Author: Anna Rinko

Radio Show Progress

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We’ve made some strong initial strides in planning our radio show.  We have a good group of 4 and have created a google drive document for planning.  Here we can brainstorm show ideas and provide our commercials, bumpers, promos, and contact info.    In my opinion, our most promising topic is this clown trend.  It’s taken the internet by storm, but appears to be blown out of proportion.  I think a lot of good discussion could be generated around this story, especially since the Fredericksburg area has had a recent scare.  In addition we’ve collectively completed 4 bumpers and 2 commercials (at the time this post was written), including ones that have a very creepy tone to compliment both the clown coverage and the October time-frame.  I personally contributed two major ideas (the clown segment and coverage of what many consider a major gaffe on O’Reilly) in addition to a minor one (the prevalence of a particular gif, which we may or may not add to the show as it’s a bit more visual in nature).  I also added one bumper, one commercial, and one promo.

In addition we began an email chain to grind out what days we’re available to meet.  Tentatively it looks like we can meet up Monday and Wednesday mornings.   Hopefully we’ll begin by meeting up Monday in the HCC to finalize planning and potentially begin recording.  At this time, I believe our overall format will be a few major stories broken up by some lighter, quicker ones, using our bumpers and commercials as transitions.

Radio Show Design Project

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I wanted to create a poster that introduces the basic premise of our radio show in an interesting and engaging way.  To accomplish this, I began by looking for a picture of a crowd.  My hope is that this would convey the fact that we are examining popular phenomena that spread from person to person.  I added this image to GIMP and referred back to this article for a refresher on how to outline text.  The style of the outlined text is similar in style to a meme (another phenomenon that often spreads in waves across the internet).  I had to play around a bit with the outlining technique, as the amount of individuals  in the image made it somewhat difficult to make the text stand out (I essentially had to increase the amount of black pixels for the outline to establish the right amount of contrast).  The final product is simplistic but hopefully effective (characteristics often seen in articles/other items that go viral).

viral-versimilitude

Gods Away Spray

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Naturally I chose another television crossover assignment that could be doubled as an advertisement for the radio show.  I liked the idea of evaluating the difficulties in a protagonist’s life and seeing how those needs could be met.  My mind immediately went to Xena, a hero who often struggles against meddlesome Greek gods.  I decided to create what is essentially a repellent against these deities.  I then wrote out my script in the most cliche As-Seen-On-TV style possible (lots of set-up questions, describing/playing up the solution, etc.).  I recorded this piece in audacity, and added the Xena theme song as background music.  The result is below.

I have to say, I think the best part of the whole commercial is “simply spritz, spray, and watch the Greek god fade away!”  I don’t think I could have come up with a better line than that.

In a World… Without Highlighters

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I’ve heard a great deal of Don LaFontaine’s work in older movie trailers, so I was curious as to how using that voice and style could make anything seem dramatic.  Looking around for inspiration, one of the first items I saw was a highlighter, which thus became my subject.  I decided to emphasize the contrast between the brightness of the highlighter and the drabness of studying in order to make the highlighter the protagonist of this fictional tale.  I recorded the piece dramatically in Audacity, and then played around with the pitch to deepen my voice.  This took a bit of work, as initially I sounded like a terrible beast, and then over-corrected so my voice resembled a chipmunk’s.  I eventually found a happy medium, and the result is below.

UMW Spam

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I was initially attracted to this assignment due to the sheer amount of spam my UMW email account has become inundated with.  I liked the idea of reclaiming these annoying adds/tricks, so I found a poorly phrased piece of spam relegated to the junk section of my email.  In recording my reading of the email on Audacity, I was somewhat inspired by phonetic punctuation in that I tried to read the piece somewhat literally.  As such, I read the words in all caps with a great deal of emphasis, capitalized words with some emphasis, and words without spaces between them very quickly.  I essentially was trying to underscore the ridiculousness of the spam itself.  In this way the piece has a bit of a rhythm to it, with some sections that sound somewhat normal and some sections that seem quite odd.  This was a fun way to take control of these emails in a manner that allows me to poke fun at them.

