Category Archives: Student Work

Reality TV & The Television Industry

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For my Capstone Project I will explore the rise of reality television and its influence on the entertainment industry and viewers in America. Since the 1990’s, reality TV has grown exponentially. Channels like The History Channel and Discovery run dozens of reality television shows every day, from Duck Dynasty to The Bachelor.

The reality television industry revolves around constant scouting for talent and material rather than the slow development process of the narrative and documentary television industry that came before it. Before reality TV, networks would hire large Hollywood-based studios to employ writers, actors, and directors to create scripted series. These shows would take large budgets and months of production time to create. With reality TV shows, far fewer writers are required, and high-cost actors are completely unnecessary.

As more TV channels switch to a reality-based model for the majority of their programs, viewers are migrating to streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu to fulfill their desire for traditional narrative television. These streaming companies have begun to fund their own shows, bypassing cable companies altogether. The most popular example of this is Netflix’s Netflix Originals, shows that are funded and produced by Netflix including Orange is the New Black (2013), Stranger Things (2016), and House of Cards (2013).

Over the past decade, reality TV has played a major role in shaping the television industry. As reality TV becomes more popular, traditional television is finding new niches to fulfill in the streaming industry, and television is becoming dominated by low-budget reality pieces. This low-cost-high-gain trend is great for production cost, but quality of television is suffering because of it.

 

 

Student Stress – Capstone Topic

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Well, about a year and a half ago, I ended up in the hospital for severe sleep deprivation. I had insomnia for a while and had a lot of trouble sleeping, and the months of struggling to get the sleep I needed finally took its toll on me. I wasn’t just lacking in sleep, but it was like my brain was so wired up on drugs or something that I had no real sense of the world. I wasn’t on drugs, of course, I couldn’t sleep well. While, today where a lot of my life has vastly changed, I still struggle with stress. It may not give me insomnia, but with everything going on in my life, unpacking because my parents insist it, getting my homework done, going to school, driving three to four hours total every day, and keeping my job amidst it all… stress has become such a constant thing in my life. It’s something many of us can relate to. While a lot of us might not end up in the hospital, specifically in the fashion I did, we all know what stress is and all struggle to keep up in our daily lives without killing ourselves over it. I guess I just wanted to bring more awareness to the issue. I think my two media objects will be an infographic and a remix video. I’m not totally sure on the call to action, maybe bring awareness, or plan a way to contain or mend your stress.

Capstone Project-Video Game Accessibility for the Disabled

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Many video games are designed with accessibility in mind. Usually this means lower difficulties or simplified control options are included. Many players and even developers may brush away these options with the mindset that a game must be difficult and complicated to be considered good. There are a large group of players that these people are ignoring-the disabled. I believe more developers should have disabled players in mind when creating games and players be more mindful and encouraging of a gameplay environment that include disabled players. Even some of the most difficult modern games have multiple ways to play such as compatibility with multiple controllers and button mapping. Many disabled people are not able to go out and do physical activities. Being able to sit down and play a game really shouldn’t have to be much of a problem at all, but a controller with too many buttons may even be a challengefor some. I’m going to look into ways developers have incorporated accessibility modes into their games and how people who aren’t necessarily game developers help the disabled have the opportunity to play. There is a very strong sense of community surrounding videogames, but with people interacting with each other online most of the time it can be easy to forget or never notice the struggles they may be enduring.
I plan on making an infographic that shows statistics of how many disabled people play video games and what games have accessibility modes (mostly data). For the video remix, I plan on showing how some disabled people can play games and how others have helped them (real life).

Capstone Project- Oil Pumping and Oil Spills

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My name is Richard Lockett and the focus of my DTEC 120 course Capstone Project is on the risks of oil spills from over-shore drilling and refineries.
I will be using two media objects to present my topic: First I will be using an info-graphic that will point out how much oil has been spelt in past from over-shore oil rigs and the sea life which has been harmed from the oil spills.
I will also use the info-graphic to highlight the amount of oil rigs that has caused spills in the past.
Both of my sources will be presented on my new web-page that will have the infographic on one page and the video on the other page.
I am planning also using the info-graphic to show the pros of over-shore oil refineries.
My next media object will be a video remix utilizing several ocean related videos under creative commons, and several videos of people speaking about oil spills, and how they have harmed the ocean.
These two sources will relate to each other by presenting two sides to the argument. The info-graphic will provide facts dealing with the positive nature of over-shore oil refineries such as: Cost effectiveness from pumping oil in our oceans, the jobs created by the construction of new refineries, and relying on US oil. It will also provide facts on the cons as well such as: the number of oil spills in the past, dangers to sea life, the time it takes to clean up oil spills, and the cost of cleaning up oil spills.

