I wonder: why don’t people, when playing game characters, walk around the game’s city and ponder about that person eating an endless bowl of soup in the corner cafe with the same depth as they do about the man and the couple found in Edward Hopper’s masterpiece?

After all, they repeat almost the same amount of times…

The three stooges, laurel and hardy, some cartoons, Cantinflas, old movies, I was one of the last generations to see these types of shows on network TV on Sunday mornings… TV land may show it today in cable, but that’s not the point… I watched them because my dad showed them to me, and because there just wasn’t anything else on Sunday mid-mornings; that or church shows, and that just really wasn’t an option.

I remember asking dad if those shows were old, and he’d say “Si”. And i remember asking him why they didn’t have color? he’d say because those were old cameras. but that wasn’t sufficiently explicit for my infant mind. It made more sense to think that color was new, since i knew I wasn’t old, so therefore in those first attempts at a logical argument, the conclusion was obvious: color wasn’t available in the olden days; in the grandpa days. I thought that only recently the world invented color. During the time, Kodak also had tv ads that talked about how they had “blue” and “yellow” and the remaining cast of the rainbow, in their cameras (though they didn’t specify film) as if it were a modern accomplishment.

Since, I’ve come to the conclusion that black and white cameras were a bit better “Cadillacs”… they looked more like what i remember from a film. Now, film makers use black and white as an artistic style; employing it when necessary to enhance a movies storytelling needs. Think about the great films that didn’t NEED color to be great. Why are they so amazing? Is it because we cut em some slack because they’re technically “challenged”? Is Nostalgia assisting the subject matter? I can see how the acting has gotten more real, but the magic of those movies diminishes when anything is “fixed”; it seems. I remember when i thought pan and scan was better because i lacked information about what gets projected (more like what what didn’t get cut) onto my TV pixels… I used to think that the whole screen was MORE. Come to think about it… old movies weren’t wide-screen aspect ratio… another topic i guess.

I remember being a kid and learning to want black and white movies to get colorized. But then i learned about the process, about how directors think ahead about what they’re getting from their cameras; about how the “mastering” process touches up the film grain, how the film itself decays, and how the awareness of that finalization process is involved in the choices and decision directors and the rest of the crew make… colorizing never took into consideration those things. The crew were aware how a blue dress would translate into black and white, maybe that deterred them from using a blue dress… just so that the coloring process paints a characters dress blue without the film makers blessing. Touching up movies like that seems like a sin against most art. Art needs to ship, and artists (even though they’re “never done”) build respect into their artistry by showing the world how they learn to let go of their creations or let IT go on how it will, always moving on to the next project. So, coloring? no, i can take the original vision and i can try to understand it; yet, if i somehow “miss the point”, that’s OK… always more stuff to understand.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have proven to be the ultimate control freaks by showing others how they need to manipulated everything and even change things from their movies because “newer audiences”, blah, blah… ET was fine with shotguns, Han Shot first.

Megaman9 just came out, brand new game done in an old, 8bit style… used to enhance a games style and im sure, to help the new and “modern” audience understand the style of gameplay, while also “justifying” the “hardcoreness” difficulty the old games had… all that only through a visual art style… amazing.

but im not here to talk about that really. After all, that’s not what the title of this post hints at. I wondered, what would my kids think is “new” to their world from looking at the movies from my generation. Here are a couple of things, some societal, some topical, some technological, and then onto the one about this post:

