"Conspiracy Theories" essay

 The particular project I was to do here was to discuss conspiracy theories, what changes peoples opinions of events and how truth of an event changes over time. I happen to love the history of the Cold War, so I dived in to the most obvious controversy: Who Killed Kennedy?

The project involved writing about three general opinions as to what happened and then doing an essay on how perspectives change. I went ahead and did these below. I personally think that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone gunman, but we'll never know now will we? I am part of the majority of Americans that was not alive at the time however. I just like looking back at some things I haven't lived through and read a lot of fiction.

                     The first and easiest to explain theory regarding the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963 is that Lee Harvey Oswald killed him and he acted alone. This is the most widely accepted theory on Kennedy’s murder. Being that Oswald was a prime candidate because of his disillusionment with America and Kennedy’s “Camelot” (evidenced by his failed military career). Looking at the events of Oswald’s life paints a picture of a man marked with mental instability. The real kicker is that someone like Oswald would have had the opportunity to reveal anyone he had been working for after his arrest; if he had done so, there would most assuredly have been more protection as well as some very real consequences for whom he was working for. Oswald had a wife and children, which would have given him plenty of reason to be cooperative.

                 Another popular theory was that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy on the behalf of another entity. Throughout Kennedy’s presidency there were many groups of people wanting him dead; the Soviets, the Mafia, Cubans, Chinese, even some parts of the government that may have benefitted from an administration change, all were contenders for Kennedy’s murder. This theory really seems to hold true to people who had seen the murder and then became cynical about the American government’s ability to tell the truth to the American people; actions in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, government black writing, and scandals like Watergate all would have promoted this line of thinking. There is also some speculation as to what Oswald was doing in the Soviet Union for years, and whether or not this represented a recruitment to assassinate the president. Also in the air is Jack Ruby’s reason for killing Oswald; did Ruby do it to make sure that Oswald did not escape justice or in order to cover the tracks of any organizations involved?

                 One of the other leading theories is that a group of people killed John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald may have been involved and that there were multiple shooters in Dallas on the day in question. This theory is a more recent candidate that had become available after much inspection of ballistics, acoustic evidence, and eyewitness accounts and footage of the assassination. It provides evidence that there were multiple shooters in Dallas firing from different locations. This is a more scientific theory; the physics of Kennedy’s body as the bullets hit him would suggest that the book depository may not be where it was fired from, and that the grassy knoll location would be more logical according to ballistics evidence. Directions of bullets and forensic evidence would support the two-shooter theory as well as supporting the theory of other organizations involved with the assassination.

                 On November 22^nd, 1963 John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed while riding his motorcade in Dallas; that is certain, its fact, and it changed the direction that America was going to that point. Yet so little is known about the motivations of Oswald or any other parties involved that what actually happened may remain a mystery for quite some time. That time is something that will only serve to help the rumors, however.

                 Immediately after Kennedy’s death, the country wanted blood and not reasons, whether Oswald was the killer or not made no difference as long as someone was given justice. Lee Harvey Oswald was as easy a target to place blame for Kennedy’s death, as the Middle East was to blame for 9-11. The people of the time were close enough to the event that the only option seemed to be the most obvious; that Oswald was the only candidate simply must mean that he killed Kennedy.

                 But this was subject to change with other events following the assassination. The American people would be very easy to believe the government in 1963; after all it was built upon the administration Kennedy created. But if one looked at the public opinion of a later government that gave them scandals like Watergate, they would be much less trustworthy. A public that questions the government about current events will eventually say “Hey, wait a minute, what else have you lied to us about?”

                 But just as the current audience perspective changes, the audience changes themselves. Here in 2014, the majority of Americans would not have been alive to remember the Kennedy Assassination; this means that many of the theories can be examined with a different set of eyes than the generation previous. The opinion of someone who is able to go on the Internet and research each of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination will probably be different than someone who only had experience from hearing about the assassination on the news and theorizing on their own. The end of Camelot was a huge event that really doesn’t have as much of an emotional impact on today’s people as those who were alive to see it; today’s youth didn’t know Kennedy, they’d never seen him and not known that he was going to be killed, thus the perspective shifts again.

                 Whether this kind of change is for something like the Kennedy assassination or 9-11, there will always be a change in opinions. These changes can be due to the shifting perspectives of people as they learn more information or because a new generation will have a different opinion of what happened. The only thing that is certain is that this will continue to be true with every major event in history; its only human nature to question given beliefs.

