I chose the picture of the girl on the carousel as my first photo to edit. First, I straightened the image to make it less abstract. Then, I took down the saturation, upped the exposure slightly, and took the contrast way up. I did these things to make the picture seem more soft. Thirdly, I brought up the definition, shadows, and sharpness to add more personality to the photo.
For the second picture, I chose the man standing on the cliff. The first thing I did to this photo was "enhance" it. This brightened up the image slightly. Then, I boosted the color slightly to show off what colors were really being shown in the sky. I pulled up the red tones in the picture to make it seem as if the sky were much more pink because I think that pink is one of the more beautiful sky colors.
For the picture of the couple in orange, I also "enhanced" the color. Then I added an edge blur around the edges to make it seem like more of a "lovey-dovey" photo. Thirdly, I played around with the definition, shadows, and sharpness to make the photo even more lovely.
The game tells the story of Dante. Dante is a teenager who lives in the imaginary world of Limbo City. He is a teenager who is attacked frequently by demons who catch sight of him in one of the city’s security cameras. Limbo City is set in a normal universe until the demons pull Dante into a parallel universe when they try to kill him.
DmC: Devil May Cry is an action game. Dante, the player character, has many weapons, such
as swords and guns, that he can switch out throughout the fights, to help him defeat the demons
that have attacked him. Dante stays mostly in human form, although the player does have access
to his angel and demon powers. These powers are both accessible throughout the game. the
demon powers, however, are generally used by the player to defeat tougher enemies. These
special powers can add to the gameplay and help Dante’s attacks. Something that is included in the goals and objectives for DmC: Devil May Cry, is that Limbo Town’s structure changes multiple times throughout the game. This gives the player puzzles they must solve in order to advance on.
This game is not only Dante against the demons trying to destroy him, but it is literally him against the world. This is quite literal because the player often destroys much of the environment around him to complete what they must to move on in the game. Limbo City changes and transforms throughout as you play along. Its as if the world is growing around him and reacting to his presence. For example, the street may simply crumble beneath Dante leaving a large hold for him to fall into. This will not kill him, but simply provide him with another piece of Limbo City to explore.
I think this game looks like it would be fun to play. I am not a big gamer, but I do like these exploratory type games. In DmC: Devil May Cry, it would be fun to see how the creators of the game want different parts of Limbo City to react to Dante. For me, that would be the most fun part of the game. However, it would also be quite exciting when seemingly randomly, demons come out of nowhere to try to destroy you.
In Seth Godin’s “Brainwashed, seven ways to reinvent yourself,” Godin describes seven “levers” to reinvent yourself. One that he talks of that really spoke to me is “Connect.” In this section, Godin says that you should not keep track of what goes on online or on your social media sites. Everything is now changed because we can have easy and short interactions with people that we don’t know all that well. Another way to reinvent yourself is to “Make Art.” Art is described as something that we can all do that doesn’t follow instruction. Taking risks with our artwork can connect us to others and give us rewards. The key to all of the other six pillars is to “Learn.” This is an important path that we all must take to help us advance through life. Everything is always changing and nothing ever stays the same as it often would in the past. At some point in our lives we will all accept that we must throw away what we know and learn new things that will change everything.
The main point in Seth Godin’s piece is to inform his reader that it is completely possible to reinvent yourself. Now, if you care this much about what others think of you, you are human. If not, then you are lying. I found this article to be very interesting. I liked that the first thing Godin said was that we are NOT average. That we as people must create more and be more than just average to snap out of this way that we have been brainwashed since we were all small children. This blog that we must create will most likely NOT be followed by people that I know in my real life. This means that I am, as Godin suggests, reinventing myself for my new blog followers. This makes this blog very pertinent to my new identity that I will be reinventing.
When Godin talks of his “Connect” lever of his seven steps, he is focusing on social media. This means that he is referring to something just like this blog. As Godin suggests with the example of the Obama poster, I want to use this blog as a way to connect people with the same interests. Once we were isolated, and now we can all be connected.
