The dawn of cinema had no audio; silent movies created an atmosphere with music and the use of cue cards. Take a 3-5 minute trailer of a modern movie and render it in the form os the silent era- convert to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, replace the audio with a musical sound track, and add title cards for the dialogue. As a prime example, see Silent Star Wars.
The dawn of cinema had no audio; silent movies created an atmosphere with music and the use of cue cards. Take a 3-5 minute trailer of a modern movie and render it in the form of the silent era- convert to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, replace the audio with a musical sound track, and add title cards for the dialogue. As a prime example, see Silent Star Wars.
I found the audio clip and the Mean Girls trailer on youtube and downloaded them onto my computer. I used keepvid to download Mean Girls into Mpeg Streamclip and then I exported it into iMovie.
The trickiest part was inserting the title cards. Because the trailer was in one clip and had to insert the photo into the clip and then delete it so that it would create a space for me to insert it again. When I first inserted the card and tried to play the trailer it would just freeze on the image right before the title and then skip to the image directly after. I have no idea why but deleting and reinserting worked perfectly!
See more trailers that have returned to the silent era here!!
The dawn of cinema had no audio; silent movies created an atmosphere with music and the use of cue cards. Take a 3-5 minute trailer of a modern movie and render it in the form os the silent era- convert to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, replace the audio with a musical sound track, and add title cards for the dialogue. As a prime example, see Silent Star Wars.
This is one of the assignments that I chose to do the preparation work on in Week 10. I found it was harder than I expected to find Moulin Rouge clips online – the copyright hounds have been hard at work for this movie. I did, however, manage to find a great little scene from when Christian and Satine meet. The scene and the conversation are both filled with complete confusion, and is definitely a classic from the film. I love how the setting of the movie already creates a feel of the era that I’m trying to capture for this assignment – the silent film era.
For the music, I wanted something bouncy and old-timey and fun, to capture the feel of the scene. I went to Incompetech as the assignment page suggested, and downloaded Betty McFaddin’s piano piece.
For the title cards, I did a google image search, also as suggested in the assignment description. I scrolled through the images and selected the one I liked. I saved it to my working file on my computer, and then went on to take a look at where the card came from. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Google had lead me to ds106′s own Michael Branson Smith‘s blog and Return to the Silent Era Assignment post! I decided to stick with my choice, and send the appropriate nod of appreciation to the fellow ds106er in my blog and in my credits.
Next came the task of trying to figure out how to actually put this thing together. I began doing research, and began to get frustrated with how much can be done with video on a Mac, and how little can be done on a PC. Finally, I went to twitter, and browsed the #ds106 hashtag. Eventually, I found that fellow ds106er Lauren had used Windows Live Movie Maker to make her silent era clip.
Thanks, Lauren! I was literally about to give up on the project completely and start a new one, despite the prep work I’d done on this one.
So I downloaded Movie Maker (and opted out of all of the 5 million other programs it tried to give me ). I had already shorted the YouTube clip (which I downloaded using the KeepVid KeepIt button I put on my browser toolbar), using MPEG Streamclip, to get just the parts I wanted. I uploaded the music into the video, created a Title page and ending Credits, and uploaded the blank silent movie title card from Michael Branson, and copied and then pasted it a bunch of times so I could have it available each time I split the video.
I already had the script out, so I zoomed in on the clip and began hunting for the appropriate split moments, and inserted the blank title cards there. I used Viner Hand IT font, just to be different and fun. I also made the clip black and white, and changed the ratio to 4:3, because in one of the assignments I’d reviewed, I had read that this was standard of the silent movie era (I admit to having no idea whether it’s true or not, but it looked neat when I tried it, so I kept it). I regretted not being able to do more to the clip to make it look old. Stupid Windows. But whatever. Do what you can with what you’ve got, right? Finally, I went through the final video and found the clips where there was only dancing and no talking. These I sped up to 1.25x normal speed. I was surprised to see how ridiculous it looked any faster than that, and pleased with 1.25x.
I had about 5,000 crashes of Windows Movie Maker while trying to make this. I learned to save literally after every click. ‘Select font, Ctrl+S, Type, Ctrl+S, Split, Ctrl+S…aaaaaaaaand crash.’ *sigh* It was beyond frustrating. Still, it deleted my credits with no explanation, and I had to redo things several times.
