I originally began by brainstorming ideas surrounding the tech noir theme, I drew inspiration from media in the style that already exist. I also knew for a fact that I wanted my story to have a world ending event and evil robots as this style loves evil robots.
2. I then completed the script, this took a couple attempts to prefect and had to make multiple changes during the process so that my edits and the content being spoken matched. I wanted my script to have a clear beginning, middle and end like all good stories but I still needed to make it within the boundaries of my video editing skills. I wrote my script on pen and paper this is the only portion of the work that wasn’t done on my desktop
3. I then created a list of sound effects and visuals that I thought would go well with my final, not everything on the list made it but most of it was used and the list was actually very helpful. I then used an A.i generator to make the photos I thought would fit my project.I used 3 total and they all did fine: Gemini, magic studio, and craiyon
4. The final step in the process was to edit the audio and video together and make them line up. I started with the audio making sure everything was where it was supposed to be and it sounded like an actual conversation. I used ttsmaker for all the voices during the story and Bandlab to mix the audio. The visual and final edits were doing using Canva.com
This week was busy! My group fell a little behind schedule, which at the beginning of the week felt fine, but towards the end, I could feel myself playing catch up.
Monday, we were supposed to film our confessionals and the fight scene but Masie had a last minute emergency, so she couldn’t come to film anymore. The rest of us still met up to record our confessionals, and we decided we would meet again on Wednesday to film the fight scene. Stuff happens, so everyone was very understanding, but this set us behind two days. We were done filming the fight scene by 4:00 on Wednesday, and we split up who edited what scene. This meant we had until Friday morning to edit the individual scenes so Martina could put together all the scenes in the afternoon. Tuesday to Wednesday night I spent editing the SupremeSkillShare commercial, which ended up taking longer than I thought, but I finished it and was glad to have it off my plate. Thursday I spent editing the fight scene and the phone call scene. The phone scene took me a while because something that I struggle with in this class is finding the right volume for speaking and music. I want the speaker’s voice to stand out but I don’t want the music to sound too distant. The fight scene also took me a while, but it is a longer, more complex scene, so that made sense to me. Martina worked on compiling the clips today and we’ve been sending a draft of the project back and forth to make sure there are no errors.
This week has been busy and stressful, but I have had so much fun working on this project. My group members are creative and hard working, which made the process so easy. Meeting up with them was also really fun, and I am happy to say I made some great friends along the way. I love how this project came out! You can watch the video and read more about it here.
For the final project, I decided to work in a group with Kristen, Macie, Martina, and Olivia. and to showcase the knowledge we’re taking away from this class, we decided to make a complex video incorporating audio production and design. Our project centers around our course characters in a reality tv show. The Real Housewives of Cyber Manhattan shows 5 past and present wives of rich businessmen in a technoir world. The 5 women are friends but for every good moment they have, there’s a big fight to go along with it. Our project’s episode centers around Veronica Malone. Her husband’s stock crashed and they’re losing their money. She confides this secret into her friends but the story gets leaked. Who leaked it is what everyone is trying to figure out.