Sources and background information

The US National Archives and Records Administration,

http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/

Bernard, S., “Story Basics,” Documentary Storytelling: Making Stronger and More Dramatic Nonfiction Films, pp. 15-31. 2007



Furthermore the book pictured is 11/22/63 by Stephen King and is not a non-fiction account of the events in the least but is rather a gallivanting time traveler novel that is based on the event, but don't let that turn you off, its a great read!

The comic is from the webcomic XKCD and you can find it here: http://xkcd.com/1093/  

"Zombies, Run! (Fiction)"

 Okay so the basic idea of this was to come up with an idea for an app that encourages people to so something healthy. The used example here was an app called "Zombies, Run! 2", which encourages users to run by simulating a zombie apocalypse.

you can find the app at: http://www.sixtostart.com/

I wrote a brief essay about the app and how it uses interactivity as its hook. I went on to talk about a pitch for an interactive app that would focus on problem solving, critical thinking as well as getting a good walk in the process. There's also a nice trailer here.

In the viewing of the app “Zombies, Run! 2”, the main observable item seen is that the developers are taking advantage of an augmented reality situation. Augmented reality is a recent development in interactivity that allows the user’s personal world to be integrated into a gaming experience while taking advantage of technology in the devices being used, such as microphones, cameras, and GPS. A good example of this could be found in the Inception Augmented Reality App, released in conjunction with the movie Inception in 2010. The app takes advantage of microphones present on most IPods and smart phones; the user wears headphones, which play the parts of the score of the movie, the microphone picks up residual noises and blends them within the score and personalizes it to what is happening around the listener. For example, people talking in a crowd becomes distorted and mixed in with a soundtrack and when the volume level changes drastically in the environment, the soundtrack also changes its intensity to match it.

            That’s one example that serves to demonstrate the aesthetic power of an augmented reality app, but the focus of this particular game is one that targets a broader group of people, them being people who either like to exercise and want a new way to do it, or people who want to exercise and need an incentive to participate. The app fulfills the need to exercise by creating an elaborate story, in this case simulating zombies to make the person want to run. The type of running the app is encouraging would be very rigorous and the app seems to be a very good concept for promoting cardio fitness.

            The pitch I have would want to make use of the fact that there is a large world that each user uniquely is able to explore. I’d like to use a story to encourage people to think critically and exercise (albeit more casually than “Zombies, Run! 2”) .

            The fiction I like to think would be inspired by the point-and-click game series “Myst”. Point and click games were a popular advent in computer gaming but really fell by the wayside when more technology allowed for more in depth worlds. I believe that a game with a fiction like “Myst” (Wherein a character is introduced to an environment and is encouraged to explore and discover clues that give meaning to a deeper story) can find new life in an interactive application.

Games like Myst create a dynamic world space and couple it with a deep story that needs to be uncovered in order to progress

            The way I’d achieve this would work on two levels. First, the game would have a set of objectives that need to be travelled to in order to complete them, for instance a clue would be set in an area that would be travelled to by the user in real time. This would be made using the locator found on most smart phones; the phone would register the location and put objectives in different parts of the area (paying attention to keeping them either outside, or in public areas). The user would then be able to journey to the area and complete objectives and progress through a story.

            The other part of the story makes use of the camera on phones to solve puzzles. The camera could act as a lens through which the user could combine the real world with the created one. For example, an objective tells a user to go to a public library, once they arrive the game tells them to examine the room through the camera; the camera would proceed to project an object onto a nearby desk (lets say it’s a fingerprint). The user would discover the object and the game would be able to point them in a different direction.
 

           
       With all the elements of interactivity injected, the game is at its heart a story driven puzzle game and the goal should be for users to think critically and solve a mystery all while getting some walking done in the process. This game is one which would probably be played continuously for long periods of time (games such as “Heavy Rain” or “Alan Wake” or even thriller novels are addictive in the same way), but unlike those games, users who play this app would not be sitting alone in an apartment or room staring at a television, but would be much more exposed to the world and able to pick up and play the game at will as they come to different locations on their own. The game can be flexible as well, maybe if the person is limited to a college campus or to a house, they can reset the perimeters of the playable game space as need be.

Sources:

http://inceptiontheapp.com/about

http://cyan.com/games/myst/

Miller, C. (2008). “Interactivity and Its Effects,” Digital Storytelling: A creator’s guide to Interactive Entertainment.

"Did You Hear that Film?" Project Essay

The Basic idea here was to view the first half-hour of a film I had not seen twice (Once with no picture and once with both picture and sound as normal) in order to isolate the sound design of the film. I had viewed Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" and wrote a brief essay of my thoughts here.

