Category Archives: Assignments

Revisiting Goals

M. Marshall 2.23

Let’s go back to a time that was a little simpler, week one. It was much less clear as to what any courses for this semester would be about and taking seventeen credits didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time. I have had some highs and lows in this course, getting to experiment with video editing and creating my own website has been both fun and challenging.

Goals!

I gave myself a bunch of small goals, so let’s see how I’m doing.

→It is true that I have become (slightly) more digitally adept. Perhaps not significantly, but I have a way better handle on the WordPress aspect of this. I was even taught how to embed links into a screenshot so that the daily creates wouldn’t look so ugly!

Before:

Weekly Summary #3: Getting the hang of it

After:

Weekly Summary #5: Fifth Time is the Charm?

As ridiculously small as this seems, this was a big win for me. I value sleekness in a website and so I was very frustrated by the way it looked. Now, it’s beautiful!

→ “Ideally, by the time this is finished I will have a whole blog that looks like nothing I could have ever imagined being able to create before starting this class, maybe that I can show off to friends.” Honestly, I think I am well on my way there right now. I like to show my girlfriend the website sometimes, so I think that counts! Obviously this is still a work in progress, so I don’t feel that it’s anything to write home about just yet. But, I think it will be.

If I was going to show anyone any post, it would probably be this one:

Guess the song

Mostly because it’s hilarious (to me).

→”Maybe a goal would be to have the little widgets leading to a real link/page that isn’t just my main page?” Honestly, not quite there yet. I think I’d need another stop by the DKC before I could say I can do this. But, that’s okay! We are not even halfway through the semester, not everything has to be ready.

→”I can feel a reflection on this post coming at the end of the semester” Try just a few weeks from now!

→”Maybe to be able to somehow incorporate my cat, Daisy into this blog?” I checked and I’ve only mentioned her 2-3 times, the goals post being one of them. To my credit: I based my character off of her, so there is a few more posts than just that related to her. Let’s fix that with this post!

Here she is enjoying the outdoor air a little while ago. I don’t take her outside anymore because the avian flu is becoming more problematic for house cats and I am overprotective.

Something else I’m proud of, one of my favorite daily creates:

My next (short-term-ish) goal is to have some new features on the website the next time goals are being re-evaluated!

A Night in the Snow

When It’s Cold Outside Assignment for Week 6

I recorded this with my phone (with help from my mom) and put it together in CapCut, adding music. I planned out the scenes and told her how I wanted her to hold the camera. I cut the clips and reordered some so they could tell a cohesive story. Unfortunately, due to YouTube’s limitations, I had to cut this down to one minute. We were lucky we still had snow; it melted pretty quickly in Fredericksburg.

Video Essay

To create my video essay, I used iMovie on my iPad. I screen-recorded the scene I wanted to analyze, uploaded it to iMovie, and added a voiceover. You may notice that I was speaking fast—that’s because I had a lot to say but not enough time, so I apologize for that. This was a great assignment to work on, and it was my first time using iMovie and considering a movie’s editing and filming style to effectively tell a story.

Week 5 and 6

I was sick last week with the flu, so this summary covers both weeks 5 and 6. It worked out well since both weeks focused on film and videos.

Week 5 was pretty straightforward, watching videos and reading articles about filming and editing to present a story effectively.

I found the Black Mirror episode “Hated in the Nation” really interesting and creative. I thought it was well done.

Here is my video essay:

Video Essay

This week, I completed four Daily Creates:

We revisited the goals we wrote in the first week of class, and it was nice to look back and reflect. So much has been accomplished in just five weeks! I’ve embedded both my initial goal and my revisited goals.

DS106goals

Revisiting My Goals

I chose to complete three video assignments from the assignment bank.

A Collection of Moments

Tips for your characters

What did I sign?

Commenting!

Since I was sick during Week 5, I wasn’t able to comment then, but here are some of the posts I interacted with this week:

Back to 2021

TikTok of your Pet

Ranking Fruits from 1 – 10

I voted! Did you???

