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 The interface felt outdated and less newbie-friendly compared to other editing apps I’ve used in the past.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

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.

This GIF is from a scene in Blade Runner where Officer K’s AI girlfriend Joi overlaps her image onto a real woman in order to simulate a physically sensual moment between the two. This scene highlights Officer K’s deep desire for love and connection through other robots due to his hidden nature of being a robot himself with a limited capacity to connect with other humans. This GIF is a literal representation of blurred lines between reality and fantasy.

This scene in Blade Runner also speaks to the concept of artificial love and the potential future of romantic relationships in a world where AI becomes so advanced that it is able to simulate human-like interactions and develop emotional connections with users who start to fall out of reality and crave something new.  This movie falls under the realm of “Cyberpunk” where the plot explores elements of futuristic technology, societal decay, crime, and power-hungry corporations.