Richard Morrissette

MDIA 1020

            In the viewing of Francis Ford Coppola’s film, “The Conversation”, the first thing that becomes apparent between viewings is the different feelings that the film gives off. Without sound and visual cues as to what is going on, the film becomes much more abstract. The sound design is interestingly conceived, and standing alone it can still convey the setting, situations and even can give one a mental image of a character traveling through the sounds. Walter Murch’s prowess as a sound designer is shown with a clever mix of contemporary jazz, bustling cityscape, and bits of overheard conversation.

            The story carries over rather well with a few exceptions. The characters are established and even the sound of a crackling microphone can correspond to when the conversation is being recorded and being played back. The street performance and jazz music can instantly transport one into the city (though which city the movie takes place in remains unclear). These elements of the story, the sounds of a bustling city mixed with the dialogue of characters, feels akin to older noire serial dramas played over radio, rather than the seventies thriller it is with the picture.

 The piano music that is played later in the viewing creates a lot of unease that doesn’t carry over in the film with picture. The listeners can find themselves paying very close attention for sounds that give away the action of the characters and finding only the piano. Not knowing what a character is doing creates a tension in the listener. This kind of tension is the same type that made the films like Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” popular; giving the shark minimal screen time in the film gives it a much higher intimidation factor.

            Upon viewing the film with picture, it becomes clear that there were many elements that were missed in the first viewing. For example, the faces of characters are all left up to the imagination of the listener. A curious thing happens in which without knowing who the actors are which portray the characters in the film, a listener would create different faces to match with the voices they would hear. If one hears the stand alone voice of Gene Hackman in his portrayal of Harry Caul, it could just as easily be attributed to a man much younger and visually indistinct from other actors; Caul’s partner might have had the image of Steve Buscemi before the picture was added.

            Certain emotions that are parts of the story are also lost in the sound recording. Caul plays a saxophone as a hobby in the movie while he is alone in his apartment; this is completely missed without the visual stimulus telling us that we are actually hearing Caul play the saxophone along to the jazz song in his apartment. Other clues are missed which lead the listener to have a slightly different view oh Hackman’s character in the movie. While it is clear that in both viewings Hackman is a careful man who knows the risks of being in the trade of a surveillance expert, it takes watching the film with both sound and picture to realize that Caul is obsessed with his own privacy to the point of being uncomfortable socially. Actions he takes such as periodically lying about possessing a phone in his apartment and hiding when he enters Ann’s apartment are completely missed without the picture and we are left with a character with minimal emotion and action.

            Other parts of the story are left unappreciated with a sound only viewing. For example, the mime in the beginning of the film is missed entirely, as well as the indication of surveillance experts in the crowd gathering recordings. While these elements are not required to get the general idea of the story, they make for interesting watching and are a part of Coppola’s vision in his script, and so should be included. Some actions also have a different meaning between the viewings. Caul finding the bottle of wine in his apartment can be missed entirely when listening only to a sound recording, which makes the resulting phone conversation much harder to follow. The alarm that goes off when he opens the door to his apartment is also something that can blend into the background noise in the first viewing.

            All in all, the viewings created two similar but distinct films. The story of The Conversation can be inferred by its sound design, but some of the key elements that give feelings and emotion to the characters are left behind in visual cues and cinematography that can only be viewed as the film was intended, with both picture and sound.

Bibliography

Alten, S. (2012). “Influences of Sound on Meaning”. Working with Audio. Cengage Learning.

Know, D. (June 26, 2013). “The Robot Shark Technology of Jaws”. Tested. Retrieved From http://www.tested.com/art/movies/456576-robot-shark-technology-jaws/

Murch W. (2003). Worldizing: A sound design concept. Retrieved From http://www.filmsound.org/murch/murch.htm

Williams, E. (2013). Basics of Sound Design. Retrieved From http://vimeo.com/channels/mdia1020

"Critiquing the Rewrite"

Okay, the assignment here was to write an essay comparing two versions of a screenplay. The essay was to be written as if I was a producer giving the green light to produce the rewritten draft of the script and to compare changes made to the script for the rewrite and try and examine why the writer may have made these changes.

   This essay is a brief analysis of the changes made to the short screenplay “Two Steps Back” By Grace Vaught. As a short film, this would have some promise to it, especially after reviewing the rewritten version which takes the idea proposed for the plot of the first play and improves on it dramatically, as well as changing the story in a way that makes it more interesting and emotional, while still keeping the feel that the screenwriter seemed to be trying to achieve.

