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thinkin

So. Based on the things that i’ve been reflecting on and things i’ve learned (and also haven’t learned). I’ve realized that I dont really vibe with the idea of a video based final project. My video editing skills are lackluster at best, and its hard to get a Solid Uninterrupted period of quiet and quiet to film when there are 5 people & also 2 beagles in the house. This reflection led me to really consider where and when i was really enjoying myself the most, and that was during photography and design week. I really enjoy taking photos, setting up the shot and photo editing (now that i’ve got more of a handle on it), and turning it into a story and connecting photos and all that jazz. So this post is definitely more photography/design based, but I’m excited about it!

So I’ve still got corona on the brain, as I’m sure is the case for many people, so i’ve got a couple plans that are based off of that. first! a comparison of before & during coronavirus. This is a little bit broad and based a little bit off of all the covid memes. I think it could be cool to collect photos of different people, my friends, family, maybe even find public figures, and compare appearences before & then now that its started to Get Real. I know many people who are dying or cutting their hair (i have big big plans to do so) and I think that has potential to be a poignant, or as least visually interesting, project to work on. The other or additional direction this project could take on is the state of the world in general before and mid corona. This part would be a little bit more difficult what with the shelter in place, but I’m sure I could make it work/maybe it will be lifted by the time finals roll around (wishful thinking, i know). So there’s that!

I’ve also always been a little intrigued by stop motion film making, i think its super cool, and shelter in place could be a really good time to try it out. This would combine the control-ability i like of photography with the fun cool motion of video, and I really have just always wanted to try it. As for themes, my initial thought is, again, something about coronavirus— maybe a progression thus far, maybe a psa about staying home, maybe a tips and tricks for being quarantined— but it could also be 80s pretty easily, maybe recreate an iconic film scene but stop motion and with supplies i have in my house, maybe do something with music artists or broadway, who knows! but yeah, im into the idea of stop motion film because I don’t really vibe with regular film (and i think the editing would be a tad easier?).

Okay i did mention in my first idea post that I wanted to try an 80s recipe gourmet makes style video. I am less eager to do a claire saffitz style video given everything i’ve said thus far, but i do love gourmet makes and cooking and baking. I could try a one shot “hands and pans” style video, where i don’t have to worry about shots and can just speed up the audio to where i need it to be, and/or, like i said originally, do a long-winded accompanying blog post explaining my long history with this dish. I just love claire saffitz and think it could be super fun.

Okay last and also least. I downloaded TikTok. And I want to start making TikToks. So even though i don’t like video editing. I want to try tiktok and see how hard it is. And I think that has the potential to be really cool, if i do some kind of series relating to either the 80s or coronavirus? Bonus points for me if i can hop onto trends & maybe even learn a few dances? But this would definitely need more fleshing out as a concept and some practice with the tiktok software. I just think a series of tiktoks could be fun and cool!

woo! -liz

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Assignments

i’m also an exercise instructor

so one of my news resolutions this year was to exercise more! that did not work out (shocking, right?). So as scary and upsetting as this corona situation is, I figured maybe its a good time to start exercising. I knew it was fate when I saw the assignment in the bank, and even more so when I realized this assignment was created by fellow umw ds106-er emily! (in which you should totally check out her post & video, its AMAZING). So, heres my take on an exercise video!

So you may have noticed from the video… i am in now way qualified to be giving exercise advice. I know precious little! I definitely took this a more comedic route, and I think it was my favorite assignment that I created this week (although low key, thats not saying much). I had a lot of fun recording this and coming up with my fake exercises, but I ran into trouble when it came time to add audio to it. I was kind of unsure how to fill the blank time between me being done explaining and the exercise being done viewing, and i ended up just, not doing that. Redo me would love to plan this out better, and would probably include more segments so that I could speed everything up and then have a more appropriate timing for words, and also make it more interesting to watch (although I know a 40 second shot of my staircase is positively THRILLING).

Like I said earlier, i did have a lot of fun doing this one, and i really like the concept i had developed, i just think it could have used better execution. my favorite was walking my dogs and calling them out for being so slow and stopping every 10 seconds, but that bit was harder to record because i was holding two leashes and also my phone camera and it was just kind of a lot. Additionally, I liked my fridge scene and I think I’m hilarious, but the execution wasn’t as good as I would have liked it to be.

