I originally began by brainstorming ideas surrounding the tech noir theme, I drew inspiration from media in the style that already exist. I also knew for a fact that I wanted my story to have a world ending event and evil robots as this style loves evil robots.
2. I then completed the script, this took a couple attempts to prefect and had to make multiple changes during the process so that my edits and the content being spoken matched. I wanted my script to have a clear beginning, middle and end like all good stories but I still needed to make it within the boundaries of my video editing skills. I wrote my script on pen and paper this is the only portion of the work that wasn’t done on my desktop
3. I then created a list of sound effects and visuals that I thought would go well with my final, not everything on the list made it but most of it was used and the list was actually very helpful. I then used an A.i generator to make the photos I thought would fit my project.I used 3 total and they all did fine: Gemini, magic studio, and craiyon
4. The final step in the process was to edit the audio and video together and make them line up. I started with the audio making sure everything was where it was supposed to be and it sounded like an actual conversation. I used ttsmaker for all the voices during the story and Bandlab to mix the audio. The visual and final edits were doing using Canva.com
I have kept grinding on my work throughout the week, so there was nothing really different going on. I made another blog post talking about our progress on the project, which is going very smoothly. We are splitting up the work pretty evenly and we have great communication. We are able to have a back-up plan and solve things when it goes wrong. It was another great start to the week.
Final Project
(For now the video is blurry but we are working on it!)
For the final project, I decided to go back into my group from the last project, Coni, Martina, Macie, and Kristen. We worked really well together last time, so we wanted to work together again. We decided to do a short film, as we felt it would challenge a lot of us to work on our video editing, but also be a bit more manageable in terms of time.
We then decided what we wanted the vibe or plot of it to be. We all found out that we watch (or have watched) reality tv shows before, so we decided to draw inspiration from classic reality tv such as “The Real Housewives” or “Jersey Shore”. We acted as our course characters, except a bit more dramatized in order to heighten the drama for the show. We set it in the future to fit the themes of the course, cyberpunk/tech-noir. We made sure any topics we discussed (or fought) over in the short film were relevant to the theme, such as robots or big corporations.
The filming was also pretty fun. We are not all actors, but we were able to become comfortable in front of the camera quick. We all took a section that we filmed and edited it ourselves, and then sent it to one person (again, shout out Martina), to put it all together.
This has honestly been one of the best groups I have worked with as a student here at UMW. We communicated well, and were all able to share our ideas confidently. I couldn’t have asked for a better group, so shout out to Coni, Martina, Macie, and Kristen (or Krissy, Lady Bird, Sapphira, and Krysta).
I feel I have learned a lot from this project. Not only just through working with a group, but the processes we went through. I have definitely gotten better at video editing, it might still be a bit amateur, I am getting closer to becoming more advanced. I still have a lot to learn though, but this project helped a lot.
Overall/Class Reflection
Overall, I feel that this class has really helped me become more advanced in many different aspects. Through audio, visual, graphic, or even just through creating this blog and posting everyday, it has taught many new things about my online presence.
With the daily creates, I was able to express creativity and think outside of the box in order to follow the prompt, but also put a spin on it. If I were to pick one of my favorite daily creates of the semester, it would definitely have to be putting a monument somewhere it doesn’t belong or the word art one.
One of my favorite visual projects would have to be my Hated in the Nation video essay. We all had to pick a scene from this episode of Black Mirror, and analyze it through a cinematic lense, as well as through the themes of cyberpunk/tech-noir. It didn’t take a lot of editing, but it was still fun as I love to watch video essays on YouTube, so I loved making my own.
My all-time favorite project would have to be my Bills graphic. I wanted to take one of my favorite sports teams and honor it through a graphic. It was fun to incorporate the teams colors, as well as some iconic players who made a difference this past season. It was challenging to figure out ratios, colors, images, positioning, all these different factors, but I think it worked out great in the end.
Looking back on my goals for this class, I said I “wanted to expand my digital presence, as well as get more practice using softwares to create videos, podcasts, and graphics”. I believe that I did exactly that. I am very proud with how the blog turned out, and am also grateful for the people I was able to work with on these different projects. I feel that I learned a lot from them. I learned to use many different softwares, like ClipChamp or Premier Pro, SoundTrap or Audacity, and even Dr. Oblivion, in order to achieve my goals. I think I will truly miss this class, and can’t wait to use everything I have learned in the future.
WE DID IT!!! The project is done, class is over, and we survived. This project was very fun to do but the grind never stops because I have another project due and a concert tomorrow.
