6 x 1 Post 1: Video Response Verbatim

- Free form, matching the jazz music

- Descending imagery often fell w/ melody

- Looks like scratching on film, painting on film and optical printing

- Lines in the "halfway" point appear to move forward and backward in space

- Imagery mimicked the music in that single notes often were played with single lines and chords were played w/ several lines, or a complex design

- Colors changed w/ the tones of the film (mood)

- Designs changed to represent varying instrumentation

- Done w/ precision, often the images' movements matched  w/ very complex rhythms and melodies.

VISIONS Post 2: Developing Volunteer Outreach

This week the operations team met with Sandra Jackson from Lumina to discuss the happenings on the day of and get a good rundown of the technical side of things. Nick, from ACE, was there and I got his contact info as well as the other co-chair of ACE, Danielle, to make sure I can keep in touch to organize volunteers with them. I am currently developing a plan to get volunteers within the Film Studies department, working on creating a schedule for volunteers and deciding how many volunteers will be needed. Once I get a better idea of how many volunteers we will need, I will contact ACE and let them know. I will also decide at that time how many volunteers to recruit outside of ACE. Right now as far as outreach goes, I think we should have a few incentives, some of which will be inherently part of volunteering. I also have a plan for recruiting at our events coming up.

Operations is having our weekly meeting tomorrow night, after which I will know more about what tasks need to be done, how many volunteers we will need, etc. I will then create a task sheet that will have shift times and the tasks designated for each shift. I will also create a Google form, so that when we recruit and gather peoples' info, I can enter it into a form and save it in a spreadsheet. It will contain  contact info, what positions they are interested in, their availability during the day, and other relevant information.

VISIONS Post 1: My Job and Expectations

Volunteer Coordinator - 

●     Arrive at venue at least two hours prior to first screening and remain until after last film is over and emptied the theatre. – Simply arrive on time

●     Organizes a “Call for Volunteers Campaign” before the event to recruit volunteers –

Utilize social media, create an incentive program, speak to classes (within the department and outside the department).

●     Collaborates with ACE other community organizations to recruit volunteers – Get contact information for these organizations

●     Creates and maintains Volunteer Database – Use Spreadsheet to create my own database and use previous volunteer information to boost initial outreach. Write a letter to previous volunteers asking them to volunteer again based on their experience.

●     Functions as point person for all volunteers (ACE volunteers and UNCW students, and others as appropriate) and answers all volunteer questions – Make sure a comprehensive plan is formed before volunteers are recruited so I have answers for these questions.

●     Maintains effective communication with all volunteers via email, phone, and social networking sites

●     Creates and maintain all volunteer schedules, has back up plans in place, and directs all volunteers towards appropriate team members for duty; obtain programming schedule for the day of ASAP and develop a shift program for volunteers.

●     Assesses volunteer needs based on specific department needs and works with department heads to creates volunteer information sheets to be provide to volunteers in advance of the day of the event. Determine how many volunteers will be required by contacting departments heads; get a very good estimate of what will be needed in this regard.

●     Perform regular check-ins with each Department throughout day to ensure prompt resolution of any volunteer related issues. – After volunteers are recruited, make sure they do their jobs, maintain communication with the department heads and myself, etc.

●     Perform walk through pre and post vent to ensure that site has been cleaned and left in excellent condition. 

●     Writes thank yous for all volunteers post-festival and enters all volunteer related contact information into a volunteer database for future use. -  Utilize the database 

Response to Related Media (Video and Texts)

The related videos shed a bright light on the ideas that we are utilizing for this project and I think viewing them was a great way to get into the correct mindset to go about creating this film. The way Jimmy Wales explained Wikipedia's operation makes it clear that with this large pool of people (the internet) it is possible to not only make great change, but also spark creativity. I think Wales' presentation would be a good response to the "Does the Internet Make you Dumber?" article. That was also interesting to me. The author of that article made it seem like 100% of internet users multi-task 100% of the time and therefore lose their ability to focus as their brains adapt to their new habits. While I can imagine that a lot of people spend a lot of time multi-tasking on the web, it seems like a hasty generalization to assume that this behavior is so prominent that it could lead to the decay of human knowledge and ultimately its demise. 

I think the "Does the Internet Make You Smarter?" article along with Michael Wesch's presentations show otherwise. Not only are we able to share and gather more information than ever before, but we are able to collaboratively use that information to make new ideas and have a global effect with them. The important thing to keep in mind, as we are doing with this project, are the vast capabilities that people now have to work together. It is obvious simply from our presentations that we gave last week that the internet can easily be used as an educational tool, in a collaborative effort. We are making it our goal to use this same mindset in a creative way. It is in that sense that I think these related texts and videos could be be utilized in this project. Another important thing to keep in mind after reading the "Two Reasons the Term Crowdsourcing Bugs Me" article is that we must always maintain our group effort to choose the best ideas and work together among ourselves and the people we use to gather the various parts of this project to make it the best it can be. Because as some of the articles pointed out, the internet contains a LOT of information but a lot of it is misinformation. In the same way, we could end up with some great creative ideas and some not-so-great ones. We must keep ourselves and those we interact with in check to make sure this becomes a good representation of what crowdsourcing can be. 

Constructing the Universe Readings. 9-8-13

What is most profound about the sacred geometry in regard to the numbers three and four is that they have been chosen to represent so many things in life and the universe because of the mathematical principles that make them unique. For example, it was particularly interesting to think of how profoundly unique the number three is because it is the only number whose preceding two numbers' sum are its equal (1+2=3). That is the only time that occurs in an infinite numerical sequence. It of course makes sense that this number would feel whole, complete. In the same way, the number four represents squareness (in the way that the rules of a game are 'fair') because 2+2=2x2. These mathematical principles a representative of the way the entire universe works. For everything, it can be said that there is a beginning, middle and end. Every event can be divided into three parts. It was particularly interesting to me to think of the various degrees to which completeness is represented by three, and how in many cases if an event, item, sequence or object is missing a part that gives an incomplete aesthetic, it is off putting or dissonant. Musically, the lack of a note in a triad chord makes it feel hollow, too thick or too thin. But with all three notes, it sounds "whole." In the same way, adding a note that is not a part of the original chord's structure changes its meaning, it does not send the same message.

The number 5. The significance of five is that it represents rebirth, or regeneration, and the correlation between the number five and the various fives that occur in nature is very interesting. What was particularly interesting to me is that in nature, many of the occurrences of 5 that were shown in the reading, for example, the inside of the apple with its five seeds, also create the shape of a star. The shape that these things take always seems to be proportional. It is interesting the way these ideas came about. It would seem that ancient cultures saw these patterns, for example the five seeds in an apple, and also saw the symmetrical dimensions and shapes they often form and because these things are the regenerating features of various aspects of life, whether it be the five seeds of an apple or the five "legs" or the startfish, they assigned the number five to be representative of rebirth or regeneration, which is then given a positive connotation, and therefore now represents, power, status, or goodness.