Question #1: 15 marks
Read the article on the hero’s journey and CCT312_L3_R1_Jenkins_Matrix_Unicorn.pdf from your folder. Watch these three videos on Joseph Campbell and describe why the monomyth and comparative mythology were used for the basis of ‘The Matrix’. (500 words)
What is the Hero’s Journey? TEDX: 11 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8XUVqjX_IA
The Matrix - Joseph Campbell Monomyth and Comparative Mythology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AG4rlGkCRU 3:48
More on Monomyth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB_Q1gFsvIw&list=RDQ-PCHu9WU9Q: 7:18
Optional: The Matrix and the Hero's Journey - explaining using the hero's journey stages in movies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiciJf8Pego&ab_channel=StoryManiac 11 minutes
Question #2: 5 marks Watch these two videos on Joseph Campbell and describe his definition of “Follow your Bliss” in relation to the Hero’s Journey. (200-250 words)
Joseph Campbell On Becoming an Adult: 5:40 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU
Joseph Campbell - Follow your bliss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHBBplGmLbM: 3 minutes
Question#3: 5 marks
Review the definitions of RPGs, the Hero’s Journey, game balance, game mechanics and game rules before you begin this assignment.
Watch this video to help you – it has a brilliant explanation:
What are video game mechanics? Concept explained!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kko4ctExdgk: 5:44
Sometimes called 'core mechanics' or 'gameplay mechanics' this term can be quite tricky to get your head around, so in this video I explain what exactly they are. This is a key concept for anyone studying video game development and video game design. Examples used include Sonic the Hedgehog, Flappy Bird, Halo, Command and Conquer, and Total Annihilation.
List five different mechanics the speaker discusses in the game, and describe how they work:
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
Question #4 : 5 marks
Using CLOSAT (characters, location, object, situation, acts or levels, themes) to analyze Ms Pacman at https://arcadespot.com/game/ms-pac-man-genesis/ to fill in the following analysis:
a) Character(s):
b) Location(s):
c) Object(s):
d) Situation(s):
e) Act(s) or Level(s):
f) Theme(s):
g) Describe the game balance, game mechanics, resource mechanics, and game rules of Ms Pacman. How is the gameplay determined by all of these combined?
Using CLOSAT (acronym of the above) is a wonderful way to generate really great games!
Question #5: 10 marks
Let’s look at an example of a circular narrative by Spike Jonze called ‘How they got There’, and analyze the choices by the characters in this short film. Refer to your article
Example of circular narrative: ‘How They Get There’, 1997: 2:05 by Spike Jonze at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2hTt2FxIYw
Article: What Is a Circular Narrative Style?
by Elissa Hansen, Demand Media
A story that ends in the same place it began is commonly called a circular or cyclical narrative. While literature during and after the Modernist period experimented heavily with nonlinear narrative, circular narrative appears in nearly every genre and in the mythologies of many cultures. Although the narrative’s beginnings and ends mirror each other, as do the introduction and conclusion of an essay, the narrative almost never leaves characters or events unchanged.
Poetry
Many poems have a similar first and last stanza. John Keats’ ballad “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” begins and ends with a question and answer that use nearly the same language. The circular structure here is temporal, beginning in the narrative present with a speaker asking a knight what happened to him, moving into the past with the knight’s recollection, and returning to the present when the knight concludes his story. In a more complex example, the 14th-century poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” exemplifies the circular narrative’s popularity in Arthurian mythology. At Christmastime, Sir Gawain embarks on a quest, and he journeys for a year before fulfilling his obligation and returning to the court at Christmastime.
Prose
Novels are particularly fond of circular narratives. Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” opens with Alice playing outside on a riverbank. When she falls down a rabbit hole, she embarks on a fantastic journey through Wonderland before her sister awakens her, recalling her to the riverbank. Books in C. S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” series employ a similar journey into an alternate realm and back to the “real world,” as does much science fiction and fantasy.
Film and Television
Films frequently employ cyclical narrative structures as well. The movie “Looper,” for example, centers on characters who travel back in time to be killed by their past selves. Circularity can also occur in genres with multiple episodes. At the beginning of the television series “Lost,” for example, the shot centers on the closed eye of Jack, one of the protagonists, as it suddenly opens. The camera zooms out to show Jack lying on the ground. The last episode of the series concludes with Jack lying in the same spot, and the camera zooms in on his open eye just before it finally closes.
Music
Circular narrative is common in lyrics from every age, and particularly in children’s songs. The terror of parents everywhere, “The Song That Never Ends” makes good on its title: The last phrase of one verse becomes the first phrase of the next verse so the song can be infinitely repeated. More somberly, Elvis’ ballad “In the Ghetto” chronicles the cycle of poverty and violence in Chicago’s housing projects. The first and last five lines mirror each other. The song begins, “As the snow flies/On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'/A poor little baby child is born/In the ghetto/And his mama cries.” It concludes with the death of that baby, grown into an “angry young man,” and the birth of another baby who is implicitly his son: “As her young man dies,/On a cold and gray Chicago mornin',/Another little baby child is born/In the ghetto/And his mama cries.”
References
▪ Bartleby.com: La Belle Dame Sans Merci
▪ Lyrics.com: Elvis Presley -- In the Ghetto Lyrics
▪ The Camelot Project: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
▪ The Victorian Web: On Borrowed Time: Cycles of Narrative, Nature, and Memory in the Work of Tennyson and Eliot
▪ Alice in Wonderland; Lewis Carroll
▪ The Chronicles of Narnia; C. S. Lewis
Read the above article, then answer these questions about ‘How They Get There’: 10 marks
a) What is a ‘circular narrative’ and how has this story structure been used in ‘How They Get There’?
b) How are the character’s actions representative of playing a game with each other?
c) How does the ending of the film make the beginning of the film plausible for the audience? If the male character chose to do one thing differently in relation to the female character, would there be the same final outcome?
d) How has Spike Jonze made the interaction of the characters believable so that we accept the ending of the film?
e) Are there any mythological references from within the short film’s narrative (hint: research ‘siren’)?