This pair of images is directly inspired by Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, specifically the character Samuel Rodrigues. His whole character arc is that until he meets your player character (and duels you to the death shortly after) he’s been so disillusioned to needless violence that he no longer knows why he fights, nor if he can be anything other than a killing machine. I’m not exactly the best at drawing humanoids, so it’s a bit sloppy, but I think it tells a decent story the way it is.
I just opened GIMP for this one, held down the mouse with the Paintbrush tool active, then closed my eyes and steered it blindly for about 15 seconds. I’m surprised how somewhat isolated and almost neat the final line ended up being. The line started in the center of the screen, and happened to return to that point multiple times, which was unexpected.
Sit and think Listen to music Tune out world And practice Again and again, repeat Until perfection
If I had to list out my creative process into words, this is what it’d be. I usually just find somewhere to sit, put in my music, and just let myself zone out. Once I feel that I’m in fully immersed, I simply just mostly do the same thing over and over again until it reaches a point I’m happy with. Is this literally the textbook definition of insanity? Probably, but I’ve made decent stuff in my opinion by doing this, so clearly it works to some extent.
What do you get when you get a bisexual mess of a woman in the year 2197, cybernetic augments, and a recently discovered affinity for psychokinetic magic?
A fucking headache, that’s what.
The name’s Alana. I was born in the New Germany sector, and now live in what was once the Pacific Northwest of the now decrepit United States. Nowadays, independent countries like that are obsolete, instead replaced by a worldwide republic known as the Unified Nations of Gaia.
Not many of us humans still live here on Gaia (or Earth, as you 21st Century individuals called it), now that intergalactic travel is commonplace. I’m just one of the ones who couldn’t quite afford it. Instead, we’re kept under surveillance by the power-hungry bureaucrats and corporations that took power a couple decades ago. You’d think it’d become some dystopian nightmare written in old society texts, but it’s not actually that terrible.
– A metal identification card, recently issued after the individual turned 25 and received their cybernetics
Most are required by those above us to get cybernetic implants once we reach the age of 25, under the reasoning of it “extending our lifespans” and “improving us beyond our human limitations”. It’d be pretty swell if they told you about the whole “tracking your location and what you see and hear at all times of the day” thing, but for most, that’s not really much different from the external surveillance everywhere in the major districts. At the very least, they do allow us to customize what kinds of modifications we get, although most true “superhuman” upgrades cost far too much for anyone but the elite to access. I personally went with improved neural abilities and senses via a special headset.
(ignore the NPCs and the pet slime in the house, they’re not here in this narrative but I made this for a playthrough and I don’t have anywhere in-game to relocate them to)
As for my personal life, I currently own a little house near a lake far away from the hustle and bustle of any districts and spend most of my days crafting any kind of tech for any interested party. I’m not a big people person, so I don’t really question what they ask of me or what they’re using it for as long as they pay me and leave. I have admittedly been developing feelings for a certain someone, however; Merete, a beautiful lady with a biomechanical arm who frequents my shop for new tech and repairs. She exudes the energy of someone who knows that they’re gorgeous and powerful and owns it, and yet you can tell she has a soft side to her under her down-to-earth and rigid exterior. I just hope one day she can notice my feelings so me and her can connect as partners in something other than business.
(a mixture of Laufey “From The Start” and Good Kid’s cover of it, I attempted to upload it to Soundcloud but it was flagged by the system since it contains someone else’s song. Unfortunately not much I can do when merging two preexisting songs.)
It’s a simple life, but I enjoy it well enough. Well, at least, I DID enjoy it until all of it was thrown to hell a couple days back.
– The cosmic rock that granted Alana her psychokinetic powers
About a week after getting my enhancements, I was working on my bots as I tend to do when I heard a massive crash come from outside. When I went outside, I saw a greenish smoke coming from about a quarter mile away. My gut was telling me to stay far away from it and report it to the authorities, but something in me was refusing to let me, so against my better judgement, I went to investigate.
