Movie Making -Tribute to Slumdog Millionaire

This week’s article gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the movie SlumDog Millionaire-awarded by the Oscar Academy as the best film of the year 2008.

It was an amazing experience while watching the Oscar Award ceremony, heart started beating louder until the name of the best movie for the year 2008 was announced and yes it was “SlumDog Millionaire”. Almost whole of the cast and the crew was on the stage. What a team work!. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJRzk2WfOAo) Currently a lot of information about the movie is available on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slumdog_Millionaire. The readings this week and the victory of the movie has intrigued me to know more about movie making. I pondered on the similarities that exist between a movie making industry and organisations that are engaged in developing digital educational content. Both employ team work. Infact the positions and the responsibilities of team working for developing digital educational content share a lot of similarities with that of the movie making team. It will be interesting to compare and contrast the features of both the segments. Apart from the methods similarities exists between the tools that are used for example the videos. I think there is a lot of scope for instructional designers to learn from the process of movie making especially at this time when instructional designers are encouraged to become the architects of their design. Do the movie making industry use any development model?

Coming back to the reading this week which brings in light the important aspects and considerations for video based instructions I agree with the following quote “Video is comparatively expensive and difficult to develop, so it should only be used when it serves a specific instructional purpose, or enhances the likelihood of learning.” The process of developing a video is painstaking. There are many things we should know, when to use and how to use, videos are time consuming and very expensive. The phases of video development demand intense work. The tips and tools discussed in the reading makes one realise the considerations and tradeoffs to be done for keeping up with the quality and the medium of delivery. Therefore it is important to understand the need for the video based instruction before implementing it as a element of content. This belief matches with the second quote which says “Select video only when you can't accomplish the same thing with a still picture. It is truly amazing how much video material serves no instructional (or as far as we can tell, aesthetic) purpose.”

The evolution of useful things

I found the article on “the evolution of useful things” very engaging. It was interesting to know how social scientist like Basalla, Forty, Giedion, Pye, Alexander et al. have different views about evolution of things. Before I begin on the quotes that enthused my thinking I would like to admit that these social scientist have entirely different perspective in looking at useful commodities. They have in a way inspired me to looks at things differently.
--The first quote
“Basalla admits that, Whereas natural things arise out of random natural processes, made things come out of purposeful human activity”
While Basalla talks about the concept of organic evolution he makes the distinction clear between the physical world and the natural world. For him the evolution of things in the physical world is always with a purpose. Right besides I can see two calculators, one is the normal calculator and another is a scientific calculator. The main interface of the calculators is the same however the scientific calculator over the normal calculator seems to be a purposeful design, which will be used by an engineer. I did not go beyond my workstation and I am sure I will find better examples. I think Basalla makes sense
--The second quote
Forty states that “the new designs require new tools for assembly and disassembly, and these new tools in turn enable still further new designs to be realized”
I am convinced by Forty, the refrigerator, the hammer, the computer hardware, the furniture almost everything that we see in daily life fit as an example for his quote.
--The third quote
Gideon’s explanation with respect to the invention of the new chair goes this way “the development of the new patent furniture was thus in response to a new need which happily coincided with a concentration of creativity among ingenious designers”.
This is tricky I think I will have to scratch my brain. I do not agree with his point of view of design by coincidence? Is this what he means.
--The fourth quote
I would like to mention Alexander’s view of fitting form to context, which involves a normal person in the process of evolution of design.
“We should always expect to see design as a negative process of neutralizing the incongruity or irritants or forces which case misfit.”
I liked it because Alexander further expands it giving us the freedom to critic a design without expecting to implement the change that we have suggested. It means, if we have noticed a misfit and if we cannot fix it we can refer to the craftsmen who is simply considered as an agent. The discussion seems to be endless however I would like to make a note of the following quote in my Design Diary

“Misfit provides an incentive to change: good fit provides none”

Animation for Designer

Designer titbit

In the pot of knowledge of visual design I am entering the following points that I gathered from this weeks reading. I will begin by adhering to Reibers’s suggestion to stick the following three considerations on my computer by noting them on my blog.
•Animation should be used only when it is consistent with the learning task.
•The influence of animation on learning is subtle. (It should be used to help learners visualize processes involving motion that would be difficult to visualize on their own.)
•Computer-based animation may be used to attract attention as much as it is to provide direct instruction

Additionally the following aspects of visual design were worth noting,

•For an instructional developer it is important to know what functions the animation is expected to provide whether it will serve effective function to improve a student's attitude toward learning or whether it will serve cognitive function to directly enhance the ability of students to learn from instructional materials.
•Animation is the persistence of vision that reveals static pictures in rapid sequence.
•Basically there are three types of animation: frame-based animation, morphing and 3-d animations.
•Abundant researches reports positive affects and also the negative affects of animation
•Interesting researches maintains:
-Preferences of animations over text and vice versa
-Animations serve recall but does enhance comprehension
-Animations are appropriate for representing concepts involving time and motion.
-Animation communicates those ideas involving time and motion better than text does.

I personally would suggest a usability test with the actual users to ensure the requirement of animated form of instruction. The article this week had intrigued my interest in cybernetic environment.


Thoughts for design Guru
The chapter on “The psychology of people and machines” as reading for this week was sort of funny. I thought for a while that Norman is passionate about bringing emotions in future machines. Until now I thought I was on the same page as Norman was however after reading the article this week I am struggling to understand what and how much should we expect from our future machines. Norman talks about brining the machines to the common grounds with us or letting it set a benchmark for us. But is it really required? I appreciate the need of machines to have goals set for them like humans do, to the extent that the machine is providing a helping hand for eg. It’s a good reason for a machine to set a goal to repair a retina of a human being. I whole-heartily welcome the idea of machines being intelligent to the extent that they sense danger, they inform the owner about the danger and further accept the idea of symbiotic relationship that a machine should have with humans. However I somehow disagree with the idea of letting the machine decide for me the best route that I should take. According to me it’s a good idea asking for a suggestion. The house example given by Norman to keep us updated with the happenings around is extreme. I doubt on relying on machines to decide what’s happening in the world and what actions are best. Before coming to a conclusion on whether machines should have emotions I think we need to draw lines. I see no harm in a “handshake” where machines and humans work together to accomplish a task that is really meaningful and constructive. Technology as we know is a two-edged sword. We need to be careful before relying on machines to let them take critical decisions in our life.