Noisy Jelly

Marianne Cauvard and Raphaël Pluvinage, two students of France’s L’Ensci Les Ateliers, created a game called Noisy Jelly for a class project in February 2012. The working prototype is a wooden box containing agar agar, dyes, gelatin molds, and a game board. Players mix the agar agar with water to create a simple gelatin in a mold, then add dyes to create the desired color. After ten minutes, the gelatin shape can be removed from the mold and placed on the game board. Any time someone touches the gelatin shape on the board, a sound will be emitted. The board is a capacitive sensor, so any variations will change the sound. Each of the following help to create a unique sound for each piece: the density of salt in the gelatin, the shape of the gelatin, the coloring, the pressure posed on the gelatin, and the location of where the gelatin is touched. Noisy Jelly uses Arduino and Max/msp. There are no current indications on whether Noisy Jelly will be mass produced for public consumption.

GingerSnap Bakery

GingerSnap!'s first cake sold
photo by Steph Koehnen

This is a name you should remember for the future. GingerSnap! Bakery is the brainchild of bakers Lauren Strohm and Steph Koehnen. They hope to open GingerSnap! as an online order bakery within the next five years and have a storefront in under 10. Currently, the girls bake separately because of locational differences and are not hired for many events. However both will take orders if asked nicely. The storefront will likely be designed by recent Coe College graduate Aaron Dayton at an undecided location in the Midwest.

By Steph Koehnen

GingerSnap! was bred out of a love of unique flavors. Steph perfects the recipes and makes sure everything tastes good and Lauren is in charge of the decorations and making things look pretty. Signature flavors include mint chocolate, orange soda, apple strussel, and hot fudge sundae. Once they are of age, the menu will expand to include cocktail-inspired cakes. They will build recipes inspired by a customer's favorite flavors if requested. Remember the name GingerSnap! and keep an eye out for it within the next few years.

Horror Movies

Horror movies are a staple of our film industry. Sadly, they are in short supply—many of the recent horror movies released in the past few years are remakes. Some fairly recent remakes include Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, 2010), Friday the 13^th (1980, 2009), My Bloody Valentine (1981, 2009), The Crazies (1973, 2010), and Halloween (1978, 2007), among many others. Not only do these remakes exhibit the complete lack of originality in the horror film industry, they are entirely unnecessary. My Bloody Valentine is perhaps one of the worst offenders because they change the killer. YOU DO NOT EVER CHANGE THE KILLER!! (It is in the horror movie commandments, look it up.) For an original, unexpected horror movie, watch Cabinin the Woods (2012).

There are certain rules one must abide by to survive a horror movie (this mostly applies to slasher films—supernatural horror films don’t necessarily work like this). Watch the video now. It’s the rules from the Scream Trilogy.

In addition to these, you never say "Who's there?" or open the door when someone knocks or call out when no one’s there if you stupidly do open the door. Never run up the stairs in a chase—only stupid people do this for there is nowhere to go but out the window. Never go looking for the killer. Never split up. Always double-tap—the killer isn’t truly dead unless you shoot him in the head or some similar fatal killing. The best weapons are those you don’t need to reload (this is true in zombie movies, too). And if you’re blonde and/or have big boobs, you must be hyperaware of the rules and your surroundings—you’re the most likely to die. Well so long, I’m screwed.

"Der Gnom des Entsetzen:" A Stop-Motion Film

So this is a little late. My group's project was on film, and we wanted to show this but didn't have time during our presentation. In German 4 in high school, I made a stop-motion silent film (with the titles in German, of course). It is a fun process, but a pain in the ass when you happen to be the only one with a good camera and editing software. It took about 512-515 pictures to complete--I do not remember the exact number. Translations are under the video. I did not write the titles and cannot remember the proper way to translate them, so they do not entirely make sense, but the story should be clear enough despite this.



