For this assignment, we had to take one brand’s advertisement for another brand and replace the logo of another brand. I had a lot of fun with this assignment. I started off by doing some research on what logos looked similar, and to my surprise, there are quite a few (as long as some lawsuits that went along with it).

I decided to combine the logos for PayPal and Pandora. They are both super similar. Here they are originally, side by side.

Next, I took the above images into photoshop and cropped the parts of the logo I wanted to use. I decided to do two different versions of the mash-up logo, showing how similar these logos actually are.

Here is the first one:

Here is the second one:

As you can see, they are very very similar and I have a feeling no one would notice if I didn’t tell you they were photoshopped.

Overall, super fun assignment!

PS: This assignment is worth 2 stars..1 more star for the week for mash-ups!

For one of the assignments from the assignment bank this week I chose to do an assignment called “Mashing Friends and Emojis” which was 4 stars. I chose this because it is something that we used to do when we were younger, try and look like an emoji and make each other guess which one we were. For this assignment, I took a picture of my roommate Emily (social distancing ya know). I asked her to do this pose because it is one of my favorites and the one I send most often haha. I saved a picture of the emoji from google on my camera roll and downloaded the Instagram Layout app. This app is great for making a collage of pictures and it gives you lots of different templates to choose from. I chose this specific layout because it allows you to see the entire picture, if they were side by side both hands wouldn’t fit and you’d be left with half of the picture. This assignment really brought back happy memories to my childhood.

One of the assignments that I wanted to do this week was the one where you dub over your animals, but I can’t get my cats to meow on demand. Boo.

So, what I then decided to do was a video mash-up of your favorite TV character. I love watching TV, not just because it’s easy, but because I really enjoy the stories.

Anyways, one of my favorite shows is the Office. But not necessarily for the story. I just think it’s hilarious.

Although not my favorite character, I think Creed is one of the most underrated characters. He has the best moments and they always seem to be things you don’t notice the first time around.

I also didn’t want to do Michael or Dwight since they’re fan favorites and will probably be done with this assignment by someone in the future if it hasn’t been done already.

The Office has a popular YouTube page where they upload clips from episodes. I got my material from there since it would be the best quality.

The issue is that they already completed character mash-up videos. But, the video they made for Creed only had some things I wanted.

I took the Creed mash-up and took out the parts that I wanted. I also searched their other videos to find some of my favorite scenes. I did a lot of cropping and trimming.

I tried to use my video editor on my computer but started having issues right away so I put a stop to it. I didn’t want a repeat of a few weeks ago where I put a lot of effort into the video and then not have it export.

Even though it’s clunky, I decided to use Powerpoint again because it worked for me last week and got the job done.

I trimmed and clipped the videos within the program and got them to play automatically. Just like last week, my biggest issue was the transitions. I tried fading the videos in and out, using different types of transitions, reducing the time…but it’s still not smooth. It probably won’t ever be because it’s a Powerpoint.

I’m happy with it. It makes me laugh. Hopefully it will put a smile on your face amidst being stuck at home.

This one was 4 stars, finishing my week.

Have an iPhone? Create yourself using Apple’s Animoji and sing or lip sing to your favorite song! Save the video and upload it to your blog. Make sure to include 1) Why do you think your character looks like you? 2) Why did you chose this song? This mashup includes elements from video, audio, and written work. 

For this assignment, we had to record ourselves as an Animoji doing karaoke to a song.

1. I think the character looks like me because I designed it to look just like me! I chose the pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.
2. I chose this song because I thought it would be funny in contex with what is going on with Covid-19 right now. The song is called “Don’t Want To Be Here”. I thought it was pretty fitting considering everyone is stuck at home.

I had a lot of fun with this assignment! I like how it included elements from video, audio, and written work!

Here is the final product:

This assignment is worth 5 stars…3 more stars for the week!

One of the mash-up assignments I found this week was the movie mash-up where you combine movie posters, but the stipulation is that you should take two movies that have been compared to each other.

I figured it would be easier to first think about what themes go together. I thought about doing something like Captain America with Superman, but it didn’t flow too well for me.

