Goldfishnumber4's Blog

I feel like this semester in general was more about personal growth than worrying about gpa.  This class allowed me to grow personally through the freedom of the project topics.  It also gave me ideas to view the world differently.  I think the most influential theory covered in the final project had to be the overall idea that the message is not the message, but the medium is the message.  After leaving class, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and it has really stuck with me, and it has affected how I view my advertising projects.  This class was different in a sense that, even though I am in creative classes, this one really gave me more options to work with and more freedoms to express what I wanted to instead of what the teacher specifically wanted.  

This class was more stressful for me than it probably should have been.  I am pretty sure that was because I am not used to exploring my ideas through any medium other than writing in essay format.  It was also stressful because I have a problem putting myself out there, and the projects were essentially that.  Since I was given the option of covering topics I wanted to for the different projects, they were an extension of my thoughts, ideas, and it really forced me to put myself out there.  But, that also made me less afraid to put myself out there, so I have opened up even more in other classes.  Whether or not my other teachers think that is a good thing is debatable.

I would say that I have learned a lot about media, and myself.  I learned how to use different programs that I probably would not have taken the time to if I did not have to.  I also learned that people have terribly different ideas about the world than I do.  I learned that some people really cooperate and care about projects, and some people could care less.  It was interesting to see the differences in project quality versus my perception of whether or not they cared.

If I could redo anything from this course, I would redo everything.  I feel like since I learned the theories, I feel like I would be able to come up with better project ideas, and better execute them since I have an idea of how long it will take to complete it.  I would also go in depth with my writing, although I have never really been good at in depth writing.  I would like to think that I would better explain my ideas and reasons behind my projects, but in all reality, I probably would not.  I dislike writing.  But it is like that with every writing assignment, which is ironic since I want to be a copywriter.  I think it is more a dislike of writing longer papers.

I really have not changed much since the first projects of the semester.  I spend more time on the projects, but the projects also became more complicated as the semester progressed, so that could be more of a ratio affect than if I was just simply spending more time.  I think that through the semester I was able to come up with more concrete project ideas, and I was more organized and had better follow-through and execution.  I also enjoyed doing the projects as the semester continued.  I think I might have felt like the first projects were too basic in a sense that, either I did not know what was going on, or I did not feel challenged.

Overall, I think that this class was about more than just learning about how to communicate through different media.  For me, it became a class to think about why we communicate through media, and what a medium is, or how many different media are involved in a single project, and what each component of the media means to the final message.  I knew that people interpret messages differently, but the variety of people in the class really reenforced that idea.

*On a side note, I couldn’t find Jen’s video to watch.

The last half of the Final Project

This is the Final Project without the timeline.  The timeline will be up before midnight tonight.

Pre-Production

When choosing the topic for this project, I figured that video games would be the most interesting topic since I have studied it for previous projects.  I also have family and friends who love gaming, so I knew it would be easy to find people to interview.  Since both Steven and I missed the class when the project was introduced, it took us a couple days to figure out what we were going to do in terms of remediating the theories.  Because I don’t always understand what I am reading, the articles were a little difficult to interpret at first, but then after reading them a second time, I feel like I understood the main concepts of the three theories.  

Composing

When composing this project, it felt like there were a lot of details to cover about the themes, and we also wanted to incorporate a timeline of the evolution of video games, since the theories dealt with how the evolution of video games are shaping media and society.  We decided to cover the most common game systems in the evolution portion of the presentation.  As for the theories, I thought it was interesting how the theories could be applied towards each other, so we decided to present the theories, compare them to each other, then compare them to classmates’ experiences.  I had my family and friends give interviews over Thanksgiving break, and collected their personal thoughts and opinions about the theories.

Editing

This is where everything gets stressful.  I spent a lot of time on editing the video, incorporating the interviews and voiceovers to remediate the theories.  I almost finished the first video, but I decided that I didn’t like it, so I started over again.  Once that video was finished, I saved it to my external and went home to try and record a different voiceover.  When I went back to the library, my file was in .m4p format, which can not be opened in iMovie.  Because the file wasn’t in a correct format, I had to start over and finish the third part in less than two hours.  It was way too stressful, but at least I realized that I never wanted to be involved in production in advertising from the experience.

