The World Of Multimedia Artists and Fine Arts
To start off, here’s a little history background of my topic: In the year of 1888, The Roundhay Garden Scene was the first ever motion-picture film, directed and recorded by French inventor Louis Le Prince in the north of England. Lasting for only 2.11 seconds, it was shot at 12 frames per second and resulted in the beginning of an era full of motion pictures and visual effects. Bringing you back earlier, in 1857 Oscar Rejlander the world’s first ‘special effects’ movie by combining 30 negatives and making them one single story. The special effects movie consisted of an reenactment of the beheading of Queen Mary, involving props and different photography techniques. My personal favorite film of all time is ‘Titanic’ the 1997 film based on a real event that took place, starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet. It’s a beautiful and powerful ‘love conquers all’ film. With that said, my chosen field of potential study is multimedia and visual illustrations for film, television, video games, or another form of dimensional media. Film contributes to years of knowledge and entertainment for all ages. Moreover, there is many genres and unthinkable possibilities our creative human minds can think of when it comes to film. I believe the world is inside us, people create their own reality and are in control of their very own thoughts, leading to there overall perspective in life.
To give you a little insight, multimedia artists create multi-dimensional images using complex animations and graphics, depicting objects in motion to give the illusion of a moving picture. This could include: video games, movies, anime, designing visuals for presentations, television, billboards, music videos, commercials and other marketing materials.
Among all topics and ideas in film and media, one possible conflict this generation has is the influence and impact they can have on society. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely great films out there that I have learned positive things from and lifted my mood, or even changed my perspective on things. On the other hand, there are some movies that get released that contain violence and disturbing pictures. Films like this can negatively impact people by influencing their actions or creating negative thoughts in there head. According to Psychiatrists Fredric Wertham and Albert Bandura of Stanford University, “Through TV and film a child may see more violence in thirty minutes than the average adult experiences in a lifetime.” They go on by saying “Violence becomes the fundamental principle of society, children learn to take pride in force and violence and are encouraged to forget the natural law of humanity.” You are probably thinking, the parents shouldn’t allow their children to watch violence films, although this is true, parents can’t control their child’s every move every second. The Surgeon General’s Studies states that parents, in fact, “rarely exercise control over the television habit of their children.” To further elaborate, even teenagers in high school can be affected by things that they watch, for instance, an incident took place where two junior boys in a high school were found intoxicated in a classroom. A couple days later, investigators found out one of the boys had watched a documentary on his phone about making whiskey and his own distilled spirits, this resulted in his action to create his own alcoholic stock and bring it to school to drink with his friend. Another example of violence in multimedia would be video games; kids nowadays have access to things like Xbox or Playstation involving moving pictures they can control that are abusive and violent, allowing them to use tactics, weapons, and guns.
In other words, what i’m trying to get at here is that film and other related multimedia arts contribute to our everyday knowledge and are commonly viewed and used forms of entertainment, so we should be careful what is put out there for the audience to see. Although this is true, depending on the audience, perspective and the way someone lets events or learnings affect them varies. According to the chapter in They Say, I Say, “Entering Conversations about Literature”, “Some students enjoy reading literature for pleasure and analyzing its “meaning” or “symbolism” enhancing the pleasure we get from reading literature.” (190) The same concept applies to film, some audience may watch movies to find a hidden meaning or obvious symbolism from it to get a deeper connection. For instance, In the 1937 Disney animated musical film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” there are many meaningful themes, one would be: ‘appealing to the goodness of everyone’ as the woodsman could not kill Snow White since she believed in the goodness of him and everyone else. A great and very popular example of modern moving pictures would be ‘Netflix’ about 90% of people are familiar with this at home entertainment. Allowing us to stream at home movies, television shows, and even Netflix originals only seen and found on Netflix. It has definitely been ahead of the curve in trends these past years, and getting people to go to theaters or purchase a movie has become increasingly more difficult.
Have you noticed how advanced films have become in our lives over the years? Technology has progressed so much more and it really shows in modern movies. Let’s compare the original and iconic “King Kong” made in 1933 to the 2005 remake. If you’ve seen both early makings of the movie you can obviously point out that King Kong looks much more realistic and life-like in the 2005 remake. One big factor we can point out is the 1933 film is that it is filmed in black and white. Another factor I noticed in the older film, is that King kong is filmed in a technique called ‘stop-motion’ where he is moved in small increments in between frames and individually photographed so it will give the illusion of him moving as the frames are played back in a fast sequence. Today, motion in film have progressed greatly. The more motion and action in a film the more the audience will keep their attention open because of the intensity and adrenaline they get from the scene. Altogether, whether it is an action movie, romance, horror, or comedy I believe the biggest changes are those brought out by changes in society.
This leads me to my conclusion, that I will write about the topic and idea of media in our society, how it affects our reality and the evolving of it. I think this idea is important because film and media plays a big role in our lives with all the technology advancements and even events that take place in our own realities. I am going to choose between these three potential research questions for my final research paper: “Does our reality portray the media and film that is created?” and “How does the media affect our society?” Last but not least, “How has film evolved over time, is it a positive change?” I believe these questions and this topic open your mind and think of how advanced our time is. It is a notable idea that is relevant to our lives since many events take place in our world whether they are negative or positive, and time is always moving so the world won’t stop evolving.
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