Service Learning Plan

Instead of handing the students a can of paint, some canvas and telling them to get to work, I want to bring my experience as a game designer to bear on them. At the Game Design Club on campus we're prone to meetings wherein we create games from scratch using a variety of media (cards, dice, various prototyping tools) and usually have some manner of playability in short order.

To meet the objective of making a game, they need to:

Make a goal - What must the player do to end the game?
Put something in the way - Why is it difficult for the player to reach that goal?

One aspect of fun in games comes from the challenges inherent in achieving the game's goal. To that end I want to start by describing this to students through a simple exercise in which I ask them to take a card from me. Once they realize that's boring, I act to prevent them from getting the card and we fight about it.

Then I bring out a deck of cards and ask them to consider a couple goals and find a way to prevent each player from achieving that goal.

Media and the Body

A lot of what media and the body means to me comes by way of how we consume media, not necessarily how we perform it. To that end, I chose an image from The Matrix, wherein the characters are "jacked in". In the movie's canon, The Matrix began as a way to escape the world, a form of entertainment. As time dragged on, the people of that world began to spend more time consuming media of the Matrix, "playing the game" as it were, that they a majority of their lives in the Matrix, eventually becoming wholly integrated with it.

The sad bit about all this is that it's how I see media consumption evolving in the next 200 years. As we seek to create increasingly immersive experiences, natural evolution of the idea will come 'round to whole-consciousness immersion in the experience and we'll long for something outside our normal, dreary lives.

Maltese Falcon's Genre

The Maltese Falcon is usually categorized as a "detective novel". In this branch of fiction, the protagonist is some form of investigator who solves some manner of crime. To meet these qualifications, the novel features private investigator Sam Spade who investigates the theft of the Maltese Falcon, and two murders, wrapping everything up by the end of the novel.


A subset of the detective novel, Falcon could be called a private eye novel, again because Spade is not employed by an government agency. These novels explore the darker side of America, as the reading population's interest in the underworld was piqued by Al Capone's exploits in the 1920's.


Ronald Knox set forth the Ten Commandments of writing detective stories in 1929. Throughout the detective novel's Golden Age they were considered games. Games have rules, and thus, Knox's rules:

1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know. - Brigid, served as both Shadow and Herald for this story. She was mentioned in the first few pages.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course. - The Maltese Falcon passes this test.
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable. - The Maltese Falcon passes this test.
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end. - The Maltese Falcon passes this test.
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story. - Joel Cairo was a Greek, but no Chinaman figured prominently in the story
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right. - No pure accident helped Spade solve the mystery at hand. His intuition was brought on by the facts presented at hand. No instance of dues ex machina occurred, unless you count the Captain bringing the falcon to Spade.
7. The detective himself must not commit the crime.  - The Maltese Falcon passes this test.
8. The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.  - The Maltese Falcon passes this test, Spade was quite vocal about what he discovered throughout.
9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.  - The Maltese Falcon passes this test, although more likely because Spade didn't have a Watson that lasted for long.
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.  - The Maltese Falcon passes this test.

Thusly, I say that The Maltese Falcon is a shining example of the detective novel. I'm grateful someone went to the effort of codifying the genre so works of fiction can be readily defined.

Favorite Film Situation

Star Wars

Written and directed by George Lucas, Star Wars is considered by many to be one of the most influential films on popular culture of the modern era. The film is one of the highest grossing films of all times. Released on May 25th, 1977, the film’s sci-fi predecessor in 1976 was Logan’s Run. Comparing the technology used and cinematography techniques of the films is like comparing a prune to a plum. They’re films, that’s for certain, but Logan’s Run would appear to be a product of the Star Trek era of set and prop design, whereas Star Wars elevates set construction to a new level of art. Up until that point, hit sci-fi films made around $16 million dollars, with the most successful as 2001: A Space Odessey clocking in at $24 million dollars. Sci-fi films of the era dealt mostly with apocalyptic situations.

Star Wars was released during a time of great inflation, political scandal, rising oil prices, and a country in recovery after the Vietnam War. Films at the time were grim tales of woe and destruction, featuring anti-heroes with a bad streak. The Internet was but a glimmer, and cell phones were still years away from widespread use.

In order to develop the special effects necessary for the film, Lucas founded Industrial Light and Magic in 1975 after the special effects house at 20th Century Fox was shut down. Using a combination of blue screens, still models and moving cameras, ILM was able to create the impression of motion and excitement with the space ships. Had ILM not been founded, it would not have gathered the talent that ultimately created Pixar and the computer animation industry.

As the studio system was failing, they searched for talent direct from film school. At the time, film studios were becoming increasingly concerned with demographics, realizing that they could target young people with movies made by young people, for young people.

Lucas wanted to recreate the feeling of his original experiences watching Flash Gordon.  His interest in philosophy informed his early maverick years of film-making. Irwin Kirchner described it as “more personal”. After some failed attempts with Francis Ford Coppola, Lucas moved on to shoot American Graffiti. Disgruntled by studios tampering with his films, Lucas looked to re-invent classic Flash Gordon serials, using the works of Joseph Campbell as his basis.

