This assignment was a little unusual for me to choose, since I don’t watch many secret agent movies! The instructions for the “Who Said What” assignment were to “Find a picture of any secret agent you would like, preferably a fairly well-known one. Next, pick a quote from a similar secret agent character. Finally, attribute said quote to a third similar character. You want the characters you chose to be well-known but also similar enough that people would confuse them with one another.” Since I don’t know much about any of these secret agents, it was easy for me to get confused!
I started this assignment by simply Googling “secret agent quotes”. That didn’t bring up anything helpful, so I decided to pick three people to use. I chose James Bond, Ethan Hunt, and Jason Bourne. I picked a Jason Bourne quote that sounded like it could have been said by any of them, and found a picture of Ethan Hunt.
Next, used this site to edit the picture. I added the text to the photo and attributed the quote to James Bond. I had used the site before to make collages, but never to edit photos. It took me a few minutes to figure out but ended up being really easy to use. I will definitely use it for projects in the future. I ended up being happy with the picture that I created.
For my second assignment this week I decided to make a camp poster for a camp I used to go to. In this case, I used to go to Snyder’s Lake Camp in North Greenbush, New York! To create this assignment I first found one of the only pictures of the camp on Google. I wanted to use a real picture of this camp to make it more meaningful for me, but the only one was blurry. I’m still using it because it has the sentimental value of the true summer camp and not a fake one. I met so many cool friends in my summer camp days here, as well as various babysitters from my camp counselors. I picked a picture that shows the pavilion we all were under for most of the day with our own age groups as well as groups down below playing games. Usually I waited there to run to the ice cream truck when it came and be the first in line. I am glad the water is in the picture too because that’s where I got swim lessons every week and sun tanned on the beach. I transformed this picture into a poster by adding text in my Snapchat app and moving the text to various parts of the picture to not cover the background. I tried to make the text balanced with the picture and I did that successfully I think. In addition, I tried to use black, red, and white because when I think of that summer camp, I always think of the red, white, and blue day we had and my friend Terri split his finger open because another kid smashed it with a rock by accident… good times. Lol. I also added a fake Facebook user at the bottom of the page so people could follow the camp. I feel like on most posters they have a social media always posted in the corner. And lastly, I added an encouraging phrase to get more children to join the camp “…to join in on all of this fun”.
What if plants and animals could all communicate without humans understanding? Write either about a conversation between two non-human living things or through the point of view of one non-human witnessing people go about their daily lives. How would a really old tree feel about having always been in the same place but everything change around it? What would a squirrel feel towards pesky humans who always scare them away? Be creative, go deep or go humorous, have fun!
This story is based on some animals that I absolutely adore.
The Monster
Everything was calm in the house at the moment. Humom was dumping water on her head in the strange room with sinks. I still don’t know why she likes the water on her. Maybe it’s because she never gives herself time to bathe herself. I always offer her my tongue when I feel like she’s extremely unclean (which is way too often).
Anyway, then she put on her fur for the day. I think it’s cool that she can have different fur whenever she wants. I wish I could change my fur sometimes. Long, black fur is not the best fur when it is warm in the house, especially in the sun. After she put her fur on, I followed her down the stairs into the room with food. I made sure to rub my scent on her legs again so she could remember that she is mine. Since she is mine, she has to share any and all food with me. We shared some milk with little treats in it. The little treats smelled weird, so I just drank the milk.
Life was good until she walked out of the food room and into the scary room and rolled out its monster. It was a hideous and loud beast that ate anything in its path. It was sleeping at the moment, so I decided to sneak up on it. I slowly peeked around the corner. I stepped a teeny, tiny kitten step towards it, and then another, and then another, and then I was right next to it. I was almost close enough to get a good sniff, but then it started to growl and roar. I flew into the air and made myself all big and scary. How was humom standing next to this monster?
It started to slowly move towards me. I watched as it ate some of my hair off of the ground. It was coming after me! I sprinted away to the darkest place in the house: underneath where my humom sleeps. There was no way it could find me there. I waited under where my humom sleeps for a long time. I fell asleep, but then I heard it. The monster found me! I could hear it hissing and roaring. It got louder and louder until all of a sudden, it was dead quiet. I saw some shadows coming towards me, so I prepared myself for an attack. My paw was ready to smack the monster, but then I saw my humom’s face.
“Humom! You killed the monster!” I meowed. She started making some weird noises, which usually means that she is going to rub me or give me food. I crawled out from the darkness to see what she was going to give me. She must have been really happy that the monster didn’t eat me because she gave me rubs and snacks. I let her rub my back until I decided it was time for her to stop. I gave a quick evil eye as a warning to stop. She kept rubbing me, so I gave her a quick nip on her paw. She made some more weird noises (but these were louder now), and then she walked away. I don’t know what to say; she should know not to rub my back for more than ten seconds.
About this Story
This story was really fun to write. It was inspired by my own cats that I have at home. Here’s a picture of both of them (yes, they both look almost exactly the same):
Inspiration
These are my cats, Hunter and Shadow. This is a picture of them from a couple of years ago. Shadow is on the left, and Hunter is on the right. They are both very afraid of the “monster” in the story.
When I first started this assignment, I was a little stuck because I did not know who to make my star of the story. I was stuck between my dog, just one of my cats, and a conversation between my cats (or the cat and dog). I ended up just writing in the perspective of a mashed-up persona of both of my cats. They both beg for food and treats whenever they possibly can, and they have their preferences for when and how long you should “rub” them. I thought it would be funny to write about their perspective on the vacuum (the “monster” in the story) because they cannot stand it. I really enjoyed writing this story, and I love how it turned out.