Cyberpunk Movie Trailer

Character Movie Trailer Assignment for Week 6

Music by Benjamin Lazzarus on Bensound. License code: VOJ3IVQ4NZCVXVTG

Pond5 stock footage by CleverArts, Powel2097, victorfort, Frameangel, and TokyoVisionaryRoom. Adobe stock video by designprojects. Pexels videos by Yaroslav Shuraev, George Morina, Pixabay, Ricky Esquivel, Rostislav Uzunov, HumanoideVFX, Nathan J Hilton, MART PRODUCTION, Erik Mclean, IslandHopper X, Oleg Gamulinskii, Kelly, and Tom Fisk.

Special thanks to Mikhail Nilov, who made Close up of a Lighted Signage and A Woman Aiming a Weapon.

Extra special thanks to cottonbro studio, who made Two People in Black Clothing Standing in front of a Wall, A Woman Posing at the Camera, A Woman Wearing a VR Headset Sitting on the Floor, and A Human Hand Touching Prosthetic Arm.

I made this with the websites above and edited them in OpenShot. I manually clipped each shot and placed them together, sometimes changing the audio levels or frame. I tried to make a trailer that implies we are looking through a robot’s eyes and shows different levels of destruction that could occur throughout the city, particularly if people or robots began to riot. I would’ve liked more shots involving robots or androids, but beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to stock photos. I hope it encompasses the themes of both cyberpunk and tech noir.

Vee’s Top 10 Movies

When I saw the Top 10 assignment, I knew I wanted to do it, especially with movies. But, I thought I would make it for Veronica where she could share her Top 10 favorite movies.The genre tends to vary, but also falls under the same theme, with it being crime, thriller, action, or a murder mystery, but they differ in style and time periods. It did take some research in order to find the best rated movies under these genres. They range from Kill Bill Volume 1 to Miss Congeniality. In order to make the video, I used ClipChamp to edit the video and add the audio. I recorded the audio on the voice memos app on my phone, as well as made a script to stick to throughout the video. I tried (emphasis on tried) to act like Veronica would in the audio, but I did the best I could. I then found movie posters on google, and then created graphics on Canva to make a visual for the video, as well as found the background music on Pixabay.com. Overall, this was super fun as it allowed me to think outside the box, and imagine myself as Veronica in order to find her favorite movies.

Bethany in School

I opted to further engage with my course character by unearthing a video that she made during high school. Based on the information in my introduction post, Bethany would have been in school around 2012.

After deciding the perfect early-2010s track to play, I downloaded it using a YouTube to mp3 converter. I used the same converter to download a couple of videos of 2012 high schoolers, which I included in the final video. All of the images came from Pinterest, which I sourced primarily from a search asking for “2012 high school.” Bethany was a pretty mainstream, normal girl, so all of these pictures and videos may seem average but are perfectly her!

Everything was compiled using Microsoft ClipChamp

Zer0 CapCut Edit

Speed Up Transition Assignment for Week 6

I did something slightly different from what the assignment asked based on what was available to me. I downloaded CapCut and searched for a template that I thought would be fitting for my character. There were some issues moving things between the web browser and app, but it worked out in the end. I used a recent template made by lorelei.

All pictures of Zer0 are by me. They were a part of a photoshoot I did in Richmond in 2023. Photos of cityscapes were taken by Lennon Cheng, Josh Hild, Lerone Pieters, and Hin Bong Yeung on Unsplash. The song is a remixed version of Daft Punk’s Harder Better Faster Stronger. I was looking for a different Daft Punk song but found this one to be fitting enough. Fun fact, Daft Punk was part of my inspiration for Zer0!

To Bethany!

For this assignment, I decided to portray one of Bethany’s friends giving her a toast at her housewarming party. I fell curse to an echo-ey room, but it makes it feel like it really is an empty room! The assignment didn’t go into depth about how long the toast should be, so mine ended up being quite short. I recorded everything in ClipChamp and trimmed the beginning and end. I played around with adding crowd noises, but I felt like I couldn’t get it to properly layer with the audio from my video, so I left those out.