I’m pretty easy to work with so I’d do a radio show with anyone on just about anything (especially since I’m not very competent in technology), but some ideas I’d be really interested in would be talking sports or music, ranking sports or music, talking about art, a gym radio show, or like a life at UMW one. I don’t have many ideas and I’m down for just about anything, but these would be some things I’m interested in that are in ranked order.
My experience with the radio was a bit odd. I tried to get in on the session on earlier in the week and the audio wasn’t working for me. I pressed play on the whatever was in the middle of the screen and turned my volume up all the way on everything and still nothing came out. I then pulled it up on my phone and the same thing. Then I tried on Wednesday night, and it did the same thing. I wasn’t sure if it was just plating songs or someone was talking but I was bummed I missed out on the experience of the radio, but I’m sure it will come back later on for future assignments.
Moon Graffiti was absolutely insane to me. It was intense and it had me locked in listening the entire time. The reason for that: the sound production. Their ability to maneuver and transition the sound helped me feel like I was there because there are no images, whereas images presented with sound do the opposite, they trigger cues visually and we correspond them to what we know that image sounds like. Jad Abumrad had a cool way of explaining it how we are the ones holding the paintbrush not him. Its honestly beautiful to see. It’s the manipulation of perception at its finest and a good exemplar of sensual learning. It’s a recognition process of memory that happens when we hear certain sounds that creates empathy for the listener as it enables one to actually place themself in a similar experience.
āCheers, I guess,ā says Dr. Oblivion as he introduces the video segment of ds106. Snarky Dr. Oblivion comes first, letting you know that video, done well, is not easy, but good Dr. Oblivion follows to let you know itās worth the effort.
We have two weeks of projects here: 2/9/24-2/16/24 and 2/16/24-2/23/24
Finish this first section by Friday, 2/16, and link or embed it in your weekly summary.
Revisit goals
Somehow weāre already a third of the way through. Look back at your ds106goals from week 1. Do you feel you are on track? Or have they changed? This is quite possible now that you have a better feel for the course. Take a moment to reflect on how you are doing and blog about it. Tag this ds106goals2
Reading movies
This week weāre moving from audio to video. Weāve been looking at related aspects ā photography, sound, design ā all along, but now weāre going to look at cinematic camerawork, and how it all comes together.
Read:
Film analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_analysis
Film Analysis – Storytelling https://pressbooks.pub/storytelling/chapter/film-analysis/
Watch:
Interested in Black Mirror? One particular episode, āBe Right Backā (the 1st episode of season 2), might be of particular interest in terms of how large language models, social media, and AI might be able to bring back the dead. It is also brilliantly done to create a deeper sense of the real, emotional and existential issues at the heart of new ābusinessā models for AI.
For me, this raises the question ā How much of what we consider good acting is really good editing? When we watch movies, we identify with the actors. They are what we see and hear. We pay attention to story and dialogue. This week, Iām going to ask you to pretty much ignore that part, and pay attention to everything else ā the camera, the lighting, the editing. The ways that video tells stories.
The video above comes from Tony Zhouās great series, Every Frame a Painting in which he analyzes details of film making. The entire series is worth watching and highly recommended, but Iām going to point out these in particular:
Memories of Murder (2003) ā Ensemble Staging
Akira Kurosawa ā Composing Movement
Joel & Ethan Coen ā Shot | Reverse Shot
An interesting point about all of these is that they are about design. It may not be design in the graphic sense, but staging, composition and sets are all carefully and deliberately planned out to achieve particular goals, that is to say, designed.
David Fincher ā And the Other Way is Wrong
F for Fake (1973) ā How to Structure a Video Essay
The Silence of the Lambs ā Who Wins the Scene?
Note that the focus in these is not on plot or acting, or even if the movies are good or not, but rather on the techniques, like editing, that the directors use to tell stories.
Here is Alfred Hitchcock on the the Kuleshov Effect:
Apply what weāve learned
Now that weāve spent some time thinking about how films are made and how we āreadā them, letās apply that new information to a film. Identify some particularly effective scenes from a video related to our theme. Here is the Wikipedia list again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_intelligence_films Pick one of them to analyze in a video essay. Use the critical lens of this weekās reading and resources. This means you are going to make a video, using a scene from a movie, and discuss the scene in voice-over narration. You can upload your video essay to Vimeo or Youtube. (Note: If you have a google account, you have a Youtube account. Vimeo may be a better choice for the video essay because their content police are more easygoing.)