Post Production

I wish that I would have saved my first file correctly, or liked the first video I made.  Looking back at the project, I feel like I was too rushed.  With the last minute changes, I wish I would have planned better so that I wouldn’t have been as stressed out about it.  We also could have remediated the theory differently.  Looking at other projects, we could have involved the class in more of a discussion format.  I could not think of any other way that we could have remediated it, but I’m sure if I spent some more time thinking about it, maybe let it sit in the back of my mind for a bit longer, I could have thought outside the box a little bit more than creating more than just a video.  I was pleased with how this project turned out in the end, although the journey was definitely bumpy with all of the technological slip-ups.

PREPRODUCTION

Coming up with the idea for the documentary was easy, since Amanda really wanted to represent her club, the Harassing Illini (H.I.), but trying to understand the objective view was a little difficult.  I still can’t fully comprehend what an objective view should specifically be besides a view without any bias, and figuring out what that was for the H.I. was difficult for me, since I didn’t really understand what they were all involved in.  And with being sick, I really missed out on important class time.

PRODUCTION

Getting the interviews wasn’t hard, since Amanda set those up because she is on the board for H.I., but after renting the video camera, we realized we didn’t get the piece to attach the camera to the tripod, so I had to hold the camera on the tripod stand during the interviews.  And between my coughing fits, I was able to ask questions, so that worked out in my favor, even though I didn’t end up using most of them.  Getting interviews from the staff and other fans was easy too, surprisingly more easy than I thought.  I probably helped that I was used to interviewing people for my journalism course, but even the rowdy fans of the other team were quite pleasant when I approached them with my innocent voice.  

EDITING

To summarize the Hell I went through trying to figure out the program, and finally giving up, accepting a late grade, and editing it at the Library later, I hate iMovie HD for Tiger.  Enough said.

POSTPRODUCTION/CRITIQUE

I know that some people had trouble realizing that I had the objective view, and that was probably my fault for not being more specific.  For this being my first video project and really having no idea what I was doing, I was pleased with the final project.  I probably would have tried harder to get the points of view of families and other students.

Q’s

1. Why do you think in Medieval times, they didn’t believe in literary property?

2. In current times, why do we only cite a maximum of two authors before applying et al?  Why do we not list all of the authors?

3. Why is there such concern over literary property now-a-days?

A’s

From Amanda:

1) According to “Concept of Authorship,” most written works do not have a single author, but many.  Explain how this works.  As well, when is this more or less true?  Is it possible for a work to be written by a single author?  Does this only apply to scientific articles, or does this apply to entertainment writings as well?

When I consider many writers, I consider ghost writers, or people who work on research together who come to conclusions together.  This is more or less true for group term papers or research papers.  Even though they may have come up with an individual concept each by themselves, it didn’t come together until they put all concepts together to create their thesis and arguments.  Nowadays, with everyone wanting credit for their own ideas, there are very few singular authors.  Everyone is influenced by something, whether they realize it or not.  I think this applies to all writings.

Bellwoar

Write about how you think Ede & Lunsford’s discussions of authorship and collaboration apply to the collaborative video project you’re working on.

We each have our own ideas as to authorship of the ideas of objectivity and subjectivity, but we collaborated about which footage to shoot and what questions would be asked.  We had a general idea about what we wanted to include, but we each went off our own ways with how to do the project.  

Georgia asked, “Why do you think it is that editing can change the meaning of video?”

I believe that, because the audience is not in the actual situation, and only able to view what the videographer is showing, the audience is at the mercy of the videographer’s and editor’s points of view.  Video is a specific glimpse at some situtaion.  We do not have the luxury of advanced techonolgy to see a 360 degree view of the scene.  Also, when editing video, you can cut out whatever you want to.  You can show a person in a specific light, because usually there are only a few minutes of videos clips of a person when hours of video had been taken.  The editor can cut the video so that the audience is seeing the person or thing how the editor wants it to be perceived.

Based on Hampe’s concept of “visual evidence” and editing, do you believe documentary is objective? why or why not?

I believe that there are lines that are often crossed in documentaries in general.  I believe that most documentaries are not objective, at least those that are commonly described as documentaries, a.k.a. National Geographic, and it’s affiliates.  But some documentaries are objective, not emphasizing certain aspects and intentionally shaping the video to the viewers liking.

