Month: August 2017

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LASER TAG ROUND ONE – STRIKE 

• took many audio notes
• sweated lots
• played rounds in teams, but also free for all rounds
• free for all rounds were more immersive – potentially related to the higher level of awareness required – relating to the immersive qualities of fear
• Great sounds, lighting and set with lots of places to hide, allowed us to become more engaged with the environment

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IMMERSION AUDIT BRAINSTORM 

 

For the upcoming project, we have chosen to do an immersion audit of laser tag arenas.

Really committing to the project, we have chosen to visit multiple laser tag arenas, including outdoor, indoor, high class and low, as well as those with alcohol and without.

We intend to fully involve ourselves in these places and commit to the immersion they provide. It will be tough, but worth it.

According to a very reliable reddit thread, Darkzone in Box Hill is the best laser tag experience in Melbourne.

 

Below is the shortlist we’ve created for potential laser tag places to visit –

 

DarkZone – Box Hill

2-for-1 Tuesday’s – $12.50 for 2 games

Student Night (Thursday) – $15 for 4 games of laser tag + 4 arcade games

 

Strike – Melbourne Central

$25 unlimited on Thursdays(?)

 

Laserforce – Ballarat

Thursday – Social Night
UNLIMITED PLAY FROM 6:00PM-10:00PM $30.00

Friday – Disco Night
UNLIMITED MISSIONS FROM 7:00M-9:00PM $20.00

 

Laserforce (Sidetracked) – Oakleigh

Happy hour – 3 games for $20

 

TunzaFun – Narre Warran

2 games for $20

 

Adrenalin Games – Outdoor Laser Tag – Skye

http://www.adrenalingames.com.au/laser-tag/

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THE HORROR MONTAGE | PROJECT BRIEF 2 | AUDIOVISUAL RESPONSE

 

As asserted by academic Julian Hanich, horror is so effective in engaging and enhancing viewer absorption largely due to the ‘paradox of horror’ – horror films terrorise the viewer, and both because of and in spite of this, they are enjoyable. The horror film simultaneously suspends our functional perception of fear, whilst demanding our attention as our primal instincts refuse to let us look away. By virtue of transfixion, it may be argued that there is nothing more immersive than horror. In my piece I endeavoured to explore this. I was drawn to Ed Hirst’s audio piece, as it had the capacity to offer an immediately emotive experience, which was well suited to being guided towards horror. As the visuals manipulate and give altered meaning and context to the sound, so the sound develops the vision.

Throughout the video, I employ the tropes of horror cinema. I used the audio to enhance the visual material, set the mood, build pacing, and recontextualise otherwise harmless footage, whilst furthermore creating scaled ‘jump scares’ throughout. The sound and vision work together to build the horror world which engulfs the viewer. Moreover, I utilised visuals that were graphic or a part of classic horror iconography in order to reaffirm the video’s genre and immediately impress upon the viewer the emotions that should be felt whilst watching. Simultaneously however, testing the limits of the horror film, I included animated images and a variety of source material, which varied in style, aesthetic and texture, thereby disturbing the usual visual continuity of the horror film. Despite these potential disturbances in immersion, I believe that the viewer, in the capacity allowed by this brief video, is still allowed to believe this piece as a cohesive horror ‘world’ in which they may become immersed, as they accept, and become engaged in what is presented on-screen, despite its visual disparities. This reaffirms Hanich’s belief in the immersive capabilities of the horror genre, and furthermore supports the claim that immersion is contingent upon the suspension of disbelief; without which, horror could seem utterly fantastical, or truly terrifying. 

 

Hanich, J 2010, Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers – The Aesthetic Paradox of Pleasurable Fear, Routledge, USA.

Perron, B 2009, Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play, McFarland & Company, Inc, USA.

 

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration.

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WEEK 4

Two systems of thought – 

System 1:

emotion, feeling, intuitive, fast, automatic, subconscious

System 2:

reason, logic

Under circumstances where there may be confusion, imperfect knowledge or multiple conflicting goals, emotions traditionally replace reason to guide immediate responses and action – filmmakers use this to manipulate their audiences.

 

• Umwelt – an organism’s subjective experience of its environment

• Perceptual apparatus doesn’t make a distinction between what’s real, or not real; in real world this is fight or flight, in fiction, this is suspension of belief.

• An objective reality is problematic if you’re thinking umwelt.

• The experience of sound and vision is different, as is mode of processing – we consciously process about 1% of the information our sensory inputs feed the brain – so our subconscious is working to process the rest.

• Misattribution – soundtrack generate emotion but you believe it’s immanent ti the screen; multimodality of cinema.

 

Frisson – overwhelming emotional response combined with goosebumps; surprise

Synchresis – the spontaneous and irresistible weld produced between a particular auditory phenomenon and visual phenomenon when they occur at the same time. (Chion, Audio-Vision, p.63)

 

Thinking beyond the dichotomy of sound and vision –

TEXTURE

Texture IN film – the presentation of soft fabric, of slime, of different textures within the film world

Texture OF film – the digital image, the film reel

Texture FROM film

 

For a film to be immersive:

• suspension of belief
• suspend interaction with the real world, and focus instead on a single image – the film on screen
• follow the narrative or surface layer presented to us
• there is something that happens when all elements of a film come together to create ‘perceptual synchresis’ = immersion – the film mediates the new on screen world for us, as we plug into the film world presented to us

 

Texture In Film 

It’s about representation and mediation, however these are different. When you represent something, you try to present its likeness; mediation goes beyond that as it imbues the likeness with the inherent qualities of the medium used to present the thing – the affordances of the recording medium effect the presentation of the thing in the film – mediation fills the perceptual gap – it allows it to be believable and guides your perception of what is being presented on screen.

These sensations, the feeling of light, weight, texture – thats created through mediation.

Texture Of Film

Dirt, scratches etc of film vs the crisp, manipulated image of the digital – does film texture effect immersion?

We can become immersed so well in the digital image as it doesn’t separate us from the screen

 

texture IN film + texture OF film = textured filmic experience = immersion

music concrete 

 

Music has a particular perspective – it may not necessarily let you know what this perspective is until later – it simply hints at its perspective – used a lot in horror

 

For music to be effective, it must fall away and meld together with the vision so that neither one appears incongruent to the other, you fail to actively notice either, but rather become absorbed in the world they present. 

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WEEK 3

 

Immersion in fiction – the brain extracts useful information, allowing the viewer to play out different scenarios without diluting factual memory

When you’re immersed in a film you don’t question every factual element – we experience the action within the context of the work – suspension of disbelief.

Exploding Reality 

 

Conscious attention – very small amount of what is observed is consciously observed – the rest is taken in subconsciously by the brain

 

EXCERPTS FROM THE READING

•••••••••

•••••••••

Repetition allows the brain to derive further meaning as it moves from paying attention to one aspect of something to another.

kurt vonnegut is a star

 

audio 

• sounds which it pays to ficus on

• sounds which can be left to a subconscious subroutine – zombie agent

• sounds which can be completely ignored

the metaphoric gap between the thing and its metaphoric shadow

 

SOUND – used to;

• clarify or express an idea (often used recurrently to impress a theme or characterisation)
• describe or generate emotion
• materialise/confer authenticity on an image (makes it feel real, gives it weight – e.g fight scenes, car crashes)
• provide additional layers of information (weight, size, texture, causal listening – tapping table, you learn what the table is made of, door slam, you learn how angry a person is based on how loudly it is slammed)
• articulate structure
• accelerate or decelerate pace
• delineate genre / project a tone / stimulate a required schema