Moving On

I've moved all of my stuff to blogger. Hopefully I got all of the audio and images transferred.

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".

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:

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?

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!

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 :)

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.

An Honest Mistake

"An Honest Mistake"

A mash-up of M.I.A.'s "U.R.A.Q.T." vs. The Bravery's "An Honest Mistake"

I had never listened to this song by M.I.A., which may or may not be a good thing after listening to this mash-up. I don't think I would have liked the original "U.R.A.Q.T." song on its own. But now that I've listened to how this mash-up incorporates the verses, I can't help but listen to M.I.A. and try to fill in a faster tempo (from "An Honest Mistake") in my head.

A Gleeful Obsession

It's been over a year since the Glee phenomenon began, and I'm still a loyal fan to the show. Glee is a TV-series that's part comedy, part musical -but for the most part, the songs that they sing are in a music room/choir room setting and not just them choreographing about their feelings in the cafeteria like High School Musical. They do covers of songs that I love- from songs that I grew up with, to the latest jam on the radio. But even more than I love the music on this show, I love the script even more. The story lines deal with real high school issues and puts a comedic spin on it. These stories are ones that people can actually relate to, unlike other shows that try to sugar-coat the issue and resolve it at the end of each episode. There will always be bullies, you can't always be popular, you will have crappy teachers, and they might ban your tater tots.

Here's the trailer for the Season 1 DVD set that came out in September.

And how about that talented cast, huh? These are some of my favorites.

1) Lea Michele as "Rachel Berry"

I love Lea Michele's voice more than anything. She began as a broadway performer from the age of 7 on Les Miserables. Her character is a huge overachiever and not very well-liked. But she still has moments on the show.

2) Heather Morris as "Brittany S. Pears"

I can't believe this girl didn't make it that far on So You Think You Can Dance and yet got a job as a back-up dancer for Beyonce on her world tour. But she turned down Beyonce's offer for a second tour to pursue her love of acting and got cast by Ryan Murphy as the dumb cheerleader!

Brittany's best moments

3) Kevin McHale as "Artie Abrams"

I was so surprised when I found out that Kevin used to be in a boy band called NLT, but plays a kid in a wheelchair. It's a shame that he's confined to the wheelchair because he's one of the best dancers of the cast. (well, maybe not as good as "Brittany" or "Mike Chang").

He's snatchin them to Neverland

I'm sorry if this is slightly offensive to some people. I didn't autotune the audio, as many of you may already recognize the song used in this video.

Edit: I just re-uploaded the video. I think this actually shows up.

This last one is more of an audio mash-up, but I really like the layering of the videos. I found Kurt Hugo Schneider's videos a couple of months ago when he produced Sam Tsui's cover of "Don't Stop Believing". I've been following his work ever since. I'm also seeing a lot of musicians on youtube that are utilizing his talent for producing some of their music videos. Examples include Tiffany Alvord, and

Mash Up Examples

My friend actually just posted this on my wall last night and I thought it was a perfect introduction to some examples of mash-ups. I personally love mash-ups and remixes of almost every kind, so my friends tend to post . So when she posted this on my wall, I thought it was pure genius. It's a mash-up of clips from Toy Story and some audio bites to create an actual song. I may or may not be adding this onto my itunes later tonight.



This next one is more for fun for those Lord of the Rings and World Cup fans out there. It can be considered a parody, but also it's a mash-up in a sense that it takes a large portion of the clips from the film/trailer.

Finding Nemo Commentary

So this is my video commentary for the movie Finding Nemo. I love this movie, but I love it even more now that I've taken ecology and learned more about why Nemo's father is so annoying.

PS- don't tell my mom I said that.

Project Outline

I would like to create projects for myself in selecting what kind of mash-ups/songs by finding a new restriction on each project before I begin. Such as songs of the same artist, etc.

1. Medley of Songs by the same artist.

2. Mash-up of Song with a slow tempo and a fast tempo. (More than 40 BPM difference)

3. Use one song for its verse and mash up a different song for the chorus.

4. Alter two songs of different keys to the same key.

5. Autotune song?

6. Dance Club Remix of a song.

7. Create Song using repeating melodies and overlapping (such as looping pedal)

**Some of these are subject to change. These are just ideas that I had come up with so far but the logistics of a lot of these depend on how quickly I can learn audio editing.

Audio Editing: Mash-Up

Lady Gaga Mash-Up

So I don't know if you've heard of this artist named LADY GAGA, but she's kind of a big deal. As my first post for my project, I decided to play around with Audacity a little bit more to try to create a medley using songs from the same artist. I wrote down the names of some of her songs and pulled them out of a hat to see which songs I had to work with.