My husband never ceases to be amazed at the kind of craziness that happens with electronics when I come near. But I knew going into this class that this was going to happen, and did it anyway. So it’s my own fault. I made it through, eventually.
And I think it turned out half decent, at least. Not bad for a first go at this, anyway.
A 5-star Return to the Silent Era assignment: The dawn of cinema had no audio; silent movies created an atmosphere with music and the use of cue cards. Take a 3-5 minute trailer of a modern movie and render it in the form os the silent era- convert to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, replace the audio with a musical sound track, and add title cards for the dialogue. As a prime example, see Silent Star Wars.
This was the most fun I have ever had with creating a video. I don’t think that this is the best video I have created because the title cards seem to pile up in the end [where it's most necessary to propel the story], but it definitely conveys some of the emotions of the story. I love this movie so I chose parts that would evoke that nostalgic feel of watching it for the first time in the sixth grade. This is a story of inspiration. What I wish I included as well would have been watching Sputnik soar in the sky. I couldn’t find anything that seemed appropriate or at the exact angle I wanted it at. This is a story about friendship and drive. I didn’t want rockets and rockets and all the science jargon to have to be part of the title cards, so in this abbreviated movie segment we see them working and learning and investigating.
I dragged all my edited media into VideoPad and strung them together. My biggest blunder is that of having MovieClips.com at the bottom of the screen, especially because they disappear when they title cards come up. I don’t know how to erase them all without having to go in frame by frame. The music was going to be a piano piece like the most silents of that time period, but there’s something magical that happens about a minute in with the score so I preserved the entire audio. I would like to try to mix an audio track for a remixed clip, but I hear that there’s a lot of mixing and mashing going on in the next two weeks so I’ll be a little more patient.
Wow, I needed a does of ds106 creativity, so I set out tonight to do the very assignment I submitted, Return to the Silent Era:
The dawn of cinema had no audio; silent movies created an atmosphere with music and the use of cue cards. Take a 3-5 minute trailer of a modern movie and render it in the form os the silent era- convert to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, replace the audio with a musical sound track. As an example, see Silent Star Wars. Get creative and choose a movie that would look most unlikely to be done from this era.
Presenting… 1901: A Spatial Odyssey:
On my walk home tonight I was rummaging what movies of the future would be fun to retro back, and landed on 2001: A Space Odyssey. I used the “Stop Dave, I’m Afraid” segment where Dave Bowman is working his way toward shutting HAL down- the monologue is all HAL.
After downloading the clip and bringing into iMovie, I first added the effects to the entire clip- I could not combine black and white and the aged film effect, so instead I used the video effects to desaturate the color and add brightness to create the black and white; the aged film effect gives it a tad of a sepia tone.
I then played through the movie, and did splits at each point where HAL spoke; I inserted a screen card I found by google image searching on “silene movie title card”, this one from the thelinuxexperiment.com
and I removed the “Bang” to make a blank card. At each split, I inserted a 4 second still of the card, with one of the glow effects on it, and added the centered title. I found I could copy/paste the card image, and could duplicate the title by option dragging the blue title track (preserving the font and sizes I had used).
Once I had transferred all fo HAL’s lines to text, I select everything and used Edit-Mute CLips to remove the movie sounds. I then found the Batty MacFaddin music from Kevin MacLeod’s royalty free music site. Then it was adding some closing credits, and one closing shot of HAL and a special guest.
While the assignment said do a trailer, I liked doing a segment of the movie as a silent film. This was a blast and a half!
Why turning parts of a modern movie into a silent movie? I wondered while reading about this ds106 video assignment. I had no idea but was just intrigued by the idea to do so.
I did some research on how to change a movie into a silent film and found that mostly the advice was to imitate the style completely, including original music for silent movies and taking care that in the clip you can’t see any modern props, like modern cars. I thought about this and decided to just use the elements but not to try imitating an entire film from the silent era. This way I changed the color into black and white and made it run faster, I added some noise and rustling to audio and video and I added a music track. Which I did not is choosing clips, that don’t contain modern issues like modern cars, and I don’t choose any old music but modern compositions.
