Montco Loves To Binge Watch

By: Danielle Ruch 

BLUE BELL, PA--Students at Montgomery County Community College love catching up on their favorite shows by binge watching.  Of the students asked at Montco, all stated that they have binge-watched a series at least once in their lives.  For some students, binging is second nature.  Second year Montco student Matt Hawkins stated, “I love binge watching.  It’s actually kind of unhealthy because I will literally just spend hours in front of my computer watching shows, and I end up getting nothing done all day, but I continue to do it.”  Binge watching is watching television shows for long periods of time, usually hours at a time.  This is a phenomenon and has become popular with the rise of online media services such as Hulu and Netflix, because these websites make full seasons of popular TV shows available online.  Some of the most popular series Montco Students watch include Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Modern Family, and Game of Thrones. 

Netflix was founded in 1997 and grossed over 2 billion dollars in 2012, while Hulu-founded 10 years later- only grossed 100 million.  According to the Piksel Binge Viewing Survey, 62% of people prefer a combination of binge watching and catching up a few days later, 17% regularly binge, 16% watch an episode or two every few days, and 6% never binge watch.  These percentages however, don’t prove true on Montco’s campus.  Third year Montco Student, Steve Levine said, “I binge watch shows all the time.  I’ll waste my entire weekend just catching up on a series.  It’s so addicting and you don’t even realize how much time is going by while binge watching.”  This seems to be the “norm” at Montco, wasting many a weekend just by watching TV shows.  I think it’s a lot more common nowadays because our generation is so immersed in technology and we love keeping up with whatever’s current.”

Format Wars: Digital's Dominance

By: Derek Bartlett 

BLUE BELL, PA--Music videos on YouTube are as popular as radio, or maybe even more. Today, nearly two-thirds of American teenagers use YouTube for listening to music, while a lot of adults mostly listen to radio and CDs. It was also found that at one time only thirty-six percent of teens bought music on a CD as opposed to fifty-one percent of them using digital downloads.
 
In the early 1900s, about fifty percent of America’s homes had radios where they could listen to music and shows. Eventually radio shows were adapted to television in the 60s, making some people worry that, radios and movies would “become irrelevant and unnecessary” for audiences, as said in Media and Culture by Richard Campbell. Today, however, radio has been adapted for TV as well, with music videos and shows where audiences can view them.

The first ‘music video’ was made in 1895 at Thomas Edison’s studio. Edison used a device called a Kinetophone, which showed moving pictures and was fitted with a phonograph (a device used for recording and reproduction of sound recordings). In the early twentieth century, this got people’s attention, and these videos were made with painted pictures and projected from glass slides.

Today music videos are digital, and starting in 1981 they’ve aired on television networks like CMT and MTV. A lot of music has gotten people’s attention through television media or video websites like YouTube, especially for those who like to watch videos more than simply listening. A lot of videos that MTV used to play make up YouTube’s most-watched category.

Based on today’s progress it’s hard to tell just what the next mode of listening to music will be. Maybe someday people who own glass iPhones will use them for it.

Montgomery County Community College Students Scared Through Horror Game Immersion

By: Aaron Berstein

BLUE BELL, PA--Last week, eight out of twenty Montgomery County Community College (Montco) students are scared of horror survival games. Immersion puts them into the character’s shoes and throws them into a story of constant uneasiness that game designers do to purposely scare the player. “A player fully immersed in a survival horror game is not safe on their own sofa; they are engrossed in the environment. The sights and sounds in an immersive game trigger actual reactions from the player” says Mark Black, a Game Design student at Montco. 

     The only way to immerse the player into the game is by using the story, music and environment. For example, Slender has the right atmosphere to make the player feel uneasy at all times. A misty forested region, a long armed, suited man without a face chases you and ultimately murders you. “I had to close the game my first time I had a jump scare” says Myles, a Computer Science major at Montco. Another example can be found in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, where the character is constantly running from monsters and trying to solve a large mystery hidden in his past that he forced himself to forget. “Amnesia was tense. The ‘water monster’ was heart pounding. I’m not sure if it was ‘scary’ because of the invisible monster or because it was hard… or both…” says Matt Murray, a Communications student at Montco.

     Immersion can be as simple as giving paranoia to the player or having scary things jump out and start chasing them. Outlast had a great example of this throughout, with disfigured mentally instable people chasing you, simply to kill you because you’re an outsider. “Dark scene, big mutant creatures started running at me at ungodly speeds. I stopped playing right then” says Jeremy Rossi, an Engineering major at Montco.

For Montco Students, ‘Rifftrax’ shatters the gender barrier in movies

By: Matt Murray

BLUE BELL, PA-50% of male students surveyed reluctantly admitted that they watched at least one of the Twilight films—the most popular reason being along the lines of being coerced into watching it with their girlfriends. Most of the remaining male students interviewed weren’t jumping at the chance to watch a film in the Twilight series either, but an exception did pop up for a few of them.

