I love video essays, especially for movies and tv shows. I watch them in my free time a lot and I really enjoyed watching the Tony Zhou videos. When I was making my video essay, I was trying to emulate what I had seen in the videos before. In this video, I talk about the world building in this episode as well as the movement composure and the audio in this scene. I also tried my best to incorporate that “Therefore & But” method in this video although it was a bit of a struggle. I really wanted to talk about those three things, but I had trouble figuring where the “Therefore” and the “But” went and I had issues trying not so say “and then.” When I was making the video, I recorded my script and added it plus the scene into Adobe Premiere Pro. From there, I tried to cut up the scene so that what I was talking about matched what was being shown.
Help Wanted!
The biggest challenge of this assignment was finding a scene I could use in my video. Normally, if I want to use a video from YouTube I screen record the video. However there were essentially no full scenes on YouTube, even this one wasn’t the full scene and it was blurry. I tried to google how to do it, but most answers were talking about using pirating websites. I liked this assignment and I wouldn’t mind doing it again in the future for another class or for a final project, so if anyone has any tips on how to download high quality scenes in full please leave a comment. I need help!
Week four was a good one! I love podcasts and music so I knew this week was going to be enjoyable. I was nervous about the workload because having to listen to assignments can take a while but I was pleasantly surprised that the listening assignments were very interesting. Limetown was fun because it combined elements of cyberpunk and mystery, Moon Graffiti, although listening to two people cope with death as they face it freaked me out, was well made and a very good story. Even other students were doing great jobs this week, I was so impressed with everyone’s sound effects stories, radio bumpers, and assignment banks!
Daily Creates
I always try and get an early start on the Daily Creates, if I do one for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, it’s off my plate for the rest of the week. Additionally, it allows me to skip a task if I don’t like it or find it too hard, I wouldn’t have this option if I procrastinated everything to Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. This week my daily creates included word art, draw a t-rex, and Paul Bond’s brazy look.
The first daily create was word art. Using a website that converted text into a drawing utensil, we were supposed to make a body part and use the different aspects to draw it. Here you can see I drew a foot. I chose a foot because I didn’t trust my ability to draw a hand freestyle. This daily create was frustrating because there was no undo button, so if you really messed up you had to start over. This Daily Create was another reminder that art doesn’t need to be perfect, just done. Apparently I’m more of a perfectionist than I thought I was because I’m learning this lesson every week now.
This assignment was fun and scary. I am not an artist who can paint or draw, so any task with drawing makes me want to close my computer and run away. I decided to give this Daily Create a try because there was a tutorial linked, so I could follow that. I did follow the tutorial and my T-rex still looks funky, but it was a fun exercise and I was able to reference one of my favorite Disney movies.
The last Daily Create was finding a picture that tried to capture the Paul Bond “brazy” look. After some research, I concluded that the term “brazy” means tough and crazy. At first, I tried to take a picture of myself capturing the look, but I fell embarrassingly short so I moved on to a new idea. I love this picture of my cat because she looks like she’s sizing me up, I felt like this perfectly captured the brazy look; she’s tough but in a scary, chill way, like you don’t know her next move.
Assignment Bank
This week the 3 assignments I worked on were creating a playlist for my character, a radio bumper, a sound effect story, and a “Guess the Song.” I had a lot of fun with these assignments, especially because I felt that each process was very different.
To start, I made a playlist for my character: Krissy Ryan. I did this because I thought it would help me understand her a little more as well as other students who want to get to know Krissy’s likes and interests more. The genres that I included in this playlist include country, independent woman, but most importantly yearning for more. I think the most important song on this list is Belle from Beauty and the Beast because Krissy also feels like she was destined for more but doesn’t think she’ll ever get it. This playlist not only shows Krissy’s music interests but mine as well. I love all these songs so if you’re looking for some new music, this is a great place to start.
For the sound effect story assignment, the hardest part for me was coming up with an idea and executing it. Because my only options were what was available in the library, I kept running into walls. At first I wanted to do someone late for work, but I couldn’t find a frantic enough sound effect. It took me a few tries before I landed on Charlie Brown in class, and as much as I would love to take credit for choosing the idea, the idea chose me. I wanted to make what a classroom sounds like but the only sound effects for a teacher talking was Charlie Brown voices. I decided the best thing I could do was act like it was normal because for the Peanuts, it is. I like how the story came out, it sounds average and then the teacher talks and nobody blinks an eye.