The story is about an AI that has human memories downloaded into its software. This is all confusing and overwhelming at first, as it now has access to sensations and memories it was never built to experience. Even still, it quickly focuses on the joys of living. There’s parties and celebrations and elation, until it sees the darker side of humanity. Depression, poverty, pain, the other side of the proverbial coin. This is so distressing to the AI that scientists unplug it out of fear that its hardware would melt from processing. As the AI is turned off or unplugged, I equated it to dreaming, showing images of a brain sending signals and rapid eye movement or REM sleep. Through the dream, the AI can see that there’s good and bad to humanity, but for all the hurt that exists, there’s someone else to help. Yeah, falling off a bike isn’t fun, but it gets us from place to place and lets us enjoy a nice breeze. Overall, the message I’m conveying is that even though we hurt, it is human to form connections and help each other.
Sam came up with the story idea. It reminded me of Touch by Daft Punk, and the animated music video was born from there. We used about every free stock video site we could find for clips, and I eventually ended up using CapCut to edit the thing. There were many features that let me do a lot with editing. I added captions and text and some transitions where I felt appropriate, however there probably could’ve been more transitions overall. We added stock sound effects for specific moments to make them stand out. I hope this gives you a good glimpse into humanity and makes you feel something.
Hello everyone, you are the first viewers of The Real Housewives of Cyber Manhattan! Here is our finished product below:
This was the only film I’ve ever created or been in that was this length. I have learned so many things while being a part of this. I can finally say that I have explored all over Mary Washington’s campus now! Me and the girls filmed this short film in various areas throughout the campus; Ball Hall, HCC green screen room, Ampitheater, and maybe a few other places. It’s really cool to see how all the different scenery and backgrounds/backdrops come together. Before we even started filming, we did a little research on how the Real Housewives look in their shows and on TV, what angles they film and during what times.
For the confessionals we saw that most of the producers/directors had the wives looking straight at the camera or the wives were filmed at an angle, as if they were talking in the other direction. I remember in the previous weeks we had lessons on the effects of angles, and I did a reflection on the Black Mirror episode. This angle really enhanced the personal experience on the screen. When you watch it back, when we are talking and looking directly at the camera, it feels like we are talking to you or to someone; But when you look at us from an angle, it just adds more emotion and personalness to the shot. Like you’re not really there with them and you’re viewing a more private conversation or something.
When we were filming the fight scene’s we tried to take turns filming each other, using the handheld camera from the HCC, instead of using the tripod because it looked more realistic. Especially the outside scene after the “fight” between Krissy and Veronica, and Veronica is saying “I’m done” and storms away! But as the camera lady for that scene I followed her up the stairs and got her reactions in real time, adding extra emotion and drama to the scene. Other cool angles we tried to implement were going back and forth between filming as a group and giving everyone some individual screen time. In our video you will notice the shift of the angles and horizontal/vertical views.
Other techniques that were used for added Technoir or cyber punk vibes were the language we used along with the backdrops. Instead of saying Starbucks we said Cyberbucks, and Byte Bags (Instead of Birkin), and of the like. We did our best to make this as real and as futuristic as possible. We even dressed in slacks, blazers, dresses, and nice shoes. Trying to dress the part as a married businesswoman or reality star housewife.
The backdrops of the fake AI futuristic homes for Sapphria Mae and Veronica’s house were also very cool add ins to the film. So not only can you see the conversation that will happen inside the house, but you also see the outside of the house, giving the viewer even more information than they were already wondering about. Overall, it just really builds a big picture for the viewer.
When my group and I did the radio show and when I had the opportunity to do the radio show listen experience assignment, I got a feel for what sounds add in different emotions. In this film, with the added drama from the angles, the sound effects that were used also added emphasis on important moments in the clip. For instance, when someone “spills the tea”, there may be a drum sound that will play in the background to emphasize that moment for the viewers.
Overall, I believe that we did our best to implement many of the techniques with audio, visuals, and images that we had learned in this course. Specifically, how each of these deals with emotions, feelings, atmosphere, and perception. Even though this short film was framed as a reality tv show bit, you can still feel the realness to it in the way that we all interact with each other.
In my opinion, this is the best thing that I’ve ever created for a group project haha! My senior cap stone..pshhh pleaseee, it doesn’t have anything on this short film LOL
And again, I want to publicly thank all of the wonderful ladies that I worked with. I learned so much from them and had the best time working with them. We have all added each other on social media so I am excited to see what each and every one of them does in the future. Very intelligent, creative, and beautiful human beings!!
