I read the finished script, so much of it was different...

TS: Yeah, the Ki-bo video cutscenes were added.

I: I remember Kodaka saying he was amazed at his own creation (laughs).

SS: Sometimes things work (laughs).

TK: Kodaka often suggests the first random thing that comes to mind. That’s actually where he’s at his best. He makes people motivated to pull it off.

A game system that only managed to be this unbiased because the love Danganronpa

I: Now I’ll ask each of you about your favorite parts of the system.

TK: Mine is the Perjury system for telling lies. Lies are one of the themes of this game, so it’s not bad to be able to lie in-game. And since we’re making the players lie, I want them to feel corrupt about it. I also made the Perjury visual very much my style. The thing with all the eyes appearing was my idea.

I: Because you like everyone eyeing you when you’re lying?

TK: Yes. You never know what can happen if you’re caught in your lie, so you get anxious and alert. You feel like everyone is looking at you, and that’s what I want to represent with those visuals. Also, I didn’t want people being easily able to lie, so I made the lying command into a long and tedious button hold, that slowly drains your HP. You recover HP when the lie is succesful, so that’s both the bad feeling you have when you lie and the good feeling you have when you get away with it, both well put down into gameplay.

TS: You’re praising yourself a lot (laughs).

I: What elements do you like, Suzuki?

TS: The e-Handbook. Since we wouldn’t have the pet-raising minigame from DR2, we added the dress-up element so you can change improve its appearance.

TK: People loved the e-Handbook backgrounds.

SS: Really? I actually found the dress-up function unnecessary and was against it. But Suzuki and the designers were very intent in doing it, so I gave the ok just because.

TK: I was also against it at first, but once I started to actually play with the backgrounds and see their individual animations, I really enjoyed them. It also increased the prize count for the casino, so it’s good that we did it.

TS: Though I think we made the designer team suffer with each new background we had them make. It was only going to be the e-Handbook changing colors when the protagonist spot switches from Akamatsu to Saihara. But we thought that if we’re changing once, why not change a few more times? It would be fun. Another thing, the reactions on the novel parts.

I: By reactions you mean the interjection cursor that appears in the novel when you move the right analog stick?

TS: Yeah. Nothing happens when you do it though (pained laughter). I just thought it would be a good support system to make V3 more immersive.

TK: But it really does nothing. It would really be better if the character lines changed if you did an specific reaction at an specific moment.

SS: Oh, we really should have done that.

TS: We can do that next time... Aside from the reactions, another really minor element I like is slapping away the chair and tables and whatnot.

I: The game really makes you want to slap the things. Whenever I got to a new place the first thing I did was always checking for what I could slap.

TS: It changes how the scenery looks like and it gives you Monocoins, so yeah, do it.

TK: It’s a plain way to earn Monocoins, but it’s still money. The Monocoins can be exchanged into Casino Coins so there’s no downside for getting many.

I: Finally, Sasaki, what elements do you like?

SS: Number one are the bonus modes, but after that, I liked Panic Debates. It easy to experience how much the Class Trial evolved and there’s a pretty well done job in to making it look chaotic.

TK: Really? That was my idea.

SS: Good job.

I: Kouno is getting a raise today (laughs). What idea gave birth to the Panic Debate?

TK: I always wanted to add a new debate to the Class Trial. In the project meeting, we had to think of situations we never did before, but I couldn’t say with anything. After the meeting was ending, our small community started talking, everyone at the same time. That’s where I the idea came to me.

I: And this epiphany became the Panic Debate.

TK: We never had this situation where multiple students spoke in the Class Trial at the same time, so I thought this could work. 3 characters filling the same screen, multiple Weak Points appearing, none of this was never done before, so I’m glad we managed to implement it.

Even the Game Over lines!? The playfullness the devs incorporated

I: Can you tell me what did you do to make the game more accessible to people not good with action games?

TK: By setting Skills according the action parts you’re bad at, it gets significantly easier. You can get Skill by exchanging Bond Fragments or in the Casino shop. Many of the Skills available with Bond Fragments make minigames easier, so I recommend using those. The casino Skills, on the other hand, are better for increasing your score. Try using those when you’re already used to the game and wants to get the best score you can.

I: That makes it important to talk with other students.

TK: Not to mention all Skills obtained from maxing a character’s affection are very strong. The more you talk to get Skills, the easier the game gets.

I: Tell us some useful gameplay secrets that only you know.

TK: Ok, me first. You can get a rocket start on Psyche Taxi. It works if you hit the gas the exact moment the GO appears. Give it a try.

TS: A lot of minigames have little secrets. Like how the tutorial for Salmon Fishing is a poem....

TK: Not a poem, but a reference to a famous song from a popular band. That’s why Saihara says “That was quite the poetic explanation...” after reading through the whole thing (laughs).

I: I completely missed it (laughs).

TK: One more thing about the Casino. For the slot machines, their reel patterns change depending on the machine you use. The one with the green nameplate is the more balanced one and the one with the red nameplate is the high risk high return one. The one with the blue nameplate is a more tricky machine. If you hit Scatter, you’re more likely the get WILDs and land a huge profit in one go.

I: The blue machine sounds the best to roll. Suzuki, do you have something for the non-investigation part?

TS: Let me see. You can talk to the Monokubs in the Salmon Mode and each of them has multiple different lines. Even for the silent Monodam, we gave him a line with 3% appearance rate. You can get Casino coins from talking to them, and getting the special Monodam line gives a lot of them. I don’t think people will get to see this a lot, since you can only talk to him once per day. But I’ll be glad the interested people would try it out.

I: 3%? Yeah, that’s very special alright.

TS: Also, character birthdays. All of them have special meanings, so speculate to your heart’s contents.

TK: Lastly, I have a few secrets about the Class Trial. First, we have multiple different Game Over dialogues. For example, if you time without picking anyone on Voting Time, you get a unique game over.

I: You mean Saihara’s thoughts change?

TK: It’s not that Saihara’s thoughts changes, you get a new conversation with Monokuma. Every chapter has 2 different Game Over dialogues, except for chapter 1, which has one more for Akamatsu, and chapter 6, which has 7 different unique game overs. You change characters in chapters, so we had to add new Game Over dialogue for all of them and then one shocking final Game Over for when you vote. Game Overs asides, you also have unique dialogue for the mistakes you make, so you can enjoy all different scenes.

I: That’s a lot of hidden details.

TK: I remembered one more thing about the Class Trial! In chapter 1, the first Nonstop Debate with Saihara as the protagonist has the exact same cameraworks and word movement patterns as the first Nonstop Debate from DR1. Since that debate is when Saihara finally becomes the real protagonist, we thought it would be interesting to make it identical to the first one. If there’s a video comparing the two, you can really tell it’s the same.

I: I want to watch this video now. By the way, was this parallel planned from the start?

TK: Originally, chapter 1 wasn’t going to have any debates as Saihara, until Kodaka suddenly said he wanted to add it...

SS: He wanted to use Saihara’s BREAK cut in there already to make everyone sure that Saihara was the new protagonist. So we added debates.

TK: And this new debates were asked to be made at the very last minutes, so we had no idea what to do. Once we were out of good ideas, we thought repeating the first Nonstop Debate ever would be a valid idea. The fans who notice would find it clever and we could just copy-paste the program scripts, so two birds with one stone. Except the program was written completely different, so we couldn’t just copy the script.

SS: You had to copy it by manually typing it?

TK: I copied it by eye.

TS: It wasn’t much more time consuming.

TK: But that was because having ideas is hard. I’m glad we could get away with this.

I: Now that I think about it, having to come up with a new camera work and text movements for each Nonstop Debate sounds hard.

TK: Don’t even start. Especially now that our platform has been greatly improved. Everyone was thinking “Let’s make this animation”, “Let’s add this text placement”. We went through all the possibilities. And from this game on, we became able to move the text in 3D and gained some new fonts. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I thought the person typing the program would suffer a lot with it, so I did most of it myself... I’ll only say it took forever.

I: That’s a tremendous workload...

TK: Naturally, we must come up different animations for every debate. We created multiple patterns of font and lettering, and even needed to match the text’s colors to its contents. When someone was being accused, we pay attention to how our color work makes this character stand out.

I: The chapter 6 animations were the biggest highlight. Did you come with those, Kouno?

SS: Sugawara was in charge of the 6th Class Trial.

TS: And so was the first.

TK: Sugawara was in charge of the parts where we change characters. At first I was the one coming up with them, but partway through I was forced to admit it was too much for me... I asked around who could help and the answer was “There’s Sugawara!”.

I: The same twist as the Debate Scrum story (laughs). Sugawara is always reliable, like your last line of defense.

SS: He is. We’re glad we have him.

TK: It comes as no surprise. He is one of the creators of the Danganronpa franchise. Since we had him handling the animations for chapters 1 and 6, those turned out a level above the rest.

The developers’ thoughts to make a better game

I: Last question, tell me how you feel about the game now, and what would you want to update in the next game.

SS: How do you two feel about the game now ?

TK: I’m extremely happy with all the reactions we got, both positive and negative. I feels like a lot of people were strongly impacted from playing V3.

