Final Project Reflection

Learning to use Audacity and imovie proved to be the most helpful with my final project. After doing the remix project, I felt pretty confident in the basics of imovie, and using Audacity to create our PSA helped when I needed to adjust various volumes for my final project. When handbrake didn't work to try and get all the clips I wanted, it was useful to have the youtube snatch information as back up. I tried my best -not- to use it because I wanted my clips to be higher quality, but I ended up having to use it for a couple of my clips and it was nice to know that I could obtain clips that way.

In the future I would like to continue doing remixes, but I think I'd like to do it with some of my own work. I did not enjoy using imovie, and I think I would prefer I more complicated program that would be better able to handle the quality of work I expect from myself. I think one of the reasons I kept crashing imovie was because I tried to use so many clips off DVD's and the quality and format was too much for imovie to handle. For professional work, I could see myself creating PSA's, or making little movies for non profit organizations. For personal use, I keep thinking about all the sci fi shows I could mash up with each other =)

I think my original idea for my final project wasn't challenging enough, but after making a few modifications, it turned out to be -very- challenging. First, I had to go through all my Doctor Who and find which clips I wanted to use-- which clips I thought would best represent the ideologies of each companion. I also had to decide how many of those clips I wanted to include the Doctor in. Because the Doctor is the main proponent of the discourse, it was difficult to find clips he wasn't part of. So I planned it out in my head, and each time the Doctor (or another male character) makes an appearance in my project it is incredibly deliberate. Using multiple different programs to attempt to extract the clips I wanted proved to be very challenging. In total, I ended up using imovie, handbrake, steampeg, and audacity to get this project together. I also used a digital voice recorder to get the audio for my director's commentary.

Even though this project didn't turn out the way I envisioned it (being unable to access all the clips I wanted made it very difficult) I am still very proud of it. I worked very hard to get all of the timing down to project my thesis, and I think I did that quite well. There are numerous lines and timing I'm proud of, including "don't you think I know exactly where I stand" and Susan moves behind the Doctor, "just your typical prototype" and Romana II comes when beckoned by the Doctor. I think the thing I am -most- proud about with this project is the contrast I was able to create between the classic companions and the modern companions. I deliberately picked scenes where the modern companions were being active--many of them are holding weapons and they are all very active in their movements whereas the classic companions were mostly stationary. I am also proud I was able to get the commentary to match up so well with the actions. For instance, when I am talking about Rose and I say she becomes the nurturer, she is sitting on the bedside to a very sick Doctor rubbing a wet cloth on his forehead.

There is much I wish I was able to add. Mostly, though, I wish I could have gotten all the clips off the DVD's that I wanted. I feel like, had all my clips been high quality and the exact moments I wanted, my thesis would have come across much more easily. As it was, I was scrambling to find clips that reflected what I was trying to say. I put in a lot of time into this project. Between waiting for clips to import into imovie, and waiting for handbrake to strip the scenes off the DVD's (which mostly didn't end up working anyways), I feel like I put a lot of time into this project that I wish could have resulted in higher quality. But I feel like I did the very best I could given what I had to work with.

My project is basically a feminist critique of Doctor Who. The point I was trying to get across is that, while females have made remarkable progress over the past 31 years (and Doctor Who is a great platform to represent that), they ultimately end up being typecast. Even though modern companions are more complex than just either maternal or damsel, they still ultimately end up playing those roles at one point or another, and that won't really change unless something drastically changes with the Doctor. As a Timelord, the Doctor has lived over 900 years and with those years comes incredible wisdom and intelligence. The Doctor will remain unsurpassed in that manner until a companion, perhaps a more modern Romana I, comes along and actually presents a challenge to the Doctor. My underlying argument is that women, will having made significant progress, are still being stereotyped and aren't allowed to contribute much to the discourse. Media is still viewed through a male gaze, and this is very apparent throughout the Doctor Who series. There is much talk in the academic world about how we are in a "post feminist era". I think Doctor Who not only chronicles the progress of that achievement, but also goes to show that we haven't quite reached a place where we should start considering ourselves "post" feminists.

