My second assignment I chose to do from the assignment bank was called “TikTok of you pet” and it required us to create a funny, short video of our pet doing something random for a TikTok. For this assignment, I chose to do a video of Xander’s dog, Belle, running around in a little field with the music from the Disney movie, “Up,” and I think the sound fit perfectly with the video because in the movie, there is also an animated dog that runs around in random fields sniffing for various smells. In the video, you can Belle having a great time just running around and exploring the area she is in and just having a wonderful time overall. As you will learn, this is one of the reasons why Belle brings so much happiness to Xander as his pet and why Xander is always smiling and happy. As a result, the video that I chose replicates that by having Belle run around in a field and smelling everything there is to smell. As many of you now, Xander lives a pretty lonely life, and while he was growing up, the one thing that his dad gave him was Belle, which he has had since he was a teenager. Ever since he got Belle, he has always been happy and never feels lonely because Belle has always been there for him. He enjoys Belle’s company and allows him to continue to work his long hours and work towards his dreams while also having someone to join him in the process. Belle and Xander do everything together and they are very tough to separate and that bond really brings out the best in Xander. Especially after his fiasco with Aggressive Technologies, he felt the loneliest he had ever felt, but Belle was there to get rid of that feeling and Xander could not be more grateful, not only for Belle, but also for his late father that brought him the best surprise a kid could ask for. Keep scrolling to find a video of Belle and you can see why Xander has such a great time with his dog and why it brings out the best in him. Enjoy the video!
Author Archives: Creative Bytes: Exploring the World of DS106
What do you do?
One of the assignments that we had to do this week was to create three different videos in relation to the video assignments on the assignment bank website. We were also tasked with creating two of the videos be related to our course characters. This first video assignment that I created was quite simple, however, it is not related to my course character. This first assignment is called “What do you do?” and it revolves around the idea of creating a video about something that you do in everyday life. For this assignment, I could have chosen a lot of different things to do for this assignment from me playing tennis, to my just waking up and brushing my teeth. However, I chose to do something that made feel a little more unique with my work and made me get outside. So I decided to film myself walking back to my apartment after my classes and lifts were finished for the day. As you can see on the video, the video was taken near the University of Mary Washington’s bridge that connects Eagle Village to the rest of campus near the Anderson Center. I enjoyed deciding what to do for this assignment because there were so many different options. I took my time with deciding what I wanted to do and was happy with what I decided on. You can find the video below.
Xander’s Vision for Aggressive Technologies!
As you all know, in recent months Xander recently invented his biggest creation, a chip that can be implanted into one’s brain to use as an AI agent that is capable of many different things. However, once the new broke, some started to question whether Xander had stolen the idea because Aggressive Technologies had announced that they were beginning to work on something just like the chip Xander created around the time Xander made his announcement to the public. However, what most people do not know is that Xander once used to work for Aggressive Technologies as their Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, or CAIO. Xander was a brilliant mind in their company and was at the forefront of all their big projects related to the field of AI. As stated before, Aggressive Technologies had big plans to release a AI chip implant that would allow humans to access this chip whenever they deemed necessary and accomplish almost any task. Now, this is where Xander and his story starts. Xander had brought the idea to create an AI agent chip to the CEO of Aggressive Technologies, Max Sterling, and Sterling green-lighted the project. After many months, Xander was almost done creating the chip during his time with Aggressive Technologies, but that was when he found out through a colleague that works closely to Sterling that Aggressive Technologies had a far bigger agenda than Xander first thought.
Xander found out that the company he had devoted his life and mind to was planning on fully commercializing his invention and cut him out of it completely so that they could gain all the profit off his invention. This is when Xander truly realized that this idea that he devoted so much of his time and brain power to was in jeopardy of being spoiled. This is when he decided to leave Aggressive Technologies and pursue his own dream by himself. Xander left almost immediately and came out and said that he was starting his own company, Xander Technologies to pursue his idea of the AI agent chip implant. However, the public was skeptical especially since Aggressive Technologies had made a very similar announcement just a few weeks prior.