Upon arriving, I found a pretty sizable crater, astronomically larger than the singular green gemstone sitting squarely in the center of it. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I decided to take it. Perhaps it could be of use in one of my machines, and if not, I’m sure I could sell if for a fancy sum when I next take a visit to one of the market districts near me.
Upon grabbing it, however, it started glowing a magnificent green, and before I could drop it, it flew up to my head and embedded itself in the neural headpiece that I mentioned before. The pain was tremendous, and if not for said headpiece, I’m sure that I would not have lived the experience. When my head finally stopped hurting enough for me to think, I felt a weird kind of clarity in my mind, like I was thinking so much more than before and for myself alone.
I went home shortly after to try and sleep it off, but by the time I got back, there were a pair of officers sitting outside my home, one tall and lanky and the other short and with an impressive mustache. I asked them why they were here, but then something in my head told me to move immediately. Startled, I did so, and barely dodged an electroshot they fired from their pulse pistols. The short one tackled me to the ground, and as I attempted to wrestle out of their grasp, I felt some feeling of energy wash over me as they were blown backwards.
The tall one looked shocked at his much bulkier partner being launched, but before he could do anything about it, he suddenly fell over unconscious. Behind the two collapsed officers stood Merete, having just swung at the tall one and with a grim expression on her face. Without time for me to recuperate, she rushed me inside and explained what she knew of what was happening.
Apparently, the gemstone planted into my headpiece is the most recent of several stones which have fallen from the sky. Merete reveals that she has a similar stone to mine, only red instead of green and imprinted on the hand of her robotic arm, and states that they appear to disconnect the individual from the larger surveillance system as well as improving the functions of the tech it imprints on. For her, that means that her physical strength is massively enhanced, and as for me, it grants me the ability to mentally will things to move in the physical world. She says it’s a magic called psychokinesis, and that we could further develop our magic if we trained with it, and while normally I’m a firm believer against the existence of such nonscientific ideas, it’s hard to argue with what I’ve just experienced.
It’s been roughly a week since that incident, and things have only gotten more chaotic as things go. Me and Merete have been on the run from the law, as they’ve appeared to want to detain us for our unwilling powers. We’ve also picked up a man named Ike along our travels, who appears to have gained incredible speed through the blue gem imprinted on his mechanical legs. We’ve experimented with our powers a bit, and I’ve started being able to lift things from afar. Nothing super heavy or far, but it’s something.
Oftentimes, I look at what I’ve become and wonder if I’m even still the same woman I was only about a month ago. I’ve abandoned my home and work to go on the run, I have both cybernetic and mystical augments, and I don’t even know what our ultimate goal with all of this is. All I know is that nothing is the same, and that I can’t stop now that I’ve gone this far.
So yeah. That’s my story. Just a country bumpkin who’s found herself a fugitive, cyborg, psychic, and hopelessly in love. Certainly not what I expected for my birthday, but you know how life is, it never is quite what you predict. Tomorrow morning, we’re heading out to try and seek information on our predicament from the region’s central district. Wish us luck, and this has been Alana, signing off.
And that was my final story for this class, hope it wasn’t too shabby. I’ve learned a lot over the course of this class, and while it’s been a massive headache and I’m not sure I’ll end up using most of these techniques in my future career, I’m still glad I ended up taking this. I Definitely feel that audio was the biggest hurdle for me to understand initially, but once I got the hang of it, I actually found video to be the hardest and most time consuming.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think I could ever going into this field or teaching a class like this. There’s just so much to consider in terms of not only the story you’re telling, but how you’re going about it, and I just don’t think I’m equipped for all of that. If I did theoretically take over the class, however, I feel like I’d probably send out a lot more emails. Not that we weren’t supplied information and feedback, anything but that, but I know myself well enough to know that I’d end up worrying a ton about keeping track of my students and their progress.
As for my favorite project, definitely the Lyric Video I did last week. Not only is it something that I put a lot of time into, and thus feel proud of the product for, but I felt like I contributed to the internet as a whole since I couldn’t find anyone else who made the same video for that song.
