What is addiction? [5]

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While working on my third Project Brief about the immersive effects of a Gambling room filled with slot machines, I decided to briefly look into addiction as a whole.

Addiction and Immersion are more related than we think. Drugs, and their sensory stimulation, slot machines and their flashing colours and lights can create a truly immersive experience that we could all easily create an addiction to. The definition of addiction has been argued to have several meanings. Prior to the 19th century, addiction meant being “given over” or devoted to something, but after the 19th century, the word addiction typically revolved around drugs, withdrawal symptoms and tolerance, particularly around the anti-opium movement. Arguably, addiction is not limited to drug use, it’s not always harmful, and withdrawal symptoms and tolerance aren’t necessarily linked to addiction. (1) The definition of “Addicted” became solidified in the Cambridge dictionary as “unable to stop taking drugs, or doing something as a habit” (2)

Gambling, like most addictions requires compulsive engagement and attention. There are many similarities between drug and non-drug addiction, known as behavioural addiction. Behavioural addiction involves a compulsion to seek a natural reward despite negative consequences to the person’s physical, mental, social or financial well-being, this natural reward could include money, food, sex etc.  Both forms of addiction include symptoms of cravings, tolerance, withdrawal, the inability to control their behaviour, and elevated rates of relapse. Studies have shown that non-drug related rewards can alter neuroplasticity in regions of the brain, and affect dopamine receptors that would also be affected by drug abuse. (3)

 (4) 

Cambridge University defines Immersion as “the fact of becoming completely involved in something”, similar to an addiction but for a shorter period of time. The long-term effects of both a behavioural and drug addiction affect a protein known as “FBJ murine osteosarcoma viral oncogene homolog B” or “ΔFosB” (DeltaFosB).  This protein plays a crucial role in the development and maintenance of pathological behaviour, changing the way that your brain responds with the dopamine release reward system of the brain. Once an addiction is formed, breaking the addiction requires lots of time and effort, because the brain needs to be rewired. (3)

I’m hoping, that by researching specifically what makes slot machines and a Gambling room so addictive, I can learn what immersive techniques are being used, and apply it to my work in the future.

 

(1) Alexander, B.K, and Schweighofer A.R.F 1988, Defining “Addiction” Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia
(2) http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/addicted
(3) Olsen CM (December 2011). “Natural rewards, neuroplasticity, and non-drug addictions”. Neuropharmacology.
(4) Drugs, Brains, and Behaviour: The Science of Addiction https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/drugs-brain

Project Brief 2 Audio Piece [4]

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For my project brief 2, I chose the work of James Hoening. I chose his video becuase  I thought it incorperated things that looked like they could make actual sounds, like the ticking time and the blinking lights. I liked that there was a mysteriousness of it, similar to his partners. I originally set out to create the entire sound piece through Ableton, but with my limited time, I was only able to produce certain parts with Ableton, and the rest using the applicated Paulstretch and Audacity. I wanted to create an ambient piece, but I also wanted to contrast it with something upbeat and loud. I never really got the chance to go as far as I’d have liked to with my audio piece. 

I think for the most part, the sound blended well with what you were seeing. I liked the moments of silence interrupted by the beeping of the time and the quiet piano, however, I found it difficult to perfectly match the beeping with the clock the whole time. I do think that the work does well to immerse the viewer, because it keeps the idea that there’s something waiting to happen, with the audio, as if to be building up to something.

I really wanted to make sure the audio matched the video specifically, because after looking at the previous examples shown in the lecture, I noticed that the audio for the video’s was possibly interchangable, and other soundscapes could’ve worked just as well (if not better). I wanted the audience to know that I crafted the audio specifically for this particular video, and I achieved that by having the audio reflect what was being displayed.

Overall, I’m happy with how the piece turned out, and though I would’ve liked to have learned about programs like Ableton more, I felt like I did as well as I could with the programs I used and the material I was given.

PB2 update

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For my PB2, I wanted to create a piece of ambient music that would match perfectly with the video I selected. But unfortunately, producing a piece of ambient music with multiple instruments isn’t very easy without the right program. For the last few years, I’ve wanted a program to write and record music on, but the applications that I downloaded were either too complicated for me to be motivated to learn, or just unobtainable.

I decided to download Ableton, and use the deadline for PB2 as a motivating factor to learn how it works. It started off as a very complicated and intimidating workspace, and I’m still struggling to really get a feel of how everything works. Here’s a screenshot of the main two interfaces with the tracks of a very simple melody I created. I really would like to produce soundtracks and supporting music for my films in order to emphasise the media that I create, and I’m really hoping that Ableton will be a tool that can really help me with that.

