08 . 26 . 09

Using Playtime Productively!

Tiltfactor director Mary Flanagan was interviewed in, “Labeling Library Archives Is a Game at Dartmouth College” in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the new NEH project called “Metadata Games.” The interview perhaps overplays the “free labour” aspect of the game itself. Using play time in novel, productive ways likely harms no one. If the game is fun, engaging, and playful, it will attract players, and players will like to play regardless if the hours are “productive” or “wasteful.”
players collaborate with [giantJoystick]
At Tiltfactor, we have a philosophy that play is not a useless activity. Players are constantly learning and growing through game play. Play promotes collaboration and experimentation. If it does even more than that? We say, YAY! – IF it contributes to the Commons and to access to knowledge for the public.

Posted by tiltfactor in Games for Social Change/Activism, News, Uncategorized, values at play | 1 Comment »

08 . 25 . 09

oh oh multitasking

Social communications expert Clifford Nass, with researchers Eyal Ophir and Anthony Wagner, Stanford University, just completed a study of multitasking and productivity among college students. The resulting paper, “Cognitive control in media multitaskers,” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The results of “digital overload” were similar to past research: multitasking does not make one more productive. See the CNN article here. Do you self identify as a ‘chronic media multitasker’?

Posted by tiltfactor in Games and Health, Media and culture | 1 Comment »

08 . 25 . 09

Blog collaboration recognized

How nice that Grand Text Auto, a collaboratively written blog to which Tiltfactor contributes, is recommended in the 100 best blogs for new media students. This nice long list should serve as an excellent resource for students and scholars alike!

Posted by tiltfactor in Education, Media and culture | No Comments »

08 . 24 . 09

machinima!

This blog post seems to be getting much more attention than we had expected. It was originally concocted to be a quick set of notes for an introductory “what is machinima” presentation conducted by students in our class… But, since there is interest, we’ll add our core screening list here, and add student final proejcts from class — once they are finished!


in FS49: MACHINIMA, we ask

How should we approach the study of machinima?

How do the aesthetics of machinima differ from traditional video or film?

What is the role of the creator in machinima? Whose work is it?

What are challenges unique to machinima production?

and more…
* * * * * * * * * *
short, test examples of student experiments and favorite works!
* * * * * * * * * *
E McNeill’s work
Earth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6VUzLS5UR8&fmt=18
Check out E’s favorite machinimaDance Voldo Dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IE&hl=en-GB&v=-t2_WZ2znC8

Dylan Leavitt’s experiments include…
Creator 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68KD4JUFgZE (ex. 2)

Alex Duckles’ work
(no title) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GihsmkseqNo

Matt Stone, Song of the End of the World, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKBX7aT1450

Max Seidman’s work
Perinthia Rebuilt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pS2Fz8PpXA

CORE MACHINIMA SCREENING LIST
Machinima builds, IN PART, on the DemoScene

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

“Diary of a Camper” by United Ranger Films (1996)
Diary of a Camper was possibly the first demo to contain a narrative and dialogue (text-based) rather than stay as a recording of game play. A simple but impt. work.

“The French Democracy”
“The Dumb Man” by Trace Sanderson (aka Lainy Voom) (2008)
Watch (Machinima.com): http://www.machinima.com/film/view&id=1407

“The Zoo Race”
“The Dumb Man” by Trace Sanderson (aka Lainy Voom) (2008)
Watch (YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfV2OzEHwg

“The Dumb Man” by Trace Sanderson (aka Lainy Voom) (2008)
Watch (YouTube): http://youtube.com/watch?v=fvxyzPnI9mU
Watch (vimeo): http://vimeo.com/609147

“Passage to Zhong Fu”
“The Dumb Man” by Trace Sanderson (aka Lainy Voom) (2008)
Watch (YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFG4W5-ThwA

“The Stolen Child” by Trace Sanderson (aka Lainy Voom) (2009)
Watch on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/4746397

“Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator” By Douglas Gayeton (2008)
(HBO purchased the North American television rights, so it is up on Cinemax)
Website: http://www.cinemax.com/molotov-alva/index.html

“Person 2184″ by Friedrich Kirschner (2005)
Watch Episode 1 (YouTube): http://youtube.com/watch?v=MGXKVC4xEEc
Watch Episode 2 (YouTube): http://youtube.com/watch?v=sThdnyjtePU&NR=1
Website: http://www.person2184.com/

“Among Fables and Men” by Tobias Lundmark (2007)
Watch (Machiniplex): http://www.machiniplex.net/?id=19
Website: http://tlundmark.blogspot.com/

“The Wizard of OS: The Fish Incident” by Tom Jantol (2008)
Watch (vimeo): http://www.vimeo.com/788006
Website: http://tomjantol.blogspot.com/

“Anymated Scrapbook” by Tom Jantol (2008)

“Folie à Deux” by Tony Bannan (2008)

“Voices” by Kate Fosk (2008)
Note: The film was created with iClone, Moviestorm, and ZenCub3d and is thus an example of “Anymation”. None of these three tools are traditional game engines.
Watch: http://www.machiniplex.com (look for the icon at the bottom of the page) Website: http://pinechunks.blogspot.com/

Moviestorm Machinima Audition Tape, by Jon Cates http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/community/index.php?page=videos&section=view&vid_id=101375

“Love and War” by Kate Fosk and Michael R. Joyce

(Experimental anymation piece using elements from many different machinima programs, and the art effects filters filters from Newbluefx.)

