Category Archives: Tech Noir
The Present Future: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure (and final summary)
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 Hansen to 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!
Welcome to āThe Ambassadorā
We’ve done it! Rylie and I worked on a game that is centered around an AI control government
Play our game here
We did some brainstorming throughout the week, and then sat down on Thursday to get all of our āmust haveā 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.
Trouble in Paradise!
Synopsis
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.
Weekly Summary: Week 14
FINAL WEEK!!
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.
Welcome to āThe Ambassadorā
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!
Weekly Summary- 4/25
The last one! This week Rusul and I spent the early parts of the week recording our podcasts, and the majority of the week editing them. We used the DKC’s podcast studio to record our scripts, and then uploaded them to soundtrap, the same software we used for our radio show, so we both already know how to use it. We took Dr. Bond’s advice into account while editing, choosing to add common intro and outro music to make the 3 episodes connect more and present them as 1 overall piece, rather than 3 different works.
I really think this podcast series came together well. It demonstrates so many different themes we covered throughout the semester in each episode, starting with tech-noir movies, then privacy issues, and a more optimistic lens of AI. Splitting these topics up into segments rather than 1 long recap also makes it more enjoyable, not only for you the listener, but also for us. Not having to go through a ton of footage on one project end up saving more time for us when editing, and also keeps the attention of the listeners much better. Overall, I think this series was a good cap to gaining more skills in editing different types of media, which in this case was audio media.
Check our podcast series CyberTalks here on this subdomain: https://cybertalks.umwsites.net/
Week 14 and Final Project.
Here is Carson’s and my final project: https://cybertalks.umwsites.net/
We created a short podcast series on topics like tech noir films, AI, and privacy. We built a UMW site to host all the episodes. This was a really fun project where I got to apply both my audio editing and website-building skills. We recorded in the DKC podcast studio, used Soundtrap to edit the episodes, and hosted them on SoundCloud.
I loved being able to be creative with this final project and produce a mini podcast show.
Here are the podcast episodes in case you donāt want to visit the site.
Iāve really enjoyed this class, and Iām so happy I had the opportunity to be creative. I learned a lot about audio production, graphic design, and video creation. Thank you for a fun class.
Final
After 3 weeks of work and lack of work, I am finally completing my work. I put together a lot of elements for this project, using audio, video, and other storytelling elements to create a short video about AI. Meet S.A.I. (Smart Artificial Intelligence), a cute little AI who definitely won’t turn evil. For this project my main workspace was Canva. I used their make-a-cartoon option and began from there, looking through images and tools that I could use to create this piece of work. It was the easiest, unfortunately, but I found my path in the way of shadow figurines to represent my characters. I wanted a short horror story inspired by the Twilight Zone and two-sentence horror relying on the watcher’s imagination and foreshadowing.
I wanted something creepy, though honestly there are a few more things I wish I added to add depth to my story, more sounds and alternate images to show the passage of time, since there was no sun I would not accomplish this affect. The other tool I used was Audacity trying a few things that I had considered like moving audio. From one side to the other, in the end I edited lots of sounds however I did not end up using everything that I created. I used AI voices to make my characters talk though there were only two. Though I for the AI the voice took more effort I tried to reflect how it was growing and becoming stronger through it’s actions and voice. That slowly became more and more human. Taking on our characteristics despite it’s distaste more man kind.
Choosing the setting was one of the hardest things for me, since I did not want this to take place in a modern setting but was unsure of how late into the future I would choose. However, visual and designs are something that was stressed so naturally I took a while to think about it.
Futuristic road vectors, photos and PSD files | Free download Using a sight known as FreePik.com I was able to find the perfect visuals to use. Looking into a few options for the settings. I decided that most things would simply take place in the main characters office/Lab. So, I did not end up need too many visual items and just had many extra pieces.
- Week 3 ā visual/design
- Week 4 ā audio
- Week 5 ā video
- Week 6 ā video
- Weeks 7 ā design
- Week 8 ā AI tool lab
Above is one of the audios I created but did not have the chance to use, I got to play around with moving audio and what side the sound would come out of. Far easier than the way I attempted to do it originally. I enjoyed making it even though way too much time went into something that’s not even 5 minutes long. Spent an hour a day on audio alone, very ‘fun’
Audio can create a scene of space and scenes invoking memories allowing you to visualize them since there was a visual component the audio did not have to do all the heavy lifting. So, I focused on ambiance sounds instead. I played with filters to give the impression of time moving as well. I wanted to do a spiral into madness, but it did not come out the way was hoping so I didn’t do it.
Although I did not select this one it was a favorite. Sounds nice but like the rest they were rather loud or aggressive and I had to go to audacity to soothe it, quiet it, or just adjust parts I didn’t like. Did that for every audio then remembered I have bad ears so even of it sounds good for me I fear it’s loud for others. Timing was a big thing for me since I needed to feel like the dramatic pauses could be felt, the tension in the air, and the deep anxiety that accompanies the unknown. I ended up using multiple Ai tools like robot voice generator, a picture generator, and Human voice generator. All tools that brought my vision to life.
You can see a few of the layers there, of what I was doing, creating elements, editing elements and putting it together to tell a story. I write a script and brought it to life that is what creating is. Next is the actual upload hope you enjoy!
Project update
M. Marshall 4.24
I am really excited to show this! I have learned about the pains of animating, but I really appreciate a free place to do it (I will update the name of the app in the morning lol) that has good (enough) drawing tools. I drew out backgrounds for the scenes and each scene has a short drawn out animation (I will provide three examples from the beginning because there are quite a few) to show what the idea is.
For example, the drawing above, you can see the living room sketch and the cat walking sketch.
For this one, you can see the D41SY and her owner watching tv (I’m working on animating steam from the mug)
And other cute things! It definitely has been and will be quite a lot of work, but I feel good.
I have been wondering if I could more effectively convey this with music, but there’s too much to convey without words, so I’ve been considering how to go about it… Only time will tell!
I have really focused on creating a design simple enough to redraw, but complex enough to look nice. I think it’s gonna look good.
It is late and I am sick, so I will update tomorrow with my weekly summary, my final project, and my final project discussion post!