Some time ago I got introduced to the movie Punch-Drunk Love (2002), which tells a story about a growing couple, in particular about the male part. He is depicted as passionate and even violent and it is not for certain if the reason is that he lives under the pressure of keeping up his business. Another reason may be that he is controlled by his sisters and feels helpless towards their interferences in his life. However, my clip doesn’t contain any of this, but I concentrated on a little story within the story, where a harmonium is found by the protagonist and finally carried to his girl friend.
The clips doesn’t contain much dialogue and speak for themselves, so I thought this might be great for the silent style. In addition, although the film is in color, the tones are rich in contrast which I thought important concerning the change to black and white. Finally the running scenes of the movie remind me on running scenes of silent movies, which always appear funny, for the silent movies are running faster. I wanted them appear funny or at least emphasize them to show that it is a kind of crazy in a lovely way to carry a harmonium around. I myself wouldn’t be able to do so, for “stupid” embarrassment, which is why I like watching it in a film. I also felt the faster move of the scene associates tension within the story, which is desired. For the choice of the audio I myself wonder about it. It is true that the title “Music For a Found Harmonium” was great to match my little clip composition, but does also not really emphasize the visual part, but is rather treated on an equal bases with the video, which might be OK anyway. It also is very different from any silent movie music. I even added to the start of the clip some digital music. Together with the visual style of the very first films it appears surreal and adds to the surreality of someone throws a harmonium out of a car and then it is carried around like a new found treasure.
I edited the clips with premiere elements, which is a bit complicated, compared to more expensive editing software, but it is possible to get good results, especially because the effects come out very nicely, they are not just numerous but well thought through concerning aesthetic and quality. This way I add a filter who makes the film look old (in German “Alter Film”). That it was, except from making adjustments to the filter and speeding the clip up. It is difficult with sound, when you want to reduce its quality, because almost any effect is designed to improve the audio. I had to edit the sound in audacity to add noise and rustling, mostly by hand using the pencil tool. To put in the title cards I had to create a black area, which I did not manage in premiere elements. I had to design it in gimp and to import this as media. Then I added the title with the text tool. I could have cut the clips and add text between the clips, still, I needed to have the possibility to change the position of the cards for the right moment of appearance. All the same with the opening title sequence and closing credits.
I like the result very much, but I already have received a message by Youtube about using material which may be copyrighted. I hope they’ll not remove this nice piece of art, which I did not produce to harm any rights but to enrich the world of art, movie, music. ?
To me, Return to the Silent Era seemed like such a unique project. It involves taking a modern movie and transforming it into a time piece. To give it an old timey feel, it was suggested to change it to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, take away the sound, add music, and maybe some title cards too. I got some really good ideas from examples. However, most were done with iMovie and it took me some time to figure out how to do it with Windows Movie Maker. My favorite example was one done with Mean Girls. It is actually one of my friend’s projects. She did a really good job in speeding up the movie. It was the first example I looked at so I got a feel for the “antiquity” part of the assignment. I also think the movie was a really good choice because the idea of it is very far from the older Silent Movies. The next example I looked at was Martha’s on Teen Wolf. I loved how she changed the wording to words they might have used in older times. It gave a really unique feel to the video. She also used unique cue cards. Using these two examples I put my own twist on Finding Neemo.
I chose this assignment because it is extremely unique. Silent Movies are rarely seen anymore. In fact, more effects are being added to a movie every day. I believe that silent movies really capture the actual story without extra things being added. Don’t get me wrong, special effects can add so much to a movie but I think occasionally it’s nice to just watch a good story. So the real reason I chose Finding Neemo is because it truly is my favorite movie. I think the animation in it is awesome. It’s very realistic to actual fish movement (having taking Bio of Fish and spent a summer working in an aquarium I would know). The story is also very inspiring. It’s about a fish who comes out of his shell to save his son and the adventure of a son getting into a bit of trouble. In the end, everything is happy. The two are reunited and life is wonderful. So of course, this was the story I was going to put the characters in silence. I really want the story to stand out and taking away vocals really makes that happen.
