Final Project

For my final project, I wanted to do something creative and something that I love to do. One thing I love is Jesus Christ. The other thing I love is rapping and making beats/instrumentals. So, I decided to combine the two into one product. I took this as an opportunity to share my heart on the most important thing and open up myself to the class. I made a short video clip that plays the music as well as displays the lyrics to the class. That's pretty much it!

Connections

To be honest, I struggled with this assignment.  When I read the description, and even when I heard it from Beth in class, nothing screamed out in my mind saying "Do this!  This would be cool do do." (which normally happens to me when getting a new assignment).  

When thinking through it a little more, I decided that I wanted to do something dealing with tangible, real life connections.  So what I decided to do was take pictures of things around my house that have connections.  I ended up using 10 of the pictures I took.  Things I captured were wall outlets, surge protectors, internet wi-fi connections, aux. connection, and other things that I used as connections everyday.

Then, in thinking about the assignment and the amount of points it is worth, I decided to take those 10 pictures and turn them into 10,000 pictures.  (Yes, if my math is correct, there should be 10,000 mini pictures in the image that you see below).  I resized them and adjusted them to fit on one screen.  All 10,000 pictures of connections are connected to each other.

  

Ben Phillippe's Identity Project

Overall, I thought Ben's identity project was pretty cool. From what I can remember, it was very visually appealing. It had lots of different colors and textures on it (mainly from things outdoors like dirt, leaves, etc.). It was an interesting piece to look at.

As far as criticism goes for this one, I would say one thing it did like (at least for me) was personalization for it. I don't remember any major reasons as to why this creation of his was in fact somehow to be identified with him as a person, student, brother, or anything else. It could be that I just don't remember or wasn't paying too much attention as he explained, but I feel like if it was something that would have stood out, then I would have been able to remember it.

Again, though I think it was a solid effort. So, I would have to give this a grade of B (for Ben!). Good job bro.

Week Long Daily Blog

I realized that I never did the week long blog posting assignment that was given to us a little time ago, so I decided to go ahead and do it for this week.

Sunday: Today was more of a laid back day for me. I came back from a short weekend retreat today, so I was pretty tired. I came home to take a nap (which is rare for me), then went to a park and played basketball with some friends of mine. Then I came back to the crib and started getting some things done (seems like that's all I will be doing for the rest of the stinkin' semester!!!). My sister Michelle called me and told me that her and my brother Tim wanted to come to Indy for a few days to hang out with me and my parents. That was awesome to hear because I don't get to see my sister much anymore since she moved to Tennessee, and my brother just moved to Columbus, so it'd be awesome to get to see them for a few days. Only problem is that they would be coming toward the end of this semester and I may not get to spend much time with them because of work, classes, projects, capstone, and any other goodness. So, we'll see.

Last Week's Class

Overall, I thought last weeks class was pretty cool. For the first portion of the class, I thought the onion assignments that the students shared were interesting. The video to me was cool, but I didn't find it to be "oniony" at all. At least not with the description Beth is saying it should be like. I wasn't at all moved or stunned by the video. The pictures I thought were more along that direction. A few of the pictures to me were fairly shocking and revealing. Honestly, this assignment has been frustrating to me. I never usually have trouble coming up with ideas for projects like this, or at least concepts for creative assignments. But this assignment has been different because I just can't come up with anything for this thing. I've had a few ideas I've been wrestling with in my mind.

The second half of the class was interesting as well. It was cool seeing the pictures that Beth made. My favorite one was definitely the picture that looked like the huge, warrior in all black. It was awesome! The story about "Rose" was pretty freaky. As far as the in class exercise, my thoughts varied. At first it was frustrating coming up with something from the word "proof". But as our group brainstormed harder, we came up with a pretty cool concept which I was happy with.

"What The Bleep Do We Know" Comments

I thought it was interesting.  I am not a student nor have I ever looked into quantum physics, so most, if not all of this video was new information for me.  There were a few parts that I though were pretty cool.  Namely, the part that focused on our dreams, and how they were making the argument that there is nothing that can enter our mind/being without us having seen or experienced it somehow.  So somehow we must be seeing or experience these things without us knowing.  I thought this was kinda cool, even though I don't agree.  

As far as the rest of it, I was a little disappointed.  Mainly with the dissertations of God (or god I should put?).  I thought the arguments of God were unclear very weak.  Especially the guy who studied theology who was saying that we all are gods.  I felt that by the end of the movie, there was no clear definition of what they thought about God and it left me wading in the waters, even though they tried.  Overall though, it was an interesting film to watch.

