http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapunzel_%28film%29

According to some Disney insiders, the studio's upcoming animated feature Rapunzel is going to look a little different from other mainstream animation. That's because the animation will be done via CGI while resembling traditional hand-drawn animation.

While it's far too early to jump to any conclusions (after all, the film is slated for release next holiday season), this approach seems somewhat counterproductive to me. If they want to emulate the look of classic 2D Disney animation, why not just make a 2D-animated feature? The use of CGI comes across as a bit pointless.

Having said that, it is doubtlessly an ambitious undertaking. It will be interesting to see what the finished product looks like.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/the-first-iron-man-2-trailer-is-here

This is a new trailer for Marvel's upcoming and highly anticipated film Iron Man 2. Overall, I'm really looking forward to this film, and the trailer does a great job of showing viewers what to expect without giving away too much. Most notably, the visual effects seem to be a step up from the original film, quite an accomplishment considering the excellent effects of that film. During work on the first film, director Jon Favreau worked extensively with Industrial Light and Magic to combine rubber and metal versions of the titular character's armor with digital effects.

I found that last bit of trivia to be interesting because it marks a step in visual effects towards a path that combines old with new, traditional special effects with newer digital effects. This will allow special effects artists to make the most of the strengths of both sides while minimizing the shortcomings. All-in-all, very interesting stuff; I look forward to seeing more.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/should-avatar-be-considered-for-best-animated-oscar

This article by Brad Brevet questions whether James Cameron's latest film Avatar merits consideration for this year's Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Brevet quotes Academy regulates on what constitutes an animated feature: "An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of at least 70 minutes, in which movement and characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture's running time." The takeaway question Brevet poses at the end of the article is: When is CGI no longer considered visual effects and when is it considered animation?

Having not seen the film, I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but if advance reviews and comments about it are any indication, I say yes, Avatar does indeed deserve to be considered an animated feature. Although it makes use of motion capture technology (as do some of the films being considered for Oscar contention), reactions to the film's groundbreaking and extensive use of CGI indicate that it has crossed the threshold between "visual effects" and "animation". If the studio does submit the film for consideration, however, then the Academy might want to be a little more specific in their definition of animation.

http://www.brainstream.com/custom-playing-cards.php

This is an article for Custom Playing Cards, a service that allows you to print your own photographs on playing cards. For the most part, I think this is a very interesting service. Playing cards have changed a lot since their conception thousands upon thousands of years ago, far more than some people may realize. They have become a staple in the artistic consciousness, used for a wide variety of games, magic tricks, and more, and now they can be personalized. This marks a growing trend in design becoming a more personal thing. In the past, there was always somewhat of a disconnect between designs and their audiences. Now, people can see more of themselves in design, and that's going change the way we look at it for a long time to come.

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/994/994234p1.html

This is GameSpy's list of the six "most pointless game controllers" ever made, which offers up a somewhat humorous analysis of just that.

What I noticed about nearly all the controllers in question is their unnecessary complexity. They tend to feel gimmicky and pointless.

The moral of the story, in essence, is that sometimes, simple is better. With simplicity, you can build from the ground up. If you have a simple baseline to work with, you can build off of that and come up with something special and original. And that's one of the best qualities any designer can have: the ability to create something new and exciting out of something simple.

Some people seem to think that just because a particular work is bad, that it's inherently not worth watching. Well, I have to disagree with this sentiment and would like to point out that a lot of works in all media considered "bad" can be enjoyable not despite their badness, but because of it. Enter the classic phrase "so bad it's good".

One of the most interesting things about works that qualify for "so bad it's good" status is that sometimes, works deliberately go out of their way to achieve such a distinction.

This is where I'm a little on the fence. Should works focus solely on entertaining audiences, even if it does do by being "so bad it's good", or should integrity come into play as well?

This is a tough call for me, but if I had to decide, I would say that entertainment is the primary purpose, and if a work has to resort to "so bad it's good" tactics to accomplish that, that's just fine.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeorgeLucasThrowback

Now for another entry on the TV Tropes Wiki, this time describing the "George Lucas Throwback", which refers to works that reach back to simpler times while updating for modern production values. Named for George Lucas, best-known for such throwbacks as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, if particularly successful, a "GLT" can fool audiences into believing that it is an entirely original work as opposed to a throwback.

The concept of a throwback is interesting because it toys with the idea of acknowledging past works while simultaneously "keeping with the times". The most successful throwbacks manage to accomplish both. In fact, in a way, designers everywhere do throwbacks all the time. Since it's virtually impossible to come up with something 100% original, the true mark of a good designer's ability is their ability to combine old with new. To reach back to simpler times while having enough "new and improved" qualities to remain relevant for modern audiences.

Soccer is by far the most popular sport in the world. But why is this? There are so many other sports out there, some of which are admittedly more popular than others, but soccer seems have found itself near the top for many, many years. There are bound to be many possible theories as to why this is, but I'll take a stab and provide my own.

Soccer has a wonderful balance between simplicity and depth that you rarely find in sports. It has a simple premise of kicking a ball into a goal, but there are all kinds of strategies players can use to achieve this goal, but the setup is simple.

This is, in essence, what any game should be; simple enough to be accessible to a wide audience, yet complex enough to allow for depth and creativity.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both among the best and most popular parody news TV shows out there. Being a spinoff of the former, the latter has gone out of its way to distinguish itself from its predecessor in many ways, and it has succeeded tremendously. The Colbert Report's shtick is that unlike The Daily Show, which basically amounts to Jon Stewart and friends taking digs at politics and news media, the Report actually appears to take place in a semi-fictional universe. Colbert himself, after all, is a very different person in "real life" from the persona he has established on the show.

Colbert finds great success with this approach. Unlike most other forms of parody news, including The Daily Show, the Report has established a world of its own that's every bit as entertaining as the obligatory news media potshots expected of the genre. It's a kind of warped reality where Colbert's character is ostensibly God, bears are Satan, and other things are made up on-the-fly. Some of the show's humor actually stems from the confusion over where "reality" ends and where the show's universe begins.

Overall, The Colbert Report is both enjoyable as a parody news program and as a fictional comedy series in its own right.

"We're all taught never to judge a book by its cover. Most of us ignore this advice." says this entry on the TV Tropes wiki, which describes the "Contemptible Cover", or the extensive use of book covers as marketing gimmicks. One bit on the page that really got my attention was the supposed addition of Harry Potter copies with more "adult" covers so that adult fans wouldn't have to feel embarrassed about reading a "kiddy book". This entry got me thinking: Can the cover of the book actually change one's perception of the actual content of the book? Covers can indeed make a first impression. When I heard from this entry that someone had bound and published several articles of Wikipedia on hard copy, I didn't believe it until I saw the cover of the book, which, as I mentioned in my dissertation on this book, had a professional look and feel that clashed with the informal atmosphere the "real" Wikipedia is (in)famous for.

But when it comes to whether a cover can change one's outlook on a book, I say, in most cases, no. There's a very good reason why we're told never to judge a book by its cover, and it's because it's the text inside that is really telling the story, not the cover. Having said that, however, a book with an attractive cover never hurts.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Doorstopper

This entry from the TV Tropes wiki describes doorstoppers, books so heavy and thick that they could be used as, well, doorstoppers. The page points out that this is often used as a derogatory term for a novel with lots of padding and/or poor pacing.