Since Lady Gaga's songs have different tempos, I had to experiment with the audacity effects. Some transitions aren't as smooth as I'd like them to be because I found out that cutting parts of songs while maintaining a rhythm was time consuming.

Uninteresting Audio Story

Roommate's Story

This is my one of my roommate's story about why she chose to go to UMW. Two of my roommate's are on the equestrian team so I thought I would record this story. It actually became more of an interview than just her telling a story, but I'm hoping this turned out alright.

This took a few tries on audacity because we started bursting out in laughter during a few of the takes. This is a result of the 4th attempt are recording her story.

Sources:

Beginning Race

Horse Whinnying

Galloping

Dun dun dun

Car Start

Cheer

Project Proposal

For my project idea, I would like to do something involving audio editing. I've always been interested in music, so I've spent countless hours looking up new music containing mash-ups, remixes, and classical covers, and A Capella. I've experimented with basic editing with music that I've recorded and uploaded onto youtube, but nothing too fancy. When it comes to music editing, I haven't used anything more advanced than movie maker. With this project, I'm hoping to learn how to mash up songs and maybe create remixes using audacity and/or other music editing programs. If anyone has any suggestions for music editing programs/software, that would be greatly appreciated. I don't have a mac, so I'll have to get creative.

Favorite Dailyshoots

I really enjoyed the Dailyshoot assignment and I hope Professor Groom continues to do this assignment for later DS106 classes. It was a challenge to have to do the assignment everyday but once I got into the groove of it, it became a mid-afternoon ritual. Also it was interesting to see such great photography in this class, I even surprised myself with some of the pictures that I had taken these past two weeks. But here are my favorites.

Dailyshoot 1



By Sadie

This picture was one of my favorites because I really liked the colors in the leaves. This is just before fall weather when you can see the leaves turning yellow and the veins almost look like someone drew on them with a crayon. I really liked it.
Dailyshoot 2



By Lindsay

First of all, I love small animals and I thought that this was absolutely adorable. I believe the prompt said something about picking two objects small and large that complimented each other and I think that this really fit the prompt perfectly.
Dailyshoot 3



By Ashley

Charms! I can tell by the grass and the reflection on the lady bug that this was probably taken on the quad at Eagle Landing. I think it's cute that Ashley actually has this lady bug as a lucky charm. The way she framed this in a patch of green really makes the colors pop.
Dailyshoot 4



By Professor Groom

There was no question that I thought this fit the soft and fluffy prompt perfectly. The contrast of the cat's fur on the light blue sky just made everything about this picture so soft.
Dailyshoot 5



By Carlie

I really liked Carlie's picture with reflection in the shades. I like that several people in our class took the prompt and expanded on the topic a bit. The prompt said to use a mirror, and Carlie used an ordinary object that isn't necessarily a mirror but can reflect like one. I loved this picture. Very artistic.
Dailyshoot 6



By Morgan

This is my favorite chaos/messy prompt picture. The packages and boxes stacked on top of each other are kinda cluttered but the lines they create were nicely framed. Also the reflection of everything in the walls almost makes it looks like the mess is twice as big. I loved it.
Dailyshoot 7



By Wesley

I liked this picture for the symmetry prompt but of course I'm biased because I've played stringed instruments for years. I like the way he framed the lines extending to what seems like forever. Nicely done.

Dailyshoot8



By Jenn

The book shelf here is probably my favorite. I love that the books here don't have a solid size or cover so it adds variety to the bookshelf. I also really like the lighting, I'm assuming it's done through photoshop of picnik, but it was very nicely done!

The Notebook(s)

I like to keep my notebooks until every page is used up. These are a mix of my economics and geology notebooks.

Some symmetry

This was a picture of one of the puffy stickers on my friend's laptop. I really liked the colors but the glare was a real problem because her laptop photoshoot was at the nest.

My Image Story

My image story is about my little brother, JP. He started taekwondo when he was in Kindergarten and now he's in 3rd grade and a black belt. This was his belt test when he was transitioning from Yellow Belt to Orange belt. He's so tiny compared to the other kids.

Her Image Story- The Uniform Project

So I remember finding this about a year ago. It's called The Uniform Project, and it follows a lovely lady, named Sheena, who's mission was to raise money for children in India who couldn't afford to go to school while at the same time raising awareness sustainable fashion by using recycled items.



This is her image story:

The Uniform Project Picture Book

The Project's Mission is to

"Revolutionize the way people perceive ethical fashion and place social responsibility at the center of consumer culture. Use fashion as a vehicle to make acts of charity more inspired and playful, enabling individuals to rise as role models of style, sustainability and social consciousness."

I thought this was so creative and such a good way to raise money for a cause that you believe in. This image story not only impacted my view of fashion, but jump-started a project dedicated to challenge creativity and impact others to join the cause.

