Better Late than Never

Well, here's my final project for the homework blog.  It's a brief review of Heather D. Freeman's Pennipotens.  Hope you enjoy!

Podcast 3

Here is my newest podcast, a video I made using footage shot at the zoo.  We weren't allowed to use music we didn't make ourselves so this was the best I could do.  I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out anyway.  I wanted to create a feeling of being in a dream.  A dream about cute fluffy animals.  Those are the best dreams.

To make the audio, I recorded myself singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" one time and then used Audacity to repeat the song so it sounded like I was singing it in a round with myself.  I think the layers of sound echoing each other helps to create the dream feeling I'm going for in this piece.

For the video, I added a sepia tone filter and then another filter that made the borders hazey.  To me, things in sepia tone look like old photographs and make me think of memories.  This seemed appropriate because dreams are often things from our memory and the fuzzy borders make the images feel less real to me and more dream-like.

Chocobo Ranching

New podcast is up!  This time I give a mini tour of the chocobo stables from the game Final Fantasy XI.  I got my background sounds by recording my character in the game environment and took pictures of my character and her chocobos using the print screen button.

Final Fantasy XI was the first MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online game) that I ever played and as such it holds a special place in my heart.  I have many fond memories of exploring the world with my friends and so I was excited to be able to do a project featuring this game.

My audience would be video game players, especially people new to FFXI.  I explain some of the very basics of chocobo raising without going into too many boring details.

I think I was successful in creating space with sound even though I chose to use a limited number of sound effects.  This is because my speech is the main focus of the piece and the other sound effects are just used to help make the space represented by my images more alive.

 My intention with this piece is to make people who are new to FFXI excited about the world of chocobo raising.  It's my favorite activity in the game so I am hoping my enthusiasm shows through my piece and makes people interested in FFXI and specifically chocobo breeding, raising and racing.

Here are a few images from the podcast:

Conflux

It's really hard for me to pick three favorite pieces because the whole gallery is really fun to experience.  Still, a few pieces do stand out to me so I was able to select them as my favorites.

Papparazzi Bot - He's just too cute.  I love how he runs around looking for people then pauses a few seconds to take his picture before taking off again.

A Brief Explanation of Photosynthesis - This little plant is really funny.  When it gets too bright, it starts squealing like a kid throwing a tantrum.  It's fun to play with using the flashlights and, once more, it's super cute.

Pennipotens - I think this is my favorite piece of the three.  I really love the animation style.  It reminds me of a short movie called "Cat Soup" and is just about as twisted.  The characters are fun and the story is entertaining if a little confusing.  I love how you're able to follow the story and feel the emotions of the characters in a story with no real dialogue.

Lecture by Raphael Perret

Maybe I'm alone in thinking this but I thought Raphael was smokin' hot.  Like holy crap.  He was wearing the cutest scarf and he had such long hair and his accent.  I was swooning the entire time!  I resisted the urge to ask him if he was single in front of the crowd.  That and Harry was there with me so, you know.  Awkward.

Anyway, I did manage to pay attention to the lecture and found it very interesting.  I liked how he drew inspiration from Copoeira (spelling?) dancing and managed to capture the movements to create art.  It was great seeing all the different steps he took to get from his original idea all the way to the finished pieces of beautiful sculpture.  It was inspiring to see how he worked so hard to make his idea a reality and it paid off in the end.

New Podcast!

Here's my first podcast!  Freaky deaky soundscape.  Here it is!

I created the piece by starting with a minute long recording of people talking softly in the background.  I then took recordings of clear conversations and manipulated them to make them sound creepier.  I wanted my soundscape to be a look into the mind of a crazy person.  One moment everything seems normal and safe then the next, reality is warped into something sinister and frightening.

When I was looking for sounds, I was attracted to sounds of voices and recording conversations without the speakers knowing what I was doing.  I like that because often people don't realize the person sitting next to them could be mentally unstable.  Many people with mental illness behave "normal" in most situations so you might never guess their illness.  It's not my intention to say that people with mental health issues are scary but rather try to show how the world can seem frightening through the ears of one who is ill.

Soundscape

The soundscape I'm writing about is called "Meta-morph" by Remigio Coco.  (http://soundlab.newmediafest.org/index21.html)  It starts off with the sounds of people talking.  They might be playing backwards.  This part makes me feel like I'm in the middle of a busy room where everyone is talking at once.  The voices then morph to become lower pitched and then they mutate to become very artificial sounding, like a robot talking.  Then the sound starts repeating faster and it sounds like water swirling around as it goes down the drain.

The sound becomes very high pitched then and sounds like birds chirping.  Then you can hear a chorus singing.  It reminds me of a monastery with singing monks.  The sound is altered again and it sounds like they're singing under water.  The sound fades into wind blowing and it makes me think of a barren wasteland.  A flute starts playing a sad song, then it's joined in by other whale-like sounds.  Then the voices come back and I'm back in the busy room of people.

Deep listening.

I'm doing an exercise in deep listening for 10 minutes in the computer lab.  This is very difficult because I don't like doing nothing for long periods of time and 10 minutes is a long time to me.  But let's see how it goes.  First, there's the sounds of my boyfriend typing next to me.  I can hear him breathing and sometimes crack his knuckles.  I can hear some sort of fan blowing.  In the distance I hear someone bumping things around.  I can hear people talking in another room, but I can't make out what they're saying.  Harry is asking me how to spell "rhythm."  He clearly must have forgotten that I'm trying to listen deeply for 10 minutes and can't be his personal spellchecker!  Now it's quiet again.  His computer just made a bling noise.  I can hear Harry shuffling his feet on the carpet.  I hear someone laugh in the next room over.  It sounded like a girl.  Now someone coughed.  I can hear talking again, but it's still too muffled to hear clearly.  More laughter.  Another bling from Harry's computer.  There's the sound of someone walking down the hall.  Now it's quiet except for the fan sound and Harry's typing.  My stomach made a gurgling sound.  Time's up!

Podcasts

I found a few podcasts that look interesting.  Here's a link to their sites:

Pokemon 'Bridged 
This is a silly series that redubs episodes of Pokemon.

CrystalCore
This is a Final Fantasy XIV podcast, a game that disappoints me thoroughly but I still play from time to time.

Rawrcast
This is a World of Warcraft podcast.  It's labeled as "explicit" so let's hope I can handle the mature language.  NSFW!

Women of Warcraft 
Another World of Warcraft podcast, this time with focus on girl gamers.

First Post!

Here's my boyfriend, Harry.  He's totally weird.

Here's my Pikachu hat.  Pikachu's not my favorite pokemon but Hot Topic didn't have any Raichu hats.

This is my dog, Ruger.  He likes eating, sleeping and playing.

 

This is my sewing machine.  There are many like it, but this one is mine.

I play lots of video games but I'm mostly a PC gamer.  WoW is my current addiction.