Learn About Special Makeup Effects at the Blog Two Faced

Hey Writing for New Media Class after a great Thanksgiving dinner I have returned to the realm of blogging and this week I am reviewing a blog belonging to one of our own, Trevor who is most famously known in our Class for his comical tour of Habbo Hotel. If any of you in our Class has not checked it out Trevor's blog is entitled Two Faced and it discusses trends, techniques, advancements, and the history of the special effects makeup industry. However before we dive into reviewing this blog I figured it would be best to give those of you in our Class who might have not seen my earlier post a recap on the four parameters that I follow when formulating a review.

Layout: This refers to the look of the webpage when those of you in our New Media Class are viewing it on your computer screen such as if it is easy to read, if it is cluttered with advertisements or where the blogs information is posted on the web page.

Writing: This parameter explores how well the blog you are viewing as a member of this Class is written. For example, when looking at a blog I might ask myself are there any typos, is it presenting factual information, or does the writing come off as humorous or entertaining?

Content: Focuses on how well the blog stays on topic. Does it stick to the topic of television or does it tend to wander around in different types of media leaving you as a reader confused? Also this parameter looks to see if the blog sticks to a particular pattern with its posts to keep us bloggers coming back or if the author is completely random.

Media: Refers to how well a blog author uses pictures, hyperlinks, and video to support his writing and the point he is trying to get across to his audience (which includes those of you in our New Media Class) in each post.

Here are these review parameters applied to Trevor our fellow classmate's blog...

Layout
The first thing you'll notice when those of you in our class check out Two Faced is that Trevor does a great job of keeping his blog organized which comes in part to his use of the many templates provided by Blogger. Although with that being said it would be very easy for Trevor to make mistakes with the layout including placing pictures over text or using a font that is hard to read but instead he has thought things through by laying out the pictures and text in a way that compliments the background. It was also a smart decision for Trevor to make sure he chose a template that placed his blog posts in the center of the page because it will cause those of you in our New Media Class to be drawn right towards them.

The layout of Trevor's blog.

The only problem with Trevor's layout is that he chose a template that places the description of his blog at the very bottom of the page making it hard for those of you in our class to catch on to what the Two Faced blog is all about but we will get into that more in the content section.

The description of the Two Faced blog squished at the bottom of the page

Writing

When those of you in our New Media Class actually start reading Trevor's posts it is made clear that there are few misspellings or punctuation issues. Also most of the time Trevor's posts can be quite informative especially when he gets into the techniques he uses to apply special effect make-up. I think this comes from the fact that even though I have had experience with making film I do not know much about costume make-up which means that I am going to take the writing that Trevor puts in his post as very professional because reading about his topic is like entering a new realm and I'm sure that feeling is even stronger for those of you in our class who do not have majors connected to film. A blog post where Trevor discusses the process of applying make-up

At the same time there are other posts on this blog like the ones that focus on make-up in movies that don't seem to be as engaging from an informative aspect. Honestly it feels as if Trevor is just posting to fulfill a requirement for our class and he could improve his writing in these posts by having them contain his passion for his artistry like when he discusses his techniques for applying make-up.

A blog post focusing on applying make-up in movies

Content
While exploring Trevor's blog those of you in our Writing for New Media Class will find that most of the things found on Two Faced is all about letting you step in the shoes of a person who creates special effects make-up. While focusing on this content he makes his blog ripe for followers because special effects make-up is something that I think all of us in our New Media Class along with a big portion of the World Wide Web would like to have more information because we fans of an easily accessible media like TV and movies are always asking how some really impressive special effects scenes are pulled off. Some of these effects include how the bad guy at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark face melted or how medical operations are performed on TV shows like on Grey's Anatomy.

An example of special effects make-up used in Raiders of the Lost Ark

Based on this statement Trevor should take this opportunity to use his expertise to answer these questions for the members of our New Media Class and the rest of the internet but he is holding himself back because of two major issues. Those issues are the blog's title and it's description. The blog's title is an issue because the word Two Faced at least in my opinion makes it unclear that it is about special effects make-up. This comes based on the fact that those of you in our class who might have seen the title of Trevor's blog on this week's assignment sheet might think that it is about the character, Two Face featured in The Dark Knight or if you know Trevor you may think it is about the make-up effects to create the popular Batman villain.

Is Trevor's blog about this man? It sure seems that way.

However Trevor's blog encompasses much more than just make-up effects in The Dark Knight. Based on this perception, I think he could get more visitors to his blog by keeping the title Two Faced because it is highly creative but adding the subtitle a blog about special make-up effects to help the members of our class and the rest of his audience get a better grasp on his blog's content. Trevor can also resolve this problem of his blog's title being unclear by moving the description of his blog to the top of the web page for the purpose of helping everyone know the content featured on his blog.

Media
This parameter works hand in hand with the content featured on this page because it helps those of you in our New Media Class visualize what life is like as a special effects make-up designer as well as reading about it in text. Trevor does this by providing a series of pictures in each post that shows the process of applying make-up step by step. Although with that being said, Trevor can improve the media experience for those of us in our class that is visiting his blog by not featuring trailers in the posts that he makes about popular movies but instead featuring DVD behind the scenes featurettes focusing on make-up that can be easily found on YouTube.

An example of a DVD featurette that Trevor could post on his blog.

The Bottom Line

Overall Trevor's blog Two Faced is a great place for those of you in our New Media Class to visit if you have an interest on how movies and TV shows are made however he could make the fascinating experience of learning about special effects make-up even better by containing less of the posts used to just fill a requirement for our class and have more consistency on when he posts to the blog which seems to be getting better.