I found this entry interesting because it discusses one of the concepts we've talked about a lot in lecture: time. How do you describe the time of something? When creating something, how can you use time to your advantage, and, along those same lines, how can time work against you? In this particular instance, "time" describes the amount of time it takes to read a book. "Doorstoppers" are described as such because they obviously take longer to read than shorter books.

Ultimately, I say that when it comes to utilizing time when creating something, it's never about how long someone is going to read/watch/look at something. Rather, it's about how long that creation is going to remain in the audience's memory. To me, that's the real "time" of a design.

These are two promotional images for the popular TV series Batman: The Animated Series. There are differences in these two images, mainly in the animation style. The former's features detailed coloring and backgrounds, while the latter is noticeably more simple and streamlined. The second image promotes a retool the show went through following its second season. This move caused some fan controversy, with quite a few hardcore B:TAS fans criticizing the "new look" series. I, on the other hand, find myself in the minority and prefer the animation in the revamp.

One thing that always bothered me about the style of the original series was that it simply tried too hard. The animators tried to achieve a cinematic feel to the presentation, and some attempts at doing so succeeded more than others. While there was some great cinematography in many episodes, the action suffered pretty heavily, as they were often too over-the-top for such realistic character designs. Dialogue-driven scenes suffered on occasion as well, as characters would often make unnecessarily complex gestures that would distract from the actual dialogue and plot. The main reason why things didn't always work out is because some things in live action simply don't work in animation. In the retool series, the animators seemed to have learned this lesson, as they stripped the animation down to its most basic elements. Characters and backgrounds alike were simplified to look more abstract and cartoonish. As silly as such a retool may sound, it actually works. The action scenes were much more fluid and engaging, and the dialogue-heavy scenes came across as more poignant, as emphasis was placed on dialogue and characters' subtle facial expressions, not on over-the-top gestures that made them look like cartoon characters.

Although most Batman: TAS fans would disagree, I believe that the revamp series was an improvement in animation quality, as the simple, streamlined designs allowed for more fluidity and an overall more atmospheric feel.

http://weeklydrop.com/2009/06/wikipedia-book/

This article discusses a decidedly out-of-the-ordinary event; Wikipedia has been published in book form. Described by the article as, "a must-have for students without the Internet". Registering at 5,000 entries and 2,500 entries, the book is already outdated, with the actual online Wikipedia now having a thousand times more articles. Personally, I'm more curious as to why it wasn't published in multiple volumes like any other encyclopedia (as one reader comment insightfully points out).

The thing that really got my attention was the appearance of the book. I was strangely both impressed and amused by the design of the book, with a certain professionalism that's at odds with Wikipedia's rampant (and somewhat undeserved, I would argue) reputation as an unreliable source of information owing to the fact that anyone can edit it. Could it be that this publication might help Wikipedia be seen as a credible source of information? Only time will tell, but meanwhile, I think we all take a look at the size of this book and give thanks to the Internet for its ability to store large amounts of information in infinitely more efficient ways.

This is a promotional image for Justice League, an animated TV series set in the long-running DC Animated Universe (often abbreviated DCAU).

The conception of the DCAU is often attributed to Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett, and Paul Dini, among others. Timm is generally credited with conceiving the animation style of the franchise, which is known for its minimalist, angular style. Another interesting thing I found out about Timm is that he is completely self-taught and had no formal training in drawing or animation.

The good news is that if I didn't know that last bit, I never would have guessed it because the visuals on hand are excellent. Timm expresses his love for art deco with simple yet pleasing animation complemented by complex writing. Backgrounds are rendered nicely, and characters maintain a somewhat cartoony warmth to them while still being taken seriously.

If the art style of the DCAU has any particular failings, it's that some episodes have better coloring than others. Sometimes, the colors can come across as pale, and nothing really "pops", making the otherwise excellent animation appear bland and unsatisfying. Thankfully, these instances are few and far between. For the most part, the colors complement the animation well.

Overall, the DCAU has some very pleasing animation to offer. It presents detailed backgrounds, simple yet endearing character designs, and solid (if occasionally mediocre) coloring.

This is a character sheet for The Spectacular Spider-Man, a currently airing animated TV series about the titular web-slinger. Although the show's writing is almost universally regarded as excellent by superhero fans, myself included, one aspect of the show where Spidey fans don't quite see eye-to-eye is the unorthodox animation style. Spectacular sports very simple, streamlined character designs. Lead character designer Sean Galloway did this "to ensure Spider-Man would move as he should and replicate the fluidity from Sam Raimi's movie incarnation."

Although some may object to this and deride the animation as "too kiddy", I personally think the animation is terrific. The cartoonish, big-eyed characters give the show its own look and feel that helps to distinguish it from other superhero cartoons. The simplicity of the style strips the characters down to their most basic physical attributes, making them distinguishable from each other, and then some thanks to the show's excellent characterization.

Overall, even if some Internet fanboys may disagree, I would strongly argue that The Spectacular Spider-Man is a great-looking show. The unique style gives the series a "shtick" to set it apart, and the characters' streamlined designs allow them to stand out from one another.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/7184-batmanvsdk

In this video, Internet comedian The Nostalgia Critic introduces his "Old vs. New" series, in which he compares 2008's mega-blockbuster The Dark Knight with Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film. After judging the two films in a number of categories, the Critic, in a move that is quite contrary to what seems to be the general consensus, concludes that he regards Batman as a superior film.

Although the Critic sheds kind words on both films and provides a lot of reasons for why he prefers the Burton film, one recurring argument that got my attention was that he asserts that, unlike Batman, which lets its imagery speak for itself, The Dark Knight feels more like a "character study" in which the characters in the film make several heavy-handed speeches about the film's themes. Although I personally would argue in favor of The Dark Knight being a better movie, the Critic nonetheless makes a valid point. For all its strengths, The Dark Knight suffers quite a bit from being too dialogue-heavy and not letting its visuals speak for themselves, one of the great assets of any visual medium. That's not to say that the dialogue isn't interesting, but does get fairly heavy-handed in explaining the film's themes instead of letting the audience decipher said themes for themselves.

Ultimately, I have to agree with the Nostalgia Critic's assertion. A film should express its story and ideas through its visuals, not just through dialogue. After all, that's what separates films from non-visual media such as books and radio. And although I think The Dark Knight is a wonderful and brilliant motion picture, it seems to have forgotten this.

http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html

The above is a Cracked.com article that offers up "The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey". the article provides some lengthy yet often interesting arguments regarding the faults of several modern video games and what should be done to remedy said faults.

All-in-all, I found these sentiments to be mostly reasonable. Even the best games can make needless mistakes. One interesting trend I noticed in these "Commandments" is that most of the related complaints are against trends of recent years. The very first entry derides the lack of local split-screen mutiplayer in favor of online play in games such as Grand Theft Auto IV and MotorStorm, defending said assertion with the claim that Super Smash Bros. Brawl was one of the best-selling games of 2008 and does feature local multiplayer (in addition to online play). Another "Commandment" regards the huge leap in graphics technology in this console generation, citing the fact that the Wii, the most graphically underpowered of the current generation consoles, is also the best-selling so far.