I don’t really have much else to add, so I wish you a good summer and good luck with your future classes!
It’s dark out. The pilot hears nothing but the gentle hum of their plane’s engine and the wind blowing around them. The Captain’s sent them out on a night patrol of the seas near the island base. The pilot doesn’t understand why they’re out this late on such short notice, but they don’t question it. The Captain is always right.
The pilot has been out at sea for roughly four hours by now. Outside, a flock of albatross sail by, heading to rest at the nearest piece of land. The pilot does not follow. The Captain has yet to order them back, and they dare not to act against their orders. The Captain is always right.
The engine is starting to sputter, its fuel running low and its cooling fans becoming overheated. The pilot starts to get worried, and considers the possibility that The Captain didn’t wish for their return. But as soon as that thought enters their mind, they shake it off. The Captain loves them too much to do such a thing, and even if they did, it sure would be the pilot’s fault… right?
The plane starts to descend towards the waves, and the pilot does nothing.
After all, The Captain is always right.
God, rewatching this before uploading this is hurting me, I feel so cringe in that video. Oh well, it’s for the assignment and sometimes you gotta be a bit stupid to have some fun. Also, it was like, 3:20AM, of course I’m not gonna be at the top of my game.
Joan of Arc. A French patron saint who helped place Charles VII on the throne. A military expert who helped protect her country during the Hundred’s Years War. A feminist icon of self-empowerment and defiance of the patriarchy. She is a name of many accomplishments, and yet who she was as both Joan of Arc and simply Joan is lost to the ages. As time goes by, stories are told differently. Details change or are lost in translation. Eventually, identities and histories change forever from their original forms.
This song, by the artist Madilyn Mei, discusses how her identity and how people remember her has changed over the centuries, and how history immortalizing her, the Joan of Arc we know and the true Joan will never be the same again. The song is part of her album “The Bard”, which talks a lot about self-identity and accomplishments throughout life in a folksy musical style. Madilyn Mei herself lives in Arizona and has become a popular artist among niche music communities. This lyric video is one I made using her lyrics, and attempts to embody the medieval vibes of the song and album by making the background a scrolling piece of worn parchment paper.
Lyrics:
Did God send you Marching in? Steadfast and true To the end
Cut your long hair Be a man Kneel to the servant Call him your King Do what you must and then
Run, go back to your home History is no one’s friend Now you’ll never be known As only Joan again As only Joan again
Were you who they Say you were Lost to time Stories blurred
Was your hair Brown or blonde? Were you ever there? Either way, now you’re gone
Run, go back to your home History is no one’s friend Now you’ll never be known As only Joan again
Run, go back to your home History is no one’s friend Now you’ll never be known As only Joan again As only Joan again
Oh Joan
I’ll twist and I’ll change My name rearrange Time makes us inhuman
I’ll live and I’ll die But if immortalized You’ll never be you again
Also, if I had a nickel for every folksy song from a niche internet music artist I discovered in the last 4 months that revolve around Joan of Arc, then I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
An interesting way to create music to be sure. It’s cool that something like this is possible, but unless it can be improved substantially from where it’s at right now, I likely won’t be using this in the future. It’s hard to beat music written manually by a competent composer. Always fun to learn about something previously unknown to me, though.
This is the very first time that I’ve shown my face on here, it’s a little bit nerve-wracking, but it is what it is. I chose the word Moss since I think it’s a neat plant, I felt there was a lot of potential for a poem, and it’s part of an inside joke between me and my friends. Not gonna lie, I’m kind of disappointed with what the AI could produce. Not surprised, I’m generally in the opinion that AI is generally worse than an actual person, but it’s still unfortunate it couldn’t do anything better than this.
I don’t quite have the photoshopping skill to make it blend seamlessly, but here’s the shadow of my chair turned into a bird, specifically a finch. I am aware of the poor state the chair is currently in, but it’s still usable so I don’t really care. As for why I chose a finch, there wasn’t really any reason other than the general shape of it and the little sliver of light that came through a gap in the chair gave the image of a bird’s side profile.
