This is the cover of a song by Frank Ocean called “Biking”
Ocean uses the metaphor of biking to represent his journey through life’s different chapters and compares holding onto the handlebars of a bike similar to holding onto hope, finding balance by continuing to keep going and “biking on”
B64B88E8-9E6D-4943-A9EF-42BDA4E4550A (3)
We are a third of the way through this Digital Storytelling course and it’s time to reflect on the journey that we only just began a little over a month ago. The goals that I set for myself going into this class seemed fairly reasonable and optimistic: develop a new personal creative passion and learn a few new skillsets that will make me a higher valued asset in a future career. Seemed simple enough, although maybe too broad.
Discipline is something that I am always looking to improve. Although I have been able to apply discipline in other areas of my life such as exercising, waking up early, limiting social media, doing a daily sudoku, and reading more, creativity is something that I feel needs more discipline and care in order to become good at. A new specific goal I’d like to set for myself in this class is starting weekly assignments earlier than the day it’s due. Sometimes I feel like I work better creatively when I put pressure on myself, sometimes that means I start later. I’m not sure where I developed this mindset, but I’d like to reprogram that and focus more on taking time to make a little progress on assignments every day rather than feeling rushed to complete something in one sitting. Rather than reviewing the weekly assignment and waiting the whole week for inspiration to strike, I will begin working on assignments a little bit every day.
I’ve enjoyed the creative projects we have worked on so far. My favorite activities so far were when we were assigned with creating a Sound Effect Story and doing a PhotoBlitzer! My favorite lesson was reading articles and watching videos about the art of editing. I feel as though I haven’t been able to find a way to really connect with my assignments so far which is why I feel as if they could all have been done better instead of being done a rushed sort of way. I think I will enjoy the output of my work more as I tune my creative discipline going into the next weekly units.
This is my scene analysis after the large-scale massacre in Black Mirror’s “Hated in the Nation” epsisode.
I’ve always loved Black Mirror for it’s original thought-provoking episodes and intense story-telling nature focused on exaggerating modern day issues and technological advancements. It was cool to be able to analyze scenes from a show I remember watching years before this assignment and peice together specific reasons for why I love the story telling of these episodes so much.
I enjoy watching youtube videos of people breaking down scenes from movies and shows on my own so it was cool to try and replicate a category of content in a way that I am already used to seeing done regularly. Although I started to record a voiceover unpacking everything that was going on in each scene, I realized that I wasn’t as fluent in analyzing a show right off the dome and that it would be better for me to try writing a little script with key points in it. After finishing this assignemnt with only a handful of scenes covered and an audio of 2 minutes, I wished that I could have written something up about this show instead to unpack more and give the show the credit it deserves.
I ended up using an editing app on my iPhone to piece my analysis together after struggling with Microsoft’s editing platform on my laptop. YouTube instantly blocked my video for copyright so I posted to Vimeo instead.
This assignment gave me another reason to rewatch the entire Black Mirror series, especially after going through some personal life expereinces over the years that have gave me new perspectieves on heavy topics like this show touches on. I look forward to reading deeper into the episodes as I watch them back and pay closer attention to the editing and cinematography of each one.
This radio bumper activity was really exciting to do. Everyone else’s bumper I checked out seemed neat and simple but I wanted to create a more catchy, descriptive bumper. I found a static effect for the intro/outro and a groovy synth beat to keep the energy up. It was fun pretending to be a radio show host for a second.
https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/song/6330974327144448
This is a synthwave style beat I made as one of my audio assignments for this week. After making a simple beat like this, and it somehow taking me close to an hour, I now have a tremendous amount of respect for producers who are able to make beats that aren’t ear-piercingly awful. This activity brought me back to the days of being an innocent kid and messing around with the garage band app on my ipad mini for hours at a time. Although creating music can be one of the most daunting and frustrating things to attempt, especially as a beginner with a lack of music theory or instrument knowledge, it can truly be such a rewarding and uplifitng creative outlet hitting random keys together or humming a new tune until you leave with something just right. It’s the jittery feeling you sometimes get during the process while trying to get that next puzzle piece to fit just right that makes it all worth attempting it in the first place.
