An Optimist's View of Unemployment: The Exciting Unknown

About a month ago, I was laid off from THQ.  Immediately, friends and family came out of the woodwork to say, "I'm sorry!"  To which I replied, "Why?  I'm not. I'm excited!"  I may be naive and crazy, but to be honest I'm excited to start this new chapter of my life. "Why," you ask? Well, here's three reasons:

New City.
After I was laid off, I sold everything I could con people into buying, then packed up the rest and moved to the Seattle area of Washington.  Why? Cause I had people willing to house me, and I really want to get into the tech industry.  Seattle is also a great town.  It's not the sprawling metropolis of LA and it offers more career opportunity than my home town of St. Louis, MO.  I technically live outside of Seattle, but I make trip to the big city every week to drop off hard copies of my resume to annoyed receptionists.

New People.
I already had a few friends in Seattle and while they are great, I'm more excited to meet all the new people!  And it began before I even arrived.  After I was laid off from THQ, my coworkers were nice enough to put me in touch with people they knew that lived up here.  And while the hope is to connect with someone that can get me my next job, it is till enlighting to meet people and gather any advice I can.  But I'm also doing a lot of leg work so every time I head up to the city I try to meet as many new people as possible.  There is still a lot weight in the old adage of, "It's not what you know, but who you know."

New Opportunity.
Now for big-boy talk.  What am I going to do now?  And I have an answer: I don't know.  While I would like to work in the tech industry and be a game designer, I have become aware that not all hopes come true.  I will work my tailbone off to try and make it happen but I realize that I have to keep my options open if I want to remain in Seattle.  I was hanging out with some people the other night and one of them said to me, "I hope you find work in the industry you want because there is nothing like earning a dollar doing something you love."  First of all, that is an awesome quote.  Second of all, it really resonated with me.  I love film and television.  I am trained in film and television.  So if I got a job in film or television, I would be extremely happy.  However, I am also greatly invested in finding work in the game industry, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.  And while a getting a job right away in either of these industries would be ideal, I am not above taking something in the mean-time.  But I will be so bold to make this statement: I will get a job in the entertainment industry.

So there you have it.  But let's say for argument's sake we take a realist's view of my situation.  I'm unemployed in the worst economic downturn since the great depression.  Jobs are rare and even if you find you find one, chances are it is not remotely related to what you went to school for.  Add on top of that that most people my age are underemployed and all of sudden the chances of me getting my dream are even less!  With all that being said, let me say this: I'm still excited.

Exploring Washington: The Arrival

So these past two weeks have been a blur. I was laid off two Thursdays ago. So because I want to get into the video game industry I decided to move to Seattle. (It doesn't that hurt my girlfriend and some other friends live up here.) After my lay off, I immediately started applying for jobs. I was gonna take two weeks to make my move but then last Thursday, I got an email about a job interview for THIS Wednesday!  While I was excited it meant that I only had five days to make my move.  So I had a garage sale on Saturday. It was pretty awesome. My roommate and I just sat in the garage and watched all the funny people go through our stuff. I suggest it to anyone who has too much stuff and a free Saturday.  It was awesome entertainment, plus I made money! Anyway, I left early Monday morning. (I made a video blog of my travels and will post it to this entry soon).  I arrived today (Tuesday) before noon and began settling in to temporary home. I'm all moved in now, and am prepping for my interview tomorrow. This is my first interview and while I hope for the best, I'm not delusional about landing a job on my first day here. But now that I'm here I want to start on my new project (details to follow in later posts) where I will explore and learn more about the Indie gaming scene in Seattle. I'm very excited to be in my new city and look forward to sharing all the cool things I find. Stay tuned!

New Stop-Motion: An Ode to Hitchcock

I really like Alfred Hitchcock (I'm a film major).  I always found his subtle humor very funny.  However, he is more of a humorist than a comedian.  I don't often find myself laughing out loud, but I often get very big grins.  I'm not sure if that's an accurate distinction between a humorist and a comedian, but I'm not really an expert on the matter.  Regardless, I hope you enjoy my new video.

Production notes:

I started this project by surveying my room looking for things to make dance.  My eyes fell on a Christmas present that my loving sister, Christina, gave me.  I immediately knew that I wanted to animate words, but I was unsure if I should do a song or a speech.  I looked up some speeches, but none of them felt right.  Then I thought of movie quotes, which made me think of Hitchcock.  I pulled the audio from his 1950s TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and compiled it in Audacity.  After I had the audio I transcribed it so I knew what all the words were.  Then I set up my camera rig on the side of my desk so that it looked down on a small nightstand.  Then I filmed the animations you see above.  After filming, I downloaded all the video and used iMovie to pull all of my images (I find it easier to pull images in iMovie than in AvidMC).  While pulling my images I realized that I had actually forgotten a few words.  Luckily, I had left my camera rig in place just in case I had to re-shoot.  Thank goodness I did.  Once I was finished re-shooting I got the final images I needed.  I then exported the video to Avid where I went about syncing the animations to the audio, which was by far the most time intensive part of the project.  Finally, I added some filters to make the video reflect the era and quality of the audio.  

