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First studio camera class today.

The big difference between this and the community producer course: there, one learns to be a one-person showmaker, running around with a portable DV camera (and maybe a partner if you happen to have one lying around), making your own content off the cuff and on a shoestring. Here, the goal is to train you to work the SCAT studio equipment so you can volunteer to help make other people's shows. (Though I'm sure that knowing how everything works is valuable in any case.)

In tonight's class we learned basic studio camera operation and director communication. Really fun, though it's essentially robotic work, with all decisionmaking centralized in the director, sitting out of sight in the control room. (This is how it's done at SCAT, anyway.) The camerafolk just follow the director's instructions as they come over their headphones, and the floor manager does little beyond flashing the director's cues to the talent (that is, the people actually on-camera); this is the role that gets to make those fun 'wrap it up' and 'stretch it' hand signals.

I can see myself volunteering to help work the studio for others, actually, as a wholly separate activity from my own production goals. I think it would be a fun occasional activity rut-breaker. One more class of this, and I'll be able to put my name on the volunteer list, actually. (Even though there's a part of me that's a little bothered by the fact that the cameras aren't literally remote-controllable robots. Surely the technology exists. It can't cost that much, can it? (Ha ha ha.))

The other implication is that I needn't worry about finding a crew to help make the Gameshelf, if we end up using the SCAT studio for it; it looks like I can trust the station to provide a crew for me. That's... pretty awesome, actually.

Games of two sorts

Has something changed for the better at Games Magazine? This month's issue stands out from previous ones in two ways. First, I found its feature article, about dominoes, significantly more informative and enjoyable than the mag's features earlier this year, which I have found largely fluffy and underwhelming. (I also appreciated that the cover puzzle had a thematic tie with the feature article.)

Second, it contains an honest-to-goodness puzzle hunt! It's pretty simple and an expert solver can probably slam through it in an hour or less (especially if there's a Google nearby) but the format is unmistakable: a set of puzzles, each lacking instructions but boasting a goofy bit of flavor text, whose answers plug into a metapuzzle to reveal the One True Solution. (The puzzles are pretty goofy too... I especially liked the one where you have to translate Goat into English.)

I hope they make a habit of it. They're getting fanmail from me.

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I finally finished Deus Ex. It is a long, long game. I must have spent close to a month hacking my way through it. Fun, though I still wish I started on a harder skill level; almost all the battles were devoid of tension. (The giant security bots can still chop you up good at that level, but getting around them is meant to be more of a puzzle then slogging through the hordes of soft-n-squishy armed goons.)

Observation: the game is made substantially easier by the fact that accessing your inventory pauses the game. So when Big Mean Dude shows up, you can take your time choosing what weapons and equipment to use and which of your expensive superpowers to activate before he even gets a chance to move. The big dramatic fight with the evil twin (more or less) at the start of the endgame was over in less than two seconds, for me. (It involved a cloaking device. And a rocket launcher.)

I chose the most "transhuman" of the three endings offered to you during the finale. I'll probably just let it lie and move onto other things now. Worth the six bucks? Yes. The plot has its "bong-hit philosophy" moments, but is enjoyable enough to follow, and the voice acting is well done. I hope I can play the sequel sometime.