    The first choice that I noticed was the change in length between the two drafts; the original screenplay has seven pages while the rewrite is nearly doubled in size and content. Part of the reason for this is that the story is a more complex one that needs more elaboration to really have an impact. It becomes clear that Rachel is a victim of a kidnapping at the end of the play and that Jake was her captor but the part of the story that Anne (her mother) is the Mary Kay lady that was responsible for his arrest and Rachel’s “rescue” is very much kept in the dark. Even though the screenplay ended up going in a different direction than its original ending, the added length is more than sufficient to fill in any missing information that the audience should know about the story. It also allows for more detailed imagery that can work well in a film format, for example the scenes in which Anne is walking through her house in a state of indecision works particularly well with heightening tension and gives the crew some very specific scenes to film in creative ways.
   
    Another bonus of the rewrite is that plot inconsistencies are filled in. The biggest problem in the original script was that there is no real clear cut way for Rachel answering the door for the Mary Kay lady being able to reasonably lead to Jake getting arrested. This is resolved by making Anne recognize Rachel as Amy, her daughter, and then being rebuffed when asking Tyler to investigate; the new situation between Anne and her husband is much more believable if placed in a real-life scenario. The credibility of a script is key and the 2nd draft resolves this in many ways.

    Another change, which went a long way into raising interest into the story, is seeing events unfold from the point of view of Anne instead of from Jake and Rachel. This is a welcome change as it raises the emotional investment in the character and also gives more of an exposition to the story. For example, Rachel acting as the main character is a passive protagonist in the script; it is clear that something is amiss to the audience, but it’s not readily apparent to her. She makes no attempt to find out why Jake is so anxious for her not to have contact with the outside world and is really waiting until the arrest to move the plot forward. An emotional investment will usually form with a character that has an active interest in the story. Anne has a much more active part in the story; she has reason to believe that Rachel is her missing daughter, Amy, and so asks questions and tries to figure out the truth to who Rachel Murray really is, thus giving the audience a hope for a success.

 Also by shifting the view of characters away from Rachel, the character of Jake Murray is much more ambiguous. Jake is obviously guilty of kidnapping Amy in the 1st draft of the script, yet in the second draft, he could very well be innocent. We have only one scene to view him in and must make our opinions based on that one scene. That lack of insight as to who Murray is can lead to some sinister connotations; is he an unwitting businessman or a dangerous and unbalanced criminal? This is the same kind of ambiguity that led to unease at the introductions to characters such as Patrick Bateman or Anton Chigurh; it’s a sense that the character has taken no action and hasn’t done anything wrong, but through previous knowledge the audience is on the lookout for things that could be taken as malevolence. This previous knowledge could be because the audience knows that Rachel is the prime candidate in an unofficial missing person’s mystery and that Jake Murray is the only other person in her life, or that they know that the title of the movie they are watching is called American Psycho and the number one person who could be the titular character is probably Patrick Bateman. The fact that Anne is not sleeping and is in a feverish search for answers also keeps uncertainty in the mix as there really is no solid proof of Jake’s guilt in the second draft until the very end, just Anne’s opinion on the subject.

    This leads to the rewritten ending, being the one in which Anne, stricken with grief and hopelessness and upon finding the similar missing person’s photo of Jake in the mail, is left to a possible suicide. This is a more questionable ending than the original but also more interesting. The original ending really only states rather didactically that Rachel suffers from some sort of memory loss and possibly Stockholm syndrome. But in the second draft Anne finds solid evidence of a linking between the two disappearances, which is good as it can mean resolution to Anne’s problem from the beginning, yet the script ends with a focus on the bottle of pills next to the picture. The significance of the pills is left to the audience but its presence could reasonably lead us to believe that Anne decided to take all of the pills out of frustration that no one believed her and thus end her life. This also means that by leaving the pictures taped together that upon her death the connection between Jake and Rachel would be taken much more seriously possibly leading to the kidnapper being brought to justice with Anne’s final act. Posing a final question to the audience and driving into them more uncertainty is something that would want them to come back and view the film again, this time knowing the ending, to try and form a more solid opinion of the ending for themselves.

"Short Essay on Interactivity"

Richard Morrissette

MDIA 1020

            In today’s state of technology, the need for interactive experiences has increased dramatically. The audience desires a higher level of creativity, and enjoying content has turned from how much content can be enjoyed to how much it can be enjoyed before the user will turn and create content of their own (this is exponentially easier to do than even five or ten years ago). The debate of whether interactivity can be achieved through means other than the most common form, video games, goes on. However, interactivity should not be limited to just video games, and can be achieved through other media, in fact this may be already happening.

