Unit 12 Specialist study in creative media production

14/09/17

Today I conducted some primary research for how video games have an impact on society. I got told "It helps children focus and can be used for theories. Video games keep people inside and instead of going outside, getting some daily exercise and socializing with other people in communities. Not all Video games are appropriate for children of younger ages especially as a lot of parents don't know what it contains and be very bad and have very bad influences on them."

When video games are played too much they can have very bad effects on people such as death. I looked up a webpage and it had 10 cases where someone died from a video game. Maybe this is extreme but this shows that video games are really addicting if there are people that want to play so much that they forget about normal human essentials such as water, food, and sleep.

Autumn Spragg. (). 11 People Who Died Playing Video Games. Available: http://www.ranker.com/list/8-people-who-died-playing-video-games/autumn-spragg. Last accessed 14/09/17.

On a YouTube video, a brain scientist Daphne Bavelier spoke about video games. And she mentioned that they are very popular 90% of video games are played by school-aged individuals. She mentioned that Activision realized after a month after the realization of their game Call Of Duty - Black Ops how many people play that video game and the results were 600 million hours equivalent to 68,000 years. This research was done in 2010 December. She mentions that Video games are slightly better in the fact that they have better reactions and they can remember more things.

Video games are really good when it comes to the economy because it provides multiple high paying jobs for people and there is a lot of money to make in the industry. In the United States in 2012 the games industry was able to make a whopping 6.2 billion dollars.

  Author: Unknown. (2017). the Positive and Negative Effects of Video Games. Available: https://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/34-the-good-and-bad-effects-of-video-games. Last accessed 14/09/17.
- Video games provide jobs for people in the industry, whether it be for animating or coding. As well as this it helps provide jobs for companies that distribute these products and for advertisement companies.

- Playing video games is a good way to get to know someone; as well as this it also brings people together, thus making a bigger and better community for gamers.

- Video games are a way for people to have fun and are made for general entertainment. As well as providing tons of fun it is a good way to pass through time or to take your mind off something.

-  There are video games that are banned in some countries because either ruining or smearing a nation's image or too sexual. Other people want some video games to be banned because it has really bad influences on younger delusional people. For example The game Grand Theft Auto 5, in the game you can go into a shop and rob it by pointing a gun at the shopkeeper and since this, there has been more attempt to rob shops and shoplifting.

Video games can be very powerful in the sense that on younger children it can influence them in bad ways or good ways such as it can make a young person grow up violently if he is playing a violent game. Although it can train someone’s mental abilities such as; quick thinking, making fast analysis and decisions. This gets peoples brain thing about patterns equations almost like trial and error this also improves someone’s accuracy.

admin. (September 10, 2013). Impact of computer games on society. Available: http://www.contentedwriter.com/impact-of-computer-games-on-society/. Last accessed 14/09/17.

Research on Cannabis

Secondary research

I looked at the NHS website for research to look at the effects of Cannabis. this was so that I could find information to help with my Pecha Kucha and for my social issues topic Drugs. Some of the facts that I used that I found Interesting is positives and the negatives. Some positives are that if it is smoked with tobacco it can prevent lung cancer and lower the chances of receiving it. A negative is that it is addictive and people become reliant on it, people also become really addicted to it in the teenage.

NHS. (31/10/2017). Cannabis: the facts. Available: https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/drugs/Pages/cannabis-facts.aspx. Last accessed 15/01/2018.

I looked at this artist called Norman Adams for my artist research regarding the topic of my social issue project, Drugs. The reason why I like this artist's work and I think that it relates a lot to my topic because his work is very abstract. In my opinion, this can relate to people taking drugs since they are not in the right state of mind and they can't see clearly. This has inspired me for my animation to make the colors of the pulse and change.

primary research

For my primary research, I questioned two people about cannabis. They gave me their opinions and it was better because one agreed and the other disagreed. I asked questions about cannabis 

Norman Adams. (1927–2005). Norman Adams. Available: 
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/norman-adams-627. Last accessed 15/01/18

Another artist that I looked at is Jenny Savile this is because her work looks at abuse. I thought that when people lose their faculties they become unstable and that could lead to some people abusing the people around them.

 Case Studies and Evaluation

The work that we were set to do, is an animation about social issues, the social issue that I chose was Drugs. After choosing the social issues topic, I then made a Pecha Kucha to explain my ideas and what I would do to make this animation. I made a proposal to explain what my story would be about, and what intention that I have for making this animation. The story that I originally made was for there to be a marijuana leaf and also for there to be a medication pill. The marijuana leaf says “Don’t smoke me I am bad for you”, the pill says “have me I make you better”.

