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.

Wiki Lore and Politics

Before reading Martin and Dusenberry's piece "Wiki Lore and Politics", I knew much of the theory behind wiki's, but had never actually participated or collaborated on one. I can see how wiki's can be very useful, obviously wikipedia has been doing quite well. I agree with some of Martin and Dusenberrry's drawbacks, most effectively the fact that ones writing essentially does not remain their own writing. One of Martin's students said "“Although there are many benefits to the wiki, I see one drawback: No one's thoughts and entries stay untouched by others. The purity of an initial entry can be completely disturbed by another's desire to make changes. But this can also be a good thing.” I can see how that would be something very bad. As writers, we have our own thoughts, our own way of expressing the flow of those thoughts, and there will always be a pride in those thoughts and the words we choose to express them. When you put those thoughts down in an environment where other people can insert their own take on those thoughts, it's natural to get defensive, paranoid, and generally be uncomfortable with the situation.

The wiki as a community for similar thoughts and ideas is a definite positive. I almost feel like a wiki would work better through the anonymity of the general Internet rather than in a classroom setting where the paranoia can lead to finger pointing and friction between people IRL. Competition is another roadblock that Dusenberry brought up, and I see how that would be more of the case in a situation where students are interacting with each other rather than through a more discreet medium. It's easier to be competitive when you can place a face and name to the people you feel you are competing against.

Public Domain

Public Domain is anything that does not fall under copyright. Things that fall under public domain are things that before 1922, things that have expired copyright, products of the United States government, and things created for public use.

Public domain itself is a copyrighted term.

http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf

http://www.law.duke.edu/pd/papers/lange_background.pdf

Copyright expires after 70 years after the death of the composer.

Does content, or "how good a work is", come into affect when talking about copyright or public domain? Think of blogs out there that are copyrighted under the creative commons license.

http://www.law.duke.edu/pd/papers/lange_background.pdf

Things to look at: trademarks, how different public domain is internationally, once in public domain is it possible to go back into copyright, current lawsuits/cases involving public domain--Disney "Is Mickey Mouse public domain yet?".

This group consists of Royce, Ansley and Carrie.

Blogging and the Internet

I've basically spent the past week of class in awe at how fast technology has taken over our lives. The internet recently celebrated its 40th birthday. In 40 years think of all the advancements made with the help of the internet. How well do you feel the internet has aged?

It's amazing the resources that are now available for students to utilize-- both in their everyday lives as well as in the classroom. I picked this first picture because I feel like it represents that merging of lives. Students can now check their facebook, youtube, or email in a classroom setting. Some of these things, such as youtube, are even being used to teach in that classroom. I find it fascinating the way technology brings different things together. Which brings me to my second picture...

Facebook: Linked in.

It seems everyone has one. Your friends, your parents, your professors, old high school teachers-- everyone has a facebook and everyone wants to know what's going on in each others' lives. As far as technology goes, I feel facebook is something that will be very hard to ever "pull the plug" on. It used to be the only way facebook would let you delete your account was if you deleted every wall post, picture, comment, note, or anything left on yours, or any of your friends, profiles. When you actually set in on that endeavor, you realize just how "link" everything is.

This third image is called "Fashioning Technology". This is another area where I see a merging of lives. Fashion, and the fashion industry, has always held a niche as being the commanders of what's going to be new and trendy. Now, though, technology comes into play, and when designing the next "big thing" you have to take into consideration: how well will this product look with an ipod attached to it? Can you still wear this outfit and walk around with headphones on? Technology plays such a huge role, that even the fashion industry is getting it's part. Designer headphones, colorful ipods or cellphones, discreet accessories to carry around your portable technology in-- all of these are things that wouldn't have been given a first thought to even twenty years ago!

