24.8.07

Watching: Priscilla Queen of the desert - the musical



Priscilla Queen of the Desert - The Musical isn't the sort of show that I'd generally go to see but I won tickets at a trivia night and it seemed like a good excuse to take the PC for a trip to the big smoke.

I was initially going to say that I'm not one for musicals in general but then I remembered that I really enjoyed Keating the Musical earlier this year and also got excited about the thought of Aaron Sorkin writing the script for a musical of The Flaming Lips album Yoshimi Battles the pink robots so I guess they're not all bad.

For what it was, PQOTD-TM was good fun - it's bright and shiny, colourful and loud and moved along at a good pace. The costumes and sets were a match for those in Cirque De Soleil - not as stylish/cool in some ways but far more out there and funny in others.



Musically (song-wise) it was what you would expect - one camped up commercial disco/pop anthem after another - all the songs that you've heard somewhere or another all well performed etc but generally just not my bag. (Because obviously I'm soooo cool and alternative and all :)

We went to the matinee session (better seats) so the main roles were filled by the understudies but this didn't seem to make much difference - I wonder in fact if they might even try a little harder as they have something to prove.

The audience was a classic seniors set - again I'm guessing that the evening show might be a younger, hipper affair (but who knows)

Overall it was good to do something a little out of the ordinary and indulge in the shallow glossiness that seemed to sum up Sydney so well.

70%

23.8.07

Playing: Songs for Lost Highway

Bird Stealing Bread Iron & Wine The Creek Drank The Cradle 4:23
Islands In The Stream Philippa Nihill Dead Sad 3:21
Harry Was A Bad Bugger Tex, Don And Charlie All Is Forgiven 5:21
I'm Holding You Ween 12 Golden Country Greats 4:04
Sorry Song Tiddas Show Us Ya Tiddas 3:02
(Untitled 3) Warren Ellis 3 Pieces For Violin 6:29
San Quentin Johnny Cash Johnny Cash at San Quentin 4:09
Chelsea Hotel #2 Leonard Cohen The Essential Leonard Cohen [Disc 1] 3:08
Roscoe Midlake The Trials Of Van Occupanther 4:51
Guenevere And The Fire Penelope Swales Justifying Your Longings To The Doctor 3:22
Wedding vows Sam Evans Brown Couch Soundtrack 2:55
Heart Of Gold Neil Young Decade [Disc 2] 3:08
Terrified The Devastations Coal 4:54
Blood Red River Beth Orton Central Reservation 4:17
The Lonely Goth Mick Thomas And The Sure Thing Dust On My Shoes 4:30
Stagger Lee Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Murder Ballads 5:17
Tale Of The Bull The Spoils Hurtsville 3:50
Make It Count Barb Waters & Kim Salmon Rosa Duet 3:37
Pink Moon Nick Drake Pink Moon 2:08
Angels Of Warrandyte The Beautiful Few Metal For Melbourne 2:06

Looking forward to: Dr Plonk



Rolf de Heer is a little like the Coen Brothers of Australian film - able to work in a huge range of genres and bring something new and awesome to them. (I think I'll post more on his filmography another time as it's pretty impressive).

His work includes dreamtime legend Ten Canoes, outback fugitive chase drama The Tracker, dark messed up psychodrama Alexandra's Project, touching tale The Old man who read loves stories, family melodrama The Quiet Room, highly underrated sci-fi eco-tale Epsilon, beautiful cerebral palsy love story Dance me to my song and cult favourite, Bad Boy Bubby.

His latest work is Dr Plonk, a modern day Charlie Chaplin style silent film comedy. It screened at the launch of new arthouse cinema Arc here and was fairly well reviewed on loadedog.com

It opens in Canberra at the end of the month.

Here's the trailer:

22.8.07

Watching: Black Sheep

Not baaaaaad, not baaaaaaad at all.



I got pretty excited a couple of weeks back when I first saw the trailer for the new kiwi film Black Sheep - a schlocky horror comedy tale of genetically modified killer sheep on the ram-page. (Oh, I've got more, don't ewe worry about that).

Anyway, after slogging through a bunch of study stuff, I managed to get out and see it last night and had a ball.

Here's the trailer:



The sheep are marvellous, whipped up by the effects wizards at Peter Jackson's Weta Workshop (source of the coolness in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Host - and about a million other projects including the upcoming Halo movie).

There are lashings of gore - organs positively abound - it's easily one of the most visceral films I've seen recently, moving into slightly less intellectual Cronenberg territory - more in the zombie movie tradition of bloody sinew ripping and tearing as the sheep chow down on us pesky humans. (There's also a fantastically gruesome trip to the offal pit and even the making of haggis brings it.)