Der Gnom des Entsetzen: The Gnome of Terror (or Horror)!
Es war einen schoenen Tag. melanie, Georg, und Katja waren sehr froeh in ihren Deutschen Klasse. Alles waren in Gruenen Bereich!: It was a nice day. Melanie, George, and Katya were very happy in their German class. Everything was good!
Ach! Ein Geschenk!: Oh a present!
Lief weg!!: Run away!!
Georg nahm einen grossen Hauch. Vielleicht hat er sehr schnell weg gelaufen. Warscheinlich der Gnom war ihm treiben.: George took a big breath. Maybe he had run away quickly. The gnom probably followed him.
Melanie und Katja trauerten fuer Georg. Der schlechte Gnom nahm ihn doch sofort. Sie wollten der Gnom fangen!: Melanie and Katia mourned for George. The evil gnome took him immediately. They wanted to find the gnome!
Geh weg!: Go away!
Der Gnom konnte nicht mehr die Schule terrorisieren. Ein Schatten fiel ueber die Schule. Der Gnom war eine Raeuberhorde, denn er hat vier leben genommen. Wieder kam die Freude, aber Chanhassen war eine Ueberraschung kriegen.: The gnome could no longer terrorize the school. A shadow fell over the school. The gnome was a robber, because he has taken four lifes. Again came the joy, but Chanhassen was getting a surprise.

Starring:
Shawni Jones as Melanie
George Le as Georg
Caitlyn Fahrenkamp as Katja
Robin as Robin (I don't remember his last name)
and Sarah Bast as Dead Girl #1

Joss Whedon

The name Joss Whedon probably does not sound too familiar unless one is into science fiction TV shows and movies, but his work is known by nearly everyone in America. He created many great TV shows including Buffythe Vampire Slayer (1997), Angel (1999), Firefly (2002), and Dollhouse (2009); he also helped write on projects like Toy Story (1996), Serenity (2005), Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (2008), Cabin in the Woods (2012), and the Avengers (2012).

Despite being widely unknown and unrecognized, Whedon and many of his works have received cult status. Firefly was only produced for 14 episodes with the movie Serenity made as a follow-up, yet fans (called “Browncoats”) stay wholly dedicated. In 2011, an internet campaign called Help Nathan Buy Firefly was started after Firefly star Nathan Fillion stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that if he won $300 million from the California lottery, he would use it to produce more episodes. The idea was for fans to donate money to help bring the beloved show back. In just one day, over $10,000 was pledged by fans. After a couple weeks Whedon announced he was not interested in Help Nathan Buy Firefly because he thought it would not work out and would be too hard to manage. Browncoats still hope for a revival. Buffy and Angel are also considered of the cult status, but do not have fan-backing for more episodes because they both aired for many seasons. Many fans of any or all of these shows and movies proclaim that anything Whedon works on must be good because he is such a talented man; he has yet to disappoint them.

Whedon helps with "Can't Stop the Serenity," which shows Serenity in theaters to benefit the charity Equality Now. Many of the Serenity cast and crew help with the charity as well. He also participates in Dark Horse Comics, producing a comic in the far future of the world of Buffy called Fray. Most of Whedon's current focus is on online projects.

Hand Coloring vs Selective Color in Photographs

Selective color-A color photograph turned black and white except for
the red tones on the face. (Hand coloring image coming soon)

There are two basic ways of mixing black and white and color in photographs. Hand coloring applies to printed photographs and selective color applies to digital. Hand coloring involves taking a black and white image and adding colored paint by hand whereas selective color takes a color image and turns all but one (or more) area(s) black and white—so essentially hand coloring turns black and white into color and selective color turns color to black and white. Both techniques are most commonly applied to portraits.

Hand coloring takes a lot of skill to apply the paint in just the right way to make it look right. It is very time-consuming and small areas are tedious. Selective color can be done by anyone with access to an image editing program. If anything, selective color is cheesy and overused. Many photographers refuse to do it because it always looks dumb.

35mm Film



35mm film is the most common type of photographic film and what people often picture in their mind when they think of film. It is becoming outdated as digital photography advances at such a fast pace. Because film cannot keep up with digital, many chemical companies are dwindling—Kodak recently went bankrupt and most chemical and paper producers around 20 years ago are out of business. Many photographers will be devastated if Kodak does not bounce back from the bankruptcy. In 1880, George Eastman created the Kodak company to make photography more accessible to the public—their motto was “You press the button. We do the rest.” In 1884, Kodak patented the first paper film which was a precursor to modern film.

Film with chemical burns. Notice how the burns
are fairly symmetrical and always occur in pairs.

Today, film is sold in a variety of speeds, which is determined by its sensitivity to light. A lower ISO (film speed) number, the less sensitive to light the film is. Thus a lower number, like 100, is good for bright, direct sunlight whereas a higher ISO, 400, is best for low-light situations. A higher ISO will produce a granier photo, which becomes evident during printing. When processing the film, it cannot touch itself at any point or you will get what is called a chemical burn that makes the affected negatives unusable. After processing, film is best kept in plastic negative sleeves to keep dust and scratches off the emulsion.