Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Time-Space-Relation Project

I found I had a hard time relating to and working on this project.  Maybe some more examples from previous classes will make this easier for classes down the road, but i had a hard time wrapping my brain around how serious the project was supposed to be. I wanted the project to have more locations, but I couldn't help but adding information to what I had, plus my real knowledge on some of the industry is lacking. The example provided was very, very well thought out and I felt like whatever I did couldn't really compare to it as it was the only example to be had. I hope I've at least ball-parked some of what this project was meant to be, but I feel as though I came up short on how the project was supposed to be done. I felt that the other projects were more thought out and easier to put together, and yes they were slightly more straightforward. The explanation was great, but I couldn't really realize any more uses for the presentation geared towards what I wanted to focus it on. Here is the link, hope it's at least somewhat representative.

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=213799356173380522170.0004d0b42562f2c751f4a&msa=0&ll=33.814811,-84.488297&spn=0.274977,0.528374

Blog Post 6

Affinity Space Project

December 11- I began working on project, figuring out what I needed to do and what I wanted to do the project on. I went through most of my personal picture that I have the right to share and threw them violently into iMovie as I began speed creating the project through sheer will. 

December 12- I laid down the audio track for the project after typing up a script for me to read aloud for the audio. Searched for more pictures on the internet of climbers, gear, and some instructional videos and ripped them from youtube using the Mac's screen capture as I didn't need the audio anyways. After editing for some consistency of scene changes, I over-layed a song that I have made some time ago that happens to be longer than the video, to provide some sound entertainment and localized the volumes to reflect my vocal audio on top of the musics' audio. The total was maybe 2 hours of solid editing work, having iMovie crash on me and re-recording audio. After that I uploaded the video to Vimeo. Any alternate images or screen grabs not owned by me are cited at the bottom of this blog post. 

For the project, I chose to do an affinity space on climbing. I feel that it properly and easily reflects how affinity spaces work and shows the transition of climbing and the learning process needed to enjoy the sport. Also, I am part of this community and I wanted to show a bit of myself and my friends in various pictures that I took long ago and I thought it would be an easy, yet fun way for me to use the media that I have personally created from the affinity space. Whereas some people take screen grabs and video, I take pictures and movies. Some of these movies reflect parts of the project themselves because they are actually learning tools themselves, although some of them are from my poor quality iPhone 3s camera. I hated making the project, but actually enjoyed reflecting on the adventures from the pictures and video that I had taken. The video may be viewed here https://vimeo.com/55494433

Also, here are the sources for the pictures and video

Blog Post 8

I don't participate in any real news related websites other than Reddit, although I do read the BBC and Drudge Report for generic news. I honestly didn't want to sign up for anything more than is necessary as I kind of felt that we were constantly throwing information about ourselves to websites i.e. linkedIn which I hope I can delete, because I want no part of a site that aggregates our web identities. I did not participate in the Twitter chats for Engl. Ed. honestly because I hate Twitter with a passion and find that, although you gave a tool that edits the feed into time frames and clumps words which was 100% necessary to get the site to even make sense, I can't stand to be on that website. The site is just too poorly designed to really hold any information worth caring about and discussions created therein are pointless, I don't understand why we couldn't find a generic chat room where posts are sequential and not scattered as I feel a message board would kick Twitters worthless 150 character min. ass. I'm honestly not happy about even having an account, but I made one for music and that's the one I care about, if any. But please don't take this as a bashing, I really enjoyed the class. I just dislike specific websites and their layout.

Now Reddit on the other hand I do contribute, post, and create content. I enjoy reading the science section, news, gaming, really anything news related on the site and comment for sweet, sweet karma, as well as to read and understand others' facts, ideas, and beliefs. Maybe next time the class could use a different mode of news or something slightly more lighthearted that others may already be a part of, instead of main news site comments?  I have really never seen anything more intelligent on a news site. In fact, I've seen many less intelligent comments on generic news sites, especially Fox, CNN, or whatever major channel run by the U.S. Also, I've never been able to generate any real discussion off the comments as the get slammed to the bottom by time and date.