I started with Pre-Production first. I got all of my materials together including: Finding Neemo Trailer, tools I needed to use, an idea of what effects to use, and a sample of my music. I have never really used Windows Movie Maker before so it was a bit of an on-going tough process. I first had problems uploading my video to it. Apparently WMM doesn’t work well with mp4. So I downloaded real player to convert it to a .wmv file. It worked like a charm. I then uploaded my video to WMM and sat and stared for about 15 minutes. I had no idea what to do. So, I went for the basics. I found the effects bar and dragged the “black and white” effects to my movie. I didn’t like it, so I deleted that effects. I then added the sepia effects and that was better. The black and white was too harsh for me. It was then I found the “film age, old” effects. And it was perfect. Slowly this film was starting to look like a silent movie. But, there was one problem: the sounds. I had no idea how to delete the vocals on the movie. I started playing around with volume and random buttons. I finally googled it and found a simple explanation: Clip tab, audio, mute. So simple! It still wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to add in some sort of titles. I didn’t like the look of adding the titles and separating the clip. With WMM you could only change the back ground color (Martha’s were much cooler) so I added the titles on the clip. I actually really liked how the captions turned out. I played around with the font until I came across one that had a “flow” to it. I first had them in black, but they didn’t stand out enough. And since it was supposed to be colorless I changed it to white and it turned out perfectly! I thought everything was too slow so I then sped up the movie. There were already a few frantic clips so I didn’t speed it up too much (FYI a hint, speed up the movie before adding in clips). The next step was the music. I searched youtube for a ragtime piano music. I looked through a lot of them and didn’t like them. Some had vocals, some were too slow, some just didn’t sound right. The music I chose was actually on the first page I had just skipped over it because it was too slow. I decided to play with it. I loaded it into audacity and sped it up a bit. I also changed the tempo some too. I thought it sounded OK, so I added it to the film. The music is actually my favorite part! I think it goes along perfectly with the beat of the characters in the movie!
The credits were the last piece. I wanted to give credit where credit was due (mainly me, but added in Disney and Pixar too). I also felt since it was originally a trailer it left the audience hanging. That wasn’t the silent movie way so I added in what happens in the end on the credits too. There are many things I could have added (old fashion words, cool title slides) but I felt the way I put everything together had the effect I was shooting for. I didn’t want to change the story around, just make it old fashioned. I really like how the whole thing came together in the end.
I tried to get some feedback on this project, but was wildly unsuccessful. I showed my mom when I went home to vote and she said it was “cute” and “good work”. Not much enthusiasm there… And then there was my roommate who really liked it but laughed at the amount of time and how frustrated I got with it. She sort of went through the process with me and had to listen to the tangents I went on about how WMM wouldn’t work. However, the best feedback is how proud I am of the video (I know, cheesy right?)
So I think the overall story is how I worked through my problems and created this piece. It was my first time working with WMM and other tools and had to figure out a few quirks to get going. This is just a start of my video work and there is more to come. I’m sure I will have more difficulties and frustrations to come with those projects however, now I have an idea of how to work through them (mainly Google).
Yes, this is Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, one of my favorite movies of all times. But that is not the famous quote that I chose for Design Assignments 1974, “Favorite Movie Quote.” I do have the famous scene of Williams standing on top of the desk, because he is making the point that you need to see things from a different perspective. Then there is the quote below about how you need to start now to find your voice or the longer you wait, you may never find it. Robin Williams played Professor John Keating in the 1989 film that received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
I used Canva to create the piece and found the image on the internet, looking for a vertical image with an area large enough to put the quote that was either dark or light so I could offset the text with a contrasting color. I chose the most memorable scene in the movie for greater impact with the quote. The image is really grainy but the movie was not shot in HDMI so I doubt a better quality is available in the free, public domain. I found the quote by doing a search for Robin Williams quotes and since he would have turned 70 last year, I landed on 100 of his most memorable quotes from his movies, interviews, TV shows, etc. I thought I was going to use one of his quotes in Week 5 so I had saved them but didn’t need them, so it was handy that it was ready for my use in Week 6.
Of all his wisdom, I find this one to be most profound because I believe each person needs to speak up and speak their truth. Whatever it is, they should not be silent and let the rest of the world speak for them. Each of us is given the gift of a brain and a voice in some capacity and we need to exercise it. It is our right and our responsibility. Otherwise, we are just checked out and creating greenhouse gases.