SS: It’s great to see opinions about it. There have been a lot of different takes on it, even some people who felt challenged by the ending. As developer, seeing this many different opinions make me feel more blessed than I deserve. Thank you all very much for it.

TS: Seeing reactions from people enjoying the new elements we created as much as we wanted them to makes me glad I could implement everything right.

TK: One more, a little bit more personal opinion. As its developer, I’m very glad for the surprising amount of people who tried hard on the Death Road of Despair.

I: You thought there would be less of them, Kawano?

TK: I thought the challengers would assume it’s 100% impossible and give up halfway through. I readjusted a lot of things to make it clearable, but I still would be satisfied with 2, 3 people in the entire world beating it. But a lot of people showed up clearing it. As the person of handled every balancement detail of this minigame, along with my thanks to everyone who took so much of their time to beat it, I also want to say “wow, you’re awesome”.

SS: You just can’t stop praising yourself (laughs).

TS: The Death Road was made under the premise that at least one person out there was going to beat it. So we prepared not only a Saihara version to the ending, but also an Akamatsu version, and even made a bonus e-Handbook wallpaper for it. It’s made in a way you can do it if you try hard enough. But we were not crazy enough to tie an Achievement to the Death Road of Despair.

I: Yeah, you wouldn’t be able to get a Platinum without beating the Death Road. Ok, now tell me what do you want to improve or be careful about for the next game.

TS: For the VN part, I want to improve the visuals, adding animations and lightings to the characters. I’m quite used to the gameplay as it currently is, so I don’t fell much need to change it. I feel that what we must do now is to strenghen the visual part, making smoothly moving sprites to make the game even more immersive. Also, the current VN part has a lighting setup that shadows the characters you’re not talking to and I want to improve on that function.

I: On that note, if the game were a PS4 exclusive, could you have more than 3 characters on the screen?

SS: The hardware allows it.

TS: Adding more than 3 characters to the same screen is not the priority. I’m just thinking about how I can improve the presentation to make the Danganronpa story more enjoyable.

I: I have high hopes for it! And you, Kouno?

TK: A thing we need to more careful about, yes. We need to pay more attention to what we show in PVs and official material.

I: Did anything go wrong with a PV?

TK: I swear I was paying attention when I was making the PVs, but I had to do some rushjobs when I had no time or resources. I couldn’t check out all the finer details in time. Rantarou Amami was not there in the first revealed Class Trial picture, his “And why would he be in the library” line from the first PV was unvoiced, so people started suspecting that he would be the first victim.

I: Oh no, their suspicions were precisely on point...

TK: I made an inexcusable blunder, both to the dev team and for the fans. We should have recorded some dummy lines.

SS: If I had just a little more time available, I could have noticed it beforehand. It’s my job as the dev leader to check every detail... Another struggle was because we didn’t Debate Scrum resources for Amami.

TK: Oh yeah. Amami doesn’t participate in Debate Scrums, so we didn’t make any material in advance. That’s another thing we should have done...

SS: The only Amami material we had for the Scrum Debate was his dead portrait. For obvious reasons, we couldn’t just put that out there for promotional material. A problem so easily solved if we had just made an image of Amami facing sideways beforehand...

I: And how did you deal with Amami’s face?

SS: Coincidentally, Amami’s expression sheet just happened to contain a lot of sprites where he faces sideways. We were at a point where using that was the only option, but once we looked more closely, all other students had proper centralized looks while only Amami was looking directly to our faces (pained laughter). When we made it, we were worried that the fans would figure it out.

TS: And surprise, surprise, they did.

TK: If people noticed the unvoiced line, of course they would notice only one person looking directly at them.

SS: Good thing we can laugh at it now.

I: Oh yeah, now that I see the picture, Amami looks very off.

SS: By the way, an Amami’s Debate Scrum Illustration was made exclusively for this artbook. It’s very rare Amami content, so I hope you enjoy it.

I: Thank you for this precious conversation. Give one final message to our readers.

TK: Being a game developer is hard, but fun and rewarding. If reading this interview made you interested in becoming a developer, go ahead! Also, my Twitter @ is taichikono. I’d appreciate your follows, if you’re interested.

TS: You sound like an ad (laughs).

I: Your turn, Suzuki. If you please.

TS: I’m happy and grateful to everyone played our game. We still don’t have anything planned, but I truly want to give you the next title, in whatever shape or form it may be. Keep looking forward to the Danganronpa series.

SS: Are you sure you tell your Twitter @?

TS: I like to live away from the limelight... I couldn’t handle a big follower count (laughs).

I: I get it (laughs). Last but not least, the final comment, from our director.

SS: I’m always doing Danganronpa interviews with Kodaka and Terasawa, but Kouno and Suzuki form quite unique trio here, since those two are from the side of the staff that usually doesn’t talk to the public. Every Danganronpa is very colorful on its own different way, so we from the development team would appreciate if you would play them all again, thinking about what kind of people made it.

#artbook translations #shun sasaki #taichi kouno #takahiro suzuki #i liked when sasaki almost implied kodaka doesn't let him make the games too comfortable to play #i can't believe i've just seen sugawara being held in high regard as a writer #sugawara is at least a great boss though #i'm surprised at how much they are owning up to their mistake with amami #rare amami content(?)

16 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years ago

Text

#10yrsago Flashbake: Free version-control for writers using git

For the past couple weeks, I've been working with Thomas "cmdln" Gideon (host of the fabulously nerdy Command Line podcast) on a free software project for writers called "Flashbake" (which is to say, I described what I wanted and Thomas wrote the code). This is a set of Python scripts that check your hot files for changes every 15 minutes, and checks in any changed files to a local git repository. Git is a free "source control" program used by programmers to track changes to source-code, but it works equally well on any text file. If you write in a text-editor like I do, then Flashbake can keep track of your changes for you as you go.

I was prompted to do this after discussions with several digital archivists who complained that, prior to the computerized era, writers produced a series complete drafts on the way to publications, complete with erasures, annotations, and so on. These are archival gold, since they illuminate the creative process in a way that often reveals the hidden stories behind the books we care about. By contrast, many writers produce only a single (or a few) digital files that are modified right up to publication time, without any real systematic records of the interim states between the first bit of composition and the final draft.

Enter Flashbake. Every 15 minutes, Flashbake looks at any files that you ask it to check (I have it looking at all my fiction-in-progress, my todo list, my file of useful bits of information, and the completed electronic versions of my recent books), and records any changes made since the last check, annotating them with the current timezone on the system-clock, the weather in that timezone as fetched from Google, and the last three headlines with your by-line under them in your blog's RSS feed (I've been characterizing this as "Where am I, what's it like there, and what am I thinking about?"). It also records your computer's uptime. For a future version, I think it'd be fun to have the most recent three songs played by your music player.

The effect of this is to thoroughly -- exhaustively -- annotate the entire creative process, almost down to the keystroke level. Want to know what day you wrote a particular passage? Flashbake can tell you. Want to know what passage you wrote on a given day? That too. Plus, keeping track of my todo.txt file means that I get a searchable database of all the todo items I've ever used, with timestamps for their appearance and erasure.

Additionally, since git repositories are made to replicate, you can publish some or all of your projects to the public web or to a private site. I'm hoping that my publisher will use a public git repo to check out the most recent versions of my in-print books every time they go back to press for a new edition, and use the built-in compare ("diff") function to find all the typos I've fixed since the last edition.

It's all pretty nerdy, I admit. But if you're running some kind of Unix variant (I use Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, but this'd probably do fine on a Mac with OS X, too) and you want to give it a whirl, Thomas has made all the scripts available as free software. He's working on a new version now with plugin support, which is exciting!

I love adapting programmers' tools for my writing. They tend to be extremely well-made and stable (because if they aren't, programmers will fix them or find better ones) -- it's like using chefs' knives in the kitchen.

https://boingboing.net/2009/02/13/flashbake-free-versi.html

6 notes · View notes

cassolotl · 6 years ago

Note

Cas, while I'm not sure it applies to the nut milk industry, the avg for business production: is for every ten of an individuals garbage cans, there is 70 produced at the facility of a manufacturer. Making your own goods is as close to low waste as ppl can get, as they can actually keep an eye on the trash being produced. And ppl in this community usually by second hand items, such as blenders. I see where your post was coming from, but companies at the end of the day do the most harm

for every ten of an individuals garbage cans, there is 70 produced at the facility of a manufacturer.

I would really appreciate a solid source on this! If I’m wrong I want to stop distributing false information, but I’ve googled around and I can’t find anything relevant. Does anyone know of anything, or some googleable terms that might help? So far I’ve googled:

for every ten of an individuals garbage cans, there is 70 produced at the facility of a manufacturer

homemade vs industrial waste

Edit: Someone on Reddit helped me to find your source! It’s in The Story of Stuff. Here’s the annotated script.

The waste coming out of our houses is just the tip of the iceberg. For every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curb, 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream just to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb.

[Citation] The Next Efficiency Revolution: Creating a Sustainable MaterialsEconomy by John Young and Aaron Sachs, Worldwatch Institute(1994), p. 13.