Overall, a really fun assignment and certainly would do again, just preferably in a less rushed and generally higher quality manner.

drop n gimme 20! -liz

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Assignments

im a gamer!

and being a gamer, I have collected quite a few Super Cool moments. As such, I decided to do a video gaming highlights video with all of the cool bits from my most recent gaming session. I’ll give you a warning, its Super Cool ™

webkinz baybee! similar to my previous assignment, except this time is gaming WINS! so this one was definitely harder to make than my gaming flops video, mostly because this one required (of my own volition) audio attached. However, I did not record the audio while I was playing, so I had to record it after the fact. It ended up a whole mess that took ages to try and get everything lined up. My original plan for the audio was to just watch the video on silent while simultaneously narrating, and then just layer the audio on top of the video and bing bang boom done!

It was not bing bang boom done.

The issue started when I was both watching and recording on my phone, so I started the voice recorder, stayed silent until the farm game & then began speaking. This made it really difficult to figure out which silence was pre-me starting the video, and which silence was me post starting the video. And i was not able to figure that out, so i then had to problem solve by chopping the audio into little bits and lining it up (quite painstakingly, i might add) to its video counterpart. You may notice a certain lack of an outro… that is because i could not get the outro to fit, i think because i continued talking after the video ending without realizing it. terribly unfortunate 🙁

Another thing i’m kind of unhappy with is how chaotic the audio sounds. I was going for “a little bit too hype for webkinz” for the comedic value, but ended up more on the side of “holy cow she’s talking so quickly and everything is super jumpy”. Which is unfortunate. I think the best way to correct this would be to just, record myself audio-ly while gaming, that way i don’t have to line anything up and it will flow better and more naturally without as much painstaking alignment.

I chose to play webkinz because i think having an epic Webkinz compilation is really funny, and I like the juxtaposition. Also I’ve been playing a lot of webkinz recently so its on my mind. Along those same lines, its fun and mindless, which is really nice in a game. Overall, I don’t hate how this turned out, but I would love to redo this assignment now that i’ve learned a little bit more about video editing.

keep it cool, -liz

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Assignments

meet terry

woo! video week! in which i remembered my laptop has a screen recording function & decided to show off my gamer side! (i am in fact a gamer, i play sims fallout & minecraft dont @ me) This assignment had me show off my gaming lowlights, so I decided to do so in my newest gaming endeavor: webkinz. A couple friends and i all bought pandas at the beginning of quarantine so we could play together, and i bought a gray boy named terry. Terry is delightful and a fashion i c o n, but we are not immune to certain gaming flops, which i’ve compiled here for your convenience!

the upside down thumbnail is an artistic choice, made to symbolize just how ~cringe and embarassing~ these video game fails are, definitely not bc no matter which way the uploaded thumbnail file was oriented youtube put it in upside down & i couldn’t figure out how to fix it. It was definitely an artistic choice.

Anywho! this was really fun to make because a) webkinz and b) full stop thats about it. It was really fun to pick out the stupid bits of my gameplay and organize them together in a somewhat cohesive fashion. since webkinz is a game for kids, there weren’t really a ton of ways to fail, so i spent a lot of time in the arcade playing games, because those have to have an ability to lose! my favorite part of this video is probably the last like, 20 seconds, with the wacky zingos batting. Its certainly cursed, but that’s kind of what the appeal is for me. Additionally, it was the most fun to make & i think it really conveys the ~fails~ element of the video. Just miss after miss [after miss after miss].

Overall, this was a pretty straightforward video to make. The editing was a little time consuming, because i had an hour of footage to sort through, and the editing software i used was a little bit basic, but it got the job done & i figured out how to make it work. One of the issues i encountered was that there wasnt really any way to make transitions? I could have uploaded basic photos to put in between each clip, and if i were to redo this assignment, i probably would do that, because its definitely a little bit jump cut heavy. If i continue video making in the future, ill probably look into better editing software, because even though this is Quite User Friendly its a little bit basic for the things i want to do/the quality of video i want to make. The hardest part of this was definitely figuring out where to cut, and how much to leave in so that people know whats going on, but don’t get bored waiting for the ~epic fail~.

the moral of the story is i think i’m a gaming channel now and if you have a webkinz pls comment and we can send each other webkinz mail. but the actual moral of the story is video game flop compilations are really fun to make in all sense, both the playing and even the editing.

add me on webkinz, -liz

ps: cringe culture is dead dont shame ppl for their interests i was just dying to embrace my inner exaggerating to get views youtuber 🙂

Categories
Daily Creates

dilly dally daily creates

week 11 daily creates! started off this week with a pretty simple one, inspired by the coronavirus— replace any word in the title of a famous movie with toilet paper. I’m kind of very proud of myself, because the film i chose (the little mermaid) and the new name (the toilet paper mermaid) could easily be two Very Different movies, one about a mermaid finding love, and one about a ravenous MERMAID MUMMY.

