How has the invention of 3D technology in movies transformed the industry since the 2000’s?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12255971@N04/4958818749/ – This was found using flick commons. I found this picture to be quite resonating and funny. Many films that have been released recently that are in 3D, or claim to be using the 3D technology to it’s fullest have always been criticized as being terrible films. Many movies are trying to use this gimmick to appeal to certain people, and mainly children. They lose track of what a quality film is and just focus on this 3D nonsense.

Through the mason library, there are a lot of titles that came up dealing with the production aspect of using 3D animation and technology. This is relevant to this research question, because despite 3D technology typically being generalized as negative concept for the film industry, it does show a step forward in technology and it also has opened up many new jobs for animators and editors.

On Archive Finder, there were really no archives to be found which has any relevance to 3D films. I was not too surprised, considering this subject is a bit more modern compared to most of the archives that are listed in the site. .

This topic has always struck me as interesting and complicated in the world of the web, One of the reasons why I think people are so drawn to the internet, social media in particular, is that you can essentially create a new identity if you wanted to. It is incredibly hard to authenticate someone’s identity on the internet, unless they are of large status and/or a celebrity. This is what makes doing research, or using the internet as a resource sometimes dangerous because it can be difficult to actually find a credible source. In some ways, it is more work to actually use websites as a tool of information because you have to make sure the websites that you are using were created by a legitimate organization or person of merit. If not, then your paper could lose all credibility.

I think this is where the stigma of, Wikipedia is not a reliable source to use when researching topics for school. However, Wikipedia can be reliable at times. Now that people are realizing that you cannot trust everything you read on the internet, links to the source of content posted on a Wikipedia page are listed on the bottom of the page. Sometimes, the links bring you to a reliable source which appears to be legit and sometimes there are links to blog posts that everyday people use to rant about your subject. Generally speaking, .edu and .gov sites have been branded as legitimate and do not require in depth scouting as to whether or not the information on those sites are true. I just think it is funny that this new generation of people who are growing up on laptops and computers are faced with this issue of credibility. When I was growing up, there was never  need to check to see if a publication company was legit, books always and still do have this air of authenticity about them.

“It may be impossible (or at least very difficult) to move from analog to digital with no loss of information; what you really need to ask is the cost of representing the original as closely as possible. In other words, not only does digitization mean a loss (albeit in some cases a very modest one), it also incurs a cost.”

These two sentences are the two that stood out to me the most in this entire chapter from Cohen’s “Digital History.” Every year, it seems that more and more information, history, and society is being digitized. Whether it be files, recordings, or social media, the way the world is beginning to function seems to be done mostly through a computer. However, is this actually an advancement? Yes, technology may have the appearance of being newer, sleeker, and faster but is that shiny new look worth the risk of losing information and quality?

Growing up in the time period where there is an apparent switch between books and computers makes it difficult to judge whether or not the internet and digitization is actually beneficial. Research done through text and written recordings is now being considered archaic and yet, in my opinion, still yields better results. The information that you can find not digitally seems to always be more reliable. The internet is constantly changing, and with so many people having access to its inner workings, some times the information on there is not reliable, which makes research much more difficult. Not too mention the amount of money that is being poured into the digitization of information. In my opinion, digitization if all flash, but no sustenance. It runs fast, and allows you to find what you are looking for, but through the process of digitization, information is being lost and deleted. I would much rather stick to books and written documents.

In “Getting Started: The Basic Technologies of the Web,” Cohen describes how web pages “require more shepherding” and that books or “physical manifestations of human expressions” will “likely survive for generations.” I find this to be extremely interesting to look at, considering how in this day in age, society is starting to learn towards a much more digital world. Schools and business are beginning to transition to having all of their primary work done online, whether it be through crunching numbers now into a computer instead of log books, or using online textbooks in schools. The majority of research that is being done now is through the web by using web browsers to look up hundreds of different sites.

This all relates because, like Cohen describes, web pages need to constantly be monitored and updated to make sure they are not hacked, tampered with, corrupted, or simply obsolete. Before the whole digital age, books and paper were able to be stored and used as solid records. Instead of having to search through thousands of web sites, a person could read two or three books and find all of the necessary information. It is difficult to maintain a reliable web page without keeping constant watch of the content. With this being said, how does the future plan to make the web a reliable and secure network of information? Paper and pen is slowly being edged out, and while text in a book can last centuries, thousands of web pages are hacked, deleted, and altered every day.