Week 6 reflections
From CTIN482
9/25 Thursday – Music Group Meeting – Pitch
Your group will have 15 minutes to present your project idea to the class as convincingly as possible. Some questions to consider:
Who are your primary and secondary target users?
Primary: Prospective students of the SCA/Distance Education Learners
Secondary: Second life users/explorers looking for music simulation gaming, second life music community
What are your top two learning objectives (i.e., what do you want people to take away from the space)?
Real life skills: being able to read notes/understand a bit of music history
Emergent skills: team work, collaborating to pass a level
Which of the learning theories we have discussed in class (e.g., conceptual blending, projective stance, etc.) will you deploy and why? <<Ben Chang>> -"Social software" - facilitating activity for small groups, not individuals (Sensible Soccer idea -- Armitage article)
-"Flickr groups" concept : 3-2-1. It’s a group where people post their best pictures and try to get better at being photographers. There are a few rules: you can only post one picture a day; for every picture you share with the group, you must comment on two others; and for every picture you share with the group, you must look at three. -- we can apply this to music uploads so that amateur writers still have a way to get their music evaluated.
-NOT projective stance. Does not instantiate the player to form certain sorts of goals and not others.
-Emergent collective action: Players face music and chords previously unfamiliar, but through experimental and playing individual notes in unison, they create new sounds.
<<Ben Chang>>
Describe the intended social dimensions of your project space. What kinds of interactions will people/avatars have there? Should it be an individual or group experience?
We aim to create a free-flowing space (quite literally) where players can choose to learn and grow individually but are encouraged to partake in group activities. The ultimate ‘reward’ in our music world is a band performance where players collaborate and play the instrument they’ve picked and learned.
How will your space incorporate gaming conventions or elements of play? Will it be fun?
The education part of the game will be introduced via a traditional ‘
What are some inspirations or points of reference that you are responding to (emulating, refuting, modifying, borrowing from, aspiring to, etc.)? These do not need to be from within Second Life.
How will you test and/or evaluate your space?
<<Ben Chang>>
-Track how much time people spend in our world
-Ask play testers to attempt to play chords and/or sheet music using actual instruments
-Establish relationships with and promote professional Second Life musicians
1. These professionals can volunteer as instructors
2. In return, "students" (i.e. users) will attend their concerts
3. (Most ideal method) Through rapport with these professional partners, we can track user satisfaction and progress.
<<Ben Chang>>
The Stage - Pitch
Target Audience: film school students, film buffs
Objectives: Enhance knowledge and understanding of techniques and theories discussed in classes through visual demonstrations, and allow users to explore, modify, and record these setups
Focus: filming scripted animations, allow users to film various scenes from angles of their choosing.
Learning: divergence, the knowledge users gain with this tool can be emulated into real-world knowledge (use this space to test theoretical camera setups, etc)
Our project is designed to allow users to explore and test different shots that would be too expensive or impractical to film in the physical world. We will provide visual demonstrations of different lighting, framing, and mise-en-scene setups, and allow users to modify and explore these with lighting cones, filmable scripted animations, and props, respectively.
We plan to store our scenes, and allow players to store, in a Holodeck, so any scene can be recalled, viewed, or re-shot. In order to enhance collaboration, we may hold machinema contests that allow players to vote on the best filmed sequences.
Summary: Our group, focusing of emulating cinematic technique, will be creating a space in which users can enhance their knowledge of film lighting, framing, and mise-en-scene. We're planning on creating a library of objects which we will then script with animations to create virtual scenes which can then be (crudely) lit and shot. There will hopefully several scripted scenes for users to choose from by the time we are finished, possibly ranging from a car driving by, a murder scene, etc. We will also be providing pre-made clips demonstrading specific camera techniques.
Due to the graphical lighting limitations of Second Life, we won't be able to provide realistic shading and shadowing with our light sources. Instead, they will be more symbolic of the placement of lights in a shot. As with the framing examples, we'll provide some examples of different light setups for users to examine, explore, and modify.
Our basic goal with this project is to create a space in which Second Life users can see visual examples of formal and aesthetic elements they discuss in their film classes. The intention is to provide a visual supplements which can be played with and modified to enhance their knowledge of technique. Be exploring a virtual demonstration of basic cinematic concepts, users will be able to explore different learning activities based on the particular elements they are interested in practicing.
Jeffrey Pfingsten
