Posted on Wed, 04/17/2019 - 15:40
by natecho
Overview
English has never been my favorite subject. It boils down to one reason: I do not like writing. I never enjoyed writing whether it was writing diaries in elementary school, short answers in high school, or writing essays in college. On top of that, the idea of reading few hundred pages of a novel or reading couple lines of poem never intrigued me because I thought it was so boring to process and interpret meaningless words into my brain. After taking ENGL 105, I thought I would never choose an English class. However, to fill my LA gen-ed, I researched for a class that required the least amount of writing. Ultimately, I came across ENGL 149, and right away, the word "multimedia" immediately caught my attention. After looking over some syllabuses from previous years, it occurred to me that I wanted to partake in creating different media for literature.
On the first day of class, when Professor Anderson mentioned that we will be writing at least one hundred pages, my heart literally sank. In my mind, I was ready to swap out of this class. Thankfully, it was just a joke, and as he briefly mentioned what we will be covering throughout the semester, I had a feeling that this gen-ed filler class could potentially become one of my favorite class that I will take here at UNC.
As I reflect upon this class now, I can now say that ENGL 149 has been the most unique class I have taken so far, and will possibly remain the same until I graduate. Through this portfolio, I hope to share my story of how my perception of English has changed throughout the semester with various multimedia projects, which included Video Poem, Social Media Postings, Audio Essay, and Podcast.
Visual
Before our first official project, in order to get familiar with Adobe Rush, our class was tasked with a group activity to create a short video that included 6 random words and 8 media items given by Professor Anderson. Not only were we supposed to get the hang of a new editing software, but also provided us with the ability to compose our creativity into action.
Group Improv Video
I personally enjoyed making the first improv video, not only because I got to work with a new software, but also because I realized that my ideas were well received with my group members. I came up with the idea to cut the waterfall clip multiple times at different locations, and because one of our word was 'infinity', I wanted the waterfall to start all over again right before the video ended.
My Own Improv Material Video
For my own improv video, I placed my focus more on exploring Adobe Rush's features, and completing the challenges given by Professor Anderson. I played around with layering videos so that multiples videos can be shown at the same time, as well as same video popping up at different locations in different moments. Here, I realized some of the shortcomings for Adobe Rush's over-simplified functions. I was not able to add a freeze frame @ 0:29, in which I wanted to play with words, "Paws"="Pause" just for the heck of it.
For our first project, we were assigned to create a Video Poem. We were given the task to choose any poem, interpret its themes, and compose a video that captured our visualization of the poem. From the start, I feared that my lack of interest for poems would lead me put less effort into creating this project. In addition, I struggled to find a poem that not only resonated with me, but also gave me abundance of visualizations.
I decided to go with Walt Whitman's "Miracles" as my poem because of its simple, yet powerful message. In addition, the poem had a great amount of immediate visualizations that I was able to come up with as I was reading the poem. I was able to find an audio poem and decided to use that for the voice over to enhance delivering the message. You can watch the rough draft of the video poem below.
After the submissions, I got constructive feedbacks back from my peers and Professor Anderson, and the biggest issue I had with the draft was its pacing. Because I was following the voice narration, I had to constantly cut between clips at a fast pace, which distracted the viewers from soaking in the message.
For revisions, I decided to cut up each line of the voice narration to create more space between clips, allowing me to have a smoother transition. I also cropped each video to have a sense of continuity between clips, and used that extra space to place my texts. You can watch the revised Video Poem below.
Overall, I was pretty content with the final product I got for the Video Poem. I believe that I was quite successful in incorporating Walt Whitman's envision with my creative visualizations. There is a balance between the background music and voice narration, which emphasizes the message in my opinion.
You can learn more of my reflection for this project by watching the video below.
Click here to view my Storyboard and Script for Reflection Video
I mentioned in the Reflection Video that the Video Poem was my favorite project that I worked on in college so far, and that comment still holds true even after finishing other projects this semester. I was able to find appreciation for poetry because of the new approach this project has taught me. This project was monumental in a way that I was able to view English literature in a more fun and creative way that fit my interests through creating a multimedia.
Social Media Postings
For our next project, we worked on creating Memes, Gifs, and Instagram stories. I thought that this project would be cool just because of how relevant social media has become in past few years. I initially thought that this would be a rather easy project because of how involved I was with various Social Media. However, my thoughts were changed after starting the project.