This is just a screenshot of the title page! Access the game with the link down below!
For my final project, I went with the first prompt from Dr. Oblivion which was to create an interactive multimedia narrative essentially of the dangers of the AI takeover. I have always loved a good story and I love creating and telling them, so I thought getting to do something more writing and narrative based would be a good way to hone my skills that I’ve gotten to develop over this semester especially with projects such as reordering the songs of Dear Evan Hansento change the course of its story, discussing the way that color plays a role in storytelling in The Corpse Bride, or even using a simple song lyric to create a more nuanced backstory for my course character.
As evidenced through my own character creation and the elements of design, writing, and aesthetic of my whole website and assignment choices, I’m very drawn to macabre and horror-based storytelling and with the prompt asking us to discuss implications of such an AI revolution, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to create a horror story. A bit of background for this: I am very against the big boom of AI, I avoid using it at every possible cost (which has created an ethical dilemma in this class, but I’ve cut my losses) due to the environmental damage it causes, the way that work is stolen from countless artists, the job displacement it creates, etc; I think it’s an ethical nightmare and not one where I believe the pros could outweigh the cons. Therefore, a perfect basis for horror in my own personal views. I also thought very heavily about how the world is what we make it and how all of the horrors around us that we face today came from the decision of someone somewhere, maybe even ourselves which is where I got the idea for a choose-your-own-adventure. In my own love for horror, my personal favorite style is surrealism; I was incredibly inspired by aesthetics like that of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and games like “Samsara Room” and “Cube Escape” by Rusty Lake. With all of the pieces put together, I created the basis of my interactive multimedia narrative: a surrealist horror choose-your-own-adventure set in a future ruled by an AI governance where you are the master of your own fate; or so the governance would like you to believe (EXTRA LINK TO PROJECT!!!)
I decided to use Prezi to create this! I know it’s normally a presentation software, but because the viewer can click the planet subtopics and be brought to any point in the presentation without a necessary chronology, I thought it would be perfect for this! The player can click the subtopic with their choice for that part of that story and follow the timeline of choices for those particular aspects.
In the process of creating this, I knew a few things: 1. with it being a narrative, I wanted this to be a very writing heavy project and 2. I have unfortunately had an insane amount of pre-finals week finals that have been due all throughout the month of April therefore making my time limited and prioritization key. That being said, this did not end up as multimedia as I had hoped or intended due to a lack of time as a whole and certain resources with the program I used (i.e I wanted to create and embed an audio for each new slide to play in the background, but I didn’t have time to do all of that and Prezi will not let me incorporate audio without a pro account).
The bulk of my time was spent writing the story and creating all the various endings (there are 4 main endings that are used with a few times, but with their own explanations and plotline and 1 unique ending that is exclusive to a specific story line; can you find the secret one-of-a-kind end?), and this took me quite a long time to write out and then put together especially on top of all of my other miscellaneous class projects and big presentations. In Canva, I put together a background design to showcase the connection of humanity to the digital world, but to also symbolise the reach that the virtual aspects of life have.
When creating the aesthetics of the presentation, I used a font that I thought felt futuristic yet also still legible to read text groupings in and I used layered circular subtopic aesthetics for each of the choices and made them translucent rather than their typical opaque to create a nuance, almost glitchy or laggy vibe that also felt very cyberpunk/tech inspired in my mind. I incorporated some images of Rorsachs in one of the storylines to create a visual element of uncertainty, but ran out of time to create more designs despite having worked on this project for 2+ weeks. I also spent about 3 days of that trying to sort out my audio situation as I hadn’t realized until the writing and aesthetics were complete that Prezi won’t let me embed audio that automatically accompanies the presentation without a pro account. So, I tried to troubleshoot for a while and then ended up just embedding a Youtube video of ambient horror music to really create a surreal and unsettling ambience that, to me, is one of the most important parts of surrealist horror. Sound, as we talked about in our audio weeks, can play such a pivotal role in the way our brains perceive elements of a story. The player can open the video in a separate tab and have the music playing in the background as they go through each part of the story.
This was a really long, arduous process and I do wish I was able to do more with it, but a lot of really intricate planning went into perfecting the narrative aspect and the storytelling which is really what this is all about. In the end, I incorporated elements of writing, design, and audio to create my surreal horror interactive experience and I’m really quite happy with the way the story came out and the way the mechanics function. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to create something like this without this class teaching me to think outside of the box when it comes to the various ways to tell stories digitally!
