MDIA 220 Audio Projects

Snoop Dogg - That Tree Remix

      So for one of our projects in MDIA 220, we were given a selection of songs to remix and I chose to remix Snoop Dogg's that tree because I really liked several of the tracks used in the original. However, I didn't like the song as whole so I chose to take out the vocal track and create an electronic dance-vibey song from it. Enjoy!





Nature Scene - Waterfall Soundscape

     For this project, we were told to find an image and to then go out and capture sounds that would "describe" the image so here's the image my partner for the assignment, Spencer Drew, and I chose and below is what we created.

City Soundscape

     For this assignment, we were given an image of a city and instructed to aurally tell a story that takes place in the city. I combed through our sound effects library and chose to tell a story about a winged demon terrorizing Detroit. Some of the transitions are pretty choppy and a few of the effects don't really mesh together all that well, but I'm fairly pleased with the way that it came out since it was only my second project to be done using ProTools. Here it is!

Animation Critiques

Cameron's Superhero

Cameron, think you did a good job of using subtextual irony to portray your hero using the "frat bro" stereotype. Usually, fraternity brothers are portrayed obnoxiously ever-inebriated people that are generally to be avoided and I thought it was really cool how you took that concept and applied it to your hero.

I also thought it was clever that you took the yellow from the beer in the pitcher and tied it into his costume and paired it with an analogous green color. I'm not sure if you chose to make it green to tie in with OU's colors or not, but if so, that was a pretty nifty move too.

Overall I think your hero was a pretty witty creation.

Arielle's Animation

Arellie, I thought the color choices you made with your hero, the Red Bullet, were interesting. The darker value of the Red Bullet's uniform and body contrasts nicely with brighter white and later the bright colors of the surroundings as he's walking towards the horizon towards the end of your animation.

I didn't really understand the story behind your hero since I had to leave class early before you presented your hero and villain. Therefore I am unable to comment on how your color choices enhance your story but I thought they were interesting nonetheless.

Words of Wisdom from Yours Truly

There are a few points in Karim Rashid's "Karimanifesto" that I could identify with which are "Never say: 'I could have done that' because you didn't", "Normal is not good", and "Here and now is all we’ve got". Some points of my "manifesto" are based off of these concepts.

1. Never be afraid to show your love.
2. People appreciate helpfulness more than most other things.
3. Don't let a bad ending ruin the entire story.
4. Enjoy the time you have. Life is unpredictable and changes constantly. You never know how long the moments you have will last.
5. It's useless to dwell on the past. Instead, strive to improve the future.
6. Try to be aware and understanding of other people's motivations. Never take anything at face value.
7. Keep an open mind.
8. Don't let your self consciousness hamper your creativity.
9. Keep your bridges in good repair and by no means burn them. It's a smaller world than you think and you never know when your actions will come back to bite you.
10. Most importantly: Hakuna matata. Life could always be worse until you're a Juggalo.

Gaming Presentation

One of the most difficult things to explain when trying to describe a game are the mechanics especially for our game, Azvault's Saga.

Explaining controls on for a console game is hard enough even though there are physical buttons that you have to push to play the game. It's even more difficult when your game is made for a touchscreen and there are no buttons so that you have to tap and move your fingers across certain areas of the screen to get Azvault to do what you want him to do.

As you can see, the directionality of the movement of your fingers affects what your weapons do when you're trying to kill enemies. I'm not sure if that came across entirely clearly in our presentation. I have never found game mechanics an easy thing to explain or have explained to you. It's just something you have to get a feel for when you're playing the game.

Another point that I feel might not have been expressed as thoroughly as it might have been are the rules of the game. We wanted to keep the game concept fairly simple while adding other factors and minor complexities to it to keep players interested. Basically, the way the game works, is that every level you have to kill a certain number of enimies in order to advance to the next level. If you decide to get fancy by using different combinations of moves and tactics to kill enemies, then you get more coins. With coins, you can buy assorted weapons which have varying "special moves" associated with them. To make things more complicated, we decided to throw innocent villagers into the mix. Killing villagers makes you lose money by paying "blood money" to the families of the victims.

