Hello
I'm Lauren Rae Orsini, a graduate student, journalist, infographic designer, anime convention reporter, and documentarian. Welcome.
Fellow fans, I need your help!
8 March 2010 | 4 Comments
It’s only natural that my love of infographics has led to an intense affection for data. About a week ago, I decided I wanted to make some infographics about the rise of fandom documentaries, how diverse they are, and how they’re getting so popular that even Joss Whedon is getting on the fandom-doc train.
The only problem is, no such data exists! Even IMDB can’t help me find a complete list of fandom documentaries (at least, without me having to sort through 20,000 documentaries on every subject. Really.)
So I’m tossing this question out to you, internet users and fellow fans. I’ve made a list of the 30 documentaries I could find so far. If you see something missing, let me know in the comments or by email. I know you’ll find something I’m missing. Thanks in advance!
In defense of pajamas
8 March 2010 | 2 Comments
“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.”
It’s the oldest cliche in the book. Offices have dress codes for a reason. Basic psychology states that “dressing for success” is a real phenomenon; if you dress like a winner, others will see you as one- and you’ll feel like one- too.
So why then do I work best when I’m wearing my pajamas?
Photo by Helen Taylor / CC BY-NC 2.0
I’ve known this about myself for a long time. It started in high school when I would get home late from track practice, eat dinner, put on my pajamas, and start my homework. While I never resorted to wearing pajamas to class in college, I would always get them out if I had to study for a test or write a big essay. At my internship at the Free Lance-Star last spring, my supervisor understood that when I said I was going to my apartment to work, it meant I had an assignment in requirement of some pajamas. Since then, I’ve been lucky to have a few jobs that allow me to work from home, sitting in bed with my laptop, crunching out work in P.J.s.
I know this is best for me. The hard part is convincing other people that.
Now that the Internet makes it possible for me to work without going anywhere, wearing pajamas shouldn’t be a problem, right? Wrong, say people here, and here for starters. And rather than being a description of what I am doing right now, “pajama blogging” has become a synonym for lazy, casual, citizen writing.
I’ve heard about how working in bed can cause sleep problems because you begin to associate a place of sleep as a place to work. However, I’ve never had insomnia. I’ve heard that getting dressed in the morning puts you in the right mindset. But for me, other morning rituals like getting breakfast or a shower take that place. It’s not a method that’s for everyone, certainly, but I’ve never had problems because of it.
In my opinion, work is about what you do, not where you do it. As my astute professor recently told me, “work is an occupation, not a location.” I’d certainly never wear pajamas out on a reporting assignment or to a meeting, but when it comes to writing at home, who cares what I’m wearing?
Link roundup – 03.05.2010
5 March 2010 | 1 Comment
I love link round-ups on other blogs, so today I thought I’d share my own. Here’s a list of things I’ve found in my areas of interest, plus all the work I’ve published online this week. It’s small, but if you guys like it, I’ll make it a monthly or weekly thing.
Journalism
The PEW Internet & American Life Project’s most recent study showed that most Americans get their news online.
I could’ve guessed that web design affected traffic, but not to the extent that the Las Vegas Sun discovered. Read about how changing their site’s appearance multiple times a day increased hits.
10 Popular Firefox Addons for Web Developers. Via Mashable. I use almost half of these when I build sites.
Fandom
Found this editorial on Heavy Rain after beating the game. I loved the game, but it was interesting to see why people might dislike it.
Katsucon reviews are finally sprouting up all over the web. Read some here, here, and here.
A very interesting look from the other side at the culture clash that occurred at Katsucon 2010.
Gundam slippers! Awesome.
My contributions
At the Katsucon Maid Cafe, a forum of self expression is the first part of my series on anime and transformation. Stay tuned for more.
For a degenerative disease, optimism is the best medicine is my profile on a fantastic D.C. teenager named Pablo.
If you haven’t checked out the Newseum’s Future of News blog, I recommend doing so! My post about technology and journalism just went up.
March 2010 event guide for D.C. anime fans
4 March 2010 | 3 Comments
As a journalist, I spend a lot of time looking things up on the web to find new events to cover for stories. As a result, I think I’m more informed than most people about what’s going on in D.C. on any given day. So as of today, I’ve decided- why not share my talent with anime fans all over the city?
So here is my first monthly going-out guide for anime fans, geeks, and Japanophiles in the D.C. area. Enjoy!
March 4-8 : Art League Gallery Ikebana Show. More info.
Come view a modern take on Ikebana, the ancient Japanese art of flower arranging. The Art League Gallery hosts the work of students at the Sogetsu School’s D.C. branch. Watch a flower arranging demo on March 6. Or wait until March 7 for their traditional Japanese tea ceremony.
March 7, 11-12 : Textile Museum’s Japanese Fashion Exhibit. More info.
During their Japanese fashion exhibit, the Textile Museum will be hosting several different activities. On the 7th will be a winter matsuri for families complete with origami folding and food sampling. On the 11th, there will be a lecture by Akiko Fukai, the director of the Kyoto Costume Institute, and on the 12th will be a sake tasting.
March 10 : Miyori in the Sacred Forest. More info.