[Note that the data is apparently 24 years old, and something more up-to-date would be valuable too!]

Without looking into the research behind this claim, I can tell you that your statement doesn’t in any way show that making something at home is less wasteful. It just says that we don’t see a lot of the waste that goes into making something.

If I started making everything from ingredients I buy instead of buying it ready-made, I would start producing that much rubbish too, or more. And, let’s use my example from the original blog post, if more people made nut milk at home they’re all going to need to buy blenders - and the waste that comes from making and disposing of domestic built-to-die electrical items is phenomenal.

Making stuff with stuff you already have, and making stuff from stuff that would otherwise get thrown away, and making stuff from stuff grown in your garden or a neighbour’s garden, that is all unquestionably better than buying from a company. If I had a garden I would plant a hazelnut tree and see if I could find a working blender that wasn’t getting used and then look for some unwanted muslin… You get the idea.

My argument is that buying a blender and muslin and hazelnuts in order to make hazelnut milk and avoid having to put a carton in a recycling bin is always going to be more wasteful than just buying a carton of hazelnut milk - but buying bulk packs of hazelnuts and a shiny blender and some photogenic muslin is what zero waste people seem to be doing.

#asks #replies #anon

16 notes · View notes

coresumo · 3 years ago

Text

Future Programming Languages 2025 2030

Which is best Future Programming Languages 2025 2030. When programmers are about to start their coding journey, it is difficult to decide on where to start. Here is a list of the future technology programming languages having a high demand in 2025 and 2030.

What are the Future Programming Languages 2025 2030 technology having a high demand in 2025 and 2030

Swift

If you are a mobile developer, Swift is perfect for you! Apple developed it for creating IOS and Mac OS Applications. it remains one of the most in-demand languages of 2021 and will continue to have a high demand in 2025 and also 2030. Swift is also easy to learn and supports almost everything from objective-C. It is a general-purpose, multi-program compiled programming language. It's Mac-base and if you become good with it, then it's easier to make more money than Android developers. Swift is fast, efficient, secure, enables a high level of interactivity by combining forefront language features. It is a general-purpose programming language built using a modern approach to safety performance and software design patterns. The goal of the swift project is to create the best language for users ranging from systems programming to mobile and also desktop apps scaling up to cloud services. Companies using Swift- Apple, Lyft, Uber. Python

Python is undoubtedly a Powerhouse. Its applications extend in many domains like web development, data science, data visualisation, machine learning, artificial intelligence web scraping and also others. It is one of the most popular languages and it is very easy to learn with a vast community and many open source projects. The drawbacks are mainly its slow interpretation since it is a high level language. Python is on top of the job demands and also it has the highest average wages in the tech industry. It is easy to learn. This programming language is great for beginners. It is often use as a scripting language for web applications. Python is the lingua franca of machine learning and also data science. Python's popularity Rose by 3.48% which is very impressive. In Python, coding are the dynamic type. In coding, you don't need to declare the type of variable. The syntax of python is easy to remember, almost similar to human language. Companies using Python- Instagram, Amazon, Facebook and Spotify. Java

Firstly, Java is the leading enterprise programming language at the moment. Java will also be high in demand in 2025 and 2030. It is a general-purpose language use for web pages, and much more and also is the Android dominant language, and it is powerful. It supports distributed computing and multi-threading. And also It is very secure, and it Moves the biggest Enterprises and data centers globally. Today 15 billion devices run Java, and it is being use by 10 million developers worldwide. It is freely accessible and we can run it on all the platforms of the operating systems. Java is best for embedded and also cross-platform applications. Java has a larger number of frameworks and has long lines of code. It is use to develop desktop and mobile applications, big data processing, embedded systems, and so on. Companies using Java- Uber, Netflix, Instagram, Google Kotlin

The effortless interoperation between Java and Kotlin Android development is faster and also enjoyable. Scotland addresses the major issues that surfaced in Java, developers have rewritten several Java apps in Kotlin. The syntax is easy to learn for beginners and also it offers a host of powerful features. It can be a great language to upskill for experienced programmers. It has a Shallow learning curve especially if you have experience in Python or Java. Kotlin is a cross-platform, statically typed, general-purpose programming language with Type inference. It is develop to inter-operate completely with Java. Recently, Google announced that Android development will be increasingly Kotlin- first and that many top apps have already migrated to Kotlin. Companies using Kotlin- Courser, Uber, Pinterest. JavaScript

It is the most popular language according to a Stack overflow survey. It is widely know for adding interactive elements to web applications and also browsers. JavaScript is the ultimate language of the web. Almost every web and also mobile application run JavaScript. Since it is a client-side language, many simple applications don't need server support and in the case of complex applications, it produces a server load. There is an insane growth in the usage of this language as well. And also It is also the foundation of most libraries and frameworks for the web surcharge React, Vue and Node. It can run inside nearly all modern web browsers. It is a programming language used primarily by web browsers to create a dynamic and also interactive experience for the users. Companies using JavaScript- PayPal, Google, Microsoft Rust

Rest is a multi-paradigm programming language focused on performance and safety. Rust is syntactically similar to C++. It offers the safety of memory with no use of garbage collection. Rust has great documentation. A friendly compiler with useful error messages and top-notch tooling- an integrated package manager and also build tool. Rust is the language of the future. And also It is the most loved language and one of the highest paying languages in the world. It empowers everyone to build reliable and efficient software. It has the speed and also low-level access of languages like C/C++ with memory security like modern languages. This programming language can run on embedded devices. Rust can easily integrate with other languages. Hundreds of companies Around The World are using rust in production today for fast, low-resource, cross-platform solutions. Companies using Rust- Dropbox, Figma, Discord C++

Firslty, It is a powerful general-purpose programming language. It can develop operating systems, browsers, games, and so on. C++ supports different ways of programming like procedural, object-oriented, functional, and so on. This makes C++ powerful as well as flexible. C++ is old but gold. It is highly use for professional software game development and also high-performance applications. This includes machine learning. It gives programmers a high level of control over the system's resources and memory. We can find this language in today's operating system, graphical user interface, and also embedded systems. It is close to C# and Java; it makes it easy for programmers to switch to C++ or vice versa. And also was develop as an enhancement of the C language to include an object-orient paradigm. Companies using C++ - Evernote, Microsoft, Opera, Facebook PHP PHP is a popular general-purpose scripting language that is especially suit for web development. Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world. Statistics show that 80% of the top 10 million websites. It creates, reads, opens, deletes, and also closes files on the server. It controls user access and also encrypts data. A wonderful benefit of using PHP is that it can interact with many database languages including my SQL. PHP is free to download and use. And also It is powerful enough to be at the core of the biggest blogging system on the web- WordPress! It is compatible with almost all servers use today like Apache, IIS, and others. It is deep enough to run the largest social network- Facebook. PHP can be easily embed in HTML files and HTML code can also be write in a PHP file. Companies using PHP- Facebook, Tumblr, Etsy, WordPress C#

C-Sharp is a programming language developed by Microsoft. It runs on the .NET framework. It is use to develop web apps, desktop apps, games, and also much more. Microsoft developed C Sharp as a rival to Java. It is highly use in the enterprise environment and also for game development with the Unity engine. C# gives its free hand to create applications not only for Websites but also for mobile applications. Although it has common points with structure programming languages, it is accept as an object-oriented programming language. There are a massive number of out-of-the-box solutions that you can find in this Programming language but not in other programming languages. For example, tools for unit testing, crypto library, Marvellous collections handling and multi-threading. Companies using C#- CarMax, RTX, Twitch Scala

Scala is a programming language that combines Object-oriented programming with functional programming. And also It has a strong static type system and is design to be concise. It operates on the JVM. Also, It is a hybrid of two Programming Paradigms. It tries to address all the criticisms of Java, in which you can keep all the Java libraries and all the advantages of the JVM. At the same time, your code is more concise. Scala is oftentimes use in data science. Scala is a very compatible language and can be very easily install into windows and the Unix operating system easily. This language is useful for developers to enhance their business applications to be more productive, scalable, and reliable. There is no concept of primitive data as everything is an object in Scala. It is design to express the general programming patterns in a refine, succinct, and type-safety way. Companies Using Scala- Netflix, Sony, Twitter, Linkedin