Takayoshi and Selfe-- Multimodality

Throughout their piece "Multimodality", Takyoshi and Selfe argue that the current classroom situation is out-of-date and needs to be updated to include facets of the new generation. They focus on roadblocks teachers from the "landscape of print" seem to encounter while teaching their students about multimodality, or "texts that incorporate words, images,and sound." I particularly agreed with point three made by Takyoshi and Selfe: "The authoring of compositions that include still images,animations, video, and audio—although intellectually demanding and time consuming—is also engaging." Text has a lot to offer, but I feel that, because we are a society that is so 'plugged in', it is much easier for students to learn and to be interested in topics that are presented to them using a medium they are comfortable and familiar with. I do not believe that any less stress should be emphasized on how important text and writing is, but I do think that it is easier for students to learn when they don't really feel like it's work. In our society, words and text are usually associated with boring lectures, or hard school work. When that same information is delivered in a different manner, it becomes more engaging and interesting to the students.

That is a topic I gathered from Daley's piece as well: students learn more when they are engaged, and they are engaged more when they are processing audio/visual elements in conjunction with text.

Walker/Nardi-- Why We Blog

I am a blogger. I have been since November of 2003. That's six years of my life that has been chronicled on a webpage somewhere, sitting as a jumble of mass code. As a blogger, and someone who has been active in the blogging community for many years (given my age) I feel like Walker and Nardi give too much credit to the blogging medium. It has been my experience that the majority of people who blog are trolling attention whores who use the anonymity of the internet to make as much noise as possible.

That being said, I see where the work we are doing in this classroom certainly fits in with Walker and Nardi's very small sample group. Because we as an upper educational classroom have created these blogs for the purpose of pursing knowledge in the medium of that classroom, it is unlikely much trolling or attention mongering will be going on here. I feel such is the case for the sample group chosen by Walker and Nardi. Their sample group was comprised of mostly people who are either in the process of, or already have, obtained a degree of somesorts. As a classroom, I feel we fall into the category of "blogging as a community". We are all here for the same reason, and though we may all have different opinions, we are all here to communicate our thoughts on a universal topic.

Daley- Expanding the Concept of Literacy

I found this article incredibly interesting. As a communications major, I know the importance of media literacy as well as linear literacy, but I never looked at the concept of literacy in quite such a large and open way. I definitely believe that people should have a better understanding of multimedia, and I believe that understanding should come much sooner than college. As children, we are exposed to so much media: television, computer, billboards, radio, the internet etc. and we don't possess the tools to properly decipher and understand all these "screen" that was are exposed to on a daily basis.

I think part of the reason multimedia is essentially looked down on when compared to text is because of the fact that it's everywhere. When print and text were first coming into existence, the only people who could actually use the products (i.e newspapers) were those who were rich and could afford an education. Therefore, text developed this stigma that only intellectual people read because it's such a sign of status. I think we still hold onto that, and because multimedia is a facet in everyone's everyday lives, the academic community is less likely to see it as a means for education, as something that people need to be taught literacy in.

I really liked the comparison to old Italian schools trying to teach in Latin. Multimedia is definitely the mean we are most fluent in, and in some ways I do believe that traditional classroom lecturing is becoming more and more out-of-date. Think of all of your professors who now utilize powerpoint, or history professors using documentaries and movies, or even just the students themselves bringing in their laptops to take notes on. Multimedia opens up new doors to use to learn and explore a new way of education. Youtube videos, google documents, things that we as students take for granted in our everyday leisure can be great tools to use towards education, but we need to be a culture that is completely literate in the usage of these tools.

I also enjoyed reading about multimedia as a more social form of interacting with each other. More times than not, the creation of multimedia is not a private process; it is used to create and share ideas which allows for serendipitous results that may otherwise have been smothered in a less social means of creation.

As a society so deeply "plugged in", it seems a little ridiculous to look down on multimedia because of its prevalence outside the classroom. If anything, that should make us want to take a closer look and explore what it would take for us to truly understand, to become literate, in a mean that is so deeply ingrained in our lives. As I said earlier, though, I think that process should start well before university education, and should begin to be taught as early as possible. Otherwise our children will remain illiterate in the language of multimedia, but will most definitely continue to consume it. There are many dangers that arise from situations like that, and it makes our children more vulnerable to media attacks (such as cartoon advertising during their favorite television shows). If we, as adults and the previous generation, are going to be creating media to target our children, we should at least provide them with the right tools to defend themselves.

