Reading Week 6: Future Thinking

Gardner in his article highlights the types of mindsets and ways of thinking people generally have and undertake. He categorizes them based on certain factors that people may possess more than others. He eludes to the fact that having a disciplined mind will get you further in life. He defines a disciplined mind as one that ‘has mastered at least one way of thinking’. Adding to the fact that a disciplined mind allows individuals to work more efficiently in terms of pacing and its overall much more effective in the long run in the context of work placements and career.

Gardner lists several points as to how to effectively succeed in future endeavours. While he mentions that a disciplined mind is a strong characteristic to have, he also mentions that without a sense of synthetic thinking – to adapt to technology and information as we are presented with it, we are doomed to become overwhelmed and unable to create decisions that would significantly aid the organization or profession.

I do agree with Gardner in the fact that when looking for a career or when working in general, it’s more likely you’d get better results with a much more disciplined and open mind. Hence when we study in school/university we’re encouraged to hone our thinking and improve it because it’s not just about getting the job you want, it’s about how well you can perform under whatever circumstances are pushed against you.

Reading Week 5: Finding Time for It All

Judy Wajcman touches base on the concept of time in correlation to humanity’s technological advancements. More specifically, the work industry and how machinery created is a construct that more or less disorients our notion of time.

She mentions how much these machines tamper with our workload and effectively force us to think about the affects of the reduced costs in both economical relations but more importantly time management. This places us in the position where we’re more free than we would normally be – which gives rise to the question; how much work is too much work? How can we balance out the workload between technology and human labour?

Also the fact that this notion of technological advancement in workplacements have a larger impact ont he economic and employment rate of a society – could technology become the downfall of human society?

Wajcman goes into sort of a philisophical topic as she makes time stand out more as a unit of currency than an idea of progression. She also highlights ideas of balancing our current time; work and personal. Some individuals may be able to work longer than others as it ultimately comes down to their psych and mental/physical capabilities/boundaries; with the introduction of machinery, it’ll give us more freedom to be able to balance our time and make the most out of it.

Reading Week 4: Passion and Career

Cal Newport highlights the two main mindsets when it comes to working in a career or following a path; the craftsman mindset and the passion mindset. Both are very different mind sets, however he explains and infers that the craftsman mindset is the best way to get ahead in life and to truly find something you love doing.

Without going into detail, the craftsman mindset focuses on the person giving something to the world, using all their efforts to succeed in creating something unique, something ‘so good no one can ignore you’. Whereas the passion mindset focuses more on those who are much more passive in that they want to see what the world has to offer for them – sort of a more cynical approach to a pursuit in career.

While Newport does make convining points about why the craftsman mindset is much better than the passion mindset, I believe that in the end it’s up to the person to make that decision based on what works better for them.

The craftsman mindset he argues allows the individual to actively seek out new ways of improvement which leads to passion. This in turn gives them a larger sense of accomplishment and closure to the questions they ask themselves such as ‘Who am I’ and ‘What do I really like?’.

But I believe that adopting the passionate mindset is more suitable for those with a more empathetic and cynical view of the world such as myself, who doesn’t mind what kind of work I do as long as it sustains me and satisfies me – I have no real need or desire to go that extra step.

Reading Week 3: Being a Creative Labourer and the Nature of Contemporary Work

Lobato and Thomas makes points of the difficulty procuring a career in the media industry in terms of pay. They mention the blurry line between freelance and exploitation. This raises points regarding whether or not media in general can be considered an art form more so than a labour industry. Ultimately companies and larger businesses are hiring/recruiting those who are familiar with the workings of today’s technology to help aid them in their creative endeavor as a brand – but this also places restrictions on how we’re able to express ourselves creatively in the media profession. Lobato and Thomas eludes to the fact that because our lives depend on the pay, going freelance to express ourselves in the way we want to is very difficult; hence freelance vs exploitation.

This sparks debate in which Lobato and Thomas make in their segment on creative labour and the limitations of providing individuals with the ability to not be exploited but rather a fair balance between sustainable salaries and careers and their own individual desires. But nonetheless, the direction creative labourers choose to take is dependent on society in context – government systems, cultural influence, economical changes, etc.

Reading Week 2: Opportunities and Trends in The Global Entertainment Industries

Chris Lederer & Megan Brownlow’s study on the changing statistics of the Entertainment and Media companies and how they’re profiting from different forms and types of media just goes to show the ever changing trends and how in order to survive in this industry, we’re required to adapt according to the technology we’re faced with – which in turn changes the values, wants and needs of society.

We begin to see many changes to the E&M Industry, with the introduction and advancement of the internet, more and more individuals are profiting from online businesses, however older companies tend to use it as a means of expanding their advertising border, hoping to target a much larger demographic.

All of these studies shown in Lederer and Brownlow’s research has eluded to the fact that with these changes in technology and social values, more and more companies are in higher demand of those individuals who are in touch and familiar with the workings of these technologies, who are capable of utilizing their familiarity to help keep the business afloat.

However this also means that more younger people are starting their own business due to the ease of access they have to the vast technology and the fact that the internet has now become a means of connecting to those who prefer to have an easy to access means of shopping/consuming.

