Media observation #8

Hello everybody!

This time I'd like to give a small shout-out to one of my favourite (if not favourite) animation troupe: gekidan INU CURRY, which composes of Doroinu and 2shiroinu. It's a troupe from Japan and they take inspiration from Russian and Czech stop-motion animation styles. They've most known for making witch animations for anime series called "Puella Magi Madoka Magica", which is also my favourite anime series, partly thanks to gekidan INU CURRY creating a wonderful atmosphere with their graphics.

Above you can see some of their work in Puella Magi Madoka Magica from around 0:26 forward. The girls are not animated by them. As you can see, their style is very naive yet very nightmarish at the same time. I really like the contrast. Also Yuki Kajiura's music really compliments their style and vice versa.

They've also done other works as well, for example Usagi Drop's and Maria Holic's ending sequences but also a music video for Maaya Sakamoto's song "Universe". I recommend taking a look, I embedded the video below.

I find it hard to find information about them online, mostly because I don't really understand Japanese. But I really adore their style, it's so cute, creepy, creative and full of surprises. Their art makes me want to experience different styles as well and test my artistic boundaries. They also have a webpage (where I took the images below), but it seems that they don't really update it any longer.

 

I hope you guys found this interesting because to me it's super interesting!

Happy thoughts,

Oona

Delivering news on events through VR

Hello everybody!

Our task this week at class was to think of a new way to deliver news. We thought it would be cool if there were VR news about different sorts of events. We had been talking a lot about VR on the passing weeks so this idea came to us pretty naturally.

So the concept of this news channel is that we'd get to experience events via VR. For example, an art museum, a gig, a football match etc. could be what the service provides to it's viewers. I thought that some of the footage could be a reportage of an event and some would be just pure live stream where you'd get to experience things from your own home.

We were thinking that the service would be available online and maybe through an app as well. These services would have an "upcoming events" list as well. In my opinion our service is best enjoyed with a pair of VR glasses but watching a 360 video without the glasses should be interesting too.

Since our "news channel" is all about delivering cultural events, we thought it would be nice if people could give heads-up about upcoming events that could otherwise be left unnoticed. Different sorts of exciting events should keep people coming back. Also we'd have a chat where you could discuss about the events, which you could also do in our social media channels. We'd also allow people to send their own (moderated) footage.


I would really enjoy this sort of VR news service because there are a lot of events all around the world I can't attend. I would've totally watched a couple of gigs in Japan through VR if that would've been possible. But I'm positive things are moving towards that direction anyway.

I've included the slides from our presentation in this blog post, as you probably noticed!

Happy thoughts,

Oona

Media observation #7

Hello everybody!

As some might know, 2016 is the 20th anniversary of Pokémon! Pokémon is a game series from the beginning of the 90's which has grown to be one of the most popular series ever with lots of spin-offs, animated series and a whole bunch of merchandise. The goal of these games is usually to catch creatures called Pokémon, beat the bad guys and become the best Pokémon trainer by defeating other strong trainers.

For the celebration of Pokémon's 20th anniversary, Nintendo is publishing new Pokémon games called "Pokémon Sun" and "Pokémon Moon". They will include new Pokémon alongside the old ones and also new "Alolan forms"of already existing Pokémon. I find the idea very interesting, because of course when species live in different areas they mutate to look a bit different. Some Pokémon are executed very well, like Exeggutor and Vulpix, but some of them (at least for me) were a huge letdown.

Alolan Exeggutor. So bad it's good.

The reason why I'm writing this thing (alongside being a huge Pokémon fan for most of my life) is because I stumbled upon this article. Pokémon Sun and Moon are already breaking records even before their release! They're the most pre-sold games in Nintendo history and their special demo has been downloaded more than any other Nintendo 3DS demo. Way to go Pokémon! I'm excited to see if the games will break any sales records when they're officially released in November.

