Posts Tagged ‘school’

Well, That’s Depressing

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

I am poor and need work.

I’m opening myself up to doing commissions. Make me an offer and I’ll do whatever you need done so long as I’m able to. Web work, WordPress themes or upgrades, banners, proof reading, formatting that ebook into a nice PDF, whatever else you can think of that I can do.

Until I can find something, though, my brain is going into job-related-depression autopilot. Namely, I’m going to keep sending out resumes to every web job I can find and hope that something gets back to me.

Now, for the overly long back story of this. Yesterday, my contract with one job ran out. There’s still a little bit to take care of, but it will all be done by February 1st. That second job I have doing PHP and web design? That hasn’t given me a shift since November. I’m not holding out hope for more shifts any time soon, even if two shifts a week would essentially solve all my money problems.

Oh yeah, money problems. Due to various things, I don’t have much saved up. My mom’s in another country and not paying for my student loan right now. I was living paycheck to paycheck, but that option just ran out. Dad can’t supplement my income due to various reasons with his own job and, well, everything sucks.

My producer at that just-ran-out job has suggested I update my portfolio and brand myself for the jobs I really want. I’ve got a few problems with this suggestion myself.

Firstly, branding is incredibly disingenuous. Pick one thing and don’t deviate from that one image of yourself. It becomes a bit of a problem for me because I am a web developer and am perfectly happy in that role. I’d like to be a transmedia storyteller and work on that stuff, but I don’t know yet whether I’d actually enjoy doing that professionally or not.

The second is that I’m far more likely to get a job in web design than I am working for these few companies in town that claim that they’re doing the stuff I want to do. Do I really want to risk not getting the job I may or may not want?

Third, she seemed to suggest that I should take a month off. I cannot AFFORD to take a month off. I have too many bills to pay to take any time off to work on research of the industry and fixing up my portfolio to make it perfectly tailored to the potential industry.

And that’s not even bringing into account what transmedia is to the majority of the industry. Marketing and marketing only. There are so many games for the show or comics of the movie that do nothing to add to the narrative, making it just multi-platform and not any sort of narrative experience. It’s not a matter of what else can we do with this story in another medium, but a matter of what are the kids into these days and we can make it that too. The narrative is rarely extended and the experience is almost always hollow. But it gets them money, so who cares?!

Yeah, I don’t really like the marketing first approach.

Still, I was going to redo the portfolio anyway. Branding is going to go right out the window, though. I’m going to be a writer so long as PaperBox Books likes my stories. I am still a web designer first because that has done a better job of paying the bills than anything. I’m still interested in transmedia storytelling, fandom and media specificity.

I’m going back to applying for jobs and wondering why there was so much emphasis on getting an education if it does nothing to actually help me get a job to pay back said education.

Also, yes, I know I should have made this a lot more upbeat if I wanted commissions, but I’m not honestly feeling all that peppy just now.

So I Graduated…

Saturday, June 6th, 2009

… now what?

But really, I wasn’t all that excited for the ceremony. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have missed it in the least if I didn’t go since I’ve been done since August. It all seemed like a big formality. But, you know, I’m happier for having gone. Mostly because I missed the majority of the speeches in lieu of chatting with Josef, who I haven’t seen in quite a while, and trying to signal other people around me to the people who wanted their attention over on the sidelines.

I also found out that pointy heels sink in the grass to the point where they get stuck in the grass and you have to take them off to pull them out, much to the amusement of the other parents. Not as many pictures as I was expecting, but dad was pretty sick and they needed to take him home.

So what will I do now with my degree? I’m not going to think too much about that right now. I have jobs to last me a few more months at least without worrying about my future. Though I am considering starting up a little studio for eclectic media forms, getting a little production experience under my belt, getting more of my writing done and produced, then moving the studio up to transmedia content production. But we’ll see how we do with Final Snow before I start trying anything too crazy.

Personal Announcement

Friday, August 8th, 2008

After five years of schooling at SFU, taking the new Interactive Arts and technology program, enduring some of the most unusual growing pains, something has happened. I was among the many who helped to break the program several times over (Weekly quizzes you could continue to retake? Come on!) and worked on some very strange, bizzare and weird projects. Did some questionable things (At least, making a project with the intent of putting our prof’s neck in a noose is something I consider questionable) and still got a grade for it.

And, as of 1:05pm, I finished my very last final exam. DONE FOREVER!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to dancing madly around in public and finish this piece of chocolate cake.