5 Best Practices for Writing Better Code

Naming conventions In computer programming, a naming convention is a set of rules for choosing the character sequence to be use for identifiers that denote variables, types, functions, and other entities in source code and documentation. Three Types of naming conventions are: - Camel case - Pascal case - UnderScores Commenting In computer programming, a comment is a programmer-readable explanation or annotation in the source code for a computer program. We all think our code makes sense, especially if it works but someone else might not to combat this, we all need to get better at source code commenting. Indentation There are no criteria of following any indentation. The best method is a consistent style. Once you start competing in large projects you will immediately understand the importance of consistent code styling. Follow DRY principle DRY- Don't Repeat Yourself It should not repeat the same piece of code over and over again. How to achieve DRY? To avoid violating this principle, break your system into pieces. Dissect your code and logic. Break them into smaller reusable units. Don't write lengthy methods. Try to divide the logic and use the existing peace in your method. Follow KIS principle KIS- Keep It Simple After all, programming languages are for humans to understand, computers can only understand 0 and 1. So, keep coding simple and straightforward. How to achieve KIS? To avoid violating this principle, Try to write simple code. Think of many solutions for your problem then choose the best simplest one and transform that into your code. Whenever programmers face lengthy code, convert it into multiple methods, right-click and reactor in the editor. Try to write small blocks of code that do a single task. Recent Articles: Future Programming Languages 2025 2030 Benefits of Using Angular for Web Development 2021 Difference Between C vs C++ vs Python vs Java KALI Linux Not Prefer Software Development Ubuntu Angular 12 Performance Benchmark Install Features Setup Angular 12 vs 11 vs 10 features benchmark How to Write Business Proposal for Client with Sample Format Top 10 Best Coolest Movies Chris Hemsworth of all time Future Programming Languages 2025 2030 - Writer Taniya Patyal Read the full article

#FutureProgrammingLanguages #FutureProgrammingLanguages2025 #FutureProgrammingLanguages20252030 #FutureProgrammingLanguages2030

0 notes

44dagainagain · 4 years ago

Text

Supplementary materials for KWLUG LMMS Presentation

I gave a presentation at KWLUG this month about LMMS. Here’s a link to the KWLUG site which embeds the recording: https://kwlug.org/node/1250

This post includes supplementary materials.

First, here’s a link to download the slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r5367PwFZ5y1ZHrW4dJ9Xo-64-xhc22S/view?usp=sharing

Second, here’s an annotated project file for the song that I demonstrated called Lazy Days. This should work with LMMS 1.2.2. I’ve licensed it under CC-BY 4.0, so have fun with it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17fka1JCFu2qTXbBhXLA8zQm_OibTPnU5/view?usp=sharing

Finally, what follows is the text of the script I was reading. It’s not a 1:1 transcription due to ad-libbing and general waffling but it’s pretty close. I refer to the slides a lot so you might want to keep those open in another tab. The scripted portion goes from the start of the presentation to the beginning of the demo...

The Script

Hey so, I’m Michael Hitchens. I’m a Software Developer by day but hobby musician by night. I sing, play the piano and (really, only recently) is when I’ve started to compose. Composition has been one of those areas that bounced off me for a while until, one day, it just clicked. (This was my quarantine hobby btw) So I’m hoping that, if you’re in the same predicament, then this talk can maybe help it click for you too.

Now, while this is a talk primarily about the program LMMS, I do need to cover some groundwork as well, just to get the most out of the program.

What is LMMS?

LMMS is a digital audio workstation (shortened D-A-W, or more commonly pronounced “daw” (like in “dawn”)). The jargon means that this program was designed to assist in making music, in much the same way that CAD programs assist in designing objects.

On the slides I’ve included a link to the docs because, even though they’re a bit out of date in places, they’re actually pretty well written. Most of my demo is based around them.

There’s also this sharing platform. Now, I haven’t used it but it does look cool. Although it also looks relatively unmaintained and, based on the GitHub issues that I’ve read, it might not be the pinnacle of secure database design. Just be warned.

Digital Audio Workstations

If LMMS is a DAW, then no really what is a DAW? DAWs are a lot like non-linear video editors. You can record and produce multiple bits of audio then mix and match and layer and rework and filter all to your heart’s content, and all without leaving the DAW.

The modern DAW is decades in the making. It’s the culmination of music industry tech and secrets. What if I told you that you could have all the power in this room-sized mixer in your laptop? And more? Oh year and this is just a mixer! DAWs are also a synthesizer, a sequencer, a, a rhythm machine, a recorder, an amp, a cabinet? It’s incredible

Now, the history of audio recording at large (which I’ve entirely left out of this presentation because 40 minutes tic toc) is important in-so-far as you realize that DAWs still crib the aesthetic and mimic the functionality of the analogue systems from days of yore. For example, let’s look at these illustrative LMMS screenshots. The mixer on the bottom-left uses sliders but the instrument volume control on the top-left uses knobs. Why? Well because that’s what they look like on a real mixing board. Why do the synthesizer interfaces on the right all use knobs? Because that’s what eurorack synthesizers look like. Understanding these traditions and embracing them can explain some headscratchers. (For the record, this is one of the reasons that DAWs in general bounced off me for a while)

Other modern DAWS include:

Cubase

GarageBand

Logic Pro

Ableton Live

FL Studio

Pro Tools

(my personal favourite) Reaper

There’s probably a bunch of others I’m missing but they’re all similar at this point. You pick one, you learn it, you use it ‘til you die. These are first-rate packages but they’re also inaccessible mainly due to their high price tags. These things cost up to a thousand dollars. (I’m fudging the numbers here a bit for effect, aside from the Apple products there’s a whole bunch of tiering and stuff they do. Like I got Reaper for $60) On top of that, they have an incredibly steep learning curve. That’s not to say LMMS is a cake walk in comparison, but it does get a hell of a lot more complicated.

(For the record, if I had a Mac, I would totally use GarageBand. It’s actually really really good. The interface is easy to understand and the preset synthesizers and drums sound amazing.)

LMMS is a lot like other DAWs but I’ve found that it has several glaring limitations:

There is no mic recording. There’s no way to hit a record button and record a mic directly into LMMS. Every mainstream DAW has this ability and its clearly missing here

You can import and play samples, but they’re hard to manipulate. They feel much more like discrete static objects rather than pools of PCM data that you can mix and match and blend with other samples. Again, every other mainstream DAW does this well

So that’s not to say LMMS isn’t good, you just have to realize what it’s good for:

Synthesized

MIDI-based

Judicious use of samples (e.g. drums)

(slightly) more intuitive interface

Drag ‘n drop, works out of the box

Music Notation and Music Theory

Two more topics before I get to LMMS.

As much as I want to go over the fine details of the harmonic stylings of 18th century dead white dudes, there’s too much to cover in a 40 minute presentation. I will cover a few fundamentals though because it will give us a convenient and widely used way to communicate about a rather abstract idea. But it is gonna be pretty technical and it’s gonna go pretty fast, so strap in.

The classical way of conveying music information is on a staff, shown here, but I’m not going to go into that too much because LMMS doesn’t directly use it. If you want something tailored to music notation, use MuseScore instead.

However, it uses a similar concept called the piano roll, the image on the right. These two images are equivalent.

Music (as it’s valued by our culture) is a collection of notes (labelled here) on two axes: time and pitch. (Think of it like a 2D graph.)

The Y axis consists of notes from a piano arranged from low (bassy, gravelly, earthy, etc) to high (harsh, shrill, piercing). Humans hear from around 20Hz to 20000hz. (The distance between each note is consistently a semitone, you can look this up later). You can describe these notes by their frequency (for example 440hz) but its more common to use note name (for example A4). (Also something to look up later, valid note names are ABCDEFG, then it repeats. It’s modular arithmetic!)

On the X dimension, notes are read over time from left to right. The basic unit of time is a beat, commonly delineated with vertical bars (which I’ve exaggerated in red here). How fast a “beat” is depends on the tempo. This is measured in beats per minute or BPM. 120 BPM is fairly common, which is nice because it neatly divides into 2 beats a second, or 500ms per beat. To stay on beat, musicians use a metronome. The metronome produces a tone each beat which the musician anticipates or reacts to when performing. The duration of the note can be a beat, a fraction of a beat, or multiple beats.

Beats can then be grouped into bars. How many beats per bar is determined by the time signature. Common time, or 4/4 puts 4 beats per bar. Bars can then be grouped into phrases, and phrases grouped into sections and sections can be grouped into songs.

Independent of bars, we can consider other groupings of notes. On the pitch dimension, notes that play simultaneously are called chords or harmony. This is a C major chord.

MIDI

Close to the heart of the modern DAWs is MIDI, the musical instrument digital interface. You’re probably already familiar with it, a lot of retro DOS games have a MIDI soundtrack. The interface describes note pitch and duration, then its up to an interpreter like your old SoundBlaster to figure out how to turn the D4 its being told to play into a signal that goes to your speakers. My musical keyboard (the Casio CTK-3000, don’t buy it) speaks MIDI out, which I can hook up as an input to my computer over USB and use my computer as a synthesizer. More importantly, I can record the notes for later use. For some (like me) this is a more intuitive interface for inputting musical ideas. However, DAWs do typically have a way to input notes using mouse+keyboard, using the piano roll interface.

We use MIDI because it’s compact and easy to manipulate in fine detail, unlike RAW audio from a microphone which is bulky and takes a lot of computation to do the most basic processing (though the tech is getting better just not widely accessible, see the product Melodyne).

I gloss over the spec details because the minutiae of the protocol framing and messaging are really not that important to us. All we really need to know is that it’s the format used to record my piano.

(At this point I switched to a live demo, for which I had no script.)

