Final Project

As I said in my previous post, I had no idea what I wanted to do for this narrative.  I had golf in mind because it’s something that I’ve played for awhile but besides that, nothing.  I pretty much decided to just play a couple rounds and have my pictures taken and see what happens.

On the course I tried to get as many pictures as possible to increase my chances of finding some good ones.  I had most of them taken while I was teeing off and I did this because they are typically the most interesting and they would affect me the least while playing.  There were quite a few that I liked.  I not only found some interesting pictures but also was able to pinpoint things that I have been doing wrong in my swing.  At this point, I still had no clue what I was doing.

I started to sort through the pictures once I got home and found maybe ten that I thought were promising for the project.   I started looking for pictures of famous golfers online just for a starting point.  I finally decided to use pictures of John Daly, Tiger Woods, and Happy Gilmore.  I superimposed John Daly’s head onto a picture of me right before impact.  I staged the image like how he ended up getting suspended from the PGA.  He teed off of a Coors Light can on national television…my hero!  I Put Tiger’s head on a candid shot of me after I hit a bad shot and thought that the pictures had stopped.  Tiger’s picture was from when he was upset of the ordeal with his mistresses and his ex-wife Elin.  I thought that it worked very well with how my body was posed on the shot.  Finally, I put my head onto Happy’s just because I wanted to be attacked by Bob Barker.  I really don’t have a better reason than that.

After the fact, I noticed that every picture had something in common.  I did not intentionally choose a “bad” situation from each player’s life, it just happened.  Thinking about it, it’s probably because they are the most memorable.  John Daly was never a really respectable player but he was still a semi-decent golfer.  If you asked anyone about John Daly’s most memorable moment in golf, they would probably say when teed off of that beer can.  The same could be said about Tiger.  He was/is one the best golfers around but even though it happened awhile ago, most people still have his cheating scandal in memory.  It may not be a closely connected, but most people would probably think of the Bob Barker fight in Happy Gilmore and not something like the final shot he made to win the tournament.

I guess that the whole point of this was that we often latch on to bad memories.  When looking back, it’s often easier to remember how something didn’t work out for you than something that did.  I could have used a picture of Tiger Winning the Masters but I was drawn to one of him in anguish.  That may be a comment on me but I don’t think I’m the only one that does it.  If I learned anything it’s that I should see the flaws in my swing and try to improve them, not see them as my whole game.  We all make mistakes but we should learn from them and play the next hole.

75% Critique

I had been having some trouble coming up with a narrative until a few days ago.  It really has just been trying do not repeat something that I had already done before.  I decided that I I want to do something involving golf since it has been a part of my life for a very long time.  I haven't always practiced and played as much as I've wanted to because of various reasons, so the quality of my game changes often.  I'm always reminded of something that my step-dad told me when I said to him that I wished I was as good as Tiger Woods.  He said, "No you don't because if you did, you'd be out hitting balls until you're hands bleed," and that's the truth.  That said, I still get upset when I do poorly.

I've found that the main message of this class, "slow down," also happens to be exactly what I need to do to be successful on the course.  It always surprises me how emotional I can get over a stupid ball but it's that emotion that keeps me playing.  It's the balance between the two, slowing down and emotion, that define what it means to be a good golfer or even a good anything.

I'm still not exactly sure what I want to do with this project, but here are a few of the photos that I liked best when I played on Monday.  And yes, I skipped class to play golf but I promise it was solely to get some pictures to work with :)

     

MP6

The words that I was given were “roll” and “knot.”  I had decided from early on that I wanted to use roll because it seemed that I would be able to do more with it.  With that said, I still had no idea what to do until I looked up roll in the dictionary and saw “to steamroll.”  From there, it seemed to be in my best interest to not literally steamroll someone and instead use Play-doh.

Unfortunately what I was trying to do didn’t work out.  I downloaded an app called “Fast Burst Camera Lite” and wanted to string the photos together like stop motion animation.  When I looked at all of pictures I had taken, only the first third were there.  Because of this, I had to use pictures before and after but not mid-crushing L.

I’m pretty happy with how the Play-doh turned out after the rolling.  I choose to do a before and after to show what the person was looked like beforehand.   I wanted to put some text in but couldn’t think of anything clever but a rolling pin is close to bowling pin.  I wanted to use one of the animations that are played at a bowling alley and luckily, I found “Spare me.”  The other two pictures were me just wanting to roll someone else over who witnessed the murder.  There’s just a head and no body because I ran out of Play-doh.

MP5

Most of the time I really don’t do a lot of brainstorming, I pretty much stare blankly at my computer screen and something just comes to me.  Dramatic chipmunk is pretty random.  I was just screwing around on You Tube and it was in the suggested/related video section.  I originally was going to give myself powers like the ones in Dragon Ball Z but then decided upon getting turned into a dog.  It’s not very fantastic, but dogs do have abilities and the permission to do things that we can’t.  Running with that idea, I had a friend just snap a bunch of picture of me making faces that I imagined a dog would make.  I then took my dog on a walk and took a bunch of pictures of her as well.

Most of the time when people imagine super powers, they think of being able to fly or being incredibly strong, etc.  I decided that I would like the power to just do whatever the hell I want and have people look at me and say, “Aw, he’s so cute.”  There are people around where I live that curse at me for driving fast because they have kids but then do the same thing when they’re driving all four of them around in their SUV.  As super pooch, I’ve made them wreck and I look like I know I did something wrong but not really.   I also thought it would be cool to know when people were where you are now and obviously I would be at a fire hydrant.  Finally, the friend who took the pictures had gotten fined for public indecency so I thought it would be funny to shit in a similar area but no one would care.

I wish I could have made it look more cartoony, but I also didn’t want to load it up with effects and have it look bad.  This is more apparent when looking at my face than the other parts.  I had to dial stuff back because I just looked really bad.  All in all, I am pretty happy with how it turned out and agree with you saving this one until closer to the end.                      

Blog 9

Carver

I’d probably have a similar reaction if my wife told me that her blind friend was coming over.  Like carver, it’s not that I have any problem with the blind it can just be awkward.  The best analogy for me to make is that it’s like someone passing by you in a wheelchair.  You don’t want to stare and make them feel uncomfortable but you don’t want to completely divert your eyes either.  There’s a lot to learn from people who are in some way physically compromised.  I don’t know anyone now who is blind, but there was a guy where I used to work that was.  He was outside smoking almost every time that I would go out to do the same.  I never thought about him being able to see the smoke or know when he was finished.  Anyway, he always seemed like he was happy.  I guess it’s because he probably views life differently, literally.  There’d be so many things you couldn’t do but you’d never have to deal with worrying about how you look others’ expressions, etc.  I always thought it would be an incredible burden, and it would be, but I guess I never thought about the benefits before now until now.

Blog 8

Wallace

I would suggest listening to Schwarzenegger’s Life’s Six Rules on YouTube if you haven’t heard it, as it is probably my favorite speeches.  Wallace does kind of remind me of myself though.  I’m cynical as hell but I try my best not to go on that default setting, otherwise I would just be really pissed off all of the time.  It can be awfully difficult to pay attention to what’s right in front of you instead of what’s going on inside your head.  I can’t count the number of times that I have based something that someone has done to annoy me upon an internal attribution rather than on an external one…and that seems to be the default.  Everyone can remember a time when they’ve been cut off while driving or in any line and thought something around the lines of, “That stupid P.O.S.”  As I’ve gotten older it’s been easier for me to stay calm and assume that there’s a reason for a person acting this way rather than him/her being mentally deficient.  Since I rarely flip the bird anymore, unless I’m really upset, I shall assume that college is working and continue to attend.