I’m a digital researcher on this project and I made that Tropes vs Women photoshop image! Please help expand this web series by pledging support over on the Kickstarter page!
Earlier this year, I was invited to speak about developing female characters in video games at the BUNGiE offices in Bellevue, WA (you probably know BUNGiE as the developers of the Halo series). It was a great experience engaging with creators and developers in the gaming industry so I decided it’s time to dedicate an entire series to female characters in video games.
Because last year’s Tropes vs Women series was so successful, I’m bringing it back with Tropes vs Women in Video Games… And this is where you come in! I’m gonna need your help to make this new series come to life.
Check out my Kickstarter Project - Tropes vs Women in Video Games and please donate any amount you can!
UPDATE #1: Wow! My kickstarter was funded in the first 24 hours. I’m honored and excited by all the positive feedback and support. Thank you all so much! You can still be involved and help expand the scope of this project? See the expanded funding goals that will unlock additional trope videos!
Source: femfreq
Here is the first remixed component of the Batman Reimagined project. What would a television commercial for Wayne Enterprises look like? Now you can see for yourself.
It’s no secret that Batman is funded and equipped via Bruce Wayne’s multi-billion dollar fortune and through his ownership of Wayne Enterprises. What you might not know is that Wayne Enterprises is a massive company of truly Orwellian proportions. If the corporation really existed it would most likely be the largest, most powerful company on the planet - bigger than General Electric, Boeing, Chevron and Lockheed Martin combined.
Although primarily known as a military defense contractor, Wayne Enterprises is actually comprised of dozens of subsidiaries involved in all sectors of the economy in Gotham City and around the world (operating in 190 countries). The Wayne family corporation literally built most of Gotham over the years and still owns a good chunk of the city today. Based on the DC and Batman wikis the corporation includes the following divisions:
Wayne Electronics
Wayne Technologies
Wayne Biotech
Wayne Medical
Wayne Healthcare (which runs Gotham Cities healthcare system)
Wayne Pharmaceuticals
Wayne Foods
Wayne Shipping
Wayne Steel
Wayne Automotive
Wayne Shipbuilders
Wayne Aerospace
Wayne Weapons
Wayne Aviation
Wayne Airlines
Wayne Chemicals
Wayne Industries
Wayne Oil
Wayne Botanical
Wayne Mining (which mines precious metals in Africa)
Wayne Manufacturing
Wayne Research Institute
Wayne Energy
Wayne Electric
Wayne Studios
Wayne Entertainment (including ownership of The Daily Planet newspaper)
Wayne Records
Wayne Stage
Wayne Television
Wayne RetailBased on this extensive list of properties and holdings, Forbes’ magazine seems to have severely underestimated the value of the company in their 2007 list of the 25 Largest Fictional Companies. Forbes estimated Wayne Enterprises sales at only $31.3 billion which is a ridiculously low figure for such an omnipresent multinational corporation.
Wayne Enterprises - Everything Everywhere Everyday
Source: batmanremix
Bruce Wayne on the cover of Forbes. This remixed magazine cover is the 1st in a series that will provide clues into the Batman Reimagined narrative.
Source: batmanremix
Web Series Video Images (2012)
Photoshop + VideoAs of January 2012 I have been an associate producer on the Feminist Frequency web video series and create all the over-the-shoulder illustration images for the show.
Source: jonathancreative
Culture matters
Sometimes I hear people say that racism/sexism/etc in culture isn’t important or worth criticizing. ”Oh it’s just a book,” they say. ”It’s just a crappy TV show.” ”It’s just a commercial.”
This argument always baffles me. It’s like if you put poison into a fish-tank and then say “Oh well I didn’t poison the fish, I just poisoned the water.” The fish lives in the water, dumbass; it’s completely submerged in and surrounded by the water. I’m pretty sure that poisoned water is going to affect the fish.
