Author Archives: feigrace

there goes my weekly summary: #7

WE LOVE PROPAGANDA WEEK!!! For both my propaganda poster and my PSA I focused on Aggressive Technologies and the role it is taking in the world that is basically being controlled by them at this point. It was a little rough coming up with ideas though since last week I did my own sort of propaganda week, but after looking up some inspiration online and the other posts from our class I made a sort of plan for what I wanted to do.

My post-reaction was an unexpected fun activity from this week since I was able to get into the mind of Andrea and create more layers to her personality. It was also fun as always to see what the rest of the class is working on with such broad assignment prompts.

Also in my free time, I added some small customizations to my website theme. I already knew how to code before but I learned a lot about CSS so that I could add small things. Like the effect that highlights the post when you hover over it and some slight adjustments to change the spacing of the header and its elements which isn’t a customizable option through the theme’s usual settings.

Daily creates below!

Day 1: #tdc4429 Convey something pure

When I think of the word pure one of the first things that comes to mind is pure love that can come in all sorts of forms

Day 2: #tdc4430 Net Art? or Not Art?

I put in “Solitude in the Cityscape” and I would say it captured it pretty well if the watermarks weren’t so in your face.

Day 3: #tdc4431 What are the oscillators crooning?

They’re a traveling quartet of singers displaying their full range for all to hear! They perform many different styles from opera to beatboxing and between the 4 of them they can pull off whatever you throw at them.

media brainwashing: andrea reacts

After making my own PSA and propaganda poster, we had to create a reaction post about how our characters would react to some of the designs from other blogs in the class. While Andrea, my character, works for Aggressive Technologies and has put in considerable time on the newer projects they’re releasing, she isn’t as fanatic about AI as most employees are. She mostly sees the job as a step towards the future she’s planned for herself and of course another way to crush Georgia under her foot.

First is Destiny’s propaganda poster on their blog Sunrisen. Andrea probably wouldn’t think too much about the posters if she saw them since it’s the same old speech she hears every day at work. She might be a little weirded out though if they were to show up multiple times on her walk. Because even though she’s working for the company making the software, even Andrea is sometimes concerned with how far Aggressive Tech is trying to go. Especially if their reach starts to extend beyond the everyday folk and into her world.

Next, I saw According to Greta’s PSA. Andrea would definitely hate the fact that the only option is a sweatshirt. Even though it’s an NFT appearances matter to her and she would avoid it, even if the actual function is convenient. Andrea will willingly spend more time and money on other options until she can fully express her immaculate style through every part of her life.

Finally Hurkle-Durkling’s propaganda poster. Andrea would probably love the poster for the ideas it gives her. Ways to monitor people (Georgia) when she’s not there, an assistant that will complete all her tasks with no question on her quest to defeat her enemies (Georgia again), or for its actual intended use of being there after she dies to haunt people (Georgia of course).

aggressive tech: surveillance psa

This assignment was to create a PSA about Aggressive Technologies or AI. So I decided to make my PSA on one of the innovative technologies that I mentioned in my last video.

To start with I created a quick script that is meant to instill some fear into the viewers about a danger they likely didn’t know they had, because it’s not really a problem, and feel the need to take action. I intentionally brushed over the concern over privacy because this company is definitely using what they collect for something nefarious. We just don’t know what it is yet so of course they try not to spend too much time on it just enough to reassure the people. Once I finalized the script I uploaded it into Elevenlabs to recreate the kind of classic male narration voice.

For the actual video creation, it mostly consisted of a bunch of image editing. I generated the reporter, background, and some of the TV images on Lexica. The rest of the TV images I found on Unsplash here and here. I then removed the background of the reporter and parts of the broadcasting studio using this background remover. I then uploaded all the images onto Photopea to edit together. I added a banner with a fake news channel name and report title using droid and great lakes nf fonts. Once the images were finalized I found some scary background music on Freesound that I thought would put viewers on edge. The first and last video and audio were found on YouTube: we interrupt this program, and now back to your regularly scheduled program, and breaking news video. I used this video downloader to get them and imported them into iMovie. With all of these completed, I just did some quick editing and wow a video was made.

aggressive tech: propaganda poster

For this assignment, we had to design some propaganda of our choosing which was a very open-ended prompt I wasn’t sure what to do with. Especially since last week, I had unknowingly already done a propaganda theme of my own I had felt like all my good ideas were used already.

So to find some inspiration I looked up some propaganda posters and after looking for a while I found I design I liked that was actually inspired by the game Fallout 76. So with this concept in mind, I chose to make one for Aggressive Technologies because it’s a nice blank slate that can go in any direction. Since Andrea works for them it would make sense that she might have to do some PR work for the company like the propaganda video I made last week.

I used Stable Diffusion Online to create the image of the poster in a cyberpunk style. The final design is actually a combination of two different photos. I couldn’t get the generator to produce an android and city image I like in the same frame so I took the android from another photo it made, removed the background, and plopped it into a generated photo of the city using Photopea.

I then wanted the company’s banners all over the city and at first I tried just to replace them by placing the text over it but it looked weird since it didn’t capture how the words would look if it was flowing in the wind. So I quickly made a banner-sized flag in Canva and then uploaded the image to this website, FlagWaver, I found that creates a flying flag with all types of settings where you can choose the type of flag to the wind direction and speed. With a few images of a flying banner, I edited them into my poster to make them look as natural as I could.