The big reason why these particular arguments got my attention more than others is because it constitutes a larger problem in digital media. There's so much cool new stuff out there nowadays, that designers can forget their roots and get too caught up in trends. Likewise, some game developers are getting so caught in all the new and exciting innovations being made in that field, that they seem to have forgotten the purpose of a game: to entertain. There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of new features such as online play and photorealistic graphics technology; in fact, such things are to be expected. But some developers seem to forget that they need to make games that can entertain and engage people.

That's really one of the big challenges of all designers. They must be willing to embrace new innovations in design, but at the same time, they also need to remember their roots and why they do what they do. Otherwise, they're missing the point.

Courtesy of Cracked.com, this is an image of a sidewalk-turned-Mordor. How was this done, you ask? Nope, not Photoshop; sidewalk paint. The whole thing took a week to paint, and the artists' contingency plan for rain amounted to "leave and paint a new picture tomorrow".

Aside from its mind-blowing detail, this piece got my attention because it ties in closely with some of the things we've discussed in lecture. This image is no mastery of any software application like Photoshop or Illustrator; it's sidewalk art, done with nothing but paint. Overall, the thing I really got out of this is that design isn't really about what you can do, but rather, it's about how you make use of what you can do.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

The above is a page from the TV Tropes Wiki that discusses "Fake Difficulty", or in other words, the tendency of games (though primarily video games) to give the player an unfair disadvantage in a half-hearted attempt to add more challenge to the game. This can range from making the game too luck-based, rooted in trial and error, or simply too difficult to be conceivably won by any decently competent player.

This concept of Fake Difficulty is an interesting one that hasn't really been touched on in lecture. We've talked a lot about how games need rules and restrictions in order to be enjoyable, but what we haven't talked about is the question of how far is too far when putting restrictions on a player. After all, just because a game is supposed to be challenging, that doesn't mean it should be excruciatingly difficult. And although it's not easy finding that right balance between challenge and fairness, if one has to edge towards either extreme, I'd say go for fairness. Even if a game comes across as too easy, it can still be much more fun than it has any right to be if it plays fair. Meanwhile, a game that is "artificially" difficult can become extremely frustrating, as the player may feel like the game is cheating.

The moral of the story is that difficulty should evolve organically from the subject matter of the game. When a game developer tries to shoehorn challenge into a game, it can show badly. The challenge factor of the game should be allowed to developed on its own, not forced.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/film-adaptations-and-their-source-material-how-faithful-should-they-be

I'd like to discuss yet another editorial from Brad Brevet (I promise, this will be the last one...probably), this time on the issue of adaptations. It goes without saying that the greatest challenge of any adaptation, especially a cross-medium one, is remaining faithful to the source material while leaving one's mark on the adaptation to avoid a tedious rehash of the source. Although discussing film adaptations as a whole, Brevet does take some time to focus on those of the Harry Potter series, namely the latest film in that franchise. He defends the changes in said film, with the assertion that, "When it comes to the Harry Potter films I have a hard time believing someone like 'Anonymous Friend' could be happy with any of the films released so far. None of them have stuck strictly to the narrative".

Overall, I agree with Brevet's sentiments. None of the Potter films are what I would call the epitome of outstanding cinema, but I would strongly argue that they all accomplish what they set out to do (aside from make millions of dollars): offer up a visual and cinematic rendition of Rowling's novels. Whenever you're adapting a particular work from one medium to another, there's far more to it than simply getting all the details and plot points nailed down. It has to be tailored to the medium you're adapting to. Furthermore, the adaptation must capture the spirit and overall mood of the original work. That's the real key to a good adaptation.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/are-general-audiences-too-stupid-to-enjoy-smart-movies

A quasi-follow-up to my previous dissertation, I'd like to discuss another excellent article from Brad Brevet, this time about whether general audiences are "too stupid to enjoy smart movies". One of the classic excuses used by moviegoers defending the films they like from said films' detractors is, "You just don't get it". Brevet admits to disliking this argument, and while I would agree in the vast majority of cases, sometimes, there might be a bit more to that argument than meets the eye. Sometimes, a film can get a little too smart for its own good to the point of alienating audiences. But whose fault is that: the film's or the viewer's?

I say neither. It's not really anyone's fault. It's simply a case of people having different tastes. Just because someone doesn't necessarily "get" a film, that doesn't make the film bad or make the person stupid. It simply means the film isn't for everyone, and as long as it can please someone, it succeeds.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/what-are-your-guilty-pleasure-movies-but-dont-like-to-admit-it

This is an editorial about people's "guilty pleasures" in movies. Author Brad Brevet provides a short yet insightful dissertation about why people have guilty pleasures and why they are "guilty" pleasures in the first place. Although Brevet focuses more on exactly what films might qualify for such status, I'm more interested in the question of why some people are ashamed to admit to liking certain films. There are bound to be countless theories, so I might as well join the crowd and sum up my own.

Somehow, society has gotten to a point where people feel like they are defined by their taste in entertainment. They feel that others will judge them based on what things in public media they like and don't like. It's a true testament to how much entertainment media has been ingrained in the public consciousness. Furthermore, it stresses the task that we designers have set up for ourselves. Almost nobody wants to make something that becomes a "guilty pleasure" in the public eye. The hard part is coming up with something that people won't be afraid to admit to appreciating and will willingly embrace for a long time to come.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15209_10-most-insane-sports-in-world.html

The above article, courtesy of Cracked.com, is a list of "The 10 Most Insane 'Sports' in the World", offering tongue-in-cheek dissertations on such games as cheese rolling, hurling, and Eukonkanto (aka wife carrying).

In addition to being both insightful and very funny, the article also ties in to the concept of games, something we've been talking about for quite some time in lecture. In lecture, we came to the conclusion that in a game, there is an over-arching goal, obstacles standing between the player and said goal, and rules to increase the challenge factor. The article proves that there is a seemingly infinite number of ways to create such an experience. My picks for the most outlandish sports in this countdown are the Eton Wall Game and chess boxing.

http://games.ign.com/articles/944/944826p1.html

This is an article from ign.com that discusses "Ten Trends That Are Destroying Videogames". Most of said trends center primarily on the fact that modern games have suffered from a noticeable absence in innovation and risk-taking. Things seen as novelties when they were introduced are now seen as tired and old news.

Overall, the views expressed in the article seem to be legitimate concerns. Many elements of game development have been overused to the point of losing their novelty. The entry here that I have to agree with most is the "Motion 'Control'" trend. When the Wii was introduced, it opened up whole new worlds of possibilities in game development. More often than not, however, motion control tends to work to most games' detriment than it does to their advantage. That's not to say that it doesn't benefit any games at all, but it definetly hasn't been used to its fullest potential. Overall, it's a good compilation of very real concerns in game development, and hopefully, such concerns will be addressed soon.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/104/1047635p1.html

A little while ago, I stumbled across this article which offers an analysis of where the appeal of the long-running Super Mario video game series can be traced back to. The article gives an extensive, almost scholarly dissertation about what has made Mario a pop culture icon. To sum up, author Michael Thomsen compares the Mario games to Vaudeville, what with its cartoonish atmosphere and dreamlike sensibilities. Furthermore, Thomsen offers insight into his own admiration for the games, asserting that, "Before anything, Mario has been about the fundamental joy of movement". In a statement sure to have Mario fans everywhere swamping him in hatemail, Thomsen claims that he, "never liked the 3D Mario games very much" because their emphasis on open-ended play breaks from the, "Homeric dream odyssey" of the "classic" Mario titles.