Most people speculated that Xander had stolen the idea from the company and went to start his own company so that he could fully profit off the sales and production of the chip if he was able to get it working and that is why he decided to try the chip on himself. The public created the theory that since he was working on his own in secret, he did not have anyone he could trust to try the chip on and so he needed to try it on himself. He realized that the public would never believe his side of the story, and he needed to find a way to get rid of the animosity towards him from the public. He decided there was only one thing to do. Remember that colleague that warned Xander of his former’s company notorious plan? It turns out that colleague had become an inside made for Xander and for month spent time compiling information for him so that he could out Aggressive Technologies for the frauds they were. Now, this colleague has a name, Jackson Sterling, the head of the financial department at Aggressive Technologies and the son of the CEO Max Sterling. After many months of collecting information, Xander was prepared to release a announcement to the public about the truth of why he really left his former company. By his side, stood Jackson Sterling that backed up every single word of Xander’s story and added even more important information so that the public could be convinced that it was his father, Max Sterling was the true villain of the story. After this press release, the stock of Xander Technologies took off, and now Xander owns one of the biggest tech companies in the world, and that is where Xander’s story is today.
Week 5 Done Already!?!?!?!
This week was very light compared to previous weeks. We only had a total of three blog posts to write this week including the weekly summary. I started my week off by doing my first daily create. This daily create was to just mess around on a third-party website and see what sort of designs you could come up, and my design turned out to be pretty intriguing. The next thing I did this week was create a blog post on how I am doing in terms of reaching my goals for the DS106 course. At the beginning of the course, during week 1, one of our tasks was to create a blog post that detailed the goals we had for this class. This week we got to revisit that idea, we had to write a blog post about how we are doing in terms of reaching those goals. That post will be linked here. Once, I was able to finish these items, I decided to do my next daily create because it was now the next day. This daily create required us to create a sign that has a random rule on it. I thought my rule was pretty random and kind of ironic, because once you read it, you will realize, that orange juice will be on campus at all times because the various on-campus stores and dining halls serve orange juice all day. Once that was all done, I made to set aside some time this week to comment on other people’s work to make sure that their work was being recognized and was getting some positive feedback. My final assignment for this week was to create a video essay that detailed a scene from a movie and do a small film review on that scene. I created a blog post about it located here. That was all of the work that needed to be done this week.
I did not encounter too many issues this week when completing my assignments. I thought things went pretty smoothly this week and I enjoyed doing all of the assignments. From this week, I would say that creating the video essay was my favorite. This is because I found it very interesting how the different aspects of the scene come together to make one final scene and that scenes in movies is much more than just dialogue. The way the characters are acting, looking, being filmed, all come together to make a scene in the movie the way it is. The only issue that I ran into this week would probably be the fact that it was my first time using OpenShot Video Editor, and so it took some time to try and figure out how to use the application and what types of files and buttons I needed to press to make my vision come to reality. Once that was figured out, it was smooth sailing from there.
I definitely think that I accomplished all of the requirements for the assignments for this week and I think I did them to the best of my ability. Like stated before, my favorite assignment was the video essay on the movie scene from the movie Real Steel. I would not do anything differently for the work that I did this week as it was completed with effort, time, and creativeness. I believe that there are no larger issues at hand with my work. I think that the assignments were done properly and with effort. I do not have any further questions at this time for the class. One thing I will focus on in the future, it just to get better at working with and understanding the OpenShot Video Editor just in case I am in need of using it again in the future.
Real Steel!!!