This was a fun assignment and I’m curious to see if anyone else did this. I love playing “guess the song” I do it in my free time a lot, so when this assignment offered for me to make one I quickly took the chance. Spoiler alert: The song is “There’s a Hole in the Bottle” by Kelsea Ballerini. I picked this song because I’ve been listening to her a lot lately because I’m going to see on her tour and this song is easily one of my favorites. This assignment was surprisingly easy with the help of AI. The app that I used to remove the vocals is powered by AI and it separates the vocals and the instrumentals. Sometimes AI scares me but it can be pretty useful too, it was a good tool in this assignment.
I liked listening to everyone else’s radio bumpers. They were all so creative and clever, I wanted mine to be just as good. I had trouble coming up with an idea but I was inspired by Defunctland’s Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery. In the video he goes into depth about network identification and bumpers. As an homage to this video, I wanted to incorporate Disney Channel into my bumper. The connection from Disney Channel to DS106 Radio was pretty easy to make and from there I crafted my radio bumper. I used Adobe Audition for all of my audio editing assignments, and I find that it is very easy to use. This assignment was no exception, besides one transition challenge, editing a short audio assignment like this was simple.
Comments
I thought everyone’s takes on the assignments this week were really strong and I loved getting to listen to and read as many as I could. I thought Sam’s Club’s reflection on Moon Graffiti was well done and I could tell he put a lot of thought into it. I said “This reflection was so thorough and well-written! I also found the Moon Graffiti podcast creepy, especially considering that it could very well have been the outcome of the moon landing. I wonder what it was like for the person who wrote those speeches—how it felt to write one celebratory speech and another mourning the deaths of two individuals. Again, great job on this reflection!” The Moon Graffiti podcast left me with a weird feeling because it thoroughly creeped me out but the story was told so well that I couldn’t help but like it. I appreciated what Sam said and I liked being able to bounce my ideas off of his. I also commented on Your Weekly Adrenaline Rush’s radio bumper, I said “Ah! This is so lovely! You did a great job, and I commend you for being the first to do this assignment. I love the dial-in; it’s the classic feel of a radio bumper!” I was really impressed with their courage to be the first person to make a radio bumper. I put mine off as long as possible because I was nervous. Next, I commented on Live it Up With Liv’s Character Playlist, I wrote “This is so cool, and I bet it was fun to make! I see that there’s a trend of older artists and some country music. From what you’ve said about your character, I think she would absolutely listen to Amy Winehouse. I definitely want to try this with my character!” Liv inspired me to make a playlist for my character because looking at her assignment made me start thinking “oh that’s interesting, I wonder what I would do if I did this assignment?” So, I stopped wondering and got to work which is how I ended up with my assignment. Then, I commented on Rebecca’s Radiant Realm’s sound effect story. I said, “Wow! I think you killed this assignment. When I tried doing this, my audio clips were played one after the other, but I love how every sound in yours is overlapping. It creates the busy feel of the office because everything is happening simultaneously or one after the other. Great job!” I was vey impressed with the quality of their story. I felt what Jad Abumrad was saying about the dreamlike state of storytelling; I was in that office, I was hearing those snores. Lastly, I commented on The Digital Canvas and their sound effect story, I wrote “I love this take on the assignment! It’s something that everyone can relate to, and I like how it includes all the elements of an average day: the good, the bad, the great, and the ugly. Putting in different tones makes me feel like I am in this person’s shoes.” I appreciated how they put in all aspects of the day. Showing the realistic side of life made the story seem so real! All in all, everyone did great jobs and I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone better when we do group work
Conclusion
This was a good week! Not only am I proud of the work I did, but I can’t stop gushing over everyone else’s. The assignments were creative and I could tell everyone had an original take and put a lot of effort into their pieces. I’m looking forward to next week!
This assignment told me to remove the lyrics from my favorite song for others to guess the song. I love these kinds of games so I wanted to provide! This isn’t my all time favorite song, but I’ve been listening to this artist a lot lately and it’s definetly my favorite from her discography. Here are some hints to guess the song and I’ll put the answer at the end of my blog. Each progressing hint gives the answer away a little more.
This singer is a country artist
She was on Radio Disney
This singer is on tour right now and is coming to DC very soon. This song is on her setlist.
To make this song without lyrics, I uploaded the chorus of the song I wanted to Stemify. The app uses AI to seperate the vocals and the different instrumentals so once it worked its magic, I turned the vocals all the way down and from there I uploaded the song to Soundcloud.