Up next was to make a heart map! I folded a little hear out of paper i had at home, because i had been folding little hearts and flowers all day to send in letters to my ‘rona penpals & was vibin with that. I think it turned out really cute and im super happy!

And last but not least, a covid themed shirt to keep people respecting the quarantine! I’m very proud of myself because a) i love the color yellow and b) i think i’m hilarious 🙂

happy shelter-in-place! -liz

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Weekly Summaries

week nine sure did shine!

woo! summary post! all of the things i did this week! like a buncha daily creates! found all together in one convenient location! here! but thats not all folks!

billy mayes GIF

I also tied them all together into a story! also featured in the story are daily created from past weeks, a few posts, and some Information! its quite the story, definitely worth the read, i promise! This was really fun, and i enjoyed trying to incorporate as many different pieces as possible. I kind of cheaped out on the ending, but it was also a little bit purposeful, I didn’t want to completey copy my inspo story. I also just get this weird satisfaction from making hyperlinks, so doing so Multiple Times was just. A really good time! I learned that I kind of have a brand with my posts, but it was cool to be able to give the Story As a Whole a Very Different vibe from the individual posts.

Also this week was the radio shows! Check out my full thoughts! but overall they were super good and definitely a LOT of inspo for any future audio assignments I do.

mickey mouse radio GIF

Also! Bigger project ideas! I’m kind of very excited for the Longer Project type vibes, and I’m really pleased with the few ideas I came up with, so good vibes so far. Also, unincluded in the compilation but soemthing with photography, maybe remaking iconic 80s photographs? or something similar? because I really like takin pics!

Photography GIF

And last but not least! my remakes! The first thing I did was completely remake a project from about a month ago that I was S u p e r unhappy with, and it turned out so much better than the original I’m THRILLED. this remake was a lesson in taking enough time to do things, and not being too committed to an idea if its not going well, and trusting my gut. It was also a cool benchmark in the progress i’ve made with photo editing software, which was FUN and cool! i’m still by no means great, but I knew how to change the font this time around so theres progress!

And my other remake was more of a remix. I took what is probably one of my top 5 favorite assignments, the 10 step photo challenge, and combined it with the “found sound” type assignment that i never got the chance to do. This was fun because FUSION, but also because I got to do one of my fav assignment AGAIN! The remix was really cool because I got to put my own spin on it and work on my audio editing skills as well as my collage making skills.

get dirty go wash, liz

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Daily Creates

daily creates, isolated (week 9)

first of all, check out my daily create story, i used a bunch of mine from all different weeks, as well as a few posts and outside links. but, for clarity’s sake, here are my creates isolated. first, i explained my love of the finger wave, especially in the face of COVID-19.

Up next was me playin around with virtual paint! which was amazing i l o v e pretty colors

And finally, last but not least, some cool street art i had seen in richmond!

hope youre stayin sane, -liz

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Daily Creates

Be kind, or else

John Joseph Jones the third walked into his house in much better mood than usual. He smiled at the gatekeeper, even gave the nasty mongrel of a dog the gardener kept a pat on the head [and then, obviously, promptly squeezed some purell out of the travel-sized bottle he kept in his briefcase]. He had been commissioned by a local bank to paint a mural on their street-side wall, and his mural turned out absolutely fantastically, likely some of his best work. It didn’t matter that the bankers refused a ribbon-cutting ceremony like he requested, or that he was only commissioned for one wall instead of all four like he obviously deserved, no, the only thing that mattered was that his mural blew the pants off of those three amateurs. John hopped in the shower and spent a full hour basking in the warm water & his glory.