Ode to Hitchcock by the numbers:

• 760 unique images in the video.
• 20 hours of total production time
• 4 hours of finding and mixing audio
• 3 hours of set up and filming
• 12 hours of editing and syncing
• 4 different audio clips from 3 different episodes.

Philosophy of the Final Frontier

Yesterday, while I was working on a project, I had the cast and crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation keeping me company.  One of the reasons I really like the show is that it makes me stop and think.  Yesterday, there were two such episodes. I thought I would share with you their profound quotes and why they gave me pause. (Warning: This may get philosophical and/or preachy.)

Season 4, Ep. 21: The Drumhead

After a Romulan spy is found aboard the USS Enterprise, a manhunt begins for any other Romulan collaborators.  One young crewman is suspected of creating an explosion on the ship and becomes the focus of the hunt.  Jean Luc defies the investigative team by allowing the crewman to go about his business instead of restricting him.  However, the trials continue until Jean Luc Picard, Captain of the Enterprise, is accused of espionage.  In the climax of his trail Jean Luc says, "'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden , the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.' The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged."  This struck me as incredibly relevant for two reasons: SOPA/PIPA and our treatment of suspected terrorists.  With the recent shelving of SOPA and PIPA, it appears that Jean Luc's argument would have been well received.  Many spoke out in a single voice, refusing to let their freedoms be infringed upon.  This was a monumental step forward for us.  An achievement that shows the true power an interconnected society can have.  However, I believe that Jean Luc's argument is lost when dealing with suspected terrorists.  I think back to the episode and how Jean Luc was willing to put himself and his crew at risk to not violate the rights of one man.  Meanwhile, we incarcerate people indefinitely without trial, even though as a society we believe that we are innocent until proven guilty.  Let me make it clear that I do not have a better solution to the problem.  I also realize that it is much easier for a television program to be idealistic.  But I do know that we should never stop in pursuit of our lofty ideals.  As Jean Luc says at the end of the episode, to maintain our freedom, "constant vigilance is the price we must pay."


Season 4, Ep. 23: The Host

When the two moons of a distant planet are on the brink of war, the Enterprise is enlisted to take an ambassador to the mitigate discussions between the two societies.  The ambassador is told by another delegate, "They are more factionalized then ever. Listening is a skill that seems to have evaporated with the heat of argument." To which the ambassador replies, "Speak softly Governor, those who cannot hear an angry shout may strain to hear a whisper." Another fascinating quote with relevant political implications. I often get the feeling that the mentality of our current political climate is fundamentally flawed. Words like compromise seem to be avoided at all costs. Indeed our past 112th Congress spent more time in Washington than ever before, but still managed to be the most unproductive session since records began being kept. The political climate has reached a point where no one listens to each and thus cannot agree on anything. My hope is that as a society we can be that whisper and change all that.

Stop Motion Techniques

Yesterday, I started on a new stop-motion film.  It's taking a bit longer than expected, so in the meantime I wanted to discuss two different stop-motion techniques that I've used in my films.  I believe there to be two fundamental stop-motion techniques.  From here on I'll refer to them as the mainstream and experimental techniques (these names are based on their usage and are not descriptive of the actual technique).  The fundamental difference is that the mainstream technique makes a still subject appear to be moving, and the experimental technique makes a moving subject appear to be still or change its natural course.   However, the more important aspect is that these techniques violate an audiences' expectations in different ways and thus produce animations that are perceived differently.  Filmmakers can utilize these differences to create different effects.

Many people are familiar with "Claymation" films such as the Rudolph Christmas special and Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas."  (I guess people get a lot of free time around the holidays.)  This is why I refer to this style of stop-motion as the mainstream approach.  These films gain their appeal by violating the audiences' expectations that still objects should remain still.  I believe that the mainstream technique is more popular because it "gives life" to the subject.  A self-propelled figurine has an almost magical effect that captivates the imagination (or at least it captivates mine).
// While doing this post, I found a really cool video using the mainstream technique in a very experimental manner. Sorry i'm late 

The experimental technique violates expectations in the opposite fashion of the mainstream technique: taking an object already in motion and making it appear still or changing its course.  Many times this technique is used to make objects appear as though they are violating the laws of physics.  In THIS video I made myself look like I was flying.  This effect is accomplished by taking footage of me repetitiously jumping at the same height but only taking a single frame from the apex of each jump.  While this is a fun experimental technique, it is not as widely used in mainstream media as the other form of stop-motion.  I believe there are two major reasons why this technique is used less often than its counterpart:
1. There are too many alternatives to create the same effect that are easier to execute and produce a higher quality product.  Imagine if you wanted to make a ball look like it was floating.  The easiest way to accomplish this would be to suspend the ball from a string and just film it hanging there. This would avoid a lot of filming and editing as well as the choppy image that is inherent to re-creating this effect using stop-motion.
2.  It looks very unnatural.  The mainstream technique attempts to take the lifeless and make it appear more life like, while the experimental technique attempts to defy the confines of reality.  I believe that audiences are more accepting of a film that tries "play by the rules" while finding films that push the boundaries of a film more of a novelty.