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The song is Hole in the Bottle by Kelsea Ballerini
(the emojis from hint #6 are supposed to say “hole in one bottle”)
For the radio bumper assignment, I based my bumper on the iconic “You’re watching Disney Channel’ ads that would air when I was younger. I thought the idea was creative and nostalgic, but mainly because of Defunctland on YouTube. When I looked into what a radio bumper was, the assignment description explained that it is a “short recording that identifies the radio station with signature music or an expression that makes sure the listeners know what they are tuned into.” It reminded me of Defunctland’s “Disney Channel’s Theme: A History Mystery” where the host, Kevin, talks about Network Identifiers. Kevin goes on to explain that bumpers are a fascinating liminal space that is able to tell viewers, “Here is where you are, here is what you’ve been watching, and here’s what’s next.” The video is all-around amazing, so I encourage anyone reading this to watch it. That being said, because this video taught me what bumpers were when I first watched that video, I wanted to reference it by using the Disney Channel theme for my bumper.
To make this bumper, I recorded myself saying my name and saying, “You’re listening to DS106 radio.” From there, I uploaded my recording and the audio clip of the Disney Channel theme to Adobe Audition to start editing. Because the audio was so short, editing was easy but I did run into one challenge. I wanted some music to play first and then for me to talk, but to do that, I had to set the clips at different audio levels and then have them fade into each other. The frustrating thing about Adobe Audition is that I couldn’t figure out how to do a fade transition for the audio. What kept happening was the first audio clip would fade into zero, and the next audio clip would fade from zero, but it was jarring and didn’t sound good. The solution I found told me to set the two clips to different volumes and then overlap each other. That is what I ended up doing, but I am keeping my eye out for a better way to do this.
I like how my radio bumper came out, and I’ve enjoyed listening to everyone else’s. I’m excited to maybe one day hear it on DS106 radio!
I tuned in at 7:05 to listen to DS106 radio. It took me a good minute or two to understand what I was listening to because I had tuned in part way through. I was listening with my friends in the room, and I asked them if they knew of anything called Limetown, and they were able to fill me in. The story was interesting, I wanted to listen from the beginning because I was hooked, but I was also playing catch-up. This episode was a good one to tune into because Dorothy explained who Max was, how she ended up in Limetown, and vaguely described the technology enough for me to understand. Some of the acting was a little cheesy, but that’s typical in a fictional podcast series. Knowing what I know now from this week’s lesson, it was interesting to see music and sound effects applied. For example, in the park, there was a nice ambiance to let the listeners know they were outside. The sound effects were seamless, so I wonder if the audio was recorded outside because the sound was blended in so effortlessly. Another interesting thing was that Dorothy said that when she was sneaking out to get the chip implant, she described the scene as “something out of a tech noir”; coincidentally, my friend described the episode as something out of Black Mirror. It’s funny and meta that she would compare it to tech noir when she is very much in a tech noir setting herself. I’m glad I tuned in because I saw that Limetown was not only a podcast series but also a book and a TV show, so I’m interested in looking into the rest because this is a terrific story.
The prompt for this assignment excited me because it’s a clever idea and a good way to get creative. Once I started editing this story together, I had an easy time, but coming up with an idea was really tough for me. The problem I kept running into was I would think of the story I wanted to tell but couldn’t find any sounds for it. However, if I tried to do the reverse, downloading sounds and then coming up with a story, I became overwhelmed with options and didn’t know where to begin. Another challenge was that I could not find inspiration for a prompt online. I thought because this assignment was fun and easy, multiple people would have their own takes on it, but I couldn’t find anything. Eventually, I decided to do the sounds of a class period. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but I was stumped. I started downloading the sounds I wanted, and when I went to download the teacher’s voice, it only gave me Charlie Brown Teacher voices, but I figured that would be a much more interesting take, so I went with it. The process of editing the story together was fairly quick. I took the downloaded sounds and compiled them in the order I wanted. I used the cutting tool to end some clips early or split them up. After that, I exported the story and uploaded it to SoundCloud. Again, it’s a simple story, but I hope the Charlie Brown aspect makes it a little less mundane.
When I was brainstorming radio show ideas, I was inspired by WTOP’s radio show which is short for Washington’s Top News. WTOP is a staple for anyone who lives in Northern Virginia. Their slogan “traffic and weather on the 8s and when it breaks” is so nostalgic to me because my parents would always put it on before a long car trip. I thought it would be cool to do a cyberpunk take on WTOP. This would show all the top news happening where the cyberpunk characters are. This would tell listeners how the traffic and weather is, what the current events are, and how the politicians are dealing with those events. I think this a great way to build the world and set the scene for my group’s characters! Each segment would need to be at least five minutes to meet the minimum time limit, but I think we will probably have more that twenty minutes worth of content. I’m excited about this idea and I look forward to see if my group will end up using this.
