I loved the idea of making a serious movie funny, so I took this assignment and ran with it. I began by selecting my two scenes to mashup. For my serious scene I chose the reentry clip from Gravity (one of my favorite movies). Then I chose the proton pack scene from Ghostbusters as my funny audio clip. I downloaded these clips from YouTube, entered them in CyberLink PowerDirector, muted the Gravity scene, and overlaid the audio from the Ghostbusters scene. I edited the order of some of the shots from Gravity to make the audio mesh better, and the result was pretty solid. It does a fair job of demonstrating how important audio is for creating tone, and how two jarringly different pieces can come together in a pretty hilarious manner. The final product is available below for your viewing pleasure.
Category: ds106
The Karate Kid: A Video Essay
To be perfectly honest, perhaps the hardest aspect of this assignment was finding a suitable movie scene to analyze. I wanted to ensure that it was meaningful to me, while also selecting a scene that was not dialogue-centric (as I figured it would be difficult to successfully overlap narration and dialogue without the piece becoming confusing). Once I selected this scene, I recorded myself narrating my analysis in Audacity while playing the video. This took several attempts, as the computer had trouble simultaneously recording me while playing sound. I ultimately chose to mute the video while recording myself to address this problem. I then downloaded the scene from YouTube and added it in CyberLink PowerDirector (my video-editing program). I lowered the scene’s volume and then added my narration, adding a promotional image from the movie during the beginning and end of the video where there’s only voice-over). Once satisfied with the product, I uploaded it to YouTube, where it can be viewed below.
https://youtu.be/kL0c9cq6Gb8
Week 8 Summary
Whew. This week was a lot to get through, but I managed. First we began with listening to our incredible radio shows. It was obvious that a lot of work had been put into these, and I was thoroughly impressed. I personally reviewed the Meme Show for my RadioListen. Excellent work all around.
I then moved into learning how to use X-Ray Goggles. The actual installation and use wasn’t that hard to navigate, and I quickly moved to playing around with the tool. I first manipulated our main UMW site to make it seem like a school for Witchcraft and Wizardry. I then used the same tool to create my own personalized search engine. I finally moved to altering YouTube, implying that Eowyn’s encounter with the Witch King involved romance and providing some pro-Sauron summaries for the side videos. For my last assignment, I moved away from X-Ray Goggles, instead deciding to play with Google Translate to totally change our national anthem. Overall, these exercises were a fun way to demonstrate the fact that the web is not a static entity.
I also combed through our blog feed to contribute to the ds106 showcase. It was beyond evident that we have a lot of creative work being produced by this course. In addition, I connected my daily creates through the point of view of an author to make them coherent as a single entity. Overall, this was a long but productive week.
Daily Create Story
I am an author. When people ask me why I write…
@ds106dc I write to preserve ideas. #ds106#tdc1747
— Anna Rinko (@rinko_anna) October 20, 2016
Writing can have many different purposes. Sometimes it can involve artistry and poetry…
@ds106dc
clouds the color of ink
dropping hail the size of pebbles and
pistachios
weather providing varnish for the street#ds106 #tdc1746— Anna Rinko (@rinko_anna) October 19, 2016
Other times, it can involve simple documentation. Such as recording the actions of these incredible women.
@ds106dc BA Women ready to combat threats to peace and justice. #ds106 #tdc1748 pic.twitter.com/UMp8dbcSWG
— Anna Rinko (@rinko_anna) October 21, 2016
DS106 Showcase
It’s pretty incredible the amount of work that this class has created. There are some great minds in this class. I was perusing many different assignments, seperating out those that especially struck my fancy, when I noticed a bit of a pattern. All the assignments I was picking were visual. Perhaps this is related to the fact that we are visual creatures, or perhaps it is simply that I am not a very good visual editor myself, and no how difficult it is to work with GIMP and Photoshop (hence my admiration). Regardless, here are my top picks.
I specifically remember seeing this blog post a while back, which inspired me to try my own hand at creating a medieval story. I remember being impressed with the visuals of the storytelling, and with the ability to successfully utilize a much older art form.
This is also from a post I remember seeing this semester that truly impressed me. The visuals are striking. The crumpled American flag immediately brings up connotations of broken politics, while the spade evokes the idea of cards (quite fitting for House of Cards) and the idea of chance or gambling. Beautiful piece of work.