The Japanese Embassy hosts great anime every month, and March is no exception. This month’s feature is about a girl who reluctantly moves with her family from Tokyo to the countryside, but learns to love her new home.
March 12 : Jonathan Coulton Concert. More Info.
Even if you haven’t heard of Coulton, if you’re a gamer you’ve probably heard his music. Coulton wrote Portal’s “Still Alive” anthem. His other music is just as catchy, clever, and nerdy, making his concert a don’t-miss music event.
March 21 : Lolita Picnic. More info.
Imagine the D.C. Mall full of people dressed in lolita, aristocrat, and other Japanese street fashion styles! That’s exactly what’s going to happen at this picnic. It’s free, but since it’s a potluck, it’s advised that you bring food to share.
March 27-31 : Cherry Blossom Festival. More info.
The D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival starts this month and goes halfway through April. It’s my favorite time of year to be in D.C. You can attend the official opening ceremony on the 27th. I’ll post this again in April so you don’t miss things like the Cherry Blossom Anime Marathon.
I suspect next month’s guide will be much larger, since by then the weather will be warming up. This is by no means complete, so if you can suggest additions to the list, please do so in the comments!
Nina, Sita, and the Copyleft movement
3 March 2010 | 2 Comments
I’ve been working on redesigning this blog lately. Now that I talk mainly about anime, games, and fandom, I’m considering a design that reflects my status as an otaku journalist. One problem I’ve run into is that I really would like to use an 8-bit Space Invader icon on my logo, but I’m not sure if it’s a fair use image.
This isn’t an unusual question. In America, we’re constantly concerned about copyright and fair use; whether or not we’re stealing somebody’s work. Whether it’s a picture, a song, a book, or a movie, somebody owns the rights to it. If it isn’t the creator him or herself, then it might be a major corporation. And ownership is notoriously hard to determine. But if these items are parts of our overall culture, why do we as a country own and control their use?
This is a question animator Nina Paley ran into while she was working on her 2008 film, Sita Sings the Blues. If the inspirations for her film– Annette Hanshaw’s 1920’s jazz vocals; and the Ramayana, the ancient sanskrit epic– were owned by other people, how could she make her movie legal for people to watch? As a result of not being able to obtain a copyright, Sita became the first full-length “copyleft” film, licensed entirely under Creative Commons.
A still from Paley’s film, Sita Sings the Blues.
Last week I attended a lecture by Nina Paley that was put on by the Women’s Coalition at the American University School of Communication. I’ve been fascinated by Nina’s plight and gutsy solution since Boing Boing began covering it in 2006.
Paley began her talk with a definition of culture: “It comes from somewhere, it’s going somewhere, and it’s just passing through.” As a fan of Japanese culture, you can see why this stuck with me. Afterward, she discussed memes. Now you can bet your lolcats that I thought I knew what a meme was, but I hadn’t hear her definition: “a unit of culture. Just like genes exist by copying, the same is true with memes.” It didn’t take her much time to convince me that the supposed ownership of cultural units is bad for our society.
While cultural units are put under copyright and restricted use in order to protect the creators, Paley said that this doesn’t usually work out. For example, corporations end up owning the rights to artists’ work for decades after they are gone. Paley pointed out how artificial this ownership is- you can see on the Sita site that multiple corporations own percentages of the same Annette Hanshaw song, adding up to 103% instead of 100%!
Paley’s solution? Creative Commons. Anyone can download her movie, and everyone owns it. People can use her work as inspiration or build off of it. She thinks this is great. Rather than getting offended that other artists would make greeting cards based off her work, she is happy to have inspired people the way the Ramayana and Annette Hanshaw inspired her. Through a CC license, the memes can keep spreading.
Today, Paley works at Question Copyright as the artist in residence. She has almost paid off all her legal fees plus the expense of her film. Her theory that people are willing to pay for quality even when it’s out there for free worked out.
Readers, do you think copyright is an outdated restriction on culture, or an important way to keep artists’ work safe?
Katsucon 16 Maid Cafe videos are up
1 March 2010 | 4 Comments
Maybe you guessed this after I missed my Wednesday and then even my Friday post updates, but I’ve been working extra hard on getting something workable out of my Katsucon 16 footage. Many thanks to maids Sarah Blandy, Hannah Korangkool, and Daniel Redmond; cameraman Alex Thompson; and everyone at the American University New Media Center who helped me salvage my film.
Well, as I suspected, there wasn’t enough for a full documentary, but I did get three videos out of it (so far, that is. I plan to do a fourth one focusing on cafe guests.) I ended up breaking a lot of my film rules; I usually refrain from doing jump cuts or from having my off-camera voice in the video. But in these cases, it couldn’t be helped. I don’t want this to seem like an apology for my videos because I really am proud of them, but more of a disclaimer in case you’re wondering why my editing style changed.
So, without further ado, here are the videos!
A special announcement
22 February 2010 | 2 Comments
I am proud to announce that I have accepted the position of Official Documentarian for Inochicon 2010!