I'm of course getting myself a copy of Pokémon Moon. I'm actually not too excited about the new games, I mean I love Pokémon and I want to celebrate it's 20th anniversary but Nintendo has made some changes I'm unsure about so I'll see if the games are actually worth the wait and money when I get myself a copy. The predecessor games Pokémon X and Y were SO good it'll be hard to top them. But I'll try to stay positive. At least there's this new little friend, Mimikyu! It even has it's own official song... ;__; #TeamMimikyu #MimikyuSavesEverything

Gotta catch 'em all!
Happy thoughts,
Oona

The trek to Mindtrek

Hello everybody!

Phew, Mindtrek = over! I usually attend 4-5 conventions in a year but this was my first time visiting a conference. In the end, they did not differ that much, which I found pretty interesting. We were asked to be analytical but since being analytical over stuff that requires knowledge which I don't have is not really my strength, I'm going to be a bit analytical about how the conference was made from the viewpoint of a convention organizer. But first, I'm going to talk a little about what I heard & learned.

I usually go to hear the opening ceremony of conventions so I went to see that too in Mindtrek. And boy, I'm so, so, so glad that I went because I got to hear Neil Harbisson's keynote lecture and I was just blown away. I'm still amazed because of that lecture, my mind and world got expanded so much. Happy accidents happen and me going to hear the opening ceremony was one. I'm so glad. Let me tell you why.

Basically Neil Harbisson told us about his life as a cyborg and all the possibilities cyborgism has to offer. He told us about his antenna that can transfer colours to sounds so he can hear them and how he can listen to the colours of space. He also told us about his colleague Moon Ribas who can sense earth- and moonquakes thanks to her cyborg sense. I had never even thought that we could expand our senses in such creative ways! It really opened a new door for my creative thinking. How far can we go? How crazy can we go? How can we use this technology to make life more interesting or more easy? I'm really, really excited to see & hear more about cyborgs.

Otherwise the lectures were pretty OK. I really enjoyed the ones that had something to do with games and/or theatre. I wanted to go see some VR lectures as well but ended up not going to a single one for some reason...? Well, these sort of things happen. First I was struggling pretty badly because I went to some lectures I couldn't understand at all but luckily I found some interesting and understandable ones in the end! You can read about my adventures at Mindtrek from my Twitter feed below. I didn't want to use the hashtag for a couple of reasons: 1. To avoid my tweets being selected to the big screen, 2. Not wanting people to follow me in hopes of getting intellectual content out of my account, 3. Mindtrek was obviously not aimed at me, so me tweeting about Mindtrek would've felt wrong because I'm not part of their community. This one's a bit hard to explain but maybe this sort of example would help: It was like a non-geeky person would've gone to a geeky happening and not understanding anything, thus proceeding to tweet criticism or "wrong" stuff online, possibly making the community look bad. I didn't want to make their community look bad or myself look stupid. I don't know if this cleared anything up but yeah, please continue to my feed now...

Tweets by oonamedia
Then a couple of words from the perspective of a convention organizer! Overall Mindtrek was a nice experience with not much issues. However, I did pinpoint some things that could've been better:

Name tags/tickets

1. People were printing name tags on the morning of the conference, which seemed a little odd to me. Next time maybe they could print them the day before to make things run more smoothly? They were not being overly strict about me having the name tag with me so they just gave me the Mindtrek bag and let me go attend the panels, asking me to fetch the name tag later. So, not having the name badge didn't really affect my schedule. However...

2. ...that also means that they weren't really keen on ever checking the name tag or badge. Anyone could've walked into the venue and attended since neither Mindtrek staff or Tampere-talo staff were paying any attention to who had a badge or not. Also nobody was there to check who had bought the more expensive pass that included the lunch, resulting in non-payers eating there. That's quite problematic since the lunch-inclusive pass was way more expensive and letting just anyone eat the lunch puts the buyers of that pass in a very unfair position.

The conference booklet

I've collected program booklets and made one myself as well, so I have a couple of things to say about Mindtrek's.

1. First of all, TBA's. There were a couple and that's usually alright BUT they were never even updated to the webpage either. I have no idea what was held during that time. Maybe they could put up a deadline next time for the speakers to ensure that they either attend or do not attend? TBA doesn't serve anyone: the conference-goers have no idea what the lectures include and the speakers probably don't get that much audience.

