Final Project Reflection

I think my project on the Pussycat Dolls helped me a lot with setting up my final project. I learned that transitions are important even though I did not use that as much as I should have in my final project. Since my Pussycat Dolls project was all still images, it was easier for me to incorporate still images again in this project. In the future I would love to continue working on movies and music. Audacity was difficult for me to learn but I think if I could get the hand of it, it could be really fun. I really like to learn how to make movies flow better and how to make my point more clear. I think those ideas were easy for me during my Pussycat Dolls project, but was much harder with my final project. I would have liked to make my point of view more clear but I think adding clips from This Film Is Not Yet Rated helped with that. For personal pleasure I would love to keep working on imovie. It was so hard for me to learn how to work a mac successfully, especially a program like imovie. Audacity, like I said before, is something I would love to experiment with as well and learn more about it. This project was extremely challenging for me. I think my ideas were too big and I didn't do a well of enough job explaining them. Doing such a big project alone during finals week was also challenging and I wish I would have done it with a partner so the work would not have been so heavy on me. When I came into this class I knew how to shoot a movie and edit it but I did not know how to take someone else's work, edit it, and make it into something new and different. That was the most challenging for me. It is easy to upload some youtube videos and put them into imovie, but it's a whole different thing when we have to edit those and make it look good. I had trouble editing movies and putting them together with out messing up the audio. I think if I was more familiar with the imovie program this would have been easier, but thats a part of the experience. I am the proudest about making a movie which I had no idea about the topic. I'm also most proud about how many different ways I tried to make this movie good. If I didn't like something, I deleted it and started over. In the end I think this hurt me though, because it set me back and by the end of the semester when I had so much to do I couldn't put as much time and effort into this project as it needed. I wish I could make my opinion more clear through out this movie. This is hard for me because my opinion was the same as the movie but I didn't want to seem like I was just voicing their opinion. This project is rhetorically aware because it focus's on the way movies are rated. In society today, movies are a huge part of it but they are rated in ridiculous ways. Violence and gore are allowed in almost any movie today, which could be why we have such a violent society today. This movie helped to bring this topic into the public and make it aware to viewers and allow them to question the way movies are rated today.

Blog #10

Some of my revision plans are pretty simple, such as fixing audio levels, cutting down the music at the end, and slowing down facts and any text. Some more important things I will be fixing this next week are showing and adding in who is in charge of rating films, and what year. I will also show clips or still images of some movie example of each rating, such as G, PG, PG 13, R, and NC 17. I hope to look for interviews with Kevin Smith who I am not familiar with by during my workshopping last class Mike had suggested I look him up for more information. What I really hope to do with this now is add my own conclusion from this. My main focus right now is putting my own voice into the film and not just reiterate what the film has already said. I think if I do this it will make my project more interesting and captivating. I want to find clips of show such as South Park and play on the fact that they push the limits of the rating system. I think the South Park movie will be helpful with this since I have been told it also has interviews.

Remix project

I mostly worked alone in my remix project where I mashed pictures of celebrities and young girls to the song "When I Grow Up" by the Pussycat Dolls. What I hoped to do with this project was show how fast girls are growing up in society today. And I thought this song fit very well for that idea. I have noticed more and more how anybody will do anything to be famous these days. Young men and women look up to celebrities a lot and often follow in their foot steps. They watch them on TV, buy there movies, and listen to their music religiously. This song fit very well for this project mainly because of the lyrics. For example is says "When i grow up, i want to be famous, drive nice cars, i want to have groupies. When I grow up, be on TV, people know me, be on magazines". I think after listening to this song most people get the impression that being famous is GREAT! But I hoped to do with this was show how being famous is not all what its cracked up to be. I did this by showing celebrities who have been arrested for DUI, gone to rehab, or spend days in a mental institution. I know that not everyone who listens to this music will get the same message but for the most part I think when young girls listen to it they begin to think that Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and the Olson twins are extremely happy because they are pretty and have lots of money. To show how this can negatively impact young girls I showed pictures of young girls with too much makeup, dealing with teen pregnancy, and drink and smoking under age. I think the article we read in class titled "Bootleg Culture" impacted my work for this project because I may not have taken music to mash-up but I think I did do that with the pictures. Overall this project was really fun to work on and I hope everyone enjoys it.

