The "I'm Happy" music video by the Gorillaz, which was much discussed in class during the music video day, was visually very intriguing. I had never heard of this group before that class period and most of the lyrics, besides some of the chorus of course, I could not make out really, but the sound of it working together with the visuals was almost hypnotic. The all black eyes of the lead singer character certainly caught my attention and was a bit disturbing. However, before any outside input was given to me by others, I felt myself feeling captivated by the reality of it. It may have had some kind of painful depressive quality to it, but it reflected something real emotionally. With all the fakeness surrounding us in the current culture, feeling connected to something real, even if it is dark and full of problems, is important. It is still hard for me to spell out where my mind is going in this matter, but I know it is going beyond this one particular example.

The viking music video from War Photographer was good for a few minutes of entertainment, but that was about it. It was a little humorous with the visual style and the odd plot that was played out and the music was catchy, but I could not really find myself caring about it. I guess it is one of those things that are interesting and fun for the moment it plays, but then after that it is gone from my mind completely. Perhaps that was its purpose in the first place and if so, then it fulfilled what it was meant for just fine.

I thought I would write a bit about the whole idea of music videos, since that was what the last discussion/class was about. In all honesty, I guess I just had not given much thought to music videos. I knew that there have been some music videos where I like the song and the video and together they had been quite powerful to me. Those were an especially good way to quickly alter my mood in a positive way when I needed it.

However, the idea of thinking of them as a creative work or as something I might one day be involved in working on never crossed my mind. Perhaps it is because most of them I've seen have not had any effect on me or perhaps because most of the time I feel like their purpose is solely commercial and not at all for pure artistic value. Perhaps it is also because I feel like music is around in visual storytelling to serve the story and not the main focus with the visuals serving the music.

The X-ray Vision music video was quite intriguing to me. For a flash animation that was relatively simple, it had a very nice effect. The isolation of the character was very well portrayed. And the expression on the character's face and the look of the room while the tv was playing was quite powerful.

The music video with the Down Syndrome angels was very intriguing as well. I could not help but think that there was something very wise about it. For me, it helped me to look at them and just see people, human beings, and not see a disease. Sometimes that doesn't always happen through normal interactions. There is just something about lifting up those whom our world and society puts on the lowest level that makes a lot of sense.

I thought I would write a bit about Prof. Ballinger's lecture in the library the other day. First I will say that when I normally hear a lecture in a format like that, it usually takes some effort for me to keep my attention focussed on what is being said the whole way through. This time however, I found it very relaxed, real, intriguing, and entertaining as well. Even in a formal format such as that, who he is came through without question or hesitation. I think that is impressive and admirable.

The topic on which he was speaking felt very relevant to my own situation and where I'm at as well. When he was talking about how he felt intimidated by artists who create in styles very different to him or by those who have more skill in some area, I was able to identitfy with that, because I feel a little out of place at times. For instance, as opposed to those who seem to have doodled and draw all growing up, I never really drew between when I was a young child and when I took Drawing 1 in college. Instead, I was always writing stories. I suppose I'm still working out what my particular niche will be.

The paticular topic of coming back to your childhood for your artwork stuck out to me as well. During this semester, I have started up a story again that I had let sit for a number of years and had thought I would never finish. Going back to this older story reminded me of some of my older stories and how powerful my imagination was as a child. The older I grew, the more realistic my tales began to grow. Now, with my life this semester revolving around stories, art, and creativity, my imagination has been getting a workout and I have a growing desire to rediscover the creative power from my childhood and combine that with my more mature mind and skills. What form this process may take in the future, I have no idea, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

When considering the idea of children’s media, I think it is difficult for me to get into the mindset to enter into it. I really don’t have much contact with children in my day to day life when I think about, and my idea of childhood stems basically from my own recollections of my past while I was a child. When working with a story in the past, I would usually write a story that reflected in some way where I was at in my life and the way my mind thought about the world around me. Since I’ve written regularly over the years, I have the stories I wrote as a younger child collected. I go back and read them from time to time and the images that were in my mind as I wrote them years and years ago enter right back into my mind after all that time. As I grew up, my stories matured as did my writing style as my mind developed. Now that I have gone through this maturing process, I think I have come to the point where I am happy with my style and ability to convey a story, but the fantasy and innocence of the stories of my childhood as faded somewhere along the way. I feel like now I’m at the point where I’m trying to reconnect with the creativity of my childhood and incorporate that into my more mature writing style now. As people begin to enter the “real world” and grow up, most lose a lot of the former glory of their imaginations as they invest themselves in day to day living in the mundane activities. Now that I’ve been going through this crossroad where the path of my future is determined by the choices I am making right now, I feel determined to retain the sense of mystery, joy, and creativity that was so strong as a child. In the end, hopefully that will remain a part of me in my adulthood as it was in my childhood.

This time around, I want to talk about my experiences about the idea of relating computer science and programming to computer art and animation. When I was first starting out college my freshman year, which was at another school, I was a computer science major. I had planned on doing that all throughout highschool pretty much and had worked a little with programming. My first semester of college, I signed up for Programming 1 and started trying to learn Java in that class. About two weeks into it I found myself completely lost, beginning to fail and fall farther and farther behind, and I was miserable with the class, finding no joy in learning those skills. Needless to say, I dropped the class and seriously reconsidered my career plans. I ended up getting into graphics under the art program and eventually ended up here learning animation.

As I was getting permission from my professor to drop Programming, she talked to me about double majoring in computer science and graphics. She was explaining to me how people who have both sets of skills are very marketable. My reaction to this was that I wished I did not have a growing hate for programming. Being very marketable would have been nice, but my brain simply did not function in the way needed to be a successful programmer and my heart was not in it at all.

With that experience in the past now, I have great respect for the programmers of the world. In my opinion, if they go through the trouble of learning how to program and are willing to do it full time, they deserve to be very marketable. In the end, it turns out that I am a storyteller at heart with a proficiency for technology, for there is no room for emotion or fantasy in the world of logic and algorithms.

The relatedness of digital art/animation and computer science, though, is very clear to me. For the field would not exist without the tools that have been programmed. Oddly enough, I have found myself having a slight return to some computer science in the form of designing a web site from code and maintaining it effectively. It turns out if I have a specific creative purpose in mind for some aspect of computer science, then my interest in that aspect soars. Without the creative vision however, I must admit that I'd just assume leave the programming to those more interested and with logical minds. Perhaps I just can't get my head out of the clouds for very long.