Thursday, December 9, 2010
Moving On
I've moved all of my stuff to blogger. Hopefully I got all of the audio and images transferred.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The Reflection
So now that DS106 is over, I couldn't help but notice that I've pretty much rallied a lot of my friends into taking this class next semester. Whether it's with Professor Groom, or another Digital Storytelling professor, I thought it was one of the best ways to express our creativity. I've never had this much fun in a class setting before and I thought that a lot of the assignments didn't have the same bland, torturous feel- unlike some of my labs due for my Fluvial class.
I was first hesitant to take this class because of the work load, but what hooked me was the fact that the work had to do more with creativity than reading and regurgitating information from powerpoint lectures. But I'm already a Junior, and so far here at UMW I have never taken a class that I truly wanted to take just because it sounded interesting (and wasn't a requirement for my major). Speaking for myself, I thought that the work load in this class was a lot to handle. With the exception of the Dailyshoot Assignment, the assignments generally took 2-3 hours depending on the quality of the work I wanted to post. There was a lot of creative pressure that I've never had in a class before, and the most difficult part of this was that I never knew how many hours I should set aside to do these assignments. But the creative pressure was definitely new and exciting. Some of the assignments was that sometimes it was a lot to take in at once. We would have an assignment due and then immediately move on-to a new creative project and was a lot to handle.
When I first came to Professor Groom with my Audio Mash-Up Assignment, I was under the false impression that audio mash-ups were going to be as fun as the audio story that we did as an in-class assignment but I was definitely wrong. I had never used Audacity before this class and it took me quite a while to finally understand the cutting of song clips, how to layer, how to utilize the effects, etc. Although the Lady Gaga Mash-Up was a hit, not all of the other song ideas came together as well as I would have liked it to. For instance, one of my goals was to mix two songs of different tempos. I arranged Ingrid Michaelson's Parachute and B.o.B.'s Magic. I had the two songs in my head because I thought it had similar tempo qualities that I thought could go together. But similar to my other audio mash-up attempts, I don't have the technology for being able to extract simply the vocals or melodies out of a song, so my only chance of getting the song clips that I needed was by searching through youtube- no such luck. It was frustrating to have these great ideas for mash-ups and in the end not being able to continue with it because I just didn't have the proper tools (at least, with my budget) that I could have had.
So about half-way through the semester, I had the idea to just post about mash-ups that have already existed through other artists and DJ's that I've listened to, and just comment on their work; such as the layering, use of vocals, melodies, etc. A few weeks into it and I had realized that my project, as well as some of my assignment posts, were only being saved into drafts and not up on my blog so it didn't develop into the project that I had hoped for it to be. And had I known that a lot of the assignments for the class itself was going to require a lot of time/mash-ups as well, I probably wouldn't have chosen an audio mash-up for my final project.
So here is my last post about my project: I watched a documentary on the problems with mash-ups and issues involving copyrights and who, if any, should be prosecuted for "stealing" songs. I had watched on Rip! A Remix Manifesto about Girl Talk- an artist who's known for making some really amazing audio mash-ups averaging 20 song samples per song. In the documentary, 4 arguments are made: 1) Culture always builds on the past. 2) Past always builds on the future. 3) Our future is becoming less free. 4) To build free societies, you must limit the control of the past. The documentary builds on the history of how ideas started becoming business driven and how our society is getting punished for building on culture from the past. I think that copyrights shouldn't apply for mash-ups because it's not taking the entire idea (a song) melody, lyrics, and all and re-selling it as his/her own, it's simply a marriage of different ideas which is still a new creative idea. There are only so many notes on a piano, or beat patterns that can exist before everyone starts suing for "copying a song".
I was first hesitant to take this class because of the work load, but what hooked me was the fact that the work had to do more with creativity than reading and regurgitating information from powerpoint lectures. But I'm already a Junior, and so far here at UMW I have never taken a class that I truly wanted to take just because it sounded interesting (and wasn't a requirement for my major). Speaking for myself, I thought that the work load in this class was a lot to handle. With the exception of the Dailyshoot Assignment, the assignments generally took 2-3 hours depending on the quality of the work I wanted to post. There was a lot of creative pressure that I've never had in a class before, and the most difficult part of this was that I never knew how many hours I should set aside to do these assignments. But the creative pressure was definitely new and exciting. Some of the assignments was that sometimes it was a lot to take in at once. We would have an assignment due and then immediately move on-to a new creative project and was a lot to handle.