Please Note: I still have to apply for graduation and something might go wrong. A missed course or something. I just don’t think it will.

IAT 222 – This is going to be weird

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

So… gotta come up with an idea. Here’s an idea I’m pitching to my team, since the best they’ve come up with is modelling a car in Halo.

Transmundane: A Transmedia Story

Deliverable Components
The Media:

  1. A blog site with video of the first post with the main character
  2. A comic site with the introduction arc of ten pages
  3. A site talking about the Transmundane project

The Production Package

  1. Full plot point summaries of both the comic and the video blog
  2. Timing of when each should go into production
  3. Contingency plans for if things go wrong schedule-wise
  4. The site instructions for each of the three sites

The Video Blog Package

  1. Full character profile of the main character
  2. Profiles of non-appearing minor characters
  3. Outlines of the first twenty episodes
  4. Full overarching plot summary, complete with major plot points
  5. Setting requirements and restrictions
  6. Blog-specific requirements

The Comic Package

  1. Full character profiles of all major characters and several minor
  2. Multiple setting descriptions for various mindscapes and the collective subconscious
  3. Full plotline
  4. Corallites for various instances of thing happening to be implemented at Production’s word
  5. Site requirements

The Video Blog Characters
Brooke Hudson is a lovely young woman who has decided to keep up a blog for the new year as a manageable resolution. Shy, uncertain, she only recently realized that blogger existed and a friend is showing her how to post videos. Graduating from high school this year, she is starting to notice things wrong with her, like random blackouts where she can’t remember and that she can’t recall her dreams anymore. She doesn’t think much of this, rather concerned with midterms, finals and provincials instead.

She is growing up and does not want to be associated with childish things, and so does not watch or read anything geeky or that might be considered as such.

The Comic Characters

Brooke Hudson

  • New player in the game and only a part time player, which is a bit of a pain
  • Resourceful, though only really lucid within her own scape
  • Discovering the limitless expanses of the subconscious and the railways of the collective
  • Believes what she is told
  • Still sensitive to reality

Sage

  • Been there the longest and has become something of a leader
  • Patient and kind, though does what’s necessary
  • Knows many of the tricks and trains in the ways of protecting the subconscious

Paige

  • Redheaded peppy and impulsive girl who isn’t that new, but has been the newest for a while
  • Strong arms her way into things
  • Slightly paranoid of everything when she isn’t being peppy

The Plots

Video

  • Open to the intro of her talking about her goal to blog for a year, talk about how she’s new, just a quick intro, and how she thought it was cool seeing other people so she wanted to do it too
  • End of month one, Brooke comes to the realization that she can’t dream anymore and has an odd meandering rant about it
  • She had a good valentine’s day because she’s in a relationship and her boyfriend is so romantic, but not in the cheesy way, etc, etc.
  • Three weeks after the dreams rant, she talks about the original post she was going to make, but she zoned out for the camera for a good half hour. Says she must be tired from provincials.
  • Late March, at the end of a post if anyone’s ever been terrified from a nightmare and not been able to remember what’s got them so scared that they can’t get back to sleep
  • May she notices one of the crueller girls at school has become quite a bit nicer than usual
  • August she notices that she’s blacking out more and more. Late in the month she starts having trouble with her boyfriend. This is a bad start to the new school year in college where she was accepted.
  • September, mid. Her boyfriend dumps her for another girl at his own school and she takes a bit of time off before telling her audience. She decides that this will be a fresh start, though is clearly upset.
  • Tries to immerse herself in her homework, life and trying to find a part time job during the school year, though it’s getting very hard for her to concentrate. And she’s starting to think something’s wrong in her head, though never says so.
  • She is hired in November for the Christmas rush and she works hard to try and balance everything.
  • Last post of the year, she’s excited about going to a new years party after all the exams and Christmas. Maybe she’ll meet someone new.