#lmms #linux #kwlug

0 notes

buyyoutubeviewsinfo · 4 years ago

Text

Buy Youtube Subscribers-Things to Know

You could have created a video to advertise a company, or something that you want to offer. You could have made a real picture, that's a humorous picture. That's natural if you want a large number of people to watch that video because it's a human nature that every time we create something interesting we want everyone to see it buy You Tube comments. Many websites allow you to post your videos and don't need a single penny. The most famous among these is You Tube. Within no time You Tube has gained popularity around the world. There are millions of videos. There may be personal images, albums, movie clips, training videos, etc. If you want to make your video famous, You Tube will be of great help to you. You should also learn how to create a famous online video though.Interested readers can find more information about them at galaxymarketing.global.

There are some promotional tips that can really help you get the traffic and increase video success on buying your Tube comments.

There is however a problem that it takes a lot of time to get the video's likes and subscribers. There's a remedy to this problem; you can purchase your video subscribers. You can call a firm about this, who will help you get the huge amount of viewers. You will have a huge amount of followers and subscriptions in this manner but you do need to do a ton of research and so on with that.

You can get lots of subscribers, likes and viewers if you buy the subscribers. You will also receive comments in this way and it will increase the ranking of the video thus generating more and more likes and subscribers to buy you Tube comments for your video. So buying subscribers is better than spending money on other marketing options, rather than marketing options. This marketing strategy would save you time and extra capital which could be wasted on other marketing methods.

If that video is your website's advertisement, then it can get traffic to our website as well.

Therefore, you can save time purchasing You Tube feedback from investing it in numerous SEO techniques. If people get a pictorial view of your website, they'll get more interest in the website. Similarly if you sell something, your selling rate will increase. Though, before recruiting any business to get video subscribers, make sure you have the kit that contains feedback and rating etc. Otherwise, purchasing only subscribers won't help you achieve the rating you need to purchase feedback from You Tube. This will make the video more authentic for everybody who watches me as they get people's comments and find them useful.

Once your video becomes popular, and a large number of subscribers are developed, you can earn a lot from that video. However, do a lot of work on the business you spend to purchase the subscriptions of. The quality of video depends primarily on the firm you pick. By searching the internet you will find out about the service. You should read the company's feedback, and you can quickly get the company's perspective. This way you can get the right company to purchase your tube feedback for your film.

________________________________________________________________

Short Note on Buy Real Youtube Subscribers

You've set up a YouTube page, captured some awesome images, and you're primed for the subscriber storm. But where do they stand? Here are some options to get more channel access and more YouTube social media sharing.

Upload Fresh Material regularly

A schedule of 1 new video per week is perfect for engaging and subscribing viewers. If you release videos too frequently, your viewers will feel overwhelmed and can not find the content they want to see. If you release videos too rarely, your spectators will become bored, and their attention will wander. Some video creators maximize their time by filming multiple videos in one session and by using YouTube software to plan their videos to be published periodically.

Make sure your videos have engaging content, a strong outline or script, and a hook in the video's title and opening segment to pull your viewers in and keep them watching throughout the video's duration. This is exactly how you get subscribers to YouTube. Not only do you have to add new content weekly, it's got to be strong content.

Full out names, tags and definitions absolutely.

Every video you upload is an expected SEO optimization. Write long, descriptive titles that include the important keywords and phrases searched on by viewers who will appreciate your videos. Spam on your keywords is not required. Using the terms that define the material correctly and you'll automatically attract viewers. The same is true of annotations and explanations of images. These are opportunities that will allow you to attract more viewers and therefore more subscribers.

Contact Other Creators

A system for exchanging social media is a great way to find other content creators who subscribe to your channel when you subscribe to theirs. In targeted forums, email groups, Facebook groups and even offline gatherings of people with similar interests, share your channel with others in your field of interest as well as with other YouTube content creators. The more opportunities you would have to draw viewers to your channel the more you will have your YouTube channel in front of people with similar interests.

Include in every Video a call to action

You may believe your viewers already realize that if they like your site, they will subscribe, but studies has shown that if you directly encourage them to press the subscribe icon, you can get more subscribers.

youtube

A call to action which tells viewers to add their comments below the video will also increase the engagement of the viewer. Don't underestimate the impact of asking audiences precisely what they need to do after seeing the film. The question of how to get YouTube subscribers is being direct is a simple solution.

Any producer of YouTube content needs to get tons of views and lots of people to subscribe to the site. Regularly posting quality material, allowing good use of the text details for each post, messaging other content owners for your channel information for a social networking exchange and having a request for action for each post you upload are perfect ways to get more eyes on your videos and further channel subscribers.

0 notes

lancecarr · 5 years ago

Text

B2B Video Guide: 8 Must-Dos (and 2 DonҴs) for Success

Want to start creating B2B videos?

Or perhaps you’ve already started making videos, but you’d like to hear some tips from seasoned digital marketing professionals?

You’re in the right place.

Whether you work for a big brand, a small business or yourself, creating a video marketing strategy is a great way to connect customers with your product or service.

In this post, we’ll be providing a recap of a webinar where three industry professionals got together to share their advice about making videos. Their list of Do’s and Don’ts are based on each of their learnings through years of experience making videos in the B2B space.

Prefer video? Check out our webinar below:

When it comes to software, each is a longtime user of TechSmith Camtasia, an all-in-one screen recording and video editing tool. You can download a free trial to test it out.

Meet the speakers

Jay Baer is the Founder of consulting firm Convince and Convert, an author, a Hall of Fame keynote speaker, and the host of The Talk Triggers Show. He has been leveraging video for years throughout his weekly array of B2B activities.

Kerry O’Shea Gorgone is an attorney, a speaker, and the Director of Product Strategy at MarketingProfs. She is also the Host of the Marketing Smarts podcast, and the co-host of Punch Out, and is a regular creator of video content for use in marketing activities.

Andy Crestodina is a speaker, content marketer, author, and co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media, a web design and development company. He has ten years of experience creating videos for blog posts he writes, for use on social media, and more.

Must-dos for B2B video success

Do: Think like a TV network

Stop random acts of video.

Often, when it comes to B2B video marketing, people are making one-offs. Perhaps creating one video for social media. And maybe later, one for their website, etc., without a system, sequence, or plan.

Jay advises, instead, to develop a series and produce videos consistently, like a show.

Here’s an example from his YouTube channel:

This ongoing, consistent approach will help you get better as a creator, and also help your audience with brand recognition and allow you to make a bigger impact as you go-to-market with your video content.

Do: Set up consistently

If you are producing video consistently, and this is especially true if you are doing multiple episodes of a show, it’s important to keep your set up consistent, so that the end result is consistent.

Similar lighting, audio, and editing techniques will give you a cohesive look and feel throughout your content.

This, again, helps with branding in general, so that your audience can easily recognize you. Andy shared his own consistent set up in the photo below, noting that he’s actually since swapped the DSLR camera for a webcam.

Andy Crestodina’s video setup

Do: State the premise immediately

When your audience clicks on your video, the first thing they’ll do is make a judgment about whether or not to keep watching. This is especially true if your brand is new to them.

At TechSmith, our research found that the number one reason people stop watching a video is that it doesn’t provide the information they were looking for.

It’s important to do this within the first few seconds of your B2B video (this is true for podcasts as well).

Kerry advises immediately demonstrating that the video will be well-produced, with polished footage (or other visuals) and audio, while hinting at the most compelling aspect of the content itself.

Illustrate the relevance to your audience.

This will let people know the content is relevant and help keep them engaged for the duration of your video.

Do: Keep it short

Most marketing videos should be 2 minutes or less–according to research from Vidyard. This is at least true for higher-in-the-funnel, awareness-type videos.

The majority of users we surveyed prefer informational and instructional videos to be between 3-6 minutes.

People don’t have attention to spare, and if they don’t yet know your brand, they don’t know why they should pay attention to you and care. The appropriate length will depend on where someone is in the customer journey, though.

Once they’ve entered the consideration phase, at that point, your videos can typically be longer since you’re past the point of capturing their interest.

However, you need to plan ahead and continually test and monitor your results to see what works for you.

Do: Use captions

You should use captions with your videos whenever possible. The most important reason for this is so that your content is accessible to anyone who may have a hearing impairment.

There are some additional reasons to use captions, though. They are helpful when you are posting your B2B videos on social media because most people are watching on their mobile devices with the sound turned off.

Andy says this makes your videos a “thumb-stopper” and gives people a reason to turn the sound on.

He has an entire blog post he wrote which goes into captioning for social media more in-depth. Additionally, uploading captions can help make your content more findable by Google and other search engines.

Do: Spice it up with annotations and transitions

When it comes to spicing up your B2B video with annotations, transitions, and other simple edits, Jay shared that Camtasia makes this very simple, since all the effects are drag-n-drop.

Kerry shared that she is a self-taught video creator and that she leveraged the Camtasia tutorials to become fluent.

She relies on arrows and text annotations, to maximize knowledge transfer, and make sure that her message lands with her audience, and explained that the visual reinforcement is key to getting your point across.

Do: Add tracking URLs

Use a URL builder to create a unique link, so that you can understand where traffic that you send back to your website is coming from.

