Author Archives: Sydney Says Things

Sashay Away – My Final Project

This week I made my final project!

First, I want to explain why it is a little late. I was working on this all week, then lost the video halfway through making it. I remade it as quickly as I could, but editing takes a while and I have a tendency to overcomplicate things, which means it takes even longer. In any case, the video is done now!

Here are some of the tools I used to make this video:

  • I used the 4K Video Downloader to download all of the clips (and some of the audio) off of YouTube.
  • I recorded myself using an audio kit from the HCC.
  • I edited the video on iMovie.
  • I used Landing to make the thumbnail.
  • I used the Drag Race Simulator to make the main section of the video.

This video brought all of the skills I’ve developed throughout this semester. Here’s that breakdown:

  1. Video editing. I’ve always been interested in video editing but found it too tedious to enjoy. After the week where we had to make several videos, I was no longer afraid of it. I’m still a fan of my simple software, but have begun to master it, so maybe I will upgrade to the real stuff soon. I also heavily used 4k Video Downloader, a program that I learned how to use because of this class.
  2. Sound editing. This video used my voice, sound effects, music, and video clips. It wasn’t as much sound editing as we had to do in previous weeks, but definitely still involved it. I even browsed through a free sound website that I got to know a few weeks ago, even though they didn’t end up having what I needed.
  3. AI discussions. This video doesn’t use AI in any groundbreaking ways, which I think makes it especially interesting. Because of this class, I started to look at the softwares I was using in a new way. What actually counts as AI? And, off of that, is all AI harmful? This class got me thinking and made me recognize that AI can mean a lot of different things.
  4. Computer organization. After weeks of organizing different clips, images, audio files, and more, I developed a pretty good system that made this video much easier. I did make one mistake that caused some big problems, but that issue had less to do with me and more to do with my computer. Long story short, practice makes perfect. This is especially true for the editing process. I tried a few things over the various videos we had to make and now I know what works for me. I haven’t edited a lot so I’m still not very good, but I am significantly better than I was at the start of this semester.

All things considered, I am very proud of this video. I wanted to look at AI in a unique way and try not to get too serious about everything. AI includes a lot of different programs. While AI is an issue, I think people have a tendency to overreact. 

AI may be able to replicate some human thought patterns, but it cannot, and probably never will, be able to predict human spontaneity. One of the fun things about humans is we don’t think in exact patterns. AI can create something technically perfect, but that isn’t what humans do. I have concerns about how people chose to use AI, but I don’t think AI will ever be able to replace humans because there is no way to code thought processes that humans themselves don’t understand.

I hope you all enjoy the video.

Guess Who’s Back? – Weekly Summary

Alright, I’m here. This week I worked on my final project. I had several ideas, one of which I decided to start actually working on. 

Part 1: Brainstorming

First, I brainstormed from the prompts we got. The possible projects are a response to AT’s legal team, a wrap-up of our class characters, or a general analysis of the pros and cons of AI. I had a lot of thoughts, but there was one that I felt would be the most fun.

Part 2: The Idea

A few days ago in my English class, a friend and I put characters from some of our readings into a Drag Race simulator. I am a huge Drag Race fan and have been keeping up with season 16. The finale is this week (the day I am posting this, actually). 

With AI and Drag Race bouncing around in my head, it was only a matter of time before they collided. The Drag Race Simulator is not a super high-level AI, but the simulator does let you put in stats for each queen so presumably there is some analysis. I think it could be really fun to “test” AI in this type of silly way and would let me talk about AI’s merits without the video feeling too heavy.

Part 3: The Plan

My current plan for the video to put the season 16 queens into the simulator, give them as accurate stats as possible, and see how close the program’s prediction is to the actual season. I already filmed the main simulator section and, without spoiling anything, it certainly made some choices. I am still working on the main script and trying to figure out where some actual analysis of AI should go.

I am very excited to see what this project becomes. It is definitely a loose interpretation of the “AI analysis” assignment but I think still works.

Aggressive Progress – Radio Show Week 2

This week, my group finished development and produced our final radio show! I would like to take this moment to issue a formal apology to Feli, who edited our show together. It was a really busy week and I was not as punctual as I should have been about recording my part. Thank you to my group for being patient.

