Studio Killers

I’ve been listening to this band called Studio Killers and they recently released their debut album! 

They are a virtual band consisting of three members: Cherry, Goldie Foxx, and Dyna Minx. I was first attracted to their well-made animations for their music videos and catchy tunes. The real identities behind these characters are still being kept behind the screen, but it’s confirmed that the three are each a Finn, a Dane, and a Brit. 

It’s hard to find pop music that’s actually very good music at the same time. I probably can’t say this with full assertiveness since music taste is a truly subjective matter. However, Studio Killers certainly comes with an extra bit of artistic flair. 

Cherry, the lead singer, is absolutely fabulous. She’s chubby and she’s sexy! What more could we ask for when the pop music industry is occupied by skinny, manufactured women who wear as less clothing as possible just to show their “perfect” body. Cherry is sexy not because we see her breasts or her butt, but because she has a personality and a good voice. (Her voice is provided by a man, by the way. People speculate him to be Teemu Brunila, a Finnish singer.) 

A lot of people compare them with Gorillaz. I personally find them to be very different but both are successful projects at creating virtual bands. I’m not a fan of Gorillaz, though, at least not yet. 

Studio Killers uploaded their entire album on YouTube, but in a way that makes me want to buy the actual music even more. Yes, I’m still trying to get my hands on the album.

Social Skill is Like Music

The other day my mom was typing a report for her studies. She is head nurse in the hospital she works in and she went to a bigger hospital to learn about the procedures of nursing in palliative care. It's rare to see my mom doing any sort of homework so I asked her what she was writing. She told me it's a common homework for people studying in nursing; the task was to record conversations one had with a patient or the patient's family members, and analyze what they said. 

Nursing is based largely on interactions with patients in order to make them feel understood. The purpose of such assignment is to train people to have this ability in a short time, as opposed to learning it from long term experiences. 

I’m amazed at how my mom can write down an entire conversation from mostly memory. She said it takes practice. 

We came to the conclusion that social skill is like music: some people are born with good sense of rhythm, while some can’t follow the beat at all. It’s possible to improve one’s musical sense by practicing, but everyone starts off on a different level.

Video Games and the Art of Story-Telling

There has been hype for an indie game called OFF, a French adventure RPG made by Mortis Ghosts in 2008, translated to English in 2011. I finally got to play it a few days ago, and quickly found myself eager to discover more in the story. With very interesting characters and a surreal plot, the game certainly lives up to its fame. 

OFF

In OFF, you play as a character called The Batter, and you’re on a mission to purify the world. As the story goes on you learn more about the disturbing truth behind the “world” you’re in and the characters you meet on the way.

Then I realized how long it was since the last time I even played a video game. I have never been a gamer. I revisited video games so many years later not because I like to play them, but because of how their players react to the stories. I’ve come to know quite a few games through LPs, or Let’s Plays, recordings of people narrating while playing video games posted usually on YouTube. I watch them for the stories.

There are many ways to tell stories. In writing, you recreate the senses through only words. When drawing a comic, you give pictures and dialogues that suggest motion and emotions. And through film, you indulge your audience’s eyes and ears with fancy visuals and music. Video game is just another form of story-telling. It’s also a multi-media one with interactivity. Players immerse themselves in the plot as one of the characters, and they experience both pictures and sounds.

Good video games are complex works of art that go hand in hand with technology, which in recent years enabled large improvement in interactivity as well as aesthetics. There is so much design that goes into the characters, the environments, the controls and the story. Just as any other ways of story-telling, how the story unfolds is key. In video games, however, the other elements are also essential because the player is actively participating in the virtual world. They have to be hooked by the setting as they go on to continuously want to explore the rest of the game. On this aspect I truly admire the creativity that is put into developing this form of entertainment.