One of the assignments that we needed to do this week was to create a video essay of a scene from an movie related to the field of Artificial Intelligence and talk about the scene itself, almost like a mini film review and instead of doing the whole movie, we had just to pick one scene and talk about that scene. I decided to do a scene from the movie Real Steel in which the main character, played by Hugh Jackman, is walking outside of his motel room and starts walking down a dimmly-lit alleyway and then the scene cuts to him and his robot boxer outside, during the day on the lawn of the motel. I chose this scene because one of the videos that we needed to watch this week talked about how movies use cuts in their scenes to bring more emphasis to the scenes. In this case, the cut at the end of the beginning of the scene where it cuts to them being the lawn shows that a little time has gone by and that the characters were beginning the climax of the scene which was the actual training. It was important to note that from the Tony Zhou video, he stated that film makers use cuts to try and show that the scene is beginning to get to the climax of the scene. This is shown perfectly in this scene because when they cut to the training montage, that is the climax of the scene and that shows that the characters are getting ready to act out the main point of the scene. I have created a full vide essay on this scene and you can find it at the following link.
Revisiting Course Goals!
One of the tasks that we were assigned with this week was to go back and look at the course goals that we blogged about in the opening weeks of the course and reflect on how we are doing in terms of achieving those goals. We needed to look back at what we wrote and attempt to explain if we are on the right track with completing them, or if we needed to try and change course a little bit to meet those goals. One of the first things that I said in my course goals post was the course would very interesting in terms of the information we gain and the assignments we do, and I can confidently say that that statement as true. I have enjoyed all of the assignments we have done thus far and I expect that trend to continue till the end of the course. One of my goals this semester was to create various pieces of work and then explain the thought process that went into them and why each assignment was done the way it was. Once again, I think I am doing a good job in terms of achieving this goal with every post that I make because I give the audience a final product, along with the thought process that went behind to explain why I did what I did for each assignment. So, from the course goals that I wrote about in the past, I am on track and intend to keep it that way. Another goal that I had was to show my creative skills to others in the class. With each assignment that I do, I take the time to think about the different ways that I can approach these assignments and how I can make them unique. By doing this, it allows me to be more engaged and creative with my work which I think I have done a good job with over the course of the last couple weeks. From my main post, “My main goal is create multiple works of digital art that are creative and intriguing while also explaining my thought process along the way so that others can understand the story behind the works of art.” This is the main goal that I had and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I have been doing a good job in terms of maintaining and achieving that goal. I feel like I am on track with my goals and i would not change anything because I made my goals a little difficult but still within my limits and by making it such a broad goal, almost anything I do in this course would apply to that goal as long as it is creative, thoughtful, and intuitive. Now that I have a better feeling for the course, I am in a routine when it comes to getting my work done and I am doing it efficiently and with time as well. I enjoy reading the assignments and coming up with different approaches to that assignment and finally settling on the best choice. So far, the course as been great and I expect these same trends to continue throughout the rest of this course.
A Wrap on Week 4!!!