Note: Often people pick scenes from favorite movies, and forget to separate what they like about the movie or show from what is happening in the scene and how it is put together. The focus should be on how film-making technique is used, not acting or plot or if the movie is good. It may be easier to analyze something that is not a favorite for the purposes of this assignment.
This assignment is a slight variation on the classic ds106 Video Essay assignment in the Assignment Bank. For this class, you need only analyze one scene, although youāre welcome to do more. In particular, your analysis should reflect what you learned by reading the film analysis readings and watching the Tony Zhou videos.
iMovie and MS Photos app are good tools for this project, and OpenShot may be a good free alternative, although I havenāt tried it yet. OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) looks like fun too. There are extensions for Firefox and Chrome to help with downloading clips. There is a whole page with advice and information that should help with this assignment, and the ds106 Video Essay assignment has a few tutorials linked to it. The Digital Knowledge Center is also a great resource. They offer tutoring on video editing.
When youāre done, blog your video essay (that means embed the video in your post, and write about the process of making it and what you got out of it.) and tag it videoessay.
Daily Creates
Do two this week
Plus, the usual commenting
Finish this second section by Friday, 2/23, and link or embed it in your weekly summary.
Video Assignments:
Your choice of either A or B
A. Talk to the Bot
As a way of experimenting with video editing, you should have your character engage in a back and forth conversation with Dr. Oblivion. This is a video version of the Consult with your doctor audio assignment. The difference is you will have to generate a Dr Oblivion video from the MP3 recording you get from https://oblivion.university/.
Here are step-by-step directions for generating a Dr Oblivion video from an MP3 recording of one of his responses:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_09wzqxth7qn3rvYAWzyeMrtNwTqIh_BFd5EVapaci8/edit?usp=sharing
Note that some of the processing steps can take considerable time, perhaps 30 minutes.
Feel free to split your Oblivion video(s) to insert your characterās part of the conversation. This part of the conversation does not need to match your input to oblivion.university. It might help to get a couple Oblivion videos to get the full range of his personality. If you can animate your character, thatās great. If not, you could use an avatar image with a voice-over. Include it in a blog post along with reflections on your creative process. Tag it talktothebot.
B. Your choice of 3 video assignments from the Assignment Bank. Involve your character in some way in at least two of them.
Developing Your Character
One of the things we want you to think about is developing your character in relation to the mega-multi-national corporation Aggressive Technologies. This will be the common, connecting thread amongst all the various characters created, and you will have to somehow connect your character to this multi-billion dollar tech giant that has its hands in everything from online search to e-commerce to infrastructure to social media, with an Aggressive interest in cornering the burgeoning Artificial Intelligence market. Write a post wherein you start imagining these connections and building out your characters backstory and relationship to Aggressive Technologies. Tag this post aggressiveconnection.
Daily Creates
Do two this week
Commenting
Keep it up! This is how we maintain our sense of connection and community.
I joined the radio show on Tuesday night, where we listened to the second episode of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? At first, I was a bit confused since I hadnāt heard the previous nightās episode. Though by listening to the episode through the lens of audio production I was quickly able to fill in the gaps of what I missed.
I enjoyed the usage of ambient sound in the background denoting where each scene took place. The sounds of the world outside while traveling. When Deckard confronts the androids and J.R. the accompanying suspense music puts the listener on edge without being too obvious. Also, the usage of sound effects like the breaking of glass as Pris escapes put us right in the scene with them.
The distinct voices of each character made it easy to tell them apart as well as gain a bit of an insight into what they’re like. Resch’s gruff voice and often domineering tone that softens slightly when questioning his status as a human. J.R.’s desperation and loss of faith in the androids when the spider is tortured. And Rachel’s slightly robotic voice and tone of manipulation as she directs Deckard right where she wants him.
The story itself was gripping as well. The exploration of android rights that were only brought into the world by humans who tried to play God. As well as the ending of the story with the final question Rachel delivers to Deckard that it doesn’t matter anymore who’s human or android left me thinking for a while after. At the end of the show, I got to hear a great example of audio production and enjoyed a gripping plot.
This week our audio learning journeys led us to this assignment that teaches us about the art of audio storytelling. We had two videos: Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad: How Radio Creates Empathy and Digital Shamanism and Old-Fashioned, Newfangled Storytelling Magic with a podcast example to apply this new knowledge to called Moon Graffiti.
