Saturday, November 3, 2007

Audio Assignment

I have to say I really enjoyed this assignment even if my ears wanted to separate after all the racket Casey and I ended up making. It was certainly an excuse to do something crazy and out-there. I think as a group we shared a very similar creative process and very much built on the idea of the death of a balloon almost into a real traumatic event. I had a lot of fun creating the original sounds we used (messing around with some balloons in the depths of MC) and it was interesting to learn the Audacity audio editing software. I think that the slight ringing in my ears after editing was definitely worth the end result and I am proud of the product we created.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

STORY BOARDS!

Yeah so my story is about a mad scientist who's secret formula explodes and he turns into a jock. What else can I say it's really quite random.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Website Layout

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Live Journal

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Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Sunday, September 16, 2007

My Struggle With Garage Band

So I used GarageBand two years ago in high school so I was familiar with it, that said I struggled with it more than I thought I would. Though GarageBand is easy to use right off the bat, some of the more complex operation took me some time to relearn.

GarageBand forces you to use your motor/physical abilities for manipulating the actual program environment. I even used my touch pad for a while and thats always an adventure in fine motor control. These skills could even be used to manipulate a real instrument to feed data into GarageBand. You use your cognitive ability in combination with your hearing ability to assist in the flow or your song. Your cognitive ability more for the technical aspects of the music such as the timing and your hearing ability more for audio aesthetics (if its pleasant on the ears). Your visual ability is also used in combination with your motor/physical ability to manipulate the environment.

Friday Sept 14th 1:04
So today I start my technology assessment which I probably should have started a few days ago. My plan is to create the starting rift from the final countdown in GarageBand and reteach myself the program in the process.

Friday Sept 14th 1:06
Turns out you cant right click on the different tracks to delete them. For some reason I thought you just couldn't delete the track if it was the only track. After creating a second track and then realizing I still couldn't right click I went searching the the drop down menus. Track - Delete Track. Yeah that shouldn't have been that hard. For the record the shortcut is Command Delete. Moving on!


Friday Sept 14th 1:43
So I've decided that creating the final countdown in GarageBand is more difficult than I first thought. Its not that I'm not up for the challenge I just think that I can get a full understanding of the program without nit picking too too much. Have you heard the final countdown, its hard to recreate! I've also noticed something I remember from using the program before. When you open information such as the track information or the media browser you can close them again without pressing their button at the bottom of the screen, I think a big x on the top of the window would be nice.

Friday Sept 14th 2:02
That was a fairly solid hour of work, my song is coming along fairly well. Its quite snazzy I think. Also excluding the few nit-pick things above the program is proving fairly easy and unfrustrating to use. Heres a link to the song so far: First

Saturday Sept 15th 9:07
So I think I'm obsessing over this assignment a little now. Have to finish this thing.

Saturday Sept 15th 9:53
Alright I'm done. I now remember why I used to play with GarageBand so much and I think I'll be playing with it some more later. I've re-learned cross fading, panning and fun stuff like that and realized that it's not that frustrating, only a little.
Heres the link to the final version if you're interested: Final


**UPDATE** My links don't currently work, they will be up as soon as possible!

My Media Tools

Heres goes my attempt at naming all the Media Tools I use regularly.


  • Photobooth

    • An application that is used by the MacBook iSight camera to capture images


  • Photoshop CS3

    • An complex application that is used to manipulate images. Includes many different filters and effects for image editing


  • DreamWeaver CS3

    • An application that is used to create websites in a design environment, compatible with many different internet languages


  • iMovie

    • An application that is able to capture video clips from multiple sources in multiple formats for editing into movies. Includes many different options and effects for making moderatly complex movies.


  • Flash

    • A media tool used for creation of animations for multiple media formats, such as digital video or embedded interactive images.



  • GarageBand

    • GarageBand is part of the iLife suite of programs and allows you to create songs and sounds using a variety of clips included with the program as well as clips you can import yourself.





Monday, September 10, 2007

Basic McLuhan: Marshall McLuhan and the Senses

The article speaks of society not being unwilling but unable to imagine the future and things to come. This point I would agree with, people seem quite happy to sit in their bubble and enjoy the world around them, the world that they know, and not change it. Most people do not like change and would rather just embrace things the way they are. In order to shake things up and expand beyond the reality that we live in we have to pull things from outside the norm to get our brains flying high. He says that the creative, the "artists" of society live outside this boundary and embrace the unknown and this is true, people look to these kinds of people to entertain the rest of society, to remove us from our comfortable environment and dabble in the unknown. He speaks about all the different senses having to be involved to truly experience things. To physically touch and see the problem to perceive things instead of just conceptualizing things, where conceptualizing things runs the danger of just looking at an issue with a logical eye not the passion of feeling and experiencing the problem. This heavy difference between things as a concept or a perception makes a lot of sense to me, like society is quick to turn deaths into statistics to pull peoples emotions away from the fact that each death is a person and not just a number.

The impression I got from this article is that McLuhan didn't have time for current society. That he refused to allow people to live in their boxes. He wished to constantly keep people thinking and on their toes ready for anything, always expecting something around the corners. He didn't want society to get stagnant and wanted everyone to embrace new thought and ideas.

However reading this article has brought me to thinking that perhaps his ideas for society may not be feasible or realistic. Many people seem to have a need for stability, and do not embrace change well. These people may purchase art to decorate their houses, read frequently and be music lovers but still wish to stay the same. And while their minds may wonder, may expand with new ideas from all these creative mediums they will still wish to stay the same. Some people just don't want to change.

I find the article interesting I think he raises excellent points related to societies habit of seeing what it wants to see, but fails to take into account the role stability plays in a society. Radical thinking can be dangerous for a society, and while evolution of a society is always encouraged sometimes society is fine the way it. Who's to say that native peoples who have been living the same way for thousands of years are wrong and that they should broaden their horizons and change it up. I understand our society is not perfect but change must be taken slowly or society can de-stabilize. Somethings are better off just idea's in our minds for another day.