“AND!” he thought, “their art doesn’t have nearly the depth of meaning that mine has. I mean come on, a serpent, which is biblical, riding a unicycle, with a sun in GLASSES, pointing to the abhorrent culture of materialism those kids hold today” Satisfied, he grabbed his towel— which he had been saving as a treat— and dried off.

The next morning, John decided to walk over to the bank and admire his work. To his absolute DISGUST, he noticed that his mural had been painted over! In a fit of rage, he walked into the bank, demanding to speak to the manager.

“What, praytell, do you plan to do to fix this?” he shouted, spittle flying out of his mouth. Continuing to yell, he said next “I am THE MOST coveted painter in the E N T I R E world, and you let some HOOLIGAN paint over my m a s t e r p i e c e??”

“Sir if you could please calm down a moment I can ex-“

“CALM DOWN? Why don’t you calm down, woman?”

“Alright sir I’m going to have to either stop yelling and, frankly, being incredibly rude, or leave. I would be more than happy to sort this out with you, but only if you treat me as what I am, your equal.”

Stewing silence on the part of John Joseph.

“You see, yesterday was Holi, a Hindu holiday that celebrates the beginning of spring. That ‘graffiti’ is powder called gulal. The local kids were celebrating after you left yesterday, and it got on the walls. It will be clear by the next rain.”

Angry at being proven wrong. John turned on his heel and practically stomped back to his car. On his way home, he calls over his best two lady friends for a little comfort.

A couple hours later, after his friends had left, John decided to take a shower, wash the day off. He walked into the bathroom, the house shaking in his wake. However, much to his dismay, there was a person in his tub! The man sat up in the tub, waving his fingers in greeting, as if it his presence was perfectly normal.

“Wh- who are you?!” sputtered John, his shock overcoming his rage.

“Mike, like the hat says, can’t you read?” said the man, apparently called Mike. “I’m here to teach you a lesson.” he said, with a note of foreboding in his voice “I’m your last shot. You don’t shape up in the next half an hour, they’re gonna get you.”

“Well, Mike,” John said, spitting the name “Whoever ‘they’ are, I doubt they’ll get past security.”

“Oh nothing can stop these folk once they notice a bad seed.” Mike chuckled. “Well anyways lets get going. All your yappin’ means we’ve only got time for one trip, so we’ll have to make it a good one.”

“What do you mean trip? If you think I’m going ANYWHERE with you, you have another thing coming. In fact, I’m going to call the c-“

Before he could finish his statement, John was whisked into a movie theatre of sorts, except it was empty except for him and Mike. On the screen before him, a movie, except instead of movie stars— many, close personal friends of his— it was one lady. The lady from the bank, Rita. The “film” started with her, waking up [hours before John had gotten up] making breakfast with her wife, then packing lunches for three little kids, then giving the kids lunches and kissing her wife, who had to leave to get to her job. Rita waited outside with the kids for the bus to show up. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Then a scramble for keys and briefcases and lunches and wallet and keys again because she set them down and finally shovelling all the kids into the car to get to school on time. Dropping the kids off. Getting a phone call, some kind of family emergency, from the look on her face. After sitting in the parking lot of the bank for twenty minutes composing herself, Rita walks in. Not 5 minutes later, in stomps John, and then the film halts.

“So.” said Mike, imploringly, “How do you feel?”

“What do you mean how do I feel? I feel fine. It’s not my fault her morning was a mess. She needs to learn how to keep work life and personal life more seperated”

“Damn,” said Mike “I was hoping we would get somewhere with that. Oh well. I did my part.”

And then disappeared.

And then, all of the sudden, John Joseph was on the ground, seemingly having slipped on a puddle of water left on the bathroom. “I’ll have to yell at the maid for that tomorrow” he thought. He opened the shower curtain, relieved to find nobody there, and got to work destressing from that weird, Christmas Carol type dream with the foreboding messenger. He was so consumed in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the shadow approaching from behind him. He never saw it coming.

Be kind to one another. For their sake and for yours.