We did some brainstorming throughout the week, and then sat down on Thursday to get all of our “must have” ideas on paper. Once we got working in Twine, some of our ideas moved around and we realized that the story progressed much faster than we thought that it would. Rylie was able to get the broadstrokes onto Twine and sent me a couple of screen shots to work on. I wrote out my portion of the script on a shared google doc and Rylie copied and pasted them into Twine.
Once she was done with her portion she sent me the Twine file and I was able to incooporate some sound elements into the game. I added an alarm clock, an error chime, some control center ambience, and a power down noise. I also learned how to import images into Twine.
A lot of Twine is raw code. So to incorporate sound and images I had to insert raw javascript into Twine. See examples below! This came easy to me as I still remember some skill from a creative coding class I took last semester.
The images of screenshots and tweets were created in canva.
This project was hard for me since I am not much of a creative writer. I really liked Rylie’s ideas and wanted to match them but I was hesitant that it would be good enough. But once I start writing it almost came naturally.
When robots crash their ship on Aether island while searching for humans to study, a secret rebellion gets together to take them down and save their home! In this silly story created on the game called Animal Crossing, we have Roxi the spy, Theo the hacker, and Jack the brawn who have to work together if they want any chance of defeating the robots who took over their government.
Characters
Roxi
Roxi (Secretary Outfit)
Theo
Jack
Robo-Cop
Boss
Trouble in Paradise Video
Behind the Scenes
This was a fun project that took an exhausting amount of time and work to create, but I am proud of how it came out and loved showing it to my friends to see their reactions to all the silly scenes. For my story I used the game called Animal Crossing so I had a lot of limitations for making it fit the high-tech dystopian theme so I had to be creative at times, but I tried to take a different approach with it by taking on more of a silly comedic narrative instead of a serious one because of how cartoony the game is. This is why the Boss robot was based more on him wanting to learn about human customs than actually being villainous. Also I learned a lot this semester and was able to use those new skills throughout my final project so I will explain my process and how each skill from class was represented.
Scene Setup
Creating this entire video took over 90+ video clips from Animal Crossing. Every reaction and camera shot change is a completely different video clip. I had to personally set up every scene by choosing and arranging furniture, wallpaper, flooring, etc. Attention to time mattered a lot as well because Animal Crossing is connected to the real time, so if I want a morning scene I have to record it early in the daytime before the sun starts setting and night scenes required me waiting hours later to record them. Since my character in the game played literally every character in my story I had to make sure I chose positions for where I imagined each character would be standing and memorized it so that all clips would look like all characters were actually in the same room together. This is why what we learned in class about cinematography, especially about camera angles, helped a lot because I was able to set up my scenes better for dramatic effects
Design Process
Imagine you are making a stop motion video, but you only own one doll so you have to change the doll’s clothes for every scene if you want to do a different character’s perspective, that is the equivalent of the tedious work it took to make this full video. Every scene with a character change I had to literally redress my character to become the other character. But for the design process representation from this class, I will say that the skills I learned about editing and the art of design was definitely used on Canva. For my intro and outro I was able to make my videos on there and chose simple backgrounds like a faded mountain so that the focus would be more on the text, but the mountains still fit the nature theme of the story being about an island taken over by robots. All my transition videos were also created on Canva. They were mostly only used to portray the pass of time and for the scenes like the Boss collapsing or the orbs breaking because there wasn’t any way for me to actually make those scenes in Animal Crossing. For the word format in transition videos I tried to make them match the theme for an emotional effect. For example, when the boss threatened Roxi on the beach I made his words to her fade ominously; for words when the orbs broke I chose font that cracked; and for the Boss collapsing I chose words that fell down.
Audio Editing
There is a lot of various sound effects used throughout the video. Some scenes like the orbs breaking and the Boss collapsing relied heavily on sound because those were explained mostly through text than imagery. Background music was also edited in for certain scenes if I wanted to portray a certain feeling. Like for the final ending video I used peaceful happy music because the island was now saved and free from the robots. I wasn’t able to get voiceover audio for the dialogue so I had to edit in subtitles instead which was surprisingly a complicated process because some of my characters’ lines were too long and had to be shortened just to fit in the shot, not to mention that some video clips were too short so there wasn’t enough time to read the dialogue line so I had to delete those from the storyline. Once I was done with the subtitles I had to make sure they matched up with any sound effects that were used alongside character reactions. My audio editing was completed using the Audacity app that I learned how to use from class. I just saved and edited in the sound effects I wanted to use for my video.