Similarly, we all live constantly immersed in this miasma of information that we call “culture.” People are not born prejudiced. We don’t emerge from the womb knowing that all black men are scary thugs, that all Latinas are spicy sexpots, that all Indians are violent savages, that all women are weepy and frail, that all gay men are depraved pedophiles, and that all people in wheelchairs are objects of pity. We learn these things, usually starting at a very young age, and we often learn them from our culture — the books we read, the movies we watch, and the constant barrage of advertising that we don’t really pay attention to but which still manages to seep into our brains, and which shapes the way we think about the world, for better or for worse.
If you want to save the fish, you need to purify the water.
Exactly!
Source: sunisup
An article and video collection I put together was recently published in the Open Access journal Transformative Works and Cultures. The full piece entitled “A history of subversive remix video before YouTube: 30 political video mashups made between World War II and 2005″ is licensed under creative commons and can be viewed for free online via the TWC website.
Martin Leduc of Carleton University in Ottawa Canada wrote an interesting article in the Open Access Transformative Works and Cultures journal about how my remix video work has changed over the last decade. Make sure you check out his article which is titled The two-source illusion: How vidding practices changed Jonathan McIntosh’s political remix videos.
Source: journal.transformativeworks.org
The Importance of Quality HD Source Footage
A post I did over on my batmanremix tumblr:
Its not always easy to find good quality source media for your remixing projects but the hunt is a critical part of the transformative process. HD footage is especially critical if you need crop or zoom the footage to isolate or focus on a particular character or element within the video frame.
To help explain the footage collecting process (and the associated headaches) I though I’d share my recent quest to find a good remixable version of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1997 film The Rainmaker - I am hoping to re-use one scene in particular for my upcoming Batman Reimagined project.
In this shot I want to focus on and highlight Danny DeVito’s character as he talks about illegal jury tampering. This means I need to to crop Matt Damon out of the frame completely since he is not a part of my transformed story. My final remix project wil be done in 720x400 SD widescreen format so I’ll need to find footage at high enough resolution to isolate DeVito without upscaling the footage which would result in ugly pixelation.
A few problems arise right away. First the film is older and was released on home media well before even HD existed (Blu-ray Discs were introduced in 2006). Plus the movie did not do very well at the box office which means Paramount Pictures is in no rush to create a new Blu-ray Disc version.
Second the film was shot in 2.35:1 aspect ratio and released on DVD in late 1998 before anamorphic widescreen DVDs format became the standard. This means the original DVD is not only lower resolution at 720x480 but is also presented in full screen 4:3 format with huge black bars at the top and bottom of the frame to approximate the 2.35:1 ratio.
1998 orignal DVD release in full screen:
Obviously there is no way to do any cropping or zooming with the footage at this low resolution so the original DVD will not work for me.
Sometimes the Bit Torrent file-sharing protocol can be helpful in getting your hands on an older or hard to find film but its of no help in this case because DVD rips are typically downscaled to a 700mb file size by uploaders. This often results in a final resolution of between 500px and 700px wide which is of course smaller then the orignal DVD.
Occasionally entertainment companies will release a special, limited or collector’s edition media disc. In 2007 Paramount did released a special collectors edition DVD of The Rainmaker - this time in real anamorphic DVD widescreen format. While still in SD there are no black bars and the file resolution is a bit larger at 854x360 pixels. My local movie rental place only carried the original 1998 DVD though so I had to order the special edition on Amazon and wait a week for the disc to arrive.
2007 special collector’s edition DVD in anamorphic widescreen:
This DVD edition is better but still does not give me a large enough file to crop out Damon’s character (as indicated by the yellow box above). What I really need is an HD or Blu-ray version of the film to make my remix work.
If you happen to be remixing a popular movie produced in the past several years it’s relatively easy to find good HD versions (both online and offline). But as I mentioned above Paramount has not yet issued a Blu-ray Disc version of this title and is unlikely to do so any time soon.
There is one other final option in my source footage hunt. On rare occasions a studio will create an HD version of the film for online distribution only via iTunes, Amazon, Google Play or other services. Oddly some of these services don’t offer HD versions of films that do actually exist in physical Blu-ray disc format like The Dark Knight. Plus a great many films (especially older ones) are not in the iTunes system - all four 1990s era Batman films for example are missing in any format. Further complicating matters some of the HD films which are offered online are only available for 24 or 48 hour rental and not for purchase.