I had more fun with this project than I’ve had with any other project in college. I am so proud of my group’s work and how the project turned out. We all worked together to brainstorm the idea and script, but separately edited the clips. The clips I edited were the fight scene, the phone call scene, and the SupremeSkillShare commercial. The SupremeSkillShare helps build the world around the real housewives. We didn’t have the money or the time to make our live action scenes look like they take place in a technoir world, so we relied on lines in the script and outside commercials. SupremeSkillShare is the result of advancement and laziness. If everyone can gain any skill, hobbies and talents become meaningless which mirrors technoir’s advanced technology coupled with a decaying future. I mixed audio from a voiceover and music to engage listeners and make the commercial sound more lively. I also added a lot of flashy animations to keep viewers interested in the commercial. The phone scene was a challenge because the dialogue isn’t as interesting and it looked weird to make cuts. I tried to make the scene as visually interesting as possible by adding bright colors and cyber designs. Another problem I ran into was that the audio from the two clips would overlap because we didn’t record them together. As a solution, I had to freeze frame certain moment of the scene for the audio to align. My favorite clip to edit was the fight scene. It was a long process of editing, adding sound effects, and visuals, but I am very proud of the scene and I learned a lot. I wanted to replicate the classic reality tv fights from Vanderpump Rules and Dance Moms, so one thing I was really focused on were the sound effects. The music was hard to find but I eventually landed on a song called ‘This is Not IDM’ because it has a dramatic tone but the song has tech themes. I also used sound effects such as an orchestral stab and a bowed cymbal to emphasize tension and dramatic moments in the scene. One thing that I learned how to do for the scene was keyframe animation. I wanted to add a symbol over Olivia’s mouth to bleep out her cursing but in order to get the image to stay on her face. Adding keyframes to her mouth keeps the symbol following her mouth. Keyframes are always something that intimidated me, but they ended up being really easy. All in all, I feel like I did a good job of incorporating what I learned from this class into the project, and I am very proud of the work I did.
My goals for this course were picking up new skills, enhancing the skills I already had, and bettering myself as a CDS student. I am very proud of myself because I believe that I have achieved all those goals. The Daily Creates taught me that art does not have to be perfect in every aspect. This lesson helped me in the final project with smaller details. For example, the old me would have added a lot of detail to the sign that covered Veronica’s mouth for the bleep, but those are time-consuming, unimportant details that would waste time. I also learned how to tell stories through audio, when before I only knew how to convey them visually. I have bettered myself in so many ways through practice. When I started this class, I knew how to use Adobe Premiere Pro but I basically only knew how to put clips together. I now know how to use keyframes, how to add transitions, to flip a video, and so much more; I even piece together the videos better than I used to. Lastly, I have definetly bettered myself as a CDS student. Taking Intro to Digital Studies taught me the basics of the major, but all my projects were surface level. For this project, I poured so much of my time and energy into it until I was thrilled with it. I think that my newfound love for digital storytelling will take me far in this major and I am excited to see how I will continue to better myself for my second half of college.
Here is our final project, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
The video is a little blurry due to technical difficulties. This is a place holder until the connection issues get sorted out.
I have kept grinding on my work throughout the week, so there was nothing really different going on. I made another blog post talking about our progress on the project, which is going very smoothly. We are splitting up the work pretty evenly and we have great communication. We are able to have a back-up plan and solve things when it goes wrong. It was another great start to the week.
Final Project
(For now the video is blurry but we are working on it!)
For the final project, I decided to go back into my group from the last project, Coni, Martina, Macie, and Kristen. We worked really well together last time, so we wanted to work together again. We decided to do a short film, as we felt it would challenge a lot of us to work on our video editing, but also be a bit more manageable in terms of time.
We then decided what we wanted the vibe or plot of it to be. We all found out that we watch (or have watched) reality tv shows before, so we decided to draw inspiration from classic reality tv such as “The Real Housewives” or “Jersey Shore”. We acted as our course characters, except a bit more dramatized in order to heighten the drama for the show. We set it in the future to fit the themes of the course, cyberpunk/tech-noir. We made sure any topics we discussed (or fought) over in the short film were relevant to the theme, such as robots or big corporations.
The filming was also pretty fun. We are not all actors, but we were able to become comfortable in front of the camera quick. We all took a section that we filmed and edited it ourselves, and then sent it to one person (again, shout out Martina), to put it all together.
This has honestly been one of the best groups I have worked with as a student here at UMW. We communicated well, and were all able to share our ideas confidently. I couldn’t have asked for a better group, so shout out to Coni, Martina, Macie, and Kristen (or Krissy, Lady Bird, Sapphira, and Krysta).
I feel I have learned a lot from this project. Not only just through working with a group, but the processes we went through. I have definitely gotten better at video editing, it might still be a bit amateur, I am getting closer to becoming more advanced. I still have a lot to learn though, but this project helped a lot.
Overall/Class Reflection
Overall, I feel that this class has really helped me become more advanced in many different aspects. Through audio, visual, graphic, or even just through creating this blog and posting everyday, it has taught many new things about my online presence.
