reading responses, week 5

The Most Dangerous Gamer
I was very confused by this article. The supplementary material did not flesh it out - I watched the video, and it did not clarify my understanding of the matter at hand. Like Cam, I felt like this was more of a profile of the author's appreciation of Blow's work than an actual profile of Blow himself. I did not come away with a sense of understanding him - he was as elusive on paper as he apparently is in person - or his games. Perhaps a more focused video would have aided with that.

I also did not completely understand all the philosophical and technological details of the games described in this. Perhaps it would be easier to do so if I played video games :p

That said, the subject matter was interesting enough. I just feel like Clark may have gotten confused about what his focus was in the process of writing this.

This Must Be The Place
These videos, I think, are an example of things improving with practice. Though I did not connect very well with the chronologically earlier videos, both the profile of the burger joint in Manhattan and the profile on the man who lives in the abandoned Packard plant (now demolished?) have stuck with me for the 24 hours since I first watched them. I found it accessible and, more importantly, interesting - there was definitely a conflict there of 'why does this man live in an abandoned factory?'

I wasn't clear on whether it was more of a profile on the man or the place- though the name of the webseries indicates the place, "Hill" struck me as more of a story about why the man came to live there rather than the factory itself.

I also felt very connected to Prime when watching it - the way that the restaurant was described made it feel very relateable and accessible, even for people who may have never been there or even near there. The way it was described was as an everyrestaurant with something special, which I felt was a good, effective approach and helped the viewer to place it in an approachable context.

The other two videos struck me as rougher and less interesting.