2. Maps were not up-to-date. The main auditorium was marked on the map even though it was not in use at all: thus making me believe that the main hall in the schedule pointed to the main auditorium. It was never said in the booklet that Park hall was the main hall. Fortunately they had some signs up in the bulletin boards that pointed that the Park hall was the main hall but still, it took me some time to realize that.

3. Keynotes. It could've been useful to mention that all the keynotes were held in the main hall instead of just marking them happening everywhere simultaneously.

4. Not good enough program descriptions. It's understandable that sometimes it's not beneficial to the convention to print expensive booklets that have all the info about programs but in these cases you should have all the info on the website in a handy form. I wanted to check what programs contained a couple of times but because the webpage was so odd my phone didn't want to co-operate with it. It was not mobile-friendly at all, at least for me. Maybe technology conference could invest in better technology next year. Mindtrek app would be a really handy thing for next year!

Also, some of the programs were running late.

Then some positive points as well:
- Nice, calm environment (minus that one rude guy shouting at the keynote speaker)
- Overall things seemed to work despite the flaws I mentioned
- I really liked the idea of breakfast & coffee
- Some lectures were really interesting and inspiring

For next year they could maybe include some entry-level lectures as well for people interested? I know the point of Mindtrek isn't really to introduce newbies to the business, but just a suggestion! ;)

Mind-boggling creative thoughts,
Oona

Media observation #6

Hello everygamer!

It's been two days since Nintendo published their trailer for their new console, Nintendo Switch. Before this not much was known about the console and it went under the name "Nintendo NX". Nintendo Switch combines a home console and a handheld console in a new way. I recommend watching the trailer I've embedded below, it all looks very interesting!

I'm a bit curious about Switch myself. If it proves to be a good console, I might end up buying it!

Happy thoughts,
Oona

Oona stalks a famous person for schoolwork: The blog post

Hello everybody!

I did a little internet stalking on a person called Ladybeard. Well to be honest, I follow him everyday so there wasn't really anything new. I love him and you should too, regards a devoted fan girl.

He's the Beauty and the Beast!

So I'm taking just a teeny-tiny bit of freedom regarding this task because I've been following Ladybeard (or Beard-chan, it's a nickname fans use) for some time now and I have knowledge how he interacts with his fans through social media from a longer period of time than just a couple of days. So I hope this is ok!

To sum up Ladybeard: He's a cross-dressing metal-singing pro-wrestling Australian living in Japan. Ladybeard is a character made for pro-wrestling: she's a 5-year-old girl who loves all things kawaii (Japanese for cute). Ladybeard brand has expanded a bit though and Ladybeard can mean both the pro-wrestling character and Ladybeard's celebrity persona as well. He also does kawaii-death metal shows, modeling and TV advertisements. In this post, I mostly talk about Ladybeard's persona, not that much about the character.

Sing, dance, destroy!!

Ladybeard's known for his warmth towards his fans. It's a known fact that he wants to deliver a good show and that's why he's also known as a perfectionist: he really wants to nail everything down for his audience's amusement. This shows in his social media profiles as well.

He mostly posts photos of his projects and adventures to social media, but also gives us updates of his life. Sometimes he makes fun video clips and posts them to FB! He's gives off a very genuine image, even when he has to comment something more negative. He updates his social media daily but doesn't spam.

Here are some examples of how he interacts with his fans online:
- He did a thing a couple of weeks ago when he asked his fans to send him poses and he'd imitate those poses, took photos of them and posted them to Twitter for one hour
- He sometimes replies or likes the tweets send by his fans (He even calls his fans "Ladybirds" because they tweet so much!)
- He had an "Ask Ladybeard"-segment in his radio show where fans could tweet him questions. I got my question answered twice! ♥
- Like I mentioned above, he gives off a really genuine image of himself: apologizing when something hasn't worked, worrying about his fans if something has happened (like one time people send him really depressed messages when he had promised to give some life advice, so he took time to apologize about not being able to help them professionally and then proceeding on talking for a long time in his radio show about his life advice in hopes of helping his fans out) etc.
- His pages are managed in both Japanese and English so everybody has a chance of understanding what's happening

The whole Ladybeard thing is not about laughing at men in dresses or anything. It's about him wanting to make others feel happy. And it works, I feel super happy whenever I see him having a fun time and doing silly stuff. Aaand destroying some boundaries at the same time!! It's super awesome that he boosts the message with being super nice online (answering questions, doing "fan service" etc.) and offline (giving his all at gigs, being super nice when talked to etc.). It all works out so well.

