About Me

<--This is me. This is also me.-->
My name is Kimberly. I also go by Kim and K Chan to the anime community.

I have been many places and experienced many things before I wound up at Champlain College which is where I currently am. When I am not being the inquisitive student, I am completely immersed in some aspect of anime, whether its drawing, writing, reading, creating anime music videos (AMVs), crafting costumes for cosplay (playing in costume at conventions) or actually watching anime. The highlight of 2009 for me was attending Anime Boston. Every year they have special guests at the convention and this year Yuki Kajiura was in attendance. She is my favorite musical composer. I was able to meet her briefly and attend a panel where she and her newest musical project Kalafina spoke about their music and different influences.Below is a picture of Kalafina.

Anime Boston was epic for another reason as well. This year one of my AMVs made it into the finals at the AMV contest. Although I did not win, over 7,000 people saw my creative work of art. I have provided the video for you as well.

Making AMVs is actually what sparked my interest in the Digital Filmmaking major at Champlain College. When I found out there was a DFM major at one of the local colleges in my area I was thrilled. What little experience I had with editing was intriguing and I am hoping that I can expand on that while at Champlain. I was excited to be accepted into the DFM program at Champlain and I am hoping to follow a career path creating and editing films to give my audience an escape from reality.

Contemporary Media Issues has provided an in depth view and discussion of media and how its changed and changing. The four most important concepts that I have learned in the class so far are:
1. In the book Amusing Ourselves To Death Postman’s description of the peek-a-boo world is extremely interesting. I hadn’t realized just how often and more importantly how capable we are of switching the channel in our brains. Hopping from one subject to the next in seconds with no correlation between the two subjects seems to be second nature to us in the Age of Show Business as Postman calls it. Whether this skimming is profitable or detrimental to the depth of our knowledge is debatable. What I find important is that we know we are doing it-changing the channel.

2. Epistemology is another concept I have learned in the few weeks we have been in school. I had never heard the word prior to the start of class. However I knew of the definition, concerning media, from growing up. When I was a child, my brother and I were allowed 30 minutes of television a day. After that we needed to find other ways of amusing ourselves. We were both raised to love books and throughout the years my taste in books has changed, but my love for reading never dwindled. When I started school I didn’t know what the internet was. We didn’t have it in our first classrooms. Only as an early adult did I realize the information I had access to with the World Wide Web. I believe that the Epistemological shift that has happened throughout time is very important to understand and discuss.

3. I found the article Is Google Making Us Stupid written by Nicholas Carr intriguing. I had never thought of the implications of having the world at our fingertips. It’s hard to imagine losing the ability to think critically and reflect objectively on topics being researched. However Carr believes that we are no longer delving into the depths of information that book research once required of us. He claims that internet research provides a sort of cliff’s notes version of the actual information. I suppose I would agree with some of that logic. Articles, essays, books and other forms of research are smaller when accessed online. However I don’t believe this to be a problem since the less time you spend on one person’s opinion and studies leading to it, the more time you can spend looking for multiple opinions and varied research. I think this would make the topic you are researching much more valuable than spending vast amounts of time on one prior researcher’s findings.

4. The 8 shifts, 7 principles and 29 persuasive techniques involved in creating and delivering media are very important to examine. The one shift that I find most important is the Personal shift. From personal in the past to participatory now, media have been able to connect and reach out to the entire world. Facebook has become the largest social networking tool ever. Through the internet we can not only research a country, but actually chat with the people in it. We can examine, learn and mix cultures that once were only accessible through written text. The one principle that means the most to me is “Reality” Construction/Trade offs. I believe that the media portrayal of reality can be interpreted many different ways, depending on the content. More importantly, the message that comes across often speaks louder by what is not said-what is left out- than the message you are seeing. All 29 persuasive techniques are important and most are used quite often in media ads. If I were to choose one as the one used universally I would say Symbols. Postman says the meaning behind images cannot be argued. A picture of a flower cannot be logically argued as anything but a flower. To say it is a dog for example just doesn’t make sense. Symbols take an image and attach ideas to it. This is the most powerful way of getting your message across popularly from a media standpoint. In the video below, the Clydesdale is the number one symbol for Budweiser beer....honestly what do horses have to do with beer? but when we see the majestic creatures we think of the Budweiser commercials!

If I had to ask just one media related question it would be: How much does violence in the media affect the American culture and more specifically children growing up in that culture? More and more these days we see violent movies becoming popular amongst all ages, news programs are showing more violence and reporting more in depth on the violent situations in the world. Video games have become bloodthirsty and image dense. What are these images and the meaning behind them doing to the creative, inquiring minds of children eager to learn what their culture is all about? The video I included is just one of many on the web either for or against violence in games correlating to violent outbursts in children.