I’m learning prodominantly through youtube tutorials. The first being this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wt_NNYMwJY&t=11s&ab_channel=Cymatics.FM

I thought with 50 minutes of video, I would have a very fair understanding of the application, but there’s still so much more to learn, with 5 seperate parts all for beginner users. If I can’t figure out how to use Ableton effectively by Saturday, I’ll have to record my musical piece straight to my computer from the piano through midi.

 

Here’s the first piece of music I’ve created with Ableton, a really simple melody with a beat.

Why do we experience Frisson? [3]

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Frisson has colloquial terminology regarding how people describe it, such as “shivers down your spine” or “the chills” but essentially, it’s the feeling that makes the hairs stand on the back of your neck. It primarily concerns arousal of the automatic nervous system. (ANS) ANS is activated usually because of a very high or low frequency, or rapidly changing sounds. These properties, as well as increased heart rate are often experienced with the onset of frisson.

1The reason we experience frisson is still a philosophical debate which can be approached from perspectives of psychology and neuroscience.  (Cochrane, 2010.) Strong emotional experiences, ones that often elicit frisson take place in both the caudate nucleus, and the nucleus accumbens, which are parts of the brain which activate moments before and after an emotional peak. Patients that experienced frisson had increased blood flow to parts of the brain that were also activated by surrounding responses like food, sex, and addictive drugs. This suggests that once we experience frisson, we develop a craving for it, though that doesn’t explain why we experience that frisson in the first place.

“It is possible that the reason we develop such affinity for frisson-inducing music is that once we experience musical frisson, we develop a dopaminergic anticipation for its return, effectively becoming slightly addicted to the musical stimulus”

 

Though this journal can find out which parts of the brain are activated when people experience frisson from music, they can’t really understand why music would generate dopamine release in the first place because of it. 2 David Huron argues that having multiple people experience frisson can form group mood synchronization, creating a better relationship between people hence having a better defence against other human groups, though the claim is unsupported with evidence.

After an extensive search for theories behind the experience of frisson, my search came up short, and there isn’t much information behind why frisson would ever be evolutionarily beneficial.

 

 

 (1) by Lucas D. Harrison and Psyche Loui (2014) Thrills, Chills, Frissons, and Skin Orgasms: Toward an Integrative Model of Transcendent Psychophysiological Moments in Music

(2) DAVID HURON (2001)  : Is Music an Evolutionary Adaptation? School of Music, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA

 

 

The immersive effects of Hallucinogenic drugs [2]

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I decided to research the effects of the two most common Hallucinogens used in Australia. LSD (Lysergic Acid di-ethyl amide) and Psilocybin. Hallucinogens are very immersive, and I wanted to know if we could apply similar effect to these substances to create more immersive media.

 

I’ve decided to use the journal article to describe the effects of these drugs, called

“A Comparative Review of the Neuro-Psychopharmacology of Hallucinogen-Induced Altered States of Consciousness: The Uniqueness of Some Hallucinogens” by Sayin, Umit. NeuroQuantology; Bornova Izmir”

 

LSD (Lysergic Acid di-ethyl amide): When consuming between 80-150 micrograms of LSD, colours become very vivid, and it takes the human brain and mind on an unexplainable “journey” which lasts 7-8 hours. The text refers to the 3 dominant changes in perception with the use of LSD are Visual, Acoustic, Tactile and Body perception. Overall, the common trait that they share is a sense of amplification of that sense. “Sounds may seem to be more profound… Music may become unbelievably deep and philosophical.” And “the tactile sensations may become extremely vivid.  When eyes are closed different geometric images, geometrical self-repeating figures of coloured fractals… Kaleidoscopic images are very commonly perceived during LSD use.”  Visual patterns are reported multiple times throughout the article, and could very much contribute to an immersive experience. The human brain has evolved to have pattern recognition, and there’s obviously a sense of satisfaction when a pattern is found.

Psilocybin (“Magic Mushrooms”) Psilocybin is similar to LSD in the fact that it creates a colourful images, and can induce visual patterns. But a dominant notable difference is that Psilocybin induces a more of a narrative throughout the experience or ‘trip’. The journal defines it as a feeling of “touching and unifying with a higher reality”, auditory hallucinations, a dreamy state, “switching between the worlds”

When picking an immersive footage for PB2, we found that the majority of the class picked the video containing the most colour, and half of the class argued that they enjoyed the song with a voice, as it implied that the piece had a narrative. A hypothesis to what makes Hallucinogen consumption such an immersive experience is its ability to overwhelm its user with a range of stimulant effects, and the want to establish a pattern or narrative within it. People lose interest if they are given all the story and information at once, so they need to be given enough information but not too much, so that they’re left curious, and constantly seeking new information.

Alex Grey was an artist who was inspired by the effects of LSD and other Hallucinogenic drugs, and the paintings he drew were often very symmetrical, reinforcing the idea that the experiences are captivating because of pattern recognition. Here are a few examples of his works.