First Day of Class Fall 2009

I opened the coffeehouse this morning, which meant I got to watch the sun come up. I was super excited for classes to start until my 7am-10am rush came. It's 11 and I'm already exhausted. Overall excited for my classes, but being awake before the sun comes up to open a coffeehouse and not being able to drink caffeine seems like a cruel punishment.

I took Digital Media Production last semester with Stacey. I don't really know what to expect from this class except based on what I did in her class. I would like to work more with audio so I can use that knowledge at my job for the Music Department.

Stop motion

I've been doing a lot with stop motion, and I thought these were interesting.



We got the idea for our stop motion from this series:

Durango Film Festival

Since I'm back from my backpacking trip and back in front of a computer, I'll post about seeing Courting Condi at the Durango Film Festival.

The short before the actual documentary was Making the Man. I thought it was pretty funny, but there were some weird lighting moments and bad action shots from the actress during the interview scene. It seemed like, when the camera cut to her, she wasn't prepared and wasn't acting accordingly. Overall, it was very well done and had a hilarious ending.

I absolutely LOVED Courting Condi...until it seemed to go on...and on...and on. It seemed pretty long, but I thought the message behind it was very well displayed. Condi may be one of the most powerful women in the world, but what prices did she pay to get there, and what does that say about her character?

Titanic Documentary

Since we're getting into documentaries, I've been watching a few online.

This looks absolutely amazing

I can't wait to see it.

I love Monty Python

So that was pretty much hilarious. I did notice something though:

As they both fall to the ground and fight to grab the microphone, you never hear any feedback from the microphone. Anyone who's worked with microphones in film knows that they will pick up ANYTHING, especially ground/grass noise.

I thought this was pretty funny...but the synchronization was off!

OMG STOP MOTION! (the best is last)

So, even though I don't think I have the patience to do it, I absolutely love watching stop motion.



That was amazing! I don't even want to think about how much time and effort went into this; not only in the actualy filming, but also in the designing and layout. Not only are you doing stop motion, but you're having to deal with the inconsistances and unreliability of candles! It's amazing. Also, old Nintendo for the win!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I felt like this was really, really smooth animation.



I have a friend who loves rubik's cubes, so I emailed this to her. I was only able to find one inconsistancy. Can you find it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And, of course, the best is last.



There is so much that is beautiful, sad, elegant, amazing, breathtaking, creative, and mystical about this. It's absolutely incredibly, and I definitely recommend watching it. It's totally worth it.

Heart wrencher

I think it's pretty cute =)

Super Cute!

I thought this was adorable, even though it's a GE ad. I guess at least they're trying, right?

Short Horror Film

I was surfing youtube and I found a few student-made short horror films. This one runs a little under six minutes, but I thought it did an excellent job of creating a story, making it suspenseful, and also adding a creepiness factor.



There's a shot at the end I thought was really well done. It's where the killer comes up behind the girl, and we see it happening through the shadows on the wall. I was thinking of all the lighting and placement that had to go into the shot, and I thought it was really well done.

The Princess Bride

The script that I looked at was William Goldman's The Princess Bride (http://www.godamongdirectors.com/scripts/princess.shtml).

I was actually a little surprised at how closely the movie followed the script. Most of the differences I noticed were just small changes in dialogue, possibly unintentionally added by the actors. I was really amused to see that the wedding scene was written exactly the way it was performed:

Mawidge...mawidge is what bwings us togewer today...

So awesome.

I was also really surprised how stupid the dialogue looks on paper. It's amazing what a great group of actors can do.

The Holocaust cloak scene was nice to actually read on paper. Andre the Giant (Fezzik) had an incredibly thick accent, and in the movie it's difficult to understand what he's saying at that particular part. It was nice to read it, so now I will officially be able to quote the movie start to finish!

Post Secret

Stop Animation