Month: February 2022

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When The Crickets Fall Silent…

Bob Ross has his paints to create forest landscape, I tried sound.

“Tell a story using nothing but sound effects. There can be no verbal communication, only sound effects. Use at least five different sounds that you find online. The story can be no longer than 90 seconds. Another example (by a UMW student): http://ds106.us/wp-content/audio/audio_story.mp3“

Sound Effects Story Assinment

Well, it took me a second to think of a good story idea. Without dialogue or narration, the sounds would have to tell the story all by themselves. I thought about what sounds I wanted to play around with and settled on the woods. I have made soundscapes for woods before for other projects, and I really enjoyed it. 

So we had the setting: The Woodlands

Then I thought about what could happen in the woods. I mean, there is only one viable option. I chose monsters. Then I could also play around with monster sounds, which is a glorious rabbit hole of sound to fall into. 

Oft when I myself travel in the woods, there is always a moment when the surrounding wildlife recognize my presence and shut up. Only after a long stillness do they start up again. I wanted to try to build a very diverse sound world and then make it all get quiet as the monster approached, then loud again after the monster left. 

I used Freesound to get all of the sounds. I tried to use audacity to edit it, I really did, but when I tried to play the sounds to listen and edit them, it wouldn’t let me. It flashed all sorts of errors and systematic problems that I do not have the ability to fix. Once again, I find a way to dig under the wall of obstacles. Call me the King of the Shovels. So I fell back on what I know. There is actually a lot you can do with iMovie sound. Yes, it can be annoying, but its simplicity makes it very easy to use.

I didn’t even think to add a human character until the end.

Looking back, I probably should have chosen an easier story, but I had fun making it, even it is is only understandable after the explanation.

Just for fun, this is what it looked like when I finished.

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They Change Colors?!? And Make Sounds?!?

https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/song/5753126421790720

Using the crome music labs at https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/ , Specifically the Song Maker application make a song that’s at least 20 measures long. Then share your Piece on your blog or tweet it and explain your artistic process.

Chrome Music Labs Assignments

My artistic process was beautifully childish. I opened the link to the Song Maker and started clicking on boxes. They changed color. When I played them, they made sounds. It was lovely.

The first segment I experimented into being looked like this.

Then I liked the sound, so I repeated it.

Then I got curious about what the blue dots at the bottom did, and they turned into shapes when I pressed them. And I got percussion. I went with a simple alternating beat, nothing too complicated.

Then I wondered what the boxes below the light blue line did. So I pressed those. When I liked the initial pattern of sounds, I repeated it.

I really just got lucky that everything sounded halfway decent together.

I then played around with the different settings on the bottom bar, where it says Marimba. They had several other types of instruments that these notes could be played as, but they didn’t sound as good. I think this is because I made the ‘music’ as it was set to Marimba so I s based my choices on that. Trying to make it woodwind just didn’t quite work.

All in all, I would definitely recommend playing around with this, it is very easy and simplistic. The opposite of overwhelming music software, and more like a fun video game.

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“Neil, You Gotta Hear This”

I have dabbled in listening to audio storytelling, meaning basically that I have listened to almost all of the Magnus Archives, and sometimes Trixie and Katyas’ Bald and the Beaufiful podcast, but Moon Graffiti was completely different. Moon Graffiti somehow managed to create a world out of sounds. It was the opposite of a silent film, packed with scenery and costumes for the eyes to get lost in. This was layer after layer of overlapping sounds merging into each other or stopping suddenly to change the pace around. It’s hard to explain but let’s just say I didn’t really understand the phrase “sound landscape” before I listened to this. Moon Graffiti was amazing and I have very little reference for understanding exactly how they did it. Besides the dialogue, the sounds helped convey the story with dramatic swings or a sudden silence, similar to how a cut or a zoom-in in a film might work, or how a gut-punching sentence or paragraph/chapter break would. 

These are two specific clips I wanted to pull out and spotlight.

The above clip held my attention for two reasons. First, the camera clicks. Both of the characters are in space, so the click of the camera would not exist. It would make no sound, and yet the addition of it is spectacular. It breaks up the pace of the story. And I found that when I heard the clicks, I imagined snapshots instead of the character himself taking photos. Just an interesting thing. The other reason I chose this clip was the switch. I can’t explain the reasons behind this too specifically, but in this clip, there is a sudden shift in sound as Buzz says “Neil, you gotta see this”. There is a brief moment of silence after a kind of build-up. Basically, the end result was ear-catching. I sat up a little straighter, aware something drastic had happened, but due to lack of visuals, waiting to hear exactly what was the situation.

I know the concept of a voice-over in a film. What is shown on the screen is not the person talking. This clip achieved the same effect for me. Because of the sort of static-like sound landscape of the moon, when the narrator begins the speech, I wasn’t pulled away to the speaker, I was still thinking of Buzz and Neil on the moon.

I think there is often a little bit of a learning curve here just in the act of listening. I know for me, after a break from reading, it can take a couple thousand words to get back into it and slip into the narrative, to get to that place where I do not even see the words on the page, but the images in my mind. I think it is a similar thing here. I have to get used to imagining the images that go along with audio stories. That practice is certainly made easier with such fantastically well-done stories. 

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The Visual Blind Date

This was my first major introduction to photography and visual (digital) media. We had met briefly before in crowded rooms, hurriedly given each other’s names by mutual acquaintances before wandering our own separate ways to the dessert tables. But this week, it was just the two of us. It started with the basics, our histories, and fumbling through a first conversation.

