This week, Carson and I divided the work for our podcast show. I created a website for our show using UMW Sites, while Carson focused on writing the scripts. Most of our time was spent handling the logistics and preparing to record and edit our episodes so we can upload them soon.
Here is our site:
(The podcasts aren’t live yet, but we do have an About Us page if you’d like to check it out!)
M. Marshall 4.17
A huge part of this class is talking about what you did and how you did it and why you did it and how it worked out. One thing I am more challenged by than talented at is communication. Part of the holistic liberal arts education that Mary Washington appeals to is why I came, and also, no employer is going to hire someone who says “I’m a hard worker and I am qualified for the job, but I cannot communicate for the life of me.” So as I work to explain my thought process more, bear with me.
For my final project, I’m telling my character’s story. I want the story to shine through because D41SY is based on my own pet, who is very beloved to me. I also want the story to into three categories: I want it to matter, I want it to make sense, and I want it to make the viewer feel something. My bonus category would be that I want a really good rainy scene because I love the rain.
I think one problem many story tellers run into is that they feel a personal connection to their character, they care about that character, and they don’t realize that other people don’t have that. I want there to be moments that show the importance of her character in the plot, and to feel happiness when she feels happiness, so that the audience will feel sadness when she does too. I want to design her to be aesthetically pleasing, because people are naturally attracted to things that look nice. I also think people will enjoy a good swish-y tail, maybe that becomes more rigid when she becomes a cyborg and then swish-y again when she is returned to her owner? She also needs a goal; I think saving the other animals and reuniting them. I want the story to have a happy ending.
One issue: I don’t want to base a character on me, I’m not a writer, so I’m not going to say I know everything about the process. I do know that self-inserts are often difficult because everyone wants to be liked, so it’s harder to show nuance. I think I’m going to make D41SY’s owner a guy to create a stronger sense of separation in my head between myself, the owner, my cat, and D41SY. Any self inserts will be much more akin to Stan Lee from Marvel, preferably.
What have I done so far? I’m so glad you asked.
First, I considered my strengths:
When I was 12 I was really intro drawing
Then I considered my weaknesses:
When I was 12 I was really into drawing
Jokes aside, I know that I would be most proud of myself creating an animation, so that’s what I’ve set out to do.
I have an iPad and an Apple Pencil, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to utilize that. I’ve downloaded an app called FlipStudio and started sketching. Of course, while not terrible, I perhaps overestimated my drawing skills
Although disappointing, knowing my weaknesses is an important part of the process. The eyes look like human eyes. No good way around it, the drawings are a little stiff and while there is artwork that is very simple that I find to be fantastic, my own is simple in all the wrong places.
I looked into YouTube, because it has everything, and looked for how to animate cats and found this:
It’s not the art style I’m going for, but I was really impressed at how much good information this short video conveyed.
Back to the drawing board (get it, because I’m focusing on drawing again? Okay.)
One of the things I really clicked with was viewing the animal as multiple parts of a whole, rather than one part. Which I believe is conveyed well in the highlighted colors and parts of the cat that are highlighted.
Most importantly, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be a reflection of my effort in this course.
I hope anyone reading enjoyed my post, and I’ll be back tomorrow for a weekly summary!
M. Marshall 4.11
This is the trailer for our final project. I’m in a group again with Emily H., Sam H., and Brigid W.. Since I edited together the clips for the radio show, Emily edited the clips this time, and put them together for the movie trailer using OpenShot video editor. I sent in clips of my cat, Daisy, for my character D41SY, some with her looking normal, some with her “glitching” (I used a tiktok filter, lol)… Emily used what we all turned in to create this! We had a Zoom meeting Thursday night to discuss our ideas for the final project, and agreed on our different roles in producing this, and we scheduled a Zoom meeting for Monday to write a script. I’m excited to see how it will turn out!
Daily Creates: (Only two this week I totally forgot about them 
)
Movie Trailer
Pretty simple week! Can’t wait to start recording our podcasts!!
Carson and I started this project with the idea of creating a podcast duo where we talk about different tech noir, cyberpunk, and AI topics. We’re covering things like film reviews, AI for good, and privacy. We used Canva to create the trailer together, and we plan on launching a subdomain where we’ll post the podcast as part of our brand.
It was a bit difficult to make a trailer for a podcast since it’s all conversation based, but overall the process was fun. I’m really excited to see how this turns out and where we can take it next.
For this project I used 3 sources a Canva was the main source where I did my best to bring my character to life. Even if it doesn’t have any warmth or a pulse. For my final project I plan to create a story about an Ai that gains ‘life’ an awareness of its existence and what it may mean in the world. To explain it is a young life that has been created like a baby. Not fully fleshed out yet but that’s what the next few weeks are for!
I really wanted to make it smoother however I am not a professional animator, so I am not going to stress about it. Still another thing is that I wished I centered it better, but I forgot my computer sits to the side, so it only seemed center till I UPLOADED IT ;-; Aside from that I like how the sounds came out. I used iMovie and had a select few options but with volume control and clipping it came out just right!