Memes
It is crazy to see how memes have transformed itself from a subculture into a mainstream media. I still remember myself making low-quality memes using a meme generator on my phone in middle school, so it was quite fascinating to see myself creating memes for a class project in college. I always liked memes on the internet, but never realized how hard it was to come up with a great, or as many people call it, 'dank' meme.
Before we began creating our own memes, we read an outdated article on what makes a meme so great. Although the article was written only about 3 years ago, meme culture has drastically "evolved" since then. The memes referenced in the article were examples of now-called obsolete memes where they have an old picture and some words placed in it. However, majority of recent "dank" memes primarily consists of a template that has cultural relevancy. For my memes, I wanted to showcase the difference between an out-dated meme, and a meme that would suit today's meme culture.
Instagram Meme 1
For my first meme, I used the 'classic' template for meme: A picture and a word. The inspiration came from a joke in my Chinese class, "Ni Haody (Howdy)". Most of my peers couldn't guess what the meme was just by looking at the photo without the text. That is when I realized that this was perceived as a meme only because of its font. The font used for this template was 'Impact Bold', and the font immediately gave a nostalgic sense for this meme. This type of meme can be more widespread because of its simple message
Instagram Meme 2
For my second meme, I decided to use a culturally relevant topic. At the time of making this meme, Super Bowl LIII had just happened, and the internet was full of Super Bowl memes (Mainly because SpongeBob's 'Sweet Victory' was a huge meme). I decided to take advantage of this, and used the "Disappointed Black Guy" meme template. Those who watched the Super Bowl instantly understood my meme because of its lowest scoring game and quite awful halftime performance. This type of meme has its flaws if the viewer is not aware of its relevance.
GIF
For the second part of this project, I had to create two gifs: a meme gif and an artistic gif. Gifs are used a lot of social media (especially in messenger apps) because the animated images can dynamically express one's thoughts a humorous manner.
Animated GIF Meme
For my first gif, I used Super Bowl LIII once again for relevancy. In this gif, you can see Robert Kraft (middle), the owner of New England Patriots, celebrating ecstatically as his team just won the Super Bowl. To give it a sense of meme-like feeling, I placed the the text, 'Excelsior', in "Impact Bold".
Animated GIF Art
For my artistic gif, I used a clip from the trailer of "Joker" . After finding the clip, I searched for short poems that matched Joker's spooky smile. For added creativity, once the clip transitioned to Joker with the makeup, I decided to heighten the eeriness by placing multiple layers of the clip. I used the same technique I used in my own improv video to create the clip.
Instagram Stories
As the final part of the project, we were tasked to create 2 Instagram Stories. I would say that I post Instagram stories quite often, so I felt comfortable, but I had never posted an Instagram story with an underlying message.
Instagram Video 1
In the first story, I had to use multiple clips of video. For the first half of the video, I made an Instagram story using the Boomerang feature. I was messing around with Boomerang at first, and then I liked the aesthetics of my screen saver. The screen saver became the main theme of the first video. The message of the first story is for us to not fall "asleep" into screen saver mode, but for us to wake up and face our daily lives.
The second video was inspired by the title of the song, "Comes and Goes". I wanted to express how even after times of despair(winter) there will be times of happiness(spring) through flowers defrosting and blooming with new flowers. With the "static" clips, I wanted it to resemble fast-forwarding and rewinding of a VHS. I was trying to portray that one can either escape their misery by fast-forwarding it or continue to go back to their flaws by rewinding it
Instagram Story 2
For the second story, I had to use multiple still images to deliver a message. For this, I was inspired by "Miracles", the same poem I used for Video Poem. Main theme of the poem was finding beauty in our daily lives. I used my photos that I took of the 'mundane' to showcase its 'miracles'.
I assumed that this project would be very easy because of my prior experiences with social media. However, it was still challenging at times trying to create a funny, yet a meaningful meme/gif, and delivering the message I wanted to with my Instagram stories to my viewers. Nonetheless, the Social Media Postings project was a more friendlier approach for me to like gain a liking for Literature. I became more comfortable with expressing myself creatively on mediums that i was used to, and was able to adapt myself for challenging tasks.