Reading Week 1: Megatrends

In Klaus Schwab’s on the changing nature of the world, he explains the possibility of a fourth industrial revolution for the planet that’s happening right under our noses; basically categorizing them into four ‘main physical manifestations of the technological megatrends’:

  • Autonomous vehicles
  • 3D Printing
  • Advanced robotics
  • New Materials

Although that’s only scratching the surface of world technological advancements, with the rise and expansion of networking and connecting with each other as a species through highly advancing technological aspects such as the internet – it’s evident that new media and new technology go hand in hand as it has bolstered our advancement rate substantially.

With this however, Schwab points out that ‘The fourth industrial revolution is not only changing what we do but also who we are’. This highlights the risks as well as gains in exploring this uncharted territory known as new media. Schwab mentions our notions of ownership, consumption and privacy are subject to drastic change as technology continues to further advance.

By the time the fourth industrial revolution is over we as a society and a species may hold different values and ethics depending on the technology that we now use. This raises questions as to whether or not we can control the shaping of society or whether we can only sit back and observe the changes according to constant changing public interests.

Hence why there’s a demand for workers, willing to grasp and embrace new media and willing to face change, after all, it’s in our nature to adapt when the situation requires us to.

FINAL STUDIO REFLECTION

Throughout the studio our group aimed to create a transmedia narrative that incorporated elements of an escape room. This involved a heavy usage on puzzles as a means of getting our narrative across. However, we aimed not to create an escape room exactly, but rather sought to use puzzles as only a means of giving the players/audience a sense of agency. Further narrative development was established by other platforms such as video/audio and journals – what our main challenge was how to link everything together to create a story.

Our statement at the beginning of the semester was quite broad. We aimed to simply create a transmedia narrative across different mediums by analyzing and experimenting with different types of platforms to see what worked and what didn’t, which I felt that we did. There was a lot of trial and error processing as we worked on trying to link everything together. We started off with establishing which platforms would be best in order to enhance and tell our story – the main platforms being: video,audio,journals and puzzles.

Our experimentation and trials lead us to several dead ends which we had to analyse in order to move on. Examples would be, if we had an idea for our puzzle and developed it, we would find that our narrative would change and subsequently the videos/audio with it. This happened the same if we changed our scripts for each of the videos and audios, we would have to drastically change our puzzles and it would just be an endless process of going back and forth.

Ultimately we had to overcome this problem by simply sticking to a narrative or puzzle set and building and centering everything around that rather than trying to find ways in which it can work together. In our case we based everything – journals, puzzles, audio/video on a script and story layout that I had created and which we went over and all agreed on. There weren’t really any other large issues that we faced in working on this project – but the whole process of getting everything to work together was proved to be a much larger obstacle than what we had anticipated. Whether or not our solution to this problem works, we can’t afford to change anything at this point given time and resource constraints. But that’s what a prototype is for.

Overall I believe we have achieved our goal that we set in our original statement. Although we were faced with many obstacles on the way, we managed to solve and get around them, even if it meant taking a step back. There weren’t really any issues regarding group members and meet ups thankfully, I feel we managed to effectively work together as a team and create a narrative based on many different elements that we researched on and applied.

LAST TUTE (WEEK 12)

Our last tute took place today, we had finished recording the video logs (thanks to a friend who helped voice the leader). We’ve managed to finalized most of the puzzles, and is now just in the creative stage, so just designing how the puzzles will be presented.

Specifically, Griffin has finalized her first puzzle, designing it. We’re now at the stage of just finalizing everything which we will do in our next meet up, next week. It’s just a matter of refining everything before play testing and rehearsing.

Shooting and Recording

So last Friday we met up to record and discuss the format of which we’d like to shoot our video log. We figured we didn’t need any high end equipment because we were shooting a video that is meant to reflect the resistance, so the quality wasn’t meant to be perfect. We had a few issues with lighting but we got around that with our phones.

Now our audio wouldn’t be perfect either, but it wouldn’t meet our expectations if we simply recorded it with the video – so we decided to record the audio separate and just sync it with the video. It was fine because we kept the character in the shadows so we couldn’t actually see him speak.

Although the initial idea was for me to play the leader (both video and audio), I decided that I couldn’t fulfill that role as well as I liked to. As a result, I asked a friend of mine who’s had a bit of experience in the past do the voice for me, and it did prove more effective than myself at least.

Everything at the moment in terms of video and audio is now in post production. I’m taking it through Sony Vegas to manipulate the voice and video, as well as add effects and whatnot.

Raath Rebellion Refinement

In the upcoming weeks we’ve finalized the scripts and the narrative structure for our escape room-esque narrative. Our puzzles have become more refined in that we’ve fleshed out each puzzles to be included in the narrative.

We’ve removed 1 character from the playable roles as a result because we couldn’t find a particular use for him in terms of puzzles. However, the character himself (the doctor) remains a crucial part in shaping our narrative. The puzzles are essentially split into 3 particular departments in which the player must choose between (The hacker, tactician and comms/spec ops).

The hacker puzzles we’ve created to be password and code deciphering since the story revolves around a security lock down, the mastermind’s puzzles revolves around finding clues that hint towards the time at which the explosive device will go off and the comms/spec ops will be in charge of an espionage-esque role which involves finding clues that pertain to the location of the bomb.