(Title a reference to a song… can you guess it? Enjoy a selfie of me in the Vocal Booth!)
Greetings! This is Sterling, and I am back with some more content. This week is audio-focused. We were tasked to create a ‘radio bumper’ between 15-30 seconds to go onto the DS106 radio. I will write about the experience below, as well as the tweet-along to the DS106 broadcast.
For my bumper, I was inspired by the radio stations at home that normally use a glitch-type effect in theirs. Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” has a nice, catchy intro and I used their more-percussive instrumental version to spice it up a little: tinyurl.com/vkqtd8f
I actually used Audacity a whole lot as a teen since I thought I wanted to do voice acting and music, so it was second nature to go through my amateur editing regimen. I reserved UMW’s Vocal Booth for a couple hours so I could have a good quality recording. It took a few tries to get the ‘right’ intonation (aka level of enthusiasm) without sounding too cheesy like they do on the radios. Then, I used the Noise Removal tool to get a profile of the white noise to remove it from the recording. After that, I used the Equalize tool to make the soundwave more level with a subtle Bass Boost. The Normalize tool came in handy to make it peak less and maintain a normal volume.
Following my clean-up of the vocals, I used a YouTube to MP3 converter website to download the instrumental. I then timed it the way I wanted before using the Equalizer again with the ‘Telephone’ and ‘Radio’ effects. Then, a Google Search suggested that I use the High Limit Filter to create the muffled ‘radio’ effect better; not 100% sure what this one does other than potentially expanding some of the lower frequencies, but it did the trick! Duplicating the word “to” in my audio clip helped make the ‘glitch’ effect. I thought Soundcloud would copyright my clip, but it looks like it passed.
I'll be in and out since I'm always working on a show at this time, but I'll contribute when I can! What a strong intro, this sounds like it came from a 70s film (if not a bit earlier). #ds106
Next, I wanted to discuss the DS106 radio tweet-along. Unfortunately, I was in-and-out and had to miss quite a bit of the last part. I’m participating in my school’s musical backstage and it’s a little hard to pay attention with one thing in one ear and something else in the other. We also performed during all of the times the radio was on this week – I should have emailed about it, but I didn’t notice that I would have this problem until Wednesday. However, I’ll share what I thought and observed about it!
I really enjoy the second-person perspective bit. Interesting stats about female protagonists in adventure. Good remarks on division "between safe and silent spaces of home and office." They didn't style Ursula K. Le Guin's name without 'K,' was it not used yet? #ds106
This is when the concept of escape was introduced. To be honest, I didn’t expect this to be so much like a documentary (though I suppose it is). However, it was a good preface to the tale of the Vanishing Lady. It reminded me of an English paper in that regard.
"Theatre of a Poisoned World" – Toxicity in wilderness spaces, but also in home. It hangs in natural and manmade. Certainly ties in with the consumerism of the time. Does 'urban legend' imply that these events originate from tragedies exclusive to man? #ds106
Here are more ramblings; I wish I could’ve caught all of the context since this post is a bit disjointed. Though I like how the story explained these concepts early on, planting the seeds of observation in mind so that the listener can potentially figure out a mystery.
Acting out Cynthia's explanations reminds me of how folk spoke in Alfred Hitchcock movies. Slight Blanche duBois vibes? And wow that narrator's French pronunciation… yikes. #ds106
Just the general play on innocence reminded me of A Streetcar Named Desire and how they spoke in the Marlon Brando movie. And, of course, Hitchcock movies. I’m not the greatest at French, though I’ve been taking classes for 8 years and it was quite a blatant mispronunciation (which is OK).
Female traveler… like Marion Crane from Psycho? That winding down skewed-record music was very ominous, and also gives me Hitchcock vibes. #ds106
Seems to be quite a bit of 'spoken decor,' which is often used in Shakespeare when actors describe a setting without seeing a physical space. Also either that's real static, or it is a pretty freakin' awesome sound effect. #ds106
If their goal is to make me paranoid, I can tell you that they aren't failing with all that talk about surveillance cameras and the like. How applicable to modern society and the privacy debate! #ds106
That’s where I had to stop because the show was wrapping up, but it was really neat to be able to visualize what was being spoken about. I liked how it went from explanation to story, though it felt like the story took a while to actually begin. This method of storytelling was also nice because I could do things with my hands while I listened. I’ve never really tried audiobooks, but I certainly understand the appeal now. Until next time!