In many ways, from the advent of the special effects house, to the reinvention of the space opera, to the target audience, Star Wars was the right film at the right time. Oddly enough, the film was only released to an initial 40 theatres, and had been moved to the week before Memorial Day weekend to avoid competing with other summer blockbusters. The film was released in a package with The Other Side of Midnight, another movie by 20th Century Fox, and theatres were told if they wanted Midnight, they'd have to book Star Wars as well. Though the movie was all but doomed to failure, it was able to lift everyone out of the depression of the 70's and have them look toward the future, as Walter Cronkite put it. As Bill Moyer put it "Timing is everything in art. You bring it out too early and it's Buck Rodgers, you bring it out too late, and it doesn't fit our imagination [you bring it out as the Vietnam War is ending and we don't know who we are]" The film was a story that, because it was based on the monomyth, reached across borders and ethnicities to touch the world.

Modern Fairy Tale

"I'm going to disappoint you, you know that... right?" she apologized to the bum.
"'s what they all say."
"Why am I even listening to you?"

She knew the answer before he could answer, or maybe he never intended to answer. Whether she knew why or not was irrelevant. What she knew was that she had to find a way up to the very top of the Empire State Building.

Why not? She thought. The whole day had been abundantly strange from the moment she awoke in the morning. Strange room, strange coffee. Was it even coffee? She ruminated. Probably not. Somewhere she read that people are creatures of habit, they fall into routines and some things become so automatic we don't even think about what we're doing.

Then the World Trade Center was part of the skyline again.

Walking down the street to work, she tried to explain to people how incredible this was. What kind of government conspiracy would have kept those buildings invisible for ten years? No one had to say anything, she could tell they all thought she was completely off her rocker.

"You're not from 'round here, are you?"
"Pardon?" she was shocked back to the present by the bum.
"Ye' look lost, sweetheart. Just go gimme dat 'ting an' I'll help."
What an odd man, sitting on the side of the street. That she was talking to him caught her off guard. Maybe this was another automatic reaction? It wasn't her's though. She could never see herself speaking to a dirty hobo.

"But how can I get up there? It's high, and they've got all sorts of security!"
"S'not tha difficult, jus' look up!"

A shadow passed over the two, and she looked up to see the silhouette of a... no, it couldn't be. No one's flown one of those in years!

Platonic Dialogue

AIM - RaineWriet


ozzmeister00: so, my Lit and Media Studies professor
ozzmeister00: wants us to write a Socratic dialogue revolving around the topic of "media"
rainewriet: Kaaaaaay
ozzmeister00: I was going to write one that focused on how we consume comedy with all our various technological channels these days.
rainewriet: Has the potential to be funny
ozzmeister00: That's what I thought!
rainewriet: But?
ozzmeister00: well, I once heard that the worst screenplays are incredibly clear and read like novels
rainewriet: Because all the characters end up saying what they're doing.
ozzmeister00: precisely!
rainewriet: And I assume this is what happened to your dialog?
ozzmeister00: yes :(
rainewriet: Aren't you going to present these dialogs in class to your professor?
ozzmeister00: no, we're writing these as a post in our class blogs
rainewriet: Which means no one will ever perform it.
ozzmeister00: correct
ozzmeister00: everything sounded clunky. because I knew no one would be performing, I had the characters saying what they were doing
ozzmeister00: instead of


"Wow, that sounds like a hilarious YouTube video," Ozzy said, pulling out his iPhone to search for the video


I had to write:


OZZY: Wow, that sounds like a hilarious YouTube video! Let me pull out my iPhone and look for it.


rainewriet: Awkward.
ozzmeister00: indubitably!
ozzmeister00: my biggest frustration is the dissonance between the media's intention, and its usage herein
rainewriet: can you talk to your professor to see if you could switch the assignment to something in prose?
ozzmeister00: nah, I think I've got something that'll sort this mess out. 
ozzmeister00: I just know I can't do the comedy one. How can I write a dialogue about comedy and not have it be even remotely entertaining?
ozzmeister00: pity, I had such a great opening line.
rainewriet: Pity.
rainewriet: Well, I'm off.
ozzmeister00: cheers!
rainewriet: G'night.
rainewriet signed off

My Situation as a Reader

I'm a 21 year old male, majoring in Game Art and Design at the Ringling College of Art and Design.

What this means for my situation as a reader is that I have very little time in which to read, be it books, newspapers, magazines, etc. In order to streamline reading into my daily life, I minimize what I read to information relevant to my career which can be found on the Internet. This generally means the information I receive is condensed to the bare necessities, and this suits me just fine. I have a set list of websites I check on a bi-daily basis from which to derive my information, and will occasionally venture out from that set if I hear about something particularly interesting.

Most of my reading takes place in front of a backlit LCD screen. Looking toward the future, I'm considering investing in some form of tablet computer so I can read in a fashion similar to the Nook or Kindle, and do so more readily than a stationary computer.

I grew up reading codecs, usually science fiction or fantasy novels, which set me on the path that lead me to where I am. I bring a scientific and analytical mind to what I read.