I think this assignment was a really good exercise for developing my character’s personality. I was inspired by Live it Up With Liv’s version of this assignment and I thought it looked fun so I wanted to give it a try. For this playlist there were a few elements I wanted to apply: country, independent woman, and wanting more. For the country element, you can see that in songs like “Fancy” by Reba, “The Other Side of the Door” by Taylor Swift, and “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma”. I think she would like these songs because she works on a farm in a small town so country music is in her roots. The independent woman part can be seen in “Woman” by Kesha and “You’re Just a Boy (and I’m Kind of the Man)” by Maisie Peters. Krissy is a confident woman and that confidence will be important to have on her mission. The last factor of songs that give off the feeling of wanting more can be seen in the song “Belle” from Beauty and the Beast as well as “1985” by Bowling for Soup. I think the sense of yearning for more is a relatable feeling in the Innocent Bystander Archetype. In the beginnning of her story, she feels that she is meant for more but by the end, after all the action, she will be changed for better or for worse. Some songs have overlapping themes. For example, “Girl in a Country Song” by Maddie & Tae and “girl i’ve always been” by Olivia Rodrigo shows both elements of country and independent woman. Additionally, I made Krissy with very similar interests to mine, she is a strong, independent woman, so of course I want to feel represented by her. While reflecting on this assignment, I realized that Krissy has very similar music taste to me. I think in Live it Up With Liv’s assignment, Liv went out of her way to find a healthy mix of music that she regularly listened to and music that fit the vibe of her character. In constrast, this assignment went very fast for me because I would think “Oh! This song I like fits, and this one too!” so I see a lot of myself in this playlist. As I mentioned earlier, this assignment was a great way for me to develop my character’s personality, and in turn I hope anyone who reads this has a better understanding of who Krissy is.
The two biggest takeaways I got from Jad Abumrad’s videos were Co-Auhorization and creating a connection to the story. Abumrad says the lack of pictures in forces listeners to use their imagination. By telling a story, he is painting the picture, but by listeners using their imagination, we are holding the brush; this is called co-authorship. He is telling the story and I am illustrating it, and in turn adding a few details in myself. Additionally, in order to create co-authorship, a storyteller needs to be able to create a dream like state to connect the listener to the story. If a story is interesting enough, it will immerse the listener into the story where they can add their own takes. Sound in a story is like seasoning on a dish, too little is bland and the listener becomes bored, but too much is overpowering and overwhelms the listener. In Moon Graffiti, the effect that made their voices sound like they were coming through walkie-talkies helps remind the reader that the story takes place in 1969. The sad, quiet, monotone song that plays while the astronauts are putting down a memorial, knowing that they will have to be memorialized too, and sooner than they thought, adds an eerie depressing tone to the story that makes your heart break for these men. Abumrad said in his video that co-authorization creates empathy, and that definetly rings true in this podcast. Because I am illustrating the story, it makes me feel like I am in there shoes, like I have two hours left to live with little to no hope of surviving. It makes the listener sad, but it also helps put into perspective how amazing and impressive it is that, in real life, they were able to put men on the moon and get them back unharmed. Knowing what could have been the outcome, I am so happy that these astronauts were able to achieve this dangerous feat and still return back to Earth. In summary, I found it very interesting how Jad Abumrad emphasized the role of imagination and creating a connection with the audience, it gave me a lot to think about when it comes to crafting a compelling narrative.
I found this week to be much more easy going than the last which was a very nice break. The assigned tasks were really fun and engaging! The Photoblitz was definetly my favorite. I put it off until the last minute because I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but it was really easy and I got a good walk in. My least favorite assignment of the week was the Dream House assignment that I chose from the assignment bank. I acknowledge that this was my responsibility and I probaly should have just quit and chose something else, but I’m stubborn so I stuck with it. The thing that I didn’t like about this assignment was having to justify my why this was my character’s house. I don’t know if I had writers block or made a bad choice with the house, but that blog was really hard for me to write. I did push through, however, and the blog is up if you’re curious about Krissy’s house. Still this was a god week, and if all the weeks end up like this one, I think I’m in good shape.
Daily Creates
The Daily Creates were hard for me this week. I really enjoyed them last week but this time around, I just felt uninspired and I think you can see that in my work. I did Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday’s prompt. I looked at Monday’s prompt and thought it was really cool and I wanted to try it but the day slipped away from me before I got the chance.