Then the true colors began to fly. We really got to know each other in through of the most telling situations: stress. You can really see a lot of someone’s character when they are stressed, or just in any less than optimal situation. I was certainly in that situation.

I completed the fourteen stars due this week here on the blog.

Although I had a lot of fun trying new things out in this media, it was tainted by the fact that I was so stressed about getting it all done. It was difficult to enjoy creation when I was hurrying to get it finished on time. Let’s just say we started out the week with a coffee date and ended it with a rushed dinner when we both had more pressing places to be.

The daily creates were, as always, very fun and relatively lighthearted.

I commented on nine posts this week and was encouraged to see other people’s work. It was cool how people had other approaches to similar assignments or creates.

So after this week of visual digital media, I don’t know if this start was too rocky for us to build a stable relationship on or not. We’ll see if they text me back.

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One Broken Tech is Another Man’s Art

“Glitch art is a genre of art based around digital artefacts. A digital artefact is the unexpected result of when a technology breaks. An artefact could be sound of a CD skipping or pixilation on a highly compressed Youtube video. Glitch has been called the “art of the artefact” and stretching the intended use of a device or file.” 

ds106 Assignments: Glitch Art

I was going to grab some photos of glitches and try to do some visual mixed media, similar to how other people have previously completed this assignment. But when I googled glitches, so many cool pictures came up that I wanted to use all of them. So I said, in the words of our Patron Saint “Oh, what the heck” and I did use all of them.

So I picked my favorites and put them in what I think is a semi-aesthetical order, and uploaded them to an online gif maker.

And of course, I couldn’t help but put a little bit of story into it. The two frames that are quicker than the others are a glitchy inhuman face and a circle. There is also a sliver of a more human-like face in one of the other photos and I didn’t realize it until after I made the gif. Another piece of the puzzle! I don’t know their story, and I don’t know how actually noticible it is, but I like it.

Another way to put a {sort of } narrative into a piece of digital visual media! Add it to the list, Mary!

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Can You Make a Xylophone Out of This?

“Take a close up picture of something as see if people can guess what it is. Try doing the skin or outside of something that would make it hard for someone to guess!”

ds106 Assignments: That’s Not What I Expected 

Can you guess it?

It was King.

He’s my little skeleton friend.

Do not worry, these pictures are posted with his written consent.

Lesson learned: Look inside things, when you are allowed, and try to get your eyes working differently.

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Candles Are Against Dorm Policies Anyway…

http://taytustar.com/uncategorized/me/

I really liked this post, and that is what I commented on it a few days ago, but I keep thinking about it so I am going to post a longer response here. 

I was particularly intrigued by the fact the treat-yourself day is a scam. And subsequently, how often self-care is confused with self-indulgence. I think those ideas are not talked about very often but should be. Self-care is not necessarily doing expensive face masks or gorging one’s self on a fancy dinner.

More often than not, my self-care is more like sacrifices in the moment for a better long run. For instance, I know that I will feel better later if I eat a salad right now. I know that I will sleep better and feel better tonight if I work out today. So I make healthy choices for my future self.

Then there are the times where I give myself a break or some space to unwind, but it is not so romantic as the wider media would have you think. Usually, it’s just a few minutes with my eyes closed, deep listening to a song, or just reading a book. No candles or imported teas or Instagram filters, just me reading at my desk.

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A Dorm Room Exposition

These were the tasks I was given:

photoblitzer

I stayed in my dorm room and completed the challenge in 8 minutes.

I will let you decide if I did a good job or not.

Some trees express enormous soul. Find and photograph that special tree.

This is my roommate’s own happy little tree, still working on giving it some friends.

Take a photo that includes repeating geometric shapes.

Make a landscape photo! (I interpreted landscape to mean more of the orientation of the camera than what was actually in the photo)

Make a photograph that features a leading line through it today. Draw the viewers eye through the image.

Your most prized possession.

How do ants see the world? Change your viewpoint.
Make a creative photo of paired opposites.

I was nervous about this assignment, my photography skills or lack-thereof making the tasks seem daunting, and my seeming lack of interesting things to photograph another hurdle. But I had fun thinking outside of the box.

It is nice to not have the expectation of professional or even just good photography put on me. The fact that no one is looking for a masterpiece is comforting. It lets me just play around and take silly photos.

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Ice Skaters and Oldie Diners

{written on feb 1st}

my first ever gif, thank you, yes, please hold your applause,

Create a gif using images that Are from the same scene. For my assignment, I took images of a girl spinning and tried to capture each step of the turn. Then, I added the images to the gif maker In the order they were taken.

https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/photos-to-gif/ 

Like most things, this was not the end result I was envisioning at all when I started this project.

At first, I wanted to do something with this clip:

But when I tried to take photos of this clip and put them into the gif maker, chaos ensued. They were blurry, the frame rate was weird, they got all out of order, everything that could have gone wrong did. So I pivoted, though not as smooth as a certain hockey team.

I fell back to twin peaks, particularly a scene with an iconic movement:

There are actually a lot of gifs of Audrey’s dance, so I decided to do something slightly different but in the same vein. And Donna caught my eye. Her reaction to Audry dancing was definitely gif-worthy. So I plugged it into the gif-maker and got this.

I’m not saying I will ever use this as a reaction gif, but hey, Donna Heyward is a Queen amongst mortals.

Toodle do,

bird.

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