The story is nothing amazing - it manages to tick all the right boxes with the mad scientist, the return home to face up to childhood trauma and so on - it's not Shakespeare but it's not trying to be. There are some great lines and that dry smart kiwi sense of humour pops up from time to time (in between some pretty funny and not overdone gags about farts and sheep shagging) and while the eco-activists angle has been taken before, it's nice to see some holistic hippy solutions used well in saving the day along the way (acupuncture, aromatherapy and meditation/chakra stuff in particular).

The heroes are all likable and good (or interesting) looking - which is something of a genre requirement, the sound and vision are beautiful (is it possible to shoot an ugly film in New Zealand with all that scenery? Even Once Were Warriors looked like a pretty place to live) and everything seems well resolved with no obvious plot holes or "why would they do that" moments.

One of the other things I really liked was the humans transformed into sheep monsters thing - which drew far more from the werewolf genre stylistically than anything else. It's been a long time since I've seen it but American Werewolf in London came to mind at times.



Black Sheep is a fast moving, easily watchable (if you have a stomach for lashings of very visceral gore), quite funny and highly enjoyable flick. I'd still rate The Host slightly higher, but only by the narrowest of margins and they really do sit in fairly different sub-genres of horror so comparison isn't entirely right. (And I'd say the makers of The Host threw a bucketload more money at their movie as well).

85% (The movie website is pretty awesome too - check it out here)

21.8.07

Studying: games in education stuff

Had a big party-like weekend of studying and nerding it up (which probably explains my procrastination fuelled post splurge), this was one of the things I wrote about - why using games and scenarios in education is awesome.

(And not just because I can justify xbox/ps2 time as personal development :)
(yes I still have last gen technology - if you have a spare wii/ps3/xbox360 lying around, please send it to the couchmedia tech relief fund - all donations taxable)


Scenarios make learning more engaging

Using authentic activities that reflect the situations and cultures in which learners will use new knowledge and skills makes course content more enjoyable, more relevant to them and easier to recall. In scenario based learning, learners are placed into a fictional setting where they take on roles that relate to the material being covered.

According to Brown and Voltz, “an interesting scenario will make extensive use of humour, imagination, reward, anticipation, or drama to enhance the activity. It will have topics and themes likely to be relevant and interesting to the target audience. It will make the learning activity seem like an obvious or necessary thing to undertake, given the situation presented by the scenario. “ (2005)

Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989) strongly emphasise the idea that concepts exist in a particular context which helps to shape the concept into useful knowledge. Presenting this information in a form related to its use in the real world, ideally in a form which requires the learner to act as though they are also in that context (i.e. As a historian or an educational designer), adds important layers of additional cultural meaning to the information being shared.

This is a useful strategy for me as an instructional designer as I recently worked on a project with a teacher which focused on a competency called Practice within legal and ethical parameters. This teaches nurses about legal and ethical issues within nursing practice, the law and their responsibilities. In the past, it had been taught essentially as a list of laws and policies that nurses needed to be aware of.

We created a detailed case study simulation in which nurses make decisions based on developments in a particular patient’s case, consultation with colleagues and other available information.

As the nurse progresses through the story, ethical and legal complications arise with the patient which highlight key areas of content.

This added hospital and nursing culture issues to the learning and allowed nurses to connect more personally with the course content, which to that point was considered fairly dry and boring. My approach was to use online multimedia resources to better visually represent the scenario context – something that Agostinho, Meek and Herrington (2005) didn’t emphasise, believing that “cognitive realism to the real-life task was of more significance”. (p. 231)

I have an interest in the use of games in learning, which is why this area interests me specifically and I’m currently in the process of creating an immersive 3D environment which is based around our umbrella dept at work, the Education Development Centre. A scenario based approach to this “game” seems like an effective way of structuring user interaction with it.

One factor to consider from the Agostinho et al (2005) research is that “use of scenario should be more flexible, to allow students with appropriate real-life contexts to substitute their own evaluation needs while still fulfilling the requirements of the course. (p. 241)

Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, Jan/Feb, 32-42.

Agostinho, S., Meek, J., & Herrington, J. (2005). Design methodology for the implementation and evaluation of a scenario-based online learning environment, Journal of Interactive Learning Research. 16(3), 229-242.

Brown A.R., & Voltz B.D. (2005) Elements of Effective e-Learning Design, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/217/300

20.8.07

Watching: the photoshop wonder-diet

Reasons not to trust images in magazines #45

Before Photoshop



After Photoshop



Here's the process

19.8.07

Watching: short films about business meetings

First up - what would happen if people commented in business meetings like they do on web forums. (I guess the boards I visit are a little more highbrow but I have definitely seen a lot of these comments at one time or another - digg.com springs to mind). (There is some coarse language - but it's hella funny)



This next one is a Saturday Night Live digital short that crams more jokes into 90 seconds than I thought possible.(And it features Dwight Shroot from The Office (U.S)) (Enjoy Captain Pyjama-shark)