This will help you understand the effectiveness of your B2B video, and that there are dozens of these tools available online.

via Orbit Media

Andy has had lots of success with video on social media but said he wouldn’t know that if he didn’t add campaign tracking codes to the link.

This is applicable if you are using clickable links in your video (in Camtasia, these are called HotSpots), or in the copy that surrounds your YouTube video, this could be in the description box below the video. Or in the link you include alongside your video on Facebook.

Then, you can review results within Google Analytics, and you’ll be able to attribute your video efforts for the traffic it drives.

Do: Track results and tweak accordingly

This builds off the previous point, but in addition to monitoring traffic to your site from any links associated with your video, review other video metrics like video views, engagement, etc.

Regardless if you are new to video in general, or if this is a new type of video series, the first few that you share will give you a starting point.

Think of it as an experiment. Then, based on your results, you can determine areas you’d like to improve, and then plan different approaches you may be able to take to drive those desired improvements. As you track your results, you’ll either win or learn.

This wraps up the list of things you should Do as you create B2B videos. Now, on to the Don’ts!

Don’t: Get discouraged

It takes time and repetition to drive results with video.

And like anything else, you’ll continue to get better at it with practice–faster and more effective. And the ROI will increase because you’ll get to a point where it’s less experimentation and more of a process.

Don’t: Be intimidated about the DIY video process

Most people start making videos not knowing at all what they are doing. And that’s okay. You don’t have to be some sort of video production wizard to make a good video. According to Jay, you just have to dive in and be comfortable that you are going to learn it.

The more you do it, the better you’ll get.

Know that you absolutely can do it. Allow yourself to be a beginner, keep at it, and enjoy the process!

If you’re struggling to find ideas for your videos here is a quick list to help get you started making great videos:

Explainer video

Demo video

Customer success video (aka success story)

Tutorial video

Training video

How-to video

Presentation recording

Social media video

📚Recommended Reading: How to Make a YouTube Video (Beginner’s Guide)

B2B video creation next steps

We hope you’ve found this list from some of the top B2B marketers helpful. Whether you’re completely new to video creation, or you’ve made a few videos on your own, and want to continue to improve.

If you need video creation software, be sure to check out Camtasia–you can download a free trial to test it out. Camtasia is easy-to-use and intuitive to learn. Plus, there are instructional tutorials available to help guide you along, and free tech support if you need help.

Make your own videos with Camtasia

Need a video editor? Download a free trial of Camtasia to quickly and easily make your own DIY videos.

Get My Free Trial

And if you’d like to learn more about the general mechanics of good videos, you can sign up for free courses in the TechSmith Academy. Learn the basics of creating scripts and storyboards, and view exclusive interviews with experienced video creators.

The post B2B Video Guide: 8 Must-Dos (and 2 Don’ts) for Success appeared first on Welcome to the TechSmith Blog.

https://www.techsmith.com/blog/b2b-video-guide/

0 notes

fengmingfang-research · 5 years ago

Text

Annotated Bibliography

Numbers 1-5 are books.

1. Schewe, J. (2015). The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop. 2nd ed. [Berkeley, California]: Peachpit Press.

The author is not only an early adopter of digital imaging and Photoshop， but also participated in the early development of Camera Raw and Lightroom. In this book, he uses his photography as an example to show how to use Lightroom and Camera Raw plug-ins to process digital negatives into colour or more vibrant images, and then use Photoshop for advanced processing to optimize images. As a result, a high-efficiency digital film processing process will follow.

The content of this book is related to the first assignment of my Media course. I also used Photoshop to perform special effects on selfies, which produced a magical effect. Through the knowledge in the book, I got more professional learning and improvement，moreover I learned to use several software and plug-ins to process images at the same time.

2. Rettberg, J. (2016). Seeing Ourselves Through Technology: How We Use Selfies, Blogs and Wearable Devices to See and Shape Ourselves. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

In this book, the author mainly introduces the self-representation from the traditional use of Convex Mirror drawing and sculpting to the development of written, visual, quantitative three aspects. In the era of digital media, social platforms such as written diaries, photo albums, visuals represent social platforms such as blogs and smartphones. Quantitatively refers to the use of wearable devices to track human activity and even positioning; these three different ways are intertwined to make people better understand themselves, improve themselves, and express their emotions. On the other hand, it also provides a channel for governments and institutions to collect people's information and track people's locations, which helps to ensure life faster in emergencies.

I think that self-expression is essential for the shaping of a person. Through the understanding in the book, I will be able to use more ways to record and express myself. In the meanwhile, I can also get some monitoring and security guarantee, which makes me more at ease.

3. Roberts-Breslin, J. (2017). Making Media, 4th Edition. 4th ed. Focal Press.

The book details the process of making media from preparation for the development of an excellent finished product. The author divided it into 14 modules for rigorous description. They are the story development process, composition and framework, creating images, movement in different media, virtual, augmented and mixed reality, time and space, the combination of light, audio, sound and image, production collaboration, linear structure theory, post-production, non-linear structure, exhibition and distribution. At the same time, the author mentioned that expressing the work and understanding the needs of the audience and adapting to the current market, only with all the above conditions can a high-quality production media work be produced.

Making media is a work of art that I have been researching and producing as a digital media student. The detailed analysis and some excellent examples given by the author in this book are a particularly comprehensive learning process for me, which will allow me to be more rigorous and meticulous in my future creations.

4. Tricart, C. (2017). Virtual reality filmmaking. Focal Press.

This book first introduces the theoretical basis and current technical level of VR motion capture, game engine-based VR and head-mounted VR devices. It thoroughly explores and compares the differences and advantages between two significant blocks of VR movie production-Cinematic VR and Interactive VR. The author proposes that interactive VR can be manipulated and has a stronger sense of experience. Finally, the author details how to make a movie with VR from beginning to end, including preparation and use of technology such as Unity.

This book not only comprehensively understands the development history and current technology level of VR but also knows in detail how to make a movie with VR in terms of technology. For me, it will undoubtedly help my future exposure to VR. I will not only be a participant but more likely to become a producer.

5. Bloom, G. (2018). Gaming the stage. Playable media and the rise of English commercial theater. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

In a broad sense, the author relies on feedback from academics of different professions to study how interactive games, theatres, and performances are combined and developed. On the one hand, she analyzed how the theatre, as one of the earliest media technologies used for interactive games, could enhance the interactivity and participation of performances to become a commercial activity to attract consumers to participate. Among them, the commercial gamification drama that prevailed in London in the early 17th century was used as an example to illustrate the work of Punchdrunk's Sleep No More. On the other hand, she took a series of interactive games such as Microsoft Kinect as examples to analyze the enhancement of stories in interactive games. Dramatic performance brings greater appeal and experience. The combination of the two can bring apparent advantages, and also benefit their future development.

Since I am very interested in media and performance, I will also try to develop in this field in the future. This book has inspired me to make better meaningful performing artworks.

6. Sutherland-Cohen, R. (2017). Introduction to Production: Creating Theatre Onstage, Backstage, & Offstage. Focal Press, p.Chapter 5: The Creative Team.

The author is Robert Sutherland-Cohen, a professor with extensive work experience on Broadway and some regional theatres. His series of books describe in detail the organization and operation of commercial theatres. The author has made a broad overview of this book. It describes how all the staff behind and behind the theatre stage work together to complete a drama. It focuses on narrating the organization of the theatre, the scope of personnel and the entire theatre planning process. These contents provide introductions and help for different positions for those who want to enter the theatre.

At present, I am very concerned about the internal art design of the theatre and the special effects design in conjunction with the theatre, so I plan to find work in this area in the future. The fifth chapter of the book about the creative team inspired me. There are many examples and detailed explanations about the working status and how to take responsibility for each creative team member. These contents gave me a deeper understanding and what kind of design is appropriate.

7. Bailenson, J. & Yee, N. (2007). Virtual interpersonal touch: Haptic interaction and copresence in collaborative virtual environments. Multimedia Tools and Applications, [online] 37(1), pp.5-14. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11042-007-0171-2#aboutcontent.

This journal explores the comparative experiments of human interaction and comparative experiments between human and digital models, which have an impact on the development of haptic communication systems and measurement methods in virtual environments. The researchers proposed the concept of virtual interpersonal touch (VIT) and studied the collaborative virtual environment (CVES). A certain number of people were selected to arrange haptic devices randomly, so they directly observed the behaviour of experimental participants in this process. They found that in this virtual environment interaction, different body parts produce different forces. In this way, environments in which users can touch each other themselves may increase coexistence. So in the future, researchers need to explore the interpersonal relationship in CVE further to improve the touch communication system.

Since I am interested in the future development of interaction, it can inspire me about the user experience of tactile interaction. When I need to create interaction artworks in the future, it helps me.

8. Anthropy, A. (2019). Make your own Twine games!. No Starch Press.

Author Anthropy is a game designer who takes readers into a Twine world. The book is a tutorial on game development with Twine, a free online web story interactive tool. The author first mentioned the need to determine the initial design reason and game settings, and then started to create an introduction through the initial design. Additionally, the book details how to use links, add scripts and effects to make the game more vivid, and finally encourage readers to try more. No doubt for me, this is an excellent way for beginners to understand and learn Twine. It is bright and logical. I can follow this book step by step and finally complete a complete interactive game.