I really enjoyed doing this project.  I am more of an audio person, and I really liked put the voice clips and matching it with music.  

I knew that I wanted to write on the topic of creating faux flesh wounds when we got the project, but I didn’t know how to make it less of a tutorial.  That’s when I figured that most people probably only know zombie history from Hollywood’s point of view, which is obviously inaccurate.

I put in the zombie interview after Brain B. and Vince said it would be funny to have a zombie break into the studio.  I figured, since I didn’t want to portray zombies in a typical manner, why not invite her in and have a chat.  I spoke as if I could understand her to give her a more alive characteristic, and because it would just be entertaining to hear groans actually having some meaning and communication behind them.

The only snag I ran into when recording was that the walls of my apartment are pretty much paper thin, and my heat was on, and the heater makes a lot of white noise on the recording.  I just covered that up with background music and continued.

I choose the music and tone that I used to make it feel like any random radio show you would hear, like there was really nothing different or out of the ordinary about it. 

Editing it was fine, minus the moment I realized I put in the wrong color for bruises.  That is why there is an awkward pause before “and fake blood,” but I only laughed at that part more.

Overall, I really liked how my podcast turned out, even though it was really quiet.

1. How many documentaries have you seen that have not primarily used interviews as their evidence.  Please describe one.

2. Give an example of how you can lie in a documentary, or give an impression of lying?

3. What is B-roll as it is typically used?

Here it is!!! What you’ve all been waiting for!!!

ZOMBIES!!!

So I thought these were due Tuesday the 12th, not the 8th. My bad.

Answers to Liz’s questions

McKee

Discuss a person’s voice that you think is pleasing to listen to and one that is not pleasing to listen to. Use Van Leeuwen’s vocal qualities of tension, roughness, breathiness, loudness, pitch, and vibrato to describe the voices.

One voice i enjoy listening to is that of the radio announcer Delilah. She has a lower-pitch voice, and doesn’t exhibit any tension or roughness. Her voice is very smooth, and my roommates and I often imitate it when we are trying to talk about a less-than-exciting topic, or a story without any real story aspects of it. She really does not have any vibrato or breathiness to it either. Because her voice is so soothing, it almost puts you at ease, and therefore is nice to listen to.

I don’t not enjoy listening to my manager’s voice. Her voice is very harsh, seeming to stem from years of smoking, and it is very low, also seeming to come from her smoking habit. Her voice has a heavy breathiness to it, which makes it even harder to hear her. She has no vibrato in her voice, and she isn’t monotone, but she doesn’t have much of a range of pitch either. I think she has the most pitch when saying people names, like when she is calling them across the cafeteria. She isn’t very loud, but because her voice is so distinctive, your ear is almost trained to it.

I think overall I enjoy listening to lower pitched voices, and I like it when they are smooth. I don’t really enjoy listening to rough voices, unless it’s Louis Armstrong. I don’t know if I prefer loud or soft voices, because I tend to prefer both. I love voices with pitch, as long as they don’t have too much.

Shipka:
What do you think of Val’s use of silence in the “government room” of her museum? Is it significant in any way?

Since I asked a similar question, I figured that it would be convenient to answer how I wanted my question answered.

I think that Val’s use of silence in the “government room” would almost be awkward, because if I were to take that tour, I would definitely focus on why there was no music, causing my thoughts to wander, and I would end up not paying attention to the room at all. But for a normal person with the attention span longer than a kindergardener, I am sure that the lack of music would leave the room to feel boring and almost lifeless.

I know that I apply music to almost every aspect of my life, and background music gives an added dimension of “color” to media. Without music, the room would feel 2-dimensional compared to the other rooms. The room of government scandals (that the U.S. public would already know because of heavy media saturation) would seem boring, since we have already dealt with these issues, and with most, put them to rest.

The lack of music does give the room a sense of dissimilarity from the other rooms, and could draw attention to itself, because the audience now has to focus on the subject at hand, and cannot wander off through a musical interlude. That could also make the room feel boring, because if you feel like you have nowhere else to focus, then you could become frustrated more quickly since you are forced to pay attention.