Questions for Interview

1.  How would you define technology?

2.  How do you use technology?

3.  What devices do you use the most?

4.  Is technology bringing us together? Or further apart?

5.  Do you use your laptop in class?  What do you use it for?

6.  

Themes from Students+ Technology

1.  Technology has become an integrated form of learning.

    Many of these videos contain students using technology to complete their homework assignments.  It is hard to believe that anyone can get through college without using some form of technology

2.  Libraries are dead.
     We used to picture students going to the library to study and learn.  This is no longer the case.  Many of the videos portray the students doing their homework at cafes or random areas.  Whereas the video I took of the library was completely empty of people.

Hampe

Hampe brings up an important question to ask yourself when you are conducting an interview. What's the motivation for this scene?  By asking yourself this question, you are able to determine the usefulness of the interview to your documentary.  Hampe argues that a unnecessary interview should not be used and should only be used if it provides visual evidence of your point.  It should show and not tell us the main points of your documentary.  I recently watched a documentary called Waltz with Bashir.  I believe that this documentary is what Hampe would like to see more of.  It is entirely animated with the interviewer's stories providing the context of the animation.

It does utilize a lot of interviews, but we never see a shot of the interviewees.  Instead, their stories are animated and we see the visual evidence of their tales of horror during a Lebanese conflict.  This kind of documentary film making solves the problem that Hampe encountered in his Making Analogs of Reality paper.  Here,  Hampe had trouble with his many interviews that he conducted with veterans.  While these stories were interesting, it was just "talking heads" and was visually boring.  In Waltz with Bashir, these issues are completely resolved.  The stories that are told are beautifully animated and serve to increase the impact of these stories.  Although, it is possible that Hampe would absolutely loath this documentary.  It does not use real-world visual evidence.  Instead, it is all done with animations.  Hampe may see this as lying and cheating.  Hampe has stated that he likes to take tons of footage in order to provide his visual evidence.  He may say this is like taking a shortcut.

Sound Project, Audio File

https://uofi.box.com/s/d4ngtrwoeatm0i7jphcp

Hoop Dreams

• There is cutting between inner city street basketball games and professional level NBA games.  
• the child gazes longingly at the basketball game on TV, giving it a sense of fantasy or daydreaming.
• there is inter cutting between the last child playing street basketball and a pro-basketball player also doing his moves.
  
• 
  

Sound Proposal

I love films and storytelling.  I want my sound project to be able to tell a coherent short story by using sounds.  It will be a success if I am able to transport the listener into my world of fiction that I create. Due to the time of the year, I plan on creating a horror story.  I believe that this is also a genre that relies heavily on sound and sound cues to relate a story.  I'm thinking a Blair Witch Project type sound story.  In that I can pretend to be a protagonist that is in a haunted house.  These homes can creak their own atmosphere through their sound.  The creaks and moans of old floorboards and doors, maybe some rattling of windows.  It would be able to quickly draw in the listener to this spooky environment.  I also think that horror movies lose their power when they show the villain or monster.  Usually whatever the viewer is creating in their mind is scary than what is shown on the film.  This would not be a problem for this project because this is all being created in the mind of the listener. Using McKee's bullet points of sound, I believe that the project will be a success.  I can use silence to create suspense, then break it with a creak or a noise.  It will be simple to get many of the sounds as they are all around me anyway.  It wouldn't be a problem to record floor creaks or door squeaks, maybe even some screams.  I will provide the voice as the curious person who messes with something that doesn't need messing with.  I may ask some friends to provide their voices as well to create a larger and more intricate story. I have not really planned out the script yet, but I see no problem in breathing new life into the tired genre stereotypes that horror movies fall into, through the use of sound.

Sound Test (Audacity)

I chose to use Audacity, mainly because it is the first link I clicked on.  I also have not heard many good things about Garageband, at least from my roommates who use sound editing programs a lot.

https://uofi.box.com/s/3ks90ke6gc6tcodo4qr3

Sound Essay #3

Sounds
piano
Phil Collins!
more music

          The music helps to augment the feelings that are presented to us by the narrator.  Stedman used the example of the Mario Bros, theme song as a way of quickly bringing about nostalgia.  The narration and music complemented each other.

Sound Essay #2

Sounds
background voices (football game?)
drunk voices
music
drunk singing

     There was a good use of background sounds throughout the audio essay.  They do a good job in taking you through the night of several drunken girls.  It also does a good job in using some of McKee's rules.  The voice delivery of the narrator provided an interesting contrast to the drunk voices throughout the sound essays.

Sound Essay #1

Sound 1
wind/traffic
car horn
piano
club music
screams
shower?
tire screech

 I thought that this project was well done.  The use of sound created a feeling of immersion to the environment.  It was done well enough that we were able to follow him along his trip to collect sounds.  The sounds collected together created a solid use of sounds and he was able to find sounds everywhere by the end of his project.

McKee and Stedman

 Creating meaning through sound is a hurdle that I may have trouble with in the project.  The McKee and Stedman pieces pose some questions that I will take into account during the creation of my sound project.  McKee brings up several points that one should keep in mind when creating a project that relies on sound.  1) Vocal Delivery, 2) Music, 3)Sound Effects, and 4) Silence.  Together, these elements can combine to form a sound project that is truly well made.  Stedman's ideas on the impact of music to our environment is well made.  I can't recall the amount of times I've wondered into a store just because of the music that was playing in there.  I can think of a time I stepped into Forever 21 just because a Passion Pit song was playing.  Music is able to quickly bring out a feeling of nostalgia in people, and that is why it is such a potent way to get the attention of people.  McKee discusses the use of music in film, but I think that music provides the most impact in the shortest amount of time when it is presented to us in a film trailer.  These trailers are designed to give the audience the desire to see the film.  By inserting some exciting music, you get the audience to get the sense of the film you are making.  If you use scary piano music, it is a horror movie.  Epic operatic music is usually the sign of an epic action adventure film.  If you use music from the the era of the film, it serves a double purpose in creating nostalgia for the audience members that are old enough to have lived in the time period and to help set the authenticity of the film.  A perfect example of this is the trailer for the upcoming film Inherent Vice.  It does an amazing job in using the music in the trailer to complement the scenes and voices that were chosen in the trailer.

Mapping Project!

Weavly-Sounds of home

this is the link to my weavly

http://weavly.com/watch/LRxpAIfpJPb

Rough Draft for Mapping

Rough Draft for Mapping

          I want to use the Crime-Alert notifications and pinpoint some of the crime hot spots on campus.  I believe that this map will fit the criteria that you have provided.  The information that my map will provide is something that isn't shown in traditional maps.  I will will attach the email messages that I use with my rationale to show you that I am not making up dots or just putting them on a map.  I have a very rough draft completed.  It isn't close to being done.  What I have done is simply placed the raw data points on the map.  Haphazardly, I might add.  The emails provide a specific location that I will nail down more specifically.  The points in the map I placed simply on the street location that the crime occurred. While the map looks bland now, I plan to add some pizzazz to the project.  This would include a legend that would color code the types of crime between assault, robbery, and miscellaneous weirdness such as arson and indecent exposure.  If I notice that there is a bunch of crimes close together, then I will add a slight red tinge to the area, maybe a warning sign as well.

10 Words

10 Words

1.  barking

2.  cooking 

3.  TV 

4.  Spanish

5.  steps 

6.  music

7.  water

8.  lawnmower

9.  birds

10. driveway