Various iTunes movies download examples:
Luckily for me there is an HD version of The Rainmaker available via the iTunes store. As of February 2012 Apple only provided 720p movie downloads to personal computers which means the files are at 1280x720 (720p) instead of full HD at 1920x1080 (1080p).
In order to access Apple’s media service though you must have a computer capable of running their latest iTunes software, a broadband connection capable of download 3GB+ files without going over your monthly cap and of course a credit card.
iTunes downloadable 720p HD version:
The 1280x540 file size will allow me to effectively crop out Damon (again my 720x400 project frame size is indicated in yellow). The framing is still a little awkward as 2/3rds of the frame is empty space above the table and there is still no room to zoom in on Devito’s words, movements or facial expressions. So while this version is not ideal it will work in a pinch.
As of March 2012 iTunes is now offering a number of movie downloads in full 1080p HD resolution (via the 10.6 update) including The Rainmaker. I should note however that many movies are still only available in 720p.
New iTunes downloadable 1080p HD version:
This version is finally perfect for remixing! And I only had to buy the movie three separate times. Now I can both crop out Damon and also zoom in on DeVito (without video pixelation) as he talks about judicial interference.
Unfortunately finding a good quality file is not the end of the process for remixers. The problem with iTunes and similar services is that you can’t edit the files after you purchase them because the videos are locked down with DRM (Digital Rights Management).
So the next step is to find software tools to remove the DRM restrictions without significant degradation in the video quality. There are a number of apps for doing this but they come with their own set of headaches and frustrations. You can try either the open source Requiem (free for OSX + Windows) or Tune4mac Platinum (paid for OSX). Once that’s done you will finally have a editable video file to work with in your fair use remix!
Final 720x400 crop for my project:
Source: batmanremix
Remix Video Frame Size and Aspect Ratio
Posted on my batmanremix tumblr:
Choosing appropriate frame size and aspect ratio for your remix video project can be a tricky complicated business. Since most video remixers are making their work to display primarily on the web here are a few things to consider:
1) The dimensions of the original media sources
Many remixers find themselves using footage from a wide variety of available sources including DVD rips, Blu-Ray rips, downloaded iTunes or Amazon files, downloaded AVI or MKV files, downloaded YouTube or Vimeo files and homemade screen captured video. Because all these video formats will likely have various frame sizes and aspect ratios its important to take a look for the lowest common denominator. If you are working with only one media source or if all your footage is HD via downloads or Blu-Ray rips then your remix project can easily match the source footage at 1280x720 (720p) or 1920x1080 (1080p). If you are working with ripped US DVDs in your project its a little more complicated. Your project should probably be closer to 480p and match the DVD frame size - most likely you want 854x480 (anamorphic widescreen) or 720x400* (widescreen) and 640x480 (fullscreen). However (since video does not typically upscale well without significant pixelation) if you are incorporating a bunch of lower resolution YouTube or web video clips into your remix you might pick smaller overall frame size to work in like 640x360 or 320x180 (windscreen) and 480x360 (fullscreen). YouTube also has some very basic suggested frame sizes.
2) Cropping the original footage to isolate a character or event
Remixers may also choose to work in a frame size significantly smaller than the majority of their original source media so as to have the option for footage cropping or zooming. This process works best with 1080p or 720p HD footage which can then be cropped down to 480p or 360p in order to focus on or isolate various elements and characters within the frame (without loosing video quality) in the final remix.
Below is an example from my current Batman Reimagined remix project where I want to focus on Batman’s words and remove the Joker from the scene entirely.
Original 1080p footage:
Cropping down to isolate Batman:
Resulting 720x400 crop:
*Technically the math for 720px DVD 16:9 windscreen works out to a height of 405 which then has to be changed to an even number (either 404 or 406 depending on who you ask) BUT most video codex work best with multiples of 8 or 16 so 720x400 seems to be best for web video even if the aspect ratio is off by a few pixels.
Source: batmanremix
Let’s Swap the Audio for Girls’ and Boys’ Lego Commercials and See What Happens
Here’s another post about my HTML5 Gendered LEGO Advertising Remixer app this one from Jezebel.com