This post was inspired by my classmate, Riley’s post.
The link to the original visual mashup assignment page is here. After seeing Riley’s post from above on the ds106.us class feed, I was inspired to try my hand at making a mashup advertisement- between two competitors. I had actually just gotten home from a grocery trip when I started to brainstorm brands to mashup. Still sitting on the counter were a few silk milk yogurt cups, and from there I got the idea of mixing the legendary milk ad with a silk milk ad.
‘Got milk?’ is easily one of the most recognizable brand ads ever made.
Playing on the rebellious and youthful nature of going ‘against the norm’ of drinking animal milk, I chose to give the mashup a punk vibe with the spray paint feature in Microsoft paint.
I simply downloaded the original ‘got milk?’ ad and zoomed in pretty close, so that I could get sharper lines in my design. I didn’t think a green ‘S’ by itself was very obvious- so I added the leaf to ensure it was a pro-plant ad. Let me know if you’ve ‘got silk’, or if you think the whole idea is dumb and you hate it. Either or!
For this assignment I had to once again combine films together, however while I previously combined scenes together in my previous post this time I will be focusing on combining characters from different movies. This assignment was a little tricky because I wanted to place characters together that you as the viewer could say, “yeah I could them together”. So I started brainstorming ideas I happened to start thinking about Back to the Future, one of my all time favorite films, and I thought “I have to incorporate this movie somehow”. So I decided to pick Marty Mcfly, the main character from the film and I began thinking of characters I could place him with. The thought of the him and the Delorean started making me think about films with cars, which instantly led me to the Fast and Furious franchise. I could honestly see the character Brian, form Fast and Furious, and Marty together having one crazy race. Again I used adobe Photoshop too create the image and I had a blast doing it. I really enjoy the creativeness the mashups promote and I enjoyed the three mashups I ended up making.
For this assignment I had to mix together two key scenes from two movies, basically combining them together to make an out of place scene occur but at the same time making it seem subtle. For this I ended combining everyone favorite tragic love story, the Titanic, with everyone’s favorite shark movie, Jaws. Every time I watch the Titanic I always ask myself “what about the sharks? I don’t know what would be scarier, drowning as the ship goes down or waiting for a shark to pick me off”. Even though the location of where the titanic sank is to cold for sharks, especially the Great White, Titanic survivors wouldn’t really have to worry about sharks unless they drifted further out. You may think that a great white shark in these waters would be extremely unlikely or even impossible, but Jaws isn’t your everyday shark. Just imagine, youre on the Titanic and having the time of your life when the boat hits something…is it an iceberg? NO its freaking Jaws. Good luck surviving the sinking cause that shark never stops eating.
Again for this assignment I used adobe Photoshop so similar beginner issues occurred. I did find myself enjoying this particular activity the most of the three mashup assignments I completed.
For this assignment I got to further indulge in my passion for sports related content. For this task I was instructed to combine the logos/mascots of my favorite sports teams in one unified image. The image is suppose to look natural and cohesive, meaning it shouldn’t look like I just threw a bunch of logos together. I used adobe Photoshop for this assignment and incorporated as many of my favorite sports teams as possible. I ended up incorporating four of my favorite sports teams; the Washington Capitals, DC United, the Oakland Athletics and the Miami Dolphins. I really enjoyed this assignment and I had a blast creating it. It was my first time really playing with adobe Photoshop and it was a little challenging at first. Its a software that I think I need more time experimenting with before I can become great at Photoshop. Anyways I hope you enjoy this mix mashup of my favorite sports teams.
in doing the mashup assignment “disney mashup,” i decided to mix the intro songs of my favorite disney channel shows, the proud familyand that so raven. at the beginning of this mashup i wanted there to be intros where you see the name of the shows. then a slowed down 5-10 sec clips of each of the shows alternating. then i concluded with fast alternating clips of both the shows so that it feels that while two different narratives and formats are being utilized, its in the same world, where these quirky blk girls get to be young and free.
i used youtube for the clips and iMovie for editing.
in the mashup assignment “superhuman in everyday life,” i decided to take creative liberty and make my superhero someone who i define under the umbrella of superhuman but is not a dc/marvel character. in the image above i have mashed up the Edmund Pettus Bridge Civil Rights protest in Selma Alabama and an image of the wonderful songstris Erykah Badu.
my reasons for mashing these two up has to do with my character, maskeen aka mo’s power as an empath who defies time and spacial locality to be a transient character that just appears during these pinnacle point in revolutionary spaces so as to help folks heal emotionally and maintain self care and sustenance as they continue their (r)evolutionary pursuits. that being said, i choose Erykah as my superhero symbol because i think she encompasses the essence of mo, blk pride, self-care, creativity, community activism and engagement.
i new these images were what i wanted to work with so i found them on google and then used canva to edit them.
For this assignment we were to mash up at least 2 photos showing a superpower that we wished we had. I chose the power to people’s minds. I found a picture of a superhero girl reading someone’s mind and mashed it with a photo of people sitting around talking. To do this, I used the app Photoshop mix and brought the photos together. I then cut the background and adjusted the photo to blend with the main photo. Using the app to mash the photos was a little difficult at first but as I played around with it and looked at the tutorials I began to understand how use some of the features. It’s still a work in progress.