Audial
Audio Essay
When I first saw 'Audio Essay' in our syllabus, I got worried that I would have to write a 3 page paper on a topic, and just record myself reading the essay word by word. Thankfully, the example Professor Anderson presented to us was not the essay I was thinking about. The Audio Essay felt like an informative story that I was able to engage myself in, and got immediately excited to make one for myself. For the topic, I did not want to do a topic that everybody else was interested in doing, but I was unable to come up with any until I saw some example topics in the assignment page. I chose to talk about sounds in cinema because I was previously intrigued by how certain film scores resonated with me even after months of watching the film.
I explored various topics specific to sound in cinema, such as how ambient sounds are created in post-productions, special techniques used for film scores, and ranking the most effective film scores of all time. Eventually, I was able to narrow it down to the psychological effects of sounds in cinema. Since audio was the most important aspect of an audio essay, I did not want my voice recording to sound dull and distorted, therefore I rented out a microphone for this project.
Click Here to view the original script 
Click Here to view the revised script with feedback
After composing my script, I gathered all the audio clips that and placed them into Audacity. Audacity's simple user-interface allowed me to edit at a faster pace. To grab the audience's attention, I started the audio essay off with an iconic score, 'Imperial March' from Star Wars. I made sure to strategically place my audio clips whenever I felt like my narration was becoming monotonous.
Listen below for my Audio Essay Draft
Some of the feedbacks that I got from my peers and professor included a better fading in and outs between audio clips, and normalizing the volume to make sure that no audio clip is too loud or too quiet. After implementing these changes, I felt more comfortable with talking into a mic and became more familiar with Audacity.
Listen below for my Audio Essay Revision
Overall, Audio Essay broke my conventional idea of an essay. Although my essay consisted of less than 700 words, I felt like I had a better understanding of the topic. If I had to write the conventional 3 page essay, I know for a fact that my information would have been all over the place, and would not have given me the same spark of interests that I had while making this Audio Essay. Moreover, I learned how to grab and retain the audience's attention while providing them with concise information.
Podcast
As our final project in ENGL 149, we were assigned to create a Podcast episode that was related to our Audio Essay topic. This was the project I was most stressed about ever since I read over the syllabus. I was worried because I never had to lead a conversation for more than 15 minutes. Podcast was probably the only project in this class that I did not feel confident about until I was finished. During the preparation for this project, I had difficulties trying to find scholarly research articles surrounding the topic of sounds in cinema. Once I was done finding resource materials, I still had the trouble of finding research audio clips that matched my topic.
Click here to view my Podcast Materials Click here to view my Podcast Research Brief
I also struggled finding a guest who was willing to participate in my Podcast about sounds in cinema for over 15 minutes. Thankfully, couple of my friends had just released their short film, and I thought it would be best to ask them because their prior experiences in film-making and editing could contribute greatly to the discussion. They were willing to participate in the podcast, and we recorded inside the Podcast Booth in Undergraduate Library.
Listen below for our 4K Podcast
I was very nervous at first, but as the Podcast went on, all of us started to open up and we were having great discussions about the topic. After finishing recording the Podcast, I used Audacity for noise cancellation, amplifying one of the guest's voice, adding intro/outro music, and inserting audio clips that were played through mic during the recording of the Podcast. The Podcast project gave me insights into the importance of research and collaboration. Through my guests, I was able to explore different perspectives and opinions on specific matters, and made me more knowledgeable in my topic. Although the episode is long, when I listen to it again, it feels relatively short because of how dynamic the conversation is.
Both the Audio Essay and Podcast provided me with new understandings. Through Audio Essay, I was able to learn how to effectively deliver the information in a manner that was interesting to listen to. With the Podcast, I was able to gain insights into how research can enhance my knowledge, and how collaboration greatly enhanced my understanding of a topic as well of others point of view.
You can learn more about my reflections for the Audial projects in my Audio Reflection video below.
Click here to view my Storyboard and Script for Audio Reflection
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Comments for Readings
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My comment on Visual Strategies.
My comment on Photoshop and Memes.
My comment on E-Poetry Reading.
My comment on Animated Gifs.
My comment on Reflection Videos.
My comment on RIP: A Remix Manisfesto.
My comment on Word Play.
My comment on A Tale of Two Soundscapes
My response on the Audio Essay topic.
The questions I could cover in my Audio Essay.
My response to From Print to Audio.
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Peer Review
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My peer review for Kaylie's Video Poem.
My peer review for Will's Video Poem