2 Midterm Questions

1. I think the single best aspect of this course so far is its unconventionality.  I love the fact that I have no clue what we will be doing coming into class each day of, which causes me to anticipate what we will be doing.  Everything we’ve done in class so far has been fun and/or interesting, which I cannot say the same for my other courses.  Even though I may not agree with everything discussed in class, I have enjoyed it so far
   
2. The single most important thing I want to walk away with from this class is how to apply the things taught/discussed in class to my future working field (if I am in the New Media field).  It’s cool to learn about a lot of new concepts and ideas and discuss them, but I want to walk away with tangible application for the future wherever it may apply.
   

"What's the Sense of it all?"

The first thing that came to mind when reading this assignment description was doing something with the sense of hearing. I enjoy working with audio the most, so I thought it would be cool to do something different with audio. I wanted to do something that people would find interesting and that would also make them think. I also wanted to do something with the sense of sight since basically it is what we are all driven by.

I decided to take scenes from two movies that are totally opposite of each other and switch the sound in them. What came to mind when thinking up this concept was the idea of writing the word "red" on a board using a green marker. What someone is seeing is being contradicted by what is in their mind. I feel like that same principle applies with this exercise.

The two movies I used were Elf and 300. I took a scene of Elf where he was being raised and learning the ways of an elf, and put it to intense music from 300 that is played when King Leonidus is being given Kingship towards the beginning of the movie. The music totally contradicts what is being seen as the music is very intense, and the movies scene is comical and innocent. On the flip side, I took a scene from 300 in the middle of the first main combat scene. The scene is very intense with violence and war. Again, the music playing totally contradicts this as it is joyful, happy Christmas music. To me, the 300 scene is hilarious with this music to it. I laughed a few times when editing it.

I guess the reason did this was to do something different that would make people think for a second. While it's not the most original concept, I think it just shows even how important music is in movies in general.

"Bliss" Assignment

Just to give a little background about before getting into something I really enjoy doing, I tend to me more of a loner. Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy being around friends, meeting new people, and investing in lots of relationships (take my word for it, I do). But, God wired me up to be able to enjoy being by myself. I could take a full day, work on creative projects, reflect on my life, take care of business, and do other things all by myself and be fine with it. A lot of people would go nuts if they were alone for a day. I could also be on the other extreme and be around lots of people all day and be fine with it (which normally I am).

That being said, something I also really really enjoy is music. Namely, instrumental music. I love music that makes me think deeply about God, my life, and other deep issues. I actually love to create this music. The awesome thing about creating instrumental/electronic music is that I can make it sound exactly the way I want it to. There are many songs that other artists have made that would suit this same description, but I love being able to control the effect that the song has on me.

So, the event or activity that I really enjoy doing is getting away to create instrumental music that I really enjoy. This is what I did for my assignment. I got away a created a new track. It turned out to be pretty good I think. It sounds a lot like something you would hear in a movie, mainly because of the string and piano melodies. It's not one of my best works, but I really enjoyed the process of it and am glad that I did. I actually started on another track first, but scrapped it and started on this one because I didn't like it (something that I usually do).

Week Long Blogs (1st)

Honestly, I've been a little out of the loop recently on what's going on in class lately. I basically missed the last two classes for because of reasons outside of class. I looked at the assignment a little too late to be able to complete it fully. I spoke with a fellow classmate in the middle of the week who reminded me of the assignment, but I just forgot to add blog posts daily. So, I take responsibility for not being able to complete the assignment. I'm not saying I have been more busy than anyone else in class. I know that we are all college students with a lot of things on our plate. But I just wasn't able to complete the assignment.

Though I wasn't able to post a blog for everyday of the previous week, I can post for how I am feeling today. Overall, I am feeling a little behind in some things. I am feeling a little behind in somethings. Mainly schoolwork (some classes, Capstone) and some other things, namely getting prepared for a summer mission project I will be going to. I've found myself thinking about these things a lot and just wanting to get caught up on everything. But, I've been praying and trusting God to provide wisdom and guidance in this hectic time and am confident that I will complete all things I need to get done in due time.

What Moves Me?