This week was a really cool week. I finally got to start creating things!
First off, I was introduced to Daily Creates. This week, I did four!
My first Daily Create was more of a doing than creating. To celebrate MLK Day I decided to suggest that people use their free day to serve others. In addition to suggesting others, I decided to sign up for a volunteer opportunity that I will be doing Friday Jan. 25! I will be working alongside the American Red Cross and helping with the local blood drive. I felt this was a great opportunity to share the idea to volunteer so others could become motivated as well. I feel people get caught up in their daily lives we forget we can take a step back and help those who need it.
#tdc2567#ds106 Celebrate MLK Day by serving others. You can search for volunteer opportunities on various websites including https://t.co/nfktUyIUEb !!
My second Daily Create was to explain something technical while using furry animals. I used a boxer with a ball in his mouth to explain the Lock and Key Model by Emil Fischer. I am a biology major so using a biology concept was the first to come into my mind. I know this concept very well too because I have to know it in my field. (Fun Fact: The Induced Fit Model is actually a more correct way to describe the relationship between substrates, enzymes, and active sites (; ) I thought using the boxer picture was a really good idea because it shows how the Lock and Key fits together just like his toy does in his mouth. He is also super cute. I made this Daily Create by finding his cute picture online and looking up a direct definition of the model to double check my facts. Then I went into my Snapchat app, typed over the picture using a Big Text font and made the text black to contrast with the greenish background. The look came out very clean and served it’s purpose to being informative, but throwing the viewer off with the super cute picture.
My third Daily Create was to make a literal song comic. Currently, my second favorite song is No Place by the Backstreet Boys. So of course this is the song I wanted to play around with. I chose the lyrics in the beginning of the song that say “You’re my Memphis, New York, New Orleans all rolled into one.” I decided to literally put “You’re my Memphis, New York, New Orleans” all rolled into “one”. So, for my comic I found a picture of the word “one” written in white letters in a black circle. I picked this because it was circular and fits the rolled part of the lyrics and I could draw inside the white letters. To finish off my comic I decided to hop on my iPhone and use the “Markup” tool on the saved picture and draw inside the “one” ,”You’re my Memphis, New York, New Orleans” in a rolling motion. I also picked colors I personally associate with the places. I have no rhyme or reason why I picked the colors I did – it just felt right. I thought this was funny, creative, and different from what others were doing with the task.
My fourth Daily Create was something I loved! I got to take a high deff, zoomed in picture of nature. I love photography and I loved my end result. I picked a bush outside my house because it is the only plant that really has any color right now. It’s also raining and I thought it would look extra cool with the droplets. I took this with my iPhone 8S Camera and it did a wonderful and beautiful job. I zoomed into the bush and got my hands a little wet so I only took a picture of a few leaves on it – per the Daily Create’s wishes.
Aside from my Daily Creates, I was introduced to the Assignment Bank on our DS106 webpage. I’m also really excited about these because I get the chance to create using different medias.
The first assignment I did was a Visual Assignment. This assignment was meant to confuse three fans of different secret agent characters. So what I did was take a picture of James Bond off the Internet, go on Snapchat and type a quote from Kim Possible, and then give credit of the quote to Perry the Platypus. This way, different fans can recognize their favorite secret agent character, but get confused that the picture and quotes are meant for three different people. Furthermore, I kept the colors consistent in my creation to keep the balance and appeal to the eye to further gain the attention of the viewer. I enjoyed this assignment and I think it’s pretty funny.
The second assignment I did was a Writing Assignment. For this assignment I was to link a song to Twitter and describe how it makes me feel. I picked my current favorite song, “This Is It” by Scotty McCreery and talked about how happy and excited it makes me feel. I can’t wait for my future wedding – in fact I have a pretty clear image in my head on how it’s going to go. I’m also really excited about getting proposed to and this song makes me daydream a little harder.
