Visual Screenplay

http://104.236.52.219:3000/final_networked_media/Marblehead_screenplay_viz_demo.html

This is a demo of a screenplay visualization program for the web. The idea is to provide writers, readers, studio executives, producers, talent and other crew the ability to quickly scan an entire screenplay to visually get a feel for tone or to assess how much of an element or talent a particular story involves. 

I feel strongly about this coming from the film industry.  Screenwriters rarely get the chance to see an entire screenplay come to visual fruition.  This is a valuable tool for directors and producers looking for a script to option with limited time and attention span. 

 Currently it is front-end/client-side only but ideally it will be expanded to server-side.  In the next iteration FinalDraft native XML files can be used to neatly reformat for HTML/CSS with JQuery JSON or XML parsing. 

This was my first foray into using JQuery with CSS and HTML.  I avoided using p5.js because it seemed like treading old ground.   I struggled with the selector logic & syntax - do I use (this) or ('*') or the '#div id tag'?  I had difficulty with the CSS style placement but eventually figured it out with help.  Another issue I ran into was using a span class to get screenplay character names for their own hover function.  This caused formatting issues.  I ended up using (body) in my hover() methods.  Another nice CSS discovery was the background-size:cover argument which made sizing my differntly sized images a snap. 

Response to Berner's Lee Long Live the Web.

 "If we want to track what government is doing, see 
what companies are doing, understand the true state of the 
planet, find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, not to mention easily 
share our photos with our friends, we the public, the scientific 
community and the press must make sure the Web’s principles 
remain intact—not just to preserve what we have gained but to 
benefit from the great advances that are still to come." - David Berner's-Lee

 This man has so much agency concentrated into one person: he has degrees in electronics, engineering, and computer science.  He generally knows how to make all the electrons go exactly where he wants. 

What he is calling for is a breakdown in the walls of capital's innate need for exclusivity.  Unfortunately it is often capital which can afford to pay for skills like his which take a long time to cultivate in the right conditions. If everyone had his skills then everyone could use their security and oversight and faculty and facility to engineer what they needed and it could possibly work better to share the information which everyone would then be able to determine they needed to get and share. 

"Allowing any site to link to any other site is necessary but not 
sufficient for a robust Web."

He wants royalty-free, tested, open standards for internet design covering every major facet or terminus. And there should be many options for the birth of new facets and termini.  I think Berners-Lee is obviously a visionary, he speaks the truth and he's barking up one of the right trees but like most people he's missing the one key tree.  It's the tree no one knows how to practically look at and address. It's agency.  I have curiousity/hopes that educational models like ITP could spread - but it needs to be accessible and normalized.  Then I think the internet would stay free because it would be made of even more people's minds and so it would be even more dynamic and would be less tied to capital infrastructure investments. 

The threat to net neutrality is terrifying. What are some technical innovations someone like myself could pursue?  Obviously someone should and assumedly is working somewhere on ways to reduce resources required for server and network infrastructure.  Food for thought.  Also happy he called iTunes out for being a hellish prison.  

http://jblomo.github.io/webarch253/slides/Long_Live_the_Web.pdf

Response to Anil Dash's The Web We Lost and Rebuilding the Web We Lost

Anil Dash's The Web We Lost and Rebuilding the Web We Lost

I agree with Dash's posits, and: 

The internet is a last frontier of "Democracy" and the "Free Market."  Sadly, those concepts are flimsy to begin with since they are based on middlemen and uppermen aggregating for themselves all the tiny bits the laboring masses can squeeze out.  Kook-sentiments, sure.  The elements at play are based on power-and-choicemaking-by-proxy as well as the consideration of the planet's finite resources (and even those considered as such) to be infinite. 

So even though we saw the rise of the 'Net as a beautifully heterogenous landscape nothing nice ever goes unnoticed by dividend-seekers.  If we are to currently secure that Internet  more will have to change in what our society does about what they know about much more beyond the internet.  Maybe just in the knick-of-time, before its sun slips behind the mountains it will be from the Internet itself that a great (r)evolution will come? ( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)?