I find that overall, trying to convey the concept of a game is somewhat difficult to do when you're trying to explain it to a large group of people. If you're having a dialogue with someone, or even talking to a small group, it's much easier to elaborate on specific points based on questions your audience might have. It's challenging to convey an entire world that you've created to someone else when you've already outlined everything so specifically. With a lecture-type pitch, it's hard to know where your audience stands in terms of understanding.

Letting Your Freak Flag Fly

In his article Freak Factor, David Rendall talks about how a person's weaknesses aren't necessarily a thing that should be eliminated. He suggests that every personality flaw has an accompanying strength. Below are the examples he used in his article to show strengths and their corresponding weaknesses.

Strength   Weakness
Creative - Unorganized
Organized - Inflexible
Dedicated - Stubborn
Flexible - Inconsistent
Enthusiastic - Obnoxious
Calm - Emotionless
Reflective - Shy
Adventurous - Irresponsible
Responsible - Boring
Positive - Unrealistic
Realistic - Negative
Assertive - Intimidating
Humble - Weak
Self-Confident - Arrogant
Patient - Indecisive
Passionate - Impatient

Rendall explains that he believes that our weaknesses are what make us unique or, as he says, "freaks". He goes on to discuss that in our society, people are valued for their uniqueness and that mediocrity isn't valued. I feel like this idea has some merit, however, I feel like compromise is the key to success in life. If your employer knows that you're a creative genius, he should take into account that your office is probably going to be a complete disaster. If he values you as an employee, he should be able to just stick a biohazard sign on your office door and wait for you to come up with something brilliant. This applies in all aspects of life. For example, your significant other might dislike that you can be arrogant, however, they admire your confidence so much so that it makes them want to stay with you.

In his article, Rendall talks about "Finding the Right Spot". He proposes that rather try to "fix" your weaknesses to fit into a specific role, that you find the right position that suits your strengths. I would agree that this is probably the best approach to having a successful career, however, especially in the media industry, I don't see how this is realistic. Ideally, his suggestion is a good one. However, with so few jobs, I find it hard to believe that there is really an attainable position that it tailored to me. While it is good to be aware of your strengths so that you can find a type of work that is suitable for you, I don't think that there is a job for everyone that's completely perfect for them where everybody will happily ignore your weaknesses and want to hold your hand and sing kumbaya. Call me a negative nancy, I call it being realistic.

Rendall also discusses that you can't work on both your strengths and weaknesses. He argues that because each weakness has an associated strenght, that trying to change your weaknesses only weakens your strengths. He suggests instead to improve your strengths. I can see how this would make sense. If you think about two strengths as a spectrum (see below)

 

If you take his example of patience being the opposite of passion, the farther you work towards passion, the less patience you have, if you're a passionate person and you work towards becoming more patient, you only move closer towards mediocrity. That's at least how I understood it.

Along those lines, he advises his readers to "Forget it: Don't try to fix your weaknesses". I think this is good advice because I think that if you can make your strengths strong enough so that they almost completely overpower your weaknesses, then people will be more willing to ignore your weaknesses in favor of your strengths. However, I also believe that people tend to find the negative aspects in any situation, therefore you have to work even harder to advance your strengths because you have to be pretty outstanding for people to completely ignore your weaknesses unless their desperate, which, let's face it, employers in the music industry certainly are not.

Superpowers

This American Life - Supepowers

If I could have any superpower in the world, I would choose to have the ability to teleport like X-Men mutant Kurt Wagner, or as he is most commonly known, Nightcrawler.