Then, it came to me. One of my favorite movies is Constantine, and the exorcism theme is pretty common among movies. I looked into other pictures for movies like The Conjuring and Insidious, but I decided to go back to the original – The Exorcist.

The poster for The Exorcist looks like this…

…while the Constantine poster looks like this.

After looking over these posters, I knew they would work together really well. I decided that I could put John in the Exorcist’s spot because of how the posters are laid out and because John is an exorcist.

I went back to my old friend Pixlr and used the two posters as layers. I got rid of the background on the Constantine poster and put John over the Exorcist. The issue with this was that John doesn’t have the bottom half of his legs in the poster, so I was able to darken and blur the legs of the Exorcist poster to make them look like John’s. Because the Exorcist also has pieces that stick out such as his hat and briefcase, I also had to blur the background some.

I then changed the color of the Constantine layer to make him blend more into the poster. I also added some words about John Constantine into the words of the poster.

The final product!

It definitely could be a little more neat, especially with the blur. But I couldn’t quite figure out how to fix it, especially since Pixlr is a little more limited. I tried Gimp before but was very confused and gave up, even after watching tutorials.

Given my minimal skills with this, I’m very happy with how it turned out. I also feel the need to watch both of these movies again.

I know that neither of these are directly related to the themes. I do think though that the Exorcist was a big start for horror movies and we saw a large increase of them in the 80’s.

Something that I think about a lot with these movies is religion. I was born and raised Catholic but never believed almost any of it, and I was able to stop going to church once I moved out. Personally, I can relate these movies to what is happening in the world right now. I think a lot of people are questioning their faith (or seeing a large increase in it) because of the amount of people dying and getting sick.

I don’t know if this is making any sense. Basically, there’s a good and evil. Good being God, evil being Devil/temptation. We’re all tempted to leave our house and have a constant fight with ourselves to be good (I hope). John was supposed to go to hell for being a bad person but made a self-sacrifice and was then able to go to heaven (if he lived out the rest of his life as a good person).

So, let’s “self-sacrifice” by staying indoors and avoiding the temptation. We can save a lot of lives.

That’s probably just a lot of rambling to you. It makes sense in my head, I just don’t think I can put it into words well.

This assignment was 4.5 stars.

While looking through the list of mashup assignments, something that caught my attention (unsurprisingly) was the video game cover mashup (3.5 stars). Though not required, I thought I would tie this back to our 80s theme and bring in two well known franchises that originated in the 80s: The Legend of Zelda (1986) and Final Fantasy (1987).

At first, I had to think about how I wanted to mash the titles together. My first idea was “The Final Legend of Zelda: Fantasy version,” but eventually settled on “The Legend of Zelda: Final Fantasy.” The reason is because I thought it would make more sense title wise since the Zelda games often come as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, just to name a few. Plus, mashing the titles the way I originally planned based on their fonts would be a terrible combination.

First, I downloaded png versions of The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy titles. The Final Fantasy series are known for their artwork that represent important symbols/people in the game, so I thought that I would do the same. I downloaded the symbol associated with the first Final Fantasy, and I downloaded a picture of Link and edited it to match the same color and aesthetic as the Final Fantasy logo–though it’s not perfect.

For the finishing touch to make it look like a game cover, I added the Nintendo Switch logo, the ERSB rating, and the Square Enix logo. I kept the backdrop white because it’s closer to the aesthetics of the Final Fantasy covers and some of the Legend of Zelda covers. Overall, I found this an enjoyable assignment to work on.

Click here for the original assignment
This assignment is worth 4 stars.

I picked this assignment because I liked the idea of taking two different movies and making a combination with the two. I think this one is pretty self explanatory. This mashup is with The Lion King and Finding Nemo. I love both of these Disney movies. The hardest part for me was actually picking the movies I wanted to use, there are so many options! What do you guys think? I made this graphic using Canva.

Click here for the original assignment!
This assignment is worth 2 stars.

I chose this assignment from the mashup bank because I thought it would be fun and I liked the example that was given. I LOVE coffee so thats how I came up with this idea. I wanted to use the Starbucks logo because almost everyone know what that looks like. The phrase is from Duncan Donuts and I think its also pretty popular. I like both companies equally! I made this mashup in Canva.