           

As was stated in the readings, the question is how much control should be given to a player. Putting too little control is not making any innovations at all while putting too much can be disconcerting for certain users. A healthy mix of interpretation should be added to control in order to move this interactive experience forward. Large RPG games have a very large amount of control that goes with them, and often have well written out stories to compliment the choices a character makes. The key is to leave things for the player to interpret, to make them question the story and choices that they have created and thus give every user a different outlook of a set of decisions (this could be the equivalent of a book club all reading the same book and having different thoughts on the meaning).

           

I think this not only is a viable option for future projects on interactivity but also is already happening. For example, the recent book entitled “Ship of Theseus”, or just “S” on its box, by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams is a book that gives the reader the ability to create their own meaning of an in depth story. The book features a story that can stand-alone as a book but also features handwritten notes of two people analyzing the book in order to solve a mystery; The book features carefully crafted notes, articles, clippings and even a sophisticated code reader that can be removed from the book and examined on their own. Since its release, readers have analyzed the book differently, posted theories, and even directions for how the book should be read. Books like this can truly be a future for interactive, non-videogame, storytelling.

           

"Interactive Storytelling" Brainstorming Interactivity

            On interactivity, one of the things I wanted to center my brainstorming on was an idea that could be easily applicable to many different media and forms of stories. Since Joseph Campbell had been mentioned earlier in the readings I decided to riff a little on elements of his “Monomyth” or “The Hero’s Journey”; this can also play off of the idea that every hero is essentially going through motions of a quest that make up a great story. The thing about the myth that makes it so universal is that it is mirrored in so many different stories, especially stories that have more depth than the average prose. If I were to take the points offered in the 17 stages of the hero and apply them to say: The Hobbit, or to Star Wars, they would fit fairly neatly inside the lines that Campbell has created.

            But what if we start shifting these lines and points? Taking the choices a hero makes on a journey could the same outcome come out if not all the stages are met or if some are interacted with differently by a player/author etc.? Take the “call to adventure and refusal of the call” steps for instance. The idea is that a hero is called on for a specific adventure and that often he will refuse to go initially or go reluctantly (think Bilbo not wanting to leave Bag End in the Hobbit). If a character was created with an adventure in mind, but goes without a second glance, will he find himself somehow unprepared for the coming challenges than if he’d waited? Or perhaps he refuses entirely to follow his “destiny” as it were, do the original supernatural forces guiding him towards the destiny become antagonists, or perhaps force the adventure upon him at a different point and make him a reactionary hero instead of a voluntary one? This could even play into the key elements of life-based plot lines by introducing emergencies to the character. Imagine if Bilbo refused to be a burglar and the dwarves decided to burn down his house and hunt him across all of Middle-Earth, with Gandalf helping or hindering in different ways.

            I find that taking these elements of choice is a very interesting key to a good interactive experience. The idea of choice has been completely rethought and reworked with games like Mass Effect, The Walking Dead, and the idea of using social media to influence what content is created. I also think that works like the Monomyth will become more important as backgrounds to more interactive works. So in conclusion, a type of story that can make different permutations of the Monomyth and turn it into a visual story for a player, not necessarily a game (maybe a visual novel of some type that could be more colorful but have an amount of choice at a level with Galatea), could be a successful idea in the future.

"Truth in the Image" Truth and Cannonballs reaction

I'm posting this as another part of Media and the Creative Process. The goal here was to make a short reaction audio track to a Radiolab piece that was introduced to us. The story involved two photographs pictured here:

 

They are also found on the Radiolab website and they are sister images one being titled "In the Valley of the Shadow of Death". The story talks about the possibility of one being faked.

I just did a quick audio piece of what I thought after listening and put it up. I played a little guitar so that I wouldn't sound so monotone.

You can find the original Radiolab story right here:

 And I also have this audio reaction up as well sorry it ended up being such a long audio track I like to talk!

"Mini-Sagas"

Introduction

I did an exercise in which I was to make two mini-sagas. A mini-saga is a short story being no more or less than 50 words in length has a story arc and is non-autobiographical. I have a lot of fun writing prose and short stories and as a writer who prefers a book to be full and pages to be crammed; this was a challenge for me. I have my two pieces below.

Quixotic by Richard Morrissette

She reads with insatiable desire to live, drinking the knowledge- knights and battles- within her walls of books and stone. It’s safe there, the armor she wears rusting away when she leaves. But always she is left to decide, which the real world really is, when crossing the doorway’s threshold.

Big Business by Richard Morrissette

Joel discovered himself, like all virtuous men, in New York, big business. There he joined the church of suit and tie, became the priest of prodigality. His boss’s office suited him perfectly, and yet when he looked out his window, he still saw only a world of glass and stone.