Latest revision as of 22:29, 6 September 2007

Class 1 - Description

Overview of Class

In class

• Read the syllabus...
• Discuss Technologies and Projects
• Intro to Lab
• Sign up for Accounts
• Create websites
• Discuss Media that move

Introduction to the Lab

• Windows Vista clients
• Siam2 and z:\
  • z: needs to have a folder called MTD2.
  • This folder should contain a sub folder for each project.
  • These project folders are where you should store you projects and any work files you use while you are still working on them.
  • z: also needs to have a folder called pub (this is your public website)
  • You can get the sign up sheet here http://iam.colum.edu/tech/Web_Site_Sign_Up.htm if you do not have a pub folder
  • The pub folder needs to also have a folder called MTD2. This is the folder that is linked to from my http://imamp.colum.edu/mediawiki/index.php/MTD2_Student_Sites. Build and Maintain student website for class. For your homework this week please create a class portfolio website.

Here's an example of a really nice student folder http://iam.colum.edu/MTD2/ExampleStudentSite/MTD2/
You can download these files from http://iam.colum.edu/MTD2/ExampleStudentSite/MTD2/Hw1/MTD2.zip

There many more examples on the MTD2 Student Sites page. Be creative but make sure that you keep the design fairly simple as you will have to update the site weekly.

link to share (local ie only [[\\siam2\user\test])

Technologies and Projects

For MTD2 class will be using several multimedia authoring tools
We will use

• Sound Forge for audio
• Premiere Pro for Video
• Flash for Animation

The class will consist of several small projects using each of these authoring tools and one large project that will use them all.

Framing the Discussion – Media that Move

By David Gerding (9/2/2005) What are Time-Based Media?

In earlier writing I posited there are three primary media types: Static, Dynamic and Interactive. Static media have no inherent technological capacity to change in time. They are non-moving. Dynamic media include a technological means to change in time and include things like television and radio. Interactive media, which we’ll discuss in the future, have the technology to respond and adapt. Interactive and dynamic media require time to function – they are inherently serial (“arranged in a series”).

In Media Theory and Design 1 we learned that all compositions are a collage of elements, and that meaning is implied and inferred by the spatial relationship of these elements within a static (non-moving) frame. Wertheimer’s Gestalt Theory of Perception (http://psy.ed.asu.edu/~classics/Wertheimer/Forms/forms.htm) see also Gestalt Psychology http://psy.ed.asu.edu/~classics/Wertheimer/Forms/forms.htm relates a variety of ways in which meaning is inferred in static visual compositions (see a quick summary here http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/visualperc1/start.htm ).

Time-based media are no different, inheriting this fundamental quality of meaning as a function of the interrelation of elements within a frame. Furthermore, all time-based media are composed as a series of frames. So, meaning in time based media is implied and inferred about the elements within a single frame and, more significantly, typically, between one or more frames in the series. Gestalt Theory has been used to evaluate not only static visual compositions, but time-based media, like music (see this About.com article .) Time-based media, like music, enjoy the intra-frame (within the frame) “juxtapositional” capacity of static media, like when several notes are played simultaneously to create a chord. Time based media can also create meaning via inter-frame relationships, like juxtaposition of one shot in film against another in time to create an emergent, associative meaning. Serge Eisenstein is largely credited with first exploring notions of creating meaning in film through montage, an aesthetic defined in production as film editing and which helps differentiate film narratives from the media that preceded them.

Because time-based media are comprised as a series of frames, time-based compositions in all time-based media are organized into nomative collections. These collections of individual frames are standardized by convention specific to the given medium.

For example, in narrative writing Narrative Arc

Story telling has been with us for millennia, in all likelihood preceding mediated forms as an oral form of communication. We all remember the “narrative arc” lessons from grade school: Beginning – Middle – End. There were also phrases like “rising action”, “climax” and “falling action”. The narrative arc can be found in most mainstream forms of time-based media. When the narrative arc is missing it is usually by intent – the artist is trying to work against or outside the norm of narrative convention.

Motivating the Timeline

In The Link vs. the Event: Activating and Deactivating Elements in Time-Based Hypermedia , Hardman, et. al, posit a simple, two-dimensional model for determining the introduction of media elements onto the time line: temporal and event. Temporal elements are motivated by time, such as the “beep” at the end of the 10 count countdown in old film reels. Event-driven elements are motivated by a preceding, or causal event.

Rhythm

• Abstracted
• Causal

Homework

• Create Class Portfolio Website MTD2 Homework Create Class Website
• optional look over sound forge manual (it's in //siam2/classfolders/MTD2) or available @ http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/download/step2.asp?DID=565
  
  • chapter 3 - getting started
  • chapter 4 - navigation zooming and selecting

Links

MTD2

MTD2 class 2