**Addendum: 

Despite my tirade of blunt agreement I'd like to add that Dash's proposed ameliorations are admirable.  The diversity of start ups seems key.  The consideration for the social responsibility of giants like Facebook and the affect it has on teens and other socially vulnerable people is also an astute note. 

JSON p5.js

Desired project process & outcome: 

1) Load validated JSON document from FinalDraft .FDX (.XML) file. 

2) Get "Locations" data from screenplay property: array of Locations. 

3.) Then load and display Google search images representing each location in the JSON array. E.g.:

"Locations": {
        "Location": [

          "MANHATTAN OFFICE BUILDING",
          "MANHATTAN HARBOR",
          "DOJO",
          "SAILBOAT - MANHATTAN HARBOR",
          "SAILBOAT - NEW YORK HARBOR",
          "SUBWAY CAR",
          "KATHARINE'S APARTMENT",
          "LAW OFFICE",
          "LOFT STUDIO",
          "MAUSOLEUM",
          "KATHERINE'S APARTMENT",
          "THERAPIST'S OFFICE",
          "STUDIO LOFT",
          "PETER'S APARTMENT/DINNER AT OYSTERIA.",
          "OYSTER BAR",
          "PHOTO STUDIO",
          "SKYWAY",
          "HIGHLINE PARK",
          "CHINATOWN APARTMENT",
          "FLUSHING - TREELINED STREET",
          "CAR - HIGHWAY TO MARBLEHEAD",
          "FLUSHING",
          "CAR - MARBLEHEAD",
          "BED & BREAKFAST - DOWNSTAIRS",
          "BEDROOM",
          "THE LANDING",
          "STATE STREET",
          "BED & BREAKFAST- ROOM",
          "BREAKFAST ROOM",
          "TOWN",
          "MARINA DAY",
          "MARINA",
          "THE LANDING PUB",
          "STREET",
          "WOODS",
          "MARBLEHEAD NECK",
          "ROY'S HOUSE",
          "END OF STREET",
          "DINING ROOM",
          "TIERED BACKYARD",
          "TODD'S APARTMENT- BEDROOM",
          "TODD'S APARTMENT - LIVING AREA",
          "YACHT - DOCK",
          "BED AND BREAKFAST - ROOM",
          "BED AND BREAKFAST ROOM",
          "CAR",
          "LIGHTHOUSE",
          "OUTSIDE UNCLE ROY'S HOUSE",
          "GROCERY STORE",
          "B&B",
          "BED AND BREAKFAST",
          "UNCLE ROY'S HOUSE",
          "BED AND BREAKFAST - BREAKFAST ROOM",
          "POLICE STATION",
          "MARINA YACHT CLUB",
          "VETERNARIAN'S OFFIE",
          "EXAM ROOM",
          "PHONE CONVO",
          "CAR - MARBLEHEAD NECK BRIDGE",
          "BRIDGE",
          "STATEROOM",
          "LUXURY YACHT",
          "STATEROOM - LUXURY YACHT",
          "ROY'S HOUSE DECK",
          "STATE ROOM - LUXURY YACHT",
          "BOAT",
          "UNCLE ROY'S HOUSE/BOATHOUSE",
          "EXT MARINA/YACHTHOUSE",
          "INT.YACHT",
          "YACHT CLUB RESTAURANT",
          "KITCHEN",
          "MARINA RESTAURANT KITCHEN",
          "EXT SAILBOAT",
          "CAR - HIGHWAY",
          "INT TODD'S APARTMENT",
          "INT CAR",
          "FREEZER",
          "SAILBOAT",
          "COAST GUARD BOAT",
          "UPSTAIRS - ROY'S HOUSE - DAY",
          "POLICE STATIONS/POLICE CARS",
          "UNCLE ROY'S HOUSE - DAY",
          "WINE CELLAR",
          "INT/EXT CAR/ROAD",
          "POLICE STATIONS/POLICE CAR",
          "END CREDITS",
          "END CREDITS PLAY TO TOM PETTY'S \"AMERICAN GIRL\"",
          "HIGHWAY",
          "YACHT",
          "LIVING ROOM",
          "GUEST BEDROOM",
          "SIDEWALK",
          "WHITESTONE BRIDGE",
          "GAS STATION - HIGHWAY",
          "HALLWAY - ROY'S HOUSE",
          "PARLOR",
          "GUEST BEDROOM - ROY'S HOUSE",
          "UNCLE ROY'S HOUSE - GUEST BEDROOM",
          "ROY'S HOUSE - DOWNSTAIRS/FOYER",
          "HELEN'S BEDROOM - ROY'S HOUSE",
          "FOYER",
          "JETTY",
          "MARINA - HALLWAY"
        ]