How can we apply this information to media production?

The described experiences were immersive because they…

  • Overwhelm several senses simultaneously
  • Convey the possibility of an alluring narrative, but one that wasn’t instantly understood.
  • Allow the user to recognise patterns that they otherwise wouldn’t.

We can apply this to media by producing film and audio that…

  • Periodically is rich with colour or volume, followed with the contrary.
  • Doesn’t instantly give away a clear narrative or message.
  • Has visual patterns such as the rule of thirds, and audio patterns like beats time signatures.

 

An example of patterns in film is within scenes from the Grand Budapest Hotel directed by Wes Anderson:

Clip Analyse Exercise

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 Clip #1 Increased Senses

                ASMR, Intimate, Freedom, Warm,

-change in pace with death-  eerie, loud,

 

Clip #2 The Duke of Burgundy

Calm, Peaceful, colourful, intricate, beautiful (specific focal points)

-change after intro- quiet, lonely

 

Clip #3 Aliens

 

                Cold, Dangerous, Emergency, Confusion,  

scene with mother– warm, safe,

bomb approaching explosion– stayed calm instead of getting more intense.

How to achieve a Film Look – DSLR film making (Notes) [1]

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by Jake Coppinger 

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbBR7IsBbZ8&ab_channel=JakeCoppinger)

“A film look is broadly defined as the look and feel of the footage that you’d see in a feature film”

Camera settings are especially important, though you can always edit it in post-production with enough work

  • Camera’s should always be on manual control, on Canon, it’s called Movie Exposure.
  • 24 or 25 fps only. We have been conditioned to see 24fps as film
  • Set shutter speed at double the frame rate (50) 180degree shutter rule
  • Use a shallow depth of field, have the subject in focus and the background blurred
  • Adjust aperture for depth of field.
  • To control exposure change the ISO setting.

 

Post Production

 

Smooth Camera Moments are really important in camera work, and it makes it look a lot more professional.

Stabilizing

Useful for smoothness control for shots that should’ve  been done on a tripod but weren’t.

In Premiere…

  • Use the Warp Stabilizer Effect
    • Under the Stabilization tab, change the Result tab from smooth motion to No motion.

Colour Grading

Use this to convey an emotion in a film, and it’s important to use colour grading to achieve a professional look.

In Premiere…

  • RGB curves
  • Three-way Colour Corrector

With the RGB Curves, The graphs on the left show the highlights and darks of the footage, and you can alter the lines (Probably use the master tab) You can make the darks darker and the lights lighter by adjusting the graph like shown.

With the Three-way colour Corrector, a popular cinematic trick is to have the shadows and darks have a blue hue, and the highlights have a light colour hue like orange, like shown.

Aspect radio is important. Standard video is in 16:9 but most professional films are shown in the 235:1 ratio

The easiest way to achieve this ratio in is to do what is called letterboxing

In Premiere…

  • You can just import an external 235:1 template and overlay the video
  • Add black bars to the top and bottom of picture (complicated)

PB1: Statement of Intent

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 Joshua Houston 

 

 

The reason I’m particularly interested in the Mechanics of Immersion is that I’d like to know what changes a boring student film into an interesting and immersive short film. I would like to learn what it is that editors, actors, and directors think and practice to make their films successful compared to amateurs. I would like to learn how to convey emotion with the use of cinematography, and audio effectively and without using the cliché techniques.

Personally, I’ve listened to music that has really had me drawn in to experience the piece rather than listen to it, predominantly by artists like Pink Floyd and Simon and Garfunkel, but also subgenres like Lofi and Binaural Beats. I understand that the artists create the experience often with ambience, contrasting volumes, speed, and frequencies, but I would like to be able to practice this myself, learning the order that these techniques should go in. I would like to learn to be more critical of movies and music that attempts to create this experience, and decide whether the experience is created following a formula, or a more original approach. Aside from audio, I’ve enjoyed movies such as Mad Max, and the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, which uses cinematography, music and sound to create very immersive experiences. I’d like to become familiar and more observant with the techniques they use and the planning that goes into them. I understand that video is a more complicated medium, but I would like to leave the class knowing that I could create a piece of video that would keep the viewer entertained rather than thinking it was just another generic student film.

Lastly, aside from the observable techniques, I’d like to learn about why the brain perceives certain subject matter as immersive, what makes those things so enveloping, and how that influences what people create in order to stimulate it.

 

In short, I would like to leave The Mechanics of Immersion Studio with

  • A reasonable understanding of an audio making application
  • Having produced work that I can consider to be immersive and captivating, both audio and visual
  • Have a more critical awareness of how directors, musicians, editors and actors create a captivating experience
  • Understand why and how the brain responds to an immersive experience.

 

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.