When I first came to Professor Groom with my Audio Mash-Up Assignment, I was under the false impression that audio mash-ups were going to be as fun as the audio story that we did as an in-class assignment but I was definitely wrong. I had never used Audacity before this class and it took me quite a while to finally understand the cutting of song clips, how to layer, how to utilize the effects, etc. Although the Lady Gaga Mash-Up was a hit, not all of the other song ideas came together as well as I would have liked it to. For instance, one of my goals was to mix two songs of different tempos. I arranged Ingrid Michaelson's Parachute and B.o.B.'s Magic. I had the two songs in my head because I thought it had similar tempo qualities that I thought could go together. But similar to my other audio mash-up attempts, I don't have the technology for being able to extract simply the vocals or melodies out of a song, so my only chance of getting the song clips that I needed was by searching through youtube- no such luck. It was frustrating to have these great ideas for mash-ups and in the end not being able to continue with it because I just didn't have the proper tools (at least, with my budget) that I could have had.
So about half-way through the semester, I had the idea to just post about mash-ups that have already existed through other artists and DJ's that I've listened to, and just comment on their work; such as the layering, use of vocals, melodies, etc. A few weeks into it and I had realized that my project, as well as some of my assignment posts, were only being saved into drafts and not up on my blog so it didn't develop into the project that I had hoped for it to be. And had I known that a lot of the assignments for the class itself was going to require a lot of time/mash-ups as well, I probably wouldn't have chosen an audio mash-up for my final project.
So here is my last post about my project: I watched a documentary on the problems with mash-ups and issues involving copyrights and who, if any, should be prosecuted for "stealing" songs. I had watched on Rip! A Remix Manifesto about Girl Talk- an artist who's known for making some really amazing audio mash-ups averaging 20 song samples per song. In the documentary, 4 arguments are made: 1) Culture always builds on the past. 2) Past always builds on the future. 3) Our future is becoming less free. 4) To build free societies, you must limit the control of the past. The documentary builds on the history of how ideas started becoming business driven and how our society is getting punished for building on culture from the past. I think that copyrights shouldn't apply for mash-ups because it's not taking the entire idea (a song) melody, lyrics, and all and re-selling it as his/her own, it's simply a marriage of different ideas which is still a new creative idea. There are only so many notes on a piano, or beat patterns that can exist before everyone starts suing for "copying a song".
Friday, December 3, 2010
Problems with archiving
So I've already exported all of my stuff, and created a blogger account. I've tried importing my .xml file but it keeps showing me this:
Monday, November 29, 2010
Mean Glee Girls
So I know that I may or may not have posted a lot of Mean Girls related things in this class, but I thought that with an "obsessions" assignment such as this one, it was too good to pass up. I thought about merging two of my obsessions- Mean Girls, and Glee (from my last post) somehow, so I figured that an image was the best way to do it.
This is the picture that I got my inspiration from- the Glee "loser" posters that came out during the beginning of the first season. There's individual and group versions of these posters too (I'm not hinting at possible Christmas presents at ALL). Pictured on top are the Glee characters: Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele).
So my lack of photoshop left me with nothing but the use of paint and a LOT of trial and error in order to merge the characters Regina George (Rachel McAdams) and Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) together in this picture. But even if I could find someone with photoshop, I would still need a while to figure out how to use it. So after almost 2 hours of attempting to match skin colors by using the paint brush, and free-form select tools, I came up with this monstrosity.
Thankfully, I found an online image editor called Fotoflexer that allowed me to change the design of the picture so you couldn't actually see any of my butchering. I had you fooled about my skills, right?
This is the picture that I got my inspiration from- the Glee "loser" posters that came out during the beginning of the first season. There's individual and group versions of these posters too (I'm not hinting at possible Christmas presents at ALL). Pictured on top are the Glee characters: Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) and Rachel Berry (Lea Michele).