Blog Post 10

Where I'm from Poem

I am from cow pastures
and elementary school bus walks filled with scary, violent dogs.
From the 80's and inception of gaming
and from the wilderness I used to despise.
I am from the war on marriage
and the dissolution of love.

I am from the southern state,
from the “Bible Belt” of sodom.
I am from Christians exclaiming they know the truth
and Jews whom are less overbearing than their Christian brethren.
I am from a truth that a book does not rule my life,
and that books are the key to freedom from ignorance of deities.

I am from blizzards in the 90's,
to the oppressively humid heat of Georgia.
I am from perseverance with constant failure
and from underachieving.
Yet I have achieved things that less than 1% have done,
or will ever do, ever.

I am from game-nerds, baseball bats,
and outdoor wild people.
I am from the need to be a nice guy,
even if that leads to the inevitable failure.
I am from forever friend zones and solitude.
Where no one can break the bubble.

I am from music never play int he early years,
but created personally later.
From concert venues and late night shows,
to large festivals where you meet the world.

I am from stone-will, but fluid as water.
I was here, but am not now
and I am invisible, but not for much longer.


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

This I Believe Essay Log: Music

Way back in September I thought about doing the poem about music and therefore the DMC about it as well. Since I was learning to use a music program, I felt it would sync up similarly with the movie software.

December 9th- well it was kind of easy to put together a quasi-decent video out of a few of some videos I had personally taken, since the poem was all personal and such. Anyways,  I put those together using iMovie after waiting a few hours for it to compile clips of the videos. Sheesh. Next, I put the audio of me speaking over the video and then edited video down to reflect time of speech. Ended up getting sidetracked making a song, but actually decided to put the song in the movie for the hell of it, because after all, I wasted a few hours writing something weird. 

December 10th- Finished uploading and figuring out how to convert and import to Vimeo.Yep, that's about it. Now, it's on the web and you can see it at https://vimeo.com/55411499

The Essay

This I Believe
I believe in making music. The ability to make a crowd jump in unison, the ability to make someone stop, listen, laugh, cry, or dance. Music is a new way to interpret the world around you, to think about the sounds as these phonic waves flow through their storyline. It is a way to express yourself and to create new stories with brand new and exciting people. It has the ability to bring society together to fight the war on peace. Introverts can turn into extroverts with the flip of a switch, the pressing of a key, or the strumming of a chord. Through music, relationships can be strengthened through sonic journeys, or destroyed by different tastes. I believe that music is every humans personal key to their own secret place. You are able to hide yourself within, creating your own personal journey. The moment that you see someone enjoying themselves because of what you created is one of the most gratifying in the world and I believe that all people dance to a beat, even if they don't know what it is. However, finding a beat that they dance to and allowing them to want to express themselves is the most exciting human puzzle in the world. Through music, we are allowed to free ourselves of this world and exist in a realm more amazing than real life, even if for just a moment. Man has never been without music. It has become the only true immortal, as well as a universal language understood by all. Kingdoms have been influenced by it, armies have fought with it , and life has lived intertwined with it since the inception of time. Creating sonic journeys has always been a longing of humanity and I believe that making music is the only everlasting idea we will have, when we are gone. But to tell you the truth, the head bobbing is what it is all about.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Blog Post 9

DS 106 Assignment C
I did the Over Edit Yourself assignment just for giggles and so that I could easily eliminate an assignment off the list. My picture ended up looking like a late 80's B movie filter for some kind of toxic looking picture. Cheers.

Blog Post 5


DS 106 Assignment B

I chose the Forced Collaboration assignment because I've only really been working on music in my free time, so I'm going to build off of that being the easiest way to make a few points and do something new with my audio. Plus, as long as I can work them into the assignments, free points! As always, I enjoyed creating this remix of this persons vocals and a few stems and turning it into something completely different. Toodles. Oh, and here's the link. https://soundcloud.com/shinybaubles/a-trak-zinc-like-the