Video Editing
This was one of the longest processes for making the final video because I had to take the 90+ video clips form Animal Crossing and connect them all together in exact order to make my story. Each video clip is between the range of about 3 to 8 seconds long so I needed a lot to form a long enough video. The use of filters in videos was also very useful for my story because I was able to use a static-looking one whenever I wanted to portray that a robot was nearby and watching one of the characters. Once I had all my video clips ready I connected them all together using iMovie and then afterwards I added in the intro, outro, and transition videos into their correct spots. My final video was then uploaded to Youtube so it could be shared.
This final project started with many different ideas and thoughts of execution. My group had bounced around ideas from making an animation to creating a music video. We really wanted to base our ideas around our course characters and find a way to fit them all together.
We had taken the time to each come up with ideas and come back together to find a way to mix them together or pick one that we liked the best. Ultimately we were focused on using our course characters and their defeat of AI. Our ideas continued to change as we actually started on the project.
One of the hardest things to do was find a way to fit our course characters together because of the different backgrounds and even genetic makeup of them. They all had very different back stories and located in different cities, states, and time period. We found a way to make them have a similar goal and almost make them “super heroes”.
Over the past two and a half weeks we added different elements into a shared google drive in order to compile all of our things into one place and so that we could all actively see what the others were working on. It ranges from video, audio, and pictures. We spent this week putting all of these things together to fit an idea of a music video type film where our plot was based strongly off a Daft Punk music video.
Throughout this class i have learned a lot about many different aspects of the digital world. We used our new (and some old) knowledge of mostly audio and video to create our final project. Creating different background effects and audio dialogue. I had done some video work before this class but the audio was the hardest part for me. It took me a while to figure out what sounds best with what and how long to keep tracks in and where exactly to add them into the overall video.
This class taught me a lot and defiantly made me step our of my comfort zone. I enjoyed the layout of having my work a week at a time and have a full week to complete it. I learned a lot of new things and was introduced to many apps and sites that helped me complete all of my assignments.
Drum roll please- our game is done! Rebecca (of Rebecca’s Radient Realm) and I created a game for our final project, hosted on Twine. We incorperated multiple sounds and designs, as well as a tech-noir themed script. I implore you to go over to Rebecca’s Radient Realm to play our final project!
We did some brainstorming during casual conversation throughout the week, and then sat down on Thursday to get all of our “must have” ideas on paper. I’ve attached a photo of our Google Document here! Once we got working in Twine, some of our ideas moved around and we realized that the story progressed much faster than we thought that it would.
Moving into Twine, I worked on the script while Rebecca figured out how to import audio and images. I first mapped every decision out, as well as how everything would intersect with each other. After that, I just started writing, and everything came together. I’ve attached a very zoomed out image (no spoilers!) of most of our game.
What I learned and how I used it:
Creative Writing: this is probably one of the biggest things that I learned in this class, and certainly what I showed off during this project. I’ve always enjoyed analytical writing and feel like I’m good at that, but having to write creatively and as my course character was a struggle for me at the beginning of this semester. Wanting to do that for my final project was something that I didn’t expect, and I doubly didn’t expect to really, really like how it was turning out! I found myself getting excited for the end of the story, and having a lot of fun putting in easter eggs and references to other ds106 things. I can confidently say that I feel like I’ve improved, and I think the story execution is strong (if you don’t feel like it is, please don’t tell me!).
Integration of Multimedia Design: While I wasn’t in charge of the audio design for this project, I have gotten better at conceptualizing the use of multiple media formats in projects. With the combination of video and audio projects that I’ve completed this semester, I’m much more able to work in those formats. I’m also more able to make space for them in other projects, which leads to a fuller, more interesting final result.
Time and Self Management: Not visually present, my ability to manage my time when it comes to an asynchronous workload has improved. I got much better at estimating how long things would take me, and finding time in my day to work on them.
Planning (to a point): I’m not much of a planner when it comes to creative projects. I don’t like to rough draft, and I don’t like to storyboard. This project forced me to do that, at least a little bit, and I think it turned out better because of it. I’m really trying to get better about drafting, but the instant gratification is just so appealing!
Domain of One’s Own/Website Organization: Does this count as a skill involved in the project? DOOO was my sworn mortal enemy coming in to this semester, and I think that we now just mutually dislike each other instead of full-blown hate. I find this website difficult and not very intuitive, but I’ve grown used to the interface. Making this blog post now is a breeze!