Comic

  • Brooke is discovered and introduced to the world, how it works and what they do and why, even coming with them to help out in some of the trouble they get into. Character development, world building and forming a bit of formula as well as introducing the bad guys.
  • Late March, she gets cocky and gets in way over her head. Reportedly, she’s lucky that she can snap back to reality and learns that there is fatality in this universe. Sage reveals that he has a false hand/arm.
  • April, she wanders on her own and talks to one of the bad guys, learning their motivation and discovering that they’re altering scapes and trying to help. She switches sides, acting peaceably and independently, thoroughly manipulated.
  • Late July she fixes her boyfriend’s scape. A little while after she confronts the bad guys and they don’t believe that she can escape here. Sage comes out of nowhere and talks to her, straightening out what happened. She switches back sides.
  • Embarrassed, she learns that the others have all done something like that before, but they never really understood like she did the ramifications. They switched back because the other side had a lot of backstabbing.
  • It becomes clear that the bad guys are planning something, but no one’s really sure what. They just retreat too easily and Brooke is left behind which she feels good and bad about. Good because she can feel that she doesn’t have much time to spend here right now and bad because she feels the need to prove herself to the rest of them still.
  • New years eve she gets pulled into the verse for the final battle already underway on the collective which is going a little funny in areas where the population is drunk and the rules aren’t working right. There’s a big thing at the end, scene ends and the first season ends.

Another Crazy Story Idea

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

Once again, for school. It’s all fun and has murder in it. But a little background on the project. We all have to do a 2 – 5 minute narrative video project. Now, this idea has about a 3% chance of being implemented, so take this as you will, but I still think it would be really cool if a bunch of groups got together and came up with something a little longer than 5 minutes. So this is split up into segments for each group to be assigned to.

Introducing…

  • Intro Adrian and Shavir, roommates
  • Adrian’s girlfriend is dead and Shavir wants him to stop being depressed about it already
  • Shavir goes out
  • Adrian encounters his dead girlfriend, who explains that her death was the result of demons
  • She enlists him as a demon hunter
  • He accepts because it means he gets to be with her

The Hard Work

  • Adrian talks about his job, killing all them demons all over the place
  • More of a montage of fight sequences, various deaths of demons
    • Demon deaths play a role in a later segment here
  • It’s hard, but anything to be with Layla again
  • He worries if he completes this mission of hers if she’ll leave him

Deaths on Campus – Detective Avalon

  • Introduce the detective
  • He’s investigating a series of deaths surrounding the college
  • Young men and one young woman, possibly unrelated, have been dying
  • The cases are all so vastly different
    • Shots of the deaths, poses of the dead similar to the dead demon poses
  • There seems to be nothing connecting them
  • Goes off to interview another student who knew one of the dead guys

Deaths on Campus – The Interview

  • One student leaves
  • Detective has no time for an introspection as the next student comes in
  • Shavir and him talk about potential enemies and people who would want to get people
  • Mentions that Adrian is on his list to talk to as well
  • Shavir mentions Layla’s death and that it might not be good for him to hear about death right now
  • Shavir leaves, Detective Avalon pondering over the interview
  • He realizes that this is useless and he’s really getting absolutely no leads on the matter
  • Fade out him alone in the interrogation room

A Puzzling Day

  • Shavir greets a rather happy and transformed Adrian who is actually going out today
  • Notes how much better he’s doing now that he’s accepted Layla’s dead
  • Heads over to talk to the detective
    • First aid course is in session along the way
  • Leaves the detective office, curious about the case
  • Slips in to see the evidence
  • Figures out the connection between the victims
  • Realizes he’s next

A Few Months Earlier

  • Shavir and Layla head out to a club, him to meet up with his girlfriend of the time, her on her own
  • Layla and Adrian are on a “break” for midterms
  • Shavir’s girlfriend calls and stands him up
  • Layla starts hitting on him
  • He turns her down
  • She leaves, a drunk, and gets hit by a semi

The Last Mission

  • Layla tells him that there’s just one more that he needs to take out
  • Adrian ponders whether or not he wants to because she might leave him
  • Layla gives a sappy speech about everything being okay
  • Adrian agrees, heads out and finds the monster
  • He finds and stabs at the creature once before the cops take him down
  • Adrian , confused, yells at them to let him go
  • He looks to Layla to help, but she’s laughing
  • He gets hit and goes unconscious

A Crack in the Case

  • The detective finds Shavir in his office rifling through his stuff boots him out
  • Tells Shavir not to tell anyone and doesn’t let Shavir interrupt
  • Thinks on it a moment, then heads back out, walking, to catch up with Shavir
  • Maybe the kid figured out something he didn’t
  • Goes out and sees Shavir standing petrified, Adrian looking at him with something in his hand
  • Detective calls for immediate backup as Adrian lunges forward and stabs Shavir
  • He takes down Adrian, help arriving in the form of other students who knock him out
  • Shavir is quickly reached by paramedics and will live

Now all I need is eight groups. And some sleep because, dammit, it’s almost midnight.

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