The reason why I have chosen drugs as a topic this because I want to raise awareness through the animation that I am making. The audience is going to be aimed at teenagers since most people that smoke weed starts in the teenage. Also, people that smoke weed becomes reliant on it. This way this can show teenagers what it can possibly do and maybe influence them to not do drugs or make them stop if they are addicted. I think that an animation is a good way to get this point across because it’s not a serious or boring program.

What motivated me to do this as a social issue is that I feel an animation in this topic can possibly make a difference to my target audience, since my research has shown that there aren’t a lot of animations in this topic? I feel personally that it isn’t taken serious enough as well as that but how much of an impact that it has on the audience. When I did a search for Drugs animations all of them are outdated and made a really long time ago and with the new generation coming we need new animations.

The information that sets the scene and the context of the social issue case is some of the artistic research which influenced me on what I could do to add to my animation in terms of an artistic view and to show that he has taken drugs without saying it. The two artists that I have looked at are Norman Adams and Jenny Savile. The reason why I have looked at their work is that they are both really relatable to my work. Norman Adam’s work is about abstract work and the way he does it is he mixes lots of colors together like in a spiral merging together. This, in my opinion, can relate to my work because I thought maybe this is what people see when they are high or maybe that’s what they feel like. Jenny Savile was the other artist the reason why I chose her was that in her work she looks at abuse and people do bad things when they are under the influences of drugs. I think the thing that is good about her art is that it is obvious that it is abuse because her face gets forced against a window. Domestic abuse can be one of them since for example, a drug user may abuse their child if they are under a lot of stress or pressure. I also did some primary research about Cannabis and to see so I asked 3 people on their views on it. 2/3 of the responses shows me that more people disagree with weed then agree. Some of the arguments that were made are that it smells bad and some of the arguments for is that it helps people with medical issues such as people getting seizures. This supports my idea of going against weed because one of the people that I interviewed said that it could lead to bad chooses and that is what is going to happen in my animation. He going to have the choice of drugs or to pay to have a house to live in and he pays for the drugs because he is addicted.

My Aim overall is to just raise some awareness and give some facts about drugs and this is aimed at teenagers up but mostly at teenagers because they fall more reliant on it. Also, this is a way to stop people doing stuff. I realized these from a show called Freaky Eaters. One of the ways that they heal people is by showing the worst and what can happen to them. And this has been really successful for them so I think I could use this technique for my own work to maybe stop people from doing drugs. This also can help because they will know how it will affect them and this way they won’t fall to peer pressure.

Some problems that I encountered when I was trying to make cocaine for the first scene is, using the nanoparticles. This was a way to make particles and they would have weight to it so it would animate without needing to animate for example pouring balls into a bucket they would land and bounce. And I had the problem that I couldn’t get enough of them and because I didn’t know how I just made a white triangle prism. Another problem that I had was when I was modeling the hand for my character. I made the arm from the hand but it was hard to extrude the edges since they didn’t extrude to how I wanted. To fix this I had to reline them to the way I wanted and then it was ok.

Evaluation

In conclusion, my animation was not finished, because I was really ambitious and I didn’t think that it would take that long to make everything. The character took so much time, out of the production, to make. I planned to have other characters and other things, such as cars in the background, but I knew that it would take really long to do since I was looking at tutorials and there were 12 parts and each was an hour just to make a car. I made the first scene and the second scene, although the second scene wasn’t complete since I didn’t finish making the ATM.

Overall, I think that the animation wasn’t successful since it wasn’t finished and therefore the point wasn’t sent across. For it to have been successful, it would have needed a lot more effort and time put into it. I think that this also teaches me that I should manage my time better, I could have achieved this by creating a timetable. This would have allowed me to get everything done at a specific time, also I would have a rough timeframe of how long this would have taken.

I would have changed the way that I made the character because after I finished it I didn’t merge it properly. I think also that I should have made a simpler character that way it would have been easier. I was limited to how I could make the character because of the time that I had to do it.

Next time when I make an animation, I will decide to plan my time more

Efficiently and to make sure that I know what I need to do. With my planning I

Was really ambitious and, I didn’t think that the production would take that long.

Next time if I had been set the same task I would do a lot of things differently

Such as simpler characters, simpler storyline and make the animation simpler.