An organized mess

"Communicate chaos, disorganization or messiness in a photograph. Find some beauty in it." -Dailyshoot

When I read this prompt aloud, I thought about taking a picture of the cupholders in my car filled with receipts, directions, and loose change. But then my roommate told me to just take a picture of my side of the room. Passive-aggressive, much? I have a habit of collecting the things that I use throughout the day in a small corner on my desk (pictured above). It's a little messy, but I can still find the things that I'm looking for- that's all that matters, right?

Mirror, mirror on the wall

We have fixed mirrors in this apartment so I had to get creative with this prompt. I used my phone as a "mirror" to reflect my Environmental Politics and Policy book. I tried my best to get rid of the glare but clearly there's still some there.

A "Good" Night

Source



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A quiet dinner turns into a series of events typical to a "good" college night. And of course, the day after.

Authors:

Ashley Gaston

Sarah Manuel

Something soft

The tag on my bathrobe is self explanatory but it was surprisingly hard to capture something that "looked soft" because the lighting in my room was limited. I wish I had a small animal to take a picture of- let's just say I chased down a squirrel and it didn't work out well.

I've got one hand in my pocket

Dailyshoot 3



I really liked this prompt from Dailyshoot. Music is a big part of me and my ipod is a good way of saving people from listening to me sing as I walk to my classes.

Don't get mad, get glad!

Dailyshoot 2



I was really trying to find something more creative than two Tupperware containers, but there were very few objects in the apartment that I could find to fit the prompt. But hey, don't get mad, get glad!

My orchid

Dailyshoot 1



So I just saw my photo up on the Daily Shoot site. It feels so cool to automatically be part of this community. But at the same time, my photo looks so inadequate compared to the rest of the work up there. I wish my camera was working :(

4 For you Glen Coco! You go, Glen Coco!

Movie in 6 Frames

Permalinks

I have just changed the permalinks to a less "ugly" format. Apparently I didn't write down the instructions to do so...but I googled it! I'm happy that I didn't ask someone as a first resort. This is fun :)

Assignment #4

I thought this article was really interesting. I never quite thought about how the things that I use online are actually applications, and not the web. I've been using facebook and skype for years thinking that I was using the internet- therefore I was on the web. But I guess this isn't the case.

In class we had talked about the differences between the web and the internet, and to some extent I'm still confused about it. I looked up what "world wide web" meant on the internet and laughed to see "not to be confused with the internet" in the description. I think after reading the article I hope that I have a better understanding of the differences between the web and the internet, but I shouldn't get my hopes up :P

I found it interesting that the article starts with who to point our fingers at for relying less on the web. Does it really matter all that much who's "fault" it is? I put "fault" in quotations because I don't believe that there is anyone to blame, because can't readily see what's wrong with it. I do believe that we rely more on the internet than the web, but I don't think we should start blaming industries (monopolies) for what's happening. I feel like this relates to the Environmental Movement in that we blame corporations for expanding and using up resources, but in the end it's the consumers (we, as internet users) that play just as big of a factor in this system.

Assignment #3- Response to Tim O’Reilly’s Essay

I don't think I can whole-heartedly agree with the whole Web 2.0 theory. Now, I understand that new applications such as Napster and Wikipedia are more popular than "Web 1.0"  applications, but I don't believe that they're completely different entities that we can treat them as different eras of the internet.

I don't know if anyone remembers Xanga, but I sure do! I may not use that as my main social networking site, but it still exists as a main form of communication for some people. And the same goes for Myspace- it's not necessarily as popular as Facebook for keeping in touch with friends, but people are still creating accounts on it. I guess my point is that I don't think that the web "crashes" and then just cleans its slate with these brand new applications. Granted, the newer applications can be more user-friendly and more useful, but it doesn't make the old ones obsolete. But I guess I could just be taking the term "crash" too literally.

I really liked the section in this essay about the importance of blogging. I believe that blogging was such a great invention! It really is like a diary (except your annoying little brother doesn't have to snoop around your room looking for the key). I like the idea of connecting with someone who has the same interests as you, without having to exchange any information. For instance- I sometimes follow food blogs because I absolutely love to cook and I sometimes would rather have fresh new ideas than a stale cookbook. Blogs are just great ways for people to connect based on similar interests. And when your interests change, so can the blogs you follow.

Fiddling with themes and such

Howdy, all. I've been fiddling with themes and stuff around my blog for the past couple of days and I'm starting to realize how fun this is. I've decided on my current theme because I really dig the colors, but I'm sure I'll change it again at some point. Woot!

Additionally- I know that part of the hw was adding everyone's blog to google reader, but I am totally lost on that part of the assignment.

Helloooo

Hello this is my first post and i am saying it in a British accent, but you can't tell that now do you ???