Blog 10--Final project

I liked the idea of a sort of "director's commentary", and I also liked the idea of showing the companions in chronological order. Being a hardcore Dr. Who fan, it never really occurred to me that people wouldn't know that Romana comes after Sarah Jane. I could see how that would easily get confusing for people. So I think I'm going to start working on my script for the director's commentary, and finish up putting the clips in place.

I can't believe how difficult it was getting any of the clips off of the DVD's. The part that is really frustrating, is that I wasn't able to get all of the clips that I wanted because it was IMPOSSIBLE to tell what was what. Everytime I would try and load consectutive files through itunes to see what clips they were, the computer would freeze for a good (seriously) 20 minutes. Once I finally found the clips and put them in imovie, the program would crash if I tried to do anything with the clips too soon. I crashed imovie 9 times in a row before finally calling it a night. I tried to do the album preview of the clips so I could at least see a little bit of what was going on, and that sort of worked, exept then I couldn't tell what was director's commentary, special features, or the actual show. I ended up with a lot of weird and random clips that I won't be able to use =( This whole process has been very frustrating, and the real bummer is that I'll have to get some of my clips from youtube anyways.

Final Project Blog

I have a real passion for science fiction, and I would like to do a mash up/remix project involving two different science fiction series. I think it would be neat to combine something like old trek and new trek, or old Dr. Who and new Dr. Who. I think it would also be interesting to mash up modern sci fi, which focuses more on altruism and utopia quality of life, with post modern sci fi, which focuses more on bleakness and "realism". An example of this would be classic trek and Battlestar Galatica, or even original SG-1 vs the new Stargate Universe.

Branching away from the science fiction idea, I think it would be interesting to mash up movie remakes, such as old Parent Trap and new Parent Trap, or something like that. I think it's interesting to juxtapose older movies and newer movies so they difference in values, culture, ideas, and world views can be easily recognized.

Bootleg Culture

Like the previous article, I agree that parts of copyright are outdated and need to be reinvented, but I do not believe the solution is all together getting rid of copyright. If, right now, we have the problem that people "with the financial resources to pay licensing fees...get to make songs with sampling", if we were to completely get rid of copyright, I believe that the people with the most power and influence will be the only ones making money off a work. If someone creates a work, and someone else decides they like it and want to get all the credit for it, copyright still exists in that context to protect the original creator. Without copyright, if some nobody made a work and were trying to make money off their creation and some big name, like Beyonce decided that they wanted to take that piece and claim it as their own, more people would buy the Beyonce "made" piece than the nobody made piece. A lot of artists live off what they create, and while a lot of them have enough money to support a small country, not all of them do.

Below I have a youtube of a Star Trek/Battlestar Galatica mashup. It takes the 2009 Star Trek voice over and adds it to scenes from Battlestar Galatica. One of the things I sometimes wonder about, particularly with "trailer" mashups, is how do people know what is real? Someone unfamilar with Battlestar Galatica and Star Trek, might think that's really what Star Trek looks like.

Is copyright outdated?

In part I do believe that copyright is outdated. I think the methods used to enact copyright are outdated, as evidenced by McLeod's example of the Grey Album--the EMI tried to shut people down, but they ultimately weren't able to dissuade people from hosting the album on their websites. With the amount of different media outlets that are out there, it becomes harder and harder to regulate copyright because of the sheer mass of people out there breaking copyright, and the amount of different outlets to get information out there.

I do think the idea of copyright is still very valid. I do believe that artists are entitled to some amount of compensation for their works when other people use them, and I do believe that it is the artist's right to have some control over how their work is used.