For this assignement, I wanted to create a sound effect story that really encapsulated a thriller movie scene that was high-intensity and packed with adrenaline. The goal was to make the audience feel like they could visualize the environement and really care about what might happen next to the character within the story.
I started the opening scene with sound effects of footsteps walking through a forest and added in forest noises like birds calling to each other. I then added in a sort of shuffling and a low growl from a large creature. Immediately after the growl you hear the breathing pick up to let the audience know that the character might have just seen the creature and now their fear level is rising. Then there’s a deafening roar from the creature which is followed by heavy footsteps and another man screaming. I added in beating drums to raise the level of intensity and to mark the beginning of the chase. You then hear the explorer’s footsteps running through the forest for a few seconds along with quick, heavy breathing. The running stops and you hear a river flowing nearby. The explorer takes his chances and jumps into the river to avoid being the creature’s next victim. You hear a splash followed by a gasping for air and a distant roar from the creature that the explorer just so narrowly escaped.
To be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Audacity platform. The interface felt outdated and less newbie-friendly compared to other editing apps I’ve used in the past. Although the platform felt uncomforatable to use at first, it was exciting to build a story from scratch strictly using free sound effects off of a site like freesound. I feel like a properly executed sound design can give a whole new life to a creative project and give it that professional touch when executed properly. I’m excited to experiment more with sound-design.
The 2/1 daily create asked us to photoshop arms onto this chicken. Chicken is a staple source of a high-protein diet within the body building community so I though that it would be ironic to give this chicken some biceps and a pair of dumbells. Let’s just hope that he stops skipping leg day. #forthezyzz
The 2/3 daily create asked us to pick a body part and use the word to draw it out. I drew a tongue which I am quite proud of considering there is no undo/erase button. Took a few tries but I enjoyed the concept of it. Seems like something that would be in some modern art exhibit. #rollingstones
The 2/5 daily create was nostalgic for me. Drawing this t-rex gave me flashbacks to elementary school when I would rent drawing tutorial books from the library. I remember finding a chapter on drawing dinosaurs and would constantly draw the t-rex. I am not a good drawer or artist by any means but it was one of my first small creative passions as a kid. I stopped drawing at some point while growing up due to feeling self-conscious about my artistic abilities compared to others but have recently been feeling nudged to get back into it. Brb, ordering a sketch kit off amazon.
(Iron Man 3) Favorite Movie Quote
This photoblitz was done in the comfort of my girlfriend’s college townhouse which had plenty of eye-catching decor and props set up and ready to be captured at my disposal.
The first prompt was easy. When tasked with capturing something that represented the moon, my eyes darted towards the disco ball hanging up in the corner of the living room. Similar to the moon, this disco ball does not generate its own light but reflects it from other light sources. They’re both associated with the nighttime and producing a dreamy atmospheric glow with their spherical shapes, transforming darkness into something more *dazzling*.
For the crowd picture, I gathered all the little figurines I saw scattered around the house and put them all together on the tv stand. Ft Snoop
For the pattern prompt, I looked around my girlfriend’s bedroom for an eye-catching pattern and picked up her strawberry-printed pillow.
My pay it forward moment was giving my girlfriend a banana around lunchtime so that she would peel less hangry. (Banana pun generated via ChatGPT)
I put my phone in a microwave.
There were some white roses dying in a Brita filter in front of me on the kitchen counter. An accurate representation of death.
A small goat stood atop the coffee maker. I .5x’d it up close and it reminded me something from a horror movie like The Witch.
I decided to make my third assignment something more relaxing to help destress from this week. I started off this coloring page by tapping the blocks in sort of a rush but finished on a much calmer note. I picked to color in a picture of a dog because dogs always have always helped lift my mood whenever I’m having an off day or simply just need to distract my mind with something else with something that’s playful and goofy.
The way that this app is coloring book app is designed makes me think that it is completely generated by AI. I’m curious about what other AI generated apps in the realm of creativity and mindfulness there are or can be invented to help relax people in a healthy way.