This last piece is from a post that I don’t recall initially seeing. I of course loved the reference to the Lord of the Rings, but was also impressed with the post itself, which was very thorough. The image is simplistic, but also powerful. Eyes are great symbols (as evidenced by Sauron) and is apparently a reference to Dragon Age. This was obviously quite time-consuming, and therefore warranted my appreciation.
Google Translate Sings the National Anthem
Browsing through possible assignments, I saw this one, and was immediately reminded of Google Translate Sings. It’s a fun channel that takes songs, runs them through Google Translate, and then translates them back into English to see what changes ensue (most of which are pretty humorous). I decided to run our national anthem through Google Translate. I first began by plugging in the English lyrics, and translating them to Armenian. I then translated the Armenian results to Norwegian, followed by Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and then back into English. The results are below. I think most of the major changes came when having to translate between different alphabet systems, especially in regards to Japanese, which has a very different structure than the original English. Personally, my favorite section is where it states that we must “overnight document” that our flag was still there.
Oh, you say that you can you can see,
By the light of dawn
We welcome the fact that with pride
Finally, I will flash the dusk.
Who broad stripes and bright stars
For dangerous fight
We saw on the wall
Galant?
And, it lights the rocket red!
Bomb will explode in the air!
Overnight document
That our flag was still there.
Oh, they are the Stars and Stripes are still referred to as the wave
In a free land
And brave of the house.
RadioListen
I’ve opted to review the Memes Show. The topic is particularly relevant to our focus on the Internet. The spread of memes is an excellent demonstration of the phenomenon of “going viral” and their popularity is incredible. Naturally I was intrigued as to how a radio show would cover this topic. I appreciated the structure of the show itself, first beginning with definitions and history regarding the memes before discussing some very popular/relevant memes. I felt that some of the initial history segment was rather slow-going, but this quickly moved on to the memes themselves. I appreciated the observation that some of the best memes seemingly materialize from nowhere. This is very true, as you cannot predict what will become a meme. I also recognized many of the memes discussed, including the Willy Wonka and Kermit the Frog memes. In regards to audio work, I thought the use of background music was a nice way to tie everything together. Sometimes there was some crackling in a few segments, especially when transitioning, but overall the show was pretty smooth. Overall, excellent job!
A Pro-Sauron Retelling of LOTR
I’ve really been enjoying fiddling with web pages, so I decided to take X-Ray Goggles to YouTube for this next assignment. As a Lord of the Rings enthusiast, I decided to alter the video where Eowyn famously declares “I am no man” before stabbing the Witch King. I changed the description to “Classic tale of boy meets girl” to imply a romance. In a similar fashion I edited the name of the channel that posted the video. I also altered most of the LOTR related suggested videos on the righthand side to have a pro-Sauron bent. For example, I described the Mouth of Sauron as a diplomat who was brutally murdered. This was another fun exercise demonstrating the power of words and context, in addition to the ease with which the web can be altered. The full site can be seen here.
Mayonnaise Search
I wanted to experiment some more with X-Ray Goggles so I decided to take on the Personal Search Engine assignment. I decided to make mine somewhat ridiculous, so… some backstory. For years I have used the phrase, “Mayonnaise, peanuts, and cucumbers,” as an exclamation of frustration. “Mayonnaise” for short, when the situation is only minimally frustrating. So I decided to create the Mayonnaise search, with natural derivations such as Mmail, etc. I also altered the “I’m feeling lucky” button to give you options such as, “I’m feeling peanuts.” The hardest alteration was to adjust the name of the search itself, as Google was placed as an image. Luckily I was able to erase the image and add my title as a heading. Other personalizations included putting some science and politics search tabs towards the bottom, and being more forceful in encouraging citizens to vote. Ultimately this was a fun exercise that again emphasized the malleability of the Internet. The full site can be seen here.
Magical UMW
Using the X-Ray goggles was much easier than I anticipated. I’ve had some experience with html before, but this plug-in took care of the technical work for you. I ultimately decided to edit UMW’s main site to make it fit within the Harry Potter universe. I essentially made it appear that UMW is a magical school, reflecting this in much of the terminology and labels on the site. I think my favorite part is a very small piece of editing towards the bottom, which states “Trump’s unconventional campaign has magical analysts puzzled.” It makes it seem like the wizarding world is utterly perplexed by the rise of Trump! Overall this was a fun exercise that demonstrates how malleable the web is and allows us to see how small changes can have big implications. The full site can be viewed here.
