Art 451 Project: Mario’s Endless Life “Repetition”

Eric T Franklin

Clint Sleeper

Artist Statement

5/12/15

Mario’s Endless Life “Repetition”

From the beginning I wanted to do a machinama project because this was a familiar with and I knew how to work with it. My original proposal was this:

“For my project I wanted to create a machinama that deals with the generational difference and generational gaps that our society has.  “A machinima is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often video games are used to generate the computer animation.”  The reason why I wanted to use a machiniama is because I have used them in the past and it is a field I am familiar with.  My objective/goal for this project is to show what the generational difference can be like for people (Old generation vs. new generation).”

A month into the project I didn’t feel like I was able to work with this. I had the idea was a 8-bit Mario was going to meet a 3D model of Master Chief and show the generational difference of the between them and how they express their views from the differently generation. This was supposed to be a reflection of how generational people have different views and how different and hard it can be in society. However, I felt I was not going anywhere with this project and felt it needed a rework. After a week, I finally came to this idea. I wanted to create a project that was something I felt was something I not only struggle with but a lot of people deal with every day: The endless cycle of repetition. Essentially I wanted to create a project that was a reflection on how people in society are going through a cycle of doing the same thing over and over every day. This is something I sometimes I struggle with in my life. I wanted to keep the idea of using Mario in the video. I recorded the gameplay and I glitch the game to make the game going into a minus world that will when you reach the end, will send you back to the beginning of the level. The level was also underwater and I wanted to represent the “drowning and struggle” people go through repetition. I also grab audio from a psychology professor talk about repetition and how it affects peoples’ minds. I slowed down his audio and took his quote “repetition” and made it repeat over and over at certain parts and added affects to those audios as well. Next I took the video and made them overlay each other and messed with added certain video effects like ultra-keys, but I kept one effect to all and that was the twirl effect because I wanted to represent the “repetition” swirl people feel like they go through and a sort of trance as well. I also added at certain points Mario swimming across the screen or popping up at certain points to again represent repetition.

My final results:

                As for my set up I have three projectors projecting the video with 6 speakers playing the audio at different times in a small gallery. Here is what it looks like:

                This was the hardest project I have ever done and not only that the most difficult because rewriting the project and having certain parts wrong about my project. However I feel great about this project because I feel it will make people have different interpretations about what the project is and how it affects people in todays’ society. The techniques I learned from this project will help me in my future career.