I like the idea of mashups and remixes--one of my favorite bands is Legion of Doom, and they take two different songs and blend them together one on top of the other. Some of their work is absolutely beautiful. All of their work is not for profit and is only available through webhosting. Legion of Doom take two different artist's work, similar to the Jay-Z and Beatles remix, and creates a new, unique song. I think mashups and remixes can be a really great way to create new and interesting art, but if not used properly it makes it difficult for artists to keep control over their own work. Recently there was a little controversy over the new Guitar Hero. There are clips of an avatar made in Kurt Cobain's image singing songs that Kurt was would never have agreed to. His widow, Courtney Love, sued because she felt it was disrespectful to Kurt's memory to have his likeness singing songs he was opposed to.

That's where I think things can definitely go wrong with mashups and remixes-- you risk using an artist's creation, an artist's baby, essentially, in a way they may have never have wanted it. It is disrespectful to the artist to use their art in a manner they would never have wanted it.

Here is a youtube of a Legion of Doom song where they take a song by Dashboard Confessional and put it over a song by Brand New.

Podcasts

Before this reading, I'd never really done anything with a podcast. Many of my friends use podcasts to get certain shows or movies that they haven't been able to successfully torrent. Podcasting sounds like an awesome way to get information and share it, especially in a classroom enviornment where access to certain readings may be difficult. Lamb and Johnston write "
Because podcasts are so easy to make, they’re a great way to promote technology among reluctant teachers." I agree with this statement. I think, in a world where technology is becoming more and more a successful way to teach children, it's important for older teachers to know about this technology and how to use it. It sounds like podcasts is can be a great learning experience for not only students but teachers as well. I'm not sure if podcasting sounds like something I would be interested in. I think it would be nice to have access to podcasts of certain professors so I could go back and review what was said, but as far as using a podcast in my own time-- I think I would only use them in an academic setting.

As a musician, and a member of the Music Department's recording staff, podcasts could be incredibly useful for getting music from our Music Department out to prospective students. Lamb and Johnston mention a program called "Audacity" under their section about select software. Audacity is the current program the recording studio uses to edit musical ensembles. Podcasts could be great resource in showcasing our musicians and the music they are capable of creating. Podcasts could also be used as a learning tool in many of the music classes as a way of helping students understand the music they're learning about, or expected to produce.

I think a raido show would show more discretion in what/who they were allowed to have producing a show. Not everyone has access to their own personal radio show whereas Podcasts are easily accessible to anyone. I also think that radio shows would be much more conscious and aware of their audience than Podcasts would be. The repercussions for a raido show offending someone are far more trecherous than the consequences of an individual offending someone via their Podcast. A raido show has to be conscious of the fact that what they say/do will reflect on their station and the other people involved in putting the show together. People creating a Podcast for their own use, or to get their own opinion out, don't have to worry so much about audience.

Disrupting Intellectual Properties

Throughout my research of intellectual property, one of the things that constantly crops up is the issue of technology and distribution, which is talked about in this article. How do you control the rights to a certain author's work when that work is constantly being reproduced and distributed through various different technologies? The ability of copyright to truly protect the artist is, in reality, very limited-- an issue that can be prominently seen on websites where artists can post their work online, such as Deviantart. In this article, the author's write "Françoise Meltzer traces the emergence of the concept of individual ownership of texts back to a single moment in European history: 'John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government (1690) are the paradigm of the European notion that an individual’s work and the fruits of his labor are his own property.'" I thought this little piece of history, and the continuing paragraph, very interesting. I hadn't realized how far back "this is my piece of work" went.

For me personally, it is very daunting to think about writing a collaborative piece. It's not just because I may or may not be protective of my work as -mine-, but more that I'm just not a very social person, and it is sometimes difficult for me to verbally express an idea to people. From my perspective, if I were one of these authors working on this piece, I most definitely would have had a difficult time writing this collaboratively. I feel like, in order for a piece to have genuine clarity and flow, it would be easiest to assign one voice to the piece-- essentially the "head" author. But I know that, in the reality of wiki's, that's not the way it works. Everyone must work together, combining their own individual voices to create that overall flow and clarity.