a la this foiled attempt using McCarthy's p5 github examples for a local JSON file: 

However, in testing I kept getting an error locally and via the server/Chrome: 

Marblehead: a Feature Screenplay in JSON via .FDX (XML)

This JSON file is a 120 page screenplay I during in 2013.  It's a mystery thriller in the vein(s) of Blue Velvet, Drive and Funny Games.  Final Draft's native file type is .fdx which is an XML.  It seemed to translate nicely to JSON using an online XML --> JSON converter.  I then validated the JSON formatting via http://www.jsoneditoronline.org/. 

After successfully fixing a few errors I had to go back into FInalDraft 8 and fix some formatting mistakes where "Dialogue" had been misformatted by me in the software as "Action" etc.  

It felt odd to be finagling the formatting of my screenplay in a totally new way.  If someone had told me at the time I was writing the script that I would be obsessing over where a parenthetical should go a year and a half later in the context of XML/JSON I would have laughed in their face because ITP had not yet come through my transom— certainly been a unique perspective on time and the fact of perspective in itself. 

Here the thing is: 

https://gist.githubusercontent.com/yoshimithefloridapanther/c11e3a71a7a7180154e3/raw/gistfile1.txt

Response to Art & the API + Google's Dev Art

Read Art and the API and look at some of the art projects that use APIs at Google's Dev Art. Write a blog post that discusses Thorpe's piece and/or one or more DevArt projects and/or other projects that make use of APIs

Coming from a still developing film career, I'm now searching for something more concrete with my new studies than to go through life begging for people with money to consider me and my creativity as legitimate solely in the context of art. So normally I resist it mentally when I hear ITP referred to as an art school.  But despite my twice-bitten mistrust of the term "art" I always come back to this kind of thinking, quoted in Jer Thorp's piece, which I do believe in: 

"The specific function of modern didactic art has been to show that art does not reside in material entities, but in relations between people and between people and the components of their environment." - Jack Burnham

Ideas - making ideas clear through creative association and implied analogies and whatever else is in the tool box. But it's analogy of form, concept, emotion, spatial relationship et cetera that gives artists - and now especially "digital" or "tech" oriented artists the free pass to step in and analyze any topic with factual data to find those connections and then show them to an audience.  An . Application Programming Interface is the common language that writes, ecrypts, and unlocks that hall pass. 

Starting at ITP marked the first time I'd really heard about APIs, open or not.   A commenter on the blog sums up the simple approach to this concept (which strikes me as a newcomer as well): 

 "I like the focus on the API over something static like a database. It empowers the artist to transform up-to-date and changing data into something equally up-to-date. Much more impacting, much more interesting".

P.S. Looking at the Dronestream twitter feed makes me lamely ask: "What the fuck is our country doing obliterating people with drones?"  Stirring up an anthill to feed the machine that makes money burning the ants with a magnifying glass. 

Again, the closing quote from Jack Burnham "The significant artist strives to reduce the technical and psychical distance between [their] artistic output and the productive means of society" rings with my vibes. 

P.P.S All of the direct API links seem to be broken in this write-up. 