“Make Art” is important to this blog because that is virtually the topic in which I chose to base my blog off of. Musical art to be more specific. People who make music are creating art in their own way. Art does not have to be paint on a canvas, pencil on a paper, or even a sculpture. What I love about art is that it IS so subjective and it can literally take any form as long as there is someone there to think it up first. This blog will cause me to think hard about many forms of art because of its topic. I believe that this will make me a better person thinking about various forms of art and sharing what I think with everyone that choses to follow my blog.
In his pillar “Learn,” Godin mostly talks of of how people must adapt now even more than ever before. He says how we are always in school and always learning. This relevant to my blog because I plan to tell people about things that they do not already know. Or at least things that they can learn something from.
For my first real blog post, I wanted to keep with the main theme that I want this blog to be about: music.
To begin, I would like to start with a simple album review. I decided to review Fun.’s new album, Some Nights. I chose to do this mostly because it is an album that I cannot turn off and can listen to from start to finish without skipping a song. As an avid music listener, I tend to listen to music is albums more so than in any other form. Some people chose to download singular songs, playlists of different artists, or the best of an artist. I listen to music an album at a time. This makes the job of the artist important in how they chose to order the songs of the album. For me, all songs must flow together because I listen to albums this way. Each and every song is a story in itself from start to finish. But somehow all of the songs strung together in album form seem to tell a large story as a whole as well. This is hard to do and I am always impressed with bands and artists who seem to do just that. Fun. makes it seem extremely easy as well.
Fun. is an indie pop band from New York City that formed after the breakup of bands The Format and Steel Train. With the band being made up of frontman Nate Reuss, Jack Antonoff gives vocals, guitars, and trumpet, and Andrew Dost who contributes vocals, piano, guitars, bass, keyboards, synthesizer, trumpet, drums, and much more. This band is considered a supergroup because each member has been successful in a band before. With their sophomore album, they create many anthem-like songs with many incredible melodies. Some Nights was released on February 21, 2012 on the record label, Fueled by Ramen. The Producer was Jeff Bhasker who has worked with Kanye West, Bruno Mars, Alicia Keys, Drake, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg to name a few. With names such as these on a producers bill, one expects some pretty epic work.
Fun. has been a band since 2008 when Reuss’ previous band disbanded. Many people talk of Fun. being a new artist, but this is just not the case. The band is already five years old and is just now getting the recognition that they deserve.
Some Nights opens with the track “Some Nights Intro,” which is the two minute, eighteen second theatrical number that seemingly kicks off the whole album. It features a full orchestra, with Reuss’s voice rising and falling easily, totally in his element. This number definitely sets the bar high for the following nine songs. Ruess’s vocals have been compared to Freddy Mercury’s which is a compliment of all compliments. Just when you think that Reuss can’t get any louder, he does. It is definitely obvious that he an extremely talented vocalist. He also definitely knows this.
Along these same lines, the mood of the album is not exactly happy. There are some lyrics which will pull a smile. The tone of the album says that, “things are not okay right now, but they definitely will be in the end.”
The first that will initially be noticed on this album will be the autotuning. Many may inquire as to why someone like Reuss would use autotune but the simple reason is that the band was doing exactly as their name suggests, having fun. The autotune does not take away from the music but enhances it. This band does not try to push themselves into one specific genre, but takes from many and does not care where other artists may say something crosses the line. “All Alone” and “All Alright” also bring other qualities such as hip-hop and even a children’s choir.
With Fun.’s first sing being “We Are Young” featuring Janelle Monae, the standard has been set high for the remainder of the album. This track has been a chart topper as well as featured in a car commercial that seems as if it can do everything but drive. “We Are Young” has also been covered on FOX’s hit show Glee which is quite an accomplishment in itself. What listeners of the single but not the album may be surprised to know is that the album is full of feasible singles with “We Are Young” being one of the weaker tracks. Other strong tracks include “Carry On,” which is an uplifting number with strong guitar riffs.
All in all, this album is definitely going to leave its mark on mainstream music. Fun. seemed to come out of the shadows with Some Nights and they came out with Reuss and his talented kicking and screaming. It is bold as well as adventurous and belongs where people can hear it. 9.7/10
