Module 2

I love this narrative. "Writer's Block" is an amazing narrative and creative piece. It's like a perfect video to describe what really happens when people start a project from scratch. There's not really much to say...the video pretty much sums it up. Every project starts with deliberation, Then goes to confusion. Then you start something. You fix it, then remake it. Then you add too it, and finish it up. There are so many steps inbetween; little tweaks and changes.

Born Magazine is also a really interesting website. I like really simple colors and simple layouts and this one is very very simple. To me, the homepage is kind of like an old styled newspaper. The intro is also great, where the words open the screen and they keep changing. "Born is ____". I also like that the website essentially has a screensaver where it replays the intro screen until you perform an action on the site. The amount of content is also huge. All of the different videos are awesome. It can give a lot of inspiration to people looking through to find some interesting items. I didn't even know and of the content on the site. They are all essentially narratvie pieces, following a story.


Snowbound was also a great piece. I loved the layout of it, very simple concept but done incredibly well. I love the style that it uses. Every scene is kind of like making a statement. It's also like a wheel of scenes, where one will end and then the screen will rotate to the next one. The background fits each statement well and the imagery they use to accompany it is great as well. They way they seem to write each word and vary the size each time is cool, and most of the time there is a transparency on the text which creates a great contrast. Scenes seem to develop each time you view them, not just flash onto the screen. Overall it's just plain awesome.

http://lot23.com/play/writersblock/
http://www.bornmagazine.org/projects/snowbound/

DISTRIBUTIVE NARRATIVES are like episodic pieces of a story. The whole story isn't unveiled at that moment. The characters and plot tell stories and form a puzzle; where in each episode the puzzle is put together. Some very common versions of distributive narratives are comic books, tv shows, and things that are put together in a series. Movies can also be considered distributive narratives. Things like the Star Wars and Star Trek sagas tell different pieces of the story over different times.

One of my personal favorite tv series that I think really fits the profile of a distributive narrative is Dexter. Dexter is one of the more unique shows on Showtime. It features a man who goes through his daily life as a forensic specialist at a police department. What the show also reveals is moments of his past, present, and foreshadows things of the future that he is missing in his memory. He works for the police by day: catching murderers and killers; and then becomes a murderer by night. The show reveals his feelings and his lack of feelings toward things in his life. He kills people in a very ritualistic manner and is so good at it that he can hide his evidence and cover his tracks. Each season brings a new set of challenges for him and leads him in new directions of who, what, when, etc, to kill. He lives by a code that was given to him by his adopted father and he strives to understand it and keep that part of his life a secret from everyone close to him.

Talking about animated series that also grips me, there was a cartoon several years ago called Samurai Jack that aired for a few years and won awards. It was about a wayward samurai that lost his way amongst time. He is moved into a world ruled by an evil sorcerer and he is the only one that can stand up to him. His journeys lead him everywhere through time and everywhere around the planet. His adventures were always action-packed and many times left on a cliffhanger.

Both shows pretty much always left you on a cliff hanger and left you wanting more. Most of the time after watching Dexter we could sit there and just talk about what we wanted to happen or what could happen, etc. With Samurai Jack it was always about leaving something out of the story and wondering where he would end up next. They're great techniques that I really appreciated and that's why I think they are good examples of Distributive Narratives.