Mise-en-scene Assignment

The scene is dimly lit. The walls are grayish in color, probably concrete. A hard-looking bed lies in the middle of the room, with a man laying in it. The left side of the bed has an endtable with a strange-looking alarm clock on it. On the right is a coat rack with a lab coat on it.

The room is pretty baron, except for a few things against the walls. On one wall of the room is a table with an elaborate chemical apparatus on it filled with a bubbling green liquid. On another wall is a staircase going up to the surface. Finally, another wall has a bookshelf, seemingly disorganized and filled with old, dusty books.

Reading #6

The Wolf reading talks about spatial use in the video game medium. It talks about how off screen space is different in video games than in film because in video games it is the viewer who has control over the camera, as opposed to the creator. It then proceeds to list 11 different spatial designs of video games and how they change the virtual space created, as well as describing their effect on the gameplay and the user.

The Nitsche reading discusses kind of a cool concept: "editing" in video games. It looks at video games as if they were films, with each "cut" triggered by the player in some form. Nitsche someone makes video games out to be dynamic films generated by the player. He relates this concept back to the montage and the moving image. This concept is kind of cool. It talks about video games as tools for generating film instead of the classical view of entirely separate mediums. This analysis also explains the somewhat natural development of Machinima. If video games are tools for generating films, then films existing from games are only natural.

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Reading #4

The Bordwell/Thompson reading discussed Mise-en-scene. Mise-en-scene is a very broad concept encompassing everything within the frame of view. This includes acting, costumes, makeup, scenery, lighting, on-stage sound, and a variety of other things. In any good scene, these components are assembled in such a way to create balance in space and time. The reading goes over different styles of doing this, and what kinds of scenes they create. (Different types of lighting, where objects appear in the scene, etc.)

Performative Interventions uses Second Life to talk about how art has changed in the twenty-first century. It discusses time in art, machinima, and even gives an introduction to fluxus, the art form that our guest speaker last week discussed. The main theme of the piece seemed to be new media in Second Life and other virtual worlds, and the way it has changed performative art.

Maya Objects