This week was a fairly low radar week compared to others. Coming back from spring break was a bit of a challenge to get reacclimated, but pushed on nonetheless. This week, I reached out in the discord and figured out a group to do the upcoming radio show project, and started to coordinate ideas with them regarding our plans for the show (tune in soon!!). Besides that, did the usual for the week and commented on my classmates different posts, and did 3 daily creates, of which will be included below as always.
This week I used Canva a lot to create media to represent how I would format a movie scene into a news article, and to create my own propaganda that connects to Eric Little. Although these were 2 separate assignments, I thought it would be a cool idea to combine them into one, having both the new article and propaganda on the front page of this website’s newspaper, The Digital Canvas Times. For the movie scene, I used the nightclub scene from The Terminator, and used a sense of ambiguity behind the event to frame the shooting as a real event that was trying to be published as soon as possible even without having all of the information. Furthermore, the propaganda I put together had a prominent theme of structure that resonates well with Eric Little and his backstory as someone that’s only done what he is told. I also wanted to add different teasers such as identifying the conspiracy Eric is caught up in being an underground anarchy against the societal elites known as The Arrow, and adding a wanted poster of him in the bottom of the newspaper cover.
I also did the 3 daily creates this week which I will show below, as has become tradition.
Hitting 2 birds with 1 stone here. Once I saw the tech noir news and propaganda assignments, I thought it would be a really cool idea to incorporate them into 1 big newspaper cover. I chose The Terminator nightclub scene because I originally watched The Terminator earlier this semester and it was nice to revisit it and focus on one scene in particular. The propaganda I made (seen on the top right side) using Canva was something I thought of to connect my character, Eric Little, using a more dystopian style PSA, highlighting that reason of Eric’s innocence is because his family follows “The Arrow” a mysterious group that creates and enforces structure into all of society, much like in George Orwell’s 1984. I also made and used a wanted poster for Eric as he had been caught up in a previously unstated criminal conspiracy, which has now been revealed to be an underground anarchy against The Arrow. I really like being able to slowly tell the story of my character and progress as the semester goes forward.
This week was also focused on video media and video editing. I carefully chose and completed 3 Video Assignments from the assignment bank, those being: Advice to 16 Year Old Me, Signing Words, and Cold Winter Night. It was interesting and fun to create media using video because I also do it outside of the classroom for work related purposes. Shifting focus, however, was a good change of pace and creating different types through these assignments expanded my horizons. I also revisited my goals from the first week that I said I wanted to accomplish this semester, noting I’ve done so much more than I thought I would’ve without even being halfway through the semester. Lastly, I did 2 daily creates this week, which will be attached below.
Looking back on doing the goals post the first week of the semester, it feels like so long ago. We’ve already done so many things in this class, and I’ve been able to experiment with different programs and media creation. I definitely feel like I’ve learned a lot not only in reading articles and watching videos about editing and audio, but also through experience, which is so helpful outside of the classroom. I really wanted to gain experience through this class, and not even halfway through the semester I have definitely reached that goal.
It’s funny how perspective can change everything. From this video, it look cold but dry, nothing around except bushes and grass on the brink of death. But just outside of the reach of this video, there’s snow that had fallen the previous day. Shooting this video of the cold winter night was an assignment I didn’t think I would be doing, just me sitting in the cold. What it does though, is emphasize connecting with watchers without sound or a lot of background activity, just you, and the cold night sky. I think this assignment is a reminder that in a video, one can control what you can and cannot see, preventing crucial information that help help in understanding the surroundings and context.
One of the video assignments I chose for this week was the assignment “Signing Words”. I have never really gotten into sign language or learned anything about it besides learning the motion for thank you a while ago, but I am friends with some people who know a good amount. I wanted to take the opportunity of seeing this assignment to learn how to finger spell and explore a bit of ASL. I am a Spanish minor so other languages aren’t too out of the ordinary for me, but the commonality of ASL versus Spanish are pretty far apart. I chose a little phrase to spell so please look and see if you can guess!
One of the video assignments that really caught my eye was filming as if I was speaking to my sixteen year old self. This was back in 2021-22 and the reason it caught my eye was because it immediately reminded me of how much I was going through at that time. I wanted to be able to make a video to show how much I’ve grown since then. I was also challenged in my attempt to not overshare. In my mind when completing the assignment I thought back to movies that state that if you tell your past self any details about what happens in the future then that future will not occur. I thought it would be a good challenge to uphold.
Happy Valentine’s Day! My week was a very busy one, and I’m definitely glad it’s over with. This week was mainly spent watching the videos and learning about video editing and how crucial it is to a show or movie’s success, although most people don’t notice the specifics of it. It was really interesting to put that together towards the end of the week in my video essay and analyze a scene about potential downsides of a surveillance bee. I also did 2 Daily Creates which I enjoy doing just as a break from everything else.
The video essay I created was an analysis of the Black Mirror scene examining the surveillance bee that had “malfunctioned” and was involved in a death. It was interesting to examine how the editors most notably used different camera angles to shift the audience’s focus, and to also set the presence of technology. I noticed more closely the usage of close ups to convey emotions of characters by focusing of their eyes as was frequently mentioned in the videos and had a lot of fun looking more into a show past its initial context/plot. Please take a look here!