With the daily creates, I was able to express creativity and think outside of the box in order to follow the prompt, but also put a spin on it. If I were to pick one of my favorite daily creates of the semester, it would definitely have to be putting a monument somewhere it doesn’t belong or the word art one.
One of my favorite visual projects would have to be my Hated in the Nation video essay. We all had to pick a scene from this episode of Black Mirror, and analyze it through a cinematic lense, as well as through the themes of cyberpunk/tech-noir. It didn’t take a lot of editing, but it was still fun as I love to watch video essays on YouTube, so I loved making my own.
My all-time favorite project would have to be my Bills graphic. I wanted to take one of my favorite sports teams and honor it through a graphic. It was fun to incorporate the teams colors, as well as some iconic players who made a difference this past season. It was challenging to figure out ratios, colors, images, positioning, all these different factors, but I think it worked out great in the end.
Looking back on my goals for this class, I said I “wanted to expand my digital presence, as well as get more practice using softwares to create videos, podcasts, and graphics”. I believe that I did exactly that. I am very proud with how the blog turned out, and am also grateful for the people I was able to work with on these different projects. I feel that I learned a lot from them. I learned to use many different softwares, like ClipChamp or Premier Pro, SoundTrap or Audacity, and even Dr. Oblivion, in order to achieve my goals. I think I will truly miss this class, and can’t wait to use everything I have learned in the future.
This week was kind of hectic with all the finals going on, but we ended up being able to finish despite having some trouble at first, we decided on doing a music video which I really liked because it gave me more creative freedom with finding clips and pictures. I feel like this project really shows what we have learned as a group we used video editing a lot and the music overlay showing the use of audio and video. I feel like even thought it was a a direct thing that we learned in class but for me this class really helped me learn how to find materials in a fast manner. I feel like this video really showed what we were capable of as a group. Overall this class has been a blast and this final project was really enjoyable.
WE DID IT!!! The project is done, class is over, and we survived. This project was very fun to do but the grind never stops because I have another project due and a concert tomorrow.
The story is about an AI that has human memories downloaded into its software. This is all confusing and overwhelming at first, as it now has access to sensations and memories it was never built to experience. Even still, it quickly focuses on the joys of living. There’s parties and celebrations and elation, until it sees the darker side of humanity. Depression, poverty, pain, the other side of the proverbial coin. This is so distressing to the AI that scientists unplug it out of fear that its hardware would melt from processing. As the AI is turned off or unplugged, I equated it to dreaming, showing images of a brain sending signals and rapid eye movement or REM sleep. Through the dream, the AI can see that there’s good and bad to humanity, but for all the hurt that exists, there’s someone else to help. Yeah, falling off a bike isn’t fun, but it gets us from place to place and lets us enjoy a nice breeze. Overall, the message I’m conveying is that even though we hurt, it is human to form connections and help each other.
Sam came up with the story idea. It reminded me of Touch by Daft Punk, and the animated music video was born from there. We used about every free stock video site we could find for clips, and I eventually ended up using CapCut to edit the thing. There were many features that let me do a lot with editing. I added captions and text and some transitions where I felt appropriate, however there probably could’ve been more transitions overall. We added stock sound effects for specific moments to make them stand out. I hope this gives you a good glimpse into humanity and makes you feel something.
Hello everyone, you are the first viewers of The Real Housewives of Cyber Manhattan! Here is our finished product below:
This was the only film I’ve ever created or been in that was this length. I have learned so many things while being a part of this. I can finally say that I have explored all over Mary Washington’s campus now! Me and the girls filmed this short film in various areas throughout the campus; Ball Hall, HCC green screen room, Ampitheater, and maybe a few other places. It’s really cool to see how all the different scenery and backgrounds/backdrops come together. Before we even started filming, we did a little research on how the Real Housewives look in their shows and on TV, what angles they film and during what times.