Tuesday’s daily create was to make a header for the new create page. I used Canva to make the banner. I added some neon tech, which I know from watching the movie poster video that shows themes of action and cyberpunk. Then I added some text with fun fonts to convey what the page was about.
Wednesday’s Daily Create was the anti cloud. I thought the concept for this was really cool. I can’t even imagine how long it took for them to find every word that wasn’t in those books. There were quite a few books to choose from, so I’m thinking at least a year to compile what they had. For my DC I used the first six words to make art. It was hard because the words are so random but I did my best. Once again, I used canva to compile the images and the text.
The last one was rate how woke a sandwich is. This one was easy because all I had to do was google my favorite sandwich and then rate it’s wokeness. It did make me start craving this sandwich though which was really unfortunate for me since I had no means to get one.
Assignments
The assignments were easy this time around. I appreciate how much freedom there is in being able to choose the assignment. I really liked how my video game screen turned out. The image is good on its own but I think the video glitch effect I added really completed it, and made it look like a real videoo game screen.
****flashing lights****
I liked making my logo, it was one of the easier assignments, and I was excited to make it about me instead of my course character. Making content for Krissy is fun but the only hard part is you have to really think about what she likes and doesn’t like plus the decisions she would and wouldn’t make. I didn’t realize how relaxing it is to just know what I like.
My last assignment was finding a house for my character. This assignment wasn’t all bad, I had a hard time writing the blog but looking for a house was fun. I really like this house, I think it’s beautiful. There are pops of color while still maintaining a classic look. For those who read my Pinterest assignment, you know that I love old fashioned homes and colors, so I think it’s fitting that Krissy would have some of the same interests as me.
Finally, for Photoblitz, this project was really cool. I saw that Photoblitz originally came from a Daily Shoot, which is like a Daily Create but with photography. When I was doing the Photoblitz, I had some ideas for pictures but they weren’t possible given the time constraint so I wonder how these prompts would have turned out if I had the whole day.
Comments
I tried to leave one comment every day on a different blog. I think it’s funny to look back on my comments, because as my work load for the week got heavier, my comments became shorter. On Monday I left a really long comment on The Digital Canvas, to paraphrase, I explained how I agreed with their reflection on Graphic Design and I think it’s cool how a font can reflect the air of a show. Tuesday, I commented on Tigerflora’s game screen and I said “I love your “Game Over” metaphor. It’s a wonderful reminder that the game isn’t over until you quit. As long as you keep trying and failing, you’ll eventually complete your level and, one day, maybe even finish the game!” I thought the message was nice and could be applied to more than their character. Wednesday, I commented on Oh Noir You Didn’t’s Shakesperean cat. I said “Mango is adorable! I love to see a fellow Canva user. It has been so helpful for this class, and it has saved my butt for the Daily Creates. The prompts that don’t involve taking pictures or screenshots have me running to Canva. I whip something together with the mass amount of resources it has, and my Daily Create comes out looking so good! I can also completely relate to having hundreds of pictures of my cat on my phone. I liked the quote you used and how well it matched the picture. Do you know which play this line is from? I’m not the biggest Shakespeare fan, but he does have a couple of plays that I like.” I appreciated the thought that went into matching a Shakespeare quote to a picture of their cat. The picture focused on Mango’s eyes so they picked a quote that also focused on eyes. Thursday, I looked at Rebecca’s Radient Realm and I commented on their Tattoo art. I said “These tattoos are crazy good. I’m obsessed! I think each color option is really cool, too. It’s so fun to see how the colors add a different vibe to the same tattoo! I like the acknowledgment that Evelyn is a classy gal. Do you think she has multiple tattoos, or is this her only one?” I was really impressed with the artwork for Evelyn’s tattoo, the sketch was gorgeous and the each color pallete was a nice compliment. Finally, on Friday I commented on Sam’s Club’s GIF: “LOL, this made me giggle! I like the contrast of his quiet character with his loud actions. His eyes and mouth remind me of Sussie from The Amazing World of Gumball. Great job!” The gif was really funny, and as I mentioned the difference between the sullen character and their extravagent face movements was very silly.
Closing Thoughts
I had been looking forward to this week because I was overwhelmed from the Digital Bootcamp, and I’m glad I stuck it out because this was a nice workload. I wasn’t overwhelmed with the amount and I enjoyed the assignments. I hope week four is even better!
