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.

Blog #5

It is hard for me to imagine what this piece would look like as a radio show because I have never done anything with radio and I don't listen to it either. But I would imgagine it could not be this long? If that's right, then you would have to take out any inofmation that is not necessary to keep the story going. However, I would keep everything about the story the same. I loved the story and I think a lot of people would listen to this if it was a radio show. I think it might be easier to change the characters names into names that are more simple so it's easier to follow. This story might also be a little too discriptive to have read on the radio. Some viewers might be easily confused or lost when hearing so much information at once. I would make it a little bit more funny to keep the viewers interested. I did not like the ending of this story, I wanted it all to work out and everyone to be happy!

Blog 4

I thought this piece was interesting because it showed the differences and uniqueness of how students write. I enjoyed reading about their explanation of "patchwriting". Their explanation was "a practice that involves individuals stringing together multiple authorial voices and sources then adding their own voices to the conversation". I think their definition is correct and I also think students do use this form of writing. Something new I learned was that collaborative writing is rare. I never thought of it much, or tried it, but I definitely sounds hard. This piece helped me understand how wiki's are made and how they are put together by all the people who add to it. I liked when they talked about how any social space must follow two guidelines. Those helped me understand wiki's more also. I could relate when they said "we do explore the ways wiki can encourage students to move beyond traditional notions of ownership and academic writing into more collaborative public discursive practices. I do think this piece was probably hard for these authors to collaboratly write together because everyone has a different opion of things and I think thats the hardest part about writing things together. However, they did a good job and it came together well.

Blog #3

Before reading the Martin and Dusenberry piece on wiki's, the only thing I knew about them was how you could edit them anytime you wanted, and write whatever you wanted. I never thought of it being used in the classroom the way Martin and Dusenberry did. Everything else I learned in this article was new to me. One thing that surprised me was that "Wiki is Hawaiian for "quick" or "informal"". I was glad to see that wiki's are monitored so any inappropriate or hurtful information will not be posted. That makes me feel better but it still bothers me how misleading or incorrect information can be posted. Eventhough you can edit the incorrect information, it still may not be good enough if someone comes along and reads it expecting all the information to be correct. The entire article helped me understand wiki's better and I'm glad I had the chance to read it before we start our wiki project in this class. I think building a wiki can be a productive addition to the classroom and some of its advantages are "creating an equality of authorship and collaboration" as well as "inspiring people to be creative and create a community". The more I read about blogs and wiki's, the more I begin to think they are all the same as facebook. They all create a community that is appealing to each and every person. I see how interactive people are in their blogs and wiki's, and I see similarites in how I was with myspace and facebook. I loved myspace because it was web page that I could design and make all mine. I loved having a background that was appealing to only me and having my favorite song play when someone viewed my page. It was fun to read about other people and see your friends while looking at things that interested you on other peoples facebooks, and myspaces. Some disadvantages to wiki's I would see as "No one's thoughts and entries stay untouched by others". I agree with the students who say this bugged them about wiki's. I would hate making an entry on a wiki just to see it changed the next day.

Wiki project

1. In my group for the wiki project we have three group members. Myself, Hillary, and Kelly. We have not assigned who will be working on what for this project yet. None of us knew what DMCA was, so we spent the first day of class doing only research. It took us a while to find a simple definition for what the DMCA is. Once we found it, it was easier to go from there and we found out a lot of useful information about it.

2. I didn't know what the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protected prior to doing my research. Once I found out what it was and protected it seemed to be a pretty obvious topic. I always assumed there was some sort of act like this that protected the internet and what was on it, I just never knew what it was called. I found out the general highlights that create the act and protect it. I am still a little fuzzy about what it totally consists of but I know that further research will help clear these things up.

3.http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/iclp/dmca1.htm
http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act:

3 most important things to college students

I believe facebook is one of the largest part of some college students lives. Most the people I know check their facebook the first thing when they wake up, go to sleep, and multiple times throughout the day. Its very popular for people to have internet on their phone today so they can "creep" on facebook all day. Reading the blogging article last night made me recognize the idea that facebook could be a type of blog. Everyone can know everything about someone just by their facebook, and its a very important form on communication these days. Along with facebook, I think technology today in general is a large part of college students lives. We use our ipods, laptops, cellphones almost all day everyday. It's how we basically do everything and without it we don't really know what to do. College students who use facebook and technology generally enjoy partying and having fun too! I don't think technology and facebook are how you have fun but I think college students are at a time in their lives when their only responsibilities are to show up to work on time and do your homework. Therefore we try to have as much fun as possible right now while we have the chance, before we have careers and families to watch after.

/Users/MacAdminLocalHome/Desktop/jenbuds.jpg

Blog #2

In the Takayoshi and Selfe article I see their main point as being the importance of teaching multimodality in college level composition classes. In this article multimodal texts are seen as "texts hat incorporate words, images, video, and sound". Takayoshi and Selfe believe that its important to teach these things becase "whatever profession students hope to enter, they can expect to read and be asked to help compose multimodal texts of various kids, texts designed to communicate on mulitple semiotic channels, using all available means of creating and conveying meaning". I do agree that students will do these things because like they said, most professions will require it, but I am not sure if composition teachers should be the ones teaching it. I think it is equally imporatant to learn both. I think this piece and Daley's piece both bring up excilent points as to how important techonology is in our lives. I found this piece to be much more understandable and interesting than Daley's piece. Thinking About Multimodality made it more aparent how "visual compositions carry different kinds of meanings that words are not good at capturing". This was a point I had never thought of but it seems to be almost obvious to me now. The blogging article written by walker and Nardi opened my eyes to blogging. I have never read peoples personal blogs and until this article I never realized that people used blogs a online journal. I do see it as fitting in because it will help our class form a community and hopefully our classmates will comment on eachothers and it can be a new form of discussion. However, I don't see people in our class using it as an online journal/diary. Hopefully students will use it to their advantage and start a community instead of just doing it for class!

Blog #1

I think Daley's main argument in this article is to show how important media literacy has become to our generation. She states that "film, television, computer and online games, and music constitute the current vernacular". Daley is arguing that media literacy, for average citizens, is the most common way for us to recieve information. She goes on to explain that it is important to understand that "text and multimedia construct meaning" differently. I think her argument that text and media literacy are different is very interesting. I do agree with her that students recieve their information mostly from the media and we do want to be understood by our professors and classmates. After taking many classes about this subject, I was intrigued when she said "Multimedia and cinema, though sometimes enriched by language, embrace moany other elements as co-equal-not only image but also sound, duration, color, and design". I am constantly looking at those things while reading a magazine, watching television, or seeing a commercial. Her implications for a class like ours show how color, sound, duration, and design are easy to manipulate and have a large effect on our target audience. If she supports media literacy she must understand the power it has. I think in this class we will be learning about how to manipulate the media and understand the affect is has on its viewers.

Eng 308-first day

I am very excited to be starting a new year! It's finally my senior year and I ready to learn more. I am not familiar with mac's or much of the material in this class, so I think it will mostly be all new. I took digital video production the previous semester with Stacey Sotosky and really enjoyed it. Most of what we covered in the syllabus today is new to me, so I am excited but a little intimated. I do work well on computers and learn very easily so it should be fun!!