ALSO
MIKU BLUE
Ahahaha that is the vibe here!
I made it in Canva like I said using shapes and animation affects to bring it to life. It’s simple but each movement is me staring at the screen wondering how tiny a frame can be before I can click on it. Unlike Audacity I can’t just zoom in.
Still I overall liked how it came out could’ve used more sounds but still really good in my books.
I listened to The Opposites Show on Wednesday night on the ds106 radio. I thought the ads were really good, finding myself tuning them out sometimes because I was mistaking them for the real thing. I also liked how the same transitional tune was used throughout to let us know what was going on. The different group members having conversations with each other and with AI was a good way of telling the story. One part that particularly interested me was the warning/alert that got cut off as the radio accepted the returning caller. It added a lot of mystery that I don’t think we’ll get the answers to anytime soon. A critique I have for the show is most of the ads were played in the beginning before tuning in to the show, which makes sense because we have ad segments, but I think it would’ve been better if one ad played in the beginning, probably the one introducing us to the AI algorithmic dating app, and other ads were strategically scattered throughout. Overall, I thought the radio show had good formatting and was fun to listen to!
As for our radio show, Noir News, when I heard it Wednesday night, that was the first time I had heard it in full and not in pieces. Despite having different characters and stories, we were still able to connect them by making news segments from the location where our characters live. For example, I decided to make my news segment from Chicago in about 100 years in the future. This is around the time my character is active in the story. My group member Maddie took all of our sound files and edited them together into one radio show. I appreciated the feedback we got on our show, and I’ve thought of a few ways it could be improved, such as audio mixing or saving the files differently to make things easier to put together. My group is working together again for the final project, so I hope we can continue to make things bigger and better than before.
M. Marshall 4.4
This will be pretty short because I’ve talked a lot about what the actual process looked like in creating the radio show. Getting to hear the product of my work on a radio show was super cool and I felt pretty proud of myself and my group. Getting to talk on the radio was super cool and I felt like a celebrity. I have no idea who was responsible for naming our group (I think it’s Noir News?) but I liked the title and realized that we should have brain stormed that earlier, lol. It was also cool hearing the other group’s, my favorite thing they did was a commercial for a dating app ad (and the algorithm was AI?) it was very funny and I thought it was a fantastic premise. Overall, it was a really cool experience!
Let’s get into today’s case.
Days of Crime and Roses is a podcast that focuses on true crime stories, with multiple hosts sharing their experiences. The podcast creates a specific atmosphere through narration of the cases, like Lynn’s emotional connection to the missing persons in Montana creates an emotional resonance. Jasper’s dramatic storytelling about Grayson Cole and the “Rebirth Incident” captivates the audience with a cautionary tale. The consistent introduction and outro music contribute to branding and listener recognition. The variety in hosts’ approaches within “Days of Crime and Roses” suggests an awareness of appealing to a diverse audience.
Crime and roses had an interesting take that reminded me of the last time we listened to the Ds106 radio for a crime podcast. Super cute how they all said crime at the same time. Aside from that overall love how it came out. I couldn’t appreciate the extra sounds that, but I could hear the emotions in their voices as they told the stories. It’s nice to hear that they mentioned wanting to hear more background sounds too. I can image how much more immersive that would have felt rather than just an interesting listen. Still, it was enjoyable, and I can hear the Limestone inspiration.
Well, when it came to listening to my own show I really listened to all the mistakes that make me wanna pull my hair out and gag. Some of them were so bad I am shocked no one said anything ;-; wahhhhh. Anyway, overall, the same feeling I get when I hear my own voice. ew ew ew eweweweweweweweweweew. That’s how I feel.
M. Marshall 3.28
This is what we’ve been waiting for, the radio show is here!
In order to have the 3 commercials with a group of four and an evenly divided amount of work: we decided to have thre of us did commercials and one of us put all of the audio together. I was the one who put the audio together. It took a bit of figuring out and converting files to mp3, but I did it! I became very close friends with tracks, align tracks, and align end to end. One thing about me is that I procrastinate as much as I can, but because I was working with other group members I knew it would not be fair to have it ready really late, so I did it as early as possible. Which, admittedly, was not super early, but better than my usual things. I wanted to use an AI voice recorder because it can be painfully difficult to record things using my own voice, but nothing worth using is free, unfortunately. Because of that, I recorded myself reading it out loud, and I think that this was the hardest part of all. I tend to choke on my words and stutter when I’m reading and recording, so that happened quite a few times. I ended up recording it in pretty small segments so I had one sentence (or so) to record, which made it a lot easier. I had a script that I followed. I felt really inclined to cringe because I don’t love my own fictional writing, but I told myself that I was lacking whimsy and pushed through. I recorded my audio on Audacity and edited the clips together there. I somehow struggled with downloading the radio show, but I was able to upload it to SoundCloud, and now it is there for the whole world to see! Again, I worked with Emily, Sam, and Brigid. They were all terrific with the process and I was the one who procrastinated the most, so hopefully that wasn’t too frustrating for them, lol. Overall, it was very nerve-wracking to record but cool to say that I can now create a radio show (or podcast).