Brandon's 500 word discussion.

What really inspired me from the videos I watched was the idea of narration. There were a couple of videos I watched that had the characters moving at the beginnings but with a narrator giving a background to the story. What I also really liked was the idea of having the character talk in a way that was like his or her inner-monologue. I thought that was very different and could be useful when thinking of a way to start my own screen play and machinma. Another thing I really liked about this is that you could cut to different shots that mirrored what the character was talking about, kind of like a flashback. One thing that I also paid close attention to was the music in the background. Because it is animated, you can’t rely to much on emotion from the characters. What I found out is one way to compensate for that is music. In the videos I watched, music really set the mood and the setting of the films. In addition to the voice over from the point of view of the character and the music, I really liked some of the videos use of a pan shot. I really liked not having any characters in the scene, and the “camera” slowly moving around the setting so that you can get a good grasp of the area. Another shot I really liked was the reverse low shot. The shot shows to people, from the perspective of a person sitting on the floor. I think it helps show dialogue, but also adds a type of artistic effect to the shot. Lastly, one thing I really liked was how a couple of the pieces I watched jumped back and forth between perspectives. It was almost like a scene from “Crash” because the camera and voice narration kept jumping back and forth between characters in the film.

I already have a few ideas for my machinima . In my opinion the best idea I have so far is to retell the story from the perspective of Trudy Doo. I think that would convey a lot of emotion about how Marcus feels and about the rebellion against the government. It would also allow me to create a bigger role for her character and adapt it into my screen play. I really like this idea because I think that adding a sub-plot would be interesting and that if done right it could add a whole new meaning to Doctorow’s novel.

My second idea isn’t as well formed, but I think it would be different to redo the terrorist attack scene, to show a broader prospective than that of just Marcus’s. I think this could be pretty unique because I could not only show the perspective of Marcus, but also of the terrorists and the Homeland Security. There could be three sub-plots going on within it to display a fragmented sense of reality each party has.