So my lack of photoshop left me with nothing but the use of paint and a LOT of trial and error in order to merge the characters Regina George (Rachel McAdams) and Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) together in this picture. But even if I could find someone with photoshop, I would still need a while to figure out how to use it. So after almost 2 hours of attempting to match skin colors by using the paint brush, and free-form select tools, I came up with this monstrosity.
Thankfully, I found an online image editor called Fotoflexer that allowed me to change the design of the picture so you couldn't actually see any of my butchering. I had you fooled about my skills, right?
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Just Crush
"Just Crush"
A mash-up of Paramore's "Crush Crush Crush" vs. Lady Gaga's "Just Dance".
This is one of my all-time favorite mash-ups, because I love these two artists. Hayley Williams (Paramore) can definitely hold her own with her strong vocals and as the only female in the band, and Lady Gaga has some serious Madonna stage presence. I like the way this was centered around Lady Gaga's vocals, while Hayley Williams' is just kinda whispering her part in the background. I didn't think I would like Lady Gaga's voice coupled with electric guitars, but it works here. And it makes for a really great work-out song!
A mash-up of Paramore's "Crush Crush Crush" vs. Lady Gaga's "Just Dance".
This is one of my all-time favorite mash-ups, because I love these two artists. Hayley Williams (Paramore) can definitely hold her own with her strong vocals and as the only female in the band, and Lady Gaga has some serious Madonna stage presence. I like the way this was centered around Lady Gaga's vocals, while Hayley Williams' is just kinda whispering her part in the background. I didn't think I would like Lady Gaga's voice coupled with electric guitars, but it works here. And it makes for a really great work-out song!
Rude Boy Resort
"Rude Boy Resort" ***
A mash-up of Papa Roach's "Last Resort" vs. Rihanna's "Rude Boy".
***Disclaimer: I apologize for some of you who may be offended by the content of this song. It's nothing more than most of you have heard on the radio, but just in case.
Again, with the mash-ups where you never would have seen it coming. I remember Papa Roach's "Last Resort" years ago, so when I saw this mash-up, I was so excited! I'm actually not a huge fan of Rihanna's "Rude Boy" because of the subject matter, but I can't help but like it because of this. It's like a conversation between the two artists, only more inappropriate :)
A mash-up of Papa Roach's "Last Resort" vs. Rihanna's "Rude Boy".
***Disclaimer: I apologize for some of you who may be offended by the content of this song. It's nothing more than most of you have heard on the radio, but just in case.
Again, with the mash-ups where you never would have seen it coming. I remember Papa Roach's "Last Resort" years ago, so when I saw this mash-up, I was so excited! I'm actually not a huge fan of Rihanna's "Rude Boy" because of the subject matter, but I can't help but like it because of this. It's like a conversation between the two artists, only more inappropriate :)
Club Love
"Club Love"
Mash-up of Usher's "Make Love in this Club" vs. Taylor Swift's "Love Story"
So this is really just an audio mash-up that was uploaded as a youtube video- probably just to let people downloaded it via youtube link. These two artists from two completely different song tonality and genres and whoever mixed this clearly has a lot of talent. When mixing two songs like this, it's really hard to find a way to find a balance out the two melodies when one of the artists has the potential to have their part overpowered by the bass beat. I'd like to see if T.Swift can get some R&B songs under her belt at some point in her career. I really like the way the tempo towards the end just catches you off guard.
Mash-up of Usher's "Make Love in this Club" vs. Taylor Swift's "Love Story"
So this is really just an audio mash-up that was uploaded as a youtube video- probably just to let people downloaded it via youtube link. These two artists from two completely different song tonality and genres and whoever mixed this clearly has a lot of talent. When mixing two songs like this, it's really hard to find a way to find a balance out the two melodies when one of the artists has the potential to have their part overpowered by the bass beat. I'd like to see if T.Swift can get some R&B songs under her belt at some point in her career. I really like the way the tempo towards the end just catches you off guard.
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