Honestly, this question is a no-brainer for me.  The answer to this question is two words, one man; Jesus Christ, the God-man, King of the Universe, Savior of mankind.  My life is devoted to knowing Him more and making Him known.  The God who created all things, who knows me by name and the number of hairs on my head (and every other person who has ever existed), who has enough power to destroy the biggest of creations with the absolutely no effort, the God who sent his own Son to die so that I don't have to experience His wrath, He is what moves me.  That is the answer to the question.

Unfortunately, my life doesn't always reflect what is written above.  Many times I get distracted by other meaningless things that don't matter, and I don't show that God is my true source of joy.  But that is the beauty of the message called the gospel (which means good news).  Even when I fail and mess up, I am forgiven only because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross by taking the full wrath of God the Father.  I have a hard time understanding how anyone could want anything else other than God.  I mean, if you are reading this think about it.  Let's say you had the ability to make a new creation, say a toy robot, and you did.  You made it clear to this creation that the only way to be fully satisfied would be to stay plugged into its power source.  You tell it that anytime it gets disconnected that it would not function properly and thus not be satisfied as a toy robot.  Lets say for a while it always stays connected, but after some time it starts disconnecting from its power source and strays away from its home.  After some time, the robot starts complaining that it is not fulfilled and that it is struggling to function properly, but you try and explain that it is because it is not connected to the power source (like you told it to be) and that that is the reason it is not being fulfilled.  Well, this is essentially the same thing between God and his creation, us.  He has created man to be eternally satisfied and happy in Him alone.  But we have decided that God, the eternal, almighty, glorious, powerful, wise, gracious, amazing God is not good enough for our needs.  So we look to other things like money, relationships, popularity, sex, drugs, career, etc. (the list goes on and on) to satisfy us.  Then we wonder why our lives are so empty and miserable.  It amazes me!

I could literally sit here and type a list of words describing how amazing God is for the rest of my life.  Human words cannot explain the glorious excellency of God.  Thankfully, He has given us His word, the Bible, to reveal His character to us and to give us a picture of God the Son, Jesus Christ.  If you're reading this, you may not believe God exists and may think this whole post is crazy talk.  If so, all I can say is your unbelief in God doesn't change the fact that He does exist.  It's like saying you don't believe gravity exists, and then you go to jump off a cliff only to find out that you were terribly wrong.  So I would strongly encourage you if you don't already to invest in knowing the God that created you.  The implications of this are eternal, and honestly, you don't want to leave this earth without a relationship with Him through Jesus.  So yeah, that is what moves me.

2/4 Class Experience

This past week was a really difficult week.  I had so many to things to get done and I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to get them done.  So, coming into the week I wasn't too excited.  So on Monday, I just got off of work and came to class thinking of all the things I had to get done that day.  Honestly, I was thinking about not going to the class and starting on some other stuff.  I came to the class and heard the conversation about the tone of the class and what we can do to improve.  I decided a little bit into the class that I would step out early.  When the video started playing of the stand up comedian and honestly, I just wasn't feeling it.  So at that point, I decided to step out.  So honestly, I guess I am not able to really comment much on the day of class.  I was able to talk with Jenna and she filled me in on what we did in the class.  It does sound like it was a very interesting exercise and I regret missing it.  I hope to be informed more the next time I come to class.

Class Video Comments

Comments

I didn’t enjoy the Robot Chicken videos. First of all, it’s just not my kind of humor. Secondly, the parody of Kill Bill with Jesus I found quite insulting. That in itself is a whole other blog, but for the sake of the assignment, I will just say that all in all I wasn’t pleased watching the vid. I guess I can appreciate the animation and the work put into it.

The PBS art special was very interesting I felt. I thought some examples of art were more interesting than others. For instance, I found the spot about the mechanical art (huge face emotions, water dropping in a bucket to a rhythm) was very interesting. It was new and innovative, and looked like an example of where the direction of art is going right now. However, the spot about the video editing (taking basketball player and boxers out of shots) was pretty cool, but didn’t quite hold my attention as much. All in all I enjoyed the video.

The Cathedral was awesome. That had been my 3^rd or 4^th time seeing the video. Every time I watch it I get goose bumps toward the end where the intensity builds up. I think it’s an amazing example of animation and storytelling. However, one of my favorite aspects of the video is the music, especially towards the end. It’s funny, because the first time I saw the video I was thinking how amazing the music was and how it perfectly fit with the scene. While I still felt mainly the same this time I saw the video, I noticed some things about it that were not done very well and how I could have made it better. I think it just shows my progression in the area of audio over the past few years.

