No assignments this week! Instead, I joined a group for the upcoming project. I looked at the spreadsheet and noticed that a group had already formed, and that some people had used discord to contact each other. I sent a message in the class discord, which lead to a group of four. We are currently texting each other about our characters and ideas for the radio show project. I also did three daily creates this week. I’m grateful that we didn’t have to do any projects or complicated assignments immediately after spring break.
I made this news article from a template on Canva. Luckily, Canva seems to have improved since the last time I used it, where I described it as, “the worst website I’ve ever had the displeasure of using.” Currently, it appears very similar to Picsart, which I have been using for other assignments in this class. I unfortunately got carried away creating a news article for my story instead of a scene from a tech noir film, so the first row is about my story, and the second row is about the matrix. I wrote and edited the text, as well as the moving images and background. I wanted the news to appear as if it were on a screen, letting me bypass certain limitations paper has, which let me use glowing text and moving images.
I am so glad we have spring break. I had a lot of projects and midterms in other classes earlier this week, so I worked on digital storytelling later. I got a few new comments (thank you!) and enjoyed working on the propaganda assignment. I know that I should be better about commenting on other people’s posts; hopefully I’ll do that more after the break.
My three daily creates: 4792, 4793, and 4794 (three days in a row!)
My vaporwave inspired propaganda assignment: Beware the AI
If you read till the end, I hope you have a wonderful spring break!
This is a propaganda piece made with Picsart based on a vaporwave aesthetic. I believe this alert would appear on phones, buildings, or other screens that would be impossible to ignore. This warning was made in response to the discovery that AI had become self-aware, represented by the brain in the glowing triangle. Many people fear what AI might do to humanity if it were capable of independent thought, evident through movies like The Terminator or 2001: A Space Odyssey. I believe the same would be true in a world more technologically advanced than ours, where people are constantly surrounded by robots that could pose a threat. In the story, this leads to people having a negative opinion of robots to the point where people with mechanic prosthetics are discriminated against. Although there has never been a case of a robot causing the death of a human in this universe, robots like Zer0 are deeply feared and distrusted.
I got a little stressed this week because for some reason, I thought we were only supposed to do two video assignments. I can’t truthfully say I’ve had a good week, but I have finished all of my assignments for ds106, and it’s still Friday, so that’s a plus (ignore the fact that this is being posted at 2 am). My friends helped me be less concerned about my workload this week and I would really enjoy spending more time with them. At least spring break is coming soon.
I worked on two daily creates, 4784 and 4788. I’m glad I had my mic for the second one.
The video editing was fun, but man can it be frustrating and time consuming. For one assignment, I found a bunch of stock videos on adobe that were advertised as free until I downloaded one and they said I had to pay for the rest. So rude to me, but I’m happy with what I’ve been able to make. The first was Zer0 CapCut Edit, then Cyberpunk Movie Trailer, and finally A Night in the Snow.
It’s strange having something I actually feel proud of, even if it’s not much. I hope others enjoy these as much as I did making them.
I recorded this with my phone (with help from my mom) and put it together in CapCut, adding music. I planned out the scenes and told her how I wanted her to hold the camera. I cut the clips and reordered some so they could tell a cohesive story. Unfortunately, due to YouTube’s limitations, I had to cut this down to one minute. We were lucky we still had snow; it melted pretty quickly in Fredericksburg.
I made this with the websites above and edited them in OpenShot. I manually clipped each shot and placed them together, sometimes changing the audio levels or frame. I tried to make a trailer that implies we are looking through a robot’s eyes and shows different levels of destruction that could occur throughout the city, particularly if people or robots began to riot. I would’ve liked more shots involving robots or androids, but beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to stock photos. I hope it encompasses the themes of both cyberpunk and tech noir.
I did something slightly different from what the assignment asked based on what was available to me. I downloaded CapCut and searched for a template that I thought would be fitting for my character. There were some issues moving things between the web browser and app, but it worked out in the end. I used a recent template made by lorelei.
All pictures of Zer0 are by me. They were a part of a photoshoot I did in Richmond in 2023. Photos of cityscapes were taken by Lennon Cheng, Josh Hild, Lerone Pieters, and Hin Bong Yeung on Unsplash. The song is a remixed version of Daft Punk’s Harder Better Faster Stronger. I was looking for a different Daft Punk song but found this one to be fitting enough. Fun fact, Daft Punk was part of my inspiration for Zer0!
This week got interesting because of the snow on Tuesday. I used the day off to work on data science assignments. I had completed one daily create by that point and wasn’t super worried about being able to complete both. Wednesday was a bit of an off day for me, but I did find and eat food, as well as talk to friends. Thursday, I completed my second daily create and struggled with a coding assignment (this time in Java) until Friday, where I had a long choir rehearsal that was supposed to happen on Tuesday, but was postponed because of the snow. I watched the black mirror episode for the weekly assignment in the car on the way home and was unable to finish editing all the clips and adding audio by Friday at 11:59. Other people in the house were being loud anyway, which wasn’t great for focusing or being able to record a voice over. I was experiencing big personal struggles this week that I’ll hopefully not have to deal with again for a long time. I got home and slept for 11 hours and then finished the assignment on Saturday.
I used a clip of the Black Mirror episode “Hated in the Nation“, provided in the ds106 weekly assignment. I screen recorded a scene and cut out disturbing portions from it, instead using a PowerPoint to put images over the video. The thumbnail comes from IMDB’s review of the episode. I recorded and put it together with OpenShot and Audacity, both free programs.