This week was definitely a lot more work than last week when it came to setting things up, creating the blog posts, and finishing up the assignments that were required of us. As usual, I started off the week by creating my first daily create of the week (we were required to do 3), and so the first one was to create a new word that represents a dreamy and disorienting time. I decided to come up with the word “dreamfuzzle,” and you can find the whole post with an explanation and picture at this link. My second daily create of the week was to write a poem about lemons but not using any of the words that they said in the prompt. You can find that post here. My final daily create was to create an image of something one-handed, half-minded, and miniature version of something you do. I decided to create a mini tennis player since that is something I can do one-handed, with half my mind, and have it be a daily practice. You can find that link here. After doing my daily creates, I decided to get cracking on some of the assignments that we needed to do this week. As a result, I went and downloaded and experimented a little bit with Audacity. I have used Audacity before but only at its simplest uses and so I took some times to try and figure out where all the important functions are located and what the user experience was like working within the application. The next step was to create a free SoundCloud account, in which case, I already had one and so this step was relatively easy, I just made sure I had access to said account and then moved on. Next we were tasked with watching two videos from RadioLab and listening to a audio clip on SoundCloud and giving our thoughts on audio storytelling and the connections and meanings that may be present within the sounds of a final audio clip. I wrote out my thoughts in a blog post that explains my thought process on the youtube videos as well as the audio clip, and you can read all about those thoughts there. My next task for the week was to create a radio bumper for the DS106 Radio Station. For this assignment, I created a radio station bumper for the 106.1 radio station because the “106” from DS106 matches with the radio station frequency that I did. I just created a bumper for the radio station with the top hits, pop, rap, etc. This was fun to do because I always heard these bumpers growing up but never really took any interest in them until now. Either way, you can find, read, and listen to my radio bumper at this link. The next step to completing this weeks assignments was to listen to the DS106 Radio Station to gain insight into various audio productions and we were tasked with creating a blog post about it that discusses our thoughts. You can find that post here. Moving on, the next assignment we had the chance to complete was a sound effect story, which means that we had to tell a story with just the sound clips that we could find on freesound.org. This was an interesting assignment because it was cool to see what sounds could come together to create a final story that actually had a meaning. The next assignment we were tasked with was to create a brainstorm blog post that talked about various ideas that we came up with for a short radio show group project that we will be doing in the future. I decided that since Julius Lawrence, another course character, was interested in investing, maybe him and Xander could work together on a new project.
Now that the required assignments for the week are done, I moved into the three other audio assignments we were tasked with completing. The first assignment that I chose to do was to create a breaking new story. I chose to complete this assignment in regards to my course character, Xander Neoteric. I used a third party website that was listed in the assignment description to complete this assignment and you can find that post here. For this assignment, I used a AI chatbot to generate a background image of a news set and one of the avatars the third-party website had and allowed it to speak the words that I typed out using their built-in text-to-speech software. My next assignment was to create a relaxing sound using the sounds available on freesound.org. That post is linked here. I tried to use sounds that I already knew were relaxing and put them into audacity and fiddled with the timing and length of each sound clip to make one final, relaxing sound. I enjoyed this process as it allowed me to mess around with various sounds and figure out which combination created the most relaxing sounds. Finally, my third assignment was similar to the second in that I had to create a spooky sound with at least 4 different sounds from freesound.org. My spooky sound assignment turned out really good and I was able to conjure up a final product that when listened to, really evoked a sense of fear and created a spooky atmosphere. Finally, I finished off my week with some commenting and made sure to try and look through a variety of posts and comment on a few as the week went on.
I did not encounter too many issues this week when completing my assignments. I thought things went pretty smoothly this week and I enjoyed doing all of the assignments. However, the only issues that I can think of for this week was the fact that when I first downloaded and starting using Audacity, it took me a while to gain the proper knowledge on how to use the application and entailed a lot of googling to try and figure out where certain settings and functions were located. But after figuring that out, I was able to continue smoothly with the rest of the assignments for the week and really only hindered me on the first assignment using the application which was the radio bumper. From this week, I would say that creating either the relaxing sound or the spooky sound was my favorite assignment. This is because I found it very interesting how the various sounds could come together to create a final product that was better than all of the individual sounds. It took some trial and error, however, that was enjoyable because I got to see a bunch of the possible combinations I could create with the various sounds and how they worked together to produce differing results.
I definitely think that I accomplished all of the requirements for the assignments for this week and I think I did them to the best of my ability. Like stated before, I enjoyed most of the assignments for this week and really allowed me to be creative with the sounds that I was using and the final products I was coming away with. Again, I really enjoyed the creation of the spooky and relaxing sounds, however, I enjoyed all of the assignments from this week. I would not do anything differently for the work that I did this week as it was completed with effort, time, and creativeness. I believe that there are no larger issues at hand with my work. I think that the assignments were done properly and with effort. I do not have any further questions at this time for the class. One thing I will focus on in the future, it just to get better at working with and understanding audacity and the various functions that the application has to offer.