Blog #9

When I think about the final project for this class I'm still not sure what I want to do. I was watching South Park last night with some of my friends, and I was amazed at what that show can get away with! It is so funny, but so inappropriate. I think it could be fun to remix South Park, but I don't really know how. I think if done in the right way it could be really funny. Some other ideas I had where doing something like Mike did. I liked the way he put two songs together and I think it worked so well because the two songs he picked worked together perfectly. So far I enjoy remixing media the best so hopefully I will do something with that.

Blog #8

I found Rojas point of view very interesting in this article. I thought he made a lot of good points like "it almost seems unnatural not to quote, reference, or sample the world around us" (pg.2). I do agree that "the results might be confusing but it'll probably be a lot more fun and worth listening to than a world where only those with the financial resources to pay licensing fees...get to make songs with sampling". While I agree with this I also understand why artists would not want other people using or changing up their art. But I think if they are being compensated in one way or another then anyone should be able to have the same resources. Like Rojas said, not everyone has the financial resources to do so. Something I found very surprising was when Rojas pointed out "what is surprising are the names of some of the artists who turned them down: the Beastie Boys, Beck, Missy Elliot, Chemical Brothers and M/A/R/R/S-- artists who own careers are based on sampling and who in some cases have been sued in the past for their own unauthorized sampling" (pg.1).I had hoped that artists who had gained their fame by sampling would support new artists by allowing them to use their music ans sample to hopefully become an artist like them. It sad that they will not support them. I found this mashup on youtube. Its a mashup of Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani called "Tick-Toxic". I really liked it because the two songs go together perfectly I think. It's hard to believe it's not a real song! Even the music video makes it look like a real song they did together and produced a video. Like Rojas said, "Most artists and their labels have become reluctant to allow any sampling of their work unless they are sure the new work will sell enough copies to generate large royalty checks" (pg.1). I think this song would actually make some money and people would buy it and enjoy it. But once again I don't understand why it all has to be about money!!! Britney and Gwen already have a ton! Why not let some people sample their songs for free???



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRHfd9Yto0A

Blog #7

After reading this article I do some what agree that copyright is "outdated". However, I do think it is important to have. If I was an artist I can understand being upset if someone was taking my art and using in their own different way. However I do agree with McLeod that "with mashups one of the underlying motivations of bedroom computer composers is to undermine, disrupt, and displace the arbitrary hierarchies of taste that rule pop music". I think she makes a good point with this. Even though people may be using music that is not there's in mashups, I think that it is very artistic and I like that they are creating new music and being very creative with it. So, I may not totally not agree that copyright is outdated, I do think it serves a good purpose but I think it limits what other people can do artistically. I think remixes and mashups are great forms of artistic expression and I understand why fans get so upset with copyright laws. But, with the internet you can do almost anything these days! It makes me wonder why artists don't let everyone have their music for free. I understand they need to sell albums to make money but it would also benefit them to allow everyone to download it for free and at least they are getting their name out there and people are listening to their stuff. I found this remix of Britney Spears' song "Womanizer". I chose this remix because it doesn't really sound anything like the original song in the beginning. After I listened to it for awhile I could begin to hear the original song. I wish they would have changed up more than just the beat. I wish Britneys voice and lyrics were mashuped more.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNW0sdJo-1s

Blog #6

I have listened to many podcasts before but I have never created one. Most of the information I read in these articles was familiar. I think I would enjoy making a podcast for a class assignment or something but it is not something I would do for fun. I enjoy making movies and music much more than podcasting. But I have never tried it and look forward to doing it someday. I think podcasting could be useful at FLC like they said in the article for "information areas that are difficult to express text". I think for some assignments podcasts would be very useful on campus.