Recent Projects

Major Research Project

Being enrolled in the Communication and New Media M.A. program at McMaster University gave students the freedom to choose between a forty page “Major Research Paper” or a twenty page paper along with a “Major Research Project” in which students have the freedom to explore different avenues for academic expression including video projects.

I opted for the latter, a chance to write a paper that helps inform a short film entitled “The Art of Dreaming, which deals with the structure of narrative film and how one is able to manipulate normative conceptions of temporal relation and character construction. The paper itself  deals with film adaptations and how they can be used to extend the meaning of the original text. For this reason I wrote a screenplay that deals with some ideas presented in Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan book series (focusing heavily on A Separate Reality) which discusses concepts such as life and death, but more importantly notions of dreaming. These ideas have informed the short film which can now be found on my website. The final film can be found on YouTube, while additional information (including a production booklet and digital copies of my paper) can be found by clicking this link.

Digital Game Independent Study Paper

You can find a copy of my digital gaming independent study paper – “Performance in the Capital Wasteland: Opening the Vault on Fallout 3″ here. The paper is a deconstruction of normative assumptions in digital games, focusing heavily on Fallout 3 by Bethesda Studios. I discuss the limits of character interaction and gender constructs within these digital games and the impact that it can have on personal identity and interaction within the digital game.

Side Projects

My Dad’s Cook Book
Having cooked his whole life, my Dad is really comfortable with creating and trying new things. Within the last year I have been taking photos for him of the food that he makes for special meals or desserts. These photos are going to be compiled into a master “cook book”. Until that time, these images can be enjoyed on my daily Blog by searching specifically for tagged images “meal” or “food”.

Ask Diggs
Ask Diggs is a series of shorts I’m working on to be produced and published on YouTube. They feature my friend John honestly answering questions that are asked of him. I have created a Twitter account specifically for John (@askdiggs) as well as an email (askdiggs@hotmail.com) for anyone to be able to email him questions that he will answer on video. These videos will be spread out through the upcoming months and filmed with my Canon T3i along with a Rode VideoMic for audio capture. All videos will be processed in Adobe After Effects CS5, then exported through Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 for an mp4 encoded format that is easier to upload on YouTube. You can find any of these videos being constantly added to my YouTube playlist here.

5in30
5 in 30 is a series that I’ll be working on while working with my Canon T3i. Usually I film an abundant amount of footage of just about anything, and I think that it is helpful to at least show off some of the footage that may not be used otherwise. By creating six-second segments of my footage, I am able to capitalize on the footage that is being shot without overusing scenes or being repetitive in nature. These videos are currently being uploaded to YouTube on a basis of weekly footage. Depending on the amount of footage I have accumulated within the week, the video will be processed and uploaded accordingly.

Note: These videos will be made available on my YouTube account, posted on my Blog and uploaded via this website on my Main Page.