“I’ll definitely watch [Twilight] with the Rifftrax!” said another 15% of male students. They were referring to the riffing commentaries available to download on Rifftrax.com. A movie riffing is essentially a commentary made independently from the movie with jokes, made up lines, and puns that are all meant to add a humorous new layer to the film. A Rifftrax commentary usually comes in the form of an .mp3 file, but it can also be streamed via an internet browser or even a smart phone; the tracks are then played—or synced—with a movie. Rifftrax produces a wide variety of humorous commentary voiced by Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. The trio is best known from their 90’s television show that riffed old movies, Mystery Science Theater 3000—which is essentially Rifftrax’s spiritual predecessor.

“I loved watching the Harry Potter ones,” said Montco student Saranya Muhunthan. ”I remember watching the first one with some friends—we were dying!” Muhunthan recalled that watching Harry Potter with the Rifftrax was almost an entirely new experience. The commentary seemed to add a whole new level of fun to the movie, but it didn’t take away from the story. She and 80% of the other females surveyed were intrigued by the idea of using something like Rifftrax to make sharing movies like Twilight or Harry Potter with their boyfriends.

Many male students interviewed also expressed interest in sharing predominantly male-biased movies like Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and Star Wars with their girlfriends. Despite Examiner.com’s 2009 article that reported 80% of Twilight: New Moon’s audience was female, 100% of male students interviewed said that with a Rifftrax commentary that they were more likely to watch Twilight or other films they previously didn’t care to watch. Rifftrax seems to level the playing field and open doors in demographics that were previously closed.  

Although the larger majority of Montco students seem to be unaware of Rifftrax, all of the students surveyed seem to think it would be an interesting way of watching films that would otherwise only appeal to single sexes, and beyond that it adds a whole new element to films that they’ve already come to know and love.

Profile on John Stefanic

By: Jordan Ly

BLUE BELL, PA--When John Stefanic started college, he didn’t force himself into the entertainment industry and it would eventually get him to make commercially successful films in his future. John did things off instinct knowing that he was naturally good at different objectives, using his versatility, around the film industry and realized that it has helped him as his life went on. “If you do a job you love, it never feels like work.” He started his first year of college at Montgomery Community College, where he developed skills and built experience under John Gallagher’s program. John would take his classes in the second story of the old physical education building of Montco, where students today still take courses and defy odds. This would be one of the most important times of his life to spark interest in the industry to create his bright future. John would move on from Montgomery Community College after a year. He would graduate in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in television, film, and radio at Kutztown. “The skills I developed made me less intimidated at Kutztown because I already had accomplished what juniors have at Montco as a freshman.”

Before getting straight into movies, John was a teacher for the community college and Villanova University. He then was contacted and recommended by alumni of Kutztown for an infomercial as a production assistant. This would lead him to many connections and sources, like being a production assistant for commercials that would lead him movies. He worked on movies called “The Pompatus Love,” a romance comedy shot in New York. John would develop a relationship with people in the industry across the country. “If you’re in the loop, you’re in the loop, if you’re not, you‘re not. He would go on to others called“12 Monkeys,” which was a sci-fi and mystery shot in Philadelphia and a drama piece called “Up close and Personal” all as a key production assistant. It was not until a good part of John’s career, where he would get a different job, until the shooting of a movie called “Beloved” that made him location assistant. The experience he developed from these movies would bring him to a film called “Waiting,” his first as a producer. Following his success of “Waiting” John got attached to what would arguably be his most successful piece, a thriller that was bought by Showtime and nationally released called “Head Trauma.” Though he does not have favorite piece or genre, John’s biggest motivation to being involved in these movies is that it helps and entertains people. “I made “Waiting,” because I wanted to make a feature film, which was a comedy and then I made “Head Trauma” because after a comedy, I wanted to scare people.”

John explains why he chose the industry and what he liked about it. “I just gravitated to it, and I seemed to be good at it, it was one of the few things I was naturally good at. I like that it is not 9 to 5 every day, I don’t think I could do that.” John states that there were “a lot of times” where he felt he wasn’t getting where he wanted and wasn’t moving fast enough. Though there was no specific moment that he remembered to get him over the struggles, John says that patience was a huge key to helping him get through obstacles. “Sometimes patience and letting things take their course, is the way to go about it. It’s a matter of just letting time sort things out for me.” He has helped movie makers on various genres of film and only watches movies and television to help him gain certain skills for his job.

Though he never shot anything at Montgomery community college, he vows to return to teaching in the future after the film industry. John also credits the school and hopes to bring a strong influence to future students that want to purse the entertainment industry. “I would have to say the skills I developed at Montco, were the foundations that made me go on to do what I have done.”