Although I was interested by some of the article's insights, I find myself disagreeing with several of Thomsen's sentiments. My main issue with this article is that it overanalyzes what basically amounts to a series of video games (albeit very good ones) with cartoon characters. His comparisons of Mario to, "the Homeric dream odyssey" border on hyperbole. Why can't a Mario game just be a Mario game? Is Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto knocking on Thomsen's door to congratulate him for cracking the code? Another issue I have is that Thomsen seems to hold a purist's attitude, that the Mario games must adhere to a strict formula and that anything that detracts from said formula (such as the aforementioned 3D Mario titles) is not a "true" Mario experience. What he seems to have failed to realize is that the reason why the 3D Mario games such as Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy were so popular and critically-acclaimed was because they successfully captured the spirit of the "classic" renditions of Mario while simultaneously taking the series in bold new directions.

As something of a follow-up to my previous dissertation, I'd now like to dig a little deeper into a concept discussed in lecture: metaphors. The world of media is full of metaphors, not the least of which is the film Up.

In the film, our hero, the septuagenarian Carl Frederickson, does the only logical thing to do to overcome the death of his wife: tie hundreds of thousands of balloons to his house so he can fly it to the Venezuelan jungle, a vacation he had previously promised his wife when they were younger, but couldn't carry out thanks to life repeatedly getting in the way. Absurd and implausible as the balloon-assisted flying house may be, a particularly insightful edit on this page of the TV Tropes Wiki asserts that it makes for great symbolism in an adventure story that revolves around the theme of hanging on to the past. Carl is obsessively protective of his house and possessions, they being the only things he has left to remember his wife by, and the house hanging on to the balloons is a great representation of that. Later in the film, the house is grounded due to several popped balloons, leaving him stranded. He only manages to get the house floating again by dumping out all his possessions to lighten the weight. This marks a crucial point in Carl's character development because in order to "move on", he has to both literally and metaphorically "let go" of his past.

"Simplexity" is a term coined by the creators of the Disney/Pixar film Up to describe the film's animation style as "the art of simplifying an image down to its essence. But the complexity that you layer on top of it-in texture, design, or detail is masked by how simple the form is". Basically, the film was animated with the mindset of making the basic designs of the characters abstract and cartoonish while adding enough detail to features like skin and hair to maintain believability.

So much of modern animation tries too hard to make images more realistic that they come across as dull. One of the chief offenders of recent years is Robert Zemeckis with his work on motion capture in such films as The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol. His "mo-cap" films have a remarkable degree of detail and realism, but they don't take advantage of the surrealism that animation makes possible. What Zemeckis seems to have failed to realize is that just as animation opens up new possibilities, there are things in live-action that simply don't work in animation. Furthermore, if a computer-generated world strives for as much realism as Zemeckis seems to be trying to convey, the use of animation seems somewhat pointless.

Pixar's approach in Up proves to be far more successful, as they manage to capture the basic key elements of an image while remaining believable. The important part is that Up strives for believability rather than realism, and that's why it works.

Now here's something Batman fans can really sink their teeth into (thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week): a birthday cake based on the Dark Knight himself. Nowadays, you can make a birthday cake based on just about anything (and I mean anything), but what got my attention here was that fact that this cake was themed around, well, Batman. Batman is a cultural icon known for his dark, grim, personality, so what is his insignia doing on a bright, cheerful birthday cake? Well, I don't exactly have an answer to that question, but I do believe that it ties in closely with a very important idea in design: creativity.

In one discussion we had in class, Prof. Mannheimer said that the true mark of creativity is one's ability to combine two vastly different things to create something new. Although I can follow that sentiment, I think there's a bit more to it than that; not only does creativity involve combining two different things, it also has to avoid losing the best elements of those two things. For instance, while pop culture-themed birthday cakes are hardly anything new, here, the idea works far better than it has any right to because there aren't any sacrifices being made. The bright, vibrant yellow helps bring out the cheerful "birthday cake" aspect of the design, and the black helps bring out the dark, "Batman" side. Overall, a solid job at combining the best of both worlds to come up with something fresh and new.

References
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUkkntnWz8AHp0vPa9sVdylJaiN7RUj7_5KBw3KFVxsMSckT1cruvOUl4Ha-ahPbk6UuSUdJRE8tsYePGZ1nZPLr0gjLhA8UBO9eKMVqzV5Uql2FYZ1I9Z10QU8y1dcFoEzp5evlamLAQO/s1600-h/lauren+batman+birthday+cake+1.gif

This is a promotional image for Batman: The Brave and the Bold, a currently-airing series on Cartoon Network that debuted last year. The bright, colorful visuals in this image may have some die-hard fans of the dark, gritty Caped Crusader trembling with fear, but any fan of this series knows that this is a very different take on Batman, one that has a lot more fun with the character than most modern renditions of the Dark Knight. Overall, this show is very much a throwback to the Silver Age of Comic Books, which spawned the likes of Superfriends and the 60s TV show. What immediately sets The Brave and the Bold apart from those productions (aside from a basic level of respect for the Batman comics) is its post-modernism and self-awareness. In other words, imagine Superfriends if the comedy was actually intentional, and you pretty much have Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

All-in-all, there's a lot I've enjoyed about this series, but the true standout has been the animation. It's simply terrific. The animation does a great job of emulating the show's fun, light-hearted atmosphere with its vibrant colors, simple character designs, and cartoonish aesthetic. Being a TV series, it's not as polished as what most feature films have to offer, but it is several cuts above what most animated TV shows of recent years have on store. The characters, despite being rather simply-designed, are expressive and colorful, with their designs emulating their unique personalities. The various locales also show creativity, ensuring that things stay fresh and interesting. Gotham City is especially impressive, mixing up aspects of darker elements such as the Tim Burton Batman films and Batman: The Animated Series with more light-hearted touches, allowing it to fit in with the show's lighter tone while remaining the Gotham that Batman fans everywhere know and love. Overall, Batman: The Brave and the Bold is a well-conceived and highly entertaining series, boasting colorful characters, diverse locales, and polished animation that manages to fit in all aspects of Batman mythology. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

This is a screenshot from the teaser trailer of Pixar's highly-anticipated Toy Story 3, slated for release this summer. I was surprised by how much the animation has improved on the previous two Toy Story films. While I was anticipating improvement, my expectations weren't anywhere close to what was ultimately delivered. The visuals on hand are incredibly slick and polished, and leaps and bounds above the already-excellent animation of previous Pixar productions. There's a lot of great shading and lighting, the characters are expressive, and there's a certain amount of cartoony warmth and atmosphere that gives charm to the proceedings without being overused. Despite the vast step up, however, the animators were wisely restrained, allowing them to remain faithful to the previous two films. It may look a whole lot better, but this is still very much the universe we were introduced to in Toy Story and Toy Story 2. Overall, great stuff; I was a little skeptical before about how the film would turn out, but if this teaser is anything to go by, it looks like the finished product will deliver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1kNEGyNQ54

This is a video of famed Canadian magician Jay Sankey performing an amazing card trick of his own invention. Personally, I think his performance is near-perfect; the execution and timing of everything is flawless. My favorite thing about it is the use of a compelling narrative to frame the trick. As I mentioned in an earlier dissertation about Ricky Jay, a narrative is a great way to make a feat of magic really speak to the audience, and that's exactly what Sankey does here. Plus, he also makes sure his narrative involves elements that the audience can relate to. Everyone has dreams, takes photographs, and plays with playing cards, so despite the supernatural air inherent in any feat of magic, Sankey's narrative makes some sense to people by adding up ordinary phenomena to come up with something extraordinary.