• the lack of cellphones seen as a plot device to insert conflict into the story.
  • The plot of “reservoir Dogs” is destroyed if it were though about it occurring today. as it stands, the movie is dated to that era (before the ubiquity of cellphones) and therefore could not be remade or updated in the future.
• Characters ignorant of a broader sense of world history and world culture.
  • Since our society is up for globalization, everyone will have some details about all corners of the world; unless the writers want to risk portraying their characters as “ignorant Americans”. Therefore, even the ignorant American in the future will know where Estonia is located… Ignorant American will be antiquated and a new laundry list of ignorant things to think and say will need to be issued, one for a people that is more aware of itself… mind you, im not saying everyone will be intelligent, just less self centered about their ignorance, just a bit more global
• Availability of personal Transportation continues to fluctuate, and with it change through out the decades the viewers understanding of the people’s social class.
  • 50’s everyone had their muscle car… then people live in new york (big city that implies richness) and they dont need cars… I think more cities are going in the way of the big metro city and therefore, kids wont see having personal transportation promoted as luxurious (depends where they’re from, of course) from movies
• Movie projection unavailable in 3D or + interactivity or + sense enhancement
  • “you mean, you have to use your hands?” Elijah Wood in Back to the Future II. Displays will continue to get bigger, but megaplexes, in order to entice dwindling audiences, will make the movie experience more life like, and impossible (for a little while) to reproduce at home
• Actors being used instead of Computer Manipulated actors (for example, though it’s not a good movie “SimOne”)
  • Final Fantasy spirits within, The polar Express, Beowulf, it will continue to get better, that’s almost guaranteed. Video Games will influence this (see the next bullet) and the Uncanny Valley will be crossed within the next 10 years… I’m not hoping, I’m just sure.
• Inability to customize the actors to the viewers liking.
  • Kids will be able to say, i want to watch blues clues with me as one of the protagonists. Sesame Street will teach you the numbers with you IN the show, inserting a “dummy” 3d model of yourself with some basic AI for kids to see themselves learning the numbers in front of the count in what im coining as “4th person self juxtaposition”<- i don’t know if that makes any sense, but i have personal memories of being a kid, seeing myself in 3rd person, no mirrors around.

and the main suggestion of the post… Lots of old/aging people

I think that’s the one that might shock people/kids some years from now. Not that elders wont be around, but that they wont be so “wrinkly” (think Paris Hilton saying wrinkly). I think kids will wonder why people look old some day, and perhaps think that being and looking old is “old”. I don’t think we’re all going to mix into one race… that’s maybe tooooo many years from what this post “postulates” (couldn’t resist the alliteration, sorry). But I’ve always wondered why movies from the 30’s have women that look from the 30s, and no matter how much they try to make “modern” women look like older generations in contemporary movies, they fail miserably.

Even the accents are crucial. Everything actors did has changed; mannerisms, accents, syntax, expletives, empathy, crying, etc. Go to an elderly home of people from a particular generation, it’s like a museum… kids will see that even more. no wonder they say 30 is the new 20. We’re lasting longer, it will be documented in movies and kids will wonder and ask you, why do those people look like that, what’s with their skin and hair and posture? They were old human models, kid

Yes, I’m a rockband drummer. I’m 2 songs away from finishing all rockband 1 songs in hard, many still on Rockband 2. And although i know i can play some songs on expert mode, i kinda refuse to play at that level until i can beat “run through the hills”; Para-diddles FTW someday soon. Thanks to Taylor Popkins, Awesome Drummer!

I’ve always brown nosed drummers, much to my chagrin. The theory goes that since they hold so much of the rockness of a band, my rockness is perpetually paused until I can say, “HE/SHE’s MY Drummer!!!”  in a jealous fit of rage, warning all around to throw down a glove and prepare to duel. It’s admirable how some band members have that comradery; they show they belong to one another. Lennon said nasty things about McCartney, but he didn’t let anyone else dump on him, or anyone else in his band.

However, Drummers are a bit “aware” of their volume (spatially). Think about it, they have the largest instrument, the loudest instrument, the instrument that rarely fails on them: how many drummers play (on purpose) with broken cymbals, shitty sticks, jerry-rigged/squeaky kick pedals. Electricity is also unneeded, where as anything but a percussive instrument (pianos included), requires juice. They’re the least portable, but drummers who mind carrying their own instruments are few… AND I’VE OFFERED TO HELP THEM CARRY THEIR STUFF! have i tried! They require the best neighbors and the least micro managing parents. Yeah, there are a whole bunch of drummer jokes, but everyone knows too, no beats, no show.

Also, it seems that lots of drummers are the heads of their group. They seem to be the most entrepreneurial. maybe they need to make sure money’s coming in so they can afford the sticks

I cant wait for the legion of drummers the rock band game will unleash upon the world. This will make, indubitably, drummers easier to find and cheaper to maintain.

Anyways, I’m much better playing the drums now. The way that I’ve proven it is to record with the rockband drum kit onto MIDI for my own music. The example is on the downloads page, here’s the quick download link… oh BTW, all songs are demos until they make me money or get us a gig.

Now i need rockband guitarists.