Does Not Compute

I'm writing this post from my shiny new computer, which is, surprisingly, the second computer I've ever owned.

I got my original Mac Book in 2006 and upgraded it a bunch of times. I doubled the RAM within the first year, replaced the hard drive two years ago, and went through more rechargeable batteries than I want to remember. I liked my first computer and was content to just keep rebuilding it. But it turns out, even if you keep the hardware and software current, laptops have a finite life span. My old computer has more than its share of dings and scratches. The hinge is loose and I literally have a piece of masking tape holding one of the latches on. But the cosmetic damage wasn't the problem. Too many internal parts were wearing out. The disk reader quit working, it has trouble holding wifi signals, and the screen as been gradually growing darker for some time now. When you work in visual arts, the screen is kind of important.

Now I have a new Mac Book Pro. It has all the features I want and all of them work as they're supposed to. Having nothing broken feels like an embarrassment of riches.

I'm not going to get rid of my old computer just yet. I'd like to use it for traveling and maybe let my art students borrow it from time to time. Before it goes into active retirement, I'd like to take a moment to remember all of its accomplishments:

• I did the last 1/4 of my animations on it, back when I was a character animator for a computer game.
• I used it for all demonstrations and archival work for the art classes I teach on weekends.
• I used it to demonstrate painting in Photoshop to my former online class.
• It got me through grad school when I earned my master's degree.
• I learned HTML on it and used it to write all my websites.
• I prepped and colored every episode of Urban Underbrush and Draconis Wicked with it...until now.

It really had a wonderful life. I look forward to wearing out the next one.

-Marj
www.lepusstudios.com

Wreckin' Machine

I saw Wreck-It Ralph last weekend. It was pretty much what I hoped it would be: a cute story with video game references all neatly bound together under the veil of Disney style animation and Pixar style humor.

This movie is a big deal for the Rishel Family, and not just because so many of us are animation fans and/or casual gamers. It’s because my cousin Brian worked on the film. Brian has been doing behind-the-scenes stuff for Disney for many years, but this is the first time he’s contributed so much to a blockbuster movie. The next time you watch Wreck-It Ralph, look for Brian Rishel’s name in the credits. He’s the Post Production Lead Title Designer (it shows up shortly after the music credits). Congratulations, Brian. You’re finally getting the recognition you deserve.

If you haven’t seen Wreck-It Ralph yet, do yourself a favor and don’t read any reviews except mine. With this kind of story, reviewers won’t post spoilers, but they will be tempted to give hints about the plot. And, much like a real video game, hints can give too much away. All the threads should unravel nicely on their own, as long as you don’t go pulling on any of them too soon.

Okay, now about the movie itself. If you’ve seen the trailers, you know that Wreck-It Ralph is the story of a video game bad guy who is tired of being the villain. He can’t change the rules of his own game, so he travels to other games where he might have a shot at being the hero. On the surface, this looks like another story about a protagonist trying to improve his life while proving all the doubters wrong. It’s really a story about the nature of heroism. And the world of video games is a great place to explore the concept of heroism. If the moral had been about love, confidence, loyalty or any other popular theme, it would have been a waste of a theme. As the story begins, we learn that Ralph wants to be a hero so that people will treat him better. So game-hopping Ralph goes through the motions of being a hero without helping anyone. (Good Guy Ralph actually makes things much worse.) When Ralph forgets about his own quest and focus on helping others, he finally starts becoming the person he wants to be. Wreck-It Ralph has a good, real moral that isn’t explored often enough in these kinds of movies: You can’t be a hero to make people like you. You have to like people enough to be heroic for them.

But the best thing about Wreck-It Ralph is that the creators seem to get video games. Its quite common yet always disappointing to watch a show based on something that the authors themselves don’t understand (like Dreamworks movies and Dr. Seuss stories or family sitcoms and…pretty much any topic you can think of).  Wreck-It Ralph was made by people who grew up on video games and were ready to pour all that knowledge and love into the crafting their digital world.

And if your local theater still keeps it’s little corner arcade going, you can bet that you’ll want to give those old games a second look on your way out.

-Marjorie Rishel
www.lepusstudios.com