For the confessionals we saw that most of the producers/directors had the wives looking straight at the camera or the wives were filmed at an angle, as if they were talking in the other direction. I remember in the previous weeks we had lessons on the effects of angles, and I did a reflection on the Black Mirror episode. This angle really enhanced the personal experience on the screen. When you watch it back, when we are talking and looking directly at the camera, it feels like we are talking to you or to someone; But when you look at us from an angle, it just adds more emotion and personalness to the shot. Like you’re not really there with them and you’re viewing a more private conversation or something.
When we were filming the fight scene’s we tried to take turns filming each other, using the handheld camera from the HCC, instead of using the tripod because it looked more realistic. Especially the outside scene after the “fight” between Krissy and Veronica, and Veronica is saying “I’m done” and storms away! But as the camera lady for that scene I followed her up the stairs and got her reactions in real time, adding extra emotion and drama to the scene. Other cool angles we tried to implement were going back and forth between filming as a group and giving everyone some individual screen time. In our video you will notice the shift of the angles and horizontal/vertical views.
Other techniques that were used for added Technoir or cyber punk vibes were the language we used along with the backdrops. Instead of saying Starbucks we said Cyberbucks, and Byte Bags (Instead of Birkin), and of the like. We did our best to make this as real and as futuristic as possible. We even dressed in slacks, blazers, dresses, and nice shoes. Trying to dress the part as a married businesswoman or reality star housewife.
The backdrops of the fake AI futuristic homes for Sapphria Mae and Veronica’s house were also very cool add ins to the film. So not only can you see the conversation that will happen inside the house, but you also see the outside of the house, giving the viewer even more information than they were already wondering about. Overall, it just really builds a big picture for the viewer.
When my group and I did the radio show and when I had the opportunity to do the radio show listen experience assignment, I got a feel for what sounds add in different emotions. In this film, with the added drama from the angles, the sound effects that were used also added emphasis on important moments in the clip. For instance, when someone “spills the tea”, there may be a drum sound that will play in the background to emphasize that moment for the viewers.
Overall, I believe that we did our best to implement many of the techniques with audio, visuals, and images that we had learned in this course. Specifically, how each of these deals with emotions, feelings, atmosphere, and perception. Even though this short film was framed as a reality tv show bit, you can still feel the realness to it in the way that we all interact with each other.
In my opinion, this is the best thing that I’ve ever created for a group project haha! My senior cap stone..pshhh pleaseee, it doesn’t have anything on this short film LOL
And again, I want to publicly thank all of the wonderful ladies that I worked with. I learned so much from them and had the best time working with them. We have all added each other on social media so I am excited to see what each and every one of them does in the future. Very intelligent, creative, and beautiful human beings!!
This is just a screenshot of the title page! Access the game with the link down below!
For my final project, I went with the first prompt from Dr. Oblivion which was to create an interactive multimedia narrative essentially of the dangers of the AI takeover. I have always loved a good story and I love creating and telling them, so I thought getting to do something more writing and narrative based would be a good way to hone my skills that I’ve gotten to develop over this semester especially with projects such as reordering the songs of Dear Evan Hansento change the course of its story, discussing the way that color plays a role in storytelling in The Corpse Bride, or even using a simple song lyric to create a more nuanced backstory for my course character.
As evidenced through my own character creation and the elements of design, writing, and aesthetic of my whole website and assignment choices, I’m very drawn to macabre and horror-based storytelling and with the prompt asking us to discuss implications of such an AI revolution, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to create a horror story. A bit of background for this: I am very against the big boom of AI, I avoid using it at every possible cost (which has created an ethical dilemma in this class, but I’ve cut my losses) due to the environmental damage it causes, the way that work is stolen from countless artists, the job displacement it creates, etc; I think it’s an ethical nightmare and not one where I believe the pros could outweigh the cons. Therefore, a perfect basis for horror in my own personal views. I also thought very heavily about how the world is what we make it and how all of the horrors around us that we face today came from the decision of someone somewhere, maybe even ourselves which is where I got the idea for a choose-your-own-adventure. In my own love for horror, my personal favorite style is surrealism; I was incredibly inspired by aesthetics like that of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and games like “Samsara Room” and “Cube Escape” by Rusty Lake. With all of the pieces put together, I created the basis of my interactive multimedia narrative: a surrealist horror choose-your-own-adventure set in a future ruled by an AI governance where you are the master of your own fate; or so the governance would like you to believe (EXTRA LINK TO PROJECT!!!)