Here's me making all my friends jealous by posing on Ladybeard's arms.

He's a very interesting and energetic person who likes making others happy. What could be better? Now go follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!

Stay genki & kawaii,
Oona

Media observation #5

Hieeeee!

Because the topic was reality TV, I'll present you with my favourite reality competition TV-show: RuPaul's Drag Race.

RuPaul herself.

Yes, it's all about drag queens. Yes, it's America's Next Top Model meets Project Runway. Yes, everyone is fabulous. Yes, yes, yes gawd!

RuPaul is an iconic drag queen who hosts the show and actually won an Emmy award this year for Best Reality Host! The competition consists of 9-14 drag queens competing for the crown and cash prize (usually 100,00$). There has been 8 seasons of Drag Race and 2 seasons of Drag Race: All Stars.

The usual episode consists of a mini challenge and a maxi challenge. The winner of the maxi challenge will get some sort of prize (usually sponsored goods like jewelry or holidays) and secure their place in the competition. Every week there's also the bottom two, which have to "lipsync for their lives" aka they hold a lipsync battle whose winner will stay in the competition. Sometimes both get to stay or both get eliminated, to spice things up a little.

Some of my favourite queens. (1/2)

At first, it all may seem confusing. But then you'll get sucked into the glittering world of drag queens and you can't get out. The series has a very quirky sense of humor, bad puns, lots of creativeness and gorgeous dresses, a lot of drama and unforgettable moments. It's an experience.

The show has been criticized for bad editing. A handful of past drag racers have raised their voice about how they were edited to look more mean than they actually are, to the point where they've told that sometimes the filming crew/directors tell them what to say or ask them certain questions and then edit the answers out of context. It's all very interesting and adds an extra layer of drama to the show, but at the same time it kind of takes away the excitement when you know that "oh, this could be edited to look different". Some competitors have even gone to screenings of the new episodes and told people that some other competitors were edited to look more mean than they actually were.

I recommend giving this series a try! It's best to start from season 1 and then continue chronologically because then you will understand more jokes (the show jokes a lot on itself and past competitors and their catchphrases) but if you want to jump straight into Netflix and watch the 7th season, feel free. It has some gorgeous faces!

Some of my favourite queens. (2/2)

Now sashay away,
Oona

Graphic Design Disaster!!

Hello everybody,
I am ALIVE and KICKING and UPDATING my blog!!

Miska (among others) explained our "Graphic Design Disaster" -reality TV-show concept in his blog quite well, but I'm gonna do a short re-cap and tell a little about how I came up with this idea in the first place.

Basically the idea for this show is a very, very basic competitive reality TV-show formula: people compete against each other on weekly tasks and someone wins the grand prize in the end. Our show would be all about graphic design and competing in teams through various tasks with a weekly elimination.

Elements of the show in one cool, simplistic slide!

So, about this idea. I went to a graphic design school where I learned that designing can get pretty heated up from time to time! You forget to save your work and the computer crashes? Drama! Somebody clearly copies your ideas? Drama! Out of saving space? Drama! Teachers try to change your works to their own liking? D r a m a !! We were laughing at the class because sometimes things got really out of hand, just like in a reality TV-show. So we started imagining "what if someone made a reality TV-show out of graphic designers"? Well, that idea was forgotten until now when we had to come up with a concept and boom, the idea surfaced once again.

Personally I'd totally watch this sort of reality TV. If I were to produce it, I would want to make it as realistic as possible though, with not much scripted drama or bad editing because I always feel a bit cheated when TV shows do that. This sort of show would also be pretty creative and I'm all-in for creativity!

That's our concept in a nutshell!

Happy thoughts,
Oona