Stop-motion is a fun style of film making that anyone can do with enough time, patience, and creativity.  While I'm not an expert, I hope that my analysis gives you a better understanding of stop-motion from a viewer stand point.  And if you're making a stop-motion film, I hope this can help you understand how your work will be perceived and what technique is right for you.

Friday Fun: Ladyface Alehouse

Lady's and Gents, we have made it through another week.  To celebrate my first week of blogging I've decided that today is going to be a fun post.  As a young person living in LA, there are lots of things to do and places to go.  Today, I want to talk about a little brewery that lives right down the road from my work: Ladyface Ale Company.

I've been working at THQ for a little over a year and half now, yet I've never walked the mile or so down the road to check out the Ladyface Alehouse.  About two weeks ago, a coworker of mine came in carrying a growler (a half gallon jug) of beer from Ladyface.  I had suspected that they are everywhere with lots of micro-breweries, like Seattle, WA.  However, I have been on the LA beer scene for a number of years and never seen one.  I was immediately filled with joy and excitement, because I had a birthday party to go to and had yet found something to bring.

The next day, I walked down to the alehouse to pick up some beer.  I really like the atmosphere.  Inside there are long wooden tables with big blocky benches where large groups or families can sit and chat with each other, while the patio seating looks out toward the mountains that separate Agoura Hills and Malibu.  I wasn't there for sunset, but I imagine it would be a nice place for dinner on a warm summer evening.  But the best part was the beer (Here's what they have on tap.)  I got three different growlers: Ladyface IPA, Blind Ambition (a Belgian abbey-style amber ale), and the Picture City Porter.  The IPA and Belgian were pretty good, but Picture City Porter was definitively the star of the show.  Which is apt, because Agoura Hills was once known as "Picture City" because of all the movies that were filmed here.  It was delightfully creamy with lots of coffee and malt flavors.  I will admit, however, that I am partial to porters and stouts.

The prices for pints are average for drinks in LA ($5-$7), however you get a better deal for the growlers (take out only, $6 for the jug and refills start at $12).  They don't have a drink happy hour, but they do have cheap eats from Mon-Fri 3-6pm & Th-Sat after 10pm.  I didn't eat when I visited, but I probably will sooner or later so I'll update this blog when that happens.

Overall, I liked Ladyface.  The beer was excellent and the prices weren't too bad.  It is a bit of a drive out of LA, but if you're looking for a local brew that's a little off the beaten path, then I would definitely come check this place out.

8 Reasons Why Everyone Should Do Code Year

If you're like me and you want to get into the gaming industry, yet you don't already know how to code, you're probably trying to learn.  I have friend that brought up this awesome sight called www.codecademy.com, which just started its Code Year initiative.  Below are eight reasons why everyone should sign up:

1. It's simple to sign up:  The page takes a Google approach to its simplicity. There's a nice big box where you put your email address and every Monday you'll receive an email with your lessons.

2. It's Free:  Lots of people pay a lot of money to take courses in school or online to learn how to code.  While there are no football games or keggers to go to at Codecadmey, you can't beat the price tag.

3. Preset Goals:  One of the difficulties that I've had in teaching myself code (I was learning C++ from THIS sight), was that I had nothing to keep me on track but myself.  Whenever I got busy, my own lesson plans got smaller and smaller.  With Code Year, the emails they send you have a set of lessons that you know you have to finish by next week.  And the lesson plans are more than manageable by my account.

4. It's Interactive:  When you click on a lesson link you're taken to an interactive page.  The left side has instructions while the right side has a lite Integrated Development Environment (IDE) where you can write and run your code.  The IDE is the interactive portion of the lesson.  Lead you through your lesson by telling you what you've done right and if you're doing it wrong.

5. Lots of Positive Feedback:  Some people get crazy with collectibles. Like badges on 4square or achievements on XBL.  Code Academy has recognized this and added a point and achievement system into Code Year.  It tracks your progress and awards your efforts.  Positive reinforcement and collectibles are great ways to motivate people.

6. Sense of Community:  Codecademy is also set up with Facebook and Twitter.  This way you can tweet your progress and see what you're friends (or total strangers) are up to as well.  I enjoy this aspect because knowing you're not alone in your efforts can really help you keep it up.

7. Make Yourself A Better Candidate:  I wouldn't recommend doing one lesson then putting "Fluent in JavaScript" on your resume.  However, it doesn't hurt to inform people that you're learning.  It shows initiative and a willingness to learn.  Just make sure that you are upfront about your abilities and limitations if anyone expresses interest.

8. It's not too late!  Yes, it is already over halfway through January, but Code Year is only in it's second week.  You may have to put in a little more effort, but being behind two weeks shouldn't be a reason to give up on the whole year.

There you have it. Eight simple reasons why everyone should be learning code.  And if you're still not convinced, just remember that you don't have anything to lose, but a lot to gain.  So let's get out there and code!