“Anna” by Katherine Anna Kang (2003)
Watch on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKEr5RRKoO4

“ULduar” and other videos by Sasha “Moo Money” Rudie – Prolific Machinima maker
Available at: http://moomoney.net/about/about-2/

“Tiny Nation” by Ill Clan, Kerria Seabrooke, Creative Director
Available at: http://www.illclan.com/tiny-nation

“Helena” and other films by JayDee
Watch videos on the site: http://www.jd-movies.com/

“Stolen Life” by Jackie Turnure (2007)
Available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU5DXScNJHo

“In for a Penny” Series and other movies by Selserene (2006)
Available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/Selserene

“Adventures In Dating” by Decorgal –
Trailer for the series on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykAxPDze0R0

Chronicles of Humanity : Descent – Episode 1 – Titan: by Damien Valentine
On its own site: http://www.chroniclesofhumanity.com/

“Vox Populi Terra Pax” by Tari Akpodiete

“Precious Blood” by Legs
Wired article and film at: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/08/video-precious/

Student project in Second Life.

“Snow Witch Story” by Britannicadreams (2006) Michelle Petit-Mee, Director
Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX5C2MrpBbo

“Mermaid’s Dream” by Britannicadreams (2006) Michelle
Available at:

“Gabriel” by SmoothMoveFilms (2008)
Available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m3KBFM6hG0

“Oh No You Didn’t!” Halo 3 Machinima/Music Video
Available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gvyhU-FoOo

“Love the Whole World” in Halo 3
Available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBpdIocxBPg&NR=1

“The Ballad of the Noob,” by Jun Falkenstein, Stone Falcon
Available on the site: http://www.junworks.com/stonefalconproductions/noob.htm

“From Yesterday,” by JayDee
Available on the site: http://www.jd-movies.com/fromyesterday.php

“Red vs. Blue” – 1, by Rooster Teeth
Available on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BAM9fgV-ts

Tom Jantol – Watch!
1) http://www.break.com/usercontent/2007/10/Cirque-de-Machinima-Cuckoo-Clock-385336.html and
2) this interview

http://machiniplex3.blogspot.com/2008/04/tom-jantol-interviewsertom-jantol.html

and
3) this essay by the maker on Shooting Dialogue – seems simple for those of you who have studied film, but if you have not, it is good; if you have, it should serve as a nice reminder of the importance of certain cinematographic approaches in machinima, esp the extreme closeup use.

http://www.sims99.com/wiki/Shooting_Dialogue

Etienne Delacroix and corporal theatre
-Grammar of the arms

-actions of politeness

-glass of water

-le toucher,

contemp. corporal theatre – witches

Posted by tiltfactor in Coming Attractions, Uncategorized | No Comments »

08 . 21 . 09

Tiltfactor awarded NEH

Tiltfactor has been awarded a new National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

Mary Flanagan, the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College, in collaboration with Dartmouth College’s Archivist Peter Carini of the Rauner Special Collections Library, has received an National Endowment for the Humanities startup grant. The funding will be used to develop ” Metadata Games — An Open Source Electronic Game for Archival Data Systems,” a networked computer game to be played on the Internet. The game is designed to supplement library metadata on various holdings in archival collections, supplementing existing materials with new descriptions provided by visitors and the public.

Inspiration for the project emerged from thinking about archival materials and how games can be used as participatory media for public repositories of knowledge. Special collections, historical societies, and archives often lack the resources to process items such as videos and images down to the item level of detail. Not only can we use computer applications to facilitate the tagging of common metadata elements across large group of images, the secondary and tertiary elements for any resource need further human input. This by its nature is expensive and for nonprofit archives, generally prohibitory. Also, the technical knowledge and resources required make the simple addition of data tags for a collection difficult. Archives will benefit from accurate descriptions with resources that are also recorded via open formats.

Flanagan, working from theories behind social networks, computer games, and ‘folksonification,’ plans to address archival needs in the design of the gaming system. The ultimate goal is to assist such repositories with an open source software tool so that visitors to the archive become participants who collaboratively augment and improve the archival material through a game. This approach, called ‘crowdsourcing,’ offers a way to build on the power of play and groups from a distributed means. The system and its design will be directly applicable to other college, university, and public archives and can be used to augment tags for any type of material, be it a scanned image, a digitized film, a scanned illuminated manuscript, or other document.

Posted by tiltfactor in News | 2 Comments »

08 . 21 . 09

Games and Mental Health

Does Bejeweled calm the savage beast? In a recent study funded by the game makers Popcap Games reported in the Washington Post, researchers found improved moods and heart rhythms in players– coherent, equally spaced rhythms. The researchers note that mental health benefits for many could lie in the zone between stressful arousal and boredom.

Posted by tiltfactor in Games and Health, News | No Comments »

08 . 20 . 09

sweatshops, machinima

the PLAYCUBE is home to a performative sweatshop today as students trace where all of their ‘free campus t-shirts’ come from; taking place on the Dartmouth College campus, 1-3pm today. Next week, on the 26th of August, we will host a locally produced Machinima show in the PLAYCUBE at 8pm in Hanover NH.

Posted by tiltfactor in Events, News, Uncategorized | No Comments »