-liz

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stop collaborate & listen

in which i combine the 10 step photograph challenge with a sound effect challenge! I had a really good time with the 10-step photo challenge, and although i didn’t do any of the “walk around and record the sounds of your day,” I really wanted to, so this is my compromise! Starting in my backyard, I took 10 steps at a time (mostly), and every 10 (ish) steps, I took a photo and recorded a sound on my phone. I tried to vary the sounds as much as possible, but despite the wind noise I think I did pretty well! So here’s the collage:

And heres the audio (the numbers on the collage correspond to the order!)

so a quick transcription:

1: a photo of some branches & audio of me shaking them

2: a photo of my backyard fence and audio of me tapping on it

3: a photo of a tree trunk & audio of me knocking on it

4: a close up of a ladder & audio of me running a stick across the grooves

5: my dogs behind our fence & audio of me rattling it

6: a molehill in the playground & audio of the wind and me walkin

7: a dandelion! & audio of me picking [dead/flowerless] stems

8: my shadow & audio of me picking up and flinging mulch

9: my view while swinging & audio of me swinging

10: this weird m-shaped jungle gym thing & audio of me climbing down it

so I chose to mix these two assignments because I had A Ton of fun with the 10 step photo challenge the first time I did it & wanted to do it again, but also wanted to do one of those “found sounds” type projects, so i COMBINED the two! I’m super happy with the result. I think it would be really cool as some kind of slideshow/video, with the photos appearing and switching as the sounds change. I just really like photography and want to do more of it. I wish it was less windy out, so that the sounds were more clear, but that was out of my control. If i were to do this again i think i would try to be a little bit more creative with my sounds, but there were a lot of loud buzzy bugs out and i was kind of afraid. overall 10/10 recommend tho!

:D, -liz

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Assignments

hold on to the memories they will hold on to you

A redo of the assignment I was probably the MOST unhappy with. I had Big Rushed this assignment, and I kind of hated it from the moment I began, but was too committed & proud to try something else. So Here we are, one month later. A little bit more skilled in photo editing. Ready to take it on. For comparison, as much as I would LOVE to bury that assignment within the depths of my blog, here she is

& you can check out the post for my in-the-moment thoughts about her! So. A few specific things that I don’t like about the assignment. I love this quote, and it does heavy resonate with me, but to me its applicable to Large Scale groups of people, banding together and not alienating one another. Building bridges, often even re-building bridges, and that’s not what this photo is. The photo I paired it with is me and my closest high school friends, who have always been an us. So there’s cognitive dissonance there that just really really rubs at me. Also. I dont like how the “paint smear behind the letters” look I was going for looks. I think in my head, it looked more like crayon, less of an even layer of color, because thats the vibe of the quote & also more my aesthetic. Also, my friends and I are beautiful, but it just didn’t sit right with me as a background (probably mostly because of the aforementioned cognitive dissonance). Also likely because its kind of A Lot Going On & thats just not the moves. So, my goals going in: choose a better photo, fix the lettering, nix the cognitive dissonance, and make it so that I Like the vibe.

I ended up changing both the photo and quote, oops. I realised while scanning through my photos to look for one that better suits the quote that I wouldn’t find one, and I was really committed to the Friendship Vibe. So, I scanned through my quotes note & found a more recent quote from the Taylor Swift song New Year’s Day “Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere”. In context, its definitely Very Romantic Love Centric, but I think it applies to my homies too, I love them & can’t imagine life without them— but yall dont need my sentimental braindump. The important part is that this quote is really cute and sweet and really encompasses a lot of my friendship hopes and fears and etc. So with that in mind, I re-scrolled through my photos. From there I found this one, of my friends and I at an outdoor movie night with glowsticks.

What I like about this photo is that its a much simpler background for the quote, but the glowsticks still provide an element of interest. It also doesn’t have A Ton of colors that I have to worry about text clashing with or making it hard to read. Additionally, its with the same group of people, so it nixes the dissonance that bothered me so much! The next step was to put it into gimp & add the text! I decided on a cute script-y font, because its a) pretty and b) on brand. I added words mostly one by one to mimic the slow, halting way she sings the song (which is part of the appeal of the quote), and colored it white for maximum contrast with the Very Dark background. Once the words were added, individually and in groups, I spent more time than I’d like to admit moving them around to find The Ideal Configuration ™. And here she is! In all her glory!

So I’m super duper happy with how this turned out. I think it might the tiniest bit imagine how is touch the sky” but not to the extent that people can’t understand what its saying. Its kind of weird how we’re all just Dim Figures in the background, but i don’t mind it too terribly much. Overall I’m super happy I had the chance to redo this assignment and create a product that I’m Actually Happy With.

woo! -liz

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