I mainly learned two things. One, writing a script for something is a lot harder than I had initially expected. To be fair, I don’t really have much conversational skills to translate into creating a fake conversation well, so I guess that’s on me. Secondly, I learned that apparently films have a ton of very tiny details in regards to how they’re presented to the public. Like, I knew that scenes such as the Avengers Assemble scene or the famous Matrix dodging scene were made well, but I never understood quite why they were good until now.
What was easier or harder?
Making the movie review were kind of trivial. I expected them to be complicated since I never really rewatch the movies unless I really enjoyed them the first time, but just analyzing a scene once or twice, it’s easy to see the fine details as long as you know how to look for them. Making my own videos, however, was way harder than I expected. I thought it’d be simple enough since I already had experience, but doing so with in a small time frame and with multiple videos was definitely rough.
What can I improve?
Other than the previously mentioned scripting skills, I just need to learn everything else through trial and error. Likely mostly error, but that’s what learning’s all about.
(All dialogue is made with text, as I don’t have anyone to help with voiceovers right now)
(Video intro, with producer listed as “Polyp Studios”)
MC: Ugh… What happened? (jungle sounds and background fades in) MC: I’m still in that jungle. But how… and why am I tied up!?
???: Ah, you’ve woken. Good.
MC: Wh- who’s there?
???: Right, I should probably introduce myself. The name’s Cassandra. Sorry for knocking you out, by the way.
MC: Nice to meet you, I guess. Now if you don’t mind, let me go!
Cassandra: Sorry, no can do. Not until you Not until you can tell me how you got into this place. It’s been locked off from the outside world for decades, and if you could get in, surely that means that I can get out.
MC: Decades? How… (Wait… those ears…) MC: Cassandra, are you-
Cass.: An elf? Of course, how is that strange?
MC: Well, last time I checked, elves have always been a work of fiction, and-
Cass.: Fiction? How? From what I remember before coming here, our kind and humans have been eager and friendly partners for centuries. Cass.: I can tell in your eyes that you aren’t lying. Something must be terribly wrong… Listen, human! I’ll cut you free, but in return, you’ll tell me everything you know, then escort me out of this overgrown prison.
MC: Prison…? Never mind. I’ll help you out. I want to find my way back anyway, and besides, I’m not really in a state to bargain right now.
Cass.: Good. (In the blink of an eye, Cassandra takes out a blade and slashes at the ropes binding MC, freeing them)
MC: (!!!)
Cass.: Well? Are you just gonna keep sitting there, or are you coming?
MC: …Right. Let’s get going.
(The character and text portraits fade out, then the background and music) (Fin)
And that should be the second part of the story started with last week’s assignment! It’s not quite as good in my opinion, I’m not a big conversationalist and thus don’t know how to script a fictional one. I’ll see about continuing this story next time, and may even do something with the characters on my own time, I think I’m starting to really get why people like this whole storytelling and writing thing.
I felt like this was one of the most iconic scenes from any film I grew up watching, so choosing it was a no-brainer. First, I’ll talk about the general details of the scene. As with a lot of Avengers movies, it has a really good way at making the battles feel incredibly fierce and dangerous, yet also somewhat low-key in a way where it’s very easily digestible. There’s no crazy slow-motion action, no whipping cameras that would imply super speed or power, nothing visually that would make you go insane. If you isolate the audio, it’s gonna feel a lot more dramatic, but if you isolate the video, it almost feels tame despite the action going on. That’s part of why I feel these movies have always generated so much hype; their mixture of intense music and fantastical settings with “real” sounding or even casual lines hits the perfect balance of immersion and escapism.