First Document Object Model (DOM) with HTML & CSS

http://104.236.52.219:3000/week3/badlandsDOM.html

I was moderately delighted that I somehow subconsciously absorbed the concept of nesting functions.  I was trying to add a "refresh" function to get an ID and replace the secondary inner html with the original.  A clumsy workaround to an actual loop to reset something surely but I wanted to make it work anyhow.  It wasn't working the way I wanted because the document.getElementById function was skipping the secondary or replaced inner HTML and was instead grabbing the original defined earlier.  So I thought of nesting the "refresh" function and replaced the secondary inner HTML.  There is still a problem of course - I can't then go back forward through the replace function to go from the tertiary inner HTML to the secondary.  That's again evidence I need to implement a loop.  I also used my CSS code from my Week 1 homework and adapted that pretty lightly. 

An aside: So, this isn't a sparkling effort but I'm still working through how best to learn to use languages and how to breakdown leftover learning difficulties/avoidances from fifth grade math class, etc.  People keep saying all you need to do is spend time with it and it's completely true. It's the same with math. Hardly anyone is born good at math but I didn't know that back then. It's your attitude towards the work that has to be put into it.  

First P5.js sketch up and running

http://104.236.52.219:3000/week2/index.html

Foray into p5 with HTML

Initially had some syntax error which I got through by troubleshooting like this: 

Using the empty_example from the p5.js complete download I was able to transfer the Processing sketch line by line; testing periodically in my browser using the local server. 

I eliminated syntax errors and was able to get the p5.js version of my Processing sketch up and working.

However, my file structure or server connection still had an error so I was unable to actually open the index.html file with Google Chrome.  It kept returning a 404 error or this:

...despite being able to call up last week's HTML project. 

Here is a video documenting my p5 sketch.

A Response to 'As We May Think'

Some things of note from 'As We May Think':

Bush thinks through the fax, the Xerox, the Internet, complex code, touch screens and iPads, digital and 3D imaging and on and on.  This is amazing and it underscores what Dr. Kristina Woolsey from The Exploratorium said when she came here to ITP to speak late October, (to paraphrase): "If you were to ask a fish what she thinks of water she might say "What is water?"  We take it for granted and its labored, archaic diction is almost endearing if it weren't ironic how recently this was actually. 

As a flash of friendly light before the fire, it is worth quoting Vannevar Bush in his idealistic summary: 

"There is a new profession of trail blazers, those who find delight in the task of establishing useful trails through the enormous mass of the common record. The inheritance from the master becomes, not only his additions to the world's record, but for his disciples the entire scaffolding by which they were erected."

This is a beautiful dream and it encapsulates much of what Idealistic Temporary Palace is about for many of us.  It is what generative art and data mining is possibly about. 

...

However, the doc triptych All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace says what many of us feel: machines and the logic we have made them to make gives us a false sense of control, a false feeling of omniscience.  It's what got us here in the larger sense.  Of course it's the way our evolution as a species— building on our language— which is the separation of immediate perception from the wholeness of the mind-body and the Now— has turned out in this iteration: the only iteration in the time-space continuum we inhabit.  Language and other ensuing technologies seems to be simply the holding on to memory and manipulating it to create a picture which can only ever be false.  And the larger picture, which holds so much promise today and then for Bush, is corroded.  It's a 'dry photography' sensor exposed to condensation - it's about to stop functioning all together.

And our smaller picture is connected in a 'trail' to the bigger picture, because here at Idealistic Temporary Palace we get to exist in the profession of delighted trailblazers because we are descended in one way or another from those who have brashly used up those resources, cultivated in us a special privilege or consideration of health and intellect and access.  We get to be truth-seekers and beauty-finders because we are at the top (granted this glosses over personal hardships but does not exclude some consideration for them.) Every tool we use to make joy or money is costing us, maiming someone, something.  It's important to keep this in mind so that we make real hay while the world's candle burns brightly at both ends. That's to say perhaps together we can pull a Baron Munchausen and end that which we started— because we need to Quixotically believe, as he (in)famously did, that we are the only ones who ever possibly could; with our minds and not the minds of the machines we trust.  Their calculations are only perfect within the parameters that we give them and those are always narrow compared to the wide truth of reality.  And so the poor machines will only ever always be making miscalculations. The Singularity will only come if we if we allow it to, if we buy some time and in making sense of things without relying on our helpless tech.