What If Q/A

Question by Exodus7 (http://exodus7.wordpress.com)

What if everybody were selfless?

I believe if we lived in a world where everybody was selfless, it would look radically different than anything we’ve ever been accustomed too before. To be selfless would be the opposite of being selfish, which is being consumed with only what you desire and stopping at almost nothing to get that. In a selfless world, we would see people being only concerned with the well being of others, and stopping at nothing help out those in need. Eventually, I believe you would see a decrease in world-wide poverty, violence, and other aspects of our current society that we would like to see changed. All in all, I think we as people would be living more closely to the way we were intended to live.

50 Questions

1. What if everyone believed that God existed?
2. What if everyone understood that they have a purpose in this life?
3. What if people thought logically about spiritual matters?
4. What if everyone lived their lives everday in light of eternity?
5. What if there was no evil in the earth?
6. What if abortion was punishable by death?
7. What if people cared about others more than themselves?
8. what if people took just 30 minutes out of the day to meditate on God and heavenly things?
9. What if everyone viewed sexuality as serious in the site of God and to be honored in
marriage?
10. What if everyone made an effort to serve at least one person a day?
11. What if people spent more time reading the Bible than they do reading email?
12. What if people talked more to God than they do to people on AIM?
13. What if people viewed money and possessions as only temporary things that don't last?
14. What if people actually stopped to think about what Tom Brady said when he talked about
there having to be more to life than this?
15. What if everyone was given a millisecond glimpse into eternity?
16. What if everyone understood that God desires intimate relationship with his creation?
17. What if people lived for a higher calling?
18. What if everyone viewed the Bible as a light and guide admist the darkness?
19. What if people were not so concerned about what others think about them?
20. What if the majority of people hearing or reading this right now didn't see me as a
lunatic?
21. What if people were not afraid to stand up for what they believe in?
22. What if people were able to travel back in time?
23. What if life & existance on earth ended right now?
24. What if other's problems & concerns were more important than self-image in our society
today?
25. What if America were to go under right now?
26. What if the average American had to spend the rest of their life in a third world, poverty
stricken country?
27. What if big name rappers were drafted to fight in a war?
28. What if we could never use the internet again?
29. What if we stopped making excuses for evil acts?
30. What if people realized that on average 2 people die every second?
31. What if everyone realized just how little we really are in comparison to everything else?
32. What if everyone understood the brevity of life?
33. What if everyone understood the absolute importance of thinking about what happens when
you die?
34. What if life wasn't about "me"?
35. What if you were not able to eat anything today?
36. What if everyone realized that they are breathing this very second for a reason?
37. What if we understood that the decisions our current generation makes will dictate the
future our nation?
38. What if time we were able to go back in time?
39. What if our current generation was taken back to live in the 1500's?
40. What if everything wasn't so easy in western society?
41. What if we told those who we care about how we feel about them once in awhile?
42. What if popular rappers were not the role models of many pre-teen and teenagers?
43. What if the average realized that many Christian rap artists are better lyricists than most secular rap artists?
44. What if New Media was only used to better the world?
45. What if we faced every single issue in our life instead of running away from them?
46. What if everyone valued family much more?
47. What if there were more men in the world?
48. What it just one person would think about the these questions?
49. What if this project wasn't harder than I was thinking it would be?
50. What if the average PC user would spend more than just 10 minutes "trying to using an
Apple computer?"

The Fork

Honestly, I had forgotten about the fork for most of the week.  After getting the fork in class last Monday, I stuck it in one of the side pouches of my bag.  Throughout the week, I would remember the poor thing here and there, but would always put off any notion of interaction with it.  Finally, on Saturday when I was messing around on my MacBook, I decided to do something with it.  At the time I was fairly hungry, so I saw this as a perfect opportunity.

I decided to get some cold cereal and use the fork to assist in the job.  So I grab

bed a bowl, poured some Dyno Bites into it (Fruity Pebbles are actually the generic br

and to this cereal if you didn't know alre

ady), added some cold milk,

 and started to enjoy some nice grub.

  The first couple bites were cool, but then I soon realized one problem; a fork is not the best option when eating cold cereal.

I then came upon a tough dilemma; do I continue using the fork that I've become so dearly attached to and keep on hindering the enjoyable experience of Dyno Bites, or do I ditch my new friend and grab a spoon to fully enjoy the treat?  My hunger ruled in this decision, and unfortunately, the fork had to go.  B

ut, I must say, it was fun while it lasted.