Quite honestly, I doubt that I would use my powers for good, or rather, for the good of mankind. I admit wholeheartedly that I am a selfish person and that I would mostly use my power for personal gain, whether it be to sneak into concerts, movies or onto flights. That's not to say that I wouldn't save a baby from a burning building if I just so happened to be strolling by a burning building with a baby trapped inside, I would help people if I could if they happened to cross my path, however, I wouldn't go out of my way to help those in need.

As someone who spent nearly half her life living in the United Arab Emirates and who is engaged to an Irishman currently living in Dublin, the ability to teleport would come in handy. There are people all over the world that I would love to have the ability to visit just on a whim. I have very close friends from highschool who are currently living in the United Arab Emirates, England, Holland, Qatar, as well as family in Ireland and the UAE. After this school year, I'll have one more friend in England, and another in France. Even if I couldn't teleport all the way to those places, it'd be handy to just poof my way onto any flight I chose without having to worry about buying a ticket. God knows I'd never ever mess with going through airport security ever again. I'd never be stranded, I'd never have any layovers. Life would be fantastic.

If I could teleport, I'd wake up 5 minutes before class everyday. Screw gas prices, I wouldn't have to drive. Is there such thing as a TUI? I think not. Can you get a ticket for teleporting too fast? Meter maids? HA! I would have seen every band I've ever listened to live and I'd be on a first name basis with them. Who needs a backstage pass when you can just be backstage in the blink of an eye. It'd be funny to see security try to catch me.

I can't honestly say that I'd rob a bank or anything using my superpower, but I can't honestly say that I wouldn't charge people $100 for me to take them anywhere in the world. In Athens I would make bank taking people that are in no shape to walk let alone drive to and from parties or bars.

In short, teleportation is the sweetest superpower ever and I want it.

Animation Assignment - Lightey and the Boogie Clown

Jordan created Lightey, the dream-saving superhero and I created the evil Boogie Clown, who infects children's deams with nightmares.

The Boogey Clown

 

Lightey

 

Joke Videos

Here's the videos Alex, Paula, John, Cameron and I made for our jokes. The first one was supposed to be film noir and then we did the second video as a silent movie.

The contrast between the line of the two videos is very noticeable in my opinion. I think a lot of it has to do with the lighting in the first video affecting the quality of the video, however I like the lines we established in the shots of our silent video much better. I especially like the overhead shot of Alex while he's playing with his "train" because of the flat space created by him laying against the plain background of the floor focuses the attention of the viewer on the action he's doing.

I also think the silent movie did a better job of actively engaging the viewer. Because we didn't use the literal space of the kitchen and the livingroom and we also had frames with the dialogue on them, I think the viewer had to pay more attention to grasp the concept of the video. I prefer having viewers actively engaged in my work and making them think a little bit for them to get the joke just because I feel that the joke is more funny if the audience is more in the moment.

How to Be Creative

Hugh MacLeod - How to be Creative

Audio Critique of Scene

Video Game Imagery Critique

Reimagining: Visual Framing

I chose to reframe this photograph taken by Sally Mann to focus your attention even further on the girl holding the cigarette. I was initially drawn to this photograph because I could see the way that Mann used space, line, and our perception of line to give the viewer's eyes something interesting to look at, while subconsciously focusing your attention directly onto the girl in the center.

Mann creates deep space by having the road extend behind the subject and having another object in the background. This sense of depth gives the viewer something else to look at besides the subject, the girl holding the cigarette, however, Mann chose to keep the person in the background out of focus so as to not detract from what she wants us to focus on. Mann also uses virtual line to create deep space. The girl standing with her back towards the viewer appears to be looking at the person on stilts this virtual line drawn from the second girl's eyes to the person on stilts runs parallel with the right side of the road and pulls your focus from the person to the girl in the center.

Mann also uses the space in the frame to keep our attention focused on the girl. She has the girl front and center within the frame and has the other two people off to the sides, which adds to the forces pulling your attention to her.