Sankey's wonderful performance ties into design because his narrative method of presentation is really an issue designers have to think about all the time. A design can't simply be an amalgam of outlandish elements; it won't make any sense, and it will alienate people. Any design has to be something that people can relate to in some way. That being said, it's easy too go too far on the other side of the spectrum and deliver something that people are too familiar with, which makes for a bland, unoriginal design. The key is to assemble familiar elements to make something new. Apply conventional things in unconventional ways. Turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Only then can a design accomplish the best of both worlds by delivering something that people can both relate to and be impressed by at the same time.

Pinpointing exactly what makes a classic is hard to do. A great design manages to engage audiences, but a classic goes one step further. It somehow manages to transcend time and remain in the public's eye for years to come. But how does one make something that's truly timeless? Do you need the foresight to predict how audiences will react to your work in the future, or do you just get lucky? A quick look at just about any "Best movies of all time" list will yield the likes of Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. So how have these films become embedded in pop culture while several of their equally esteemed contemporaries got lost in the shuffle? Well, there are bound to be endless theories, so I'll take the plunge and provide my own.

In a scene from Tim Burton's Ed Wood, the titular B-movie director is confronted by a member of his production crew regarding a continuity issue that came up during their filming of Plan 9 from Outer Space, to which Wood responds, "Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture!" Wood is being a little extreme when he opts to completely neglect the "tiny details" for the "big picture", but his sentiment nonetheless holds some insight. When looking at any great motion picture, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. While audiences may remember individual scenes, bits of dialogue, and standout performances from the "classic" films they hold near and dear to their hearts, what they truly value about the movies they love is each of those movies as a whole, or in other words, the "big picture". However, there's a very good reason why Ed Wood is reviled as the worst director of all time, and, if Burton's quasi-biopic is anything to go by, it's because he ignored the tiny details. Plan 9 from Outer Space is rife with a ridiculous story, laughable dialogue, and poor acting. Just because the big picture works, it doesn't mean the details should be overlooked because the details add up and impact the big picture, for better or worse (generally for worse when speaking of Ed Wood). Thus, what makes a design a true classic is the designer's ability to avoid working solely at the micro or macro level; they key is to find a balance between the two.

Video games have changed a lot over the years. Obvious as that may sound, many people fail to realize the vast difference between the way games are now and the way they were when they first became mainstream entertainment. Where they were once huge machines that usually lasted an hour or two while eating quarters like a turkey on Thanksgiving, they now come in the form of small, portable consoles that host epic, sprawling adventures that can last up to a full workweek, if not even longer. One of the many advancements in modern games has been in storytelling. It all started with the arcade classic Donkey Kong, which offered up a plot revolving around a tubby carpenter saving a damsel-in-distress from a King Kong knockoff. Now, we have games rich in dynamic characters, moral complexity, and cinematic immersion. But has this change truly benefited modern video games? Is it really necessary for a game to have a compelling story, or is it only the gameplay that truly matters? In a controversial move, Shigeru Miyamoto, founder of Nintendo and creator of Donkey Kong, is going out of his way to make the upcoming and highly-anticipated Super Mario Galaxy 2 have as little plot as possible. "I'd like to go with as little story as possible," he told Wired magazine in an interview. "I've always felt that the Mario games themselves aren't particularly suited to having a very heavy story." Complicating matters is the fact that Galaxy 2 director Yoshiaki Koizumi disagrees with Miyamoto's sentiment and has expressed interest in bringing more story elements into the Mario games.

This issue has divided video game players into two separate camps: some agree that games need better storytelling to give them a more immersive experience, but others are like Miyamoto and hold the mindset that less is more, believing that a complex story can interfere with the gameplay, making games less interactive. Then there are people like me, who are on the fence. Although I don't see an interesting story as an absolute necessity towards making a great game, it can be a great asset. I have played many excellent games, Mario games included, that have little to no story, and on the other side of the equation, I have played some mediocre games that couldn't be saved by great storytelling. In the end, though, I have to agree that compelling stories are indeed a part of video game evolution too significant to ignore. Not every game needs a great story, but those that do have at least one advantage over those that don't.

References
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/06/super-mario-galaxy-2/

As something of a follow-up to my dissertations on The Legend of Zelda, I'd now like to discuss one of the big challenges of design: the balance between simplicity and complexity. A good design generally has to be simple enough to be easy to understand, yet also complex enough to maintain audience interest. The challenge is that the distinction between simplicity and complexity is never very cut and dry. What may be too complex to one person may be overly simplistic to someone else. In my Zelda discussions, I mentioned that The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess led to a split in the Zelda fanbase; those who preferred the former appreciated the simplicity of its art style and criticized the latter for "trying too hard" to be more detailed and complex, while those who preferred the latter criticized the former for having an oversimplified art style by "dumbing things down". How does a designer deal with this sort of thing? How can you compromise and come up with something more satisfying? Going back to the Zelda discussions yet again, I said I ultimately preferred The Wind Waker because despite its simplicity, it still has plenty of crisp textures and slick animation that is somewhat lacking in Twilight Princess. Thus, one possible answer to this dilemma is, when trying to achieve that balance between simplicity and complexity, it may be best to center primarily on one of the two while finding ways to integrate elements of the other. The Wind Waker, for example, succeeds because it boasts a simple, no-nonsense design at first glance, but when one digs deeper for finer subtleties, there is a surprising degree of attention to detail to be found.

Ever since the seventh, current console generation began in 2005 with the release of the Xbox 360 and continued into 2006 with the simultaneous launch of the PlayStation 3 and Wii, each console has been more-or-less defined by its target demographic, with the Xbox and PS3 skewing for older audiences and "hardcore" players and the Wii being partial towards "casual" players. That being said, there's a lot of overlap. The Xbox and PS3 have their fair share of "casual" games, and the Wii in turn has plenty of games made for the "core gamer". All of this begs an interesting question: Is it the designer's obligation to design their work for a particular demographic? Or can they design something for a "general audience"? To both questions, I say yes and no. A designer shouldn't try to please everyone because they simply can't. There's always going to be people who don't like something. On the other hand, it's also not a very good idea to go after one specific demographic and shut everyone else out. When all is said and done, it's a balancing act. The true challenge of any designer is to combine breadth with depth. The challenge is to not only get a general audience interested in your work, but also to get as many people as you can invested in it for as long as possible.