9. Lee, J., Lee, S., Kim, Y. and Noh, J. (2017). ScreenX: Public Immersive Theatres with Uniform Movie Viewing Experiences. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, [online] 23(2), pp.1124-1138. Available at: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/document/7414506.

This article focuses on analyzing ScreenX, a novel immersive movie viewing platform. Comparing it with similar products, such as IMAX, Cinerama, and illumiRoom, which are now widespread, found that ScreenX is more suitable for large scenes such as theatres, but there is a significant disadvantage that the surrounding walls will have image distortion, which depends on the position of the viewer. Through research on its principle and technology, and using analytical experiments, the author proposes how to minimize distortion and summarizes related technical issues. As a student studying digital media, I am delighted to see the combination of film viewing experience and immersion. The future development of film and television is becoming more and more scientific and technological, which will not only create more possibilities for us in the technical field but also make the user experience better.

10. Lesaffre, M., Van Dyck, E. and Leman, M. (2019). Expressive interaction with music. Musicae Scientiae, [online] 23(3), pp.281-284. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1029864919851367.

This special issue focuses on the relationship and interaction between music and Expressive Interaction. With the development of Expressive Interaction, unlike the application software and robotics fields it involved in the past, the area of art music science has begun to develop. It mentions that the emergence and development of this fascinating new research field affect the concept of music, which not only increases the enthusiasm of related professionals but also has an essential impact on the control and treatment of physical diseases. Reveals its potential to enhance awareness and broaden the horizons of music science. As for me, I can't live without music in my daily life, whether it's as a hobby or when I do my professional work. The special issue allows me to understand that technological interaction can also be combined with music and produce specific effects, which will bring more rigorous and in-depth thinking and use to my future creations.

#Annotated Bibliography

0 notes

simplythetest · 5 years ago

Text

TestNG Not For Me: Why I Cannot Recommend TestNG Any More

When I was working with Selenium for the first time, the tool stack I learned with was Java-based. The test runner that my team used at the time was TestNG, and we made pretty liberal use of its functionalities. I also got to know TestNG pretty well. Although I liked Java, I loved TestNG. It was a powerful test framework that was well-suited to building a Selenium-based test harness. While I've worked with different languages and tool stacks since then, my fondness for TestNG remained.

Until now.

During the past few months, I've seen enough issues with Java-based test frameworks to see TestNG (and other libraries) from some different perspectives. And based on these experience, my love for TestNG has faded and I can no longer recommend TestNG as a "default" choice for Java-based test projects. The main reasons come down to characteristics of good test projects and what really matters when writing good test harnesses, Selenium-based or not.

In my experience, the most critical criteria of successful test automation frameworks are the following:

Running all tests in a test harness on a regular basis. This may mean quarantining some tests temporarily and/or deleting tests permanently.

Writing independent and stable tests that can be executed at any time during the development cycle.

Realizing that long-term project maintenance is far more important than short-term test writing.

TestNG, for all of its merits, eventually fails at supporting these three points. While there may be some helpful features that TestNG provides in the short-run, in the long-run there are simply better choices.

TestNG: The Good Parts

Before I write about the downsides of TestNG, I feel like I should mention why I was drawn to it in the first place. One thing that I've become acutely aware of in the past years is that user experience in test automation tooling is critical for both tooling adoption and day-to-day work. If a tool is nice to use and solves real problems, not only am I more likely to use it but it's more likely other people will use it as well. This creates communities and shared knowledge which can move the needle forward in general. Test automation is no exception; being able to write code that can test specific circumstances and solve key problems is important and tooling that help in a neat and tidy way will get some attention.

After working with TestNG for a while, I found it had good developer UX. There were underlying conventions in TestNG that I could get a "feel" for after some experience using it. Although there was a lot of functionality and surprisingly large number of annotations, after a while I could guess what I needed to use and was often correct. If I needed a particular annotation, I could often deduce which one I needed based on experience and logical thinking and voila, the tests would run as expected.

As well, TestNG provided some functionality to - for lack of a better term - paper over some shortcomings that Java had for test automation. For example, Java notoriously does not have default/optional method parameter values, so TestNG implemented this feature. This is extremely helpful for Selenium tests where default browser types or configuration values are commonly used. TestNG also allowed for grouping and organizing tests in sophisticated ways and provided listener functionality to perform particular actions not just on test success or failure but other events too. At the time, these features were vital for writing good test harnesses that did more than evaluate class instances as in unit testing.

Based on this, TestNG should be applauded for solving some gnarly issues in designing good test automation. But even these beautiful features have faded from glory as time went on.

Getting It All Together: Running All Tests Regularly

When I worked with TestNG, one of the draws to using it over JUnit was the ability to organize tests into different groups or suites. On my team we had acceptance test suites for each product, and on the product I worked on this was a subset of all the automated tests that were written. Additionally there were regression suites and some additional suites for more specific functionality for security or specific features. Specifying a new suite was pretty easy since TestNG tests were executed using a specific testng.xml file. In such a file we could include or exclude tests by package, class or test method name and even pass in additional parameters needed per suite. Each test suite was executed using an Ant script on our Jenkins instance. It all worked wonderfully.

Except it didn't.

I realize now that breaking down these tests into such suites was a slippery slope toward instability and extra work for us. Each new test class needed to be carefully added or removed from existing testng.xml files, and the number of Jenkins jobs executing tests became unwieldy. Eventually some suites were run regularly, and others were not run regularly and instead run "on demand" - meaning basically never. This increased complexity in maintaining existing suites and adding new tests to suites.

Test code is production code, and like production code it experiences its own form of rot. In the case of automated tests, the application under test changes and updates, along with the test framework tools and language. In the case of Selenium tests, locators, URLs, application screens, and flows change leading to broken tests. Tests that aren't exercised regularly start to rot, and when they are run it is painful to try to update them to work which in turn lowers and information or value those tests produce for teams. It leads to frustration with the whole test automation enterprise and reduces confidence overall. This is a bad scene.

The problem with TestNG is that it makes it too easy to divide up tests into such suites in the first place. With some foresight, building test suites that are designed to run all tests regularly pays dividends over time in avoiding rotting test code. Regularly can mean whatever works best in a team's context - nightly, hourly, on every pull request, on every commit, on every merge to mainline, or similar. Even dividing up tests in to two or three groups (smoke/regression or smoke/acceptance/regression, for example) can be done with a bit of planning and low overhead. Maven and JUnit are essentially designed from this perspective; find all test classes in the src/test package following a basic naming convention and run them. The TestNG grouping approach leads to suites that are too finely organized, and running tests via testng.xml files can facilitate this issue.

Standing On My Own: Why Writing Independent Tests Is Important

Another problem more applicable to web-based browser testing is designing tests that execute well independently of each other. For many teams, this is no small task. Often with enterprise applications there are limitations in creating and using test data and application instances. A team may have to share a server instance with other teams, such as other QA teams or development teams. Also there may be long or complex workflows that need to be tested that cannot be easily executed concurrently or repeated.

Here again TestNG has some easy solutions that turn out to be terrible.

TestNG allows for tests to depend on other tests or set conditions. For example, TestNG has the @dependsOnMethod annotation where you can specify a method that must execute before a given test method can execute. I've used this as testA must run and succeed before testB can execute. This means I can be assured that any side effects from testA are in place that may affect testB which was helpful working in environments as mentioned above where there were limited application instances to test again or test data was difficult to create. There's also ways to set a priority of tests in TestNG where tests of priority 1 execute first, then tests of priority 2 execute, and so on until all priorities are executed.

These capabilities are great workarounds. But to really succeed, tests should be run independently and in any order without such workarounds. This means arranging for stable test environments dedicated to test automation, managing test data as best you can, using hooks to setup test data without relying on a (G)UI layer by injecting data at the database or API level. And certainly tests should be designed to be executed independently from the start. Again TestNG seemingly provides good tools to solve hard problems but ends up making matters more difficult than needed.

The Little Things: Thinking Long Term

The most important costs for any test automation project are maintenance costs. Writing a test - even a complicated one - often takes much less effort than maintaining that test over time. This is also true of test infrastructure such how a test is run, when a test is run, what happens before and after test runs, and so on. Little things like how a test gets executed can make a big impact.

TestNG typically leans on the testng.xml for selecting tests to run. This is fine or even desirable in an development or IDE setting. Running a set of TestNG tests from Eclipse or IntelliJ is pretty straightforward. Running testng.xml files on a continuous integration (CI) server is slightly more complicated but can also be accomplished but will also look different from running tests locally. Where running testng.xml-based tests are often a right-click-select-Run operation in an IDE, continuous integration services like Jenkins will need something else. This could be an Ant script, using a TestNG-based plugin or some edits to the pom.xml for using Maven. This is true even if there's a single testng.xml with a single suite.