I then added the “Fight For Your Freedom” text to mimic some other propaganda posters I had seen. I also wanted people to have some way of joining and learning more so I made a QR code that links to the Aggressive Technologies website I made using a QR Code Generator I found that had a lot of customizable options. The final result is something I think could definitely be found plastered around the city to entice people into this cool-looking futuristic company that promises to help fight for the people’s freedom. The final result is below.

there goes my weekly summary: #6

It’s video week part 2! This week’s assignment choices had a lot of options and it was hard to choose at first. While I may have overdone the worldbuilding a little bit for my character Andrea, I simply enjoyed the process too much to stop.

For my first assignment, I did one where we had to tell our course character’s story. I ended up telling the story of how Andrea and Georgia’s rivalry began. And of course, being Andrea, the story is ridiculously dramatic as she laments her struggle with Georgia in her journal and so the title needed to be theatrical as well The Rivalry Redefined: Andrea’s Story.

When I saw this post in the assignment bank I immediately heard Frank Costanza yelling “Serenity Now!’ and I knew I had to do it. While this assignment wasn’t me screaming the same way I did enjoy the simple serenity that my Serenity Now! But for real video produced.

The last assignment is actually the first one I started but took the longest. I made an Aggressive Technologies Propaganda ad where my character Andrea records a video campaign for the company. As a completely unrelated part of the assignment, I may have gotten carried away and made another subdomain to host some content for Aggressive Technologies.

Daily creates:

Day 1: #tdc4421 What prompted this man’s facial expression?

He’s listening to his favorite song I’m Blue da ba dee da ba daa

Day 2: #tdc4422 Make your own snow globe

I love the idea of virtual snow globes this was fun

aggressive technologies: propaganda

For one of my assignments that needed to include my course character, I decided to make this Fake Propaganda Video

Smash up any combination of videos, still images, and audio to create a fake propaganda video.  It can be comedic or (non-offensively, of course) serious, its up to you.  Possibilities include: advertising a product, creating a villain, or selling a revolution.

Fake Propaganda Video

Music here:

Text-to-speech

Videos from:

serenity now! but for real

Serenity Now!

In one of the episodes of the last season os Seinfeld, one of the main characters is advised to repeat “serenity now” as a mantra to ease his high blood pressure. Rather than repeat the phrase in a calm and controlled manner in a way that might help, Frank Costanza yells “SERENITY NOW!” at the top of his lungs whenever he feels stressed, thus defeating the purpose of the mantra.

I decided to create a visual piece of video and audio that would correct Frank’s mistake, and attempt to actually create one of those “serenity videos” that are often seen being played at dentist’s offices, or a spa. As an added twist, I loosely based this assignment on the “10 minute video challenge” meme in which a repeated looping of audio or video is played non-stop for 10 minutes. While it’s usually done for comic effect, I stretched the video out, repeating three 50 second nature clips over the course of the 10 minutes.

Serenity Now!

Music used here:

Videos used here:

the rivalry redefined: andrea’s story

Tell Your Character’s Story

Tell your character’s story or a story from their life through video. This can be as simple as adding images and putting a voiceover, or recording a bit from your character’s life. Use MovieMaker or iMovie to put together the video and throw in some sound effects if you’d like. It is up to you!

Tell Your Character’s Story

 Image: Paper Writing Old  Sound: Writing with pencil

there goes my weekly summary: #5

It’s video week!!! We didn’t have as many assignments but instead one big one. Before doing that though we had to update our course goals which can be found here.

The reading and videos this week were really interesting and I definitely overdid it with the notes but I enjoyed the time I wasted so another win for me. I’m definitely gonna spend more time watching the rest of Tony Zhou’s videos in the future.

Finally my video essay. It was a task I enjoyed way too much and I hope someone enjoys listening to the nonsensical production opinions I summoned from the trashcan part of my brain.

Overall a really fun week! Daily creates below.

Create 1: #tdc4412 Poem Portrait

I used the word intrigued because I was feeling that when I was reading about today’s daily create. The results were definitely intriguing as well.

Create 2: #tdc4415 Why Does Captain Felix Look So Happy?

Captain Felix is annoyed with the “customer service” he is receiving

video essay: passengers

For our video essay, I chose to watch Passengers, specifically the turning point in the movie when the big plot’s secret point is revealed.

I love telling the world about my unreasonable opinions so I was very excited to start this project. Though unfortunately for you all, I toned down my nonsense a little to cut down the video time.

My process for this video was pretty simple and shockingly wasn’t too stressful since I had video editing experience before this. The only part that added extra stress was adding a recap to the video. It was only a minute long but took a little bit longer because of the cuts I wanted to be synched to the audio.

I first searched for footage on YouTube since I couldn’t rip it from a DVD. I used the 4K Video Downloader that was recommended we use. I then wrote my script while rewatching the scene so that I wouldn’t have a harder time synching it later. In the theme of AI, I decided to use a text-to-speech reader from last week TTSMaker for two reasons. I was a little ill this week and unlike humans, software delivers the same lines the same way every time. I then found some nice background music on Freesound so that the video wasn’t stagnant in the pauses. After all those steps it was pretty easy to just import them all into iMovie and edit for a bit until the I got final product you see now.

I enjoyed making this video essay a lot and I would definitely do it again. I didn’t realize how much I like critiquing media that I find interesting. And I felt a lot better about doing it after doing the reading from this week. I might have spent a little too much time on the videos because I love film analysis or really just any type of analysis. Hopefully, next week isn’t a trainwreck but I guess we’ll see.

The videos and sound I used are here: PASSENGERS – Official Trailer (HD), Passengers (2016) – Did You Wake Me Up? Scene (5/10) | Movieclips, and Passengers: Did You Wake Me Up? (Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt Scene).