http://www.rifftrax.com/

This is the home page for the official website of Rifftrax, a spiritual sequel to the popular TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000, following that show's premise of people who watch movies and make snide remarks about them. You can by audio MP3 files and play them in sync with DVD copies of the movies being "riffed". Said movies are not limited to 50s sci-fi B-movies, as was the case with Mystery Science Theater, but extend to recent big-budget blockbusters like Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean. Following is a compilation of jokes from the crew's "riff" of The Empire Strikes Back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37X1QJa79gI

It's interesting how an achievement as esteemed as The Empire Strikes Back, with some of the most dramatic moments in cinematic history, can be made hilarious by cracking some jokes over some of the various things said and done in the film. This ties in closely with some of the recent in-class discussions we have had about context and about how much design depends on it. As evidenced by this video, a work with one particular meaning can mean something completely different when looked at in a different context. When Luke gets some heavy news from Darth Vader, a dramatic, and even somewhat horrifying, scene becomes funny thanks to a quip from one of the Rifftrax commentators: "That would explain my love of capes!" The Rifftrax slogan ("We don't make movies. We make them funny!") ties in perfectly with the idea of context. The commentators manage to take a dramatic piece of cinema and turn it into something funny simply by changing the context of what unfolds on screen.

http://www.cracked.com/photoshop_90_the-world-tomorrow-if-internet-disappeared-today/

This is a page with various Photoshopped images providing tounge-in-cheek theories on what would happen to the world if "The Internet disappeared today". Overall, I found this to be a hilarious look at how much we depend on the Internet nowadays. My personal favorite images are the "Twitter pigeons" (#18), the "ebay store" (#15), and the "white message board" (#13). It's really interesting how the Internet has not only changed the way we see the digital world, but the way we see the world as a whole. On a computer screen, stuff like the things depicted in the images would be perfectly normal, but they become much more ridiculous once they are kidnapped from the Internet and put in the real world. This fits in with what we've been discussing in class recently about context; the various elements in each image aren't very funny on their own, but when put together, they become funny within the context of the image.

This is a promotional image for the Warner Bros. cartoon Animaniacs, a Looney Tunes-esque comedy series featuring original characters and shorts that ran from 1993 to 1998. The show's humor was a broad mix of old-fashioned cartoon wackiness and pop culture references, among other things, with one of its most distinct characteristics being its post-modern, self-aware look at classic cartoon themes. This self-awareness is reflected in the show's three main characters: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, (collectively referred to as "The Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister)"), pictured in the image. During the show's creation, the Warners were originally supposed to be ducks, but supervisor Tom Ruegger shot down the idea because "...everybody had ducks" and ultimately decided on a "...generic animal creature", designing the trio in the style of old black-and-white cartoon characters of the 1920s and 30s, with simple black drawings and white faces (e.g., Felix the Cat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit).

In addition to the trio's post-modern take on cartoon humor, one running gag throughout Animaniacs is the question of what species the Warners are supposed to be modeled after. Unlike the rest of the show's cast, which comprises of humans, mice, squirrels, pigeons, and more, no one really knows what the Warners are, not even themselves. In-universe characters and fans of the show alike have called them everything from mice to monkeys to "puppy children". The Warners themselves used this discrepancy as a source of humor from time to time; one sketch devotes an entire musical number to guessing their species, only for the trio to conclude that they are "cute".

Overall, I found this ambiguity to be surprisingly enjoyable, and one of the most memorable things about these characters. Although the Warners don't seem to be any particular animal or species, at the same time, they don't come across as alien either. More often than not, when you're designing a cartoon character, you're setting yourself up for seemingly endless ways to succeed, but even more ways to fail. The trio's ambiguous species representation thus allows the animators to kill two birds with one stone; on the one hand, they put a clever twist on the age-old theme of anthropomorphic cartoon animals by having these characters not really be animals at all, and on the other hand, they aren't really alien or overly abstract either, allowing them to come across as believable. The animators effortlessly blend stylization with believability and creativity with convention to create characters that are both entertaining and emotionally investable.

This year, I was lucky enough to not only be inducted into the Alpha Lambda Delta/Phi Eta Sigma chapters of the National Honor Society here at IUPUI, but I also became one of the organization's webmasters. It looked like the five of us webmasters had quite a bit of work to do because ALD/PES at IUPUI was known for many things; their website wasn't one of them. At our first webmaster meeting, our first decision was to completely tear down our current website and start from scratch. Why, you ask? This is why.

This website is practically a textbook example of how not to make a website. It makes almost every basic web design mistake in the book.

The color scheme is bland and makes things hard to read, the tabs are distributed completely at random with no rhyme or reason, and there are large amounts of text in small areas.

Overall, this website is a crushing disappointment. If we're going to revamp, we'll have to start all the way at the beginning.

http://headfirstlabs.com/books/hfhtml/chapter12/lounge/lounge.html

This is a web page set up to demonstrate basic web development with HTML and CSS and demonstrate good web design. True to its purpose, the page is slick, polished, and aesthetically pleasing, and a true testament to what can be done with only basic web development tools. There are a lot of subtle touches, with its smart implementation of font colors and sizes, the effective use of space, the clean look, and the overall symmetry, that click together and add up to make a great-looking web page that avoids many of the missteps of web design.

Many websites fall into several bad habits, one of which involves the use of overly flamboyant colors, whether it's for graphics, text, or backgrounds. This page eschews that mistake by opting for a more understated color scheme, in the form of a magenta logo and aqua-colored headings. This allows for a nice "Goldilocks effect". There aren't too many colors to make the page seem overbearing, but there aren't too few colors either so as to make it come across as bland or uninteresting. Instead, there's a good balance between having just enough color both to maintain a simple and polished look and to maintain users' interest.

Another common misstep in web design is putting too much content on a single page, making the page cluttered and disorganized. This page avoids that problem as well with its streamlined look and feel. There's not a lot of content on the page, but there is just enough to keep things interesting, proving once again that simple is sometimes better.

One of the big reasons why the page is so well-made is because of its simplicity. But as wonderful as simplicity can be, when overused, it can lead to another infamous design misstep: oversimplification. Sometimes, a website can be too simple to the point where users feel like it's boring or dumbing things down. No problems here, though. Although simple and streamlined, this web page manages to remain vibrant and interesting, thanks to a smart color scheme and thoughtful implementation of font sizes and styles, spacing, and margins. One particularly nice touch is the addition of the "Weekly Elixir Specials" section in its own border on the right-hand side of the page. This allows the elixirs to remain visible on the page but without it intruding on the rest of the content. Furthermore, I also like the "guarantee" text indented in its own aqua-colored border in the middle of the page. While some might be a little put off by its arguably intrusive position in the middle of the "Welcome" section, I think it works because its subdued color and text keep it from being to overwhelming or abrupt.

Overall, this web page is practically a textbook example of good web design in action, presenting understated colors, clean organization, effective use of stylistic elements, and a skillful balance between simplicity and complexity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX9adPALLzA

This is a video of famed card magician Ricky Jay performing an amazing feat of mentalism. Supplementing the magic to be found is one of Jay's trademarks: stage patter. Jay complements the effect with a compelling story from classic Japanese cinema. Having studied and performed card magic for quite some time myself, this performance turned out to be not only an entertaining magic trick, but also a valuable learning experience.