In contrast, executing tests directly using Maven is identical even if using TestNG as your sole test framework in code. Adding the Maven Surefire plugin even allows for running specific tests or subsets of tests both from a development environment and CI environment. It also removes the overhead managing an additional XML file. This may seem like a slight improvement, but over time the lower maintenance costs and unified approach to test execution will pay off.

It's Not You, It's Me

I really don't want to sound like TestNG is terrible (or that Maven is amazing). TestNG is a well-built library and many teams have found success using its functionality. But over time, I find that the downsides outweigh the benefits.

I'll always remember TestNG as a good first step on my journey, but it is no longer the tool I reach for first in my Java toolbox.

#software development #testing #automation #selenium #Thoughts

0 notes

lauraramargosian · 5 years ago

Text

Ruby Rose: ‘Dreamt Big’ when she felt ‘so small.’

“I dreamt of being a famous singer or an actor who, through my work, could inspire others to be themselves or hang in there. I had no idea how I dreamt so big when I felt so small, but I know it got me through each day. I wanted to be the person I couldn’t find in my life.”

THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON — Episode 0910 — Pictured: (l-r) Actress Ruby Rose during an interview with host Jimmy Fallon on August 8, 2018 — (Photo by: Andrew Lipovsky/NBC)

Learning about Ruby Rose is quite inspiring, the way she rose to fame to inspiring millions of people through her actions is nothing less than inspiration.

Ruby Rose Langenheim is her full name and Rose was born in Melbourne to Katia Langenheim.

Katia Langenheim was a single mother at the time and Ruby truly describes her mother as a huge inspiration and role model.

She truly is one inspiring mama!

Further, Ruby was able to attend University High School and Footscray City College.

Isn’t it true that college students often change career paths?

It’s amazing how hard Ruby Rose worked her way to the top, from Orange Is the New Black, Pitch Perfect to Batwoman.

The lack of women starring in high-budget films has increased and that alone is inspiring to see, it’s history right in front of our eyes, I mean, she’s making history every single day.

Let’s take a deeper dive into her life, her story truly inspires those who are having a hard time with situations in life.

Facts about Ruby Rose and being gender-neutral.

rubyrose This was fun, beautiful, Inspiring and an honor. @entertainmentweekly

Pride

Love

Hope

She was the goddaughter of indigenous Australian boxer Lionel Rose and the great-granddaughter of Alec Campbell [the last surviving soldier from the Australian Battle of Gallipoli].

Inspiringly, Ruby came out as a lesbian when she was 12-years-old. In fact, her sexuality was a cause of bullying, including verbal and physical abuse from schoolmates.

Sadly, this even led her to a suicide attempt.

The truth is hard to digest but the world would not be as great as it is without her presence. Many things attributed to Ruby suffering from depression [like many other people in the world].

Of equal importance, Rose opened up about her sexuality growing up, sharing how she was saving money to transition from female to male.

“It was in my mind as something I wanted to do and then I just… didn’t. I guess I grew out of it. I even used to sleep on my front because I didn’t want to get boobs ever, which I think worked actually.”

Ultimately leading her to discover androgyny, which allowed her to model with different gender expressions.

“I remember being at a yum cha restaurant with my dad and the owner coming up and saying, ‘Excuse me, we’re trying to work out if you’re a handsome boy or a beautiful girl.’ It was a compliment and I was shocked, and when I thought about it I actually wanted to be a handsome boy.”

Presently, Ruby Rose is genderfluid, sharing

LOVELOUD 2019: Positive Celebrity review! Oh, the emotions, performance, and survivors!

“I am very gender fluid and feel more like I wake up everyday sort of gender-neutral. I think at this stage I will stay a woman but … who knows. I’m so comfortable right now I feel wonderful about it, but I also fluctuate a lot.”

All that matters is that she is comfortable and inspiring others to feel the same, as well as to be proud of who they are inside and on the outside.

Isn’t it great that her short film “Break Free,” literally opened a whole new world not only for herself but for her viewers, those she truly wanted to inspire with her short?

Buzzfeed shared a great article about her short-film and how it was made to inspire others to “break free,” from gender identities.

“With over 100,000 shares and 80,000 likes on Facebook – the film, written and produced by Rose herself – has a lot of people talking. She posted the project along with this brief description.

youtube

“A short film about gender roles, Trans, and what it is like to have an identity that deviates from the status quo.”

Unfortunately, not one soul in the universe can please every person alive. In fact, after the project dropped, the gorgeous model spoke up bluntly on issues of bullying within the LGBTQ community, right on her Facebook page.

“You know what needs to stop just as much as homophobia, bullying within the LGBT Community…

A ‘bisexual’ isn’t just greedy.. ‘Pansexual’ exists and isn’t a cop-out.. ‘Straight’ people can be gay huge advocates and blessings to the community…

You can identify as trans without surgery, you can be gender fluid…

Pride 2019: Daya was not afraid to open up about her sexuality!

in fact, guess what… you can be whoever you are and like whoever you like and WE should spread the love and acceptance we constantly say we don’t receive. I will delete any inter fan/follower bullying.. because it’s so backward and does not belong on my page.”

Lastly, she shared how this is her story [even though there were those who still complained about how she chose to share her story].

“In this film, I am telling my story which involved bandaging my breasts in the ’90s. I had no education on the harm Ace bandages cause as I was just a kid. I do not recommend anyone trying to tape down their breasts to use them.”

6 celebrity LGBTQ trailblazers on growing up, coming out, and living proud in Hollywood

Honestly, to those who have a problem with how Ruby Rose decided to approach her life, her choices, her sexuality, her visions for film and modeling…

Well, they can just take a seat in the back because negativity will never have a positive outcome.

So, in turn, why not leave the world better than you found it?

For instance, why not take a stand and tell your story, it doesn’t have to be the same as Ruby Rose’s “Break Free.”

In fact, it shouldn’t be the same, we all have a different path.

Are you ready for an honest ending?

Ruby freakin’ Rose has likely become the female crush of those who are even straight, I mean, damn, she is hot.

Batwoman: First look at the trailer!

youtube

FACEBOOK

jQuery(".fb-page").hide(); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&appId=&version=v3.1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, "script", "facebook-jssd"));

Positive Celebrity Gossip - Laurara Monique

Laurara Monique is known by various celebrities as the youngest and kindest celebrity blogger. PCG has been described as a "celebrity safe zone."

Positive Celebrity Gossip - Laurara Monique shared a post.

If you're a 90s kid then you probably remember AshleyTisdale! She's such a positive influence and is always raising awareness and helping those who need it. *Raises hand* I can relate, what about you?

2885 197 View on Facebook

Positive Celebrity Gossip - Laurara Monique

You learn something new every day. 29-years-old. Haha. #LifeHacks #DidYouKnow #Facts

9 2 View on Facebook

Positive Celebrity Gossip - Laurara Monique

"After hearing a quote from criminal minds about all the victims that get lost in the crazy press that surrounds serial killers, I knew that this was something that I really wanted to talk about. For example, even though Ted Bundy came to Utah and lived here, I myself could not name a single victim of his or say anything about them. I researched all 24 victims and found as much personal information about them as I could, and it was so difficult. Every single one of their Google searches brought up more information about their killer than them. I really had to dig, but I found enough to tell as much of their story as I could. The star of this video is their faces and stories, which don’t get shown nearly enough. Amidst all the hype about true crime and serial killers, let's remember them instead of their killer." Music is composed and performed by Sadie Anderson IG @sadieeesings Design by Stauney Segle IG @luckysegledesign https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bc9Iw_C108

jQuery(document).ready(function() {jQuery(".feed_dynamic_video_classthezbgcemf_page").click(function() {jQuery(this).addClass("fts-vid-div");jQuery(this).removeClass("fts-jal-fb-vid-picture");jQuery(this).prepend('<div class="fts-fluid-videoWrapper"><iframe height="281" class="video1530462310533045_2390833704495897" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Bc9Iw_C108?autoplay=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

');});});

Lost | Ted Bundy's forgotten Victims

After hearing a quote from criminal minds about all the victims that get lost in the crazy press that surrounds serial killers, I knew that this was somethin...

youtube.com

5 View on Facebook

Positive Celebrity Gossip - Laurara Monique shared a post.

4926 120 2 View on Facebook

jQuery.fn.isolatedScrollFacebookFTS = function() {this.bind("mousewheel DOMMouseScroll", function (e) {var delta = e.wheelDelta || (e.originalEvent && e.originalEvent.wheelDelta) || -e.detail,bottomOverflow = this.scrollTop + jQuery(this).outerHeight() - this.scrollHeight >= 0,topOverflow = this.scrollTop <= 0;if ((delta < 0 && bottomOverflow) || (delta > 0 && topOverflow)) {e.preventDefault();}});return this;};jQuery(".fts-fb-scrollable").isolatedScrollFacebookFTS();

The post Ruby Rose: ‘Dreamt Big’ when she felt ‘so small.’ appeared first on Positive Celebrity News and Gossip.

No related posts.

from WordPress https://positivecelebrity.news/2019/07/25/ruby-rose-dreamt-big-when-she-felt-so-small/

#Positive celebrity gossip #celebrity gossip #news #love #positive vibes

0 notes