Yup, I'm one of those girls who dream about her wedding and getting engaged to the love of my life. So when I listen to this song I become so happy, excited, and filled with joy. I can't wait for the future. https://t.co/hq78NXHP2S#WritingAssignments#WritingAssignments2042
My third assignment was a Design Assignment. I got some photoshop fun in for this assignment! What I had to do was think of something I wish my iPhone did and then create a picture that depicts that thought. I said that I wished my iPhone could send information straight into my brain so I didn’t need to study the information I was reading, I’d just memorize it. I imagine the words flying from the phone straight into my brain so that’s exactly what kind of picture I put together. I took a picture off the Internet of a boy sitting and using a typewriter. The image already had words flying out of the typewriter. Next, I found a picture of an iPhone laying down and I put the two pictures into an editing app called Adobe Photoshop Mix. This app allows you to mix together two photos and photoshop them. Using this app, I cut out the iPhone and placed it on top of the typewriter. I then used a tool called Clone Stamp to hide the typewriter with a close stamp of the wall behind it. Next, I used the Warp tool to make the flying words appear to be flying into his head more. Then WAALAAA. I had finished my masterpiece. I was happy with this assignment and thought I did a good job. I also think it’s what a lot of people wish too – especially with books.
After I made all of my creations I took some time and customized my page. If you noticed, I changed my blog title, the themes, and the whole set up of my page. The first change was the change that brought all my ideas together. I decided to call my blog “A Captivating Silence” because I feel it goes with my theme of being undercover, and not showing my true self. It’s a silence from my real identity and my real world and I really wanted that for these platforms. So, I think it’s really fitting. The go with that idea, I changed the background of my blog to a pretty sunset. I feel like sunsets are captivating and when you watch them, you’re silent. It has meaning to it. I changed the theme colors to purplish pinkish too so it went with the picture and color scheme. Then, I changed my logo to a pretty white cursive G (the first letter of my name), just so I could have a small little hint of who I was, but not enough to actually know me. I thought it meshed well too and I liked the aesthetic. Last, but not least. I reorganized my posts into menus. You can view my weekly assignments in one section, and then my miscellaneous posts in another section. I felt it added more organization and my viewers can find things more easily. I felt accomplished after organizing and customizing my blog and it made it feel more personal.
In addition to my tasks, I started following a lot of my ds106 classmates and trying to find them on all of their accounts. I went through classmates followers and found others and so on. This now meant I have their posts on my feed and I can actively comment and like. I don’t feel the need to post all of my twitter reply comments or the comments I leave under posts because honestly I’m so compelled by everyones posts. I see so many creative works and I comment so freely like it’s second nature. In other words, I don’t comment because I have to, I comment because I truly like it. The two that stood out to me this week were definitely from Christiana Meyers and Matthew Miles.
Christiana or agntchristianameyers106 did an amazing Instagram mural. If you click on her Instagram profile you can see the mural that encompasses her last few posts. It’s incredible and really caught my eye.
Matthew did a great job explaining my feelings on snakes. Reading his blog post made me remember some “awesome” memories from the conference golf championship in high school where the same thing happened to me. I’ve embedded his post below. I can relate to this post so much. It really stuck out to me and gave me a good laugh. I made sure I commented on it so he knew I appreciated it.
Lastly, I was to share my thoughts on “What do you think is a good example of storytelling in the secret agent genre? What makes it a good example?” My answer to this is: I’m not really one to watch tons of movies or tv shows and if we’re being honest here, I usually stick to romance, comedy, and horror movies. The only good example that truly comes in my mind as to what is a good storytelling example of the secret agent theme is Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb. I’m not kidding when I say I haven’t watched any spy movies or movies with secret agents in them because I don’t like action and a lot of those movies fall under that category. So yes, Perry is the secret agent that comes in my mind and I love the Phineas and Ferb example for a storytelling theme because of how many episodes and stories the directors created. Perry goes under so many missions and they are SO secret, no one even knows his identity. He lives everyday being an actual platypus and no one even suspects him to be different. It’s awesome and he definitely stays true to being a secret agent.
Again, this week I learned so much and I finally feel like I’m in the swing of things. I’m ready to tackle this course and keep on chuggin’ along!
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