The two videos both talked about audio storytelling in a way I had never imagined before. A co-authorship between the narrator and the listener formed the lack of visual media. As the narrator provides cues and details of the story the listener must paint their own picture in their mind of what is happening. The connection formed between the two leads to something that feels more personal and draws people in. Though this form of storytelling uses technology, it has been an art form for years where people would gather around to hear a story from its narrator.
While listening to the podcast I experienced this co-imagining as the narrator took me through the story. In the beginning, we are thrown immediately into the story and we donāt know if this is real audio, where they are, or what they’re doing. We as the listener must fill in this information ourselves as the best we can. Then as the narrator slowly sets the scene we enter the ācollective dream stateā that lets us experience the story that is being told.
The usage of sound effects and ambient background noise is what makes this modern form of storytelling come together. The cues these sounds contain let the listener paint the picture with a little more help. The haunting music varies in intensity to match the moment, grainy voices as they speak through the comm system, the sounds of their ship flying by, the flag being planted in the ground, and the camera flashing. All of these combine to pull the listener into their world.
The podcast format of the story feels to me like it is better in some ways than a video. A part of my confusion from the start of the episode was how much of what weāre hearing is real. While this particular episode was all voiced by their team, it very well could have been a mix of real audio used with additional dialogue done by them to fill in the gaps and the listener wouldnāt be able to tell the difference. It leaves the narrator in complete control of how to create their storiesā reality in a way so that at least for the duration of the episode, the listener can believe that this is all real audio from the two astronauts’ final moments.
For my story I decided to keep it simple and try and recreate what a morning routine looks like. I tried to mimic to the best of my ability what a realistic morning for me sounds like. I know this isn’t the craziest or most unique story, but I feel like everyone could relate to this. Hope you guys enjoy!
Please hear me out!! I was listening I promise! but I did not have good service and my discord messages weren’t sending the day I was able to tune in and listen! I thought it was fun to listen to. I though a loud of what I heard were a lot of escalating sounds and kinda chilling! like spooky vibes! The intro was a very extreme, I saw our Professors warning but I was not prepared in the current moment. Imagine this, you are working a dinner at the CRUC (I do marketing for the dining hall at UMW!) and you have your *noise canceling* AirPods in and in an elevator with about 8 people and and you heard the intro and trying to compose yourself. I also was on sos mode on my phone becuase I don’t get service in the Nest bathroom for some reason so the radio show was paused for my poor connection. So, I took my airpods and laughed at myself and snapped my reaction after a solid 2 mintues of me laughing. But I had to listen at work because I was unable to the other days!
Overall I think listening to the radio show was really awesome to do! I think it was really cool to be able to use discord to be able to chat! I wish I had better service but my discord was not loading up to message but I saved the radio show link in my phone so i could listen. I could see what everyone was saying but I just couldn’t load discord myself with my service. I do apoligies for being quiet doing that assignment!
-Reese Kubricki
When creating my radio bumper, I chose a background sound of something catchy and fast pace. After I found my background sound, I added an AI text to speech of what I wanted my radio bumper to say. I present to you my radio bumper; hope you enjoy it!
I wanted to do a story of someone running and finding a good camp spot. I used Audacity to just add a ton of nature clips and mash them together. It was hard to think of a concept but I just started listening to different audios and put them in a good order I thought sounded nice. I added footsteps first and really liked it, I wanted it to almost sound like the person was going through different habitats but then I thought it would be fun to make it night time so thats what I did! I wanted it to have a nice bonfire sound with the night sky and have a more relaxing sound. I also added a yawn and a zip as if someone was zipping up a sleeping bag. I think making a story out of audio was a different learning experience, it is such a cool and unique way of telling a story.
As I did research, I found that a story is told by sound in audio storytelling, which combines spoken word, music, sound effects, and background noise to create a well-planned experience for listeners. Audio storytelling, in contrast to typical written narratives, is a potent medium for expressing ideas and emotions because it uses the aural sense to stimulate emotional reactions and vivid mental pictures.
AudioĀ storytelling is a solid and fascinating narrative medium that builds connection, empathy, and creativity in its listeners. As technology advances, the possibilities for creative and captivating audio storytelling experiences are virtually limitless. ItĀ was enjoyableĀ for my first time doing audio storytelling!
-Reese Kubricki