I decided to use Prezi to create this! I know it’s normally a presentation software, but because the viewer can click the planet subtopics and be brought to any point in the presentation without a necessary chronology, I thought it would be perfect for this! The player can click the subtopic with their choice for that part of that story and follow the timeline of choices for those particular aspects.
In the process of creating this, I knew a few things: 1. with it being a narrative, I wanted this to be a very writing heavy project and 2. I have unfortunately had an insane amount of pre-finals week finals that have been due all throughout the month of April therefore making my time limited and prioritization key. That being said, this did not end up as multimedia as I had hoped or intended due to a lack of time as a whole and certain resources with the program I used (i.e I wanted to create and embed an audio for each new slide to play in the background, but I didn’t have time to do all of that and Prezi will not let me incorporate audio without a pro account).
The bulk of my time was spent writing the story and creating all the various endings (there are 4 main endings that are used with a few times, but with their own explanations and plotline and 1 unique ending that is exclusive to a specific story line; can you find the secret one-of-a-kind end?), and this took me quite a long time to write out and then put together especially on top of all of my other miscellaneous class projects and big presentations. In Canva, I put together a background design to showcase the connection of humanity to the digital world, but to also symbolise the reach that the virtual aspects of life have.
When creating the aesthetics of the presentation, I used a font that I thought felt futuristic yet also still legible to read text groupings in and I used layered circular subtopic aesthetics for each of the choices and made them translucent rather than their typical opaque to create a nuance, almost glitchy or laggy vibe that also felt very cyberpunk/tech inspired in my mind. I incorporated some images of Rorsachs in one of the storylines to create a visual element of uncertainty, but ran out of time to create more designs despite having worked on this project for 2+ weeks. I also spent about 3 days of that trying to sort out my audio situation as I hadn’t realized until the writing and aesthetics were complete that Prezi won’t let me embed audio that automatically accompanies the presentation without a pro account. So, I tried to troubleshoot for a while and then ended up just embedding a Youtube video of ambient horror music to really create a surreal and unsettling ambience that, to me, is one of the most important parts of surrealist horror. Sound, as we talked about in our audio weeks, can play such a pivotal role in the way our brains perceive elements of a story. The player can open the video in a separate tab and have the music playing in the background as they go through each part of the story.
This was a really long, arduous process and I do wish I was able to do more with it, but a lot of really intricate planning went into perfecting the narrative aspect and the storytelling which is really what this is all about. In the end, I incorporated elements of writing, design, and audio to create my surreal horror interactive experience and I’m really quite happy with the way the story came out and the way the mechanics function. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to create something like this without this class teaching me to think outside of the box when it comes to the various ways to tell stories digitally!
We did some brainstorming throughout the week, and then sat down on Thursday to get all of our “must have” ideas on paper. Once we got working in Twine, some of our ideas moved around and we realized that the story progressed much faster than we thought that it would. Rylie was able to get the broadstrokes onto Twine and sent me a couple of screen shots to work on. I wrote out my portion of the script on a shared google doc and Rylie copied and pasted them into Twine.
Once she was done with her portion she sent me the Twine file and I was able to incooporate some sound elements into the game. I added an alarm clock, an error chime, some control center ambience, and a power down noise. I also learned how to import images into Twine.
A lot of Twine is raw code. So to incorporate sound and images I had to insert raw javascript into Twine. See examples below! This came easy to me as I still remember some skill from a creative coding class I took last semester.
The images of screenshots and tweets were created in canva.
This project was hard for me since I am not much of a creative writer. I really liked Rylie’s ideas and wanted to match them but I was hesitant that it would be good enough. But once I start writing it almost came naturally.