Our final product is really fun. Our radio show leans into the cultishness of Aggressive Technologies, as well as Georgia and Andrea’s unwavering support of said cultishness. Our product is very entertaining and I hope you enjoy!

Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night! – New Radio Outro

This week, one of the things I did was remake my radio bumper/outro. After we finalized the idea for our show I realized that the bumper I had made last week didn’t make a lot of sense. So, I made a new one. It was a very similar process – I even used the same background noise, since I enjoyed the ambience last time. I just replaced the diolague using an AI text-to-speech website.

My new bumper is on my Soundcloud (I also put new images for all of my uploads so they match the theme of this blog).

I’m So Creative! – Daily Creates

This week I did two daily creates. Both of them are very silly and I enjoyed making them. I used PhotoPea for both.

1. Change a letter, ruin a book

1984 –> 1784. I know it’s not a letter, but whatever. instead of being a dystopian novel is a textbook about everything that happened in 1784. You can see a sneak peek of the contents here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1784

2. Pairing A Game With A Chore

Pairing a game with a chore. in this version of Monopoly, almost every space is either task or work. you write all of your homework/assignments on the work cards. you write all of your tasks (like cleaning or laundry) on the task cards. Any other space is a short break. i do not think this would be helpful but it would be interesting.

An Aggressive Week – Weekly Summary

This week was all about my group’s radio show, Aggressive Testimonials. This week was busy for all of my classes, so I was worried about completing all of this. Luckily I know more about audio and photo editing than I did during the last assignment so everything went smoothly.

Here is a rundown of everything I did this week.

1. I did three daily creates.

2. I made a radio bumper, poster, and fake commercial for the show.

3. I detailed my group’s progress on developing our show.

I had a good week and I am proud of the work I did, even if I took a few shortcuts in the editing and design processes.

Developing Aggression – Radio Show Progress

This week my group worked on developing our show, Aggressive Testimonials. The involved characters are Georgia Finch (me), Andrea Grant, and Düşünür. The original pitch was, “A tell-all about this company’s intrusive tech, feauturing 2 “neutral” employees.” The idea came from the fact that Andrea and Georgia both work at and agree with Aggressive Technologies. When Düşünür was added, this idea changed slightly. Düşünür is a writer who Aggressive Technologies has been trying to hire. He does not like the company, which changes the tone of the radio show significantly from what we had originally planned.

The current thought is that Aggressive Testimonials will still be a “tell-all,” now hosted by Düşünür who is trying to get Andrea and Georgia to slip up and say something bad about Aggressive Technologies. I think this idea has the potential to be very funny and I am excited to see where we go next.

Being So Creative – Daily Create

This week I did three daily creates. 2/3 of them were not photo editing prompts which I found interesting since most of the previous daily creates have been photos.

1. C D Hobbit

The hobbit walks around and faces the witch.
“My name is Charles,” he says. “Your name starts with D.”
They stare at each other. Both of them recognize each other but do not know how.
She drops her cigarette into a nearby ashtray and pulls out another one. “Let’s talk.”

2. Endangered Poetry

A right to be heard

A right to be heard
Not censored of word
A voice that is true
Not a momentary view
A word that is said
It remains in our heads
Of value that’s true
In both me and you
It signals the start
From deep in our hearts
A sentence recalls
From the big to the small
It flows like a stream …
“I have a dream…”

3. Bicycle

Aggressive Posters and Bumpers – Radio Show Design

This week I did some designing for Aggressive Testimonials, my group’s radio show. I designed a radio bumper and a poster. This post will mostly discuss the poster since I made another post detailing my process making the radio bumper.

I made the poster in Canva using my propaganda poster from a few weeks ago. I used the same AI generated robot, color scheme, and fonts. I generated a microphone using CrAIyon. I then removed the background using PhotoPea and changed the color scheme in Canva.

I think the design is very simple but functional. I like the consistency with the propaganda poster. Repeating the same aesthetic gives Aggressive Technologies a specific brand.