Xena’s Voicemail

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I know, I know… Xena again.  But I’m loving these ideas that integrate television characters with new creativity and media, and thus I tried my hand at this assignment.  I began by brainstorming the sort of messages that might be left for Xena (who is a rather stoic character).  I decided that the most likely voicemail would be a request for help or intelligence information.  I opted to report the movements of one of Xena’s chief adversary’s, Caesar (whose betrayal ultimately led to her initial slip to darkness).  I recorded my piece in audacity, making the tone somewhat jovial and familiar for comedy purposes.  I then searched for a voicemail intro on freesound.org to add to the beginning of the recording.  The result was a fairly authentic sounding and amusing piece.  I have a feeling that Xena would be annoyed with modern phones…

Week 5 Summary

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This week was a fun foray into the intricacies and intent behind design.  We began by reflecting on various resources and examples that emphasized the importance of meaning, emotion, and memory when beginning the design process.  We then moved on to exploring design for ourselves.  Since I don’t have a great deal of experience with visual design, I chose to do many smaller assignments to ease myself into the skills and mindset needed.  I examined my own identity through designing my hypothetical biography.  I then explored the various images and associations that one makes in conjunction with different words.  Later I was able to examine the centrality of certain film plot points and play with the dialogue of a screenshot to drastically change the implications for the movie in question.  I also tinkered with medieval tapestry design, applying this older style to a more modern series’ narrative.  And finally, I took a book title out of context to turn a classic story into a horror story.  These were a fun set of exercises that helped cement the connection between design and meaning.

Other design exercises included reexamining Show Your Work in the context of design.  This allowed us to review the importance of documenting our creative process (an important aspect of this class) while also allowing us to see how design can be used to aid one’s argument.  We also searched for various design concepts in everyday advertisements and objects during the designblitz.  This was a particularly fun assignment that allowed us to connect these ideas to our everyday lives.

Finally, the daily creates were very photo-centric this week, allowing us to further examine the importance of visuals and design.

 

Designblitz

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They symbolism of the Wonder Woman system is what makes it iconic.  The clear W shape naturally evokes her name, while the winged ends remind viewers of an eagle, thus closely tying her to American nationalism and her status as a diplomatic envoy to the US.

Wonder Woman Logo

The typography used to depict the name Xena is very interesting.  The capitalization and small spacing gives the name a strong appearance.  In addition, the coloring reminds the viewer of parchment (connecting the name to the shows Greek setting).  Finally, the stroke of the X closely resembles a sword, connecting viewers to Xena’s status as a warrior.

Xena Logo

The form/function/message side of Coppertone water babies is very interesting.  The visual is of a young girl being playfully grabbed by a dog in a reminder of childhood innocence (reminding potential customers that this product is designed for children).  Meanwhile the bathing suit and pink wave design remind customers of a beach scene, which is automatically connected to the sun, and thus, sunscreen.

Coppertone

The X appears to be the dominant feature in germ-X.  Not only does it appear to be the only capitalized letter, but it is bright red in color.  This places the emphasis not on the germs, but on the x, indicating that with this product, you will be getting rid of germs.

germ-x logo

The Horror of To Kill A Mockingbird

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I liked the idea of messing with the meaning of a book title.  Many are symbolic or draw from an important line in the story.  But taken out of context, their meanings may not be clear.  As such, this assignment had me essentially examine classic books with odd titles.  I immediately found To Kill a Mockingbird.  This is a classic story of childhood and race relations, but out of context the title essentially discusses death.  Perhaps it could be interpreted as a suspenseful horror novel?  Subject in hand, I searched for images of dead mockingbirds to create the backdrop for the horror edition of the book.  In advertising the title and author, I specifically used a font (AR DARLING) which evoked a horror feel with its slightly distorted lettering.  I used a related font (AR CENA) for the fake testimonial.  Naturally I used the master of horror, Stephen King, as the one giving Harper Lee praise for her new terrifying novel.  The final product gave me a good laugh, and is featured below.

to-kill-a-mockingbird-alternative-cover

A Xena Tapestry

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I was inspired by this post to complete the tapestry assignment.  This is essentially an exercise in minimalism, as historically these tapestries had to tell narratives in a somewhat simplistic fashion (after all, these tapestries had to be hand-sewn).  I ultimately chose to try to convey the overarching story of Xena: Warrior Princess through tapestry design.  Xena is the armored figure upon a horse (who somewhat resembles Argo, her steed throughout the series).  Behind her lies the death and destruction of her past (when she was a Grecian warlord).  The standing figure represents Hercules, who put her on her redemptive path, symbolized by the the central sunbeams.  Next to Xena are her fallen weapons, referencing the pilot episode of the series where Xena buries her weapons in a bid to escape her past.  Ahead of her lies Amphipolis and Potidaea, where she will meet Gabrielle (represented by the golden woman) who will be central to cementing Xena’s path to redemption.  Underneath these visuals is a modified quote from Julius Caesar (one of Xena’s main nemeses).  This quote hints at the larger themes of the series, indicating that this redemptive path is part of Xena’s destiny.  The first part of the statement also highlights Xena’s strengths in this context.  The final product is below, and hopefully conveys these themes effectively.

xena-tapestry