Mann uses contrasting directionality of lines created by the person, their stilts, the girl's arms, the cigarette, the waistline on her dress, and the other girl to change the way you perceive the image. The person in the background and their stilts along with the girl standing on the right side of the frame create vertical lines within the fame. The girl in the center, as a whole, is a vertical line, however, by the way she positioned the photo, Mann gives the girl in the middle more detailed lines once you look closely at her. Her her arms, hair, and waistband frame the girl's face. The cigarette and her fingers all point directly towards her face. Then there's the virtual line drawn from the girl's eyes to the camera. This girl is looking directly at you. She's making a connection from your eyes to hers. While this line may be virtual, it's the strongest one in the photo.

I reframed the photo to show just the girl. It eliminates the context that Mann gives in the original photo. I chose to reframe the photo this way to emphasize how the other elements Mann adds make her photo better that to just have a medium shot of the girl with an out of focus background.

The space has gone from deep to flat. The reference points that Mann had, are gone. There are still the lines that focus your attention but, even without those lines, you'd focus on her anyway because there's nothing else for your eye focus on. I feel that the image was much more powerful when you have something to ignore. Mann's original images is active in that you have to ignore everything else in the picture to pay attention to this girl, whereas my photo just puts the subject in front of you and doesn't give you the option to look at anything else and is didactic.

Song Critiques

Songs:
- Jordan's Song 
- Joe's Song
- Adrian's Song

Critiques:

Temptation

 

I’ve tried to under sta-and—why on earth Cradle of Filth decided to cover Heaven 17… Cradle of Filth is an extreme metal band that made the inexplicable choice to cover an 80’s pop metal band’s song “Temptation”. Whatever the reason, I feel that Cradle of Filth managed to make this song listenable. Normally, I don’t much care for Cradle of Filth’s music, but somehow, by covering a pretty terrible song, they managed to do a song that I love and listen to all of the time. I even went out and bought Cradle of Filth’s album, Thornography, which contains the song.

The original song done by Heaven 17 is really upbeat and innocent-sounding. The musical tracks are low in intensity and give the song a carefree air. However, Cradle of Filth’s version has high-intensity musical tracks and added melodic musical tracks that harmonize with the rest of the song, adding a great deal of depth to the song, making it sound like a symphony. The Cradle of Filth version does a lot more justice to the lyrics which are about temptation gripping you with an unbreakable hold. The vocals, which are sang with guttural vocals by frontman Dani Filth and backing vocals done by featured artist Dirty Harry are loud and full of emotion. The backing vocals done by Carol Kenyon in Heaven 17’s rendition are higher in pitch and don’t do much to bring emotion to the song. It’s like listening to Pat Boone sing "Long Tall Sally" after hearing Little Richard sing it.

If you listen to Heaven 17’s version and then Cradle of Filth’s, you can see that there’s a massive difference between the two. But if you listen closely, you can see that Cradle of Filth don’t really change that much. The rhythm is the same. The drummer uses the same beat, the speed is kept consistent, the Cradle of Filth version is actually longer. So what did they change? Well for one, they increased the intensity ratio between the synthesizer, guitar, bass, and drums and the vocals. The levels are more even in Cradle of Filth’s version, but the two vocal tracks still manage to stand out. The pitch is lower, especially in the female backing vocals, however every note is still sung at the same pitch, just at a lower octave. The lower pitch, I feel, changes the groove somewhat and makes it sound sexier, which is good for a song that’s about temptation.

It’s easy, of course, to identify the different timbre. The added distortion of the string instruments combined with the synthesizers make Cradle of Filth’s version sound a lot more dangerous and filled with intrigue and sensuality. The emotion with which Filth and Harry sing and the strain they put on their voices make the lyrics sound much more passionate.

The creative elements that Cradle of Filth added and manipulated to enhance the sound of the song combined with those elements they chose to keep similar, work extremely well, in my honest opinion, and transform an irritating and insignificant 80’s pop song into a song that can be enjoyed by many.