Inochicon is an anime and gaming convention in downtown Philadelphia. The first ever Inochicon will take place this August. Earlier in the month, the organizers invited me to attend as a documentarian, blogger, and speaker, and I have recently agreed. I thought my readers should be the first to know!
What exactly will I be doing? You’ll have to come to know for sure, but I’ll be doing my usual thing, running around the convention with a video camera and a laptop, interviewing guests, staff, and speakers. I’ll also be presenting my own panel titled, “Filming Anime Conventions for Beginners,” for people who want to learn how to do this, too.
It’s an honor to be given the opportunity to do what I love and I thank you, Inochicon! I’ll be posting updates about the convention as I hear them, but you can also check their twitter and Facebook. Hope to see some of you there!
Movie Night: Otaku Unite!
19 February 2010 | 8 Comments
Here’s something you wouldn’t expect from a documentary with an exclamation point at the end of the title: a dull movie.
Last night I watched Otaku Unite! (Eric Bresler, 2004), a movie that works great on paper. With a well researched premise encompassing dozens of conventions, archived footage of early anime events and shows, interviews with prominent anime scholars, the director of Robotech, and voice actors for shows spanning from Akira to Speed Racer, how could it possibly go wrong? Unfortunately, this movie seems to sap away the the lively personalities and colorful characters that populate anime fandom and leave us with a lecture.
As smart as this guy was, he didn’t register as a personality. This film needed more characters.
It isn’t all bad. By making the rise of anime in America sound like a history lesson, it rejects the idea that otaku are somehow unusual and normalizes the fandom as just another cultural movement. But how could a documentary with everything it needs to succeed end up boring?
The first thing that appears in the film is a parody of a rating screen: “Rated O for otaku of all ages.” Based on this, I wrongly assumed that the documentary was designed for a niche audience of self-identified anime fans. However, much of the movie went into defining the nuances of anime is for the benefit of outsiders.
It’s interesting to see how Otaku Unite! defines “otaku.” (Remember how Manga Mad did it?)
Much of the movie is static interviews with the same experts. While they have a lot of great information about how anime in America came to be, we never get to know them or care about them at all (one sad attempt was to show how the Akira voice actor deeply.. appreciated Hooters restaurants). There is no plot to the movie, no change, no story being told. (There wasn’t even much uniting- it seemed that the title should have been: Otaku Already United!) I learned a lot about the history of otaku fandom that I didn’t know, but at the end I still felt like I wasted seventy-five minutes.
Correction by Tom S. – Katsucon 2004 made a cameo.
I’ve heard incredible things about this movie and I’m sure a lot of you are going to disagree with my review (most notably Lawrence Eng, whose name is on the credit roll!) I WISH I liked this movie more, because it was so darn well researched. If only well done equaled not boring.
Lauren’s Rating (out of five stars)
Cinematography: ★★★
Content: ★★
You can watch Otaku Unite! on Netflix like I did, or watch right now at The Anime Network.
Always have a Plan B
17 February 2010 | 3 Comments
The bad news: I will not be producing a maid cafe documentary.
The good news: I will still be writing a maid cafe story.
The camera I unwittingly used. Photo from archivist David Mattinson.
What happened: Sometimes you can do everything right, but still lose your footage. I’ve spent the last couple days trying to capture my video to no avail. When I checked the original tapes, they were corrupted for reasons nobody at my school’s camera rental or media center can determine. Despite the photo, I’m not even sure it’s an issue with the camera, which has since worked fine. Also, even the worst camera is designed to warn you when it is ruining your tapes, and we never received an error message.
But here’s the fact: the footage is too buggy, noisy, and pixelated to use. It’s the worst case scenario for any filmmaker. But I have an ace up my sleeve- I am also a traditional journalist.
So the new plan is for a print story, using all my powers of description and the choicest quotes from my interviews. (Even though the sound is unusable, it is still comprehensible enough for me to find quotes.) I will use the least choppy of my video stills to illustrate the story, and take the 15 minutes of usable footage I have to put together an audio or video clip to fit.
The lesson here is that there’s always a way to get the story, even when things go wrong. As much as modern journalism relies on technology, when it comes down to it, people make the stories, not the camera.
Thanks Jezebel!
15 February 2010 | 1 Comment
My goodness, when Latoya Peterson came to write an article about the maid cafe for Jezebel, I didn’t realize she would link me in it: welcome, new readers!
The article has given me some great ideas about how to shape my maid cafe documentary. I originally wanted to write just about the junction between cultures, or just transformation through costume, or just sexuality and feminism (or the lack of). But Latoya’s article proves that all of these things are at work.
In case anyone is wondering- I do like my portrayal in the piece. In the video, you can see all the emotions I was feeling about the maid cafe. I walked into the event thinking that the Washington Post article was completely wrong and I would prove that, but by Saturday night I was realizing that the cafe was more of a gray area than I ever imagined. Now that I realize it’s not just black and white, I can create a more accurate documentary- I no longer feel I have a score to settle.
I stand by everything I said in the piece and my one regret is that Latoya didn’t mention that I also spoke about the “Weird Japan” article, which I have also blogged about. I hope the article gives everyone insight about the how and why of the maid cafe. And Dan Zak, if you’re reading, I’d love to chat!