When I first got into magic about five years ago (I was a freshman in high school at the time), I fell into the same "trap" that many novice magicians were susceptible to: I thought the magic tricks themselves were the only thing that mattered in a performance. When learning a new trick, I would focus exclusively on figuring out the secret of the trick. In performance, I would just go through the motions without really putting any life or energy into the magic and was content with merely getting "Wow!" reactions from my audience. In my defense, my audiences probably weren't lying; my shows were certainly enjoyable. But I wasn't really putting any life into the magic. It took me quite some time to understand that knowing how a feat of magic was done was only half the battle. The mark of a true magician is their ability to present their magic in unique, engaging ways. An excellent quote from the legendary Mark Wilson sums it up best: "A trick is only as good as you make it look!"

Today, I continue to astound people with my feats of magic, and I enjoy it just as much as I ever did. Only now, though, I understand what it truly means to perform magic. A magic trick is, at its core, a story. It all fits; there's an introduction, a rising sense of suspense, a climax, and an ending, just like any story. Every great magician, like Ricky Jay, knows this all too well. You can get all the "Wow!" reactions you want just by going through the motions the easy way, but the catch is that people forget that. They forget the things you do. What they never forget, however, is how you make them feel. Thus, that is the challenge of any magician, a challenge that extends to all artists and designers as a whole. People who see your work won't remember what you did years later. What they will remember is how it made them feel. If you can't touch people emotionally somehow, you'll be like vapor. You'll never leave any sort of impression on people. Instead, you'll just become old news.

http://www.richardroeper.com/

This is the official website of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper. The site includes his columns on the Chicago Sun-Times, his movie reviews, and his entries to his blog, among other things. Overall, it's a slick and polished website that makes very few design missteps and avoids many of the common pitfalls of beginner web designers. The main "attention getter" on the home page is the image/link at the front of the page that leads to his blog, movie reviews, or Sun-Times column depending on what's showing on-screen.

The best thing about this site is its underlying simplicity. It doesn't try to cram too much content on a single page, and everything is clear and easy to read.

Overall, Roeper seems to have found himself a talented group of designers who have a keen eye for what makes solid design.

The Wind Waker remains one of the best-selling and best-reviewed games in The Legend of Zelda series, but it has nonetheless always had its detractors in the form of Zelda purists who were hoping for a darker, more realistic looking game in the vein of past Zelda games. Evidently, these sentiments didn't fall on deaf years, as in 2006, Nintendo released the next installment in the 20+-year-old series, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a return to form after Wind Waker's drastic design changes. Basically, the reception to this decision was almost the exact opposite of Wind Waker's; those salivating for a darker Zelda adventure were more than satisfied with the results while Wind Waker fans hoping for more of a direct follow-up to that game were disappointed. Then there are people like me, who are on the fence.

For the most part, I like the art style of Twilight Princess a lot, but there are a few nagging flaws that keep me from appreciating it as much as Wind Waker's toon-shading, which I'll get over with first for the sake of ending on a positive note. For starters, the game looks murky. To a certain degree, this is intentional since there are quite a few sequences in the game that draw their entertainment value from the player not being quite sure what's going on or what to do. But it's definitely overplayed, and combined with the relatively underpowered hardware the game had to work with, this makes for some blurry and rather ugly effects, something Wind Waker largely avoided. Furthermore, the game's graphics demand more than what the hardware can deliver. No doubt Wind Waker was no walk in the park to design, but in that game, Nintendo set more reasonable expectations on themselves than they do here in Twilight Princess. Much like the murky look, this makes for blurry elements in the design, almost as if the game's designers weren't always sure of themselves as far as how the art style should really look. All in all, while these are really only minor misgivings, they still keep the game's art direction from being as good as it could have been.

That being said, it is doubtlessly well-made artwork that retains the charm and timeless look of the Zelda games. Even if it lacks the crisp, rich colors of Wind Waker, the art direction in Twilight Princess does borrow some elements from its predecessor, making for plenty of colorful, whimsical design elements and a certain degree of charm that remains even during the game's darkest spectacles. Another win for Twilight Princess is in its cinematics, which are by far the best in any of the Zelda games. The gritty look helps make these cinematics atmospheric and thoroughly engrossing, only made better by the engaging storyline. One other aspect where Twilight Princess is a stylistic improvement over Wind Waker is its technical prowess. While vastly inferior to what competing games and consoles have to offer, Twilight Princess is a cut above its predecessor with flawless lighting and crisp (if occassionally blurry) textures.

Even if it's not quite as good as it's predecessor's near-perfect artwork, Twilight Princess is easy to qualify as a great-looking video game, presenting whimsical colors despite the game's dark tone, extremely well-done cinematics complemented by a compelling story, and reasonably competent, if somewhat flawed, technical polish.

Back in 2001, when the popularity of The Legend of Zelda video game series was at its peak, Nintendo revealed the next installment in the series, The Wind Waker. Replacing the dark, gritty art style of past Zelda offerings was a new toon-shaded look, deliberately designed to look bright and cartoonish, with caricatured characters and saturated colors. Much to Nintendo's surprise, fans were extremely disappointed, and this change in art direction remains one of the most controversial design decisions in video game history. Those expecting a darker Zelda adventure in the vein of the previous games were outraged that Nintendo was apparently shifting the series' focus to a younger demographic. This all changed when the game was released in 2003, when it received rave reviews from critics and fans alike and was a commercial success, becoming the most successful pre-order campaign in Nintendo's history. The gamble had paid off.

The toon-shaded art style, which met a generally negative reception prior to the game's release, turned out to be surprisingly well done. The game plays much like an interactive cartoon, always colorful, lifelike, and whimsical. Despite the simplicity of the artwork, there is a surprising amount of detail as well. Nintendo has become infamous in recent years for having its consoles and games graphically underpowered compared with the likes of Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation consoles. While The Wind Waker isn't exactly the most graphically detailed video game ever made, there are nonetheless plenty of great lighting effects, beautiful color schemes, and rich textures to be found here. At the same time, however, the designers admirably refrained from overplaying the cartoonish look by complementing it with a genuinely compelling story that's rich with memorable characters and deftly balances humor with dramatic tension. The Zelda games rarely have terribly complex storylines, but The Wind Waker manages to join the select few that do.

Overall, Nintendo may have made some controversial choices when making The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, but they definitely proved worthwhile in the end. It may not have satisfied every Zelda loyalist, but the game took a risk and came through.

References:
"The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" 29 September 2009.
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This is a screen shot of the 2008 Wii video game Wario Land: The Shake Dimension. It is a sequel in the Wario Land series, which is itself a spin-off of Super Mario Bros. Although it has been fairly well-received by critics and general audiences alike since release, those sentiments aren't without their criticisms. One of the most common complaints leveled at Wario Land is its relatively short length. This is a surprisingly interesting point of discussion because it recognizes one crucial characteristic that distinguishes great games from not-so-great ones: longevity.

Generally speaking, when you see a movie, it doesn't really matter to you how long the movie is. What's important is what the film manages to achieve during its runtime. If it's a good film while it lasts, then it doesn't make much of a difference whether it was 80 minutes long or 150. To be sure, the length of a film may have some bearing on its quality, but even that is due to poor pacing, not the length itself. Gamers, however, aren't quite as forgiving. When evaluating a video game, the typical gamer will take the length of the game into account as a factor in judging its quality. The longer a game is, the higher it is likely to rank in that category.

