Welcome to my personal void

No one knows what goes on here, least of all me

Category: Summaries

  • Intro to Video Part V: Summary

    Part II: Learn How to Read a Movie
    Part III: Look, Listen, Analyze
    Part IV:
    – IV-1: Tell Your Character’s Story
    – IV-2: Create A Lyric Video
    – IV-3: Lip-Sync Along

    What Did I Learn?

    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.

  • Intro to Sound Part V: Summary

    Part I: About Audio Storytelling

    Part III: Listening to Stories

    Part IV:

    What Did I Learn?

    Other than that audio storytelling is fun, albeit very difficult, I was very interested in how Ira Glass described it. I definitely agreed with their point of us growing up thinking stories are “point->reasonings for point”, when for this and most advanced storytelling, it’s a lot more “point->bait->new point->new bait->etc.” with the occasional answer for a bait. Other than that, I’m not sure what else to say other than sound composition is not my forte.

    What was easier or harder?

    In terms of ease, naturally the Soundtrack of My/Your Life assignment was simple since it was just providing a list of important songs to myself. As for things that required a bit more effort, the Write Your Own Story was easier than I thought once I realized that I actually already had experience. While I’ve never used Audacity before, I actually had used video/audio software for a previous course (as well as trying to make my own YouTube series that I lost the file for and gave up on) using Filmora, and while it was a little bit more limited, being a free software compared to the subscription that Filmora was, Audacity wasn’t actually that different.

    As for what was harder, easily the Chrome Music Labs. I have no idea how to do music composition, and while I was planning on getting my older brother (who is majoring in music and recently found himself quite skilled at composition) to help me out, he was busy with other activities and left me figuring it out by myself. I probably will not be making my own songs again in the future, it’s just not something I’m good at or enjoy.

    What can I improve?

    Firstly, I can probably work on how to balance audio and properly transition between audio clips more seamlessly. While it wasn’t bad, it was something I felt was slightly lacking in my Write Your Own Story submission. I would say my music composition skills, but again, if I’m not interested in pursuing that, why focus on that one particular skill? I guess if anything else, just work a bit more on general storytelling skills since I don’t think I’m atrocious at it, but I’m definitely no Edgar Allen Poe or anything.

  • Intro to Design Part V: Summary

    Part II: The Vignelli Canon

    Part III: Design Blitz

    Part IV:

    Personal Trading Card

    VHS #4life

    Album Art

    What Did I Learn?

    I learned quite a bit about the intangible aspects of design from Vignelli, which were ideas that I was never really taught in my art classes over the years. I’ve always understood most or all the tangible aspects, such as material, color, texture, form, all of that, but the ideas of timelessness, semantics, or the like were foreign from me.

    What was easier or harder?

    I found the Design Blitz quite easy, since I was able to go somewhere with plenty of material to use in the National Zoo. Sometimes the best designs are created by nature as opposed to man. As for what was harder, the VHS assignment was quite difficult for me to get down since I was never super big on the aesthetics of the time, but it was fun regardless.

    How can I improve?

    Firstly, practice. I know that’s a bit of a cop out answer, but there’s no other answer as correct as just continuously doing this type of thing until I perfect my craft. If you want more specifics, though, honing in on those intangibles and improving my resistance to the temptations of procrastination are what I need to work on. I want to make my art better, and I want to be able to do it without stressing myself out a ton about an imminent deadline.

  • Intro Visual Part IV: Summary

    Part I

    Part II

    Part III:
    – Assignment 1: City Graphic Poster
    – Assignment 2: Favorite Photo
    – Assignment 3: Magic of Nature
    – Assignment 4: Draw-It

    What Did I Learn?

    First of all, I learned that I severely underestimated the amount of time this would end up taking, and will be improving upon that. But as for what I learned about actual storytelling, I found that I greatly enjoy making quick doodles for this kind of thing, much more than I already knew. I expected me to not like having to repeatedly make a bunch of photos for these assignments, and I don’t think I have enough skill to really make it into a career or anything, but I had a lot of fun working on these assignments and the Daily Creates.

    What was easier or harder?

    The Magic of Nature (called the “Earth” assignment on the the Visual Assignment website) was a lot simpler than I was anticipating from a 5-star challenge, as it was really just making the words, adding a bit of flair in the background, then imposing a lot of nature-like brushes on top of the words. The Draw-It, however, was a lot more complicated, as I had no idea which photo I wanted to do and knew I needed to find one that had a good story to it. I eventually found one and like how it turned out, but I was expecting a 2-star to be a lot simpler.

    How can I improve?

    Well, other than give myself more time to do these, I don’t want to make this assignment late again in the future. I could definitely improve my storytelling skills, as while the Draw-It story wasn’t terrible, it was very basic and didn’t give much in-depth descriptions of anything. It’s a skill I really need to hone for the things I want to do in the future.

    As for improving my blog itself, I need to learn how to actually customize and optimize my site, as right now it’s a bit of a mess. It’s functional enough for the class, but I would like to make it better. Once I do that, future assignments will be much easier to navigate and create.