Michael's Gridlock Excursions

      The final week of this semester is finally upon us, and with it brings a multitude of digital works from the students of DS106: from The Beast and his crisis of losing his powers, to Weather Woman and her reports on Global Warming, the students of DS106 have each saved the day in many different styles. Some submissions stood on top of the others in my opinion, and while i'd like to see the full movie adaptation of those stories in the future, me putting them in the spotlight here will have to do for now.        The adventures of Mellow Man and Tech was something that I enjoyed not only for it's story and it's time traveling theme, but also for the custom drawings that the creators put the effort into creating for their heroes. This project was one that gave me the clearest image of what the students envisioned for their characters, and I was taken aback with how much more I wanted to see of the duo.     On a more ser...

Below are the Submissions for my Final Project: Part One: ' Part Two: Part Three: Jasper Regan's Big Day from Mike Macleay on Vimeo . Enjoy!

    For our super  Final Project, I decided to make a little bit of a story on how my hero eventually saves the day, and also took the opportunity to give my character some background on how he operates.     First I made a short little newspaper front page using a simple little generator I found  here  and used the chance to give my hero a little bit of character, as well as tell a little bit of his story and history from a journalist's perspective. It wasn't very taxing to make, but it was enjoyable to write and really brainstorm some points about my character's history.    Next, I did an audio piece where the government reaches out to my hero for assistance. It was a recording of a friend and I that we had practiced once before, but it turned out much better than I expected in the end. Improvisation was a key factor for some of the one-liners in the piece, but I don't believe it took any of the quality away from the final result....

   This week I started to make the foundations for my final project; I decided to have my superhero try to save himself, and played around with how to approach the idea of a character who has unlimited power save himself.    I first thought that my character could be chased by a secret organization that wanted him destroyed for some greater goal, but I thought it was a cliche idea and had a different thought: what if the hero's greatest enemy isn't an enemy or force that he needed to defeat, but instead his own satisfaction? So I started working on the idea that my hero's only true wish was to be loved by everyone and everything around him, but he also stands as an enemy to all mankind, because of a common opinion that he is evil for having his powers.     After deciding on this, I started to work on a story that I could create to illustrate this scenario. Now I'm somewhat at a crossroads in my story, as going in one direction or another de...