My Capstone Project Proposal – Pay College Athletes

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For my Capstone Project my topic will be how student athletes should be paid. I will provide information from the opposing viewpoint that says they shouldn’t be paid and evidence that backs up the viewpoint that says they shouldn’t be paid. The two media objects I’ll use are an Infographic file (at least 1,600 pixels by 800 pixels) and Animation (1:45 mins. – 2:30 mins. long). To see what hashtags would be most relevant I searched three I came up with and then searched each one to see how recently they’d been used. I was then able to eliminate one of the three and narrow it down to the two I’ll use which are #PayCollegeAthletes and #PayStudentAthletes.

Capstone Project Proposal – Net Neutrality and Internet of Things

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My capstone project will focus on the impacts of Net Neutrality and what it means if the FCC continues with its plan to remove the Title II protections put in place on February 2015. The direction my project will take is one of protecting Net Neutrality and keeping the internet place to communicate freely. Also covered by this project will be the impact that the growing network of the Internet of Things is having on our society. I want to explore this topic by creating either an animation or infographic showing how internet content is delivered to your computer. An initial idea for this would be a step-by-step sequence with a computer screen with content displayed then having the cursor move and interact with the content by clicking on the page. This would then start the process of tracing the actions required to send and receive the requested information. Similar to an animated infographic from Google showing how video is sent to your computer when explaining possible interruptions to service. For my remix video I will create a mash-up of news reports on the growing sector of the Internet of Things (IoT). This will include clips from news stories, reviews, and trade show presentations to show a variety of topics. The video will help define what the IoT is and how it will have a growing impact in our daily lives. This can then be tied back to Net Neutrality and the importance of internet security when engaging with the devices in our everyday lives.

Fashion & Sustainability

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Fast fashion’s effects on the globe, as well as its’ effects on the creativity of designers has ravaged us for a long time. Fast fashion takes trends set forth by designers, and often creates duplicate versions of them in a less sustainable manner. What is the price that one pays when buying into a cheapened alternative to the original? Although the more affordable price point is alluring to our society — it exploits overseas workers, is environmentally unsustainable, and often takes credit for the work of independent designers, offering them little to no monetary compensation.

I chose this subject because fashion is my future career path, and as a young designer, I care about the protection of creativity in the industry. Alongside this, as a young adult, I care about the sustainability of our planet.

My two media objects that I will be creating for this final project will be a visually appealing infographic with bold, minimal imagery, and a remix video that will be subjected about eco-friendly, ethically-made, sustainable fashion. The remix video that I will be creating will be similar to a short fashion film. Although fashion films generally have been used to sell products from designers and brands, my fashion film/remix video will focus on implementing imagery and videos that ‘sell’ the purpose of making sustainable choices, overall focusing on the choices that we make pertaining our wardrobe. The infographic will be striking, and relaying a minimal color scheme, bringing in accents of a dark holly green in order to emphasize my direction relating to sustainable fashion. These two media objects will relate to the underlying, minimal, visually compelling theme formatted throughout the website I will be creating for this project.

Capstone Post Topic: Video Game Preservation- and Why it Matters

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For my capstone project I am going to discuss video game preservation. My two media objects will be an infographic and a remixed video. The video of course, is especially helpful for showing any video game footage I might need to show. It can also be used to showcase interviews with researchers or even footage of museum video game collections and archives. With video you can also demonstrate failing hardware or software, such as incompatible operating systems, drivers, or dead batteries in game cartridges. The infographic is a good way to quickly disseminate facts about video game preservation and why it is important. The infographic will likely discuss the reasons why preserving video games is important more so than why games are in danger. For instance, video games are a huge part of the cultural record of the last forty years. Losing access to these games would be like losing every copy of the Declaration of Independence.

Issues facing video games include so-called “bit rot”, hardware scarcity, obsolescence of hardware and software technologies, and physical decay of hardware among other things. Less obvious dangers to video games include contamination and loss of original source material. A classic example of this is Will Crowther’s 1970’s classic, Colossal Cave Adventure. The most widely distributed versions of the game were not Crowther’s original game, but extended, edited copies written by other students. It wasn’t until fairly recently that someone found the original, unedited source code in the student archives at Stanford University.

 

Video games as sports

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There’s been a push these last few years to have video games recognized as sports. They already are in other countries, with players being paid salaries and having endorsement deals. In America, there has been some professional gamers that have started to collect sponsorships. More so, team organizations have been around for a few years now and pay players salaries! Players are even able to get sports visas to visit the united states for e-gaming reasons. My project will use an info graphic describing some of the more popular sports and the sports teams, such as their players or rules. The mash up video will be displaying how big the actual events are that host the sports, as they can get quite large both in number of attendees and prize pools. It’s quite interesting, as major newscasters and sports casters went from making fun of esports to taking it very seriously, IE showing it on their channels even. It all has to do with money, how many people watch effects the advertisers, and advertisers effect screen time.