What is Style? part 2

I have learned in this class that style is a broader concept than I gave it credit for.  Before I saw style as something like how someone dresses, or an author's own writing style.  I have definitely expanded my definition to include things we talked about in class, like comics and even movies from this latest collaborative movie project.  If you look closely enough, anything and everything can have style.  It's not just physical appearance; style can be seen or unseen.  It can be concrete in nature, something black or white, or it can be in between.  

It's difficult, because I've learned so much in this class that I don't have enough room to write about it.  As far as writing is concerned, style isn't just how someone writes; it can include what they put in the writing, like what stylistic rules they subscribe to.  Background and experiences can change style, such as word choice or things of that nature.  This may sound confusing, but I don't know how else to word it.  Style exists within style.  Multimedia is a concept/style for movies and websites, and they have their own style within that.  I'm sorry if this doesn't completely make sense, but I'm extremely tired right now:)

Peer review recap part 4

This is going to be a slightly different post, because we all decided in my group that we were going to finish the peer review over the weekend.  Everyone is in the weeds with all of the work we have to do, and we wanted to make sure that we had the time to give good comments on everyone's papers.  

As far as the whole peer review process goes over the whole semester, I think I liked the format on Google Docs the best.  Sharing them on the EMU-Online site is also simple, but I didn't like the wiki as much.  It was ok for the rules, but it was hard to edit papers on there.  Maybe it's just because many of the tools weren't compatible with Safari.  Anyway, I had a relatively good experience with editing.  I mean, a lot of the time we didn't get our papers posted on time, but it all worked out.  

I think that peer review online was much more beneficial than in person, because (at least for me) I found that I was able to give more constructive criticism if I didn't have to say it directly to the person.  It seemed like others were able to do that as well, because I got more helpful comments than I usually do in a face-to-face environment.  I wish we did peer review this way in more of my classes:)

YouTube/ Low-bridge videos

Sorry this is late, I somehow missed that we had a blog post due last week. Anyway, I'm going to start by saying that I don't think comparing writing to video-making is at all unreasonable.  If you are thinking about it in the literal sense, movies are not really writing.  They can feature writing, and they start as writing, but the actual movie isn't writing, it's acting.  

The script is the biggest piece of writing involved in movie-making, because the whole movie really starts on paper.  Without the script, there would be nothing to say (unless it was improv), so there would be no movie at all.   

The movie-making process itself went really well.  I was not involved in writing the script, but I was in charge of filming.  I saw firsthand how small changes in the script can change the movie entirely, for better or worse.  It took a bit of trial and error, but we got to a point where we all agreed on it.  Now I'm just looking ahead to when the paper is due- writing in the most conventional sense!

Looking back on past readings, looking forward to the essay

I'm going to have to make this a fairly quick post because I have 4 papers to do between now and Tuesday, including this essay on the movie making process.  I can especially see where the Writing as a Technology section fits in here.  This combines real technology with writing.  I mean, I guess the actual movie isn't writing, unless you add those text notes in it during editing.  More writing occurs when making the script.  The visual rhetoric section could be applied here as well, though not in the comic sense.  It is something visual, anyway, though that could be a stretch.  I think Plato would be happy about this, because the actual movie is spoken word:)  I guess what I'm going to talk about in the paper is the relationships from texts to parts of the movie-making process, such as what I mentioned before about the script, and also thinking more outside the box.  Hopefully I will be able to get all of this work done!     

Reading and Writing about Comics ala McCloud, pt. 1

I found a really cute comic on OnlineComics.net called Elf and Motorbelly.  Here is the description from the site: "Elf and Motorbelly are cats who were genetically enhanced by a secret society of evil scientists.  They were rescued from a life of testing by Frank.  Frank hides them from the outside world and encourages them to develop their potentials and take long naps."

Here is the URL: http://elfandmotorbelly.smackjeeves.com/

I primarily looked at the latest comic, titled "Catman."  This comic is of the simple cartoon type, and not the realistic picture type.  I personally like the cartoon type better, because as Scott McCloud says in his book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, "[t]he ability of cartoons to focus our attention on an idea is, I think, an important part of their special power, both in comics and in drawing generally" (31).  There isn't a lot of background and everything looks cartoonish, so it is easier to focus on exactly what is going on.  Also, according to the book people can sometimes relate more to cartoon images.  

This book also mentions how important the blank space in between frames is, both in time and separation.  This comic has small space in between the frames, and the word bubbles lead us to believe that this is just a continuing dialogue.  As far as the transitions between frames, I would guess that this one is moment-to-moment (I'm not that good at differentiating sometimes).  It appears in the book that this type goes frame by frame, with no missing pieces or significant changes in time, and this comic seems to do that.  I don't know if there is much more for me to comment on. Overall, I chose this comic because of its humor and whimsical cartoon feel.       

    

Picturing Texts on the Web

One website that I've always liked the design of is the Apple site, www.apple.com.  The background and text color scheme is monochromatic with black, silver, and white, which lends itself well to the brighter colors of the products they are displaying.  The products stand out and become the focal point.  The site has balance with the navigation bar on top, a large section in the middle for the main featured products, and a smaller section at the bottom for more featured products.  The amount of white space is generous, so that the number of products doesn't become overwhelming.  

The Apple site looks very clean, which reflects their new, more environmentally friendly computers with simple and sleek lines.  Some of the computers they show on the side have bright green grass for a background, which puts the association with green products in people's heads, sometimes subconsciously.  I think that the site has a modern look that appeals to a wide group of people.    

Peer Review Recap Part 2

This time the peer review process was more confusing to me.  I don't think the WetPaint wiki is as straightforward as Google Docs was.  It didn't seem quite as organized, and that made it more difficult to find everything.  I still didn't mind the WetPaint format, though it was more complicated when it came to the actual editing of papers. 

Apparently some of the editing tools don't work well with Safari, so when I was trying to edit papers I couldn't change the color of the font.  This meant that I couldn't find many ways to distinguish my comments from the actual papers.  I would underline something so that it would show up, and then once I saved it the underlining would be gone.  Plus, unless people posted a thread or wrote their name after their editing, there would be no way to know who was saying what.  That wasn't crucial, but without the name how will it work for grading?  When using Google Docs before, it would give the name and time right next to the comment, which made it more helpful.  It also showed up differently than the paper itself, making it easier to see where the comments were.

The Wiki still did it's job in that I was able to give constructive comments, which I did to the best of my ability ( I would have been able to receive them as well if I had posted my essay).  The online peer review process is proving to be just as beneficial, if not more so, than the traditional face to face format.