As for talking about more specifics on the scene, there’s no real edits to talk about here. Unless you count the camera shifting to show different parts of the scene, there’s not even any jump cuts to other events, making the whole scene feel like one complete package. As for camera work, it has quite a bit of stuff to talk about there. First, there’s the static views where it’s not moving all about or following other movement. There’s:
Over-the-shoulder shots while Black Widow and Bruce Banner are talking to each other from 0:10-0:19, makes them feel close together and like it’s more of a back-and-forth conversation
Iron Man’s classic close-up shot from inside his suit around 0:21, feels like you’re looking at a recording from Jarvis and makes Tony Stark feel like more human than his robotic suit would otherwise feel
The long shot when Banner is driving up in his motorcycle at the beginning, giving a bit of distance in the scene
I’m not sure if a shot showing a character from the head down to the stomach would count as a medium shot, but I’m saying that’s what the view of Captain America around 0:20 is. Not much to say here, it’s a pretty stock standard shot.
Most of the time, there’s either 1-2 of the Avengers highlighted in the shot, with at least one more in the background, giving the idea of a cluttered group
A very slight low-angle shot when they’re looking up at the approaching alien beast between 0:23-0:37 which makes it feel humongous and powerful (which then leads into making Hulk feel more powerful when he one shots the thing)
A tracking shot when Hulk punches the thing at 0:55-0:58 to show the power of both him and the beast, and to make the viewer feel less like someone on the street and more like they’re part of the action
A nearly bird-eye view around 1:00 to once again show the size of the beast and the power held by the people taking it down
Another low angle around 1:07 to show off the explosion of the beast and the Avengers protecting themselves from its destruction, then later from below the bridge as its head falls down
Finally, the one everyone knows this scene for: the 360 degree shot around all six of the Avengers, with each of them doing some kind of thing to show their skill set or tools to show that they will stand as one unit against Loki’s assault. I’m not sure what I can say about this shot that hasn’t already been said, but it alongside the music reaching its climax really give off a feeling of heroics and that now that they’re unified, they’re guaranteed to win.
Also, there’s one more bird’s eye view, this time from an extremely long shot that shows the size of the city and the devastation that they’re fighting against. Ironically, in my mind, despite this shot being usually used to show something as small and meager, the use of it here makes me feel like it’s quite the opposite; the fact that they’re able to stand against and triumph against such as massive threat makes them, in turn, feel enormous.
Overall, hard to say things that haven’t already been said, but this scene is one that I’d argue is not only one of the most iconic scenes in all of “””modern””” film (depends on whether you consider a 2012 film as modern in the grand scheme of the filmmaking industry), but one of the best examples of how all of these different camera techniques can be utilized in such a short timespan and have none of them feel forced or unfitting for the situation. Hell, there’s probably more obscure uses of camera positions/movements or some editing techniques that I didn’t even notice looking closely at it, which would only make it that much more impressive.
Firstly, the article by Roger Ebert. I admit that I’m not the absolute best at deep media analysis, but I think I get the general idea of what he’s talking about. Basically, try to take frames or individual scenes and look at it through a lens based around how the camera angles, actual and implied movement, and positioning of the actors affects your perception of the film. I don’t think I’ve ever really been the kind of person to rewatch films and find all the hidden details or workings of it, so it’s a foreign concept to me, but I’m willing to give it a try.
Then there’s the editing technique video and camera technique article. There’s not really a lot of analysis on how the techniques help with those, but I can instead look at how they are applied to other films, such as the Tarantino video. The Tarantino video mainly used POV and low-angle shots, often giving an impression of the characters looking down at another character on the ground, of whom you’re looking through the eyes of. There was very little movement with the camera, and not really any kinds of edits other than just swapping between scenes with a classic jump cut.
To me, this gave me the idea of it being someone who already suffered during that scene laying on the ground, in a car trunk, or the like while the rest of the scene plays out around them. That alongside the music really gives the idea that whatever this film is about is likely something tragic and fits the idea of a story where everyone’s tearing each other apart.
Welcome to my emporium, traveler! You can rest up here to recover your HEALTH, or you can buy supplies from me. BOMBS, KEYS, anything your heart could ever desire. As long as you have enough GOLD, that is.
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, so this may not be the best song ever, but here’s my little synth beat that I made. I imagine it would be something you would hear in some older games at some kind of save point or a shop or the like.