My Thoughts on the DS106 Radio Station!
One of the assignments we were tasked with completing this semester was to live-listen to the DS106 radio station and give our thoughts on what we listened to. Specifically, we were told to talk about things like the sounds we hear, and how they tell a story. We were told to focus more on the sounds that we hear and how they drive the story rather than the dialogue that exists, if there was any. Keep reading to hear my thoughts!
So, after taking the time to listen to the radio station, I have a couple thoughts on what I listened to and how they relate to the field of audio storytelling.
When Xander and Julius Meet!
One of the assignments for this week required us to come up with some ideas for an upcoming radio show with our course character and others as well. The upcoming radio show would involve the meeting and greeting of various course characters with mine and would discuss various topics on the show with other course characters. Everyone would participate and give their thoughts on the topic and the radio show would last for about 20-30 minutes.
One of the first ideas that I cam up with was to work with another course character by the name of Julius Lawrence. If you have not read about him yet, he is a highly successful investment banker who went to the University of Virginia to play basketball and study finance. He chose to follow his true dream and landed his dream job in finance. However, recently he announced that he is considering a transition to the NBA to follow his dream of also playing professional basketball. This got me thinking as how Xander and Julius could work together and maybe talk about an idea on their radio show. I came up with an idea that I really liked. Xander also made a big move in his life recently and became the very first human to implant a AI agent into his own brain. Since he was the first and Julius has a great mind when it comes to investments and finance, Julius could invest into Xander and his AI agent product. They would discuss how they would plan to start a new company for the AI agents and how they would go about actually constructing the necessary marketing, technologies, and ideas to make this idea come to fruition. They would also talk about why Julius was interested in a product like this and why he was so drawn to it.
Another possible idea that the two could discuss during their radio talk show would be the idea of AI and how it has become so rampant in everyday life throughout society. Xander, as a master in his field, would be able to drop his thoughts on the subject, and Julius who is not directly related to the field but also works in a field when AI could very much be integrated into, could talk about his thoughts on the subject matter. The two could also discuss if AI poses a threat to everyday life in society or if it will produce more good than bad and how it could be beneficial or detrimental to the real world. By having this conversation, viewers could potentially listen to both sides of the argument as Xander would advocate for AI due to the AI agent in his brain, whereas Julius’s ideas may be more contradictory. It would definitely be an interesting meeting between the two and whatever they end up discussing in their radio show, it will for sure draw a crowd. I am looking forward for the two to meet and have a short discussion about whatever we decide the topic ends up being and everyone will be looking forward to their thoughts. Be on the lookout for the radio show, coming to a radio station near you!
Spooky Season
The final assignment that I chose to do for this weeks three audio assignments was to create a spooky sound clip consisting of at least 4 different sounds. As a result, I came up with a final product that you can listen to below which consists of 5 different sounds. The sounds are a scream, a woman laughing eerily, a person walking through the woods, a regular ghastly sound, and finally the roar of various monsters. The monster noises come in closer to the end because that is where the sound lightens up a little bit and there is only one other sound clip being played. The clip starts with a man screaming and then the woman starting to laugh like crazy so that it sounds like the woman is after the man. Then the ghastly forest sounds come into the picture and that is being played in the background as well as the woman continues laughing. Finally, the clip of a person walking through a spooky forest with ominous sounds is being played in the background as well. I enjoyed making this sound as it allowed me to toy with different sounds and see which sounds paired together well and which ones did not pair that well. Also, the monster noises were a last minute addition because I felt the end of the sound clip was a bit bare and by adding some more rustling and growling, it would make the sound scarier and it did. I was happy with the final product that I came up with and like stated before, enjoyed creating this piece. I think in the future I would try and experiment with actually regulating the sound clips, meaning like adding reverb or amplifying certain parts to make it more dramatic, but for now, I chose to keep it a little more simple and just do what was within my limits.