This week’s focus was on the radio project.  I have to say this was a great experience as far as group projects go.  We were able to successfully coordinate and meet up in person four times during the week, and everyone contributed.  Most of the work came in the form of figuring out logistics and […]

The radio show project went well and seemed to be relatively painless.  Our group met in person for the first time Monday morning.  During that meeting we finalized our show format and divided work assignments.  Essentially we decided to fully flesh out four events that recently went viral, and each of us would become experts […]

This week really focused on getting us prepared for the radio show project.  Our group quickly put together a google doc for planning.  I used some of my weekly assignments to contribute to developing the project.  One of the assignments I completed was a fun little commercial for a fictitious Gods Away Spray to assist […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. The typography used to depict the name Xena is […]

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. […]

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 […]

Well, we’ve come full circle and have returned to exploring the importance of showing your work.  To me this emphasis on documenting one’s process has two main benefits.  For one, it keeps viewers engaged and invested in a creator’s work, as they are essentially teased with progress until the completion of the final product.  However, […]

I’m a huge film enthusiast, so I loved the assignment idea of messing with central plot points of movies. What if major events had never happened?  How would this impact the rest of the movie?  I find such questions inherently fascinating, so I had to try my hand at these alterations.  As such, I began […]

I really appreciated how the Stranger Things article discussed the typographer Ed Benguist.  I was incredibly impressed that he was responsible for the logo for Planet of the Apes, in addition to major logos for The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.  Its amazing how many specialized individuals are connected to major films and publications.  As such, […]

The Word assignment‘s image caught my eye as a visual depiction of “magic”.  The individual letters told a story in addition to the overarching word itself.  The assignment essentially gets the creator to start exploring the visuals that are evoked when we think of certain words.  For my creation, I attempted to visually depict the […]

I liked that this assignment was essentially about determining which characteristics define you.  So I ultimately went with describing a major aspect of my identity: my digital identity.  I chose to use my avatar as my cover background (this has been my standard avatar for around 4-5 years now).  I chose the title because my […]

This week really emphasized the important role that sound has in contributing to storytelling.  A lot of this week’s assignments were practical, either encouraging us to engage with and discuss media or directly interact with it.  We were also exposed to ds106 radio, which was a fun resource that I wasn’t particularly familiar with before […]

One of the must-do assignments was to create a story using only sound effects.  It took some pondering to figure out what I wanted to do.  I ultimately decided to create a werewolf attack.  You see, every Saturday my friends and I play a role-playing game called Werewolf (similar to Mafia or Town of Salem), […]

I like how everyday sounds, when taken out of context, can turn into something completely different.  This led me to try the Familiar Sounds assignment.  I began by recording my bathroom fan in Audacity.  The sound itself is very rhythmic, and has a somewhat industrial feel to it.  This led me to the second half […]

I liked the idea of playing around with recognizable songs, altering their structure to create a totally new tone or atmosphere.  Sometimes the best way to understand a concept or medium is to simply work with it.  So I decided to try my hand at the Make it 800% Slower assignment.  I will say that […]

This was a fun assignment that allowed us to try and creatively sell ds106 radio.  I actually began by creating the concluding fun tagline for the show, making my final decision by choosing a phrase that rhymed with “six”.  I then created the introduction with the station description, trying to keep the line short and […]

I love the idea of playing with tone.  With video-editing, I’ve always enjoyed creating video mash-ups that significantly alter the tone of a movie (usually making something seem entirely more dramatic than it should be).  As such, the over-dramatic reading assignment naturally caught my eye.  Making anything over-dramatic generally entails looking for decidedly non-dramatic source […]

It’s amazing how much information we gain simply through sound waves.  Sound can be incredibly powerful.  Patterns/tropes can emerge (think of the Wilhelm scream) and memories/feelings can be evoked (nails on a chalkboard, nostalgia from particular songs, etc.).  Each of the assignments this week reinforced the incredible diversity of sound and the implications associated with […]

Here’s a few of my rough ideas for the radio show project.  I’ve tried to focus on ideas that can be connected to the Internet, and then attempted to flesh them out. Covering the most outlandish Internet news stories What has gone viral, and why? Fact-checking What are the origins of each story? In which […]

This week was a fun foray into the world of photography.  The Thinking About the Visuals of Storytelling assignment helped me evaluate my current photography skills and areas where I could make improvements (essentially in most areas).  I was also able to find images on Flickr that demonstrated these photography-improving techniques (many of these images […]

My photoblitz journey began at 6:21 pm in the HCC. At first, I took a picture of a magnolia tree as a “soulful” tree (they’re my mother’s favorite). I knew I’d be hard-pressed to find fire on campus, so I opted to take a quick shot of a nearby fire hydrant. I immediately thought of […]

To look for examples highlighting the lessons learned in Becoming Better Photographers, I chose to search through Flickr.  Below are the images I found and analyzed. Selection    The first photographer clearly took the time to examine their surroundings in order to notice this face-like tree, and take it at the angle that best highlighted […]

One of the assignments that caught my eye was strikingly simple.  Pick a bad photo, apply a vintage effect, and write something in helvetica.  It seemed like a brilliant way to highlight how easy it is to make something inspiring.  Just make it look like it was meant to have poor quality!  The photo I chose […]