Rachelle Gainer

3/9/15

English 101

Analysis paper



　

A virtual reality



          We have almost all seen someone get mad while playing a video game. Sometimes possibly break things or get really into their character. Sometimes its nice to escape reality and pretend your someone or something else. Some of us remember the year of Atari, or maybe even the original Nintendo. As time has gone on the graphics of video games have become all to realistic. We have even got to the point of hiring actors to be apart of the newest video games. There are some theory’s of certain violent crimes being connected to all to realistic video games. With these graphics and ability to play its not hard to get “sucked’ into these games by convincing people that you can escape reality. You can race cars on the street, be a soldier, or make an army and defend your kingdom. The capability to morph into any of these things in a split second and escape reality is exactly what these commercials want to believe you can do. They show this in these three video game commercials by using a more realistic approach.


             The black ops Call Of Duty commercial of 2010 (above) is a perfect example of how simple it is to go from the office to being in the middle of a war zone, killing your enemies with whatever ammo you may have left. The commercial starts with a familiar song from the Rolling Stones “gimme shelter” that we can relate to war with. The sound of bombs, grenades, and constant gun fire going on intensively through the entire commercial. Everyday people shooting and bombing each other from all angles.

           They mix reality and fantasy by showing real people and not the actual graphics of the game. They only show the actual video game graphics for one second when showing the arms of a man holding a gun. It also draws you in by using average everyday people. They show a good looking business woman in heels blasting a gun while a bomb drops in the background. Another woman, a bit shorter and not as fit who looks like she could be a secretary walks behind a building. After shooting at someone she gets an exhilarated look on her face. Someone next to her with Birkenstocks kicks in a door of the building. They show a series of people, mostly working class, fighting each other in a war zone. They end it with a man that looks like he works for a food cart. Flames are set off behind him as he shoots two guns from both hands with a cool expression on his face. Its taking us right out of reality by showing other normal people with real video footage, not video game graphics and ending it with a quote saying “there’s a soldier in all of us”



Another good example of bringing the virtual world into reality is the 2012 Need For Speed Most Wanted commercial. The ad starts out in a in the middle of a city. It looks like a ghost town. No person or car in sight as a newspaper rolls across the road. Old western music starts in the background. A brand new dodge charger cop car comes creeping around the corner and parks in the middle of the road at a four way stop. A well known sports car comes around the corner slowly and parks on the opposite side of the four way as if they were going to have a dual. Then another cop car, and then another sports car until each side has about five cars. Looking like it's going to be a battle amongst cops and sport car. They find a mutual enemy as an average yellow car comes flying sideways between the two groups. The two groups start to chase the yellow car. As some of the car's start wrecking into things they change the camera from real to the video game graphics.

             They can relate people to the game instantly by using cars that we all know, Dodge, Corvette, and Ford. We fantasize about how nice it would be to dive these cars. Then the average yellow car comes flying by, letting us know that we may be more average but we can still be a race car driver. Again the graphics for the game are only viewed for a few seconds They once again pull you in and out of reality by going from regular film to video game graphics.

    

         In this third commercial from Super bowl 2015, Game of war uses a slightly different approach. Famous swimsuit model Kate Upton starts out in a bath with candles surrounding her in what looks like a castle. A ball of fire strikes down in the background. Her empire is being attacked. As her army helps her gather herself, putting on her sexy steel corset, she gets on a horse and starts to ride out of her kingdom. Everything else is filmed from more of a realistic stand point like one you might see in a new action movie, after she leaves you can see the giant “enemies” that are attacking the castle look like the video game characters. She rides away from the castle with not so much as a worried face on her.

     This time The commercial draws people in by using a swimsuit model some people might be familiar with. Other's might be able to guess she could be some sort of model. This time they use sex appeal to get people interested. Also they leave you kind of questioning what’s next. Where is she going now sense her kingdom is gone? Kate Upton ends it with “Let them have their fun. You and I will be visiting them soon enough.” By her adding in “you” and “I” she is advising that by playing this game maybe you and her will be riding off together on horses as well. They don’t make her into a video game character like one that would see on the game because they want you to believe as much as possible that this could be your reality. Once again they use a more realistic approach and only show a small detail (the giant enemies attacking the building).

         I don’t play video games as much as others but I know how much I have been sucked into a game. I know how seriously some people take some of the games. It has got to the point of cosplay where people spend hours and hundreds of dollars to dress up as characters from all sorts of video game characters. In all these adds they don’t advertise the actual game but for only a few seconds or detail. They use the rest of the time to try to get into your head the actual scenario that would happen if this was to go on in real life. This way they are making your reality now the reality of the video game. If that intrigues you then you’ll by it. Then you already have this realistic scenario in your head when you start to play the game for the first time. I think that as graphics get better they will be able to convince people more out of reality and into a virtual reality.





　

how did my group presentation prepare me for my paper #3?

   I have been very nervous about writing this third paper. I mean how do you get that many words down about something that doesn't even have that many words in the advertisement. I guess if a picture is worth a thousand words than a 30 second video must be worth much more than that.
    I figured out a better way to organize my paper. Its nice to have a quick summery at the beginning with a following paragraph explaining your analysis. Then a summery at the end with  more of your analysis.
   I also learned that its good to spend a lot of time analyzing your text, ad etc. because when we were asked questions after our presentation their were a couple people with instant observations about the ad that I didn't even realize that could have just been a nice addition to our presentation.