I find such concerns to be legitimate. Although I believe Wario Land critics severely underestimate the game's longevity, owing to its heaps of replay value, games that offer a bang for your buck definetly have an edge over those that don't. Longevity is one of the things that defines what is a game and what is not. A great game can fall short of its potential if it ends too soon. That being said, longevity is by no means the only factor in judging a game. A great game that ends too soon is much more preferable to a mediocre game that runs longer. Overall, unlike with movies, music, and the like, games are often drastically affected by their length, and it can be the difference between a memorable game experience and a forgettable one.

This is a promotional image for the popular animated television series Samurai Jack, which ran from 2001 to 2004 on Cartoon Network. Created by famed TV animator Genndy Tartakovsky, the show is a throwback to old Japanese cinema that centers on a Samurai warrior who confronts and nearly defeats his nemesis the Satanic Aku. But before he can deal the final blow, Aku opens a portal in time and sends the Samurai into a bleak, dystopian future ruled by Aku. After an encounter with some jive-talking locals, the Samurai takes on the name "Jack" as an alias and travels the world while trying to find a way back to his own time to stop Aku. Naturally, Aku tries to stop Jack from accomplishing this task.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this show. It has a number of unique traits that gives it an identity of its own. For starters, it has a distinct animation style that uses no outlines, giving it a resemblance to shadow puppetry. It fits the tone well, paving the way for colorful characters and settings. Although the animation is simple and very stylized, there are also great lighting and shading effects and crisp textures.

As great as the visuals are, they would be nothing if the show's content wasn't worthwhile as well. No problems there. Samurai Jack is an amazingly well-crafted piece of work. Each episode drips with atmosphere and imagination. Although there are many homages to classic Japanese cinema, the show always has something fresh and interesting to stand out on its own. Its most notable characteristics are high-adrenaline action sequences that can take place anywhere from underwater to inside an active volcano, and especially long sequences without dialogue. Many TV cartoons fall into a bad habit of requiring that a character say something every minute, in a heavy-handed attempt to avoid alienating the viewer. Samurai Jack subverts this tired cliche by letting the pictures do most of the talking. Most episodes have only about a few dozen lines of dialogue at most. The action scenes, in particular, are usually almost completely devoid of dialogue. This adds real tension to these sequences when it's easy to see that the characters really are fighting for their lives. Instead of stopping mid-fight to trash-talk each other, characters will communicate with each other subconsciously through subtle facial expressions and changes in their battle technique. Best of all, since these characters and the world they live in are animated, real-world laws of physics fly out the window as the characters perform stunts and feats that would be next to impossible with live actors.

All in all, Samurai Jack is a great show. It presents distinct, beautiful animation, boundless imagination, and clever use of imagery and sound.

The above image is a promotional poster for Star Wars: Clone Wars, an animated television series that aired on Cartoon Network from 2003 to 2005.

Overall, I like the look of this show a lot. Animation should do things that are impossible in live action, and that's exactly what the show does. One issue I've always had with the live-action Star Wars films is that the characters tend to "pop" out of the animated environments. Here, the characters' hand-drawn counterparts feel right at home. They are heavily stylized, with jagged edges, exaggerated features, and thick outlines. This allows them to fit in with the backgrounds better, and thus, ironically enough, come across as more believable than they do in the live-action films.

Not only does the animation allow these characters to seamlessly blend into their environments, but it also paves the way for some truly amazing action sequences and set-pieces. The action has a level of creativity, lightning-fast pacing, and efficient editing that would be next to impossible with live actors.

Unfortunately, not all marks are hit. My main issue with the animation style is that, while it's nice to see simple character designs, they occasionally come across as being oversimplified. There's not a lot of detail to be found, and the lighting and shading leaves something to be desired.

Even with such misgivings, I can still safely say that Clone Wars is a great-looking show. It presents slick, stylized characters, colorful environments, and breathtaking action sequences and set-pieces that the live-action Star Wars films can't hold a candle to, and on those merits, it succeeds with flying colors.

References
"The Random Curiosity Thread" 9 Sept. 2009. .

This is the first (and to date, only) piece of promotional artwork related to the upcoming installment in The Legend of Zelda video game series. For the most part, I do like the picture. There's a nice color scheme with the reddish-orange background providing a contrast with the comparably darker shaded characters in the center. The blurry surroundings offer an air of mystery without giving the impression that the artists are cheating or cutting corners. While some may be taken back by how obscure the background is, I say less is more. The more mystery there is in the image, the more intriguing it is. That being said, I do have some misgivings.

One problem the picture suffers from is inconsistency. The bright orange center is too abrupt of a change from the brownish surrounding. A more understated transition would have been nice. Another problem is that the image might be a little too unclear. It's understandable that the game's designers would want to keep things under wraps until the final product itself was released, but fleshing out the details just a hair more wouldn't have hurt my feelings.

Despite such problems, the picture gets more right than wrong. It presents an interesting light/dark dynamic and a degree of mystery that doesn't feel like it's cheating, and those things are what really sell it.

References
"The Legend of Zelda Wii" 8 Sept. 2009. http://www.zeldauniverse.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/zeldawiiposter1-423x600.jpg

Batman's arch-nemesis, the deluded anarchist known only as the Joker, is every bit a pop culture icon as the Dark Knight himself. He's psychotic, charming, clever, hilarious, and more. Being such an unforgettable figure, he has been adapted in numerous other media outside his comic book origins, the above three being among the most famous. Each rendition of this chaotic clown brings its own flavor and unique quirks to the character, but remains true to the classic elements loved and/or hated by many. These unique elements are reflected in the character's physical appearance in each portrayal. Whether he's a cackling idiot, a homicidal mastermind, or somewhere in between, you can tell a lot about a Joker just by looking at him.

The Joker's first major adaptation outside the comics was in the long-running 1960s Batman television series, in which he is portrayed by Caesar Romero. A lot of this show shed the darker, more mature aspects of Batman mythology in favor of camp sensibilities, and the Joker was no exception. He was now a harmless prankster who built gadgets like giant typewriters and challenged Batman to surfing competitions. This Joker was silly in almost every way imaginable, and his design was no exception. His make-up is a little less creepy and a little more cartoony than the other renditions. It works within the show's universe, but some of the aesthetics bother me. The pink color of the suit and the absence of green hair detract from the overall look a little, but like everything else in the show, the character is fun and entertaining, and that's what matters in the end.

Another famous non-comics version of the Joker is Jack Nicholson's take on the character in Tim Burton's Batman. This rendition was still a little campy, but most of the camp was mixed up with Burton's trademark black comedy. The costume is definitely one of my favorites. There's just enough camp that's appropriate for the character, but the design also establishes charisma and poise. It's interesting to see the two major facets of the Joker's personality reflected in his appearance.

Perhaps the most popular take on the character, however, is the late Heath Ledger's portrayal in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. This Joker continues the trend of progressively darker renditions by making the character even more sinister and less pranksterish than the Nicholson version, and the design of the costume and make-up capture this really well. The sloppy appearance of the make-up fits perfectly, and the seemingly haphazardly stitched outfit also complements the character's sadistic personality. In this version, all the small details come together and click flawlessly.