My first item of interest comes from the list of examples found on our class blog. The video, entitled “Divided Soul- World of Warcraft Machinima” incorporates screen-capture animation to tell the story of two friends who ultimately clash in their pursuit of power. Using Dr. Cheryl Ball’s heuristic checklist I found that the video was extremely effective visually but had very little textual power. Other than a few instances where title and company logos are displayed the video fails to utilize text. I wish that there was some variation in the title texts which were always centered and written in the same font. That aside, the makers of the video did a quality job with the script of the video despite the fact that the voice-over leaves plenty to be desired. The emotion of the video is extremely well done with the musical and visual elements blending to tell a story that is easily accessible.
This second video is one of my all-time favorite youtube sensations, entitled “One Man Disney Movie”. The video is wonderfully made and shows a real mastery of audio elements. In the video the lead, Nick Pitera, seamlessly sings all of the parts of classic Disney songs. Also, I love how the visuals are so clean. To achieve the look of six people all singing and acting differently Nick must have taken a huge amount of time lining up the visuals. While there is no real message this video is pure entertainment and is sure to delight any and all fans of Disney music.
The final video is a lyrical piece called “The Lady of Shalott by Loreena McKennit”. While the video uses text to show the lyrics of the song/poem the background picture makes it difficult to read the white font. The visual effect is dismal as only one picture is displayed so there is not even a variation of images. If one desired purely to read the poem as Loreena McKennit sings it then the video achieves that much. This video definatley made me go “wow” but not in a good way.
rebeccaayers 