http://www.theclackamasprint.com
Wednesday, Febuary 5,2014
Catch a laugh on page 4
Clackamas Community College, Oregon City, OR
Opinion:
pro-gay rapper’s
performance
at Grammys
sparks reaction
$
www.TheClackamasPrint.com
An independent, student-run newspaper since 1966
Clackamis pioneers motion
classes
■
¡ Erin Carey
Arts & Culture Editor
Chris Morrow
Copy Editor
U p o n viewing hip hop
artist Macklemore’s live
performance of the track
“Same Love” last month on
the Grammys, the American
Family Association’s Bryan
Fischer took to Twitter to
voice his opposition and
concern, tweeting “Heads
up: Grammy telecast to fea
ture sodomy-based wedding
ceremonies.”
Fox News’ Todd Staines,
star of programs such as Fox
and Friends and Hannity,
tweeted his own condem
nation of the performance,
“I’ve never seen such a dis
play of intolerance, bigotry
and hatred.” If Mr. Starnes
really wants to see a display
of intolerance and hatred,
I invite him to Google
“ 100 Tweets From Real
Homophobes Who Would
Murder Their Gay Child.”
During the performance,
fellow rapper Queen Latifah
called.on^3,cguplps o f v a r y ^
in g se x u a l p referen ce and
ethnic make-up to exchange
rings as she used the power
invested in her “by the state
of California” to officiate
their marriages. One of the
lyrics from the track states,
“If I was gay, I would think
that hip hop hates me / Have
you read the YouTube com
ments lately? / ‘Man, that’s
gay’ gets dropped on the
daily.” Quite ironically, the
comment sections for the
various uploads of the per
formance minor the lyrics.
Borrowing the song’s
title and backing instru
mental, African-American
Christian rap artist Bizzle
penned a lyrical rebuttal
containing such gems of
wisdom as, “They hung us
like tree ornaments, where
were you at? / They bum us
for entertainment, you go
through that?”
Given the opportuni
ty to do so, I ’d love to
suggest some reading and
viewing material to Mr.
Bizzle, ‘ particularly the
article “Persecution of
Homosexuals in the Third
Reich” on the website for
the United States Holocaust
Museum, the book “The Men
with the Pink Triangle: The
True Life-and-Death Story
of Homosexuals in the Nazi
Death Camps,” authored by
Josef Kohout (pen name,
Heinz Heger) a survivor
of Sachsenhausen concen
tration camp, the Internet
news article “Gay Man
Beaten, Burned to Death by
Mob in Africa” located at
theedgeboston.com and eas
ily found via Google search
(warning, video and still
images contain extremely
graphic content), as well as
a series of videos under the
title “African Blacks Burn
Gaysr” which can be found
on YouTube, same as the
video for Mr. Bizzle’s song.
Please see OPINION, Page 4
JVIovie fans of “Lord of
the Rings” and “Avatar” would
have a hard time finding any
{ sort of common ground in the
two. They do haye something
r in common, however: motion
goapture technology.
I Both movies use this steadi-
I ly {climbing movie-making
|t o o | You see it in “Lord of
■ the . Rings” in the character
‘Gollum,’ and even more so in
i a w «.”
jSSrrackamas
Community
now offers an incred-
J S ls r chance to learn the ins
j|8nd( outs of 'motion capture
technology, a process that for
a long time people associated
with only the making of video
games.
capture, or
shortened to “mo cap” tech
nology is more than just what
makes the characters in a video
game or movie come to life.
Mo cap is used for not only
< yjdeo. games and movies, but
spans
b e in g
in to
u sed
m e d ic a l
to
p ra c tic e ,
u n d e r sta n d
h o w
jo in ts m oye and can be usedTto
capture any tremors in a patient
and help with treatment. Mo
cap is also handy in defense
technology research, being
^^CtlXonperate a machine from
•RlWbrleeafion to spare human
lives..
Damon Redmond is CCC’s
current instructor on every-
thing motion capture. CCC
is working with compa
nies like Oregon City’s own
SuperGenius, a local game
developer, and using technol
ogy from Phase Space Motion
Capture. The system that CCC
is using is a first for the state
DOW N
of Oregon. It’s also an incred
ible step for those interested-
in learning about the motion
capture process hands on.
Motion capture at CCC is
a 16-camera process, circling
around the subject who has red
LED lights at every joint for
the cameras to record. These
LED lights create a sort of
skeleton on the screen, record
ing the movements and giving
the creator a way to animate
anything they’d like. A simple
student can be transformed into
a knight onto a screen, battling
his Own imaginary dragon.
Redmond is incredibly excit
ed to be at CCC and offering
his skills in teaching. “Andy
[Mingo] has such a strong digi
tal media department... I came
in and I was like, ‘Holy crap,
this is amazing.’ You guys real
ly have it together,” Redmond
said. “It’s awesome.”
The edges need a little bit
of cleaning up, but Redmond is
enthusiastic about the future of
the class.
The mind behind the idea
is CCC’s own Andy Mingo,
art instructor and the head of
CCC’s Digital Multimedia and
C o m m u n ic a tio n s
p rogram .
H e
approached R edm ond to b rin g
th e tech n o lo g y h ere to CCC,
and the response was phenom
enal. “At the DMC program,
we are pioneers in video p ro
duction and animation,” Mingo
said. “There’s no other school
in Oregon or the Northwest
that has motion capture tech
nology. We’re not the type of
program to sit back and wait to
see what happens.”
Please see MO CAP, Page 5