Analyzing "our schools must do better" Bob Herbert

Bob Herbert and I can agree we need better schools and possibly better teachers!
     Bob Herbert, a former op-d columnist for New York Times states, "I asked a high school kid" " if he knew who the vice president of the United States was." The kid could not answer him. Although there's a slight improvement on test scores, is not enough when a four year degree is almost necessary. These improvements could be made through teacher quality, new forms of wedding out bad teachers from good. Also looking closer at alternative schools, are the effects real that they are seeing and if so why?
    It's not an easy process but it is true that we new a Better schools."we we got to give them a school system adequate with the times."

summery, paraphase,quote

On Buying Local. by Katherine Spriggs


Summery:
     Buying local is better for the environment, economy, and taste of food. Its good to buy what's local when we can
 Paraphrase:
     In the Essey written "On buying local" by Katherine Spriggs she suggest that buying local can help our environment by reducing gas that we use to transport. She suggest  its not always possible to buy local products but by making some sacrifices like buying in season , food will taste better too. She says this will also help our local economy by keeping it local.(95)

Quote:
       One benifitt spriggs states is "Buying local benefits small farmers by not forcing them to compete with larger farms across the country."

analyses of two consumer websites pg 141

  Over the past couple years I have found myself taking short trips more often and if not camping then trying to find a good deal on a hotel room.
   I wanted to compare two different sites that I often look on to see which one I thought could bring me better information about the hotels I was staying at. In order to do this I needed to try and find a hotel I was familiar with. I used to work at a hotel for a while in port townsend called Water Street Hotel. It is a really nice little Victorian hotel, and although there is no pool, it has an awesome feeling and suggest for people to stay there. Sense I use to know that place like the back of my hand I figured it would be a good way to see how it was represented by these two sites. I chose TripAdviser.com and KAYAK.com.
  When I looked at TripAdviser.com first I was surprised to see all nice pictures they had of all the rooms. I thought there could be a lot more pictures though for the amount of rooms they have. they didn't really do justice to the nice rooms and the beautiful views. and they didn't have one picture of the coffee room which is always nice to see. It had a nice little chart to see reviews from different kinds of people. Also had top local attractions which is nice I also couldn't find a link to water street hotels website which I believe has pictures of every room. maybe this is so you have to go through their website.
   KAYAK.com was more disappointing. It only had five pictures compared to Trip Advisers thirty seven. there was no information at all except for the website and phone number to the hotel which was nice. I couldn't find any reviews, or local attractions on this website, seems kind of useless to me.
    I do find myself searching all the websites every time I book a hotel and until now have not realized how disappointing KAYAK.com has been to me almost everytime.
   

comparisions

Decisions?		What to eat for lunch	Should I try and buy my parents property?	Should I go to math class this morning?	Not yelling at people when I want.
	Factors?	I’m eating for 2, am I working?	I don’t want to have neighbors, money, effort	Tired, what important assignments are there	Am I working, at home, at the store
	Personal	Some things make me sick. I have to eat healthier for baby	I don’t know if I’ll be able to save for a house and pay them	I feel like a horrible person when I don’t go	Sometimes I feel good and sometimes I feel like a jerk
	Professional	I have to eat to stay functional at work, I ate too much and then was lazy	I would have to work a lot more	I spent a lot of money to go to these classes	Need to keep my job and costumers

 

comparision; litteracy narritive/position paper

       Writing a literacy narrative paper compared to my position paper, it was different in many ways.
    
     When writing my narrative essay it was nice because I could tell a story about myself. The hardest part honestly was thinking of what I was going to write about. In What significant way did a time where reading and writing effected my life? That was hard for me because I was never into reading. Even though I loved writing, it is somehow always linked to reading. I had to dig deep to think about how I ended up with a passion for writing. The only memory I had was reading a big book of nursery rhymes and poems that was my great grandmother.
  
    Coming up with a topic for my position paper was not as difficult as my narrative essay. There is so many different options for topics out there and you can pick any! Most people already have something they are passionate about. I know with my subject (pot farms in rural areas) its a recent subject so its something everyone has been hearing about. Its also is something that a lot of people are being effected by so coming up with this topic was much easier.

    Researching for my narrative paper was not that hard. I went over to my parents house and had a discussion with them about the book my great grandmother passed down. We also ended up having a nice conversation about my great grandma. I realized how much my dad really loved his grandma. More then I have seen for his own parents. It made me realize so much and changed my paper and gave me a connection between my great grandmother, my father and I.

   I Had a more difficult time researching for my position paper. I spent hours on end looking up everything I could find on the internet. Watched the same videos five times. Read the same article ten times. Then after all this time you have all this information you barely know what to do with. You have to weed out all the legit stuff from the not so legit things that you read and listen to.
The hard part was trying to stay fully in my position and not end up sounding half and half in my paper. The more I read to more I understood the other side and it was a little harder to stand ground.

  Writing detail for my narrative was easier because it was a place I had been before. It was my story and I could make it sound any way I wanted really. I just had to close my eyes and do a good job of describing everything I could see, taste and smell.

   Writing detail on my position paper was a harder because these are not really places I have been or really seen but had to relay on the testimony of what I was reading and watching.